Email 6/10/09

Email received June 10, 2009
5th Area: Joao Pessoa-Tibiri
8th Companion: Elder Amarante

Pres Woodward Natal

Pres Woodward Joao Pessoa

Elder Linhares Joao Pessoa

Elder Linhares Natal

Novinho Baptism

transfers are in: me and amarante are both staying here.

well, the last couple weeks have been really hectic, for a number of reasons,- the rain is still pouring every day and causing big storms, and all the streets are flooded so its been crazy trying to get around. we´re still facing a lot of opposition but trying real hard to stay with the spirit to be able to find and teach, and the past few days we have found a few good people we are working with now. i guess its true, that saying... "you have to go through the rain to see the rainbow". (that can be used both literally and metaphorically for us here)

among all the hectic-ness, we have had a lot of problems with the owner of our house that we rent and i think the mission office got kinda sick of dealing with him and called us and said we need to find a new house asap. so we have been running all around town trying to find another one, and we haven't had any luck... at least for the conditions and price the mission allows. we have been trying to negotiate with a lot of homeowners to get the price where we need it but all of the houses we have looked at don't cut it. they originally gave us 24 hours to find one but now its been a few days so hopefully things work out before they throw us out on the street!

i guess my picture last week didn't send so i will send it again with a couple others- the first is when pres and sister woodward came, and the second is of another mini-confernce we had this past week. it was with Elder and Sister Linhares (leen-yahr-eez), who is from the seventy, and although it was only half a day, it was one of the best i have ever been to. his talk and trainings were amazing. brazilian general authorities are the most spirital and the most intelligent men on earth i swear.

we are still teaching Evandro, the man who has a lot of marriage problems and stuff and is looking to improve his lifestyle. he is trying really hard to apply what we are teaching him into his life but he isnt keeping all of our commitments so its getting tough trying to hold on to him. we have a 12 year old named erik who we took to church and have his baptism marked for this sunday. there is a really special 17 year old girl we are teaching. her name is skarlet and she felt the spirit really strong during the first lesson, she even started to cry a little when we told the first vison. even though she has received more than one answer to her prayers, the enemy is working really hard on her now and the gossip of Tibirí is getting to her so she is starting to have a lot of doubts. but we will do some strong commitments with her this week.

i can't believe smallville will go on to a 9th season. that is amazing. weirdest part is, i will be home for the end. congrats to the G train on the wedding. send me pictures

love elder sherwood