It's Kind Of A Long Story

Elder Coon's last lunch in Brazil before he goes home.

Wow.  This week was something else.  So to start off I'll go through a conversation I had the other day when the mission office secretary called me.

ME:  "Hey Elder, how are you?"

SECRETARY:  "I'm good, listen, I have a question for you.  I already know the answer to it, but I need to ask you just to make sure.  So.....what airport do you want to get off?"

ME:  "....."

SECRETARY:  "......"

ME:  "It's the call, isn't it?"

SECRETARY:  "Yeah, it's the call."

It caught me by surprise.  I definitely didn't see that coming.  It was kind of like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, when Willy Wonka is getting his hair cut and he sees one of his hairs and realizes that it is gray.  He realizes that he won't be around forever and he needs to find an heir to his factory.  It went a little bit like that.  My first gray hair in mission life.  It's kind of sad to think that it'll all come to an end one day.

Anywho, one cool thing happened this last week.  I didn't know if I'd be staying here in Sergipe much longer so I decided to take the opportunity to go visit Marcio in Siqueira Campos the other P-day.  We got there and there was Marcio, all firm and active in the church!!!  My first companion Elder Godoy was there too!  Since he ended his mission yesterday he wanted to stop by and see Marcio too for the last time.  It was pretty sick.  Marcio is a counselor in the Young Men's Presidency and will be going to the temple in August.  It's cool to see how people have progressed after so much time.

The beginning - Elder Godoy, Marcio, Elder Johnson.

This week we also had the farewell for President and Sister Gonzaga.  They will be ending their mission this week and President and Sister Gomes will arrive next Sunday.  It was all rather melancholy.  It was sad to see them go.  I definitely learned a ton from them and the influence they've had in my life has been enormous.  In the meeting, "Elder" Mauricio G. Gonzaga, gave everyone an apostolic blessing.  He blessed us with success and peace in our lives and it was amazing!!!  I've never gotten one of those before.  He gave us a lot of advice about after the mission and how to have success in life.  I will definitely miss them, but I'm excited to see the new President and Síster arrive.

Sister & President Gonzaga

So this week was also the death of my companion Elder Coon.  Let's just say his last week was rather... eventful... It's kind of a long story, but I'll share it anyways.  I tell this story with my companions' permission.

So we were at the supermarket the other day buying some last minute stuff for him to bring back to the states like cuscus, tapioca, farinha, you know, important things.  We were waiting in the check out line when he gives 20 Reais and tells me to buy his things.  He was going to go step outside for some fresh air because he was feeling rather sick.  He walked around the register and grabbed a hold of a grocery cart.  He started acting all sickly when the cart came crashing to the ground along with my companion.  My companion had fainted in the middle of the store.  

I dropped my stuff to go see if he was all right.  He was unconscious and there about a 100 people in that store just staring at us.  With out a moment’s hesitation everyone instantly became a doctor and started telling me what to do. "You need to go grab salt."  "You need to grab a fan."  "You need to go make him some beet juice for him quick!"  I'm pretty sure none of these things would've helped, but everyone else was convinced.  I tried to get one of the workers to help me take him to another room away from everyone; I also tried to get everyone to give him some space, but apparently the two ideas I had were not an option.  Some lady then magically pulled out a pressure tourniquet to take his blood pressure.  Apparently it was super low.  The lady who told me to get the salt wouldn't stop telling me to go get the salt so I suffered her and went to the bakery to go grab some.  I ran over to the bakery and lo and behold a bishop from another ward was there buying stuff.  I got him to come with me so we could revive my companion and by the time we got back the people at the store had sat him up in a chair.  We gave him a priesthood blessing and he started to wake up.  Some lady also grabbed a cup of milk and put a ton of salt in it and forced him to drink it; apparently that does something.

I then ran across the street, grabbed a taxi that was parked at the pharmacy, and we were off to the hospital.  The taxi driver recommended that he drink a really strong cup of coffee everyday.  I said we'd take his idea into consideration.

