August 1, 2011 Letter

Dear Family,

Well, it´s been another week here in Setubal... Things have been fairly rough this week. We went through our investigators and we dropped the ones we didnt think were progressing, or the one´s that arn´t really interested. We cut quite a few... It was sad. They´re people too. They need the gospel too.... It´s just hard because they arnt interested at the moment, or they dont want to change. But hey, what can you do? Just the best you can, all the time. Thats it.

So, since we cut down our investigator pool, we had a lot more free time than normal. So we used it to do contacts. Its hard, because you dont find many people doing that. But the members here dont really like to give us references... So that leaves the finding to us as well. Elder Hocker doesnt like like tracting and contacts, but im kinda liking it. Ya, it´s definitely hard getting rejected house after house, drunk after drunk, but thats part of life right? How many times in our lives are things always going to work out? How many times in our lives is everything going to be great and dandy? Not all the time. So it´s good for me to learn how to accept rejection. Finding is also helping me "open my mouth" more. I CAN talk, but I dont do it a lot. So, finding kinda forces me to talk, which is good. Thats the way I´ll learn.

So, this week we found a really cool lady. She actually had came to church two times... I guess we kinda missed the ball on that one, but we´re getting it now. Her name is Quiteria. She lives right next door to some members. She´s pretty cool. She has a little "cart" that she sells foody stuff on at a market. She came to church, and it happened to be the same day that we had lunch with these members. So we invited her over to hear the message.... And we taught her about The Restoration and we marked her baptism! It was the greatest lunch message I might ever have! haha.... The only problem is she might drink coffee... because she´s brazilian..... But, we and the Lord willl help her get through that little bump. Shes a really cool woman. It was a great blessing. Because we had knocked a lot of doors, done a lot of contacts, and nothing had happened. So the Lord was blessing us by giving us a nice woman like her. It was really good.

Well, President Lanius just changed the rules.... We cant play soccer, we cant leave our areas, we cant do anything fun! haha  So looks like going to see all the cool sights is off the list, unless its in my area.... Hmm.... what else can i do in the area of Setubal...?

Love you all, Hope all is well,
Elder Tracy