Letter #13 with a Picture!

Como Vai?

It has rained so much here this past week. Last night was especially bad. I´ve never been so soaked in my life. I still love the rain, but it sure makes missionary work tough sometimes. Putting all s]your scriptures in plastic bags inside your back pack and lugging around an umbrella. Adn then the clouds go away and it get hot and super humid. Last night we left the house around 5:00 after passing through real quick to pick up more copies of the book of Mormon to deliver. It was nice and sunny so I left my umbrella at home. Big mistake. I´ve never seen it rain so hard. And of course the hour or so it rained was when we were outside walking home. Elder Azevedo said it was inevitable to have an experience like this because it was his last working Sunday (next Sunday he will be traveling to the Mission Home before he heads home).

I have a picture attached from the baptism a couple of weeks ago. Hope you guys enjoy it. The lady on the left is Irmã Cida and she loves to work with missionaries. She goes out with us on visits at least once a week. She was a big help with the baptism of Nicolas. The other little boy is Nicolas´s half-brother Adré. I absolutely love that little kid. He usually sits on my lap during Sacrament meeting. And yesterday he came with Irmã Cida to the new convert class and he was really upset. I was proud to be the one he ran to calm him down.

We have started teaching several new people this week. One family I am particularly excited about. We were trying to find the home of a street contact and a 15 year old girl came out of the neihbor house and recofnized us as mormon missionaries. We found out her grandma is a firm member in another town and later foudn out her parents were also baptized. They were active for about four years and then moved to Poços de Caldas and stopped going to church. I think it´s going to be quite easy to get them re-activated. The father, Gilson has some health problems though. He has one very weak kidney and is waiting for a transplant. They have four kids Amanda, Aline, Bruno, and Ana Julia. Their neighbors next door were in the house when we were teaching and one of the girls from that family came to church yesterday with us. The girls made some really good friends in Young Women´s already. i´m really excitd about this family, right now I feel pretty sure we will have sucess with them.

We are also teaching a college aged guy, Domingos. We walked past his apartment as he was leaving and he wa talking to a friend and he saw me, an American, and said in English, ´´did you understand what I said?´´ I said yes and we started talking as we walked down the street. He was curious to know why he saw Americans dressed like me walking past his apartment so often. So I told him we are missionaries and that we wanted to come by and share a message with him. He is one of the friendliest guys I have met. He has never joined any church, not even baptzied as a baby in the Catholic church but loves to study religions. He has entirely read the Bible, Quran, Torah, and a bunch of other religious texts. So it wasn´t too hard to give him a Book of Mormon. Another blessing for being an American, I have had so many oppurtunities these past two weeks to talk in English and people that want to know what an American is doing all the way out here. It´s so awesome.

I recieved a nice bundle of letters Saturday. Thanks for all the letters everyone. And I´m repenting and will get a bunch of letters sent out tomorrow to all of you. I have written/am writing a bunch of letters today.  

Dad has some questions for me that I think everyone would benefit to hear the answers:

1. Can you print our letters?    Yes. But I´m not sure how much it costs, probably not much
2. Does including a full talk to much for you to print? I would love to have church talks sent. I´m running out of church magazines to read (surprisingly).
3. Can you give out treats, pictures or trinkets to the children there? if so would you like us to send you some?  It would be niceto have stuff to pass out. Kids here love to get $1 bills or other little stuff.
4. Are there any pictures  church or otherwise that you would like for your apartment? We already have quite a bit of this stuff around so no need to send this kind of stuff
5. Are there any personal products that you cannot get there, toothbrushes, deodorant...? I haven´t encountered really anything I can´t get here. Maybe some Gold Bond foot powder. The stuff they have here isn´t quite the same
6. Can you chew gum? How is your supply holding out?  I can´t chew gum unfortunately. I gave most if it away =(
7. Is there any clothing needs that you have  shirts, socks...? Maybe a few pairs of thinner socks. The ones I have are nice but a little warm and take forever to dry. But I can buy them here too if necessary.
8. And I can send pictures but, I´ll still send the majority through mail on the SD cards.

Well I love all of you guys. This past week has been quite good. It´s improving and I´m excited to see what comes next week. Who is going to be my new companion? Will I be transferred (I definitely hope not)? Things are forever good here as a missionary.

-Elder McLelland