June 9, 2018 - 'Merica Songs

It was another busy week here in Teófilo! Brazil lost and is out of the world cup, so life will go back to normal now. Half the people are sad and angry, and the other half are relieved it's over haha. I had a ton of mission stuff to do today so this probably won't be super detailed (again, sorry!).

This week was 4th of July!!! We had our district meeting half in English and sang the Star Spangled Banner for our opening hymn, and Proud to be an American at every pause. We continued to sing 'merica songs all day Wednesday, plus Disney, plus anything in English we remembered (it's not much haha) and telling everyone it was our independence day haha. Being in another country is interesting, because you get a break from all of your own country's problems, and just really focus on all the good things that you have and others don't. We're so used to Brasil that we don't even notice the differences most of the time, but we started thinking about it on 4th of July and it's a lot! Let's just say that I'm proud to be an american :)

We spent most of this week going back and forth to another city (it's faaaaarrrrr. We know cause my comp borrowed a pedometer from an Elder this week haha) to teach this really awesome family, whose son went to church last week. They're progressing so well, and need the gospel so much, but the parents aren't married, so they can't be baptized :( On that note, just about no one we taught this week is married, but we keep teaching and loving them and hoping that one day they'll be able to join the church!

We've also been working a ton with the members this week, and it's been awesome. Yesterday, the Branch pres told us to tell Pres Mazzagardi not to transfer us--which is high praise coming from him!

Ooh, and that reminds me! President Marcio and some other leaders (not the LMA cause we don't have one, which is weird) came up with a super awesome scavenger hunt-type activity to get the branch (and especially the youth) involved in missionary work! They have to do things like teach a lesson or give a reference or have a family night with the sisters, or bring friends to church and activities and all that and they get points for each item. The branch is split into 4 teams, and they have about 2-3 weeks to gain as many points as possible, plus there will be two big activities with like minute-to-win-it type mini activities that they can also use to get points. I'm SUPER excited!!! Hope the branch gets as excited as we are haha.

Today is the 19th birthday of an elder in our district, so we're gonna have a picnic in the chapel haha. Should be fun!

Anyways, it was an over all busy, productive week!

Gotta go, but I love you all! Lots of hugs :)

-Sister Kirkham