Laranjeiras

Hey guys,
Well, it's been another week in the life. Nothing too exciting really. I've been sick for the last week and had to rest a little bit... My voice is finally starting to come back. I feel like I've been coughing up a lung for a full week. But, we are still trying to work and find more people to teach and to baptize.

We are working with a couple that one of my friends found when he was here a few months ago. They seem way cool and are excited to get married and baptized. Now we are just trying to finish everything with the papers and get them baptized as soon as possible. It seems like this wedding should have happened a long time ago, but some of the last Elders were kind of lazy on the whole wedding process... So, that's what we're working with right now. Other than that, we don't have too many investigators. The last missionary that passed in this area "died" (meaning he finished his 2 years...) and didn't necessarily leave too much for me to work with. I've realized in every single one of my areas (other than my first) I follow up in the place of someone who just went home. Fun... hmm... But we are working hard and trying to find more good people to teach. We have a few references, so hopefully one of those turns out well.


This area is very rich. Everyone has a big gate in front of their house. A lot of members have air-conditioning and even maids...uuhhh....I miss my little poor areas with humble people. I get annoyed when memebrs try to show off how much money they have during their lunches for us. But, oh well. It happens. If anything, it just makes me more grateful for my poor areas where you could just walk up to a humble family sitting outside the front of their houses....


Yesterday I had leadership meetings pretty much all day. With the new mission program, we have a decent amount of leadership meetings. It was fun to see a bunch of old friends and get some trainings from President Jayme. We talked a lot about the purpose of the Spirit in conversion and how to start teaching investigators. I really like President's trainings. We studied the scriptures a lot and talked about how to pass the new trainings on to other missionaries.


I also ran into one of my old comps, Elder De Jesus. We were having a discussion after the trainings about which type of comp is better. American or Brazilian. But, Elder De Jesus said that his best 2 comps so far have been Americans, and I was one of them. It was a nice little moment...I spent a while talking to one of my old friends who is in Porto Velho right now and said that Teles and Lucimar (a family that I taught when I was there) are now married, baptized, and Teles has the priesthood and blesses the sacrament. Good work. And Marcizo, another one of my baptisms, now has a stake calling and is way involved in the stake. I was happy to hear that my old investigators and baptisms are doing well and are strong in the church.


Monday morning we helped two other missionaries move to a new house. I'm still a little sore....


Elder Woolf is cool. He's way laid back and we are pretty good friends.


Other than that, not really anything else is going on. Just the usual life. Hope all is going well with you guys at home. Love you


-Elder Eric Stapley