My posterity is becoming numbered as the sands of the sea.

Well good and bad news. The bad: Elder Chaves was transferred. I cried when I found out. Good: I´m training again! I´m going to have another son. Will it be American or Brazilian? I´m really excited to find out. Tomorrow I´ll be finding out!

 

I´m sad that Chaves and I were separated. I really, REALLY liked working with Elder CHaves. I feel like he trained me more than I trained him. I was truly blessed to have him as a companion. Our last week also had to be the best week and he has to leave. He was pretty bummed because we had a lot of investigators at Church and a lot of prospective baptisms for the next couple of weeks. He was transferred to Araçatuba, the next door city. It has a whole different Stake and Zone their so I won´t see him much. I am very proud of my son.

 

I had a really neat experience yesterday with a baptismal interview. I had already interviewed a 20 year old young man named Jonathan about a month ago and he passed the interview but didn´t feel like he was ready yet. He was afraid to tell his mother that he was going to change religions. He had been attending church for over 2 years because of his girlfriend that started taking him to Church. He doubted his testimony and always procrastinated baptism. I was able to help him make goals recieve a firm testimony of the Gospel. He told me a neat experience yesterday when I re-interviewed him. He was praying for over an hour desperately trying to receive an answer. He decided to grab his Book of Mormon and randomly open a page in hope of finding an answer. He opened up to the very last page right before the index and in Portugues the book of mormon ends on the left side page and has a completely blank page on the right side. He saw the white page and was really upset because he wanted a specific answer. But then he noticed verse 35 I think it is. It is an invitation to come unto to Christ and accept Him. He said in that moment he knew it was the right time for him to get baptised. This happened 3 weeks ago and it took him all this time to get the courage to tell his mom about his baptism. But he did, and last night was baptized. It was quite a miracle.

 

We saw a lot of miracles in our area as well. We had to travel to a city called São José do Rio Preto because Elder Chaves has a lot of stomach problems and we went to the doctor there. We ended up losing 2 days of work because of it. But I kept praying to the Lord that we would be blessed to make up for the lost time. Friday and Saturday were some of the most productive days for finding new investigators and teaching that I have ever seen on the mission. It was such a wonderful experience and we saw the results: 5 investigators at Church! It was such a fantastic week. I´m so sad Chaves won´t be here to continue reaping the blessings in this area. The members really grew to love him and were all very sad to see him leave. I leaned a lot last week.

 

Well I guess that wraps it up for now. I´ll be informing you all of the newbie next week. I hope he is American so I can goof around with him like the Liver and Onions story dad always tells. I REALLY want to have fun with this. Have a great week everyone!

 

Elder McLelland

Fat Moon

Alright, so I´ll explain ``fat moon´´. Elder Chaves is learning English with me and actually knows quite a bit already. LAst week on the full moon we were walking home and after a couple of minutes of silence, Elder Chaves said ``fat moon?´´ This is how he thought the translation of full moon should be. i could hardly stop laughing and we always call it fat moon now. I love Elder Chaves.

 

Last week was full of travelling. I went to Ribeirão Preto for a District Leader training that was really good. I wish I had had that when I started so I wouldn´t have been so clueless for the first four weeks. But it was good to already be putting some of that stuff into practice and seeing the better results. We got a really neet talk by President Kimball that talks about following the perfect example of a leader, Jesus Christ. It was a really good day despite losing a whole day of work in my area. I also went to Lins, a city in my District, to do baptismal interviews. THere is a family there that should be baptised this weekend. It´s really rare to baptize a full family (father, mother and children). We are all pretty excited for that. THis week it looks like we might have a baptism in our area as well. The Bishop´s grandson should be baptised on Saturday.

 

This last week was really intense and tough to plan because of all the travelling and we also lost nearly a whole day when President came to interview us. But it was really good last night to look at the results of the week and feel the Lord confirm that He was pleased with the work. We took a couple of less actives to Church and it was really fun to see everyone´s reaction to seeing them again at Church. If only the members would go out and visit these people more often they would come back so much more easily. Every less active we find ends up telling some kind of story of someone saying something offensive or some kind of drama like that in the ward. It´s sad that this kind of stuff happens. And so many more people would be at Church every week if home teaching was done consistently.

 

I can´t believe that next monday is already transfers again. I´m almost 100% sure I will stay with Chaves again. It´s a new Church policy that trainers stay at least two transfers with their trainee. But their is a possibility President might have to break this rule because there are a BUNCH of newbies coming in next week and will be needing trainers. We will see what happens.

 

Well I hope you all have a great week. I ask a small favor that you all pray for Elder Chaves. He has been having a lot of stomach problems and we are going to a doctor´s office to figure it out later this week. I hope it all works out.

 

Elder McLelland

Lar Doce Lar

So our house here in Birigui is falling apart. We are waiting for the financial secretaries to get the money together to remodel our house. It is absolutely awful. ``Lar doce lar´´ is the translation of ``home sweet home´´. The other night we were saying our prayer right before going to sleep and in the middle of the prayer we heard a loud crash and shatter. We quickly finished the prayer and went to go see that the bathroom mirror contraption fell off the wall and shattered all over the place. We were too tired and waited to clean up the next day. This house is pretty bad. But soon it will be one of the best on the mission.

 

This week went pretty well. We are teaching a family that is started to show some progress. It is a part member family. The husband, Euzébio is a member but has been inactive for a while and is living with a woman unmarried. She is not baptized and we are working to get them married and active in the Church. They went to Church with us yesterday finally and it was really exciting. We also found a really cool family last week that looks promising. The work is starting to pick up more now. I´m really excited to be her and I´m getting a hang of things better now.

 

It´s the 4th of July!!!! It´s so exciting. They have fireworks very regularly here in Brazil because of the soccer games so I´ll have to pretend that the fireworks today are for the the 4th. I really wish I could have been there for the BBQ. Yesterday while walking around really hungry after our fast I could help but think about a good American BBQ. I miss BBQ sauce and Pappy´s!

 

Well I´m absolutely loving the work these days. It´s finally starting to pick up and be more effective. We are finding the members that can help us. We are getting along great as a companionship. Elder Chaves is amazing. He has such a big heart and it really is helping the work move along. Well i hope you all have a good week. I love you all!

 

Elder McLelland