What a Baptism!

Well this week finally came the baptism of a couple we have been teaching for a few weeks. I played the role of Elder Matchmaker and married them on Thursday and we had their baptism on Saturday! Man was it an awesome baptism, one of the best on the mission thus far for sure. The man cried haha but the woman stayed strong during the service;) Dang it was a great baptism to have the last transfer. We hope to have 2 more at least. Itll take alot of work but we have got it in us. Haha by far this Comp is one of the funniest. I have heard more untrue statements in the last two weeks than I have heard in my entire life. Haha its like dwight shrute from the office when he says "fact" and then precedes to say something except my comp always says something totally false, so I have had the opportunity to ressurect one of my favorite words "False!!" haha he just is different but funny and he is liking the work here. We are starting to run to the church every morning and play soccer or basketball. It is pretty fun. Its a pretty good start to the day. Man I love some of the members here. We have alot of help here in the branch. Haha man I am always tired..... but its a good tired;) Well we´ll keep working hard here and yall do the same there! Love yall!!!

Travels

Well the biggest struggle with being 6 hours from the mission office is how much we have to spend to make trips to reach other Elders and catch buses paid for by the mission... Luckily we can get reimbursed for our travels but it takes a lot of time to get money back!! just for an example I handed in a reimbursement for 200 reais this week.... we drop a ton of money on travel!!! But hey at least its always a charter bus;) This week was a good one. My comp is pretty different. Kinda prideful cause of the whole portugal thing being in Brazil but considering I am finishing the mission I kinda of just call him out on it and he accepts the corrections. He has 19 months on the mission but has had some obedience problems so president has put him with me to help him turn his mission around and finish strong. He wants to put him as a Senior companion this next transfer so I am just going to work him back into shape. And speaking of in shape me and him have started running in the mornings... hahah i know i know with just 6 weeks left but hey better late then never huh?! I want to come home looking good;) I plan on working out pretty hard as well. These last 4 months I have been working out pretty well just been lacking the cardio! But dang was I sore after running the first time!!! it took me like 4 days to recover. Yesterday I was like dying... had a pretty bad fever and my throat was way inflamed, but the members here take good care of me and hooked me up with an herbal tea that helped soothe a bit. I just have a super sore throat today the fever passed I think. We should have a good week this week! Dang haha these members are sooo funny I dont know if every area is like this but everyone is always telling me "OH 5 weeks Elder!!" haha its super funny, a bit annoying, but super loving nonetheless. Dang well pray for me that I can lose some weight and more importantly help some people here in the area;) LOVE YALL!!!

Dying in Itapeva!

Well the last transfer call came in and President decided to change things up a bit. I dont know if I ever mentioned that our zone consisted of 3 companionships and we are way removed from everything. So finally president consoladated our zone and a neighboring zone of just 5 to make a normal zone haha. I will stay here in Itapeva and my comp will head out to a nieghboring area and stay in the zone. I will just be the District leader of our once was zone. haha it will be exactly the same thing just less meetings;) I will be getting a portuguese from Portugal. I will work hard with him for these last 6 weeks of the mission. There is still alot to do here! Itll be nice finishing here with some of these members! We have a baptism marked for this week for a couple we have been teaching for some time. They were just needing to get married! We have it marked for this week! Im super pumped for this transfer. We are going to kill it. Fabiano still was drinking so we are going to have to keep working with him. Keep praying for me and my comp Elder Melendez! itll be a great last transfer!! Love you all!!!

Happy 4th of July!

Well the week had a bit of a improvement. We found a few more people to work with but we are still waiting for this drought of Baptism to leave haha we were in a meeting in the gospel principles room is and the drain for the baptismal font turned on making a super loud noise. We turned it off but my comp made the joke that the font is anxious for a baptism and I have to agree! pray that we can baptize a man named Fabiano this week! The 4th was awesome. We had a member make a churrasco (barbecue) for us. Man I love Brazilians! I have had some great memories here. Transfers calls come this Sunday. I kinda want to finish somewhere else and NOT as an ZL... I am going broke... dang sooo much stuff to pay for. But whatever happens I will gladly accept considering it will be the last one! dang time is starting to go by pretty quickly. Just calls for more work. My comp and I get along fine, about what you´d expect with completely different backgrounds and passions. But we are good friends so all is well in Zion. We get to go to the temple tomorrow in Campinas it might be my last time before coming home! Itll be great! lot to learn. I hope you all have a great week!! Love Yall!!!

June 29: Hmmm

Well I can say this week was a hard one. Those who have served missions remember those weeks where nothing seems to go right and this past week was this exactly. Everytime we tried to get something going or everytime someone showed potential something would happen.. My companion and I are rather frustrated. We have been talking alot lately trying to figure out what needs to be done differently to help us baptize, and we are still at a dead end. We are being exactly obedient, talking to everyone we can and inviting everyone to baptism but nothing worked. We are going to add to this our own fasts and prayers and leave it all up to the Lord. I can feel the strength coming from your prayers. Please keep them coming. Please pray for a miracle. I dont like feeling down on the mission but when you arent seeing the miracles you expect to see it can be rather saddening. We will continue to work ourselves until the end. Love you all! Have a great week!

Saving some souls while ruining his own soles.

June 22: Good Week

Well not much happened this week to notable to pass along to yall. I am trying to lose some weight. I want to come back at least decent;) Not to say that I have gotten fat but just that I want to come back looking good. I might need one more little package with a few things the biggest being one more can of murrays hair gel haha. and a good long sleeve white shirt that I can wear home. 16 and 1/2 neck and 34/35 sleeves. I will need to buy a new suit here to come home because after months of use here in brazil with stains and holes this one just wont make it home together;) We are marrying a couple here and are going to work with them to have their baptism for this saturday. It hasnt really gotten better with the branch president but at least our WML is totally on board with us! Its a great area here and I wouldnt mind finishing the mission here but at the same time I would love to finish the mission in one last area. But we will see what happens! Keep praying for me! Im trying to literally kill myself out here. I´ll send pictures next week of my pair of shoes I bought 3 months ago! I am going to get them re-soled this week;) but yeah trunky is weakness but as we now weaknesses can be made into strengths;) Pray for me and for my area!!! LOVE YALL!!!

The favela we found

Our zone with the visiting member of the 70 and our mission president

Looking GQ

June 15: Opa

 Well this week wasnt as great as the last ones. Lets just say I have had my fair share of arguments this week with the leadership in our branch here. Basically in a nut shell they are having problems with the baptisms we are having. Us and President Farnes are having to team up to get them on board with the idea of more baptisms. They are not used to having recent converts to have to take care of... lets just say none of my Recent Converts have received a visit or even know who there home or visiting teachers are.. Its been a mess. Just life lessons you learn on the mission on how to deal with people that take different approaches. There idea is that we are responsible for taking care of these converts... We keep telling them we wont be here forever.. But I feel like it is getting a little better. Our Ward Mission Leader is AWESOME!! he is killing it here with us! I got to do a division with one of my old companions and that was fun! We also had a 70 come and give a training. He is brand new. His name is Elder Cero Schmeil. It was good the only problem is that we ended up getting home at 1 in the morning. It was in sorocaba a 5 hour drive.. We are working hard here still. I just hope we can see more miracles here! keep praying for us!! LOVE YALL!!