Thank Goodness for SKYPE!

Hey Mom and Fam,          12-14-12

Thanks for the email. It's cool to hear about your re-activation efforts in your ward mom, it's a big goal of mine to do that after the mission for the small time that I’m in Medford. I have some buddies that I want to work on. There are also some people I want to send out on a mission.  For some of the re-activation efforts that I've done here in Brazil, there's not a better feeling (other than a baptism)!

Since I've been here in Jacaré, there's this kid Patrick that has been growing a ton in the church, he's 14 and is already going to church by himself. His uncle has been the guy that's been integrating him, but now it seems as if Patrick has a bigger testimony than his uncle. Both the uncle and his mom are against his baptism for now. His mom won’t sign the permission slip until he turns 15 (which just so happens to be next month) I'll still be here on my mission when he gets baptized. However with the experience that I have on my mission, I know that when the date arrives, his mom will want to move it to a further date.

I'm really liking this area. Yesterday we had an awesome activity called "Returned Missionary Counsel". Only RM's were invited and they relived their missions and gave out their ideas for other activities. It got them all excited for missionary work and kindled that fire again. It was great, we established some goals to work on and they’re all going to do some good work this week. Your last email helped me see from their point of view and I used 3 Nephi 11, it was cool.

Anyways, I got the other box. Well sort of, It's in the office. We'll see tomorrow if I can get it. There’s going to be a leaving transfer for some elders like Elder Coelho that are going home. And then there are about 5 missionaries that are going to get sent home, two of which are in my zone, both for health issues. One of them is a sister that almost died here. She was in the hospital for two weeks for stomach/eye problems.

I’m totally down to go to Hawaii with you guys sometime!  I was planning on going there some time to visit Cassandra and Sam anyway.

I talked with the President re: BYU Interview and I sent him an email with all the info yesterday.  He's been pushing it off for a while, so I’ll call him again today and get on his case to do it today. Well I'll see you all next week (Skype); it'll be way good, unless you guys get eaten by a shark in Hawaii...until then...Love you! 

Elder Williams

Pray that Peter will get his Missing Christmas Package...

Hey Mom and Fam!        12-10-12

Thanks for the email. I talked with the person that will be giving us their computer to SKYPE and they said that any time is alright. So 4:00pm on the 25th I’ll be hopping on. Which is what 8:00 am your time (Hawaii)?

The box (Package) I got had the lotion the chocolate the SpongeBob sheets and a package that I haven’t opened up yet. You said on the present that it's the biggest one I’m going to get. I'm sort of far away from the office so I don't know yet if they've received the other missing package yet.

I haven’t had the interview yet fror BYU, but I'm going to get it this week and if possible I’ll send the info to you on the same day.

Anyways, if I were in Keenan’s shoes I’d love to be out of the office. You just sit around on a computer the whole day and here at least they get extremely prideful. I have a ton of friends that went in one person and came out another. But it's only been these past 7 months or so that this change has happened, beforehand it was super chill.

Really our only purpose here on the mission is exactly what you said, mom, regarding how it is missionaries jobs to baptize (3 Nephi 11). It's a good thing you have that vision a lot of members just don't understand and get in the way of the work because of it. Two weeks ago it happened with Patrik and this last week it happened again. We found a guy named David and he was sort of a hobo. It must have been 2 weeks since his last shower, so he was a little bit smelly. But we took and brought him home, gave him a shower and some old clothes that we don't use. Then we took him to lunch with a sister in the ward. Then the next Friday we took him to a Christmas party in the ward where there was a ton of food. He ate a lot of food and everyone noticed and started to make stupid comments that made him feel uncomfortable. Ever since that day he's completely disappeared. We really got to be careful what we say, even if it's true.  Even if we don't mean to be rude or mean, sometimes people take it another way. We really want to baptize and we get really close to it every week, but something just comes up and gets in the way. It's interesting to see that a good part of the time it's a member that gets in the way. Not just here but in all the places that I’ve passed through. Satan uses the people in ways that we'd least expect.

Anyways, I hope you guys have a good time in Hawaii, I’ll talk to you guys soon. Love you!

Elder Williams

Peter's Not Dead...

Hey Mom!           12-6-12 (email three days late) 

Don't worry I’m not dead, nor in the hospital. We've been extremely busy this past week. The busiest and most tiring week of my mission I think. Monday we had a meeting with the president, the night before we stayed at the old house in Progresso. The only problem was that there was another companionship was there as well (it happened to be Duffy it was nice to see him again). Anyways there was no room, so I slept on a terrible couch that's terrible to even sit on. My companion couldn't even sleep; the ground here doesn't have carpet. Anyway the meeting was way good; the president showed us a clip that involves the Atonement with missionary work. It was one of the best talks I’ve ever heard.

Anyway Tuesday we worked outside of the church as usual but it was extremely HOT! I've been sweating nonstop; I haven’t been able to cool down. Remember how I would always be drinking water before the mission? I've been drinking about double that amount and I’m still dehydrated. And Wednesday we had interviews with the president in the zone. We didn’t sleep like at all the night before so it was tough to stay awake during the interviews.

One thing that you don't need to worry about is me skating. We aren’t doing anything crazy, plus I had to give back the skateboard. The member that we took it from wanted it back. So now were doing the exercises at home again. The president has said nothing about skateboarding, and in the white manual there isn’t anything against skating. And if we do nothing stupid we're alright.

Anyway, I got your email about BYU; I’ll call the president and see if I can't mark for something next week. He's super busy doing interviews for this week. Oh btw, I got one of your packages that you sent, idk if the other one got lost or if it's just coming late. Thanks for the jelly, its way good. We ate all the chips and chocolate the same night that we got it. It was way good. But don't worry; I’m saving a couple presents till Christmas.

The president says that we can Skype on Christmas day no problem. We already found a place to Skype and everything. I just need to see if it's ok to do it late. I forgot that you guys are 8 hours behind. It'll probably have to be early in the morning (for you guys). I'm pretty excited just two more weeks. Anyways I should get going. I love you all I'll see you soon!

Elder Williams