This week!‏

Hey everyone!!

How are you all doing? I saw the adorable pictures of Carrie, and the video of her eating! Sooo cute! I can´t believe she´s getting so big! And I finally got to see her "vampire teeth", adorable! She´s getting more and more gorgeous every day. Thanks so much for sending pics and video!

So as for this week. Let´s see, last time I wrote it was the day before the official Carnaval! The whole weekend is considered Carnaval, but Tuesday is the official day. So Monday seemed liek a pretty normal day, lots of things were closed and a slightly "holiday" ish feeling in the air, but no one dancing wildly in the street or anything. But I didn´t know what to expect for Tuesday. So...Tuesday....our lunch fell through so we ate at home, then went out to work....but it was such a weird day!! It wasn´t hot, it was super overcast and looked like a huge, ugly storm was coming....but never did all day. And Camobi was DESERTED! No cars on the road....every store closed....no one walking out on the street....it was crazy, it felt like an "end of the world" movie. And all the while, with that weird "anticipation" feeling waiting for the rain to come. But it was really cool! Terrible as far as work went, we walked all day trying to contact various people, but no one was home, and the people home didn´t want to let us in. We taught one lesson that day! But it was cool. So there you go, my one and only Carnaval in Brazil! Not nearly like what I was expecting, but awesome.

So the next day, we planned to go to this new neighborhood I had always heard about but never been to, Novo Horizonte. We were kind of looking desperately for people to teach since this new "dividing the area" thing cleaned out our teaching group. So we found records of people who had been taught there, looked at the map and realized it wasn´t far, and went. But what we found...was what Sister Draut refers to as "Crazy Town". It was so weird! The houses out there are all big and brightly colored, it looks straight out of a cartoon. And we did a mix of knocking doors and trying to contact these old investigators....and no one wanted anything to do with us! We felt like lepers or something. We knocked at one of the addresses that sisters had taught at before, and we could see some people sitting inside on the couch. I wasn´t sure if they saw us, so we clapped again. Then they yelled something I couldn´t understand, but I understood the dissmissive hand waving as a "go away". And the whole day was pretty much like that! Except for....

The gypsies! We talked to gypsies! It was so cool. I had always heard that Novo Horizonte was where the gypsies lived, and one day there was a group of strange women on the bus who S. Velasquez said must be "ciganas". So while we were walking in Novo Horizonte, these two girls about our age standing in a doorway called out "Hi!" really cheerfully. After being rejected all day, we grabbed onto their greeting and went over to talk to them. So they were standing in the doorway of this building....that was all made of cement, outside and inside, and just one huge room inside, like a big warehouse. But it looked like a furniture store, because the floor was all covered in oriental rugs and along all the walls and in lines down the middle of the room were tons and tons of sofas. Just a huge room of rugs and sofas! So they invited us to sit on one of them, we did, and we started to talk. They introduced themselves as Dani and Maria, and were super interested in us because they could tell we were foreign. They were all over looking at our eyes and our hair and even at my retainer! That was embarassing. But we asked them about them and they told us basic information. I had already thought they were gypsies from the way they were dressed (pretty normal, but with floor length skirts, which S. Velasquez said they always wear. Haha, not that different from missionaries, actually...) But when I asked if they had ever traveled, Dani said, "Oh yes. Everywhere. Ciganas (gypsies) are like that." So suspicion confirmed! I asked how it worked, how often they traveled and stuff, and she said, "oh, every week." But I looked around and was like, "But you´re living here, right? For how long?" "Oh, about ten years." So...I don´t get it! Did they like, give up their gypsy lifestyle or something? I still don´t know. But anyway, we chatted with them for a bit, and a bunch of random kids, an older guy and a teenage guy all came up and started being fascinated with us too. They started to speak another language, I asked what it was and they said Yugoslavian! Crazy. They liked that we were "from Jesus", and asked us to pray for Eduardo, a 4 year old who still didn´t talk, that he would be able to speak. So we didn´t teach because the atmosphere was so weird....I kind of felt like once a group of people have looked in your mouth trying to see your retainer, it´s hard to regain control of that atmosphere:) But we left them a pamphlet of "The Gospel of Jesus Christ" and said we´d come back later. So that was our adventure with gypsies!!

So other than that....the week was pretty normal. But we met with Cleusa and Elamar again, and it was great! I think I described them in that email that got lost. So quick update - they´re this awesome family we found about two weeks ago. A couple in their 50s, with two kids: Rafael (24) and Luisa (7). They´re awesome, really great people, super spiritual, who already know what it´s like to feel the Holy Ghost. They´re allfascinated with Luisa and how "blessed" she is - they say when she prays they all get emotional. She really is really special, really close to Heavenly Father. So, we taught them everything up to the Book of Mormon, and this week we went back to see how their reading went. Cleusa, the wife, and Luisa ate it up!! They both read way more than we asked, and when I asked if they had prayed to know if it was true, Luisa said, "Yep, and He said it is." So that was great!! Cleusa and Luisa are way on board, believe it´s true, and are excited. Rafael wasn´t there:(, and Elamar didn´t read or pray. But it was so cute, Luisa sat right next to us the whole time we were talking and found the picture of Joseph Smith in the front of the BoM, and held it up for everyone to see while we taught, like a little Mini-Sister. And Cleusa said, "She´s been worried all week that she´d have to give the book back! She doesn´t, does she?" So...super cute. That family is so special, I´m so excited to see their progress.

But...my time is just about up. I hope you enjoyed the crazy Carnaval and gypsy stories, and I´ll update you more on Cleusa and Elamar! THe work here is going great. Even though we got a few funny rejections in our search for new investigators, we´ve been able to work with members on getting referrals, which is fabulous, and I know we´re going to have a lot of awesome people. It´s great to work with Sister Draut, and I´m really loving being a missionary. I´m really feeling how blessed we are when we dedicate our lives to the Lord. We really are so blessed, and I´m so privileged to be so close to the Spirit every day. I can´t believe I´m almost at 8 months! That´s almost half the mission! It´s flying by. But I love you all and miss you tons, but love to hear from you. Thank you so much for all your love and support - you really are the best family anyone could ask for. I hope Grandma´s birthday was great! I love you Grandma, happy birthday!:) I love you all and hope you have a great week. Until next time!

Love always,
Heather