Week Sixty Eight

 Wed 11/23/2011 6:53 AM


Hi Mom!

Thanks! I´m super excited for the lunch tomorrow. And I got your package! It was really great and came just in time.  I´m doing turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, broccoli, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. It´s going to be pretty intense, but so much fun!

We had transfers this week, but nothing changed for us, like we were expecting.  We did get another area in our Zone opened, though, which is really great, and the missionaries there are a former Zone Leader and a new missionary, so we´re really excited to see how the work goes there. It´s going to be great! There were a few problems with the obedience of some missionaries, and it got pretty crazy, actually; we ended up having to do a division for over 48 hours, and I didn´t even see my area from Friday afternoon until Monday morning. It was crazy, but we saw that President Cordon really is inspired. I worked with a lot of different missionaries, saw a lot of different areas (including Santa Felicidade, finally! Have you looked that up yet? It´s really cool), and got a feel for how the work was going there. Things have changed with the transfer, but we´re really confident that now we´re going to get things under control and really have success.

I can´t believe Christmas is coming! Elder Gill´s only got 12 weeks left, and now we´re going to work like crazy to make the most of it. He wants me to remind him, so I think we´re going to start a tally. With some missionaries, they´d get homesick, but it just makes us more motivated to work really hard until the end. Even more with him, since he´s the one going home! But it´s going to be really great. And we´ll still be here at Christmas, so no worries there.

Thanks so much for the help! I love you and have a great week!! Love you!!!!!!


Love, Eric


Hey Dad!

Thanks! I´m going to make the last minute purchases today, and I´m so excited to get everything ready tomorrow! I´m doing turkey, mashed potatoes, broccoli, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, it´s going to be a lot of work but it´ll be really really great. Elder Gill´s excited to help me out too, and we just found out we´ll be staying together another transfer, so we´re pretty excited to keep working here.

 

The area´s HUGE, and we have to walk, so we have lots of places to choose from. We´ve planned a lot of stuff already, and we´re praying really hard to find people to baptize, so I know that the Lord´s going to bless us. He´s already done so much; since I´ve been here, the number of baptisms in Ala 2 this year has tripled! And we´re working hard to get some baptisms in Jardim Botânico, too, it´s going to be so cool to see these wards grow. Jardim Botânico needs it; they´re losing 15 people at the end of the year, some of which are really important (like the Elder´s Quorum President). But we´re going to work every angle- reactivation, baptism, and working with the members so that people can step up and make things work. It really is an interesting task, and it´s incredible to see how important the missionaries are here.  It´s a pretty diverse area, to be honest; lots of different stuff and different people. It´s mostly because it´s close to downtown that it´s so expensive at times. I think my shoes will make it to the end, actually; they´re doing really really well. Maybe new insoles, but I´ll get them here. I´m really impressed actually.

I think that if we focused more on the work like that in the States, the wards would be a lot stronger and we´d have a lot more baptisms, too. How are the Elders there doing? Lots of visitors at church? I´m really excited to see where Nick gets sent to!

How´s work?  Let me know how it´s all going! Love you dad! Love you!!!!!!

Love, Eric