Hey Family! 3-20-12
Yesterday we had transfers again, but this time I stayed and my companion went away to a place called Hortolândia. This time I got another American companion, Elder Smith. He's pretty cool. He was my district leader about 5 months ago, so I already knew him. I’m pretty excited to stay here in Cosmópolis. It's a tough area, but I’m thinking of some ideas to start in this transfer, that we didn’t do in the last one that should help out the ward here. It's about the size of talent with some more inhabitants (everything's more spread out in the states). Anyways, there's a ton of members here, if they were all active, we could have two wards ! Elder Anderson said that out of 40,000 people that were baptized in Brazil, less than a thousand stay active.
Anyways, Elder Smith is from Texas and looks like he's gonna be a fun companion. He's been teaching me on another principle as to obedience. I've always thought that we have the mission rules to protect us physically, spiritually, and to keep us from thinking about home. Which is true, but he was talking about how it helps us become disciplined for further responsibilities from the Lord down the road and how it plays a part of our journey towards perfection. Cool huh? It's something to be put into practice at home, such as TV or video games on Sundays and whatnot. How we should follow the spirit of the law and not the letter of the law.
Last week we found a guy that wants to be baptized this Sunday. He already went to church and has already picked who he wants to baptize him (he was a member reference). The only problem is that he smokes a bit and is trying to stop. Pray for him. His name is Paulo.
That problem I have in my throat is only bothersome when I’m walking, and it's pretty easy to alleviate. It looks like the weather's getting pretty cold. I’m sweating all the time still, but it's not as bad as it was. I think winter's starting. So here in brazil they have a ton of music that I’ve never heard of until coming here. They have something called “funk”... It sucks sooo bad! It's basically the same beat and then they throw in random sounds and noises, and there's some Brazilian that raps in a very non-tonic voice. (Then there's the music genre “Forro”, and that's pretty alright, it's got some dance feelings behind it and whatnot.) There was a guy here that is VERY popular and (he has one of the most played songs) so they made some of his songs into different languages (there's even a version of that song in sign language, which is pretty dumb huh?). I don’t like it, because it sounds bad. It gets even stupider in English. I really hope it doesn’t make it to the States.
The mission's going so fast right now! This past 6 weeks did not even feel likelong! It feels like I just got here in my area. I already know that these last 10 months will fly! So I gotta make every minute count. As far as writing in my journal goes... it's about as good as Omni and his sons... I'm trying to get better at that. Anyways, not a whole lot happened this last week. I did a division with some guy that's ending his mission. He went 1 out of 17 transfers as senior, and is gonna be ending his mission as junior. He just doesn’t work! With me he was fine (I guess I just have that intimidating effect), but I keep hearing stories from his past companions, and they aren’t good. Anyways, I love you guys!
Love, Elder Williams
Hey Pahoran, (AKA Dad) Thanks for the email! 3-20-12
It sucks to hear that you got sick (Flu for 4 days), one thing I can truly enjoy is my lack of being sick on the mission, if I ever get sick I just keep going and it usually just clears up the next day. There was only one time I had to stay home during the mission. I ate a pepper that made me throw up and gave me the squirts with a fever. Every other time, I've just got up from my sick bed and gone on. It felt sort of like God was testing me. Apparently I passed a mile marker, because it's been a long while since I’ve gotten very sick.
My companion got transferred last week and I received another American one. I've always gotten along better with the Americans, so I’m pretty excited! Not that I don’t like the natives, it's just that there’s always that language barrier. So a lot of their jokes are different than ours.
I'm throwing in some pictures of “Minas Gerais” when I went there (Will be posted to blog later). Right when we got off the bus, there was some guy that polished our shoes for free. He was a little bit crazy. He ate a little bit of the polish to prove to us that it's toxic free. And we were wearing some broken Oakleys ... Ahh, it was a good division.
We're gonna be able to watch conference in our area, and I’m hoping it's going to be in English with my companion. It should be on the same days, although because of the time different time zones it's going to be offered at various hours. We always try our best to bring investigators to watch so that they can hear the prophet’s voice. I’m pretty excited to watch it this next week. Anyways, I love you dad!
Elder Williams
Too much shredding going on!
Peter approached this guy off the street and he agreed to be baptized!
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