March 10

Hello world.

First things first. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!!!! No, I did not forget. I thought about you all day long. I LOVE YOU!

I am happy to announce that I officially survived my first Carnaval. Jeesh. It was nuts. Carnaval is an almost week long holiday with absolutely no purpose. It´s an excuse to be drunk and party and throw flour and eggs at people. It´s an excuse to do whatever and then the last day everybody goes to church and gets gray paint smeared on their forehead and life is good again. Needless to say, not the greatest time of year for missionary work.

But we continue on.

Oh, in other Brazilian holiday news this week was also International Womens´day. I think the international part is a lie because I´ve never heard of this holiday until I got here. We walked around and people just said "parabéns" (congratulations) and shook our hands- just because we´re women! It was strange but nice. The amount of holidays here is nuts.

This week we participated in an English Class. We were in the supermercado last week and guy came up to us and started speaking english with a funny accent and invited us to be special guests at his english class that he teaches. It was really fun and hard to speak english. They would ask us a question about something in english and we´d have to sit there for a second, talk it over together and think of the right answer before we could respond. But it all worked out.

I am still absolutely loving life with Sister Fernelius. I´m hoping and praying that I can stay companions with her next transfer. We´ll find out next week! Eek.

Sister Fernelius and I have a sushi addiction. We have a sushi restaurant in our area where we pass by everyday. You can choose whatever kind you want and just pay for the weight. It´s perfect- perfectly addicting. We end up eating sushi an average of 4 times a week. This week I tried a new kind with salmon. It didn´t work out very well and I stayed up until 2 in the morning with food poisoning. I thought maybe this would cure my addiction but then we went back the next day. haha Life is good.

In terms of investigators this week was great and awful. We got cut by 2 of our favorite investigators that we were preparing for baptism next week. It was really sad because we really love them and thought they had a lot of potential. We cried a little that night and then picked our selves up the next morning. On the happy news side we found a new pesquisadora/investigator that we love love love. Her name is Raquel and she´s perfect. She is an artist, ballerina and super talented and super creative. She loves everyone and reminds me SO much of Snow White. She kind of dances when she walks. She gave us a copy of her childrens´ book and ahhh she´s just perfect. She sings and is like the Brazilian version of Norah Jones. She came to church with us yesterday and like it a lot! I´ll keep you posted.

I love you all! Thanks for the support and prayers and love. I need every little bit! I love being a missionary and I love this gospel! It´s so beautiful. It´s so true.

Be happy!

Love,
Sister Brown