Sister Alia Earls: ´MERICA

Oi meu povo!!

So many things went down this week! Sorry I sent so many pictures haha

Oh and HAPPY 4th of JULY!!! I actually got super trunky and homesick the night before the 4th because I really wanted to be at home and I realized it was the first time I wasn't with at least one member of my family for the 4th...But I had a pretty fun day and our zone leader is American and he called us and sang America the Beautiful for me even though he can't sing well so that made life a little better haha And we called him back that night and I sang the national anthem. It was pretty horrible since I can't sing well but oh well haha

I cannot believe that I hit my halfway point! The mission is going by so quickly and even though I definitely get homesick and trunky sometimes, I don't want my mission to end!

So we had a pretty great week. And we're hoping to have 2-3 baptisms during this last week of the transfer. We have three dates marked for this Sunday for Romário, Eduardo, and Thayná. Romário was taught a few months ago by some Elders and he was almost baptized but he ended up traveling that day and the Elders just dropped him. So we started teaching him again and he came to church yesterday and he was interviewed by Elder Verçoza and his only difficulty is with café but he has been drinking tea instead and he's pretty excited to be baptized. Eduardo and Thayná were taught by Sisters about a year ago but they never progressed. Thayná only went to church one time and she didn't really like it, but Eduardo went to church I think 3 times and he was even going to seminary and activities. He just never committed to be baptized. Thayná isn't really that firm but she committed to try to be baptized on the same day as her brother so we'll see if she makes it through this week without drinking coffee. Eduardo is keeping all of the commandments and he was interviewed yesterday and he understands everything really well so we're hoping that he won't just bail out at the last minute. Keep them in your prayers!

This week we had an amazing experience with another investigator. Her name is Viviane. We had gotten her address with her husband a couple of weeks ago and set up a return appointment, but we got lost and never found her house. During this past week, we stopped to make a phone call and we saw Viviane walking past us but she looked really sad and at first we didn't recognize her so we just started talking to her. We didn't realize it was Viviane until she started talking about her husband and the difficulties that she's been having. She started crying and saying that she didn't want to go home so Sister Alós told her that the church was close to us and that we could give her a tour. We showed her everything and she started crying even more in the church and we taught her and she said that she felt a huge peace in the building. It was one of the most spiritual moments on my mission. We visited her more during the week but she ended up moving this week to a part of our area that's kind of far and she wasn't able to come to church but we're hoping that she'll come this week since she committed to be baptized. Hopefully we'll see some progress there too :)

Eu amo vocês!!!

Com amor,

<3 Sister Earls

GUESS WHO HIT THEIR 9 MONTH MARK??? THIS SISTER MISSIONARY! Sister Alós made me an awesome cake to celebrate haha It was pretty funny though because we ran out of gas in our apartment and we both forgot so when we got home and Sister Alós started making the cake and left it in the oven and went to check on it after 20 min, it was only partially cooked so she ended up cooking it in the microwave hahaha But I ate it and it was pretty good and I didn't die and we gave the other half of it to the Elders so it worked out :) I know it's super weird to see pregnant photos but Sister Alós forced me to take my 9 month pictures so yeah...