Email - 7/7/10

Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 9:06 AM

Our fourth of July went awesome! We didn´t bring everyone we wanted to to church, but you get what you need, right? We had a barbecue with a family here in the ward where we ate and ate and ate after a lunch in which we ate and ate and ate and then at night we went home and ate and ate and ate. Basically all we did was dork around and eat.

Brazil has lost the Soccer World Cup, so there was a little difficulty one day last week, but outside that, it´s all good here. We´re working hard in constructing the Kingdom in our area, and even when I get really sad because of this or that, The Lord sends help in the most unexpected ways.

We met Pres. and Sis. Prieto this week. Monday we had Conference and Tuesday we had Counsel, so we got to know them pretty well. I won´t lie that I miss Pres. and Sis. Tobias, but Pres. Tobias did an excellent job in preparing for this day. I feel as though all that I´ve learned with Pres. and Sis. Tobias is being completed by what Pres. and Sis. Prieto are teaching.

For example, these past few days I was having a bit of a hard time, feeling a bit down because we haven´t really had the success I wanted, and because of a few strange members wanting to pick a fight with me (weird, huh? but you know how it is, where there´s wheat, there´s tares.) and some other things. So I was feeling pretty crummy until when Pres. Prieto told us about how, generally when things are their worst, that´s when success is right around the corner, and the enemy is trying his hardest to stop us.

That´s when I remembered what my trainer told me in one of my first weeks on the mission. It was dark and ready to rain and all I wanted to do was duck for cover. He told me that when opposition is highest, it´s because we´re close to finding the elects. So I remembered what I´ve learned about having a testimony that´s strong enough that you can pass through all manners of apostasies and attacks and uproars without losing your faith. And the Lord has rewarded me. The problems I was having with a few other missionaries are resolved, and we´re all happy little ants in the farm again, and best of all is that I got two letters from the first family I baptized on the mission, telling me about how they are still firm in the faith.

These last four days have been exhausting, but rewarding. The whole mission will change, and now we will be tested to see if we will do everything that our new President requires of us. My trainer always prepared me for these days, and Pres. Tobias left me a leader at this moment because he believed I was capable of this. It´s a whole new vision of how to do work, and a whole new way to work on the mission, but I´m sure I´ll adapt. I´ve come so far, I can´t give up now, right?

I´ve been hearing that the weather up there isn´t all that great. It´s all sunshine here. I can´t remember the last time it rained. On the one hand, it´s great, because rain here really throws off the work, but on the other, there are days when I long for my mountains, for the forests, for the snow, and to see the ocean again. But I love, even so, my work area, and I will never be able to forget that for two years I was more Brazilian than American.

WOW. It´s so TRUE. I was with Elder Stapler last year. Whoa. Time flies, huh?

-Bryan