Another great week. This week I really learned how to sing the birthday song in Portuguese. We had a couple of birthdays in our wards and Sister Moura celebrated her birthday this week as well. So it was fun learning that song. I also learned a hand game this week. So it was fun to learn a little something fun. The day we celebrated Sister Moura´s birthday was really awesome for a couple of different reasons. Sister Empey and I along with S. Gomez and S. Passos were supposed to get back a little early to put up some decorations and get food together. But we had a really good lesson with a family that went longer that we had hoped. We have been trying to teach a daughter to a couple in our ward. The couple is married, and waiting to get sealed in the temple. But one of her daughters she has hope that she will be baptized, so she can be there too. So we´ve been trying to teach her, but can never catch her, or other things. But the Grandma who has previously not been interested or would leave the room when we were there, etc has started to really like us. So its been really neat to see how sometimes when one door isn´t open we have other opportunities. But anyways, we came by the house, and the only person at home was Grandma, but she not only invited us in, but we talked for a while. It was really good and she enjoyed talking to us. We even talked about how she loves fish and I talked about halibut and tried to explain the fish, but told her how big they can get, etc and it was fun. But while we were talking a couple of other family members came by and we had an opportunity to teach them too, so it was really good. When we left we walked into one of our investigators, Rodolfo. It was the first time I had met him, because he has been really hard to get a hold of, and I think he just recently moved. But we met him along the high way walking home. And it was literally perfect timing, because of the directions that we were both going. But he is really cool and he knows this gospel is true and he and his wife want to get baptized but they have some things to work out first, so it was really neat to talk with him. So we ended up arriving at the house a little later than usual and rushing to get things ready, because the others were late too. So Sister Marques waited with Sister Moura at the gate and then downstairs while we finished getting things ready. But it was such a neat experience, because there were several moments that night where we had perfect timing, And it was so cool to see that no matter what you plan for, the Lord has a different plan in store. And even though we were late for Sister Moura, it was a good thing, because we were doing what we are supposed to be doing and talking to people that normally we don´t get to.

 

This week was also really good with some of our members and our ward. We had a couple of really special visits that were really nice with families or members. One family we were visiting to set up a family night and we talked to the wife for a while and it was really good. One of the other sisters in the ward happened to come by while we were talking and it was fun. They started talking about different American things and were talking about scented hand sanitizer, so they used some of mine from bath and body works, and loved it!! it was so funny, hand sanitizer is something they don´t really have here and it was just funny.   (This is great as I just sent her a package 3 days ago and it had Bath and Body hand sanitizers in it.)    Another sister in the ward after lunch, when we asked if she had anything we could help her with asked if we would help her with her hair. She has 4 sons, and super tight curly hair. So it took two of us to do her hair/roots. It was something simple, but it was really nice to help her with this. Such a small act of service can really build relationships and we want to work with our ward. So it was really nice to have some experiences of working with them. Yesterday was also Father´s day here (mothers day is the same as in the US, but fathers day is different) so we had a couple of fun experiences with that too. We had lunch at a members house, and their whole family was there so there was tons of people. We also meet weekly with our ward mission leader, Irmão Ilton, who is awesome and his family is really nice. We made him a cake for day of fathers and used a sparkler candle and it was fun to eat with them.

 

This week we also found ourselves in Londrina everyday for medical or other reasons. We had interviews with President Tavares (they are every 3 months I think) so it was nice to get a chance to talk with him. We also had a zone meeting in Londrina one day so we ventured in for that. I think there are 18 people in our zone and 10 zones in our mission. There was only 4 Americans out of our district including Sister Empey and myself. Riding the city bus into Londrina is always an adventure though. I´m not sure if I´ve talked too much about them before, but they are packed and drive like a roller coaster sometimes. This is the start of our 6th week, so at the end of this week I will have my first ´transfer´. Though it is a very tiny tiny possibility that I will be transferred. Because missionaries have a 12 week training period with their first companion/trainor. But its a fun marker. Time is flying!

But its been a great week and l love you all!