June 20, 2011 Letter

Dear Everyone,

Another week come and gone.  So yesterday was my 5 month mark! Yay for 5 months...... haha

Ok. This week has been a little tough. I have a new companion, Elder Hocker, so i have to kinda show the area and find people to teach and stuff. So its been different. I'm used to Paiva telling me what we´re going to do. We´re trying to find new people. It´s hard. There are a lot of big buildings that we cant just go knock, or clap, door to door. So we got like 50 pamphlets of the plan of salvation and wrote our phone number, the address of the church, stuff like that, and left it with the gate keeper guys. Hopefully someone calls us. That´d be great.

We´ve been teaching Maria this week. She still has a problem with her "husband".. But we´re getting through it, and we remarked her baptism for this Saturday. She´s an amazing woman, she´s just used to a different lifestyle. Everyone in Brazil is. It´s so different. But i can see the gospel really changing her life.

Something kinda cool is last Monday we were teaching Diego in the house of the ward mission leader in Setubal 1. There were also 6 Americans there for a study abroad program. They all had served missions in Brazil so it was like a lesson with 8 missionaries. But at the end, my heart started beating fast and my face got really hot, and i felt like inviting him to be baptized. I was a little confused because we´ve asked him 2 weeks in a row and he´s always said he´s not ready. But i asked him anyway. And..... he still said that he´s not ready. Kinda a letdown huh? But he said something interesting. He said he´s thought a lot about his baptism. He´s just looking for a bigger something. And he doesn't know if the bigger something will come before or after his baptism. But he´s really a good guy, and he´s progressing a lot. I know he didn't accept the invitation to be baptized, but i know there was a reason i had the feeling to invite him. And I'm glad i followed that feeling.

But ya, other than that just another week in the service of the Lord. It´s great. I'm really loving my mission. It´s super hard at times, I get really tired at times, but i know that this church is true. I know that I'm here helping people have the greatest thing they can have on this earth, the gospel of Jesus Christ. It´s amazing and i love it.

I love you all. Keep being the great people you are.

Elder Tracy