Mais uma em Vinhedo!

Oi Familia!

Another week has flown by.  I guess after a year on the mission it´s hard to think of what to write.  We talk to and teach so many people every week, it all kind of just blurs into one, so it´s hard to think what to tell you.  But I´ll guess I´ll give you some highlights.

Mauro, Madalenna, e Larissa.  An awesome family that finally went to church yesterday.  Larissa is an 8 year old granddaughter of Mauro e Madelanna, and one day she yelled at us in the street, asking us if we were `Os Rebeldes` , or the rebels.  which is a Brazilian tv show.  Anyway, we took advantage of the situation, and told her who we really are, and asked if we could visit them and leave a message about Cristo.  They accepted, and we have been teaching them for about two weeks and they have been loving it.  Mauro is really Catholic, Madalenna is Espirita, and Larissa loves having us over, and she kind of dragged her grandparents to Church, and they ended up loving it which made us really happy.  An awesome family, but challenging investigators.  But I´m confindent everything will go smoothly.

We also are teaching a teenager named Caio who is preparing to get baptized this Sunday.  He´s been ready for a while, but it´s been a fight to get him to Church.  But he finally came!  His uncle has a habit of taking him to play soccer Saturday night, and not bringing him back home, but we were firm with him and his grandma this week.  No playing football Saturday night.  Hard for a teenage brazilian, but he´s started playing with the ward friday night which makes up for it.

And then we have Ronlaldo and Mariana.  Ronaldo has a member who is a brother, but apparently used to be totally against the Church.  He didn´t tell us that, but word spreads quickly through the ward.  Anyways, we found him knocking doors, and he let us right in, which was kind of a surprise!  But a good surprise.   We taught him for the second time yesterday, and he told us he had several answeres during the week that the Book of Mormon is true, and so I was getting all excited, but then he told us he doesn´t want to go to Church here in Vinhedo.  I think he used to be Atheist, and doesn´t want people to know he is changing.  But it looks like he´ll go to church in Campinas at least.  But we´ll have to get him to church here before he can be baptized.  

Well that´s some highlights.  It was a short transfer this time around, only 5 weeks, but both me and Elder Toebe will stay.  It´s Elder Toebe´s last transfer, so 6 more weeks, and he is kind of going nuts.  He is studying Mechanical Engineering, so has been practicing his math lately.  2+4=6  1+1+1+1+1+1=6  10-4=6  (12*2)/4=6.  He´s gotten pretty good ;)

Hope you all have a great week!  Love you all!

Evan  

Brasil!

It was definitely a good week this week!  In all honestly, there have been a lot of good weeks recently.  I´m happy, have a great companion, am working hard, and am a missionary of the Lord.  Not much more you could ask for.

So some quick highlights of the week.

Satudary I was able to go back to my last área in Campinas to watch the baptism of Emerciane.  She has changed so much as she has been prepared to be baptized.   She stopped smoking, stopped using drugs, and honestly has changed her life around.  She was a contact on the street, one of a Thousand, but she felt something when we talked with her.  We set an appointment, went to her house, invited her to Church, and when she walked 40 minutes three weeks in a row to arrive, I knew she was willing to change, and it was neat to see the fruits this week.

I also got News that another one of my old investigators, Josali, got baptized recently, which makes me really happy.  Like Elder Costa said in a mission tour, our missions will keep giving fruits for the rest of our lives, so even when things get hard, you can Always know that it´s all Worth it.

Fladimir was confirmed Sunday.  President Mazzagardi of the Seventy did the confirmation.  He´s in our Ward which is kind of cool.  I talked to him for a bit on Sunday.  Maybe two minutes.  He only talked to me in English and I responded in Portguese.  We both need the practice I guess.  His son is the Bishop in our Ward, so it´s been fun to get to know his Family,  at least a little bit.

Hope you all have an awesome week!  Crazy that April is coming to a close already.  The months are starting to fly by!