(:

Bom dia, boa tarde, ou boa noite. What even is the time difference?

Anyways, it's been a good week! We are very much ready for a P Day having gone two weeks without! So what exciting things have been happening on this side of the equator, you wonder? I don't rightly know. (:

One thing I'm loving about this transfer and last is companionship study. In the past, sometimes it was possible to secretly wish for two hours of personal study, but I'm learning lots with Sister Santos. Our planning and searching and discussions completely shape the entire day. (:

One day after planning for all those we'd teach that day as normal, we just didn't feel super solid about our plan for Sônia. We've been teaching her for a long time now, and while on paper what we'd planned seemed to solve the problems, we didn't feel that it was actually what would help her to continue to progress.

We thought about how she's super overwhelmed with 2 crazy little kids, a rebellious teenager, work and home to keep up, a not so super supportive husband, and having recently moved hours away from all of her family and friends. We decided what she needed was chocolate.

So searching Preach My Gospel, the Personal Progress manual, True to the Faith, and the Scriptures, we planned a lesson of the worth of Heavenly Father's daughters. Mom, we made your Hot Fudge Pudding Cake, (which, by the way, is going viral in Brazil (: ) and invited a few other women we're teaching on Sônia's street. We threw her a surprise party celebrating a new beginning and a fresh view.

She cried and cried and cried, and obviously we did too. She said she had prayed to Heavenly Father telling Him how confused we're making her. Haha. She asked Him that if what we're teaching is wrong that He would make us forget about our appointment and where she lived, but if He had really sent us to her home with the truth, to finally let her know. She said that nobody had ever done anything like this for her and that she knew our love came directly from Heavenly Father. "I know that he sent you. I know it's all true."

So there's no box on the teaching record for chocolate cake, but I'd like to think that Christ would have sat with Sônia too, telling her how special and loved she is, that she's not alone, abandoned, or forgotten, that she is a daughter of Heavenly Father and her potential is divine.

I. Love. Being. A. Missionary. The end.

Thought for this week:

"Forgiveness...I think it may be the greatest virtue on earth, and certainly the most needed. There is so much of meanness and abuse, of intolerance and hatred. There is so great a need for repentance and forgiveness." -President Gordon B. Hinckley

Have a lovely week!

Love, love, love,
Sister Vaughn