Laranjeiras

Hey guys,

Well, we had a good week! The work is going well. We're still set up for a wedding at the end of the month and I actually had a lot of fun teaching this week. We have 3or 4 young men in our ward that are working on their mission papers. They were all inactive about 3 or 4 months ago, but are now preparing to head out on missions. We've made good friendships with them and are being blessed because of it. They are all pretty cool guys and have a bunch of friends that they're inviting to church. We've been teaching some of their friends, way cool and sincere guys, and 2 have already said they've received answers about the Book of Mormon and want to be baptized. It's been fun to teach with them. We're teaching good people who've already gone to church and are honestly open to receive the gospel. So, it's been a fun week. One of my favorite parts of the mission is to teach and I love it when more of my time is spent teaching than finding (which isn't so fun for me....) So, the work is going great. We had over 12 investigators at church this week! So, we've got some good potential, and I'm enjoying the work.


It was an interesting week at church. With the ward division, I thought we'd have less than 100 people at church. A usual week had a frequency of 120 people and we lost about 25 active ward members. This week, we had 118 people at church! I was surprised and it was a great blessing to see. But, we did lose the ward pianist and the Principles of the Gospel teacher. So, who gets the responsibilities..? Me! We showed up to church at 9:05 (we were trying to get some ppl to come to church...) and right when I showed up and sat down, the ward secretary came down and told me that I'd be playing the piano. So, I run up to the stand just as the first hymn was supposed to start and look at the hymn. It had 5 flats! I had to resort to just playing one note, as I don't know how to play piano very well, but it went pretty well. I also had fun teaching the Principles of the Gospel class....We had a pretty good showing and the lesson went well. So, I'm staying pretty busy...

Today, my last comp, Elder Woolf made a year on the mission. So, we celebrated by having a "brunch". We made chocolate chip pancakes that his family sent, juice, eggs with bread, french bread, an avocado smoothie, and a scone-ish kinda thing. It's like a fried pancake you eat with cinnamon sugar. It was so good! I took a pic, but I forgot my camera. I'll have to get it to you guys next week. Sorry.

Elder Lewis and I still get along great. He's a good kid. We've figured out that between February 4th and 5th, I'll have as much time left on the mission as he will have had out here. Pretty nuts!

So yeah. That's pretty much whats been going on. Hope you guys have a great week!

Love you!

-Elder Eric Stapley

Laranjeiras

Hey guys,

Well, we had a pretty good week. Life is just going on. I'm still here in Laranjeiras. By the end of this transfer, I'll have been here for 6 months. But, I'm excited to stay with Elder Lewis. He's a good guy and I'm glad that I can stay with him for another transfer. I think by the end of this one, I'll be ready to go to another area.

The work is going well, though. We have some pretty good people that we're teaching and a family of 6 that we're hoping to baptize soon. We are getting some good references and trying to teach the most that we can with the members. So, life is going pretty well and we are trying to have some good success.

New Years was pretty chill, except I didn't really sleep too much. It sounded like a war was going on outside. I think I finally fell asleep at like 3 in the morning. We celebrated by eating some burgers and churrasco....pretty exciting. But, it's now 2011! The year I go home! The time is flying by...

We had a few ward changes this week. Our stake is not really the strongest in Manaus. On a good week, our ward has an attendance of 120. But, the neighboring ward only has about 70-80. So this week, we found out that a fairly large portion of our area was taken out and given to the other ward. We lost about 25 active people....So, while it's nice because our area is now smaller, we lost some good members, and (unfortunately...) some of the better lunches. It's nice because now we don't have to walk as much, but it's definitely going to shake some things up in the ward.

We had a good lesson this week. I tried to have the investigators talk 50% of the time by asking good "inspired" questions. We hadn't really planned what we would teach before, and tried to learn what we needed to say by just asking questions and listening to the Spirit. It actually turned out to be a great lesson and I could tell the investigators really paid attention and learned what we were trying to teach them.

But yeah. Life goes on. I'm just lovin life and the mish. Hope you guys had a good new year!

Love,
-Elder Eric Stapley

Laranjeiras

Hey guys,

Well, this email won't be too long, as I talked with you on Christmas and not much has happened since. But, this week has gone well. Back to work! We've been working really hard and doing our best to work with the ward members. As a result, we've one of the biggest teaching groups that I've had since I've been in this area. We have some baptismal dates marked and January should be a good month. We participated in a ward council where the ward made a goal to baptize 12 people in the next 4 months! We hope the ward makes some good changes and starts baptizing. For the year of 2010, the ward only baptized 6 or 7 people, so hopefully the work continues to grow.

This is the last week of the transfer. I'm curious to see what happens. I've been in this area for 3 transfers, but only been with Elder Lewis for 1. I kind of see me staying 1 more transfer to finish training him. I wouldn't mind staying for another transfer. Elder Lewis is fun and I feel like I can continue to help him grow. I'll find out this weekend and let you know in my next email!

Today we're going to get lunch with 2 other Elders. They want to eat turtle and as I haven't had it yet, I might try it out too. Some members say that it's tasty...If I end up eating it, I'll send a report...


Well, it's official. I've been serving for more than a year and a half. I'm excited but really nervous to think that in 6 months I'll be home. I'm still working and have made a goal to try and be the best missionary I've been for my entire mission. I want to end these last 6 months working hard and helping others to come unto Christ.

I know this email isn't long, but I can't think of what else to say. Hope all is going well with you! Have a great week! I loved talking on the phone on Christmas! Miss you!

Love,
Elder Eric C. Stapley