7/16/12 Email from São Mateus

[How was your week?]  This week was a really good week, we had a baptism this week that was pretty much a surprise.  This investigator has been studying with the missionaries for about 8 months and we hadn't been visiting him, but he was going to church and this last Sunday he said that he wanted to be baptized.  We worked as hard as we could to make sure that the baptism happened this week and it did!  Saturday I helped put up a roof at a members house and now I am really sore. After that we walked around and finished our day off.

Yesterday we were lead by the Spirit pretty much all day.  We helped an investigator know that what she was feeling was the Spirit and know why it is that we do not worship the Catholic Saints and a lot of other things.  After that we got stopped by an inactive member that has been inactive for a long time.  She said that she wants to come back to church and have her husband baptized.  After that we went and talked with a family of members to schedule a family home evening and we asked them about the less active members in the area and they told us about one.  So we went and visited them and when we got there they were just getting home.  We marked to visit them another day but we found out that she is going to a different church now, so we are going to help her  find her testimony if we can.  Then there was this dude that stopped me and my companion in the street and wanted to talk with us.  We talked with him and he took us for a ride around in his car, a really nice one, and we just talked about the Church and our purpose.  After awhile he took us to get something to eat.  We gave him a Book Of Mormon and got his address to send the missionaries to visit with him and his family as he lives in another city.  Yeah that all was pretty cool.  I have been feeling the Spirit guiding us a lot in our work this week.

[You said you were on a bus for 10 hours, how come?]  So I was on that bus for 10 hours because I had to go and renew my visa in Vitoria and no I would not have done that just for fun.

 

[I wanted to text you when I was out of town as I was texting your sister and dad too and was a little sad because I couldn't.]  Well, mom I hope that you can hold out just a little bit longer.  I know that I am far away and you miss me, but I only have a little bit more time here, you can't get trunky on me just yet.

[How is your companion and did the other missionaries get to stay in your area?]    My companion is helping me learn how to draw better.  I am the oldest missionary age wise here in the city, the two new missionaries here are both 21 and their missions end at the end of this transfer.  We re-divided the boundaries of our areas for the two companionships here.  We went from teaching in the poorest part of the city to working in the richest part of the city.  We are now teaching some rich people, we will see how that goes.  I am still working near the beach as well, that is still pretty awesome.

Oh, I forgot to tell you that I have, what is called by the missionaries, a snake (a snake is a girl in the mission boundaries that likes a missionary).  Well, my snake is in one of my old areas, but her mom said that she willing to wait for me to end my mission and then she wants to marry me.  That was a little strange for me.

So that is pretty much most of what I can remember from this week.  I am really missing my guitar and ukulele.  Love you and miss you!

Elder McBarron