Witorya, Nuria's Daughter

This week we had a baptism! Witorya (Nuria´s daughter) turned 8 last month and since Nuria is a recent convert, Witorya counts as the mission´s baptism...meaning we had to teach her the lessons. . . . One day I will have a baptism where everything goes smoothly. Nuria and Witorya decided to ask José to perform the baptism (my recent convert and Nuria´s friend). Well I made the mistake thinking that because she was shorter she needed less water in the baptismal font...big mistake. Between the lower water level and José´s nerves, Witorya was dunked 3 times each time more unsuccessful than the other. So...Witorya was in the font crying becuase the water was cold, the branch president was at the front of the font trying to give José advice on how to baptize, Nuria was at the front of the font scolding Witorya for not keeping her feet under the water, Sis. Chipman had no idea what was going on, the elder´s were trying not to laugh and I was behind the font with my head buried in Witorya´s towel not believing this was actually happening. Well...it was finally decided that E. Morais would baptizer her. He has more experience and promised to baptizer her quickly. As soon has he said amen, he put her under the water before she had time to worry about the temperature of the water. Wow...baptisms are a lot of work! As soon as she came out of the water she was all smiles and joking...oh I love how quickly kids get over things!

We also had zone conference this week, which meant interviews! Pres. Prieto gave Sis. Chipman the challenge to speak Portuguese fluently by the next zone conference (25 days from today). Well he told me that if she wasn´t fluent, the fault would be on my shoulders...talk about pressure! I´m trying my best to help her and she´s doing really well at memorizing the verb conjugations. . .

So this week...my birthday was fun. The elder´s planned a "surprise" party with the brownies that mom sent me. They planned it @ Nuria´s house and even sang to me in English! Well, here in Brazil, they don´t have brownies, so they weren´t really sure how to make them...plus the directions on the package were in English. Nuria stuck the brownies in the oven and waited for them to rise...brownies don´t rise...so they burned rock hard. They hurridly bought some cake mix and threw it together almost in time for me to walk in. Oh I love these people so much!

Hahaha...this story happened today. We had lunch at an investigator´s house (the elder´s are teaching them) and they fried fish for us. This is one of the fish heads, complete with eye balls and teeth. Well...they challenged me to eat a fish head, and since I´m always asking for adventures, I accepted. Everything was going well until I pulled a piece of meat back and the eyeball started to pop out...then I started to feel sick. I´m not going to be eating fish for a while.