Olá família- lição da semana

letter from 11-10-08
SORRY - I was the MOST behind I've been - so Adam's last THREE letters were just posted today. You can scroll down and read them! :-)

Olá família- lição da semana

Man, this has been a long week. We finally moved apartments- that was a pain in the drain. We also had mission counsel- that was really awesome.

This week we started teaching a new family. There is a really neat story behind how we found them. I wrote it in Portuguese… sorry.

Eu vi muitas bênçãos do Senhor também essa semana. Segunda feira semana passado estava chovendo aqui. Nós não tivemos peito um planejamento a noite anterior, e quando pday acabou não tínhamos nada para fazer. Eu tinha alguns endereços, e decidimos visitar eles; não deu. Nós oramos para encontrar alguém batendo portas para ensinar. Sem guarda chuva nos buscamos noite inteiro. Também, noite inteiro meu companheiro falava coisas negativas. Finalmente, depois muitas portas e orações a noite tava acabando. Eu perguntei pra meu comp o que ele sentia. Ele falou que sentiu que nos tivemos feito tudo possível e que poderíamos voltar pra casa. Eu senti que nós tivemos feito tido possível, mas que isso significava que o Senhor faria a parte dele por causa disso. Fizemos mais uma oração e o próximo pessoa passando na chuva eu parei. Ele me convidou para casa dele o próximo dia. A família dele inteiro está lendo o livro de mórmon agora e tem data pra próximos semana. Eu mi que o Senhor está me usando pra ajudar os filhos dele. Foi um sentimento muito forte e especial.

(I'll get Jay to translate this for us and add the translation next week - don't forget to check back!)

Actually that is the sweet and condensed version. It really was a great experience. Also this other family showed up at church this week. The parents are members that have been inactive for at least 5 years. They now have two sons of 9 and 10 years old. Which is perfect- so we are going to teach them this week too.

Mom- Nova Iguaçu is my new area. It is the fourth largest city in Rio de Janeiro- but only has ONE ward. Our area is HUGE. It is close to Rio- about 45 min by bus from my last area. Good news is that this area doesn’t have half the danger, violence, drugs, or favela that my last area had. It is like utah in comparison. The neighborhood that we live in now is pretty “chique” –meaning “uppy” and “pretty darn sweet”. Here I would say that 50% percent of the people have a car. And some have the kind of cars that we have in the USA. It is pretty cool. But that is JUST the neighborhood in which we live. Everywhere else is normal. Living with three in one apartment was pretty cool at first. And maybe still could be, but my comp has a tendency to argue and hurt the feelings of others in the house… but we are trying to work this out still. By next week it will all be great. I got a few letters this last week- one from Sarah, and two from the Stanfield family. Please tell them THANK YOU for the letters! :-) Something that bro stanfield wrote helped me out. He said something about the importance of learning to love your companion and the people. I am trying harder than ever to love my companion- even when it is hard.

Get me Benjamin’s address too. Who knows when I will have time to write, but… who knows…And hey- since when do you say “wowzers”- I think that you are spending too much time with alyce. She is infecting your brain. :-)

DAD- forgiven. “and I Nephi did frankly forgive them.”I think that it is time that we forget this notion that occurred in the CTM, that if you write less I will write more. These things are entirely independent. I love you big guy- but you must have been really tired b/c you did even say who won in sports. Maybe you could try writing earlier. :-)

Alyce- I am glad to hear how busy you are. You don’t write so much about boys and the yucky stuff. Hey if you think that those candies where poorly made, you have got to see some of the candy here! There is one thing that I really like here that I don’t remember seeing there- cookies in travel packaging. Imagine one of those columns in the oreo box. Now imagine that it is all wrapped up and sold separately. Yup. Cool huh. :-) they sell these like crazy here. The best is the trakinha. Double stuff chocolate cookie with strawberry frosting!!! Hey, I hope you are studying the scriptures a lot, because I think that is my favorite thing to do these days… well, it is one of the only things that I do. :-) anyway, elder scott taught us a lot about how to study and learn. One of the things that he taught that is helping me is to study trying to learn by the spirit. I think that sometimes I read and study, loving it, but doing it to get more knowledge about the doctrine and the scriptures. BUT elder scott said that as we do this, b/c it is a good thing to do, we should be trying to learn from on high. He said that when we feel that the spirit is trying to teach us something that we should write that down and guard it in a safe place and read it often. That way we can learn more the next time. I bet that this applies to studying for school too. Actually I am not really sure how, but you are smart, you can figure it out :-)

Love you guys

Elder helland