Clever Title

Well, Hello, Family!

I hope everyone is doing well. I'm glad to hear that Amy and little Lucas are still feeling healthy and happy (though I hear Lucas cries a lot). :)

Welcome Home Jason! I totally lost track of time! Good luck with life after the mission! Dun, dun, dun... :)

I had quite the wonderful week with Conference! We were able to watch all the sessions--and in English! Since Elder and Sister Adams live right next to the church, we were able to watch it with them in English and keep an eye on our investigators who came to watch at the chapel. Actually, I guess I was watching at the same time as all of you, it was just a lot later hear. It was a little like Christmas. We all set up camp in front of the Adams' laptop and the Elders made cinnamon rolls and donuts! (Do you believe it? I was quite impressed.)

Conference has never gone so quickly. I loved it. I knew, of course, that my dear brothers would especially be enjoying Elder Cook's talk. :)

Conference was the highlight of the week, but there were some other good things too. Unfortunately, Sister Turnbow was sick for the first of the week so I got to study quite a bit and read through several Liahonas. I read an awesome article in the January 2008 Ensign called 'Our God Truly is God'. It was great. You can look it up if you want.

I also got to play around on the computer again, helping Sister Adams with a little newsletter for our zone conference this week.

We were teaching Marcia this week (who may or may not have had her baby yesterday!) and showed her a picture of the Salt Lake Temple. She looked at it, back at us and asked, 'This exists?!' I can't wait until Cabo Verde gets its own temple and sweet little families like Marcia's can enjoy all the blessings of the temple.

We had a slightly frightening experience this week which I really shouldn't tell you about, but just remember that missionaries really do have a huge amount of protection!

Anyway, so we were walking home the other night, just talking and we noticed a young man walking ahead of us. All the sudden, two other young men came out from behind us, walked past us towards the man in front. Sister Turnbow, half-joking, turned to me and said, 'They're going to rob him!' and we watched as the two men approached the other man from behind and without any warning jumped on him! I admit I was completely shocked and had no idea what to do--a little Provo-born girl like me has never even thought that there are real muggers out in the world! But there was a little store right next to us so we shouted to them and a couple guys came out and threw some rocks until the muggers ran off. Luckily the other kid was okay and they didn't take anything from him. But it was just the tiniest bit frightening. :)

There's a great word for mugger in Portuguese and/or Creole but I can't spell it. It sounds like cassabaude (cas-uh-body). Everyone came out yelling that.

Anyway, it was pretty crazy. Don't worry though. People know they can't mess with us.

So...I feel like that's a weird way to end the email, so I'll think of a happier note to end on.

I got my hair braided! Well, not actually braided--more like twisted, but its hideous either way. Sister Turnbow did as well. Trust me: white people should not try to braid their hair. It doesn't look good. But Jamila, the member who did it, did a really good job and she's really sweet. I'll send you a picture next week.

I feel like this is kind of a boring email, but the week was pretty slow. It'll be better this week though. We have some great investigators --I wish more of them had been able to come to Conference--and we'll work with them this week. I'm excited for Vitorina who walked all the way to church with her little boy alone since her husband Va decided not to go. She's awesome. And then there's Evandro who's crazy and hilarious (his mom is the tobacco maker) and he's come to church four weeks in a row! Unfortunately we've been teaching about two lessons in that time since he's never home and his attention span is...short. But he did manage to catch a bunch of tiny birds and put them in a cage.

Oh! And we have one little girl whose mother we were teaching who always claps after the prayer and always calls us Elder. She's so cute.

I hope you all had a great April Fool's day. Unfortunately I forget to take my supply of clothes-pins as we went out working that day. :)

I'm so grateful to be a member d'A Igreja de Jesus Cristo dos Santos dos Ultimos Dias!

Love,
Sister Brooks