Lindsay, CJ

Opa gente, This week's highlight: José Carlos' baptism! I love this guy so much, and one of the reasons for that is because he is so down-to-business. I know there's no smile in that photo, but I'd probably be more or less the same easy if I had lost my son so recently. His family and we as missionaries are just so excited to help him continue progressing on this path: for now, baptism... one month from now, his first visit to the temple... and in the near future, being sealed with him family - including his son - for all time and eternity. Just incredible to have played a small part in that story. How grateful I am to be able to testify for the folks here with situations like this that families really can be together forever, that the grave has no victory. We are now working with a guy named Hiago. He is 21 years old and his younger brother was baptized a few years back. We went over to share a message with his family and he walked out of his room and we started talkin...

Bomest of dias pessoal, What to say about this week.... I don't even know. Needless to say, it was "corrida" (basically means busy, more literally means "runned"). For starters, here's our new buddy Jhonnata. The previous missionaries had been teaching him and we were fortunate enough to be able to help him enter the waters of baptism Saturday and receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost on Sunday. Besides that, we've been doing our best to get our heads around the area. We were both group leaders in little cities with groups of roughly 20-30 people. Now, we are taking care of 3 wards, which in total adds up to roughly 150 (for now). Even though I had already passed through the area before, I had very little time here in Brazil and never really knew what was going on. Now, while we are both senior companions, as I have more time in the mission and already spent some time here, I am technically leading the area. Something else interesting that I put down below:...

Para aqueles que falam português, vocês terão que me perdoar. Sou meio preguiçoso e escreverei essas cartas em inglês só. Mas, se quiserem saber o que estou dizendo nessas cartas, podem botar em Google tradutor! Também, sempre podem escrever um e-mail para mim e eu responderei (em português, claro). Well... one day that I thought would never come (and frankly never wanted to come) did.  Na verdade, before taking about that, I'd like to start off with the highlight from this week; we helped one more of the Lord's elect be baptized yesterday! His name is Francisco and he's another stud muffin. While going to church on the 31st, we met up with a group of rapazes, some members of the Church and others not,  to all to together. They wanted to swing by the house of a friend of theirs - Francisco - to go, too. He luckily was at home, not fishing, and went along with us. He enjoyed the meeting and we asked the guys afterward if we could share a message and prayer with their familie...

Bom dia pessoal, I wrote an email this morning nice and detailed and well thought-out, but Google decided to delete it whilst in the process of sending, so I'll give it another shot. What a quick, stellar, week!  It's crazy how quickly the weeks really do go by down here. "What is a 'Giga-elect?'" you may be wondering after reading the subject. Basically it is Raimundo Nonato, the man we had the opportunity to baptize yesterday; somebody who the Lord has been preparing to receive the message of His Restored Gospel. It's a term that Elder Romero taught me almost a year ago as we were serving in the Portuguese Wards of Orem, UT (holy cow, that's seems like a while ago). Like I said in my last email, it was really out-of-the-blue that we came to find him; we were running through the streets like always when we felt that we needed to switch over to a different road. We took a little dirt alleyway and tried to talk to a couple of rapazes who ended up not re...