We walked into the hospital and I told the receptionist that my companion had fainted.  She asked me where he was and I pointed at my companion, perfectly conscious on the other side of a glass door.  She told me he didn't look like he had fainted.  I told her that he is awake now.  She looked at me like I was an idiot.

We managed to get him to see the doctor.  They had him take Soro - I don't know what to call it in English, it's that little plastic bag that has the tube that goes into your arm (I think Tanner means an IV, funny he can’t remember the word in English), take some meds, and gave him a blood test.

Soro - aka an IV

About two hours later we got the results back.  The doctor and my companion had the following conversation.

DOCTOR:  "All right, so we got your tests back.  I have a question for you.  Do you have Dengue?"

ELDER COON:  "Um. No."

DOCTOR:  "Huh, because based off of your blood platelet level, you have Dengue."

Elder Coon in the hospital with Dengue.

SURPRISE!!!!!!!!  You have Dengue!  My companion got Dengue on his second to last day of work before going home.  Of all the souvenirs you could bring home, I don't think Dengue would've have been the best one to take with you.  We left the hospital at about 4:00 in the afternoon and we finally got to our lunch appointment.  My companion, needless to say, got very sick.  The ward had planned an integration activity so we decided to tough through the Dengue a bit and go.  Lo and behold, when we got there, there was no activity, but another ward was having a São João party, with a live Forró Band and everything.  So Elder Coon sat down for a bit, we ate some stuff made out of corn like canjica, and mungunzá.  They also had this shrimp soup substance that was actually pretty good too.  We were there for a bit and then we went home.

São João Ward Party with a live Forró Band.

Comida tipica do nordeste.  (Typical food from the northeast.)

Needless to say the rest of the week was rather uneventful.  My companion couldn't do much because he was stricken with Dengue.  Yesterday, however, we brought him to the Bus station to see him off and so he was my third victim.  I have now killed three of my companions.  Elder Godoy, was also there, because he was going home too so I got to see my father go home.  I'm now an orphan. 

Tchau Elder Coon!

I also got transferred too.  I'm going up to Alagoas, but I don't know where yet.  It's been great down here in ala Soledade.  I'm sure going to miss it down here.  Anyways, I've got to go.  Sorry this was super long and everything, but a lot happened.  Love you all and have a great week.

-Élder Johnson

Churrasco (Barbecue).

The definition of Mormonism I found in a Brazilian dictionary.
  It says: "A Protestant religious sect/cult formed in the USA whose followers, the Mormons, practice polygamy."

Brasileiro No Coração

Another year has come and passed and this was my second "Dia dos Namorados" (Brazilian Valentine’s Day) here in The Holy Land, and just to let you know, it was filled with the same amount of loneliness and self pity as last year's.

A member made me this keychain.  

So this week was my companion's birthday.  We celebrated it by eating pizza and having a little party for him at the church.  We ate some cake and drank some soda, it was good times.

Also this week we did some service projects.  We had a member call us to help him move.  We packed up all of his stuff into the back of this little truck and unpacked it all basically a few streets over.  YEAH MOVING!!!!!  It was really quite funny.  The guy didn't have a truck, so to solve our truckless problem we went over to the park and spoke with some guys sitting on a bench.  We then asked them if they knew anyone that could help us and one of the guys said he'd help him move for $50 Reias.  So we just hired some random guy on the street and we had a lovely time.

We also painted a house.  A member asked us for our help with painting his house.  We went over there and painted the whole thing blue and white.

House before we painted it.

We painted the whole front of this member's house white, which was actually unintentional.  We were planning on just painting the walls but the bucket of white paint broke in my companion's hand and exploded all over the place.  The member just laughed and decided to also paint the floor white too.  It was a good experience.  I thought it was pretty funny.

Unintentionally painted stairs.

Finished.

So this week was the first week of "The FIFA World Cup 2014 Brazil" and it was crazy, absolutely bonkers.  During the other country's games, things remain pretty chill, everyone still watches the games, but it was all right to work.    

World Cup decorations.

The Brazil games, however, were a completely different story.

