Sister Hannah Parks Mission Blog: Jose Walter, Brazil

Hi family! Hope yáll didn´t freak out when I didn´t get to email yesterday! Yesterday was Brazil´s Independence Day so lots of places were closed! We actually managed to find one lan house open and rejoice, but we´re not even 10 minutes in reading the Mission Newsletter and the whole place shuts down! The guy couldn´t get it back up so we left. But it was all right because all the other missionaries were going to email today anyways!
Sooo we had transfers last week and I am still in Jose Walter with Sister Santos! Which I´m so happy about because up until now, I´ve moved every 6 weeks which is hard because that´s just when you learn to love the people and know your way around the area! However, the sisters we lived with are gone, and no one is replacing them! Their area was given to elders whose area was closed! We´re the only sisters in our zone now! Crazy!
This Sunday our wonderful, amazing investigator, Taina, was baptized!!! Gustavo baptized again, and I sang again! Haha! This time I sang "Come Follow Me" - all in Potuguese. Our hilarious 2nd counselor videoed me and I think he´s going to try and send it to you, Mom! He´s super funny too - every time he sees me he does the Spider-man web shooting hand thing because my name reminds him of Peter Parker hahaha! The baptism went very well, and Taina was glowing when she came out of the font! From day one, she accepted baptism and accepted everything we taught her. She reads the Book of Mormon twice every day and remembers all our lessons and has gained a testimony on it all! Did I mention she´s also 18? She has told us numerous times that she wants to change. It´s been so awesome seeing how the Lord has prepared her!
Thursday night was fun because the ward had a music and game night! Taina came as well as another one of our investigators, Ivo! Ivo is a great guy! He has a lot of questions but is super great! He also plays the sax! So he brought it to the night and played Hallelujah!! I DIED!! We had also told everyone that I would be singing but we ran out of time, and Sabrina and Darlan (the couple we had FHE with last week) were very upset hahaha so I promised them I´d sing in their house again!
Sunday was also super great because we had a lot less actives and recent converts at church!!
Best news ever.... I GET TO TEACH ENGLISH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yup! Our zone leaders called us the other night and said that they´ve had a lot of people asking for English classes so we´re going to have English lessons Thursday and Friday night at the church! They said they invited 2 schools!! Me, and 2 other American elders in our zone will be the teachers! I´m a little nervous haha but so excited! We´re only supposed to invite investigators because if we told the wards it would get crazy! So I´ll let yáll know next week how it goes!!

Have a great week! Thank you guys for everything, I am so grateful for you all!!!

EU AMO VOCÊS!!

- Sister Parks