Pau dos Ferros: Week 4

a funeral of two missionaries that are going home in 2 weeks :)

The daughter of the branch president who reminds me of corinne when she was little.

There was a little switch in our house. There was an emergency transfer and a new missionary came in the place of Elder Solorzano. We are using internet in Sousa right now because we´re having a zone p-day. We´re going to have a barbecue later in the afternoon! The new missionary in our house, Elder Findling, is from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He has a year and a half on his mission.
One of the things that I like about this area is that it always has lunch. There are few members but they are always willing to give lunch. But even if it does fall through one day, it´s fine because there´s a restaurant that costs 1 real (less than 50 cents) for a whole plate. These restaurants are payed for by the government, but the one here is different than the ones I saw in Natal. The one here has good food and normal people that eat there. We went there this week and there were several members of the church there haha.
The sacrament meeting room was full this week and we had the highest attendance we´ve ever had - almost 70. The church is probably going to move so it can fit more people. There have been 51 baptisms since the area opened 9 months ago, and there were about 12 or 15 members already on the list. Most of the members/recent converts come, and when you add that with the missionaries and the investigators and sometimes visitors, it gives a good number. There is a yard on the side of the house that would be great for church activities, but right now it´s covered with bushes and weeds. We bring in that donkey sometimes to eat some of it.
But I am really enjoying working here and my companion is really good. He knows how to work well and he is a hard worker too. One of the only discouraging things here is that we can´t count on people a lot. Like people say they´ll do things and then don´t do them. We pass by our investigators every day and they always say they´re excited for church and that they´ll go for sure. But then we pass by their houses on sunday mornings and they all of a sudden have an excuse, or they travel, or have whatever thing come up that prevents them from going to church. But anyway, we´re still able to have investigators in church- just not as many as we would like. We did receive a good referral of a family this week!
I´ve been thinking back at what I was doing one year ago and it´s amazing how quickly time has passed. It´s also crazy to think that I have friends that are going to start getting home from their missions soon. And before I know it I will have a brother and sister gone!
Well I miss you all at home and I will miss celebrating the first day of summer with you all.


Have a good week!


Elder Church