Still in Vila Ema . . . Yay :)

So it didn't work out too well. R... is still drinking a bit of coffee and the family wasn't able to get their neighbors to go to the FHE or church :/ but R... said he has a friend who's interested and another brother in the ward said he has an interested friend.

Wow, interesting week at work for sure. That stinks about the cold. I seem to always get sick when a conference of some type comes around during the mission. At least you were able to get some stuff done!

So transfers are this week. Elder Puga and I are staying together in Vila Ema. Two of the sisters in my district were transferred and it seems three will arrive. One companionship will be a trio. I think I might stay here until my mission ends. I honestly want to end in the Capital because everything is cheaper there, but I'll work where I'm called.

You know I'm not good at writing about real life stuff and that I never read non-fiction so the writer's block gets worse while writing about real stuff :P (I teased Elder Lundy, He's got a gift for writing except when it comes to letters)

I thought that might happen with the bishop haha. "Yay, they returned!" And of course you guys never take vacations! Our bishop came up with the quote of the week here during the "5 minute" rescue effort meeting that we have after church every week. "Se a gente não batisa, a gente faz filho." (Context: There was a birth in the ward and probably will be one more this week or the next.) What the phrase means: "If we don't baptize (converts) we'll have kids." Oh bishop... haha 

Sisters in my district baptized a woman this Sunday! I held an interview with her and it was a really cool experience. The coolest thing is that the brother That brought her to church and eventually baptized her is the father of A..., a young man I baptized while I was in Taubaté. Oh and speaking of Taubaté, Elder Moreira, one of my past companions, is there right now and he mentioned that I was his companion and there's a bunch of people that remember me and even two of the youth (the two that like anime and superheroes and stuff) said they remembered me and liked me a lot. I got all warm and fuzzy :3 Anyways, it looks like we might have some new investigators soon I hope.

And I LOVE YOU!

Easter Week 2017

Happy Easter to you too!

Happy Birthday!!!!! I hope you're able to get over your cold quickly so you can enjoy today!! I know I can't do enough to thank you for everything you've done for me. 

Our teaching pool might go up by one whole family tonight! We're going to have a FHE with a family in the ward and they invited their neighbors.

After there are various reasons that I wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for you. One thing I've learned is that I'm probably not going to be able to pay people back for the majority of what they've done for me so all that's left is to pay it forward instead. So that's what I'm trying to do.

We might be able to baptize R...this Sunday if he stops drinking coffee!

Zone conference was pretty good. It's basically just a series of training sessions with different topics. The most common was prayer. I contributed a fun little thing. What substance makes up 6/7 of our heart? Prayer. It only works in Portuguese. Coração =heart and Oração = prayer so cORAÇÃO! I think they all liked it. I got a bit of a round of applause after that haha :)

I don't know what you did differently with the videos this time but they finally worked!

They don't do much for Easter here. Just party and gatherings and stuff. The Easter candy is chocolate eggs. Really big hollow chocolate eggs. Elder Puga and I didn't roll eggs.

That stinks you couldn't visit the Grandmas :( Congrats for Dan and Mike and their families!

I'm glad you got to have a lot of fun with the little ones! :)

I was happy that Sister Silcox finally stopped worrying about my health haha. It only took my whole mission until now. I'll see where we'll be for Skype soon! Thanks for the help in getting me a place to live! 

Oh so I gave a talk this Sunday and the bishop had to give me the time-up note again! I'm getting a bit better at giving lengthy talks! 

It's getting a bit "chillier" here at night and early in the morning.

That's pretty cool of Bishop Huffaker. It makes me happy when the leaders take the initiative in that sort of thing.

That's about it for me too.Anyways, I love you and Happy Birthday again!

I love you!

Family, Reunions and Eternity

It really seems like you all were having a great time! (We had a family reunion this past week.) Of course I'm a bit jealous, but soon enough I'll be back there. Once I finish my work here that is.

Hahaha poor Shawn! (Dad snores so he  apologized to Shawn today. Shawn slept with ear plugs in last night. )

Tell Sommer and the Burtons hi for me!

My week was alright but kinda slow. This week that's starting up will be cool. We've got zone conference again! The presidency changed the plans a little while ago and said that it's now mandatory to have zone conference and interviews with the president every transfer.

I haven't heard much about how Bishop Samuel is doing but I'm sure he's well.

As it turns out there are a lot of people here in the ward that know people from my comp's home ward which is like 4 to 6 hours away. There's even one person who met him like 8 or 9 years ago and remembered him! (we were shocked and amazed by her memory especially because he was just turning 12 at that time and now he's 20) Small world for sure!

Yesterday we had lunch with one family, then more of their family showed up. lunch was churrasco (grilled stuffs) but later turned into a birthday party for the youngest member of the family who will turn 1 year old tomorrow.

I had a good moment while teaching R... He always seems to comment that we bring a feeling of peace when we visit and I finally got the chance to explain that peace is being brought by the Spirit and this time I think he finally understood!

I'm glad the flights were uneventful! (Sorry this post is late we were flying home this week)

Hooray for Chris!! (Elder Lundy's Older brother graduated from BYUI this week)

haha shooting day(target practice) :3 Aí sim! Congrats on the progress!

I'm glad you had a lot of fun and hope you'll still be able to have some more before going home!

anyways, I love you!

April 2017 General Conference week

Conference was pretty good :) 

We missed the first session on Saturday because of lunch... :( But we were able to see the rest without problem. I just still have some trouble because I can hear both English and Portuguese at the same time so I get a bit of a headache. I'm never able to remember what's talked about during conference so I've finally started up the habit of writing down notes. (I started at the beginning of the mission) The highlight of my week was seeing our investigator R... during the first Sunday session of conference. The coolest thing is that it wasn't even aired in our church building. We had to go to a different church building to watch because only 2 chapels in the stake streamed conference.

That money shirt is awesome! (We sent Elder Lundy a picture ...Our wonderful friends folded us an origami dress shirt with tie it's so cute)

Yup yup! Skyping will happen soon! (Mother's Day) I don't know if I'll still be in this area or if I'll be transferred yet. The transfer will end April 25th. If I stay, there will be absolutely no problem with arranging Skype here.

Thanks for the movie! (We bought Elder Lundy the DVD Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) I got pretty excited about that one for a while too. A bunch of members have told me about it.

Anyways, I love you!

Conference was pretty good :) We missed the first session on Saturday because of lunch... :( But we were able to see the rest without problem.

I just still have some trouble because I can hear both English and Portuguese at the same time so I get a bit of a headache. I'm never able to remember what's talked about during conference so I've finally started up the habit of writing down notes. (I started at the beginning of the mission) The highlight of my week was seeing our investigator R... during the first Sunday session of conference. The coolest thing is that it wasn't even aired in our church building. We had to go to a different church building to watch because only 2 chapels in the stake streamed conference.

That money shirt is awesome! (We sent Elder Lundy a picture ...Our wonderful friend folded us an origami dress shirt with tie it's so cute)

Yup yup! Skyping will happen soon! (Mother's Day) I don't know if I'll still be in this area or if I'll be transferred yet. The transfer will end April 25th. If I stay, there will be absolutely no problem with arranging Skype here.

Thanks for the movie! (We bought Elder Lundy the DVD Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) I got pretty excited about that one for a while too. A bunch of members have told me about it.

Anyways, I love you!