Happy Halloween

Hello!

Well, you'll all be happy to know that I'm celebrating Halloween by doing my hair like an African. Elizabeth did Sister Walker and my hair this morning and it's so tight that it hurts to smile! Woohoo! Anyway, hope you all have a fun Halloween. I wanted to buy candy just in case we get trick-or-treaters, but apparently they don't do that here. Phooey.

But it's okay, because I picked out a few Halloween words for you all:
Abo'bora (ah-BOW-buh-ruh) - pumpkin
Bruxa (broo-shu) - witch
Casa Assombrada - Haunted House
Fantasma (fan-taz-muh) - ghost

On to the week: it was good. I spent my lunch times decorating the house for Halloween--old shower curtain rings as chains, used candles, cobwebs from stretched cotton balls and some random pumpkins and other Halloween items made out of cereal boxes - a missionary's most abundant resource. I also sent you a picture of one of my favorite pieces. Ah...what fun.

But other than that, we've been working hard with our investigators. If all goes well, we'll have several baptisms this week: Edson, Artur and Cicita.

Artur is my favorite. He's fourteen, his mother is less-active and we're teaching him how to read. He's a sweetheart and he really does want to do what's right. He had a friend over for our lesson and he helped him give one of the prayers. We made him flash cards for the letters and he does really well. We read a few verses in the Book of Mormon with him each lesson. But he's so excited to be baptized. He kept asking us when he could be baptized and now it's time. He's also ALWAYS at church and all the activities even when no one else in his family is. I like him.

Also, Leidymara's doing really well. She keeps telling us how good she feels and how much better things are going. And we've seen such a growth in her--especially in her prayers. And her little girl Raquel isn't as scared of us as she was. :)

I think with only four missionaries on the island, we're about out of ideas of games to play at family nights and integration nights and whatever other nights there are. So last Saturday, for our activity we played Hangman. Appropriate for Halloween time and very interesting to see that something that all of us played in about every single Sunday School class until the age of 18 was completely new here in Sal. Ha-ha. I thought it was fun.

I got to give a talk in Sacrament meeting. Woohoo. I was so excited to sit in between Debi (Bryan's sister) and Joao (Cisa's son) during Sacrament meeting, but then Pres. Fortes came and asked me to fill in for the youth speaker who wasn't there. Guess what she was going to speak on? Dating! Elder Peterson and Sister Walker were laughing the whole time and Elder Peterson wanted to know why they chose a SISTER MISSIONARY to talk about DATING! Gosh. Ha-ha. Man. It was pretty awful, but it's all good. I lived. And Bryan came up and gave me a hug (gave my knees a hug) and Evelyn was excited to see me. I love these little guys.

Sunhana got baptized! Remember Sunhana? He disappeared, I got transferred and then I kept bugging the Sisters in Praia 2 and finally he came back and he got baptized! I was so excited. I wish I could have been there to see him and Domingos baptize. Oh, Praia. When the sisters called to tell me, it was the first time that I really, really missed Praia. But don't worry, I love Sal.

Erm...it was a pretty average week. Sister Walker and I are making great leaps in our culinary activities. We've invented a new version of pizza pockets and I believe we'll perfect it this week. Also, Sunday, we used almost all of our left-overs to make a casserole and no, it was not gross! And we have great plans for fresquinha making this week. Our mango-pineapple fresquinhas were a huge success.

Oh, we got kissed by a little boy in the street. He was pulling something along the road with a piece of string (this is a very common activity --imaging that little rolling turtle on a string we have at home, but replace the turtle with an empty Tupperware) and then saw us, got excited and ran over, kissed Sister Walker's arm and then made a loop to kiss my arm too.

We had a really good lesson with a man name Antonio, a reference from Pres. Fortes. We were finishing the Plan of Salvation with him and asked what were some things he needed to do to prepare for the Celestial Kingdom (this is my favorite question--because if they were listening and they're really interesting in making the right choices, you almost always get a great answer) and the first thing he said was that he needed to be baptized! True, we said, and we marked a date. He works every Sunday, but he works at the same place as President, so they're going to work on that. I like him. He has twin daughters who are very curious about what two white girls are doing coming to their house. Ha-ha.

Well, that's about all I got. Sal is incredible. The people are hilarious--and incredible and I'm loving being a missionary!

Tchau,
Sister Brooks