Hello lovely people! :)
Before I jump into the adventures of the week, let me take care of some business:
- Sister Calder has complete and full access to my closet and anything of mine. I can imagine that little missionary girl has been freezing her toes off up there in Cache Valley! Have her come take a looksie in my closet and pick out some warmer clothes. I love her with all my heart because she is serving the people I love. Same goes for her companion and any sister who passes through blessed Hyde Park.
- Dad. I LOVE YOU. Thank you for fasting and praying for my investigators. We had a miracle. The family of Victoria, the little trooper who goes to church every Sunday with us, came to church! We were SO happy. So was Victoria. :) They are back in our pool of investigators! Huzzah! :)
- Luke. What is the big idea?! Staying out til midnight? Dating girls? Driving the Mann Vann around town? Who are you?! PINECONE. Write me, you little punk. I love you! :)
- I received a hilarious letter from the Aunt Iris! I love the Bradley's! I love the idea of Iris and Gary being amongst the crew of A Christmas Carol and baby Brenner pretending to be Buzz Lightyear in the middle of Sacrament Meeting. :) I have no doubt Thanksgiving was lovely with them, complete with razzleberry pudding. :)
Anyways, I hope Thanksgiving was a splendor for all and that you are enjoying the left-over cold turkey sandwiches! I thought I would do something a bit different in this e-mail and give you an account of my Brazilian Thanksgiving day!
- We woke up in the morning, 6:30 sharp, to the sound of rain! Praise be! A little break from the blistering Bahian heat. :) Usually, I would roll out of bed, go out to our little deck and do morning exercises while listening to conference talks. (Yes, I listen to conference talks while I am exercising. I am turning into my dad. Eeeek! ;) ) But! That morning was a little different! We had some special service to do!
- We quick threw on our grubby clothes, had personal study, and ran off to one of our member's homes. The mom has been super busy with school ending and tests and such and the dad has been having back problems, so we offered to come and clean their home. We blasted some EFY tunes, scrubbed the dishes, folded clothes, and had their home neat and tidy in a jiffy!
- After, we changed our clothes and went to another member's home for almoço! Guess what it was. Chicken, rice, and beans! No surprise. :) But we were hungry and it was delicious!
- We started off to visit one of our investigators and met a lady in front of her house. I invited her to come to church and she just looked at me blankly and said, "I can't understand you." For a second I thought she was referring to my horrid accent and wanted to go beat my head against a wall. But then she motioned to her ears and Sister Ribeiro and I realized that she was deaf. We came to find out later that she had lost her hearing due to the time she had spent working in a shoe factory with extremely loud machinery.
-She ushered us into her humble home to take shelter from the rain. This was only somewhat helpful seeing as how her roof was leaking all over the place, but we were grateful for her invitation. Admittedly, I had a few doubts about being able to communicate our message, but with faith, we sat down and began teaching her. We had to practically yell for her to hear us and to make things more difficult, the rain coming down on the clay roof was very loud. I remembered the story I had read earlier that morning in Mark about Christ saying to the waves, "Peace, be still" and calming the storm. I said a quick prayer that the rain would stop just for a bit so we could hear her and she could hear us. Almost immediately, the rain stopped. We had a beautiful lesson with her, and she accepted the Book of Mormon to be the word of God and said she wanted to hear more. A miracle. As we were walking out the door, the rain began to pour again.
- Sopping wet, we popped into our investigator, Caroline's, home. We taught her and her sister the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I love those sisters. The spirit was so sweet in the room, and both the sisters agreed to baptism. :)
- As we were headed to our next appointment, we received a call from the other sisters. Tears were obvious in their voices, and we could tell that something had gone horribly wrong. They told us they had to go home to the apartment, but not to worry and keep working. But as we hung-up the phone, we decided to say a prayer to know whether we should continue on with our plans or go find them.
- Almost immediately after, I took a bit of a spill while climbing one of the notorious muddy slopes of Serrinha. Covered in mud and needing a change of clothes, we took that as a direct answer that we were suppose to go help the other sisters. :)
- We grabbed some mangos and headed home to find the sisters quite distraught. Apparently they had to cut things off with some investigators and it did not go well. We sat there with them for a bit and offered our love and mangos.
- After the sisters were feeling better, and I was once again clean and dry, we went right back into the rain. We tried a few houses, but no one was home. The name of an inactive sister popped into my head. We didn't know where she lived, so we found her sister, Irma Dulce.
-This sweet Irma pulled on her dress and came with us to go and rescue her sister.
-She led us to what was more of a stable then a home. Literally, it was one room, with three walls. We found her sister there, who is an elderly women and an absolute DELIGHT. I love her! Don't take this the wrong way, but she reminded me a bit of the witch from Brave. Ha ha :) She was so witty and we got along immediately. I am so bummed she hasn't been going to church and I didn't know her sooner. She is SO funny. We gave her a message and our testimonies. She told us that she'd been feeling like she needs to go to church and just needed an invite.
- 9:00 had already rolled around by now, and so we returned home, wet, muddy, and happy. It was a beautiful Thanksgiving day.
So! While you were all munching on pumpkin pie and watching football, that's what I did. Certainly different from any Thanksgiving I have ever experienced, but one of my favorites. :)
Well, I better be off, but I love you family! Thanks for the photos of the fam! It's great to see you all. I am praying for you always! :)
All my love,
Sister A. Mann
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