Really Fun First Week!

Was a really fun first week in the area. I think that my area is exactly like Tate's in that there hasn't been a baptism in this ward for over a year and hasn't always been missionaries in it either so me and my comp are both new to the area and there hasn't been missionaries here for a while.

So the lady wasn't able to be baptized last week, but we are hoping to do it this week and we also had a good experience of finding another girl and marking her baptism. We were walking and decided to go down this street and talk to the people there and I came to a girl named Carline who is 17 yrs old. We talked to her and she was interested and marked the next day to go to her home and visit the church Sunday, and go to the ward activity this Saturday. We asked her what she was doing just sitting here doing nothing and she said she didn't know why she chose to leave her home and come to this street, but she said she was just pondering about her life and the next day we went to her home and taught her about the restoration and marked her baptism and she accepted it all so well be continuing with her and helping her. She does like to drink she said, but we'll help her and as you can see she was prepared by the Lord to talk to us and have this chance to be baptized. So yeah we now have two people we are working with and the members here had a lot of doubt when we told them we had planned a baptism and hope we can get them excited and going because this ward needs it badly.

Last Sunday I think I counted 30 people at church which is very small and I believe should be a branch, but the chapel isn't too big either. The bishop said they usually have 50-60 and that they are changing the boundaries after conference and that will bring it up to 80-90, so that will widen our area of work and help out the ward.

Yeah it is a resort area and makes it hard to find and teach people, but it is a beautiful area and the beach is a 15 min walk from my house and well the street I live on if you just keep walking down it you will hit the beach. Living with 4 elders is awesome because we just mess around all the time and play games etc...although yes the house is a big mess and if you have seen that one movie called I think 'best two years', we had one of those experiences where the couple missionaries came and inspected the home and just wasn't pretty, but they can't blame us for the home being a mess because all 4 of us didn't live in the home before so they didn't burn us that badly. But they said they would return so we have cleaned it up a bit since then.

So my comp is from Brasil, not too far from here. He lived in Rio Grande do Norte. He is 21 yrs old and from my group in the ctm. A few nights ago I had huge flying roach fly in on me and had a fun time killing that and I'll send fotos and later that night at like 4 in the morning I had a bat fly in on Frank's bed and filmed him killing that and I'll send fotos of that too.

Also I think it was my 3rd night here we were using the payphone. It the thing they have here to order our dinner and we had two guys on motorcycles pull over and pull guns on us asking for money and cell phones, but we just pulled out our pockets and told them we have nothing and they realized we were using a payphone so they said sorry and left so that gave me a bit of a scare, but it's common here, almost everyone gets their cell phones stolen.

I had plans to go to my last area for p-day because a family there it was her b-day and she invited me to come and eat lunch with them and be with them all day, but when we woke up this morning we had no water to shower or do anything so my comp was mad and didn't want to leave or go anywere so we stayed and ate lunch and are now emailing.

Yeah I get alot of girls and women that flirt with me and is just annoying for me, but it's just because I'm american and is normal here in the mission. I haven't confirmed anyone yet because that's the responsibilty of the bishop but I've done blessings. The language is doing good and so far everyone I've talked to here has commented on how good I'm speaking their language so I feel pretty good about it.

Oh you asked about the other two elders: Elder Frank is from Belem, Brasil and Lundgreen is Utah. The area is smaller than I thought, but will be bigger and a majority of the people live in those apartment building which makes it tuff as well, and like I told my dad, everyone works on Sunday or goes to the beach etc....making it hard to get them to church, but we have been working on getting inactive members to church and have been working with the bishop and members.

Ok well that was my first week here and things are going good. Love ya and until another week! Brian