I lost track of what week I'm on... 10, 11? Nao sei!! :)

         Oiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!! 

Heeeeelllloooooo everyone!!! I have just got to say- This week was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!! Full of miracles, I just feel so blessed! I love Oklahoma!!!!! I love being a missionary!!!!!!! ahhh! Okay, just had to get that out of my system! (When I feel the spirit I just get so excited! Some people get very emotional which also has happened out here but for the most part I just want to jump up and down and yell "hallelujah! The Church is True!!! Amen!!" Anything like that:) 

Anyways.........   Where to begin! 

Oh Todd Walker:) We love this man so much! He is just amazing. He has been investigating the church and meeting with missionaries for over 2 years now. Miracle! He is getting baptized on the 24th. We have been teaching him since I arrived here and just in the time that I have been able to get to know him. He has changed so much.

It is so neat to see the Gospel work in people's lives and and see their hearts soften to the message and truly desire to change. He has been smoking and drinking coffee pretty much his whole life. Missionaries have attempted to help him stop in the past, but the true desire and understanding was never there. My companion and I decided that if we are asking him to change his life to better live the Word of Wisdom- so can we.

So we wrote out a resolution, signed and dated it. When committing him to the Word of Wisdom we told him that we are also committing. We are not eating any more candy- especially chocolate because it is our favorite or any other sweet treats. Unless it is offered to us while our missions at dinner appointments, we don't want to be rude. :) I know you are all thinking we are CRAZY, and I know that it will be sooo hard. But what we are asking Todd is really hard for him too. (Mostly the coffee).

When we told him what we were committing to do, he began to cry. He was so grateful for our love and our true desire to help him. AND HE COMMITTED! We call him every morning night and report on our goals and so does he.

It is truly amazing how the Lord can help you to keep his commandments. My companion and I prayed for help in this seemingly silly goal, but sincerely because we want to be able to understand what we are asking others to do.

One dinner appointment we had coconut cream pie and those who know me know how much I love coconut, I had to force myself to eat it. It was not yummy, strangely. I thought it was just my pie but I had a bite of my comp's delicious looking chocolate pie and the same thing. I know the Lord is helping me and Todd Walker to better keep the commandments he gives us. 

As far as all the treats that I had in my cupboard. We gave them all to the Elders! (Garbage Disposals!:) We helped clean out and pack a blind elderly ladies apartment this week and she needed us to take some of her stuff for her. She gave us a whole bunch of adult diapers... we didn't know what to do with them... so we put our candy in them and gave them to the Elders.. haha they loved it. They didn't expect it all. It was funny!

Something neat! - Temple Conference! I love going to the temple so much. I HIGHLY encourage all who are able to go right away! You won't be sorry- besides the fact that it is the temple. There is something new and you will LOVE IT! :) It was great to also see all of the missionaries in the mission- including Sister Zambrana (came with me from the MTC). 

Our Mission President has set a goal for the Mission. He refers to it as our vision. We as a mission, are going to work to have 100 baptisms in the month of August as a whole. That means one to two baptisms per companionship. We are all very excited for the challenge and know that Heavenly Father will guide us to the places we need to be to be finding and teaching the people we need to teach as long as we are working our hardest and being the obedient faithful missionary he expects us to be. We have been setting many goals and are going to do our best to contribute to the Vision.

We are also teaching a really sweet old man named Tom. He has had Hiccups for 3 years. Sadly, his twin brother passed away from the hiccups. I thought this sounded odd at first but if you have ever met someone diagnosed with hiccups its so sad! He loves the things we teach him and "meditates" about all the things he is learning. We hope that he can start coming to church! 

We are going to be teaching a man from Nigeria and another man and his friends from Uganda! When I told them I went to Ghana last year they are very interested in talking to us:) There are surprisingly a lot of Africans here. They are so loving and teachable! We are excited to teach them and I am grateful for the connection I now have with Africa. I love the people of Ghana and miss them so much. I met a member from Ghana the other day and we had a great conversation! He was from Cape Coast:)

It is amazing- this world. Full of so many incredible people. I love all of you in Oregon and Utah and Africa and Oklahoma and Turkey and everywhere else this email goes haha! This world is an amazing place and am grateful to live on this earth- despite the evil, there is so much good. Like Sister Neilson said in her email to me today, "just look up!" The sky is only the beginning of the blessings and beauty of the earth. :)

We are also teaching a German Girl. Her name is Taisha. I truly feel as if she is the reason that I am in Oklahoma and not Brazil yet. I KNOW I was meant to meet her. She is so sweet, I love her so much. Her heart has been prepared no doubt. I look forward to updating you on how things go with her. We met her this Saturday and are meeting with her pretty much everyday this week:) Life is good, this mission is great! I love you all. Thank you for keeping in touch and up dating me. I love hearing about the missions of all my cousins and friends. What a great time to be a missionary!!! :) 

I pray for you all and hope that you have a great week! I know this is Jesus Christ's Church restored to the earth today in it's fullness and that it blesses our lives as we earnestly seek to live and abide by it's teaching- by keeping the commandments and loving others.

Have an amazing week!

Love Sister Edwards

Ps Mom you can choose who you send my "funny story to" haha I know you guys would at least laugh 

Okay funny story- I have permission to share this. Please don't think I am talking about my companion behind her back she is fully aware I am sharing and doesn't mind in the least. We were all laughing so hard we were crying and she is just fine with sharing:) I love her confidence! She is so great she makes me laugh every day with her sweet spirit.

So we were at a dinner appointment with a recent convert whom we all love- Sister Goewey. She is the 'Missionary's Grandma' out here! We love her! So it was after dinner and we were playing a game around her very old dinning room table. It is called Smoke the Bowl. It's pretty much like, I think it's called catch phrase, where you have words in the bowl and you have to try and get your partner to guess them without saying the word and you have to get all of them in the bowl before the time runs out.

Sunday dinners are always with all the missionaries in our ward (3 Elders and 3 sisters). So the whole lot of us were playing with the Goeweys, just having a good 'ol time. Now, on one of my companions turn (she being a very loud and we'll say an excited person) was bouncing up and down and up and down in her chair trying to guess the words. Then finally when her turn was over and she excitedly bounced back down into her chair it broke!!! (This all happened very fast and and we were all dying of laughter!) Startled, she when to get up and accidentally tooted and laughing so hard also drooled. (This was all a matter of about 10 seconds.) Oh man she had us in stitches! She is not someone who ever gets embarrassed which is a trait we wish I had more of but ahhhh man. We just couldn't stop laughing along with her. There is my story for the day, I hope it made you laugh as much as us.