Trails and Trials

Letter from 5-5-09

HAPPY BITHDAY MAMÃEZINHA
This week was a good one. Lots of cool blessing and trials.
Sorry I didn’t write yesterday. We had interviews in the zone and p-day got moved to today.
This week me and my companion were in that same old thing always running around looking for people to teach. We knocked a lot of doors with little luck. On Tuesday we were all tired again and we realized that we had very few investigators that were any good (meaning interested and progressing). As we deliberated about what to do a crazy idea came to our mind: get on a bus going to a neighborhood far away from where we were at and where we haven’t ever worked. At first it was just a funny idea, but then we made it real. We had like 10 addresses there to go after so we decided that it was a dumb idea but that we would go for it. We walked to the bus stop to wait for the bus, when we got to the bus stop there was another bus there going to a neighborhood equally far only we only had 5 addresses there. Since we were just being crazy, we decided to get on the bus and go anyway. We went out there and worked the rest of the day looking for people to teach, again without luck. At the end of the day we found a family of four. They were awesome. They loved the message and were excited to go to church on Sunday. They went and liked it. We went there yesterday and they gave us food. If was great. Since we are working out there a lot now, we have since found several other people to teach- way out in the boonies.

Ok, about mothers day:
Our number here is 24 9984 0998
I don’t know what time you have church. Mine is in the morning- 9 to 12.
You can call me at 5 our time. MY time. I don’t know what the conversion is, but we have got a few people using the phone on this day so I hope it goes well. If anything goes wrong, I will call you with another number on that day. Deal? Just 40 minutes of fun though, ok?

MOM- parabens e feliz anniversario. Way to go you oldie!! 29 is a lot!
No I am not sick.
Thanks for your sweet email.
I got MY bday package this week and it was great. We ate it all already (the other missionaries in the house and the zone do not permit that food is shared for more that a day.). the shirt was sweet. Sister bezerra wanted it, but I didn’t give it to her. :-)

DAD- GOOD luck running in the morning. my comp tries to get me to go running with him but I am too tired to go. Tell gpa and gma they are in my prayers.

ALYCE - have a blast with finals. i guess that I am coming up on a sort of “finals” too. I am pretty nervous. Love ya and know that I am happy for you and doing fine.

Love elder helland
PS On Sunday ask me about a cool story that happened at interviews. It was great.