Olá from Viamão!

Well, lets start from Monday!

Monday: I finished my day by packing, and saying bye to people... The night ended with a lot of Tererè at the house of Tiago and Helena with all 4 of the missionaries. Elder Viana and Elder Marques stayed in F.O. and Elder Staples went to Rio Grande. That was Monday.

Tuesday: Woke up early, finished packing, took a 3 hour bus ride to Porto Alegre, a 70$ Taxi to Viamão and started working! Well, nobody was home so we ended up talking to a lot of members. This transfer is only 5 weeks, and elder R. Ferreira will probably leave, so I need to know the area and the members... P.s. This area is huge too!!! 

Wednesday: More of the same... Nobody was home, we talked with members and less actives... Less actives is big focus point now becuase Elder Godoy (of the 70) Gave our mission a promise that if we focus 30% of our time on Less actives we will baptize double! So, that´s what we´re doing! We had a leadership meeting that night with all the presidents, bishopric and the ward mission leader... This ward is a lot different... They like to argue about dumb things. Like, if a person has 12 or 13 years... Yup. But they´re good, I still don´t know everyone yet.

Thursday: Well, we recieved a reference from the mission home... This person (Carol) sent an email on the church website saying that she wanted to recieve the missionaries in her house... Well, of course we´re going to go! so, we went, when we got there somebody from Elder R. Ferreira´s last ward was at the house too... They´re friends (Maybe a little more) well, they had a little reunion and then we started talking with Carol... She used to live right next to the church, when she was married, and the missionaries knocked on her door probably 7 times she said, but never let them in... She always was a little curious but, her husband never wanted. Well, now they´re divorced, she lives some where else... She has a good friend in the church, (Rodrigo) that lives an hour and a half away, he´s an RM and everything, so he visited her for a while and talked about the church... We taught the restoration to her, and she liked it a lot, she said it just makes sense... Well, perfect. (p.s. she really likes us too I have high hopes with this) Definitely will return soon.

Friday: Well, we had a Zone meeting, then lunch... Then nothing else happened until we returned to Carol´s house. Uh huh, Rodrigo left, but her son was there.. Guess how old he is... Yup, 9. All the RM´s know the significance of this. ;) well, we planned on teaching the Plan of salvation,and just that... Well, we watched the video,explained it a little more. She cried, we ended up teaching too ``O Dia do Senhor`` and ``Jejum`` The day of the Lord and fasting... why? well, we were fasting so we said no to the coke, and explainedwhy... And with the the day of the Lord she asked why we believe Sunday but some think it´s Saturday... Well, she read the book of mormon, more than what we left with her... Had a notebook of questions, but forgot it at her brothers house..Though, she remembered some. she said I have all these questions because I have a hunger to learn more. She explained all about her rough history, how a church here took all her moms money after her dad died. So she got married at 16 and left the house becuase they didn´t have any money to eat or other things. She´s really excited,she gave the closing prayer after resistence because she didn´t want to in front of us... Promised she would feel good during it. She gave in, prayed and cried again...Man,this could be good.

Saturday: Woke up early (worth it) Payed 10$ To take a crowded smelly bus (Worth it) Then sat for an hour (worth it) waiting for Elder Bednar!!! (Elder Godoy and elder Jeneu of the 70 were there too) man, was it good... I don´t even know what I can say about it other than... He took his spot back as my favorite apostle... He´s actually funny, I never would have thought that. He taught us one thing I liked alot becuse it´s true... He used this phrase... ``Listen, members of the church have  stupid traditions, not the church but the members! We need to stop playing stupid games like Guess what´s in my head! What´s guess what´s in my head? You know, when a teacher asks a question with the answer in their mind. STOP``    Man, he was good... That´s all I´ll say, I´ll send a copy of his training when we recieve them. 

Sunday: We had a stake conference Elder Christensen (presidency of the 70) was supposed to be there, but he was at a different stake being Elder Oaks, becuase Elder Oaks was supposed to be here with the Northen mission but something came up...So, we had Elder Jeneu of the area 70. And president and sister Castro. During the day we watched the news alot, because here, just like Pelotas everyone but members leave their houses to go to the beach... So we watched the breaking news about the accident in Santa Maria... Santa Maria is in the Rio Grande do Sul too, so it´s big news here... And, that was pretty much our day.

Today I´ll give a spirtual thought, a little thing that Elder Bednar taught us... 

He taught, when we have questions about anything, grab a cheap 1 dollar book of mormon, read the book carefully, highlighting the phrases, verses, chapters related to our qeustion,go back and read all the highlighted things, write a 1 page report on what we learned, pray during all this,and ponder...We will recieve our answer,and that answer will change our lives. He said, after you do this, you can read talks of apostles and prophetes and compare your answers..> I promise that your answer will be just as good if not better. Becuse who´s going to recieve reveltion better for you... Exactly, you will.   Elder Bednar has a bookshelf full of cheap BOMs that he won´t let anyone read, his sons always ask if they can, and he tells them no, but I´ll buy you a bookshelf so you can start... Then they asked can we have them when you die... his answer... Before my last words, I will set a match to them...

This is the beauty of person revelation, only YOU can recieve the answer perfect for YOU. 

Eu amo vocês!!!