"The worst part about fasting is no Diet Coke."

Yeah...that`s how righteous I am. Oops. But, I mean, we all think it right?

ANYWAYS. HAPPY FAMILY HAPPY DAYS I LOVE MONDAY AND I LOVE INTERNET AND I LOVE HEARING FROM ALL MY FAVORITE PEOPLE IN ALL OF THE WHOLE WORLD. I can`t tell you how many times I`ve gone to bed this week thinking to myself, well, at least my family and friends in America love me. So....you can`t stop loving me, or I just won`t know what to do with myself.

Hm...this week. Lots happened, and not a lot happened, and basically I don`t know what to tell you. I never know what to tell you. Okay, so...we`ll start with this. Remember on Sims when your little person is alive and happy how they have this green diamond over their head, but when they`re hungry or sleepy or dying, it turns red? Yeah...so I`ve been thinking that`s how it needs to be in real life too. The people who are ready to talk to us will have a little green diamond over their head and the ones who aren`t would have a red one and then, it`d just be SO much easier to know who to talk to. Or....if we could just ride around on scooters. That`d be cool too.

This week, we did divisions with the coordinating sisters over our area, Sister Wilde and Sister Alves. Sister Wilde was the coordinating sister over my last area too, and we got to watch General Conference together, and she`s one of those people who just makes you feel SO loved and like youre best friends right away, so obvi we are. Anyways, I went with Sister Alves and it was INCREDIBLE. She is incredible. She and her brother (sister maybe?) are the only ones in the family who are members. And she`s from Fortaleza, Brazil (SHOUT OUT TO ELLY BBY)! And she`s just the sweetest little angel, and we just worked so hard and it was INCREDIBLE day. It felt SO good to feel like we were working our hardest again. AND THE COOLEST THING HAPPENED! We walked up to this girl sitting on a little wall in the rain, and she just started shaking her head no, like she didnt want to hear anything, and so we just asked her for directions, and then we asked her if we could pray with her. She said yes, so Sister Alves said a pray, and THE SPIRIT WAS SO STRONG, and we looked up, and she was crying so hard. It was the coolest, sweetest thing that I have ever experienced. And then we just testified that what she was feeling was God`s love for her. And then she said a prayer on her own, and it was incredible. The way the Lord works is unreal. I really really hope we can get a hold of her again, because I just know that she needs to be able to know and feel Christ`s love for her. And I just automatically felt a love for her that could truly only have been the Lord`s love, because I only met her for like 3 seconds, but I know that she is truly a special daughter of God and He loves her so much. Anyways, divisions are incredible, because you just learn SO much from these other sisters that know SO much and have worked with all sorts of different people. It`s amazing. She`s amazing. And sometimes.....a change of pace is a little blessing sent from above.

Another cool story! So...we were walking home and we were kind of down in the dumps, because it`d been a reallyyyy long day and all of our appoinments had fallen through and NO one wanted to talk to us and these girls had just laughed at us/ran away from us during our prayer with them, so yeah...it was one of those days, and we were ready to go home, but we still had like 15 minutes, so we prayed to know where the Lord wanted us to go, and we both felt the same direction, so we started walking. And then we felt to stop and talk to this one kid, so we did, and he was SO nice! And he agreed to meet with us again and come to church with us and he wanted to make sure he had our number too so he could get ahold of us! The Lord really does put people in our path who are ready to hear His message. It`s incredible what happens when you`re being exactly obedient and working hard on staying in tune to the Spirit.

Like when we had to go to the bathroom, so we were walking back home...and then our investigator walked out of his house at that exact time and was going to the park to sit! Well then perfect....let`s go teach you while you sit in the park :)

The other Sisters and Elders had a baptism this weekend, and I think that baptisms will always be one of my favorite parts of this, because the people are always just so happy and so excited to be doing the will of the Lord, and it`s just so incredible, because it doesn`t matter how old or young they are, they have changed their lives so much and they`re willing to continue to do whatever it takes. Guys, I have never thought about life after death more than I have here on the mission, but something that I find so incredible is that we all chose this plan in the beginning and we wanted to come here and have these experiences and we knew that it would be hard and we accepted that some of these crazy challenges would be ours, but we were so ready to do them, because we knew that we would be able to inherit something so so SO much greater. AND that we will all get to be together forever!! I can`t begin to express how much I love you all. It is incredible. I love you all SO SO much. Heavenly Father loves you all SO SO much. Sometimes, when people want nothing to do with us, I just say, `Okay, but I know God loves you.` And then..well, they can`t deny that. Hehe, I win. Just kidding. But really. He loves us SO much more than we can even begin to comprehened, so even if that`s all that gets us through the day (and sometimes....it`s all that gets me through the day), He`s always with us. He waiting to give us all of the blessings He has promised us. We just gotta keep on keeping on, and we`ll be there before we know it!

I LOVE YOU ALL SO SO SO MUCH!! You guys are so incredible and you make me SO happy. You have no idea how much I love you and what an inspiration you all are to me. I am so happy to be a missionary. I am so happy to be in Portugal. I am so happy to be meeting randoms... children of God... everyday. But mostly, I am so happy because I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH AND I HAVE YOU IN MY LIFE!! Miss you everyday. 

XOXO, 

Sister Brooks

Meet Sister Wilde. She is like my big sister in the mission and I love her more than life itself. She`s one of the coordinating sisters over our area (aka like sister zone leader...kind of). She`s perfect and I look up to her SO much. Seriously, I strive to be like her. 

Sister Alves--the other coordinating sister over our area. She`s INCREDIBLE. I`ll tell you more in the letter. We did divisions together this week.

The four of us.