This past week had nothing big happen, because we had a division and it was just somewhat of a different week.

However, this week was transfers. Elder Deffense left and I stayed here; however, we got off to a fantastic start when Elder Deffense took our phone!!!  So we are without a phone!!! I am now with Elder Way, another American, and he is District Leader!!!!haha.  Elder Way told me this transfer is going to be my growing transfer…so we will see what that actually means.  Haha.  I get to be the “senior” for a week because I know the area, so I am hoping I do well.  My Portuguese will for sure improve this week as I play “senior” for a little while.

We are hoping to have a really good transfer. We have a lot set up to do, people to teach and plans. It is so weird to spend six weeks with someone and then just one day, bye.  Then you spend six weeks with another. haha just very strange. Hey!!! I hit my six months this past Saturday!!!

My knees are fine and what not, just a little weak, so I can’t do much sports wise, but that’s fine. I carry that brace you sent me just in case I hurt it while we’re out walking.

I understand the foreign missionaries coming into Brazil are starting to back up again, so I’m really hoping Brenna and Spencer get their visas.   Rumor has it they will be some of the last to enter. It has been said that they are done trying to get Americans in. So they lowered the mission age here to 18 starting this next year, and then they will be only natives. So that will be interesting to see if that really is true.  You know how something gets said and then things get started and then just snowball, so I’m not for sure if it’s true or only rumor.

I am super excited to see where everyone is getting their calls to!!!   Please let me know.

Tell everyone at work hi for me!!!!

Well, sorry this isn’t much of an email. I promise it will be better next week!!! I love you all and miss you all so much!!!

Hey do you know if Grandma and Grandpa ever got the letter I sent them? I am a little worried some letters I sent never made it. Anyhow Bye!!

 

Not much new is happening.  I am excited for General Conference that is coming up. We had like a zone gathering of missionaries today and our District Leader ended up at our house for lunch.  Actually, he ended up cleaning our entire house which was nice.  However, we were planning on cleaning it up over the next week. It has been fairly dirty since we arrived... due to the fact there was an explosion in our house. But now it is all swept up.

We had a baptism yesterday. It’s the first baptism since our transfer and assignment to these two areas.  It was a baptism worth 100 baptisms. This woman, when she was 7 years old was attacked or something. She ended up being stabbed in the back several times.  I believe then the person tried to kill her by cutting her throat. As if stabbing her multiple times weren’t enough. She has use of her head and right arm, but that is really about it. So she has lived her life in a bed. She has been in a bed since she was 7. But, this past year she became bitter and saw no point to life and wished to end it. One day, for some reason, she prayed that God or an angel would come visit her. That same day, a man that she knew, really, they were not friends, they simply knew of each other, felt prompted to ask her son or brother if he could visit her. He told him he could try, but that she hadn’t been accepting visits for almost a year. So he decided to visit her anyway. It was the same day as her prayer. When he arrived she could sense a change or something different about him. When she asked him about it, he explained to her the gospel that he had found and how he was baptized three months earlier. So he began sharing the gospel with her and he took her to church and everything. Then he contacted us and asked us to stop by. So we did. At the end of our first visit we invited her to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know what we have said is true. And she was like, I already do. So, all of our visits were basically easy because she accepted everything right away. So we baptized her yesterday. Elder Deffense held her in the water and her friend did the baptizing. We had many people from the ward there. It was a perfect baptism! She has also said that she is already planning a trip to the temple one year from now.

This Saturday I will be at 6 months which is very weird. We are almost done with this transfer so I may once again stay or go. Part of me wants to stay because I don’t want to have to move again, but part of me wants to head off somewhere new. Unfortunately I am not really sure my baptism goal is achievable due to this transfer, but I have a year and a half left to get to it, so we shall see!!!

Well, I don’t have much more for you this week.  I may not get to email next week depending on if I move.  Like I said, I feel I am getting closer to heading to the interior, which is a 10 hour bus ride on a really nice bus. But I love you all and miss you all so much!!! Until next week!!!

Well, I don’t have much to report this week because Elder Deffense and I have been dealing with some rather large... issues. We still don’t have any baptisms in this new area, but it has been really rough. So, we are really hoping that with our two weeks left we will reach our goal.  I will send you a letter about all that is going on because it might get blocked by the church if I send it through an email. I am closing in on 6 months which is really neat!! 

I absolutely have fallen in love with President Batt this past transfer. He’s always been "cool" and really "neat", but I have never had much interaction with him; however, this past transfer I have really been able to get to know him better.

Oh, I did something to my other knee this past week. haha. It’s been swollen and tight for the last few days and rather weak. But!!! Fortunately I had the fantastic timing of fast Sunday!!! So I fasted for my knees!!! Haha sounds a little funny, but I really would rather be able to return from my mission and be able to do activities I enjoy. So my knees are a rather big concern of mine.

I have a feeling I may end up in the interior in a few transfers... which means letters, well, I only get them once a transfer. And I am there, most likely, for 6 months, so about three transfers. So just a heads up!!!

I am looking forward to a letter from Logan!!!

I really am sorry I don’t have much for you this week, but it has been filled with many problems.

Well, I miss you all and hope all is well!!! Love you all so much!!!! Até o proxímo semana!!!

August 30, 2010

This past week has been a really rough one. Our numbers were horrible, our work wasn’t the greatest. But we have had a lot of issues come up that hindered our work. So hopefully this next week will be better!

However, because you all complained from over 9,000 something miles away about my writing, I have a story for you today.

We were at church one day last week, I think it was Sunday. A family came in off the street because they were looking for a church and the husband/son said that they felt something telling him to enter our building, so they did. Elder Deffense and I were down the hall waiting for the Bishop when this sister came running to us telling us to “get over to the entrance because a baptism just walked through the door”. We followed her to this family and gave them a tour, and told them when church was. They were like, oh, oh, well, we can’t go to church in the mornings, bye. So we stopped them and planned to visit them that following Tuesday. So Tuesday comes and we have their address, but we looked and looked and couldn’t find the street. We asked everyone we knew if they knew this street but nobody knew of it. So, it was a lost cause until Friday night when I was sitting at my desk and mentioned this family again to Elder Deffense. He said there was nothing we could do, the address didn’t exist. But I told him the family does exist and I would find them. So I went to bed saying the address over and over again in my head. I woke up the next morning and started doing my normal stuff and then sat down to start my personal study. I got half way through a chapter when I remembered the family and promised myself they existed and that I would find them. So I got all the maps I could find and just started going through street names and map after map. And then there it was, it was the street that didn’t exist. The address of the family was two or three areas away from us, so it would be about a 40-50 minute walk, so I ran into the room where Elder Deffense was and was yelling at him that “I found them, I found them”. He was confused because I didn’t specify who I had actually found, but as soon as I said it was the family he called the missionaries there and the missionaries went to their home that day, and they were going to go to church the following day. They said “no” to us because they thought they would have to walk to our church every Sunday and for them that would mean leaving home at 6 every Sunday to get to our 9 o’clock meeting. But the building in the other area is way close to them. They thought that we forgot about them so the other Elders had to explain the issue that we had had so, last we knew, they are planning on getting baptized this next Saturday.

So that is my story for you!

I had something that I had thought about to ask, but.... I have forgotten... like normal... haha so if I remember, I’ll have to ask you next week!!

Have a great week!!! Miss you all!!! Love ya!!!