One of the Craziest Weeks in the History of Ever

Pic - Division in Trujillo...the Stake where I started my mission.

Shout outs to: Sean Layton - Thanks for the email man! Can't wait to see ya.

Parker Beazer: You ain't no elder anymo', but I got your letter

Katrine: Got your letter, will send one out soon

Onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn to the week.................

This was one of the craziest weeks in the history of ever. The mission is determined to not let me "rest in peace" as there are new issues coming up, huge new trainings (4 days long!), and this past week was a 4 day long division out in Sorocaba (Sorocaba is to Sao Paulo as Sacramento is to San Francisco). It was killer! Elder Alves and I left the office Monday afternoon and we just got back on Friday night. We did divisions with all four stakes in Sorocaba.

The best stories from the week come from the divisions with Elder Lopes (Zona Sorocaba) and Elder Payne (Zona Barcelona). The division with Elder Lopes was a lot of fun. The day started out with our lunch appointment falling, so I became the designated chef and made a Brazi style stroganoff. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm good. It actually turned out pretty well. After that, Elder Lopes and I left to begin our search for new people to teach in the area. All in all, we were able to mark two baptismal dates together during the day. The coolest lesson of all was with this girl named Camila. We were teaching her and her boyfriend in front of their house right at the end of the day. It was a great first lesson. While they didn't really have any religious background, they were able to understand concepts like Prophets, Apostles, Apostasy, Restorations, etc. There were both really interested and really wanting to know the truth, committing to pray to ask God if the things were true. Even better, when we went to go give the Book of Mormon, she said to Elder Lopes, "so, do you guys baptize?" Of course we do! We were able to make a baptismal date for her the next month.

The next day I went to Barcelona for a division with Elder Payne. We had a pretty good day together, but things didn't really pick up until that evening. We had made the goal in the beginning of the day to find two people that wanted to be baptized. Our ending time was going to be 6:30. At 5:45 we started teaching this pair of teenagers about the restoration. I used weird examples like a commandment against mowing lawns to help them understand that there is only one God, and that His commandments are the same for us all....so we need to find the church that teaches the right things. In the end, they were really excited and both accepted baptismal dates! Pretty exciting thing. There were super excited to be able to pray on their own to receive and answer from God, instead of having to have some indoctrination shoved down their throats. Go Power of Prayer.