The world stops for Brazil games, it literally stops.  The city becomes a ghost town and everyone closes their stores and what not to watch the game.  Everyone dresses up in green and yellow and goes inside to watch the game.  There is literally no one on the streets.  Things however, change when Brazil scores a goal.  You don't even need to watch the game to know if Brazil scored or won.  All you've got to do is sit around and if Brazil scores a goal, you'll hear it.  First there are the screams of pure patriotic joy, then comes the fireworks.  People literally rain fireworks down on the city and it doesn't stop for a few minutes.  It's like it's like a WW2 bombing run just without an air raid siren and more explosions.  People just throw these bombs willy and nilly and they're not little firecrackers either, people go to the hospital and sometimes die from these fireworks if they get to close to them.  Naturally, they must be used to celebrate a goal.  So every time you are watching a Brazilian world cup game and Brazil scores goal, you will know that down here everyone is going nuts and throwing tiny hand grenades which, if you were to count all of the explosions that go off in Brazil during one goal, would probably be about the destructive force of 2 atomic bombs.  #BrasileiroNaCoração

So yeah, that's about all I've got time I've got for this week.  I'll be sure to send a more lengthy letter next week.  Anyways, love you all!  Have a great week!  Well until next time everyone.

-Élder Johnson

One of the Carros de Som.  It's a car that drives around playing extremely loud advertisements and what not.  It's pretty annoying.

I'm So Scared

Sunset in Laranjeiras.

Week one of the month of June.  Festas Juninas and The World Cup have yet to officially start, but alas the partying has begun. Bombs have gone off.  The town is decorated with yellow and green.  The Festas and The World Cup will officially start this week. I'm so scared.

So this week was a week of divisions.  I got to go over to Socorro and Laranjeiras on divisions.  One thing that was interesting was this guy we met at the bus station.  I don't know what his problem was, but he was acting rather inappropriately.  The guy first came up and started talking with us (of cours,e it's always the crazy people who want to come and talk with us.)  He started trying to speak to us in English, but we just kind of sat there and ignored him.  He then went into the middle of the bus station and gave everyone a rousing karate demonstration and taught some thirteen-year-old kid how to fight.  He then started yelling trying to pick a fight with someone and then asked if anyone wanted to fight the kid.  He then saw some guy leaving the bus station and yelled to everyone how well the man smelt.  People these days.

This week we had an activity with "Mãos que Ajudam" also known as The Mormon Helping Hands.  We went out and did an activity for Dengue, which is kind of a problem down here.  So what normally happens is that there are these government agents who go around the city, knock on peoples' doors, and go through their house looking for stuff that could possibly house Dengue Mosquitoes. Well turns out that all of the agents in the city of Aracaju have been on strike for a few months and no one has been having their houses checked for Dengue.  So whom does the government call to help?

The Mormons.

So on Saturday we received a little training on how to identify objects that could house Dengue and how to properly dispose of it.  I was with another American during the whole ordeal and naturally we don't have too much knowledge about Dengue.  Basically we just entered peoples' houses, looked for anything that had water, and told them to throw it out if they had any, and pretended that we were experts in a field that we really had no knowledge about.  People acted weird though when we went in their houses.  They acted like they had committed a crime and the police had just shown up to search their house for Dengue.  "No, I swear!  We don't have any Dengue here!  We don't store water or anything here!!", "Quit lying to me!!!  I know you're hiding it!!!"  Like people got pretty nervous when we went in to inspect.  I honestly don't know why they were acting like that, Dengue isn't something anyone really wants to keep in their house or hide from other people.

Dengue Specialists, aka The Mormons.

There was this one guy who got rather ticked at us.  He told us it that the bigger problem was the water in the road and not in the house.  He talked to us for about ten minutes about how we're not doing our jobs right and what not.  His wife was trying to explain to him that we weren't official representatives of the government but just missionaries, but for some reason that didn't make sense to him.  He eventually came to his senses and apologized.  He then proceeded to give us a 15 minute sermon about the importance of religious acceptance.  It was a pretty good sermon.  I liked it.

Anyways, it was pretty fun.  We helped fight of the little Dengue demons and I acted like I knew what I was talking about the whole day.  #DengueSpecialist

One of our investigators is a professional gospel singer, or at least that's what Elder Coon tells me, she was only taught while I was gone on divisions.  He did show me a video of her singing and she's pretty good.  Probably a little difficult to teach, but I thought it was cool either way.

