Stake Activity

September 17, 2008

I feel so bad because I didn’t send Brian’s letter until this morning. However, of all days our internet went out so I couldn’t send it until 10:00am. I was hoping that I could send it before he sent his. Of course, wouldn’t you know it, he sent his earlier than he ever has, around 8:30am. At least he will know next week that I really did write. Oh well. So here’s Brian’s email:

Well how are things going at home? Hope all is well, things are going good here. Its always hard to remember all that happens in a week but thats how it goes. We got no one to church this week and can see how satan is really working hard to get our investigators not to come, i mean we spend all week with these people and they all tell us they are going to go and we visit them the night before and go to pick them up in the morning and then thats when all the excuses come and then their just plain lazy and sooo much contention between the people....when we returned to these investigators we were working with to get them and go to church we found them fighting and arguing with each other about i dont know what but was insane and we just left them there...these people are just crazy and need the gospel in their lives. So all of the people we visited sunday morning to go to church didnt go, but we did have George e Helena this elderly couple we have been working with go. They went with a member in our ward and we are going to baptize them this saturday and just really cool to see them excited for it and especially for their age. Its really funny to see that they still have a great sense of humor, they are in their mid 80´s and and is the guy that bore testimony last week if you remember. We met some other people that seem like they will prepare but not sure yet untill we work with them today so i will tell how that goes next week. Yesterday we had an all day stake activity where they rented out this place that has a big soccer field and swimming pool and patio with music and they had a huge barbeque with tons of food and soda etc...was alot of fun and my first time playing soccer with brazilians...man they are crazy and take the game too serious but was fun and i scored the first goal of the day and didnt realize the activity was really going to be all day, it went from 8am to 7pm, when they play soccer they really play and they play forever...and all the guys play, the bishops and everyone, idk how to explain the way they play but it was fun overall and now i am tired from all the playing we did. So yesterday was our p-day and today we are just emailing and getting back to work after lunch. Tomorrow the mission president and his wife are coming to our stake for a zone meeting and i feel like i wont be seeing a package yet but did you send it? Depending on how long it takes i might not get it for another month when we have another zone conference but w/e. because of yesterday´s activity i wasnt able to put my pics on a cd yet but im going to try my best to get that done and send a package home and another to my friends...man i hate our budget because i dont think they put bus fees and taxi fees into our budget and those things really rack up the sum of our money, we do get reimbursed for things that have a recite (receipt) for cleaning supplies and bus tickets but we have to send that to macieo through the mail and then takes his secretaries forever to reimburse us and by that time we are already broke, which is why i have been using my own money because when i first got here my comp was broke and we needed stuff badly for our home which was a big mess and then tickets to get to conference and district meeting, food etc...and then my comps b-day is coming up so i bought a jersey to give him and a jersey for me, and then there is candy that i really like that i bought so i mean i have been using some of my own money for this kind of stuff. so we have about 160Reais worth of recites that we are sending in sometime this week and more because we constantly use the taxis almost everyday. So its fun not having money and am still trying to figure out how to make my budget work so im learning and in the meantime have spent some of my own money on extra things...well i love you all and hope to hear from you next week and pray things go good. Brian

It sounds like Brian is going to learn how to Budget, huh? They learn so many great things on their mission, that they wouldn't learn otherwise. They really can live within their budget if they have to. I am sure he will figure it out soon.