Week 6

I will start with yesterday. Not much happened the rest of the week that i can remember except general confrence and I will get to that later. Yesterday we went around saying goodbye to all of our baptisms and that included a few old ones of Elder Ramos. We had a good time and even had an extremely golden contact that we were sure to pass off to the new elders. It was in the house of an old investigator that was ready for baptism when she got married (that is the story of about half of our old investigators, marrage is not very popular especially among the poor). She lives in a house with about 4 other families that have no relation that i can tell. One of the families is a middle aged Japanese man and his son. We found out that the man is a member and when we gave the book of mormon to his son (who is not a member) he testified to him that it is true. The father who was baptised in japan but imigrated to brasil had fallen inactive when he moved 15 years before. His son was very intrested in the Church and the father is eager to become active again. He only had the book of mormon in japanese before. That was great and spiritual. But i have another story that was great for other reasons(completely unspiritual but cool). We went to the house of Maria Da Gloria who is the mother of Luana one of our baptisms. We had just planned to say goodbye but we stayed when they asked us for help. The door handle to the room of the children had broken and the baby who can bearly walk was inside the room crying and they couldnt get the door open. The baby went to the medal mesh window between the room and the kitchen and was crying very loudly. I spent about 30 minutes trying with different tools to open the door. That didnt work, with two screwdrivers i levered the lach around but it didnt release the bolt. I then tied two brooms together to retreive the fallen handle that was on the other side of the door(by way of the medal mesh window). After getting that i discoved that the problem was that turning the handle did nothing. So I kicked in the door. I was allittle disapointed that it took two kicks. But I got the door open. The door was surprizingly strong. It showed not a mark from the kick that completely disloged the metal peace that the handle retracts, I have no idea what name to call it.

General confrence was great and i was able to listen in english. Since the room was almost all american missionaries we were slightly less reverent durring the confrence, including a rather loud hurrah for Elder Bednar when he told the members that they are full time finders and (we)the missionaries are full time teachers. But we went real bad, Just jubulant.

We got notice of our transfers on saturday after confrence. We also didnt get to go to priesthood session because it started at 9:00. But Right now i am in Mauá. A city built on a hill or 15. It is quite hilly but also a great area. My companions old companion and another missionary ran away yesterday so he got no sleep, because of the many telephone calls and visits. His companion showed up at his parents house about 7:00 this morning. He is a Brazilian, My companion is Elder Allred, he is from Rexberg, he graduated with David Sparks but doesnt know him that well. He only has 7 months on the mission and though he is senior he has told me to help and give advice in any way I can. I like him. He is from what I have seen a hard worker. Even with the companion that ran away and would not work for the most part he was able to get 5 baptisms last transfer. Though he has said that it is mostly because the ward is so helpful. A helpful ward is heaven for a missionary. When I got there the place was a mess, but not that big of a mess and we cleaned it up fine. I we will see how this goes.

It is about time to go so I will stop there. I love you and hope you all are well,

Elder Reed Risenmay