Just a good week!

So this week flew by super fast! I´m loving, LOVING Guarabira. It has everything--amazing people to teach, beautiful hills, a big town square filled with trees and Christmas lights, and tons and tons of Açai and Guaraná! Í have to admit that my companion and I are a little addicted to acai! I wish you guys could try it, but this is just no way to take it back with me! Don´t worry though, it will definitely be a food present in the Celestial Kingdom. This last week we worked super hard and met a lot of really cool people, but unfortunately very few of them went to church yesterday. Truly the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak describes these people. They are just so wonderful, but when it comes down to going to church they just give excuses! This past week we watched the Joseph Smith movie with an investigator and recent convert and I just forgot how much I love that movie! When they briefly showed the first missionaries going to Europe and teaching I felt super proud to be a missionary! That movie really was awesome though and helped me feel the Spirit and gain a stronger testimony about the Prophet Joseph Smith. What a hard life he had! How grateful I am that he never gave up, but endured to the end, restored Christ´s gospel, and therefore blessed the lives of millions and millions of people. After the movie/lesson we exited the tiny house and started walking through the neighborhood on the cobblestoned street I just thinking about how cool it was that I am preaching the same gospel that Joseph Smith restored and the same gospel that the Savior taught to the people in Jerusalem. It is just the coolest thing ever to preach the gospel...to carry the good news of the gospel. And even more of a blessing to preach to the Brazilian people! At times I think it will be the weirdest thing to return home. I´m used to small houses painted all sorts of wild colors, cobblestoned trees, palm trees, loud Brazilian music blasting from the houses, burning hot sun, beans and rice, etc. The U.S. will be a huge shock and I getting super nervous about going back home in April. Luckily I still have a few months to get used to the fact that I have to go home. Well yesterday I gave a talk and so did my district leader Elder Siqueira! We must have done a pretty good job because everyone complimented us afterwards. I talked about one of the biggest mistakes I made in my life---to wait until my mission to be a missionary. All my life I thought, wow I can't wait to be a missionary. What I didn't realized is that you can be a missionary at any point in your life! I told the branch that at the beginning of my mission I just started to think about the hundreds and thousands of people I talked to in my life and how I rarely shared the gospel. After almost 15 months on the mission I think the Lord is finally forgiving me for all the opportunities I had to share the gospel and didn't. I think this is one of the biggest mistakes we as members make. We think that giving a reference to the missionaries every 6 months makes us a member missionary. If I come back and am this type of member missionary I hope the Lord strikes me down on the spot! Anyway, well I hope you all are doing great! Have a wonderful week and Merry Christmas to you all!