Letter From April 11th, 2012

This will have to be a pretty short email today because I am almost out of time. I can't believe that Trey is already 12 years old.  It seems like only yesterday he was just a little guy. By the time I get back he is gonna be bigger than me.

 

This week has been long,  but went well.  We had a good turn out at Church and all, and we actuallly had 2 less active members come back in to activity. The guy had been the ex-branch president and district president and had fallen away for a couple of years, but he is back now.  Him and his wife are really great people.   We will be using Skype at their house to call on Mother's Day.  I'm so pumped, I can hardly wait!!

 

Well I bet your wondering about how the transfers went and all.  I'm staying here in the area with my comp too.  I reversed the curse and will finally stay 2 transfers with the same comp (ha ha).  And also we have 2 new elders living with us because they opened up a new area here.  One of them is an American who got here today.  He is really green, but he is already speaking pretty well.  But, our house is  really small is the thing that is gonna be rough now.   I  love you all and will talk to you here in a couple of days.  Sorry about the short email.

Letter From April 2nd, 2012

I absolutely love General Conference. Such a strong spirit. Usually they have it in English, but they only had it in Portuguese again.   I felt bad for the newbies that didn't understand hardly anything. My favorite talk was Eder Jeffery R. Holland's talk.  He goes way hard.  He is my favorite apostle, but there were a lot of good talks given.  I didn't get to watch the priesthood session, so I still don't know how that was.  But, I did get to watch the 4 main sessions.  It's always nice to get a little break every once in a while from walking everywhere and sit under the AC for a little bit.  We were able to take a couple of investigators to watch Conference and they all said that they liked it.

We baptized a young lady who is the Relief Society's niece.  Yes, here we have to get permission to baptize if they are under the age of 18.  But, we have the baptismal record paper thing that when the parents sign it you can baptism them.  It had been awhile since we had baptized, but finally we had one.  This is the last week of this transfer so are gonna have the "drought" here this week and a half without emailing.  Who knows - maybe the next email I send will be in a different area, but I don't think that I will leave.  I have only been here for 3 months.  We are gonna get a lot of new missionaries this transfer, like 19 newbies and only 3 people are going home, so there is gonna be a lot of new areas that will open up.  So, I think maybe my comp and I will stick together and get some new elders in our house. I would like to stay with my comp another transfer.  I like him a lot.  But, as you know, President doesn't like to leave me with anyone even if I do like them.  Until now I have never stayed 2 transers with anyone, so I don't see that starting now (ha ha).  But, we'll see what happens.  A part of me wants to stay, but then again, there is a part of me that wants to go.

That's thats about it for this week.   One other thing, we got to do a service project this week for a member who was needing some help with doing the floor in their new house. Man, am I sure grateful for the way that we build our houses in the states.  It's way better.  Really, I'm gonna be so grateful when I get back for so many things that I think we take for granted as Americans and especially as members of the Church.  Love you all so much.  Talk to you here in a week and a half:)

Letter from March 19th, 2012

 Man - I just miss the snow so much.  I think when I come home, I'm just gonna spend like a straight week snowboarding.  That's so crazy that you guys got a snow day a week before Spring Break (ha ha).  It's pretty funny here because there are some people who when it gets to be about 75 degrees, they start to complain about how it's cold and then I just like to laugh at them and I tell them they don't even know what cold is!

 

     I got lucky on Tuesday at Zone Conference and I didn't get called on to talk (ha ha).  But, I was prepared.  It only had to be like 5 minutes long.  It's hilarious how before the mission a 5 minute talk seemed like a big deal, but now that's a piece of cake!  But each person in our Zone had to memorize a paragraph from the Family Proclamation and prepare a talk based on the paragraph.  So, I got the third paragraph which is the second longest, but it wasn't too tough.  It was cool to see all of the old freinds that I have made at the Conference. There was one of the elders from my MTC District.  I would just love to be comps with him, but we´ll see if that ever happens.  I don't think Pres. Hall gives much attention when people ask to be comps with someone. 

 

     I'm sending a pic of me and the sign that there is as you come into the city.  It says "Welcome to Rio Tinto". This week was a pretty normal week. On Tuesday we had the Zone Conference.  All of the talks were about the family and the importance of the family in God's plan.  It was an awesome meeting.   I think everyone got a little trunky thinking about marriage and everything (ha ha).  My Branch Pres. has a new born baby girl that is just the cutest little thing.  I just can't wait to be a dad (ha ha).  But, I still got a little time left before that comes.  The parents of the young woman still didn't give permission, but we will see if they change their minds. Yesterday at Church it was awesome to see a man, that the Lord baptized through me a couple of weeks ago, pass the sacrament for the first time.  I was so happy!!  But, other than that things are pretty much the same ol' same ol' here - just workin' hard to get these people dunked here.  I love you sooo much - have a great week!!