Maracanau, Brazil - the scorpion

Well, this week wasn´t too eventful but there were a few good moments!

- Yesterday one of our investigators turned into..............a scorpion!! For those of you all who don´t know mission slang, a scorpion is a guy (for sisters) that we teach who starts to like one of us. For elders, they´re called snakes. Sooooo we met this guy on Thursday, and he was really great and we taught him and he said we could come back and when we passed by on Sunday, as we walked up to him he said, "I didn´t receive an answer yet because of her" referring to me. Which totally took me off guard so I was like, huh? So we talked a little bit with him and he went back to the prayer. We always leave invitations for people to pray about our message, if it´s true. So he said, and this time it was very straight to the point, "every time I tried to pray her face came into my mind. I never forgot your face" soooooooooooooooooooo at this point I was like uhhhhhhhhhh what the heck do I say lolol so my companion tried to compensate and said that it was an answer because I'm here representing Jesus Christ and the church and all lol which is true of course! But it was just really funny. She then asked him if next Sunday he´ll go to church and he said, "it all depends on her" LOLOL so I said "well, I'm here to invite you to church." and only that. Lololol so we´ll see how teaching him goes now....... 

- We had another game night this week. I cut up the box that Mom had send to make little boxes with holes on the top to play that game where you put balls in the box and wrap it around the waist of a person and they have to dance around to get all the balls out lolol so that was very entertaining! We had a few other games which was fun. This week I think we´ll give the teams a break and just put on Just Dance for everyone to relax until the big finale....in 2 weeks we´re going to have a TALENT SHOW!!!!!! I´m super excited! The members are already getting ready with decorations and preparing their talents! I´m excited! I´m not sure if I´ll do anything or not...we´ll see! 

- This week we had lunch in our house one day and we made a noodle and meat dish haha which turned out....pretty good....lolol but the dessert was great because I made my cake!! It was delicious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thanks Mom :)

- We had lunch with Tcharlly this week :) She´s the one who took us to the Tex-Mex restaurant. This week though lunch was in her house. After we were leaving she turned on her Netflix to start watching something and she said that she loves cops show and recommended I see "The Killing" so I told her she HAD to watch "The Killing"! Hahaha getting everyone hooked on movies and series here lol

WELL that´s about it for this week!

Love you all and I´m actually dying to see you all BUT pictures are helping me stay happy :) Thanks for the emails this week! 

LOVE AND KISSES!!

- Sister Parks

Maracanau, Brazil - May 23, 2016

Hello folks! It´s been one tiring week; I´m tired just writing this. I noted a few things that happened this week for y'all though.

Last Monday after I emailed y'all: I wrote a little more about the past week on paper to take a picture and send to y'all today but.... I forgot. So next week you´ll get a picture with more about last week. But one thing that I just have to tell you all: I'M OFFICIALLY A BRAZILIAN!!! Yup, all the Americans and Hispanics got a Brazilian social security number!! CPF is the name here for SSN. So, I can officially live in Brazil WOOH! But calmmmm family, I won´t ;) But yeah, I thought that was pretty cool.

We also went to the mission office and I picked up my package!!! I opened it and my companion documented every second! Wow I loved everything - THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!! I´m waiting for the perfect moment to make the cake but maybe I´ll just make it one random day this week, light my candles and make a late birthday wish :) I've distributed some of the candy y'all send so I´m once again the most wanted person here in the ward currently hahaha even the bishop´s wife said she wants one of the happy birthday banners. 

This week!

Tuesday Gabriel was baptized!!! He´s this adorable 10-year-old who is literally so small he looks like he´s 7. But he's been going to church for weeks now and we had marked his baptism sooo many times but always had problems like the church didn't have water or our baptismal font was being rebuilt but this Tuesday it all worked out!!! He was baptized and was soo excited about it :) 

Wednesday we had our game night and it was great because we had a great turnout! A few weeks ago we started a game that would last for the whole transfer. There are two teams and every week we have games and races to gain more points and throughout the week they can go out on visits with us to gain more points and do other missionary work stuff to gain points and it was so cool because the first week barely had anyone and this past Wednesday it was packed!!! 

Friday one of our moms here invited us over and we made tapioca which I looooove. It´s different here though.... I honestly don't remember what tapioca is in the United States though haha but here it´s great! We tried to make tapioca today though and....failed. Hahaha I took lots of videos which I'll try to send on dropbox.

Saturday we had Helping Hands!!! It was soo fun because it was with the whole stake and we all went to this other area nearby and split up into groups and passed out flyers about Dengue and how to prevent the growth of dengue in the house. It was super fun because we were with a group of youth in our ward and they´re all crazy hahaha. 

Today in a little bit we´re going to head over to the church to play volleyball with the youth! I´ll bring the football too and teach them how to throw it hahaha we´ll see how that goes. We may even play Uno too. 

Well, that´s about it! Thanks for all your love and prayers. I´m truly grateful for everyone´s support. I`m grateful for the time I have to be here and serve the wonderful people in Brazil. I love them with all my heart!!

Love and miss you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Sister Parks

Maracanau, Brazil - #abencoado

or, in other words, like...English, #blessed

Soooo I had a few paragraphs written in Word and the guy who runs the lan house accidentally turned off my computer so I lost it all....

BUT here´s a few things that happened this week:

OH FIRST, THANK YOU ALL FOR THE BIRTHDAY WISHES!!!!!! I´m going to the mission office right after this to pick up my package!!! :))) Thank you thank you family!!!! I felt all your love and prayers on Saturday. I can´t believe I´m freaking 21.................. I´m so old..

