`Já viste Americanos dançar? São fubecas.´ -Nelma

Oh my HAPPINESS. I must have said 3 million times this week how grateful I am to Sister Blanco. This place is perfect. She is perfect. We work perfectly together. We are both just on cloud 9. We are a little scared, because it seems too good to be true ya know? Almost too comfortable, but I like to think the Lord is giving us both a little reward. I wish I could put into words how happy I feel, but there just aren´t words to describe it. It´s like an answer from the Holy Ghost, hahah. But literally, I had been praying to have a companion that we could be really good friends and work really hard together at the same time, and she is the answer to my prayers. She is so incredible, and I love the way we teach together. And I feel like I can be bold by her side and I know she knows what she is doing, and we just never have to worry about one another, and we can just rely on the spirit and teach by the spirit, and it is the most incredible feeling. Ohhhh, being a missionary is sooo good. I am so happy. God is so good.

This week, we woke up every morning, ran to the beach in time to climb up on this rock and watch the sun rise over the water, run back home, and then start our day. Oh, my heart can´t even explain the happiness I feel. Just writing it makes me excited for 7 oclock tomorrow morning. I am living the dream.

I literally love this place so much. I was thinking this week, I can´t believe I have only been here for a week. Normally, when I get to an area, it takes me a while to love the area and the people and to figure it all out, but this area is just...SO easy to love. I love the people. I love the branch. I love our investigators. I love the area. I just...Iove it all so much. I don´t know how, but I just feel like I am supposed to be here. Like this is really what the Lord wants for me right now. I feel like I am where I am supposed to be and that the people here are here to help me and so I can help them.

Also, the spirit in our house is perfect. It´s just us two, which I havent lived in a house like that since Sister Barlow, and it is just so incredible. The spirit is so strong, and I just feel so safe and so much love and we just talk about all the really spiritual profound things during our companionship studies and I am learning sooo much from her, and it makes me so excited to create a home one day where the Spirit can dwell like it does here. I also think it helps that its this cute little beach apartment, buttt...thats besides the point.

We are teaching this man named Prince who we found like the first day I got here, and he is so amazing. He is from India, but he works here and we are teaching him in English, which is soo difficult for me, because I havent done that since Diogo. But it is a good challenge, and I love listening to Sister Blanco speak in English. Also, he is Hindu so teaching him is like teaching from nothing. I have never had to teach someone who doesnt know what a prophet is or why Jesus was killed or what the ressurection is. Literally, it is so mind opening and exciting, because it gives me so much to study and it helps me learn even more. But, at the end of our lesson this week, he repeated the prayer and then looked up and said, ´I think this is good. ...I think this is going to be good for my life.` And I just got so excited and I was like YEAH it is! It´s the BEST thing for your life! And then I just started going off about how good it is and I was just so excited, and I thought....hahaha if I was always teaching in English, people would think I am insaneee.

This week, I have been studying a lot about invites and promised blessings. Literally, everything starts with the invite. You invite someone to do something that helps them make their life more in tune with Heavenly Father´s teachings, which brings them to repentance, which makes them ready to continue to change and desire a remission of their sins, which prepares them for baptism, which opens up the door to the kingdom of God and eternal life. So, basically invites=eternal life. And then, I have been studying each of the commandments/anything that the Lord has asked us to do, and then the promised blessings that go along with it, and literally anything that anyone could ever want---peace, love, happiness in the family, spiritual and material blessings, power and authority, the companionship of the holy ghost, eternal life---every blessing that we receive is a direct reflection of our obedience to those commandments. And oh my goodness, prayer is like the most amazing commandment, with soo many blessings. Also, it is so powerful to promise specific blessings to these people that the Lord has promised us in the scriptures. Oh, it just makes me so much more excited to live the gospel. Because it really is so good and so perfect. And it really does bring the greatest happiness in this life and the life to come. I know it. I know it.

I LOVE YOU ALL SOO MUCH!!! I know Heavenly Father is watching over and protecting you all, because I feel it each time I pray for you and it just makes me the happiest. I am SOOO happy to be here and I am so happy to be a missionary and to share the good news of the gospel all day long and help bring others unto Christ. But I am also so happy knowing how blessed I am back home too and that you all get to share in my blessings. You are all incredible and my inspiration. I love you I love you I love you.

xoxo,

Sister Brooks

DADDY!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! I hope it is the greatest day filled with lots of sunshine and golfing and mom tending to your every need :) I love you so much and I could not be more grateful that you are my dad. Thank you for being my perfect example. I lovee you!!!

SHANNAYNAY!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! I love you so much sister, and I hope your day is so special and filled with lots of love in the form of cookies and diet coke and pool time.