Carnaval

Welcome to Carnaval!!! Only in Brazil do you have a holiday that lasts 5 days with the sole purpose of partying. Seriously, it´s just five days of straight partying. Today and tomorrow basically no one works and everything is closed. It was a miracle that we found this cyber house, cause every other one was closed! Haha but the parties really aren´t very big here in Santa Maria. It´s a pretty small city, so most of the parties happen in the clubs, not in the streets. Everytime the tv is on, it´s just news about Carnaval throughout the country, and it looks like it gets pretty crazy in Rio and sao paulo and stuff. 

Enough about carnaval, this week was awesome! I finally did an exchange with my old companion who is now my district leader, Elder Pontes. Made me realize how much I miss him! He was such a great companion and I didn´t really realize it until he left. During the exchange, we found 2 new families! We went to teach Richard and Emily, but they weren´t home. But their grandparents actually live in the house behind them, so we started talking with them. Turns out, their grandfather is an inactive member and the entire rest of the family hasn´t been baptized. One of their kids came to chruch with Richard and emily once and really wants to be baptized. We taught the rest of the family and they seem pretty interested as well! So hopefully we´ll be able to work with them a bit more this week. We also went to visit our recent convert´s (Lui) neighbors. The parents are members, but only one of their daughters was baptized. They have like 4 kids living there who could be baptized, plus the husband of the daughter who was baptized. We were just talking to them, and the father told us he knows the church is true and wants to come back and quit drinking. Cool right? Unfortunately, No one from either of these families came to church. I think that´s the number 1 problem in Brazil. Well, really the world : LAZINESS. It´s a plague haha. But this week we´ll work with them and hopefully they´ll be able to progress!

Saturday we had 6 baptisms in our church building. 4 for our ward and 2 for the other. Our two kids, Richard and Emily were baptized and another lady and her daughter were baptized for the other companionship. Emily is 13 years old and has one of the coolest stories. So when she was little, like 5 or 6, both her parents died. I´m not sure how, but i think it was a tragedy. Anyway, Adriana, the mother of Richard, is her aunt and took her in and basically raised her as her own. After the baptism, Emily just started bawling and hugging Adriana. she said she just felt so happy and felt like her parents were happy for her. Turns out, both her parents were members before they died. How crazy and cool is that? Her parents must be so happy for her, and we were definitely inspired to find Adriana and her family. Also, her parents weren´t sealed, so maybe Emily will be able to do that for them someday. Man, missionary work is just the greatest. I know this is cheesy, but I like it "Missionary: someone who leaves their families for 2 years so others can be with theirs forever." It´s true!

Well, i have to go now, my companion is pressuring me to leave. I am happy and i am excited to work this transfer! Hopefully we´ll be able to find some new investigators and keep the work going. Love you all and miss you so much! Have a wonderful week and I´ll talk to you next week! 

Love,

Elder Weight