Its a wonderful day in the neighborhood, a wonderful day for a neighbor, Will you be mine?

So this was the first week of the new transfer and has been wonderful. To give you a brief run down ill start from (drum roll) Monday!

Monday: I helped elder adhans pack and get ready to go to porto velho which is in another state on the other side of the rain forest. Then we went to a goodbye family night for him, and later I made americanish hamburgers for him to try.

Tuesday:
i recieved my new companion  Elder Almeida. Elder Almeida is a convert from Mozambique and is really cool. I have very much enjoyed working with him. On this wonderful day in our neighborhood of Ouro Verde we were able to teach an amazing young couple where the wife is a member and the husband isnt (yet). They are wonderful and later in the week on our second lesson there the wife asked right off if we can help them get married so they are pretty much golden. Also we have set a date for the wedding of Saulo and Lane and also a firm baptismal date. YES!

Wenesday:
I woke up (or rather stayed up since sleep wasnt that good) with a wonderful little fever and so I stayed in bed, slept and then my fever broke around 12:00 just something small. Then we went to lunch and then came home after because i still wasnt feeling that good and so I went back to sleeping and was able to work that night because I felt good enough which is very good. Its amazing how you learn to appreciate your health when you dont have it.

Thursday:
 The thing that I remember the most about this day is that we had a great lesson with Johnathan about the importance of reading and praying about the book of mormon to recieve an answer. 

its Friday, Friday, gotta go teach on Friday!
We did some reactivation and retention today and I had the oportunity to give two blessings (ill write about these in letters). We taught an elect family today of a single mother and her two daughters. We were able to find them through members and it was great. The name of the mom is edeth and the daughter who we are teaching with her is Amanda (17). You will hear more about them in the future.

Oh and the moon came back today very small in the west.

Saturday:
So pretty much all today was was preparation for the baptism of Elizete. She truly is an elect. She is 45ish years old and is so open. Before the baptism we went to the family history center which is in the chapel and introduced her to it. Now she is interested in indexing and will learn how to do it next saturday. Talking about family history has made me want to get more involved with it after my mission and so i think that i will. (also another thing for a letter)

Sunday:
So today we met our newest golden investigator. Her name is divina and was taking the discussions all last transfer with the missionaries in another area and is golden with a baptismal date and everything. We will begin to teach her brother this next week as well which is great.

So this was my very detailed week. Wanna know more? Write me a letter and ask!

Seriously this week was great, and always be sure to read your scriptures, they are important.

Love your brother/son,
Eric

My Tree

So this last week was rather exciting because...well ok it was just normal but there were some wonderfully exciting parts...i think

 

Monday-thursday

Normal working days where we worked. It was a bit slow actually, but oh well.

 

Friday:

We had a very exciting conferencia de zona! (zone conference) in the north zone so we boarded a bus and went there. I had something that was kind of like a donut when I was there and that was exciting. I also recieved my package for Valentines day which I was really happy about because, I like packages and also Crackle and Oat Bran cereal which is really delicious. We ended the day with a noite de integração.

 

Saturday:

We had divisions while our District Leader was off with Elder Adhans doing interviews for the district, I had the wonderful experience of having one last division with my good friend elder shepherd, and i met some interesting people for the first time on this division. One of which was an Indian chief. His name is Paulo and i have no idea what his last name was because it was from a tribe. He is a less active member and very funny. He has tatoos of lines down his arms that have arrows at the hands like aang from avatar the last airbender. This week he will go to tefé where he will do an evaluation on the indians there because they need preventative medicine. Elder shepherd told me some other cool things about him but i dont have time to write them now.

 

Sunday:

We were supposed to have the baptism of Elizete, however, the baptismal font wouldnt fill up with water and so it is postponed for this week. She chose me to baptize her and i feel very honored. She is the mother of Ayrton and Saulo two of our investigators waiting to get married to get baptized. Which reminds me. I was teaching them early this week and Saulo brought out a book of Brazilian sign language called libras and it was really cool because a bunch of them are the same as American sign language. He said that when I leave he´ll give me a copy of the book.