So that's about it for this week.  Partying officially starts this Thursday, so that should be pretty fun for everyone else and absolutely horrifying for the missionaries.  Well here's hoping that I will survive another week.

-Elder Johnson

Bird Statue.

Cow.

Welcome to Baghdad

Me and Elder Rutledge (my friend from back home) meet up at Zone Conference.

Or at least that's what it feels like now that Festas Juninas has begun.  The other day we were walking down the road at night and you could just hear the explosions of the IEDs (AKA fireworks) going off in the distance, with the smaller ones sounding like gunshots.  Man I love June.

Hello family!  How are you?  I am well.  This week we got some weird health advice from the people down here.  People here have some pretty different ideas about health, like if you go into an air-conditioned room while you have a cold, you will get even sicker.  My personal favorite however is the theory of the hot shower and the freezer.  The theory is that after you finish taking a hot shower and then open the fridge the cold air from the fridge against your warm body will make you dizzy, give you a headache, or my personal favorite, a stroke.  Some people have told me a bunch of legends about people getting strokes and dying from opening the freezer.  We were teaching this one lady when her daughter walked in and told us she had a headache because she opened up the fridge 20 minutes after taking a shower.  I decided to put the old wives’ tale to the test, I took a shower, opened the fridge, stuck my head in the freezer AND....

nothing.....

I told this lady that I did that and she looked at my like I was crazy.  Needless to say, I have not died from a freezer stroke.

So I had a baptism this week!!!  Well in reality no, the sisters had two baptisms this week and their investigators asked me if I would baptize them.  I, of course, was honored and the baptism went over pretty well.  We had a little organizational error, but besides that all went well.

This week was Zone Conference, our last with President Gonzaga.  It was really cool; they talked a lot about true repentance and showed some videos of a talk by Elder Bednar that he gave to employees of the church. It was really great; it talked a lot about reaching your full potential and using the Holy Ghost to build yourself, which I found to be very interesting.  I also got to see a lot of my friends I've made on the mission and I got to catch up with Elder Rutledge!

The under 200 club.

I also met up with Elder Robinson at Zone Conference.

So we have a few investigators that we are teaching and they're going pretty well.  We should have a baptism this week and a few more to end the transfer.  Anyways, that's all I've got for this week.  Remember to not stick your head in the freezer after you've taken a shower, or you might die!

-Élder Johnson

Zone shirts for all the missionaries in Sergipe.

What everyone calls me.

I'm On A Rock...

…and you better believe it.

Well this week sure was an interesting one.  This week we had an integration activity at the church.  You don't really have these in the states, but they have them down here.  It's where you have someone give a spiritual message, and then afterwards, you have games and snacks.  The purpose is to have people bring investigators, get the members to be your friends, and what not.  This last week we were in charge of the games and I knew exactly what kind of game to play.  So here's the game.  You have two teams and they send a representative up to the chalkboard.  We give them something to draw like a dog, cat, or the mascot for the world cup, and they have to draw it.  While drawing, the teams must guess what they're drawing, whichever team guesses correctly first gets a point, and the game goes on for a few rounds until the missionaries have to go home.  Whoever has the most points wins.  Pretty simple game right?  Everyone should be pretty calm right?

Wrong.

People down here are soooooo competitive.  The second we said go everyone just starts screaming at the top of their longs trying to guess what João and Maria are trying to draw.  Everyone just gets way into it.  It was absolute chaos, everyone was weeping, wailing, and gnashing much teeth.  Everyone from the Primary to the Elders Quorum President. Naturally it was a total success and they want us to do it again this week.

I saw this decal on the back of a car that said "Oh Gloria Jesus é bom!"  The thing was as big as the window and I have no idea how this guy was able to look out of his rear view window.

