Awesome members, devil plant, chicken at midnight

Goodness the weeks just fly by! Tomorrow I will have officially been a missionary for 5 months! Can you believe it?! Somedays it feels like I said goodbye to you only a few weeks ago! Things are going great here in Potengi/Natal. The ward is AWESOME! We have a big chapel and a piano that plays all the hymns by itself—cool huh?! And behind the chapel there is a spare lot that the church owns that has goiaba and caja trees---so we are never hungry during church. The only bad thing is that there is a plant that also lives back there that I call—a planta do diabo. IF you brush up against it it feels like you´ve been stung by a couple wasps! It is so painful! Red boils immediately appeared on my legs when I walked through one of these plants but luckily they went away after a day. Unfortunately my comp. walked through one the same day and is still suffering the effects! Devil plant! The members here are awesome, Awesome, AWESOME! Yesterday at lunch we listened to a member tell stories about the violence in Rio de Janiero and it was so interesting, but I~m glad I~m not serving a mission there. After lunch we had a dessert made from a special fruit, cupuaça, that only grows in the Amazon. It was heavenly! I may be a little biased, but I think Brasil officially has the best fruit in the world!So if I return from the mission and cant find anyone to marry in the U.S. I can return to Brasil and get married without even trying. Yesterday a guy ran up to me in church and told me his friend liked me and decided he was going to wait for me until I finished my mission. Ummm…thanks? 5 months ago if a person said that I would have really been weirded out, but now it is just normal. This week our investigator was saying the prayer at the end of one of our lessons and asked Heavenly Father to ´´please let Sister Wood come back and teach me many more times.´´ Talk about awkward/hilarious! Im not sure what my companion though about that prayer! So yesterday in church we had an elder who was traveling around the mission with his dad visit our sacrament meeting. His dad didn’t speak Portuguese so I decided to speak English with him. Oh goodness gracious what a disaster! I officially can't speak English anymore. My companion just laughed and laughed as I struggled to communicate in my own language. So this week I was talking with some people about Easter and asked them what traditions they had here in Brazil. One guys said oh just the normal ones—the easter bunny, the chicken at midnight, Judas in the street.. O que?! Chicken at midnight? Judas in the street? They have a tradition here that during Easter at midnight you steal your neighbors chicken and the next day you eat it.. Im not really sure what that symbolizes, but to each their own. Also people dress up scarecrow type of people to look like Judas Iscariot and place him in their yards and in the streets. Judas is a little modernized and usually just looks like a drunk with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. Again…not exactly sure why they do it, but I find it hilarious. O.K. enough about the funny things in my life….now for the spiritual things. Lots of things have happened in these pasts months that have made me realize that the little choice everyday make people who they are. The little choices seem to make more difference than the big ones at times. I see so many people missing out on the blessings God has for them because they refuse to do the small things—like reading the scriptures everyday or saying your daily prayers or going to church. These little choices we make everyday, every hour make up who we are in the end. It is amazing the negative consequences of not saying a prayer in the morning…when a person does this they are choosing to forego the opportunity to thank God for their blessings, to ask for the things they really need in their lives, and worst of all they are distancing themselves from God without really knowing it. On the other hand the choice to say your morning prayers (even if it is 1 minute long) has infinite blessings. If I say my prayers I show many things to God—(1) that I am making time for Him, (2) that I am grateful for the blessings I have, (3) my reliance on the Lord, (4)my faith that the Lord will bless me, etc. The consequences of this small choice, to say a prayer everyday are overwhelming. When a person pray—he shows humility and reliance on the Lord. As a person prays for others anger, hatred, selfishness are replaced by love and a desire to serve and bless the lives of others. The most important thing people will learn when they make this small choice is that they have a loving Father in Heaven who wants to bless them. Anyway I am thoroughly convinced that the big things really are the small things. I see people making these small choices between the good and the bad every day and as a result I see many people finding a happiness that they never realized existed and others unfortunately finding an unhappiness and sorrow that cannot be conforted. The scripture in Alma—wickedness never was happiness—is a thing I see first hand everyday. Watching people make these small choices are where my greatest happiness and sadness come from. It breaks my heart when I hear a person say they don’t want to pray to know the Book of Mormon is true, or when a person says they know the things we have taught are true, but don’t want to be baptized. However my heart rejoices everytime I hear a person say they prayed to know Joseph Smith was a prophet or everytime a person decides to forego the beach or soccer game and go to church. A lot of times people focus more on the big choices in life than the little ones and forget that only through the little choices will eventually make up who we are. Anyway Im not exactly sure why Im writing this... Just woke up this morning and felt like I needed to write about this today. Just remember to always be examining your lives and think about what little choices you are making everyday and where these choices are taking you. Love you,Sister Wood