The Stars and Stripes Forever

This week I felt a little twinge of patriotism, which I guess is pretty normal when you're off in a foreign country for a long period of time. I chose The Stars and Stripes Forever because we went to the US Embassy for the first time ever the other day, and just looking at the big old American flag that they have there just made me so happy for some reason. It's not like I worship the United States or anything, we have our own problems of course, but it was just a kinda subtle reminder of home. Also we talked to a lady there who was native, but spoke completely perfect English, like an American! Most people here who speak English do it with a Cape Verdean accent, or a New England one for those who lived near Boston. Elder Massey and I were super surprised when she spoke with the clearest accent I've ever heard here.

At the beginning of this week, Elder Poole stuck with us for a couple of days before he returned home. He's a super cool guy, and has learned Portuguese really well since he's been here for not so long. Sadly, and to no fault of his own, he had to return home a little early. I really like him though, so I wanted to give him a shoutout.

Anyways, since Marlene's been baptized, she's been such a happy person! We saw her a few times this past week, though we weren't able to teach her, and she's almost a completely different person. I love seeing the light of the love of God enter someone's life. We're working hard on our next goals, I think we've still got one more coming before the end of the month! We're working hard with Belarmino now, and we think that he'll be baptized on the 28th. We're praying hard for it!

We didn't get a lot of time in our area, which was kinda lame. However, the greenies arrived on Saturday, so a couple of them went out with us yesterday and we got to do a division for a few hours. All of a sudden we found the people we were looking for all week! We also found a lot of potential investigators, which is a blessing. I went with Elder Jhangiani. He's from Paraguay, and doesn't really speak Portuguese yet, although he understands it. It was funny because our investigator Nelito kept asking him questions in Creole and he had no idea what he was saying, so I had to translate. Elder Jhangiani's a good missionary though, with a good attitude and really excited about coming here and serving.

We finally sat down with a guy we'd met a few weeks ago named Denny. He's super cool, speaks perfect English from when he lived in Boston. Since I was with Elder Jhangiani we taught the Restoration in Portuguese, though I think he prefers to speak English with us. It was super funny, because when we first got into the house I saw his computer screen and right in the middle was a link to watch an illegally downloaded version (which is pretty normal here) of CIVIL WAR and I almost freaked out a little bit. After the lesson he OFFERED TO WATCH IT WITH US and I had to explain to him that we don't watch those kinds of movies. He thought it was a weird rule, but eventually understood at least a bit. I'd be wrong if I didn't admit there was a tiny little voice egging me on to watch it with him but then I told myself that that's dumb, why would I do that? It's kinda funny how things that are completely normal for people are somewhat of a big deal for us as missionaries. Just goes to show you the importance of the calling, I guess.

Anyways, we met a lot of new people yesterday, and we're hoping to have a week full of new investigators coming up! We're trying to get our next convert here, and we have high hopes!

That's about it for the week, just working like we do. I hope that all of your lives are filled with bright sunshiney rays of joy and all that

Abraço,

Elder Penner