Panquecas!! (pancakes)

Hey Everyone!

Well this week has sure had its ups and downs, but overall it turned out to be quite a great week. It was definitely the week of pancakes. Elder Holmes in his Christmas package got a bit jug of maple syrup so we have been introducing Brazilians to pancakes American style. Any Brazilian who has ever tried maple is immediately addicted (same with peanut butter). These products are not available here in Brazil. So we had a family home evening activity with our investigator family and we made pancakes for them. They absolutely loved it...me too. There kids are such fun. Then we also made pancakes for Adriana and here family, a recent convert family of almost a year. We made pancakes and did some painting for her. By the way, Brazilian paint is not nearly as good as American paint...who would have thought?

 Otavio, the oldest child in our investigator family, is almost certain to be baptized this coming Sunday. His parents finally feel he is ready to be baptized. We tried to get it arranged for yesterday but it didn磘 work out because Otavio was at his grandmother磗 house all last week and never gave time to interview him before Sunday. But this sunday for sure. And his parents are making arrangements for their wedding that should happen in the next few weeks. I really hope I don磘 get transferred after all this work with them and miss their wedding and baptisms!

Our ward is really progressing already with our new bishopric. The old bishop was great but worked A LOT and wasn磘 able to devote himself as much to the strengthening of the ward. Our new bishop however, is making a lot of changes and is already giving results. We have higher attendance already and have some less/in-active families coming back. I磎 really excited to work with him, I hope I have at least one more transfer here with this ward.

I almost forgot, I gave a talk yesterday in the ward. One of the changes the Bishop wants is that at least once a month there will be a talk focused on missionary work given by one of the missionaries or leaders in the ward. I was reall nervous. I love to give talks but it磗 always a little nerve wracking, especially in a new language. I think it went pretty well. I talked about the need of unity in the ward mission work. We have people that help us teach, we have some people doing visiting/home teaching, but it all lacks unity. There isn磘 enough communication and correlation. I hope my talk was able to help motivate the ward a bit more.

Well I guess that磗 about it for the week. Nothing too big or exciting this week like the waterfalls. But next for sure will have the baptism of Otavio and perhaps his aunt Karina as well. I hope this week goes well for all of you. Do your part as missionaries....``Every member a missionary!创

Elder McLelland