Olá todo mundo! [Hello everyone/world!]

My friends, This week was . . . miraculous. I´m fumbling a bit for words, because we were just so blessed.

First of all, our first baptism, we´ll just start there. It was quite a day. I learned a lot. Mostly I learned that God is merciful, and I hope he has a sense of humor. I will now relate the events of the day. First, we got to the chapel early to fill the font. Unfortunately we had not really received any orientation, and all of the signs were in Portuguese with vocabulary words we do not know, so we were filling the font for about 4 hours with . . . the drain open. Yup. But we got that all worked out. We had a quick lesson before we were going to pass by the girls´house to walk to the church with them. They were just about ready, when Ivinildo (Yasmim´s dad) muttered unhappily something about sandals. Apparently Yasmim didn´t have sandals and was unhappily wearing a pair of bright purple crocs. She was crying and didn´t really want to go anywhere. Fortunately . . . I have small feet. That´s right, I took off my sandals, strapped them to her feet, and thereafter put on the aforementioned purple crocs. But Yasmim was still crying. We said a prayer with her and tried to hurry ourselves along, but her dad wasn´t going to let her go. There had been some conflict earlier and he just kept saying - another day, another day. Yasmim´s crying, and then, yes, I started crying. I begged him, and I know that the Lord touched his heart because he just said, "Go Yasmim, go" We´re running to the church. Meanwhile we realize the Bishop can´t come, and we don´t have anybody to be witnesses. And the Elders had just gotten on a bus to the other side of the area. I don´t know I´ve ever been so stressed. Sister Denson and I offered a humble prayer, very humble, and then took pictures with the girls, and Ivinildo, the dad. He came. It was miraculous and frightening. Eventually the Elders arrived, Alef (who was going to do the baptizing) arrived, and it happened. Our two beautiful moças [?]were baptized. All of this drama and silliness for me really just strengthened my testimony of so many things. First of all, the fact that the Inimigo [Enemy] does NOT want baptism to happen. He knows how important it is, and all he needs is a silly pair of sandals to blow everything. Second, the power of the priesthood. Yes, sometimes it is inconvenient and stressful to have the right authority to get everything done, but that´s the point. This isn´t just a happy dip in the water, this is the power given from God to man to do his work upon the earth. This is a big deal. Third, you have got to be prepared. Fortunately Sister Denson and I had prepared well for our little musical number - a Child´s prayer (Sarah-Lehn I was missing you like none other) and we both were rather teary as we recognized that we really are children of our Heavenly Father (pai celestial) and that he really does hear our prayers. They were both confirmed yesterday, and were just beaming.

The family.
Alexsandra (taller) is the cousin of Yasmim.
Her family didn´t come to the baptism,
but she is incredible. She had a little bag
with everything ready to go. She gets it. I love her.

This whole week was pretty much like this. Sister Denson and I were determined to follow through and get all our goals in line, and the Lord blessed us immensely. Every day, several times a day there were times where we just laughed because the miracles were so incredibly apparent; we found the street of a referral we were unable to find earlier, we bumped into a contact who´s telephone number hadn´t worked, we found people to teach that were very much desiring and searching for this gospel. Holy mackerel friends, God is good. He . . . He must just laugh sometimes at how incapable His little children are, but fortunately, He loves us enough to help us out. I know that there are plenty of forces working against us (plenty I tell you) but I also know that it´s absolutely nothing compared to what we´ve got going for us - truth, light, happiness! We talked to a few people yesterday that simply aren´t doing the things that they know are right, and they look so sad. That´s the thing with this gospel, it is happiness.

At church on Sunday with Adriele and Fernanday

On a mission you feel this happiness, and you also feel every other emotion . . . daily. Your heart is just so invested in the lives of these people, and you have so many hopes for them, and sometimes you´re disappointed, and it´s hard because you know what they´re missing.
Yesterday we were able to feel the elation of being a missionary at church, both during the confirmations, and as we greeted 4 men at church yesterday! It was incredible. We walked one to class, and another came in. We walked him to class, and turned around to find another. We also have Marcos, who´s in a wheelchair, and he is incredible. He knows the Bible and recognizes the truth. We wheeled him into the Gospel Principles class, and it was a good thing he brought his own chair because there was not an extra seat in the room. And the members were so good and helped out. It makes me so happy to see these members helping out our little pesquisadores [investigators]. Incredible.

This one´s just kind of silly, and you don´t need to put it on the blog,
but it´s for São João. everybody dresses up with pigtails and little freckles . . .
and Sister Denson and I didn´t want to be left out.
(it´s funny in that in reminds me very much of Centre Stage days . . .)

Also, this week was São João. It was a normal day for us, but we also got to eat more cake and other delicacies. And so many bombas! [firecrackers/bombs] It´s like the fourth of july . . . only with no laws. I pretty much went deaf. And for those of you who know how much I love the Fourth of July (especially as a child) you´ll know my feelings on that aspect of the holiday. But it was fun to see parties in Brazil.

I love this gospel, I LOVE being a missionary. After the slightly stressful baptism, we just went out and kept working. It was great!

OH YEAH - I´m getting transferred to Itapuã. It´s about 20 minutes from here, and I´m stoked. I´ll stay with Sister Denson, and we´re going to do great things. And my first transfer is over. Weird.

This message is one of happiness, and I´m so grateful for it!

Love, Sister Cornwall

São João at a members house. We´re so cute.

The view from our apartment - the other direction.

Zone Conference