"...Oi Família! Tudo bem? Tudo otimo aqui! Como vocês estão? Estão pronto por Natal? Já terminaram suas Aulas? Okay I'll knock it off. But seriously, how are you guys doing?...
...Life down here is going well. Paraná (the state I'm in) is really Bi-polar. Its supposed to be summer but it got super cold and rainy. Like I actually had to bust out a jacket. Strange, I know. Its was pretty nice though, its the first time it felt kinda like Christmas- cold and wet- so I am kinda enjoying it. Did you guys watch the Christmas devotional? I hadn't really thought of home or anything trunky but then President Uchtdorf started talking about the Grinch and apple cider and leaving cookies out for Santa. It made me a little trunky. I also had to explain to all the Brazilians about leaving cookies out for Santa. Can you believe that they don't do that down here? They looked at me like I was weird when I explained it to them. Strange place...
But anyways, this week was a good week. Actually, it was a really difficult week- but that doesn't change that it was a good week. We are having a hard time finding people to teach and we basically did nothing but knock doors the whole week. I felt like Phil in Ireland- constantly getting rejected... But we also had Stake Conference here and that was sweet. President C came out from Curitiba (its about a 2 hour drive) to give a talk and we also had President A of the Seventy give a talk. It was great. They spoke a lot about missionary work and how they need to do more to help us. President A had all the full-time missionaries stand up and he told the stake to take a good look at us and that they have to do more to help us and when they do there will be more baptisms and that the church will grow stronger... after the conference was over Bispo came up to us and said that we all need to work together more and that the Ward needs us and our help... It was sweet. After that, things have started improving a lot. We have a new LMA who wants to work with us and we're starting a new program to work with the Home Teachers (I had to stop for a sec and remember the term in english... strange...) to help get inactives coming back to church and start completing NTM (Não total membros- families that aren't all members). I think things are going to start taking off from here.
...We also have 3 very solid baptisms marked. One will be tonight actually, her name is D... Well, with our new awesome Zone Leader, Elder Melo (Seriously this guy is a total stud. He has the same time on the mission as me and he's already trained and is a LZ agora.) who sits down with the families and help them understand how important baptism is and why they need to let their daughters be baptized. But so yeah, we are baptizing them all now that they have permission to be baptized. We also have another M marked for Sunday and we have a NTM that will be baptized after Christmas. Her name's D... But yeah, we're baptizing a lot here in Ponta Grossa right now. We just need to get more investigators and that'll happen as we prove to the Lord that we want to teach and baptize and be guided to the people that will accept the gospel.
Hmm... other things that happened this week.... On a happier note, I successfully made cookies again this week and shared with my comp and the LZs (they live like 2 minutes away). I made a ginormous pan cookie and it was sweet (ha ha... punny). I have also been making pancakes almost every morning. I also discovered that if you put in a little strawberry nesquick they taste like strawberries. Gotta love it when missionaries improvise...
Well fam I'm about out of time so I"m going to have to wrap this up. I'm doing well, the work is progressing and we're baptising a lot. I love it down here. I'm starting to understand what President Holland meant when he said that the mission was the best time of his life. I can't imagine doing anything else right now, I love where and what I"m doing. I"m super excited to talk to you all and I hope finals and everything will finish up without any problems for you all. Love you all and até mais..."
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