Another week!‏

Hey guys!

How are you all doing? I loved the video and "letter" from Caroline"! I can´t wait to get to know the 2 year old version of her:) I hope you guys are all doing well - not a lot of updates from you, but I´m sure you´re all doing fine.

As for us, everything´s going well here! We had another great week. But let´s see...what can I tell you about? Oh yeah, as for general Brasil-facts, elections are going on! Which I´m sure you guys have heard about. The city elections are over, which I`m SO happy about, because here the way politicians advertise is by hiring a bunch of cars to drive around with huge speakers, playing their jingle. Every one has a different jingle, but they´re all so, so obnoxious! So I was really happy when that was all over. But the presidential election tied, so it´s going to a second round, between Dilma and Serra. I was all for Marina, green party, for the totally senseless reason that she looked like she would be a really awesome president. But we can´t follow the campaigns, so that´s all I had to go off;) So now I`m hoping for Serra, just to change things up here. So we´ll see how things go! I´m kind of afraid Dilma will win, because she has way better music, and I think some people here vote based only on that:/ As a fun fact, voting is obligatory here!

But the best thing I can think of about the week is Alba. She´s really growing in leaps and bounds. She went to church for the third week in a row yesterday! And we had a great talk with her where she pretty much said that she is going to be baptized, she just wants to be really, really sure first. Which is amazing!! It doesn´t sound like much, but it´s SO far from where she was when we got here.

During this great talk, she brought up a concern about how people can bear their testimony and say they know the church is true and then fall away. I think that might be the big thing that´s holding her back. So we talked about it for a while, marked Lehi´s dream for her to read, and are going to talk about it more when we go back. Luciano said at church that she read what we had marked and continued on further (about a month ago she revealed that she´d never even picked up the Book of Mormon) and said she was going to go look at wedding rings this week (she´s been really iffy about getting married). So she´s really changing a lot!!

But then the best part happened last night when we were over. After our visit and right before the closing prayer, we were talking about their adorable 1 year old son, Samuel. He´s really an adorable kid, and really the center of their lives. He only says one word - "este", or "this one". So he´ll start to cry and point some direction, saying "this one!" and you have to take him around asking "this one? this one?" until you find out what he wants. So we were watching him be adorable, and Alba said,

"The funniest thing happened yesterday. You know how he loves to leaf through books? Yesterday he grabbed the hymn book, opened straight to Families Can Be Together Forever, and said, 'this one'."

She said it with such a sweet calmness, looking at him so adoringly - it was the first time I´ve heard her be serious about something like that. She´s such a complex person - she always says how honest she is, and it´s really true, but whenever we try to talk seriously about the church and her conversion she usually jokes about everything and avoids the subject. Sister Cantuara said, "He knows!" And Alba looked straight back at her, still with that peaceful calmness, and said, "Yeah, he knows."

So that was the amazing ending to our week. I´m so excited about her, and to get to see their wedding before I go. I love that family so much. I`m so glad I get to be here, meeting and trying in some way to help amazing people like them. I would be so lacking in spiritual growth if I hadn´t come on a mission - every day my testimony grows, to the point that I know it will never be shaken by anything. Thank you all so much for supporting me in my choice to come. I love you all, and can´t wait to hear from you next week! Have a great week!!

Until next time,

Sister Madsen :D