Week 57 Letter

Monday, June 30, 2014

Famlee!

Hey everybody, how are you all doing? I am great! This week was good; it went by really fast though. Let me get started.

The week started pretty normally. We have been trying to find more and more people to teach. The biggest difficulty is finding people the 2nd time... but I am pretty used to that. We have some people with great potential; we just need to get them to let us teach them. 

Right now we have a few people we are focusing on for baptism. The first is Paulo. Paulo is the son of a member, whose mom is not a member. His dad, José Carlos has been a member for 20 years or so. She has always been really closed to the church. However, we have been trying to work on her a little. She won't even talk to us, but we are trying to work with her through her husband. It looks like she is going to let Paulo get baptized; we are shooting for the end of this week!

This Sunday was rough. We had 5 in church, which is good. But after church ended at 12 we went home, ate lunch, and then returned. The stake presidency came to have some special meetings with us, and as councilors in the presidency my companion and I needed to be there. Well, our branch had been having a lot of problems, and even (as the stake President said it) 'apostasy'. It has been pretty bad in the branch, and we have been fighting as missionaries just to keep it afloat. I have been in contact with the stake president regularly however, and he has been really grateful for everything we are doing. Anyways, we started meetings at 2h30 and we didn't get out until 9h00 that night... 

It was a long day.

However, they were really productive meetings. I think we are going to get this branch turned around here soon. Sure hope so, we can't baptize people into an apostate unit. 

Well, as for the rest of the work, it is going well. I am going to be out of area an hour away tomorrow doing a division with one of the Elders in my district in Mirandela. They have been really struggling there, it is a really small area, and they are getting a bit discouraged. Luckily, I specialize in little areas (I have only served in 1 area so far that wasn't little...) so hopefully on the division we can set fire to the area and the Elder's there once more. 

I know that the Church is true. I cannot deny it. I am thankful for everything the Lord does to help us as his servants.

I am also very thankful for sunshine, Brazilians, wild cherry trees, and non-practicing Catholics.

Well, I am going to go. I love you all. Thanks for all the letters. You are all great! Have an awesome week!!!

Love you!

Elder Lee

Mom,

Umm, don’t remember all of the questions. My comp in Regua stayed. My recent converts there are awesome. Ricardo received the Melch Preisthood which I forgot to say. He is awesome. 

The world cup is huge here but thank heavens Portugal is already out. I see that as a blessing, because it was not good for the work. they can win in 4 years when I can watch them. 

No baptisms this week. 

I saw 3 emails of pics and dropbox. How did you let Levi do that on the tractor?  I would have never gotten away with that. Holy cow! The kitchen is completely different!  Freak... that's really weird. I saw Butterscotch in one of the pics. She ain't dead yet? Hahaha... how is she? Showing signs of age?

Hey, I already gotta go, but I love ya! Have a great week!

Elder Lee