Manacanau, Brazil - in the blink of an eye, another week has passed!

FAMÍLIA!!!!!!!!!!! Olá, como vocês estão? Estou ótima, foi uma semana boa e tudo e...

WHOOPS HEY FAMILY!!! How´s everybody doing? :) Seriously though, these weeks are flying by...... ah!!

I had a surprise last week from the one and only Denise Anderson!!!!!! I LOVE THE PACKAGE!! Thank you so much!!!!! My whole district is now begging for my peanut butter hahaha! And I had totally forgotten about rice crispy treats omgggg I died when I saw them, thank you SO much!!!

Dad, still waiting on the package from missionties! And my zone leaders go to the mission office every other week to pick up packages and letters and such because it’s a bit far and they went last week so they'll only be going next Monday. So even if it arrived, I won't until next week, but don't stress! It´ll come :)

Today a big busload of young women and adults from the stake headed on to Recife!!!! Yup, a temple trip! They'll be there until Saturday. Sister Costa and I were so jealous! It's tough being in a mission without a temple nearby! I´m super excited to go to the temple when I get back. If we don't have anything scheduled, can we go the weekend I get back? Friday or Saturday? Then have a get together with the fam in San Antonio? I'd love to see everyone there, too :)

I have officially learned how to make Brazilian tapioca and it's on my list of things to take home for y'all to experiment! It´s soooo good, I hope y'all love it, too! I even learned how to flip in a pan, like a pancake or pizza, ya know? ;)

We´ve been meeting some great people this week who we're super excited to start teaching!! Lots of youth which is good because our ward has only 5 active young women and 1 young man!! They're in desperate need for more! We're working a lot with Mauri still, our investigator who´s super intelligent and reads lots of book, mainly history books. He went to church again – 3 Sundays in a row! Wooh! He still has a lot of doubts and we keep reminding him to pray and ask God because we can talk and talk and talk and explain and share scriptures but it won't matter if he never prays! But he´s great in reading the Book of Mormon! Today we're going to have a FHE in a member's home and bring him to watch the Restoration movie :)

This week our ward switched the time it starts with the other ward so we now start at 8:30 and we start with Relief Society, then Sunday School, then Sacrament Meeting. It was super strange but gave me more time to finish my talk during Relief Society! Hahaha my talk went well, I hope. haha I was a bit nervous as usual but when I got up I relaxed. I talked about missionary work, of course, and how members can help us out! I shared the story from the July Liahona "thank you for sharing the gospel with me" or something like that which I really liked because it shows 2 things. He shared the gospel with 2 people. The first wasn't super interested in the beginning. For him, he planted the seed. The second person ended up getting baptized. I reminded them that we won't always see the results of our efforts immediately when sharing the gospel, but that isn't an excuse to not do it! God uses us more often than not to simply plant the seed to be cultivated later by someone else.

haha but yeah! this week was good! no baptism unfortunately...a young man, Daniel, was interviewed but he´s still nervous and has doubts, so we didn't pressure him. 

I really love this gospel. I love this happiness that I feel! I love Brazil and the people and my areas :) I am just so blessed beyond measure! 

I love you all :) That´s all I have to say!

Tchau!!!!

- Sister Parks