Elder J.R. Gleason: November 12, 2012

Well another transfer has come and past, but this time nothing changed with us here in Itu. And we didn't end up getting another dupla of Elders for our area/house. We had been told that we would receive 2 more elders and that they would be living in our house for an entire week but when the phone call came they ended up going to a different area in our zone. I cant lie I was a little frustrated because I was excited to have 2 more missionaries living with us and even worse Elder Riggin (from back in Jaçana) was the missionary that went to the other area that should have been with us. But the Lord knows what He´s doing so the other dupla was needed in that other area. But now we are the Zone Leaders of 18 missionaries which is a little unnormal here in our mission. In our mission we only have 1 other zone thats as big as ours. But so last week on Tuesday night all the missionaries that were being transferred slept in our house and it was packeddd. We didnt even have enough mattresses for everybody and a couple missionaries ended up sleeping on our 2 couches which are extremely uncomfortable haha. But things in the zone are going really well and the work is really starting to progress well.

Also, this week we started to receive the blessings of all our hard, diligent work. We had a great week this week. 2 families that we´ve been teaching for a couple weeks that arent married have decided that theyre going to get married now. The only bad part is that here in Itu to get married the process takes forever, at the minimum 1 month until you can mark to get married on paper. So theyre going to take a little longer but were super excited for them that theyve decided to get married now. Also we had some other people that we found during this week. One is the brother of a member who went to church for the 2nd time yesterday and is from a different state here in Brasil and will be going back in a couple months but hes super interested and were teaching him now. Also we are teaching the mom of a member from a different ward that is super happy with us teaching her and is seeing how it is blessing her life already. And she has a 9 year old son as well who isnt a member. With both these people that I said weve marked baptismal dates for here in a few weeks. So were going to keep working with them a lot and here in a few weeks they should be baptized. We´re super excited for another transfer here in Itu together and even more for how the work is starting to pick up now a lot more. We´re going to keep working our butts off so that these blessings dont stop coming.

Oh and the other day Elder Messias was bit by a dog in the street haha. I can laugh because it wasnt me. He was super irritated and said he was ready to kick the dog, luckily it didnt cut him or anything it just ripped his pants a tiny bit. It was the first time ive seen someone bit by a dog so far on the mission.

Eu Te Amo

Elder Gleason

P.S. Helaman 3:25-28, 35; 4:15 and Psalms 5:4; 11:5, 7; 15:1-2; 23:3-4