Dunkin' Denilson

Hey everybody!! Guess what! My brother's getting married this week!

Oh wait. You already know that.

Well, as I'm sure you're all very busy, I'll just give a brief shout out to John and Mystie. I'm super-duper excited for you two and hope everything goes very well. Take extra pictures for me and make sure you get lots with ALL the family (don't want anyone to miss out on the picture taking fun). You can stick a cardboard cutout of me in there, too. (Just kidding.)

Well, I might as well start with Denilson's baptism. I don't know what I've already told you about Denilson, but he quickly became one of my favorite people in all of Cabo Verde. The Elders found Denilson about four or five months ago and he's been coming to church practically every week since. He has a sister in Portugal who's a member, but everyone else in his family is Catholic (like everyone else here says they are) and weren't happy at all about his interest in the church. But still he woke up every Sunday and came to church. I think everyone thought he was already a member since he's about the most active person in the branch.

Anyway; the point is he never got baptized because his parents wouldn't give him permission, but last month he turned 18 and decided to be baptized. And since his house is now in our area, Sister Gomes and I got to be the ones to teach him until his baptism on Saturday. We went to teach him on Friday, and I kept thinking, 'Man, it feels like Christmas Eve!' because everyone's been so excited for so long and finally it's the night before and you have to make the last minute preparations and such. And then Christmas came and everything was perfect. (Well, we started late because the font wasn't filling up and Denilson got all embarrassed because he was the first out of the four people there to be baptized.)

It was nice that Elder Cardoso and Elder Liddle who started teaching him four months ago were both able to be there for his baptism.

Even better than the baptism was the next day when Denilson received the Holy Ghost and was all dressed up in his white shirt and tie. Also, his confirmation blessing said a lot of very sweet things about him being a light to his family and friends and being the means of bringing many of them to the gospel.

Also, Kati from my old area was baptized (finally) by her dad Augusto. I know I shouldn't laugh, but it was the funniest baptism I've ever seen. It was Augusto's first time baptizing anyone and it took him about a dozen times to get the prayer right and Kati's a bit taller than him and he kept trying to gently put her under the water and she just ended up floating on her back a few times, but finally! He got the prayer right and she went all the way under.

We were so proud of both of them.

Oh, and I got asked to sing and solo for the special musical number. I suggested instead a trio and yanked Sister Laimana and Elder Peterson into it with me. It's a good thing Sister Laimana still loves me. :)

What else happened this week? It rained! I've been waiting all year for the rainy season and it's almost here! On Wednesday, we left District Meeting under a faint sprinkling rain and then, expecting more drips that afternoon, left the house and by the time we got half way to Josefa's house we had to take cover in a mini mercado--we were SOAKED. I couldn't see! Not only were my glasses wet, but water was dripping so fast down our faces we couldn't wipe it off fast enough. And, of course, I sent my umbrella home in the MTC, so we grabbed some sacks from the store (one to cover our bags and the other to cover our heads) and went to our lessons! I've never seen so much mud! We were able to get to all our appointments and the rain had about stopped by the time we finished. Sister Gomes wasn't thrilled with the day, but I loved it! Apparently, we're not exactly recommended to go out working in the downpours because of all the mud, but I thought it was awesome.

We're going to try and find some umbrellas this week.

We taught at Fernanda's house again a couple times this week (the pig killer) and today Sister Gomes smelled her skirt, wrinkled her nose and told me, 'My skirt smells like ham.' And sure enough, our clothes from yesterday had a very distinct smell of roasting pig parts (not pork, PIG).

Oh! Our cockroaches were exterminated this week! Some members who own an exterminating business came and sprayed this stuff and that evening we came home to a LOT of dead bugs. But it's helped a lot. I haven't had to pick out any cockroaches from my cereal bowl all week.

Well...the rest of the week was pretty normal and pretty great. I've loved getting to know the people in this area and trying to learn our way around it. Hopefully we'll find a lot of new people to teach this week!

Hey! Do you know what's awesome? Life!

Mom, we did buy candles and guess what! The power hasn't gone out since. Ha-ha. There's a lesson in preparation.

Love,

Sister Brooks

P.S. Martypants. Hahahaha.