November 19, 2012

What a crazy week that we have had here in itu. It started off a little tough and in the end ended tough as well. On tuesday and wednesday we literally lost both days of work. Tuesday night we went and slept at the house in Trujilo with elder vincent and elder siddoway again (they stayed together as well). So we slept in their house and then on wednesday we had mission council in Sao Paulo and didnt get back into our area until 9 at night. It was more tiring than working that entire time because it was just bus after bus. And they arent comfortable. But it was a really good meeting with President and we learned a lot about how we can help our zone get better. And also President told us that it is no longer 15 contacts a day but now its 30. 30 new people a day that is our goal to talk with in the street everyday. And we started putting it in practice right away. It was tough but weve been able to do it everyday since. it helps us a lot more focus on the work instead of talking about other things that dont have anything to do with the mission now were always talking with people in the street so we dont even have time to talk about other stuff. Its helped us a lot. What we thought would be super difficult has actually been decently easy.

So since we lost 2 days of our week our teaching schedule was also pretty messed up and we had to move a lot of things around. But we ended up teaching a ton and what we taught in a normal week with our 7 days we taught the same amount with 2 less days in our week the Lord trully blessed us. And it was crazy because we also talked to more people in the street. We trully saw the Lords hand in what we were doing. So we worked really hard and things were going really well with all our investigators and we found 2 more couples, who are already married!!! and interested!!! So we were super happy. We were waiting for 13 people at church who promised that they would be there including all of our baptismal dates. And yesterday came around and... 1 person went. We were happy that she was there but also upset that no one else went. But the lady that went is super awesome and her and her son are going to be baptized next week after church!! So that was the huge bright spot of it all. And we´re super excited for her. We will see some of the fruits of all of our extremely hard and diligent work. Also one of the young couples that we´re teaching that just needs to get married to be baptized is still going super well. We were scared cuz they didnt go to church but we went by at night to see if they were home and they had travelled for the weekend and were trying to call us but it wasnt working. And we had had a family home evening marked with them and they were waiting for us to get there to have it. Theyre so awesome!!!! I just hope and pray that when we go to mark a marraige date in the govt building that it can be while im still here. I want to be here for the marraige and baptism!

Also lastly, our cell phone broke yesterday during church, we have no idea how it happened but it broke and still doesnt want to work. we tried everything to get it back but nothing. And last night was the night to get all the numbers from the whole zone and without cell phone it is super hard. We had to go back like the olden days and use the phone booths. But the first 4 that we went to were broken so we were running all asround trying to find one that worked. It was a battle but we finally found one and we didnt get home until about 10 pm. it stinks not having a cell phone especially when youre a zone leader. And even worse we´ll be without the cell phone until friday. awesome. so eah that was our crazy week. But next week we have 2 baptisms!!!

Eu Te Amo

Elder Gleason

P.S. Helaman 5:8-9, 12; 6:5 and Psalms 27:1; 29:11; 31:23-24; 32:10-11

 He tried calling home, but it didn't work out too well

 A huge doll type thing that Itu has, he didn't want to accept hearing their messages, J.R. wasn't too happy

 This little guy was a lot easier to talk to and they read the Book of Mormon together

 Coconut water, J.R. said it wasn't too horrible but doesn't plan on drinking it again

Sunday night getting all the "numbers" by phone booth since their cell phone broke