WOW! What a week! Again! haha. But what a week in a good way :) It was a busy week in terms of the wedding preparations, ya super busy. Normally when it comes down to the wedding week, most missionaries kinda just focus on the wedding and forget that we still have other things to do, and so we wanted to change that this week. We wanted to show that we really can do other things still. It took a lot of work and sacrifice, but we got it done! So, for every wedding, the couple needs witnesses. Here, though, the witnesses are like God parents and even though we try and explain that its just for a simple wedding, people still take it seriously. Well tuesday, the witnesses we had had planned, called and said it wouldn't work any more, so we spent all week trying to find new ones. Wednesday, we found new ones who said it would work, but then they called Friday, less than 24 hours before the wedding saying it would work anymore!!!!! So then it was a true scramble. Thank goodness there are good people in this world though and Irmao Mouzinho and his wife Irma Carina accepted to help us out, she called and got someone to work for her and then they were there on saturday to help us out. They went to the temple one week ago and were sealed together after almost exactly one year of membership in the church and they are truly faithful members who understand the importance of the gospel. They helped so much. Well, meanwhile, while all that was happening, we were trying to finish up the preparations for the couple. I learned (or taught myself) how to iron a wedding dress... hahaha. I sucessfully ironed it without burning it luckily! But then Friday came and the wife was trying to get her hair done but she had gone too late and no one would do it for her. And then what do you know, Virginia, a member came to the rescue! She came running to help and found her sister in law how knows how to do it and they ended up staying up till almost 2 in the morning doing her hair. In that same day of craziness though, I was on a division with elder thomas and we found 2 new awesome families. One family has the same story as Joseph Smith... they have been to many churches but just haven't been able to find the right one. They are an extremely intelligent family with two little boys and they loved our message. It was such a powerful lesson and then they came to church with us on sunday. We are so excited for them! Well back to the wedding. Because we had gotten the witnesses so late, we didn't know who was gonna be able to help the wife get dressed the next day because normally the witness for the wife helps.... So we were kinda freaking. And Virginia who had said she would love to help said she couldn't because she had a really important family meeting the next day. Well I just had been praying that a miracle would happen and it would all work out well. The next morning we woke up early and Virginia calls us. She told us that she had a dream that we had gone to pick her up to help with the wedding and so she took that as a sign from God that she needed to skip her family meeting and help us. And so she did.. She helped us so incredibly much. I couldn't really express my gratefulness for her sacrifice and all that she did to help us. Especially when her family was not happy with her absence. But she did it with a happy face and when I was thanking her, all she said was, " Elders, I know that one day I will need help too. Its our duty as members to serve and so this is nothing at all. Don't worry about it." What a powerful statement. It is truly our duty as members to serve! We all can learn from humble irma virginia and when the Lord calls, we can't hesitate. We must act in that moment to serve our brothers and sisters. I hope we can all learn and grow from this great example. Well Saturday, we ended up starting our day at 7:00 am to get everything ready but in the end, the wedding went well and it was a beautiful ceremony. There was a bunch of old ladies at the wedding that didn't speak portuguese so the whole ceremony was done in dialect so i didn't understand much but they did and that's what is important. It was truly a wonderful wonderful week and the Lord blessed us immensely. I love you all and hope you have a great great week!!! (If you can't tell I am pretty happy with how well this last week went :)
Love, 
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