We did have a baptism this week.  It was the grandson of a recent convert and he got to do the baptizing!!  It was super cool; the whole primary was there.  I swear! (Not really, Mormons don’t swear.) Every time it's a primary baptism there are always a ton of people there, but whenever it's someone else getting baptized it's rather difficult to get a good amount of people there.  It was really cute, the primary sang a song and the baptism went over well.  We had to fill the font up with buckets to get it filled on time, but it all went over well.

I also got to go on divisions this week.  While on the division in my area, we climbed up this red rock that we have in our area.  I've always wanted to climb up it, and so we did!  Usually there a lot of religious people up there praying/screaming and singing hymns and stuff.  We decided to take pictures!!! 

 They've got this cross up there that the Catholics put up and you could see the whole city!

  It was a good stress reliever.  We took some pics and got back to chugging along.

Anywho, that's it for this week.  We have Zone Conference this week so I'll get to see Elder Rutledge; it's been a while. Next week we also enter into the month of June, which means it's Festas Juninas/São João, so I'm pretty scared.  I'll try not to get blown up.  Anyways love you all and have a great week!

-Élder Johnson

P.S.  I finally bought a hammock!  I got it for 35 Reais too, which I feel is a bargain!

OOoooossshhhhhhh

Well another week has come and passed and not a whole lot has happened this week.  I usually get one week that's really exciting and then the next week is just kind of boring.  We did get a referral from a member and he should be baptized this week so that'll be pretty cool!  Yeah for member missionary work!!!  Other then that we taught a bit, contacted some people, did some service, and just normal missionary stuff.  We did manage to bring about 6 people to church; the members really helped us out on that one.  It was ward conference this last week and down here ward conference is kind of a big deal.  For ward conference they make invites and set goals to have a certain amount of people there.  I really don't see what the big deal is though, because it's just like every normal Sunday, it's just that they do sustaining and have the ward choir sing.  Anyways, everyone used it as an excuse to invite their friends to church so I can't really complain about that can I?

Other than that, that's about it for all of the interesting things that have happened this week.

However, there are changes about.  The World Cup is getting closer and closer everyday and you can see the change around here.  Every day there's one more store or house that just decorates everything with green and yellow.  You're starting to see a lot more flags down here and everyone is getting more and more excited.  As exciting as the World Cup is, it's not going to be too fun for us missionaries because nobody is going to want to talk with us for a whole month.  People will also use the World Cup as an excuse to drink and throw fireworks (aka little bombs) at the missionaries.  Businesses will be closed during the games and the schools have planned to shut down completely until the World Cup is over with.  The World Cup is also in the month of June, which has "Festas Juninas," which is the biggest holiday in all of northeast Brazil, also known as "São João."  São João is just a month long party where everyone dresses up like the Brazilian version of the wild west, listens to forró, eats things made out of corn, drink, build fires in the middle of the road, and throw fireworks at the missionaries.  All in all it's a wonderful time filled with mass hysteria, cats and dogs livin' together and all sorts of chaos, which will be just splendid.

Anyways that's not for a few more weeks so I don't need to worry about.  Yet...  All is well down here; I'm happy and alive for now.  Hope all is well back home.

Tchau,

Elder Johnson

Prayer Conquers Satan and So Does Elder Johnson

Well it sure was good to see all of you guys Sunday on Skype!!!  That's the last call you’re going to get on my mission so I hope you liked it!  Hope you had a happy mothers day Mãe!!!

Oh, it has also come to pass that I will be staying here for another transfer and I will be killing Elder Coon.  That'll make him the third missionary that I've killed.  I guess president really likes me doing that.

Well I hope that you all know, that I am very tired, this last week took a lot out of me.  

So here's the story.

For the past few weeks we've teaching this woman, her son is serving a mission and she's the only member of her family who hasn't been baptized.  She is very very catholic and didn't want anything to do with the church.  Well that changed a few months after her son left on a mission.  For some reason she just decided to read the Book of Mormon.  She just felt like that was a good idea and started reading it until one day she flagged down the missionaries on the street and asked to be baptized.  The other missionaries passed her to us and we've been working with her ever since.  Well here's the catch, every week something always happened to stop her baptism and it was getting rather frustrating.  Last week I wrote about how frustrating it was and how I drowned my sorrows in Açaí.  Well I thought maybe she was trying to hide from us.  Elder Coon thought it would be a good idea to keep trying and see if we can work a miracle.  We went to her house and we were able to talk with her.  Turned out she wasn't hiding from us, but had something come up the week before, so we marked her baptism for this Saturday.

