Hello

Hellooooo

English is literally becoming difficult to speak. I have gone from an almost entirely American zone to the opposite. It´s good though its really improving my Portuguese. Today has been a bit of a weird day, and it isn´t helping me that the person on my left is looking at pornography, and the person on my right is my comp skyping with his girlfriend... Needless to say my eyes are getting good practice at staring straight ahead.

This week I went on my 5th division to Erechim... Haha God really doesn´t want me and Harker to separate. That being said we did so to get our baptismal interview done. I was very glad to hear after a long day (we literally walked probably 2 hours, Erechim is huge, to find a house that we never found, and got incredibly lost... Harker is a dummy. So then after chastising him i began to clap doors to ask if there was a bus that could take us back to centro... It was getting very late. Frustrating.) but yeah I was glad to get the call and hear that the interview went great everything is set and she chose me to baptize her!! But... as us missionaries know nothing EVER goes right the first time of a baptism.. as was the case as we waited and waited for two hours at the church, but Rose never showed up. Oh how i am learning patience...

But there were some good things that happened in the week... (I am realizing I am a very pessimistic person, thanks pops) One of those things was a lesson we had with Michael. We had a conference with President last week where we talked about the importance of planning. I took what he said to heart, and realized that with Michael we had gotten lazy. We´d already taught him everything, so were just going there, chatting it up, and sharing a short message. Expecting him to have the change of heart we were hoping for. But after this, we sat down, and we planned a lesson. We planned to talk about 3 nephi 27. I walked out after busting with the spirit. Telling my comp how awesome that was, and how the time just seemed to fly. We taught with the spirit, we asked questions, we were prepared. And because of this, the lesson went awesome. They in turn had lots of questions, they felt the spirit, and because of this we made progress. Unfortunately he did not come to church (again) but i´m excited to go back. We also had an awesome lesson with Dirceu, Sonya, and Diesa. Where we talked about Lehi´s dream, and i highlighted when it wasn´t sufficient for only him to eat the fruit. He wanted his whole family to eat too! Everyone laughed and Dirceu tried not to smile. After, he left, and we stayed a little talking and drinking chimarrão. I love chimarrão.

Two things in my study this week. I want to tell you about I think my favorite talk ever, that i read at least once a week. "What have you done with my name?" By Mervyn B. Arnold. Wyatt, that is your next family home evening lesson. It talks about obedience and why we have the rules that we have. I use it in my teaching all the time and I can´t read it enough. I´m so proud to carry two names on my plaque- the name of my father and the name of my Savior. The other thing i loved this week is the book of JAMES! Especially James 2... I don't know about others but i get EXHAUSTED reading the Bible listening to crap about Faith... Great, faith... what else? FINALLY someone comes in and lays down the law!! These idiot evangelics are completely ignoring the Book of James every time they tell me that their Faith is sufficient. I love James. And Mervyn B. Arnold.

I spent a lot of time in the hospital this week... My good friend Douglas was checked in there after he about killed himself with Weed and Alcohol. I want to help this kid so bad... He´s not a progressing investigator, but I am the only person in this city that can help him change his life.. Its a little bit of a difficult decision. Because counseling is not what i was ordained to do. But speaking of, this hospital has about 50 big bloody crosses of Jesus in there... And it drives me INSANE. I hate crosses, so bad. Too bad they are everywhere here... Oh well, i have a funny story from my other hospital visits. So this lady asked us if we could come in a blessing, so we were like sure. Only problem.. We finish the blessing, and the lady next to her says I want a blessing too! So i look at my comp and were like well we cant refuse a blessing... So we give her one too! No more than 5 seconds after we had a room of probably 12 ladies shrieking Me next! Me next! I have a lot of faith in the church!! Hahaha.. So long story short we ended up giving about 10 blessings... And then got taken upstairs to give one more. Frankly it was a little bit ridiculous, and I don´t like giving blessings to people that dont understand the meaning... But it makes for a funny story. And now if i ever have financial problems i have a new job.... Blessings! Who wants blessings?? 10 bucks a blessing!!

Other good news of the week are the two girls we picked up from Dani... Pretty much they rock, one of them (Liana) accepted a baptismal date last night, (April 2nd) and we are going to invite the other very soon. I love members that help. What I dont love is the fact that public restrooms dont exist here... I was trying to explain to my comp yesterday that in the U.S. if your about to die, you just run into the nearest convenience store or market... and use it. It was a unfathomable concept to him. I´m learning more and more how different our cultures are. Our latest debate topic is whether the two kiss on the cheek thing is weird... The answer is yes.

I love you all. GO BYU. Go Obama. I love warring with crazy Lybians... Not.



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Elder Alex Allred
Terra de Gaúcho Tchê

Caixa Postal 13008

91010-971 Porto Alegre-RS

Brasil