bratwurst is hard to spell....

letter from 9-29-08

Well, good thing that I wrote a lot last week, b/c this week, I don’t fell like writing a bunch. I have a LOT to do. Yesterday I got a phone call from the president… and boy was that cool. He kindly let us know that MY zone is the WORST in the mission and that or mission is the WORST in Brazil (with reference to baptisms). I was like, “hmmm,… so you are trying to say that MY zone is one of the lowest baptizing in BRAZIL?!!” president is really great. He explained that he put me here to fix this; that it isn’t MY fault, but that it is MY responsibility to change this zone. So now we are all geared up to baptize. I call all of the missionaries everyday and talk baptism with them. The dumb thing is that a lot of them don’t realize the importance of them baptizing. It has been tough, but we are going to make a difference. BAPTISM, is the first word that we say in the morning and the last that we say at night. Think, eat, teach, walk, talk, sleep, study- all to BAPTIZE. That is what Christ says in 3n11:31-34, “ this is my doctrine… he who is baptized and endures to the end shall be saved. He who doesn’t get baptized is condemned.” THAT is the doctrine of Christ! = baptism.

You guys asked why I didn’t grab money out of MY account that day to catch a bus. Well, you see there is only one bank in brazil the does these transactions for me for free; HSBC. This is this other ATM called banco24hr. Where I was at there was no HSBC. There is a banco24hr. The problem is the banco24hr charges 8$ to grab some money and my account only had 10$ and 2$ only pays the fare for one of us… so we walked. [Oops, we forgot to add more $$ to his bank account - I guess it was Eric's fault that Adam had to walk 7 miles that day - ha-ha!]

MOM- [in regards to my comment how Satan does whatever he can to distract us from what we’re really here for!] we have made tons of changes in the mission to avoid distractions. Movies are out, pday activities for the most part, are out. Anything that distracts from baptism. Man is it cool to participate in all the changes with the new president.

Dad- man it must be cool to in a ward with so many active people. My ward here has a weekly frequency of maybe 60 to 70, with few men. It is tough to work with the leadership b/c there are so few. We are going to have to baptize 60 more I guess…

Alyce- I hope that you didn’t like the marriage thing all that much- you CAN’T be interested in getting married for at least 10 more months, and I am being generous. I got an idea- GO ON A MISSION! Yep, just plan on it. It is as ton of fun and a lot more work. You said something about the way to perfection. That is the title of an awesome book. “the way to perfection” I think that is by Joseph Fielding Smith. BUY IT. It is so cool, you don’t even know! But yeah, think about the mission thing. It would be cool.

Well, I got to cut it short.
Love
Elder helland

P.S I like getting letters from people at zone conferences and stuff…hint, hint :-)