He really talked with us and asked us what we thought and looked us in the eye.

Elder Holland and our mission

 HELLO! IN ENGLISH! OI! EM PORTUGUÊS! Sometimes I like to just say everything in two languages. Maybe someday I will be a good translator. It´s the small steps that get us there. Oh my goodness! Elder Holland´s translator was INCREDIBLE! Some of the words I was like "Now there´s no way he knows how to say that." BUT HE KNEW! I wonder if he tells him the hard words ahead of time. Anyways, it was impressive, if you´ve ever tried to translate before.

    BUT Elder Holland´s visit to us was so great! We all got to shake hands with him and then he talked with us. I thought he would give a talk, but it was very different. He came down from the pulpit and really talked with us and asked us what we thought and looked us in the eye, like a normal person. I could really feel that he is concerned with the well-being of each of us, that he really does love us. Most importantly, he is an apostle called of God to take care of His children here on the earth. If this is the talk I think it is, he talked a bit about this, among other things, but I really love this talk about what it means to be a representative of Jesus Christ:

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2012-12-1270-mission-preparation-track-23-jeffrey-r-holland?lang=eng

      I learned a lot of things that I needed to hear and I really liked when he said "We have to do what we do because of the fire [inside us]." He was talking about our work as messengers of the true gospel of Christ.

      Thought of the Day from João Batista (John the Baptist), one of our english students:

     "We want to build a new world of God. Come on let´s go all of us together. We are children of God."

English class! John the Baptist is the grandpa.

      We had family home evening as an English class and John the Baptist (that´s his real name) gave the thought at the beginning. We were so proud of him! He was too, because when I asked if I could keep the paper, he offered to autograph it for us. How cute.

I hope everyone is having a great week! Don´t hate Mondays please! That´s one day you´ll live less happy and we are here to be happy! 2 Nefi 2:25

Love,

Sister Arthur

TORTOISE. It's someone's pet.
He was licking me during lunch!