Beach Party (Missionary Style)

Hello.

I hope everyone is doing super well. This week was fun. The highlight was our branch activity...on the beach! I know, I know, it's just not fair how awesome my life is. :)

It was a really good activity. Everyone met at the church on Saturday and then we got a big bus to a little beach (close to where we used to do baptisms) and everyone played soccer or other games. Ky had planned a bunch of fun games for the youth--which I enjoyed watching...from far away. Haha. One included shoving your face into a pile of flour. Yippee. Don't worry, I wrote them all down and we can play them at family reunions.

I spent most of the day entertaining the little ones. (Note: it's quite difficult to chase little kids in the sand, while holding down your skirt so it doesn't flap around like crazy.)

Afterwards the Elders Quorum built a fire and everyone sat around, drinking hot chocolate, and President asked everyone to write down any question about the gospel/life they had and then everyone took turns answering each other's questions. It was really good and fun to see the whole branch involved. I sat by Cisa, which is always great and made sure to make plenty of faces at Valdir across the circle.

I got to see Milenyu (from Praia) last week. He's stationed here in Sal as part of his military service. It was super fun to see a familiar face. He told me he's already finished the entire Book of Mormon. Woohoo.

I finally got my goat. (That sounds like a saying...) It actually might have been lamb, but close enough. We went to a restaurant and ordered the plate of the day--cabrito. We each got several interesting cuts of meat. It was pretty good. We just tried not to think about the four-legged friend we'd seen being hacked up the day before. (I'm convinced it was the exact one we were eating.)

I forgot to tell you this story from last week: the electricity went off during the sacrament prayer at church and so we had the rest of the meeting without light. The speakers had to speak as loudly as they could with the microphone and I got a break from playing the piano. So Elder Mendes got up as the last speaker and started talking about faith. During his talk he spoke about how faith and prayer and righteousness work miracles--like making the lights come on. Anyway, so he finished his talk and seriously, the second he said Amen, the power came back on. And I got to play the closing hymn.

I thought it was cool, anyway.

Well, that's all I've got today. Hope you all have a great week!

Love,
Sister Brooks