"Your Siblings Were All Born In May? Different Years, Right?"

Hey all,

How is life treating all of ya? Hope things are going well!

As for me, life continues to fly by here in in Tutóia. 

Unfortunately, we were unable to help anybody be baptized for the second week in a row, but we were able to bring Pedro and Sebastiana - an older couple that live very near the beach - to church and they loved it! As soon as the meeting was over with, Pedro asked me if there would be another meeting next week. When I said there are meetings every Sunday, he lit up with excitement. That was pretty great to see.

We are going to start the month-long process with them to help them officially get married! They were both excited - Sebastiana almost cried - when we said we would help them out. That's one sad thing about down here: the process to get married is so expensive, complicated, and long that most people don't even bother. Most of the couples, even those that have been together for 50+ years, live "só juntos" (just together). After their wedding, though, we are going to help them enter the waters of baptism, so that is super exciting for sure.

Like I said a couple weeks back, the church here is still just getting started. We had 17 people participate in the meeting, which was held in what I would compare to a school district office building called the Secretaria de Educação. It honestly is a great place to hold the meetings, though, and the members here are so grateful to have a place to meet I their own town.

The work keeps on trekking down here; every day we are out on the streets from around 11-8:30 knocking doors, teaching folks, and helping them get closer to Heavenly Father. 

One thing we can continue to count on here is rain. I know swimming's not allowed as a missionary, but I still need to ask about above-ground swimming. That's basically what we do every day, haha. One of the most interesting parts of our day is walking up to a new flooded road and navigating across it via bricks, rocks, and patched of vegetation. The picture below is a futeból field that has been flooded out for a while now because of the rain. 

Despite the difficulties that come up every once and awhile, I truly am loving it down here. I know there are folks here looking for more and waiting for us. We just need to find where they're at. We will continue to pray and ask for your prayers as well ask we find those whom the Lord has prepared.

We've got to get that Secretaria de Educação filled up so we can officially for a branch and maybe even get a building here!

"Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed."

Doctrine and Covenants 123:17

Thanks for reading everyone! Love you all so much and appreciate all of the emails! I'll talk to ya next week!