Brazil Bound: July 21, 2014- iron stomache/Danilo

Hi family!

I am happy and well. This week was a little more difficult than others. One reason is because my companion spent a good majority of the week in the bathroom puking her guts out. Two words: food poisoning. Yeahh poor thing. Here is the story: last P-day on our way home from emails we decided to stop at a fast-food, Arabian joint called Habib´s (not as sketchy as it sounds) for a quick snack. This is actually a favorite for missionaries because it is super cheap and very convenient. Soon after, she was all sorts of green and pretty week. Finally, after three days of vomiting, we decided to go to the hopsital. The doctor asked if we had eaten anything out of the ordinary. When we told him Habib´s he imediately said ``say no more. I know exactly what happened. Eat at McDonalds all you want but never eat at that ´porcaria´ again.´´ haha lesson learned.

Which leads me to my point of gratitude this week... I am grateful for my iron stomache I obtained doing all sorts of things mom would definitely not approve of. Examples include: dumpster diving at Zupas for bread and choclate strawberries (mmmm delish), fish-head curry in leprosy colonies in India, heaps of raw fish in the fish markets of Japan, eating in the house of a random woman (we took a buggie to get there) living among the rice patties in China, lots of whole-in-the-walls in Cambodia, and more recently, drinking the tap water here because I absolutely hate wasting money on bottled water. Sooo see mom? There was a method behind the madness after all! Imunity is imunity in any form!

One night, we were invited to teach the achievment day girls a little about the first vision. I gladly accepted because we have our little 9-yr Marcela to bring. Unfortunately, my companion could not do much teaching. It was an effort to even drag her along in the first place. So I taught and it went well. haha I got a standing ovation actually! One little girl said ``woww!! His words were so beautiful in Portuguese! I can only imagine in English!´´ So I recited his vision in English, too, and they were all sorts of impressed. I loved it, especially because they all reminded me of Jess!

Anddd, lastly, a little miracle happend this week. After a month of trying, we finally found the boy, Danilo, that we heard about from his sobbing mom. He was the boy who wanted to be baptized when he was 12 but his mom did not give permission, and she has regretted it every day since. He is now 19 and has all sorts of habits that will be hard to break. Buttt, he is still really special. He offered to give the opening prayer, and it was so beautiful. He said ``Heavenly Father, thank you for sending the missionaries into my life again. I am so sorry I have been distant from your church for so long.´´ The lesson went really well. He had lots of questions that have been on his mind for quite some time and he remembered perfectly his spiritual experiences 7 years ago. It will be rough and require a lot of faith and repentance on his part but I really hope he is willing to try.

This week I learned that God is a god of second chances.

But, love you all. Por favor pray that we can find new people this week. It has been a rough week of lots of walking/trying to contact referrals and lots of contacts. It can be a little exhausting and discouraging.

Ate Mais!

Sister Lauren
p.s.
Sorry! my companion is probably a medium in shirts and things. She is short. And she desperately wants clothes. She absolutely loves all of mine. This week she offered to pay you to buy her a few things. haha but she likes chambray type shirts, polka dots, plaid. She likes navy, army, black, grey. These types of colors. Really just not hot pink probably. But she would be thrilled with just a few things from old navy or tjmax. Actually, I would be too because the mission is pretty hard on clothes.

But I got my packages!!! Thank you so so so much. The polka dot dress is perrrfecttt. This week a member told me that she and her daughter saw me in the streets and said, ´´that is officially the chiciest and most beautiful, put together missionary we have ever seen.´´ haha I feel like I wear a uniform but that was nice anyways! And I have you, entirely to thank!