Happy 6 Months to me...

Time passes fast. I've learned it´s true that the days here sometimes seem like they drag on forever, (especially when you lose many investigators in one day, more on that later) but the weeks go by fast. I really can´t believe that as of today, I have 6 months in the mission.

Hey, good to hear that the orange envelope arrived safely with the pics. I hope they´re good. Just out of curiosity, do the videos have sound on them? I know that my camera doesn´t play back sound, but I was wondering if it captures sound and plays it back.

This week was exciting. This is the last week in the transfer, which is usually cool because everyone is always wondering what will happen with the transfer. I actually don´t wanna leave my area, because we have a couple investigators that are REALLY close to baptism. Patricia, for example, I think just needs to have the invitation extended to be baptized. We´re gonna do that next time. (On a funny side note, she´s really excited to eventually get a Patriarchal Blessing, so that´s a good sign for baptism). And this week we´ve been teaching a girl named Grazieli. Her whole family just got baptized in September, but she wasn´t because she works and studies a lot, so she was never there to hear the discussions. She doesn´t have a religion currently (kind of a rare thing in my experience here so far. Everyone always says that they´re something even if they don´t attend), and has been coming to sacrament meeting the last two weeks. I think that she´ll definitely get baptized, I just hope that I´ll be around to see it.

Like mentioned earlier with losing investigators, we lost some that I thought really had a good chance of progressing until baptism. We found them just by knocking doors, and older couple. At first they were kinda reluctant to let us in, (especially the husband) but they eventually decided to hear the message. They seemed to really understand the message, and why a Restoration was necessary (a rare thing as well, in my experience. Most people that we teach for the first time don´t quite grasp the significance of the message), and said that they´d definitely pray about it. We were feeling pretty good about it... until we tried to mark another visit and they said that they were going out of town for 5 weeks. Now, it´s never good to leave an investigator for that long of a time, but we had no choice. So yesterday we went back to visit, and the husband saw us and immediately went inside and came out with the Book of Mormon and pamphlet that we gave him. That´s never a good sign, and it was obvious that he didn´t want to hear more. He gave us the materials, and said "Looks boys, if I want to learn about Jesus, I´ll read the Bible." We explained that that was good, and that our message wasn´t one that was competing with the Bible, but then he gave an explanation that I couldn´t understand. I understood something about a mind being like a computer, but beyond that he was using words that I didn´t know. I figured it was just me, but then Elder RJ said that he couldn´t understand what he was saying either. We bore our testimonies to him to close, and he responded by saying (and I always hate this when we get this comment from old men) "Boys, you´re still very young and have a lot to learn. You should study the Bible more so that you can know what you´re talking about...etc, etc" That´s always massively irritating to hear that from people who tell us we don´t know stuff just because we´re young.

As we were walking away, I was thumbing thru the Book of Mormon that he gave back to see if he had read any. We usually mark the Introduction, 3rd Nephi 12, and Moroni 10:3-5 for people to get acquainted with the book. We usually fold the pages over to help them remember. I noticed that the Intro and Moroni where still folded, but that 3rd Nephi was unfolded and looked like it had been read. I opened it, and out fell a pamphlet from, (betcha can´t guess who) The JW's. I read the pamphlet a bit, and it seemed to contain kinda what the guy had told us. That the Bible contains the word of God, read the Bible to know God. I showed it to Elder RJ, and he was like "Ah, THERE´S the reason."

So here´s what I learned: The combination of long intervals in between visits + a visit from the JW's = No longer an investigator. Simple math.

Well, that´s it for this edition. I´ll talk to you guys soon I guess, provided we can find a decent phone to talk from. (The bishop won´t let us use his office, which is funny cuz most of the Elders I´ve talked to here usually say that that´s the place that it´s normally done in. Maybe he´ll let up...we´ll see.)

Feliz dia das maes pra todo mundo! (Happy mother´s day for everyone.)

Excelsior!

-Elderus Heperiusno

Not much else from me. Hope you guys are good, and I´ll have the info for you guys Sat. Talk to you soon!