TUDO TUDO TUDO TUDO - FEB 8TH, 2016

(The Português really like to emphasize things)

It´s hard not to have a great week when you hit one year on the mission and turn 21 all in the same week. SUPER GOOD!

To start out this week we found a super cool family that we have started teaching. I don´t know if I talked about Fatinha last week...I don´t remember, but she was a lady that we talked to on the street one night last week. She began telling us about the problems she was having with her daughter, and honestly just began to cry. It was incredible, because she instantly recognized us as "different people." She saw the light of Christ, and she wanted that for her daughter. She told us that we had to come over and talk to her as she was on a path leading to nothing good. 

We stopped by on Monday night, and met ana- her 16 year old daughter. She definitely has a bit of a rebelious personality, but she was super nice to us! It was pretty funny because her mom basically suggested that she should come around and teach people with us, and she totally agreed that she would like to do it! So we might try and bring her along to teach some lessons with us and see how that goes! We left the invite to pray to know the truthfulness of the church yesterday, and both Fatinha and Ana agreed that they would do it. I know that the gospel would fix every problem that they are having in that family in the moment, so I am praying that they really take this invite to heart.

Sister Andrew and I have been planning a Cultural Night for our ward for the past few weeks, and we were finally able to put that on this week! It went EXTREMELY well! I don´t think this branch is used to having activities put on by the past missionaires, so we received awesome support from them even though I was a little bit worried that no one would show up because it started pouring rain just a few hours before the activity. We had ward members present on Cabo Verde, Mozambique, Guiné, Maldavia, Ukraine, Portugal, and of course Sister Andrew presented on the States and I presented about Canada. It was awesome because we  had 7 non-members there at the activity out of about the 30 people that showed up. It was funny though because NOT ONE of the 7 people that showed up to the activity were people or investigators that Sister Andrew and I had invited. That was slightly sad for us, but at the same time it was incredible to see that the members really took our invite to heart and invited all their non-member friends and family! 

Yesterday I got a nice wake up call from Presidente Tavares! I am not going to lie, I love Presidente Tavares, but I hate seeing his name show up on our phone....but he called to tell us that he would be attending our branch for church! I have never had that happen on the mission, so I was actually pretty excited to hear that he would be able to come and see just how incredible our branch is here in Vasco da Gama. And I think he really was impressed! He is a little hard to read, but he seemed very impressed. Let´s just say I am pretty prideful of this branch here. :)

He also told me that this next transfer he is a little worried because there is another large group of sisters coming in, and he is having troubles finding trainers for these sisters because we will also have a good group of sisters going home this transfer. He talked about the possibility of having another 2 sisters come live in our house because our area has been doing to well, and to be honest this branch just deserves another set of Sisters, so I guess we will see what ends up happening this week.

Also, tomorrow we get to have a conference with Elder Dyches! It is going to be super sick, so I will let you know how that goes next week!

In the end, I just want to say thank you thank you thank you for all the birthday wishes! I definitely feel extremely loved and blessed! Vocês são INCRIVEIS!!!! Amo Vocês!! Até Proxima!

Paz e Bênçãos.

-Sister Selk

Thanks to Nixon and Benson for the birthday wishes!!