19 November 2012

Dear Everyone,
Happy Birthday to Katelyn! Happy, Happy Birthday! Parábens pra você! Oooh I just wanna sqeeze her! haha Oi did she get my letter?
Still no boxes sorry.. BUT tomorrow we have a zone meeting so maybe there will be boxes there. Cross your fingers!
But this past week I was able to get a letter from Elder Chayce Baldwin, an Email from Elder Sabin and Letter from Carli Treu! Woot Woot :) Hopefully the letters I wrote back will make it this time:)
This week was a little bit slower than normal. There was a fiada, some sort of celebration three out of the five days this week where almost all the stores are closed and everyone, honestly everyone goes to the beach. It was hard to find our investigators, and the ones we did find weren't sober enough to talk to... it was sad, one of our investigators who stopped drinking coffee, stopped smoking and stopped drinking beer, gave in because her friends came over with alcohol. She saw us coming and locked herself in her house, and her friends said she wasn't home. That was a bummer, but if she's still willing we're gunna keep working with her. Its difficult being lied to especially when you saw blatantly the truth. So this week we focused more on our recent converts, answering questions, making questions, and inviting them to activities. It was good. One of our recent converts, a young bright girl 12 years old, who already finished reading the Book of Mormon, was able to go to the temple this past week. Every couple of months the stakes get together and take a caravan down to the Recife temple. She was able to go there and do baptisms for the dead. We're super excited for her. Her mom is 100% supportive of her and the church, in fact today they invited us over for lunch, just to talk and be company. Its weird in my area we work a lot with kids. The parents want their kids to have a better life, to have religion, to have the blessings that religion brings and to keep them away from the things of the world that are very prevalent here in Maceio. But the parents are unwilling to change themselves, to set the example for their kids. In the end the kids fall back into the traditions of their parents. I hope that someday all the parents will realize that they can change and set a better example for their kids.
So Monday was my birthday right, just in case ya´ll missed it, haha, When we got home that afternoon from P-day, we got a call from a member of the church who asked for a blessing. We went to his house and there was a big birthday surprise for me, balloons, members of the Ward. It was really cool and I was super surprised.
Sorry, but this is all the time I have. Don't be mad, I promise next week will be longer.
LOVE FROM ELDER RALPH