Sister Selk: Semana mais louca da minha vida!!!!!

Familia! I really don't have time to waste because sooooo much happened this week, so here we go!

First thing: My favorite Portuguese Avó (Rosalia) turned 67 this week!!! Woooo we had a giant festa in their house on Tuesday with almost all of their family which was awesome. Rosalia has 2 granddaughters that we had never met, so it was amazing to finally meet them! They are super super adorable!

We got to do a service project in Loulé this week!!!!! Service projects here in portugal are few and far between so it was so awesome to finally be able to help someone out. Long story short: my entire time I have served in Olhão I have wanted to visit Our district President's (President Coralis) land, because he has TONS of land with just about every kind of fruit tree you can imagine....and bees, as you know I am super into that kind of stuff. So anyways, I had been talking about wanting to go there for weeks, and because Elder and Sister Roberts love me, they decided that maybe we should set up a service activity there. Ugh. Que Benção. I almost died of excitement when they told me. So we went to Loulé which is about 30 min. from Faro to visit their farm and help them pick Cherib. Family....I was literally in heaven I was so happy. Surrounded by fig trees, pomegranate trees, orange trees.....TUDO. So good. But let me tell you, I have sooo much respect for the Portuguese people and their work, because it was not easy! Sitting on the ground for hours picking cherib is harder and more exhausting than it looks! There was a lady there helping us, and she had to be at least 70 years old, but she was KICKING OUR BUTTS. crazy.

The rest of our week just flew by, and for a change we seemed to have more lessons and people to visit than we had time for, which is always a missionaries dream!

Now for the craziest news!!!!

WE HAD A BAPTISM YESTERDAY!!!!!!

MILAGRES ACONTECEM!!!

As of yesterday we had absolutely no one marked for baptism......it started off a pretty normal day-We went to our branch meeting, then I butchered all 4 hymns during sacrament meeting-all that good stuff. But when I was at the piano at the beginning of sacrament meeting and looked out into our small congregation of people to see who made it to church, I saw......JOÃO! I don't know if you remember the João that I marked with sister Bryner in my first transfer (by the way I am sitting next to sister Bryner right now doing emails.....but I will get to that) Anyways, as soon as I saw him I knew exactly what Sister Andrade and I needed to do. I knew we needed to baptize João! That day. Little did I know that at the same time that all this was going through my head, Sister Andrade received a call from the Elders in the office saying that I we needed to catch the bus at 6:30 that same night to go to Lisboa. When I sat down beside Sister Andrade after playing the opening hymns, she told me all that news (which was a lot to take in) and then leaned over and said, "Sister, are you willing to do anything it takes to have a baptism today?" She didn't see João enter when she was talking with the elders, so she was pretty confused at my question, but after I told her to look behind her, and we both agreed we were prepared to do anything to get João baptized!!!! It was INSANE. INSANE. Luckily João had already had his interview the first time around, so we reviewed with him some things, and then after we called the zone leaders, asked every member in our ramo to help us get to Faro, quickly make a little program, and by some miracle we were able to do everything, and João was baptized as a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints!!!! I can't even explain how crazy yesterday was! All I can say is that the Lord provides the way. Simple as that.

So, as you can probably guess......I did get transferred from Olhão. I am definitely sad about it, but at the same time I am SO excited! The elders wanted us to catch the bus yesterday at 6:30 and we did EVERYTHING we could to try and get there, but I was really not expecting to get transferred so I had nothing packed and in the end, we didn't make it to the bus in time.....which for me, was better because I was able to say goodbye to some people in the ward etc.

My new area is in........MAFRA!!!!! I am serving with Sister Ventura! It's a bit of a strange circle, because Sister Bryner got sent to Mafra when she was with me, and Sister Ventura was in my zone serving with Sister Doman when she got sent to Mafra. All the people I love all in one place....it is incredible :) Sister Ventura is super, super cool, and you guys have already seen a picture of her because she was in the group when we went and visited Logos muitos P-days ago. She is from Provo, Utah...classic and basically it is going to be a party together. Mafra is literally in the middle of nowhere and isn't even a branch yet...just a group, so I am definitely moving up in the world. Because Mafra is tiny and doesn't have anywhere to email, every Monday we spend with our STL´s which just happens to be Sister Bryner. Today was a joyous reunion to say the least. So now, Sister Bryner and Sister Doman are in my Zone and this is definitely going to be a zone de poder.

Well.....that is about all the loucuras I have for you this week. Hope it was sufficient! Like I said earlier, I really don't know how to explain all the feelings I have felt over the past 24 hours. It is incredible to see the Lord's hand at work. He is grande, and he is a God of Miracles.

Amo-Vocês muito!!! Ficam bem fam.

-Sister Selk