July 21st

So Brazil was super embarrassed for losing, haha it's all anyone talked about. During the game with Germany it was completely silent. Kind of eerie actually. Afterwards there were fireworks and horns, but I figured they lost because no one was yelling or dancing in the street haha. The whole next week the people here would not stop talking about how embarrassed they were.

This week went super well. I found out that my area is actually bigger than I thought so we have been working in an area named Vila Nova & we have being seeing a ton of success. Vila Nova hasn't had any missionaries working in it for over a year now because on our map it was in the Elders area and on their map it was in ours so no one has set foot in it. It is definitely a very humble area, and definitely not on the safer side after dark so we really only have about 6 hours to work in it during the day  because we leave before it gets dark, but it has been really good. On the first day we worked there we knocked 8 doors and taught 6 lessons. It was awesome. This week we have met some great people & on Sunday we had three people in church which is better than these past few weeks. We had a girl named Luana, she is 16 and lives with her grandma. She is really interested in learning about the Plan of Salvation so we plan on teaching her that this week. We also had a young man named Lucas in church, he is 20 years old & he works with the army here. We taught him at the end of the week about the sabbath day & invited him to church & he was ready to go when we picked him up. I'm super excited to teach him this week. We also had a man named João, who has a daughter named Karen. He is without a job right now & I think he is trying to find happiness. I'm looking forward to teaching him as well. We also  taught a lady named Eliane and her daught Aline. They couldn't go to church this Sunday though because she was working. When we first entered her house Eliane, the mom, was super closed off. She wasn't really talking that much with us and didn't seem too interested. As the lesson went on we figured out that she had just moved to Ponta Grossa, away from her alcoholic husband. She has been living here for four months and has nothing. We taught her about the restoration and gave her a Book of Mormon. We explained to her that we know it is hard for her to be a single mother working all the time and trying to raise her child alone. She lives in a pretty sketchy area and she expressed that she doesn't want her daughter to grow up this way. We promised that as she reads the Book of Mormon and goes to church that her life circumstances will get better and that she'll be able to raise her daughter the way she wants to. She started crying and said that she really wants this and that she will for sure go to church this next Sunday. When we finished the lesson, she was way more open and seemed to have a different feel about her. It felt good to be able to give her hope for a better life through the gospel. We set up a day to go back this week, I really look forward to seeing her.