BUT why #blessed? Because this week we were blessed with 3 baptisms!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You guys, this work is so great! It is the GREATEST feeling when you witness someone find true joy through the gospel and to help them take that step to be closer to Christ :) We baptized 2 twin girls - Isadora and Doralicy and a mom, Ana Lucia. They're both so great! 

AH MY BIRTHDAY WAS GREAT! I have to go!

- Sister Parks

Maracanau, Brazil - Long time no see!

Hey guys! Wow it was so good to see all your faces yesterday! Hilary, those two times that I accepted Trenton´s call at the very beginning, I saw you! But seriously, when I finally got to talk to you guys, the first thing I asked was where you were L I was DEVASTATED you had to go work….I´m so sorry if I had known you had to work I would have scheduled for earlier! But just know I missed your face and missed the chance I had to talk to you.

But the skype was soooo great!!! It´s still hard to believe that it´s May and yesterday was Mother´s Day and this Saturday I´ll be turning *gulp* 21…..?! How time flies!!!

Also an Elder we saw today in the mall said that he saw a package for me in the office! So your package made it! I´ll get it tomorrow and take lots of pics!! But thank you in advance!!!!! Best family award goes to yáll *insert Leonardo DiCaprio pic from Great Gatsby holding up his glass with fireworks behind him* lololol

This week was tough and also hilarious. Every day I looked at our calendar for lunch and was like…. Ah, lunch is with this sister in the ward…..who is this… lol because I only have 5 weeks here now! Haha so I was calling the RF president (who´s one of my mom´s here) and asked her who lunch was with and where they live and she just laughed every time hahaha but it all worked out in the end!

This week should be really great!

Today we went to the mall with the other sisters who are in the area next to us and one of them is from Texas too so we coordinated our outfits today haha so I´ll send yáll pic ;)

I LOVE YOU ALL SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH!! MIS YÁLL A TON!!!!!!

Until next week!
- Sister Parks

Maracanau, Brazil - The countdown begins

Until Mother´s Day! And then my birthday! The best month has arrived. So we haven´t heard anything about Mother´s Day yet………. but we´ll more than likely get to call you guys a day or two before to mark when we´ll Skype. I think it´ll be the same time that we Skyped on Christmas. I think it was 6 pm here? 4 pm there. But I´ll call you guys to let you know! I´ll try the home phone first, then Mom's cell, then Dad's. So… be prepaaaaaaaaared! :)

Well, transfers happened. And… Sister Carvalho was transferred! :( You guys, I only have 4 weeks here!!!!!! I arrived a week into the transfer because of an emergency and the transfer was only 5 weeks long! I´m a bit nervous to be taking the area over and showing my new companion, Sister Costa, the ropes but it should be good. We´re teaching so many great people and have lots of great things coming up. Sister Costa is from Acre (north Brasil) and is pretty new on the mission! She only has 4 months and this is her second area. She´s been in her first area until now. She was super sad to leave, of course, but I hope she´ll learn to love this area as I've come to.

Sooo a few things that I forgot about in last week's email:

We had a game night thing in the church last Wednesday and it was pie in the face..? That´s the exact translation but I know the name in the English is different…. I just can´t remember it right now. But yeah, we had questions and whoever answered first and got it right smashed a “pie” in the face of the other. It wasn't actually pie though, just whipped cream on a small plate haha but it was fun! I only got a pie in my face one time haha the other times I won ;)

Last week I made pancakes for me and Sister Carvalho and ate them with maple syrup that I still have. It´s heaven. Thank you a million times. :)

Annnd last Sunday (not yesterday) I had some friends from Messejana visit me!! A sister in our ward, Boneca. Tamile, a “youth” (she´s 22), and my recent convert, Rodrigo!! He said that Leko, Adeline, and Aizaki all really want to see me and that they all really miss me. :) I love those guys!!

Now onto this week:

This week for game night in the church we had a movie night! We watched The Errand of Angels and everyone loved it! It captures the mission life pretty well haha

This week we had lunch with Tcharlly and Lindenburg and they took us to eat….

TEX-MEX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You guys, when I entered the restaurant I turned into a little girl. They had a wall that had a map of Texas and Mexico and there was written, Austin!!!! They also had other maps of Texas before parts of it were sold to Oklahoma and whatnot. We ate QUESADILLAS and SHRIMP TACOS!!! Yup, I ate every bit of the shrimp tacos and it. was. heaven. Do y'all know how long it´s been since I've eaten tortillas?? TOO LONG! It was so great and I loved every minute of it! Then they took us to this cookie store that literally has the best cookies I've ever tasted!!!!! The chocolate is so melty like when you bite into a pizza and the cheese…. drags? How do I describe that? I don´t know. But yeah, the chocolate in these cookies does the same thing! I asked how many stores they have and they said, just this one!!!! JUST ONE!!! It´s literally the cutest little store. We took pics on Sister Carvalho´s camera so I don´t have them :( but look up Cookie Mania! Fortaleza on google. It´s adorable. I told them I´m from the United States and that these are the best cookies I've ever tasted!

Also I´m collecting the Olympic coins here. There are 17 total and I have 12 as of now! The last 5 are the rarest so... I hope I´ll be able to find them!! I´ll send y'all a pic of my collection.

Other than that it´s been a great week with even more miracles. I´m loving this time I have to be a missionary, to spread our message with everyone I come in contact with :) Thanks for all y'all's support, love, prayers, thoughts, and know that I pray for you all as well!!!! 

Until Sunday!!!! I´m so excited to see your beautiful faces!!!!!!

Love and miss you all!!!!!

- Sister Parks