Email 1/25/10

Email Received January 25, 2010
7th Area: Mossoró- Belo Horizonte
13th Companion: Elder Küster

Finally some good rain and snow in AZ... now we just need some in MOSSORÓ...

as the time continues to fly i am still trying not to get too trunky (by the way, trunky does not mean distracted, but simply excited) and i think its ok if you are still excited about the work! which is going well. it was another week of finding/teaching new people and continuing to cut out the old ones and those that don't progress and keep commitments- which is about 8 out of 10 people. so we have almost a whole new group now and i think we are gonna see a lot of success with this family i talked about, the guy that cuts our hair. his name is Gilberto and we took him and his wife to church and they just have to get married for us to mark their baptism. but the problem with that is, that the cost of civil marraige recently sky rocketed... it went from 185 reais to over 300 reais now! it is ridiculous. so it will be more difficult for us now to work with families that aren't married but what pres fernandes and the area presidency really wants us to focus on is men and families, since they will be the ones that will have to really establish the church here in the north-east.

we still have Raniele, the med student guy, and i don't even wanna talk about it cuz i just get frustrated. but ever since the beginning we have taught him that the VERY FIRST thing he needs to do is gain a testimony of the book of mormon. well, he kinda skipped that part, and went and tried to get his answer from other people (and not from God) and what to you think happened? yeah, a pastor from his old church invited him to a BBQ just to talk bad about the church and try to convince him other wise. he really got into his head, using many things from the bible out of context and i even showed him everything in the bible that he was mixing up, but if a person doesn't have a SPIRITUAL confirmation first, it is much harder to comprehend SPIRITUAL truths. so now he is all confused but we are not gonna give up on him just yet.

about the release date that everyone keeps asking about... the original was the 25th of march, because the 2nd transfer of the year was supposed to be a transfer of 5 weeks, but now it could get delayed til the other transfer, which would make my release date the 2nd of april. so, nothing is official, but either way, i will be home just in time to eat at the place i have finally decided on. serious, its for real this time, i am not gonna change it... IHOP. yes, international house of pancakes.

keep it real and have a good week.
the church really is true.
love elder sherwood