8.26.19: 2 white girls trying not to step on dog poo in brazil

Eliane was baptized on Sunday! She is the best! She has two daughters that are super cute. Her husband does not want anything to do with us and wouldn't even come to her baptism which I felt super bad for her. We are working on that though. My companion gave her that purple dress and she was SO HAPPY. she said that she had been preoccupied with what she was going to wear bc she felt like she didn't have anything nice enough (most people here are pretty poor) so it was def a blessing that my comp gave her that dress bc she wouldn't have told us that. 

We had another split exchange thing and I was with another girl that I was actually in the same ward with at BYU. It was really fun and hilarious bc neither one of us really understood everything that was going on. Obvi we ate açai but i probably don´t need to write that anymore. The whole time we were just laughing that we were talking to people in Brazil and 3 months ago we both didn't know portuguese but we were just 2 white girls walking around together trying to understand some crazy brazilians tell us all their random stories. 

I read a talk that explained the differences between sin and weaknesses. It was super cool and talked about how weaknesses are in our mortal nature and given to us by God, but we can acquire strength and access the capacitating power of the atonement and make our weaknesses stronger. But sin is deliberate disobedience to God and we need to repent and be purified. A quote I liked : "Although sin inevitably distances us from God, weakness, ironically, can lead us to Him" (To be weak is not a sin- Wendy Ulrich) liahona april 2015. The talk explains it way better if you wanna look it up. 

I definitely feel inadequate as a missionary but it was really good to read this talk and remember that we are supposed to have weakness because that is what can actually lead us to have a stronger relationship with Jesus Christ. 

Tchau tchau <3

Sister Barton