Week 6

Oi família!

Time is going by fast. They keep us pretty busy. It seems like I haven't been in the CTM long enough to be leaving in 3 weeks. I can teach almost all the lessons. The big highlight of this week was proselyting.

On Friday, we hit the streets of São Paulo. We were given 4 Livros de Mórmon and took off. We were to stay within our usual boundraries around the CTM, which is a decent sized area. We just walked around and talked with people and realized we didn't really know where we were. We could usually see a Catholic church and that was our landmark. It was so much fun. We talked to the first guy for 20 minutes. He could understand us and we could usually understand him. He was hard core Catholic though, so he shut us down.

After getting shut down a few times and just talking with random people on the street, we found some genuinely interested people. We gave out our 4 books in about 2 hours. At first we were a little nervous to stop random people walking on the streets, but we got over it quickly. Most people are very nice. We just talked and introduced ourselves. A lot of people said they respected us and what we were doing.

After we gave out our 4 books, we saw our teacher. He asked if we wanted more and hooked us up with 4 more books. Teachers usually aren't allowed/don't give missionaries more Livros de Mórmon, but we scored. We gave all those out, too. It was so much fun to talk with people, even if we were rejected.

2 people in particular seemed really interested. One was a lady who has some friends that either are LDS or are taking the discussions (she was talking really fast...) She was excited that we talked with her. She was ready to pay us for a Book of Mormon, but we told her it was free. She was super happy. Our last book was given to a lady that- at first- didn't seem too interested, but then Elder Higgins and I started telling her about prophets and that her family can live together forever. After that she got interested. I'm hoping that they contact other missionaries. Overall, it was a way cool experience. It made me just that much more excited to have those experiences everyday.

One thing that was kinda interesting- we had interviews with the branch president. He told me he's had his eye on me since day one and I kinda stuck out. I was curious so I asked why. Luckily, he said he expects big things from me.


I'm going to take off now. I'll email you guys next week, and I look forward to another letter. It was nice to hear from all the fam. Except, how come J didn't write? Fubeca...tell him he's gotta hit me up with a letter soon. Shoutout to Erynn. Love you guys. Miss you. Hope all is going well.

-Elder Eric Stapley