13 January 2014

Hello Family and Friends, 

It was another week of success here in Restinga. Adriana was baptized! Last Monday we went to the registry place to watch her and her husband Everton sign their marriage papers. When they finished signing we quickly left and secretly went over to their house where the Bishop, members, and other Family members were waiting anxiously for their arrival. When they arrived the Bishop gave a marriage blessing and then we chowed down on churrasco and cake. It was all very good.

Saturday Adriana was baptized. The baptism went well. President Castro and the Stake president were present and I had to give a talk at the last minute. At first I was kind of mad that I had to talk, especially with our mission president there, but then I remembered that I had been praying to become more confident and courageous and so God gave me a chance to improve in these areas. The talk went well and Elder Horst baptized Adriana. That is three weeks in a row! Now we are going to have to dedicate all our time to finding new people to teach seeing that we have not been able to put 100% into finding the past few weeks.

Next week we will have transfers. I am about 99% sure that I will stay in Restinga due to the fact that I have only been here for one transfer. What will be interesting is what happens with the rest of our zone. I think Elder Horst will stay another with me because he has had a lot of success in this área. The rest of the zone has a lot of time in their respective áreas so there will be many changes. Honestly, I am looking forward to the transfer because there will be a lot of new faces in our zone and hopefully some new fire in the zone.

This transfer was definately the quickest of my mission until this point. When you have a companion that you get along with and some baptisms lined up, it is like a blink of an eye and then you are already talking about the next transfer.

 

Mom, I read your email that you went to teach a Family with the missionaries. I thought that was very cool. In our mission it is a rule to invite everyone in the first visit to be baptized, even the people in road it is advised that we invite them too. At first it was scary for me, but if you have the spirit with you there is nothing to worry about, 10/10 they accept. I happy the missionaries invited you to teach with them, it is so much better with a member's testimony. Also it gives the investigator see that we are normal people. Countless times people have asked us if we can listen to music, dance, go to the beach etc.. It is actually kind of funny some of the rumors that go around about us. I advise everyone to go out an teach with the missionaries. The prophet has said this is how the missionary work will go forward.

 Also I got your email about housing for Fall semster in BYU. I really want to room with Wesley and the rest of the bros. We all planned it out before leaving for the mission and I think it would be cool to get back together with them. Let me know what happens. Moreover can you see when I can sign up for classes? Dad ask Karlan what types of classes I need to take?

Well that is about it for right now. We just played flag football and ate Mcdonalds which was super expensive. In Brazil only the wealthy eat at Mcdonalds is that not ironic? Good thing I got some extra Money for Christmas.

 

Love you all,

Elder Miller