Laranjeiras

Hey guys,

What's up?! So, great week! We had our baptism on Saturday. It was well-attended and the Spirit was great during the meeting. We're working really hard and seeing some good success. We have at least one baptism already set up for this month and we're working hard and trying to find more. My district is tearing it up and we baptized the only men in our zone during the month of February.

Elder Lewis is a way cool guy and we're really good friends. His Portuguese is really coming along and I feel we are teaching better together.

Sounds like my pai (trainer) will be in Manaus next week. Elder Christensen. I talked with Pres and it sounds like he'll let us hang out next P-day, so I'm stoked. I'm going on an English fast for a week to get my Portuguese accent up....


We had zone conference this week and it went well. We talked a lot about planning and goals. I realized that I only have one more zone conference left! It's flying by....But it was fun to see President and Sister Jayme and some other friends. The mish is so much fun.

Yesterday, I had a good experience at lunch. The Irmã (sister) was telling us about a difficult situation with one of her sons. He used to love going to church and has since been influenced by other family and friends to not go to church. The Irmã was pretty upset about it and I felt prompted to share the story of Alma the Younger with her. When I shared the part about the angel telling him that he (the angel) showed up to fullfill the righteous prayers of Alma's father to convince him of the truthfullness of the church, the Spirit hit. The Irmã started crying and saying that she had prayed and asked the Lord for help with her son. She didnt know if her prayers were doing anything or if she should just give up and that the message I shared was an answer to her prayer...I love it when that happens! It was a great experience, one of those moments when I felt that I was really being an instrument in Gods hands.

Well, props to my BYU bball!!!!! Jimmer is the man! I'm so sad I'm missing this season. Win over SDSU....going in with a #1 seed. That's my team! Rise and Shout! We are celebrating by going and playing some bball right now with some other Americans....

Anyways, hope you guys are all doing well! I'm glad to hear about baby Grant, my new cousin! Hope he's doing well! Miss you guys, love you, and have a great week!

-Elder Eric C. Stapley