Brianna in Brazil: It's Beginning to Feel A Lot Like Christmas!

Can I just say how impressed I get reading your e-mails and hearing about how fast David and Steven are growing up? Glad they had fun at Steven´s birthday party. He deserves it. And that´s even more wonderful that he wasn´t embarrassed to hug and thank you! I think my mission is making him more Brasileiro than me! :) Tell him that I want to see all his cool sporty presents when we Skype next week, okay? Oh and I want to hear David singing :) Good luck to Mom and Noelle on your finals this week. I´m sure that you´ll both do wonderful and will be praying that you can remember what you need to so that you can ace those tests! And thank you for sending me Courtney´s e-mails! I´m not getting them, but I got the two that you sent this week. Glad the little note got to her. I sent it with a young man leaving for the mission here and I guess he managed to find her! It shouldn´t be too hard to find a gorgeous blonde Sister Barbie though :). Aaaaand thank you so much for the shirts and ring. I really really appreciate it!

This week was wonderful. The biggest highlight was probably our Christmas Conference in Maceió. I loved being able to see all my friends that are still here in the mission and catch up with them. Presidente and Sister Gomes gave great talks and panettone (I think it´s fruit cake there... how did I never know that I love that stuff?!) and we had a talent show that was wonderful! Sister Lopez and I sang together and my district did a presentation that everyone loved, not to be modest or anything haha. We sang the cup song and rewrote the words to fit with the mission and Christmas.

This week, I also met an incredible young woman, Jaqueline. Sister Custódio met her last week on exchanges and we visited her again this week. She´s dating a young man from the other stake who´s going on a mission soon and was super curious about the church, so he set up a visit with us. When we got there, she was so excited! She whipped out her cell phone and started showing us all the photos she took on Sunday there at the church for her first time. She already knows pretty much everything about the gospel because her boyfriend is a great future missionary and she´s soaking in everything. She was so happy to receive a Book of Mormon and the Spirit was wonderful as we read it together with her. I´m excited to see where this young woman goes and hope that everything goes well for her baptism soon.

So those are the best parts of this week. Lots of other things happened... oh! We have transfers tomorrow but everyone stayed :). And Mom, Nordestino is someone from the Northeast... Northeasterner? Sei lá. But okay, I think that´s all. I love you guys! Can´t wait to talk with ya next week! Christmas is next week! Can you believe it? Nope. I know I can´t. Tchau tchau e até mais!

Com amor,

Sister Ball