HELLO!!! So I know that I have NEVER been so excited for Mother´s Day before in my entire life! Maybe because I´ve never been a mother before... And I´m still not... But I´m way excited!!! So - it is way weird that things are warming up there there when things are getting colder here! I feel like Christmas is right around the corner because usually when the weather is cooling down - that means Christmas is coming! It isn´t REALLY cold - we have some nights were I am cold - but I heard that in June/July it´ll get pretty cold here in Ouro Branco. Weird huh?! I didn´t think that Brazil got cold! Anyways, things are going well here! I am not just a soul saver this week but a life saver! We had interesting day on Friday - we were in a neighborhood knocking doors - but it just wasn´t going well - noone was letting us in, we were just not feeling that we were in the right place - but we had scheduled to meet with someone later that day - so we tried going to her house early - but she wasn´t there - so we just decided to leave and go to a different place - we weren´t feeling like we were supposed to be there - so we went and taught another lady and as we were going to another scheduled appointment - the girl that lived in the house we were going to walked by - so we were thinking - ``Man, what is going on today? Nothing is working out!`` We decided to stop by the house of a guy that the elders have been teaching in another area who just moved here - but only his parents were there and they said that he had just left too! So we were walking to another neighborhood and I felt that we should knock on his neighbor´s door - when we were waiting there - a guy came up to us and asked us if we were the missionaries and we said yes and then Sister Hunsaker said his name - and he fell to the ground (it was the guy we were looking for) He was shocked that we knew his name and he asked us how we knew that we should pass by his house - we told him that the elders passed his address for us - but he was just shocked the entire time. Turns out that he had left on his motorcycle to go to Belo Horizonte - but he stopped by the bank first to see if he had money and he didn´t so he went back home to ask his parents for money - which is when he ran into us - he wanted to go to Belo Horizonte because his wife and daughter ran away with her dad and he wanted to go there find them and kill them and then kill himself... I know, I know mom - you are probably thinking - What is my daughter doing there?! - But seriously - I know that the Lord sent us there at this exact moment to save 4 lives! We talked for a while with him - his life is WAY messed up - but it is interesting how on the mission you can love all types of people - even murderers... Moral of the story: He ended up staying home and reading the Book of Mormon! It was an interesting day though... it is interesting how God makes everything work out - if we had decided to stay in that first neighborhood a little longer or if we hadn´t passed that girl on the way to her house, or if we hadn´t decided to knock on his neighbor´s door - it wouldn´t have worked out! Wow! Anyways - I am a life saver! He he... Also - I´ve decided that I am getting way blunt with people - I don´t know if that is a good thing or not... Probably not... But we were teaching a guy this week and we were teaching him the Plan of Salvation and he said that he didn´t want to stop drinking coffee and living the life he has now - he is young - he´s got a lot of life to live... So I said, `´So you are going to throw away the Celestial Kingdom for coffee and women?`` And he said yes! I couldn´t believe him! I wanted to throw my Book of Mormon at him - knock some sense into him - but I didn´t do that... Luckily our recent-convert Guilherme was there - so I didn´t leave his house so sad because Gui bore his testimony about how his life is so much better now and he doesn´t miss those things of the world - and he doesn´t want to go back. It was neat! So one good thing came out of that lesson! But yeah... basically I don´t have fear to say anything now - the other day a man asked me, ``So you don´t think that my baptism is the same as the baptism that Christ had?`` and my companion and I just looked at eachother and said, ``No`` at the same time... But you have to tell them like it is right? Or It´ll be my fault! We have been working a lot lately with members that are inactive - there are over 500 members of the church here and only about 50 of them are going to church! It is super sad! And it is always a ridiculous excuse - like ``I have to make lunch for my mom and so I can´t go to church`` or - my favorite one that I heard this week is, ``I didn´t go to church because all of my garments were dirty!´´ hmm... we ran into a guy this week that was way strong in the church - he was helping out a lot - always doing visits with the elders, etc etc and he said that one day he was out in the street and the elders passed by without saying hi and so he got offended and didn´t go back to church! Ridiculous! This is our salvation! Who cares about those other people?! Anyways... we are going to help him come back! For sure! And his wife and kids who aren´t members!!! So - last week we made homemade pizza and it was AMAZING!!! So we are going to make it again today - P-day Pizza-day - makes sense right?! So - my cultural insight for you this week: I wanted to cue you in on the food that they just don´t have here or that is REALLY hard to find: They don´t have chocolate chips, powdered sugar, pepper - as in salt and pepper, brown sugar is really hard to find and it just isn´t the same thing, no peanut butter, they have about 3 different types of cereal - Só! Umm... So as you could guess... they don´t have cookies or brownies here, no mexican food - tortillas/refried beans/salsa/tortilla chips, no pretzels - lots of things! It´s kinda weird! They have... RICE AND BEANS! And no - I am not used to it yet... okay - I´m used to it - but I still don´t look forward to it... maybe after 15 months I´ll be used to it and then it´ll be time to go home... he he - anyways, I love you all!!!! I love the gospel! I love the Lord! And I love being a missionary!!! I can´t wait to talk to you on Sunday!!!
-Love,
Sister Dunlop
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