Brazil Porto Alegre North Mission: HELLO!!!!!

Hello my wonderful family!

I write to you from a very weather confused little Farroupilha, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil! haha this week´s weather has just been insane. It´s too hot. Then too cold. Then rainy. Then foggy... like so foggy you can´t even see your companion walking next to you or the cars zooming across the road. Today started out really hot, but right now it´s cold and looking like it´s gonna rain. Every day you have to bring rain boots, umbrella, raincoat, etc. and dress in layers cuz you never know what´s gonna happen!!! It´s so weird. I wear socks with my tights just in case I have to take my tights off when it gets too hot - that way I don´t have to wear my shoes without socks. haha Just in case any of you would like to know. Anyway... it´s a lot of stuff to carry every day.

Sipping chimarrão - a cultural thing... tastes like grass tea.
I just did it for the picture. haha

This week was good. Rodrigo was confirmed, and brought a friend to church last week who we have started teaching this week and was at church again on Sunday! She loved Rodrigo's baptism and called us asking when we could come and teach her! haha! Also, another family we´ve been working with for like 4 weeks now FINALLY came to church and I was SOOOO excited! Her name is Pricilla and she has two adorable little kids who basically forced her out of bed and into the church. haha they love church. It´s so cute! It was a pretty happy sunday.

Sister Lorena´s 1 month on the mission party

ALSO Jen came home from a trip to the states!!! We have missed her a lot. She brought Sister Richardson and I American candy!! She brought me THREE POUNDS of Jolly Ranchers!!!!! haha I was pretty stoked. I can´t stop eating them. :)

Jolly Ranchers and Jen!!

I´ve had a lot more time to study this week (long story) and have so enjoyed rereading the conference talks from this last April. One I read the other day was the one about our 4 minutes to shine. I can´t remember who´s talk it was, and I was gonna bring a quote I liked buuut... I forgot. haha sorry. I just loved the idea that our time here on Earth is the time we have to do our best - perform what we learned before. Our time is short here on Earth and we´ll have eternity to reflect on our time here. He compared it to the Olympics and preparing an entire life just for a 4 minute performance. I compared it to my mission realizing my time is really - really - short here. I hope I can "perform" my best so I can reflect happily for the rest of my life on my time I´ve had here in Brazil. I really do love it here. It´s hard sometimes, but ... the harder we work and the more we overcome... the more we love it.