A obra está progredindo!

Oi família!
Tudo bem?!

It´s been another good week here in Pouso Alegre.  The definite
highlight of the week was Tchelo´s baptism yesterday.  It was honestly
a miracle how fast he accepted the gospel and sacrificed everything to
change.  We met with him every day this week helping him and
encouraging him.  His birth family rejected his decision, his adopted
family rejected his decision, his girlfriend rejected his decision, a
lot of his friends rejected it, but he stayed firm.  It´s honestly
amazing to see a miracle like this occur in the life of a friend.  I
was talking with him the other day, and started talking about a friend
of his who drinks, is addicted to marijuana, and just really isn´t
happy, and I asked him `Why do people do these things to themselves?
Why don´t they just think for a minute?  It doesn´t make any sense?`
and he replied to me `Porque eles não têm propósito.  Mas temos
propósito.`  It´s been so cool too see him find purpose in life, and
make a goal to have eternal life.  We´ll keep working with him a lot
this week before his confirmation next week, so should be another
great week.  Right now he´s looking for another house to live in, and
is thinking about moving to the states or to Argentina.

Other than that the week was kind of difficult.  We have a lot of potential investigators, but haven´t been able to teach a lot of them.  Lots of dropped appointments.  We
are going to change barrios this week to see if we can´t find some
houses to enter and some families to teach.  We had another
investigator who was progressing really well but didn´t come to Church
again after promising he would.  Sergio loves having us over, loves
the Book of Mormon, loves analogies, and loves learning.  But if he
doesn´t come to Church this week we´ll have to drop him. Maybe pass by
once a week to invite him to Church but nothing more than that.

I´m loving this transfer.  Me and Elder González were assigned as
co-seniors so I´m loving the responsibility too.  I was kind of tired
of being trained, so after 6 and a half months of being trained it´s
been great to have full responsibility for the área.  Elder González
is great.  He´s really patient with the people which is sometimes hard
for me.  Sometimes I get impatient when we are teaching and just want
to get up and leave, but he always does his best to help everyone
understand, even if they are kind of slow.  He´s been a great example
of Christlike love.

I´m making a ton of friends in the city.  We met an awesome lady who
sells hot dogs in the central from the back of her car.  Her and her
family have  been selling hot dogs for 20 years, and she is famous for
having the best hot-dogs in the city.  The cool part is she has been
smart with her money, and now has money to travel the world.  Later
this week she is doing a tour of Europe, and then later in the year is
going to Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.  All from money saved from
selling hot-dogs.  Anyway we talked with her quite a bit and have a
lunch/dinner appointment with her tonight.

I´m honestly loving life here.  The work is hard and exhausting.  Our
área is about a half hour or fourty minute walk from our house, and
there are a ton of hills in the city so I´ve been absolutely exhausted,
but absolutely happy as well.  I´m learning to love the culture here
in Brazil.  The people are so great and so friendly.  The city is
great, the branch is great and the other missionaries are great.
Hopefully we´ll get some more people progressing this week and I´m
confident we´ll have a lot of baptisms.

Eu amo vocês!

Evan

Translation: "Because they have no purpose. But we have purpose." Tchelo