Another week! :)‏

Hey everyone!!

How are you guys?? It was so good to hear from Katie and Mom! We haven´t gotten letters here for a long time, we only get them when someone goes to Santa Maria, and then our district leader gives them to us, and we haven´t seen him forever. But we should get them Wednesday! So I´m excited to hear from you!

As for me, it´s been an ok week! I´m great and everything, just we didn´t teach as much as we could have, crazy things just kept happening, appointments took forever...just weren´t that efficient somehow. But we´ll be better next week! But it was great because Juliana was baptized Saturday! She´s a 12 year old girl who was a reference from one of the young women in the ward, she´s so sweet and wonderful. And it´s so good because it´s gotten her so excited about young women´s and the church, which is great because her home life isn´t that fabulous:( But I´m so excited for her, I love her so much.

What else? We found some really good new people this week, some families who are really interested, which is fabulous, it´s so hard for us to find families of mom, dad and kids, but that´s who we´re supposed to be focusing on. But we met José and Cleuza and their kids, who are amazing! José and the oldest daughter, Tais, are super interested, but Cleuza was raised in "assembleia" and isn´t very open. But they´re an awesome family, they drove us home after the second lesson at their house and everything...super nice!! Also Gilmara and her daughter Gabrielli are super interested, and Elizangela and her kids. We haven´t met the husbands of those two yet because they work a lot, but we´re hoping to. So some really good families who we´re excited about!!

As for "fun facts" I wrote down to tell you guys about....oh, ok, fun facts about food! First, I found out why they say X-burger. Remember how at that brazilian restaurant all the sandwiches were called "X-burger"? It´s because for them the letter "X" says "shees", so it´s how they interpret "cheese burger". Funny huh? Also, avocado. They think of it as a fruit, like a sweet fruit to put in smoothies! It´s SO good that way! At one of our lunches this week the lady made us dessert: smoothie of avocado, banana, milk and sugar. And then squeezed lemon on top...it was amazing, you guys should try to make it! Also, they love beets, Katie would love it here!:) We´ve eaten beets at tons of our lunches. And they LOVE sweetened condensed milk. There are candy bars filled with it, they use it in every dessert, people eat it straight...the whole country is addicted. It´s actually pretty good:) Oh, fun fact, they have a big celebration for girls when they turn 15, like in Mexico.

Ahh, also! The most hilarious thing happened this week that perfectly demonstrates how much trouble people have with my name! No one can pronounce it. Apparently they can´t say the "ds" in the middle, they all want it to be "mad-ja-sen". So we were at the house of one of our recent converts and her grandparents were there, both in their 90s. So the grandpa was so adorable, he looked exactly like a Pixar old man, and spoke just like one too. Hard of hearing, missing some teeth, adorable. But Sister Raphaela was introducing me.

So she said "This is sister mad-ja-sen" to try to make it easier for him.

Him: "Eh??"

"Sister Madsen."

"Madahah?" (or something like that, something not a word)

"Sister MADSEN."

"Medica??" (the word for doctor)

"No, Sister Maaadseeen."

"Sister Madsen?" (perfectly)

It was SO funny, right out of a sitcom or something. It always makes me laugh how much trouble people have!

But ...I think that´s pretty much it for the week here. Everything´s going great, working hard with those families, teaching as much as we can every day. I´m having an even better time with Sister Raphaela, we´re really getting to be close friends, she´s so great. Her favorite movie is Moulin Rouge, Katie! We always sing in the house, either that or Disney songs:) So we work hard but have a lot of fun.

Everything´s great, I´m perfectly healthy and fine, working hard and having a great time. I love you guys so much. Thank you so much for supporting me and writing me and being the best family ever. I love you all and can´t wait to get your letters! And I LOVED the video of Caroline, send more as often as possible!:) Send her big hugs and kisses, to grandma and grandpa too! Love you all!:) Til next week!

Heather

P.S. People here want me to make cookies, could you send me grandma moss´s recipe?:)