MIRACLES HAPPEN!

Sorry family...I`m having a hard time breathing, because OH MY GOSH MELANIE!!!! Literally I don`t know how to express the emotions I am going through right now, but may or may not have read the email, squealed out loud, started crying and ran to the bathroom to have a minor anxiety attack--email time is actually always SO dramatic. But this one was...woah...anyways....

This week was crazy and filled with so many things that the time literally just flew by. There wasn`t a normal day all week. On Tuesday, Sister Cutler was with us, because Sister Call had her residency card extravaganza. On Wednesday, we did divisions with the Sister Training Leaders. On Friday we had Zone Conference. On Sunday we had Stake Conference and it was actually SO incredible! President Fluckiger was there and the Temple President of Madrid was there and the Stake President (obviously) and they talked all about missionary work and temples and it was just so perfect!  

MIRACLES HAPPEN!! AND YOUR PRAYERS WORKED!!! SERIOULY. I don`t know that I will be able to express this correctly through words, but GUYS SOFIA IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!! I wish I could tell you the internal stress/anxiety this has been causing me for the last 4 months. But for the last month, we`ve been fasting and praying really hard that she would start being less 15 and she would understand how important it is and want to be baptized. Well, Heavenly Father answers prayers, because the biggest miracle of all time happened this week!! Okay, so she has been taught slash going to church slash working with the missionaries for over the last year. Her dad is Toze, who we baptized when I first got here. Well, we were worried, because we didnt want her to feel like a number or pressured, because...you know how 15 year old girls are, but we wanted to make sure she felt loved and like it was her decision and that we supported her and loved her no matter what. Well, I was having an anxiety attack about marking her and the Elders we all just like...just do it. She loves you, you love her, just mark her. And I was like, `But I caaaaan`t.` Anyways, I prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed that she would just feel the need to be baptized all week and that she would mark herself. Well, on Friday in Zone Conference, we talked a lot about our purpose and not to be afraid of rejection, and I was like, `OKAY I HEAR YOU.` So, I had all decided in my head that I was gonna do it, when THE PHONE RANG. BISHOP WAS CALLING. HE SAYS, `Sister, you are going to have a baptism on the 20th of September. Sofia is getting baptized.` I immediately burst into tears. He says, `And you want to know what`s even more incredible Sister? She called me. And she asked me if she could be baptized and she picked the date herself.` SERIOUSLY MIRACLES!!!! I LOVE HER SOOO MUCH. GOD IS SO SO SO GOOD. Okay, so here`s to praying I don`t get transfered this Sunday, because holy moly I can NOT miss this day. AH THEIR FAMILY IS GOING TO THE TEMPLE!!!!! I told her last monday that she`s like the little sister I never had and she ran up and hugged me and kissed my forehead, and I have not felt so much love since I got to Portugal. Oh, I love her SO much. So SO SO much. 

And sweet, sweet little old Conceição. We taught her the Palavra de Sabedoria this week, and she just goes pulling out everything in her house asking us whether or not she`s allowed to drink it/eat it. Oh, she has SO much faith! She`s like, `I just want to follow the commandments of God exactly, and I just want to know everything so I can do it exactly right. Am I allowed to dye my hair? What about watching television?` OH MY GOODNESS. She is SO incredibly elect! And she`s already read to 2 Nefi and she was apologizing for not having read more!!! AH! I am SO excited for her baptism this Saturday!! Except, she is really lonely and sad, but she is really excited about temple work and being able to be married to her husband forever, because she goes, `That`s just something I never understood...until death do us part...God can`t want that.` AH! WHY IS SHE PERFECT?!

This week, we`ve been talking and studying obedience a lot, and we are trying really hard to be exactly obedient. And it`s actually so much harder than you would think it is, especially when your mission president is a lawyer, the white handbook has a whoooole lot more rules than I think are actually there, but it`s okay and it`s good and it helps me be a more consecrated missionary. So, here`s to being better in every aspect of the work.

Anyways, we`re spending the day going shopping with Sofia, so....sorry mom and dad :) LOVE YOU ALL!!

xoxox
Sister Brooks

making cookies with Sofia. Just gotta love her....love the crap out of her.

don`t know whether that water is clean or not, but it was a pretty fountain and im not sick yet....ignore the polygamist braid. it`s hard being a missionary.