Letter from Mike December 5, 2007

Hey Dad

Baptism was sweet action, but Elder J went in the water because I can´t get my elbow in the water cause it´ll open up. It was awesome though. This old lady is such a doll. Right when she came back from changing her clothes, she stood up and told everyone there that if they ever needed ANYTHING, spiritual or physical, she would be the one to call, becuase she´s entered into a covenant to do just that. It was awesome. She´s cries everytime we talk with her, and says we´ll never know what our names mean to her. That´s what it´s all about. You know? This is really what is important. Eternal and everlasting. That´s our work. It´s an out of body experience to think of exactly what we´re helping these people do. I almost can´t wait to die to see them on the other side haha I love it so much to do this. Everything here is fine. Working is hard sometimes, but when I just put my head down and talk to everyone, and just smile, it gets better. Prayer is amazing too. I spent a day in Alcantra this week on splits with the Zone Leader, ELder Casimiro, and it was awesome. We went to chew a few a elders out for slacking like mad, and I learned a lot. He talked to them about the three motives e have for everything. Fear, Pride, and LOVE. When we have a motive for love, these people feel it, and their motives for keeping compromissos (forgot english). I´ll talk about that in Church on Sunday. I really enjoy your letters. That Holland talk is amazing. I love him, what he says about rowing out and beating their head with oars. It´s awesome. He gave AN AWESOME talk in the Provo MTC, I think it was may of 06, but I really have no idea. About the sacrifice of missionary work, and how Crist´s sacrifice ties in. If you could find that, it´d be awesome. I watched it in the CTM, and am just now remembering it. It was amazing. But everything here is good. We have Gloria to baptize this sunday, and the weeks to come we have a few firm ones, but it´ll be a struggle to fill every week, but we´re doing our part. Thanks for everything. I love you and am so glad you can relate to mission life. If you ever beed anything, let me know. I´m sending you a tie! I hope you didn´t forget you asked for one. Thanks for everything. Love, Mike

Hey mommmy

Sounds like things at home are running as they should. Ken got his braces off eh? Man I remember that day. What a day. Went to mutual that night and we had it at the Esplins. Man I was feeling good that night. But thanks for sending what sounds like the goods. I won´t get any packages until the twentieth when we go to Rio for mission conference, but they should be there and I´ll have them in time for Christmas. So you want to hear about the trivia huh haha Nothing much. I wake up, go to the bathroom, shave, shower, iron my shirt, write in my journal, and then I just kind of sit for a while until 8. Then I sit on my bed and read O Livro de Mormon out loud for fifteen minutes to learn better Português. At 9, Elder Jensen and I get together and pray and study. At ten we go to the church and call people to firm up our plans for the day. We really try to get a lesson in before lunch, but it´s hard in the morning. We have lunch everyday in a members house at 12 or 12 30, after that, it´s work and walking city till nine or nine thirty when we get home and plan for half an hour. Then I shower again and hit the sack. Basic day. No I don´t have a toilet seat yet. But I´m used to it haha We teach a lot of people. We baptized Conceção last sunday and we´re baptizing Gloria this Sunday. After that, the baptisms are going to be tough, but wepre working hard to have one every week. Things here are really good. We met a guy from Ghana yesterday and I thought a lot of Steve. We were just walking up the street, and this HUGE black guy stops us and asks us in really weird english if we were the latter day saints. I was like Holy shmoly, this guys speaking english! Anyways, we taught him the first lesson and we´re going back tomorrow. Should be sweet. Don´t really know what else. I´ve been taking films of just some random stuff throughout my day and I´ll be sending that this week, maybe it will get there before Christmas. Sounds like home is home. Cate is big I bet. Blows my mind that I won´t know her till she´s two. But I hope everythings great. If you ever need anything let me know. I love you mom. I´ll talk to you next week