 

Back to focus now. Also sunday we found out about the transfer and....(drumroll)......I´m staying! No suprise there but there was one when i heard that Elder Adhans is going to Porto Velho which is in another state to be the companion of someone i knew from the CTM. Also  my wonderful friends Elder Walch and Elder Shepherd are leaving me as well. Elder Shepherd will train in the west zone and Elder Shepherd is switching areas with Elder Gable, (a cool elder I met a couple weeks back). Itll be wierd without them in my district. Especially since me and Elder Walch have been together since the begining. Oh and I hit my 6 month mark last friday. Yay! My new companion will be Elder De Almeda ( I think thats his name). He´s an elder from Mozambique (they speak portuguese there btw) so it should be good, Im hoping that he knows how to cook food from there because I want to learn. But yea...thats my week. This one should be good.

 

The longer that Im here in Acariquara the more significant the parable of the sower and the allegory of the olive tree become to me. Because really this is the tree that im working on right now. Im the one that the lord since to go and care for it so that it brings forth fruits. And as I continue to teach people and baptize them its like the parable of the sower read them for a refresher on why.

 

Thank you again for the package and for the letters!. Oh and btw Carnival started yesterday and they had a big stage with equipment for a band set up on it in the middle of one of our main streets last night and a bunch of people there, it looked pretty cool.

 

Until next week! I love you all and hope you´re all doing amazinging!

 

Love

Eric

Another smiley week in the happiest and humiditityist place on earth

So this last week was another wonderful one in manaus.

So something that I forgot to mention in previous letters is that one day when we went out underneath some trees there was a blanket of pink. It was rather cool and so I think Ill write a story book about it one dayd. There were these bendy pink needle thingys...anyways

So this last week we had a bunch of members leave with us throughout the week and so it was really good because we were able to get to know the members better and also they are able to get to know our investigators 

Last friday I had a division with our District leader which was really cool because Id never had a division with one before and i was able to see how they turn in the numbers and everything. It was exciting for me. Hes a brazilian from Rio de Janeiro and is legal (cool in portuguese). His name is elder Jacinto. 

On Saturday we had the baptism of guilherme, the little brother of Jennifer and I got to baptize him! It was the first one since november that i personally had baptized and so it was nice to have the opportunity. The only thing was that I had forgotten how to have the hands and so i was about to go in and had to have my companion show me again. (ill post the photos after I find my camera cord that I have misplaced in our house, the computers here dont like my card reader).

Sunday we didnt have the great amount of people show up at church like we did before and so we went out and looked for them. (we ended up with 6 total which is good ) And then came back empty handed. I had been having a little bit of a hard time that day and saturday and Saturday when I had started my fast I asked for more patience and charity and that I would love the people more. When it came time for me to go up and bear my testimony I was a little bit tired and not quite sure what I should bear it on. So I bore it on how god answers prayers and how at times we dont understand why things happen but its for our own good so that we can have more empathy and love for others and be able to give comfort when they need it. When i went and sat down and someone else started bearing their testimony, I felt the spirit and the impression came to my mind saying,´´ you asked me for this and im giving it to you `. (I think there may have been more but ill send it off in a letter.) I was humbled. I thought back on the trials taht I had been going through and everything, and then realized that truly I had been asking for this experience and the lord was giving it to me to test me. I was humbled and more grateful for it. The lord does answer prayers and he does love and know each and every one of us individually. 

Today we went and cleaned the house of someone in our district and I was able to get to know another really cool elder named elder gabled. hes from washington in the vancouver area and is really cool. After we cleaned their house we drank 7 bags of açaí between 6 of us and needless to say it was alot. Oh and then I carried a weight back to our house which is about 4 kilometers away because I wanted one to work out with.


Thats awesome about lorraine and I pray that her family will be a little more receptive. 

I pray for you all and invite you to always bear your testimony.

I love you all and continue to write me

Love 
Eric