September 1st

Hello loved ones!

I really just love Brazil so much...so much. I´m madly in love with my mission and it is passing sooo fast!

I love training a new missionary...but man...it´s a lot of work!

My new companion is really cool and way different than any other companion I´ve ever had.

Her name is Sister Santos.

 She´s from the interior of São Paulo, graduated college in Human Resources and 35 years old.

She´s a convert of 3 years and has 7 tattoos and I love her a lot. She´s super firey and already just talks with everyone. She´s way funny and I love her.

This week was lovely.

A few highlights-

Camilly is the niece of our ward mission leader. She´s 12 but look and acts like she´s 20. I love her a lot. She started coming to church and participating in literally EVERYTHING when we started teaching her a few months ago. The only problem is that she for some reason that didnpt seem to exist, she didn´t want to be baptized. We followed the spirit and felt that we needed to stop teaching her. It was hard but we told her 3 weeks ago that we needed to focus on the people that wanted to be baptized. She kept coming to church and participating in everything and then Saturday, I got the impression that we needed to meet and teach her. We asked a member to call her in that same moment and as it turns she was at the chapel. We met her there and taught her in the YW´s room with 2 of her member friends. The lesson was going great and she really opened up. My companion helped her a TON. Then our awesome Bishop passed by and walked in. He helped us teach her and it was perfect!!! We invited her to be baptized and she accepted! She had an interview with Bishop the next day and marked a goal with him to be baptized on the 20th of September! We have plans to teach her parents and help all of them be baptized together.

 It was truly a miracle. Please pray for Camilly.

The other happy moment was the Primary Program. It was fantastic. Our little, perfect recent convert Ismael (son of Regina) participated and bore his testimony about his baptism in front of everyone.

He talked about how he felt something almost firey and special deep within him when he was baptized and how it was the best day of his life.

Then he stopped, giggled a little giggle and said really fast "Annnnnd.... I want to be Bishop. In -the-name-of-Jesus-Christ-amen

Everyone laughed sooo hard and it was a happy missionary moment.

We had a special Mission Tour where the General Authority of our area came to check things out and give us trainings. Our dear Presidente talked a lot about preparing the people of Fortaleza for the temple that is coming and how we have everything we need for sucess. Elder Mazzagard was super powerful. He talked a lot about the power of pondering. I know that this is a real gift that HF gave us. The power to think and ponder and receive his revelation. This is something that I want to develop at lot more in the last part of my mission. My invitation for all of you this week is to pray and then ponder. Pondering is not just letting your mind wander but it thinking actively. Think of a topic to ponder, do a self inventory to see what christlike atributes you need to develop, think about how you can help someone in your ward. Pray and ponder and let the Lord guide your life.

I love you!

SO much love,

Sister Brown

ps- the pics are from our mission tour conference with some of my favorite people in the whole world