Thanks for the emails. On Thursday I had to say goodbye to President Weston :( (well at least I thought that was goodbye). It was one of the saddest things I've had to do on the mission, we sang "God be with you til we meet again", but I couldn't even sing the song because every time is tried I started to cry. I'm going to miss him lots!
That same day I finally gave in. Put down my Brazilian pride...and ordered tags in English...yup, now I won't have to explain to everyone why my tags are in Portuguese or confuse people who try to read it. I'll just be a normal stateside missionary!
I got to talk to sis Soliai this week, have dinner with the B's (a family from Loomis), and hear Brother and Sister J speak at stake conference (also my people from Loomis). It made me feel good that they still remember me and say they miss me :) it was a blast from the past. Good ol Loomis. I'm still hoping for gem to baptize someone over there so I can go back and see everyone!
Friday, Sister Giani had a brutal crash on her bike. She turned away for just a second to look behind her and ran into a curb and ate it! Thank goodness she was wearing her helmet!! Or for real she probably would have died. We had to go to urgent care and they took X-rays, they think it's an occult fracture. President Weston came (so I got to see him again) and made sure she was okay and gave her a priesthood blessing. So we're no longer on bikes...We took the day off Saturday, then Sunday we tried walking around and after 45 minutes she got insanely sick. So we went to Bishop's house for the rest of the day. We think she got dehydrated because of the combo of crazy heat and her pain meds. Bless her little heart. I'm so grateful I haven't been having any problems.
M got baptized on Saturday morning!!! It was the most beautiful baptismal service! She's been through a lot of missionaries and they all got to come back. All the missionaries sang Lead kindly Light and it filled the room with the Spirit. Then an Elder gave a great talk on baptism. Then as we helped her to the baptismal font she started crying. We were in the bathroom trying to help her compose herself and the elder baptizing her patiently waited in the font by himself. After a few minutes of helping her calm down she got into the water in her white jumpsuit and Elder Giles said the baptismal prayer with more feeling than I've ever heard it said. He paused after saying "having been commissioned of Jesus Christ" and an image of Jesus Christ giving this sweet Elder the priesthood authority to properly do the baptismal ordinance popped into my head and the reality of the priesthood and the gospel was brought to my thoughts. After the prayer she was immersed in the water and came up with a big happy smile on her face. As she got dressed Sister Giani and I taught those there the Restoration lesson. And because the Spirit was already there we taught it with great power and even though I was teaching my testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith grew. Then I gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. Bishop welcomed her to the ward, we sang a hymn, prayed and ate some cupcakes. I wish y'all could have been there! It was outstanding and I'm so grateful I got to be a part of it. M is incredible and has completely flipped her life around. She quit smoking after 37 years of being a smoker. Quit the drugs she was on. She always talks about God and probably gives out more pass along cards then we do. I love that girl!
I hope y'all have a great week. I love ya.
Sister Byrne
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