Email 5/4/09

Email received May 4, 2009
5th Area: Joao Pessoa-Tibiri
8th Companion: Elder Amarante

my dearest family and frenz...

happy birthday to jaxen last saturday!
and what a week it has been. my comp, being the genius that he is, lost our cell phone, which messed up a ton of stuff not being able to contact any other missionaries to pass numbers or schedule/cancel meetings or appointments or baptismal interviews and stuff like that. then, being the genius i am, i locked our keys inside our house which had us spending a lot and a lot of time trying to get in, and eventually we had to just break in through the window late at night. but not even talking about these things, for some reason things have just been really stressful and challenging lately. with new people, new members and a SUPER weird and confusing new area, its all just been hard. but, in these times, the key is to focus on the good... which i have been doing! just look at this list...

---joão pessoa just may be the most beautiful place ever- i feel like i am in Hawaii every day (even with all the inconvenient rain that comes with it)
---being here in the city and closer to the mission office, we get letters and/or packages just about every week.
---i absolutely love my new companion. me and elder amarante are already best friends and he is a super hard worker. i have never had more blisters on my feet or been as tired when i get home at night but we are tearin´it up. its a lot different having someone that is a recent convert and gained a true testimony just a short time ago. he is awesome. and i am teaching him english so we stay busy sempre. things are gonna be moving forward better.

one of the reasons i was annoyed to leave mossoró was because we had prepared 2 baptisms that week that were to be bapized 2 days after i was transferred. i got here and they dont have anybody to take to church or even teach. so we have mostly been in the process of finding new people the last few days. this week will be a lot of finding and teaching. (and hopefully baptizing)

so i will be calling on sunday... already?? with 3 hours of church in the morning and 3 in the afternoon/evening and possibly baptisms in between it will be a rush. so i think later at night is the only possible time. but i am thinking it will have to be 40 minutes of speaker phone this time... talking to everyone individually might not be possible. maybe just mom and dad. who knows, but i will get the number to you guys asap!
THX
Elder Sherwood