Family!!!!!

Ah!!!!!!!!! So much is happening at home it is just crazy!!!!! I can't believe Steffy's misison papers are in!!!!!!!!! I am so so so excited for her! I can't wait to hear where it is she is going to go!!!! She will be so great! And I hope she leaves soon! And the other news. Ah! Brooke is engaged!!!! Craziness! I am soooo happy for her! I can't believe it! It is sad because we have always had plans to be together for this part in our lives and the things we would do together before. Ah! But they are so cute and perfect! :) So we had a baptism on Sunday!!!!! His name is Eduardo and he is 24 years old. He turned his life completely around. If you saw him before you would never think him a candidate for getting baptised. He was always drunk when we saw him. He smoked and he did drugs. But he showed up at church last week! And so we set a time to talk with him on Tuesday. So we taught him about the Restoration. And we ended up marking him for baptism for the next sunday. And he excepted!!!! We didn't think he would! So at the end of the lesson. We had him pray and we told him to ask if this was the path that God wanted him to follow right now in his life and if he needed to be baptized on sunday. He said the prayer, and we waited. And waited. And waited. His phone rang. He stopped it in his pocket and went back to pondering with his eyes closed. We probably sat for at least 10 minutes. (we had Aline with us. A member. She is super cute!) When he finally looked up we asked him how he was feeling. And he says that he felt a peace that he has never felt before in his life. A peace that he can only get close to feeling when he does yoga. Ha. We told him that is the spirit. :) We met with him throughout the week to teach him everything else! We ended up teaching him everything in 3 days!!!! Which is super crazy! He was supposed to have his baptismal interview on Friday. We called 15 minutes before he was to have it and reviewed the questions with him and had him explain everything to us. And he passed! He said he was at his grandparents house and he would try to make it in time.  But he never showed up! We began to be super sad. And on Saturday he wasn't answering any of our calls or texts... We started thinking he might have relapsed and gave in to smoking or doing drugs or drinking or something. Then sunday morning just before church, he showed up in the mission office and told the Elders that he was there to get his interview. Ha. We were sooo happy! But sooo upset with him little stinker! He should have told us! Luckily we kept planning it and calling people to do things even though we didn't know if it was going to happen or not. Talk about a test of faith! We were quite stressed sunday morning though. Ha. Little punk. ;P But everything turned out really great the members said! Me and Sister Wach didn't realize because we were too busy worrying about everything. Ha. So he will get the gift of the Holy Ghost next sunday! Anyways, I hope all is well at home!!!! I want you to know that I am super happy and loving it here so much! Even when we have crappy days. The next day makes it better! Or there somehow always seems to be something in the day that makes it all worth it. Plus, when a new day comes, it is like all the bad from the day before has been wiped clean from our memories. It is the weirdest thing. But I like it. Oh!!!! Another big news!!!! I chopped off my hair!!!! It is gone!!!!! I never ever thought I would actually get myself to doing that ever. But I did! Right when the Portuguese lady chopped the first piece, Sis. Wach said, "Well, it's too late to turn back now" hahaha. That is what I thought too! It is crazy! I haven't had short hair like this since I was little! It was quite the experience watching her chop off my hair! There was soooo much hair on the floor! And My head is much lighter now. I felt like I had no hair on my head. ha. But I am super excited. I will send picures!!! ;) Love you guys so much! 

Love Always,
Sister Amanda Stokes