I swear, something happened almost every day to keep her from getting baptized this last week, it was ridiculous.  We had an emergency Thursday night, but we managed to save it, she said she wasn't going to let anything stop her from getting baptized.

We then came up with a great idea.

So her son is serving a mission and this last weekend was mother's day, which means he could Skype home.  So we thought, "Hey! Why don't we have him Skype her during her baptism?  That would be pretty sick!!!"  So we got in contact with his mission and we managed to get everything set up.

Satan, however, had other plans.

Saturday, we get a text from her saying she can't get baptized.  We walk over to her house, save the day, and then go on our way to lunch.  As we were leaving lunch we called our Ward Mission Leader who happens to be a good friend of the family.  He tells us she decided to not get baptized.  We left her alone for 1 HOUR!!!!! 1 HOUR and look at what happened.  I naturally was upset and it manifested itself (aka light pathetic weeping.)  We walked over to her house and she wasn't there.  More weeping ensued.  Our Ward Mission Leader said he was going to hunt her down, so we did the only thing we could do, fill up the baptismal font and get the Skype ready.  We waited and waited and finally, a few hours after the planned baptism, she showed up!!!!  MIRACLES HAPPEN PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!  She came and was finally baptized!!!  Her son got to watch the whole thing on Skype and it appeared like something out of a movie just because of how well everything worked out.  Everyone was happy and this family is one step closer to being united.  It was probably one of the most eventful memorable baptisms of all time, but it was also the most stressful.  Anyways, they all lived happily ever after.

So yeah, besides talking with you all this week, that was probably the most eventful thing to happen.  It definitely left us exhausted.  Anywho, love you all and I hope you guys had a wonderful Dia das Mães. I know it was one to remember down here.  To send you all off this week, I'll give you guys a couple of examples of good parenting I have seen this week:

-A Woman teaching her son to urinate in the middle of the road.

-A Father driving a motorcycle, with his little baby standing up on the front holding on to the handlebars.

Oh, parenting...

-Élder Johnson

P.S.  Everyone down here says that Dad looks a lot like the ex-mayor of Aracaju, Edivaldo Nogueira.  I have to say, you two do look rather similar.

     

  

Thieving Monkeys

Well this week was sure a lot more exciting than the last week was.

First off we have a member who has a problem with thieves breaking into her house and stealing her food.  The thieves happen to be monkeys however, and she can't leave bananas out on her table or the monkeys will sneak in and start eating them.  That's definitely a problem you don't have to worry too much about in the U.S.A.

It has also been rainy these past few days, which has been awesome.  I like the rain down here.  I'm currently on my third umbrella because the rain has wrought havoc on my past two and they, unfortunately, did not survive the Brazilian tempests.  It rains sideways here to most of the time, so the umbrella only really keeps the upper half of your body dry.  People down here have been complaining that it has been "cold" the past few days, and therefore are taking appropriate measures to keep warm, such as sleeping in: socks, gloves, and coats.  You probably think I'm joking around about people sleeping in coats but it is no lie!!  We were teaching this woman who said she had to sleep in such attire.  She told us that she was dying from the cold while me and my companion where sitting there drenched in our own sweat.

People....

Oh I did something super adult like and mature the other day, I bought a washing machine!!!  Yep I went to the store and did all sorts of super cool financial and grown up stuff. (AKA pointing to which washing machine I wanted to buy.)  Yeah, our washing machine, unfortunately, reached the end of it's life the other day and stopped working so we had to buy another one, which should be arriving on Wednesday!!!

So here's a pretty interesting story.  The other week I did an interview for a man who was a candidate for baptism.  We reached a certain a part and realized that he would have to change the way he lived or he couldn't be baptized.  He decided that he would rather live his old lifestyle and I told him that he couldn't get baptized, and that was that.

Well that's what I thought at least.

Turns out that he started talking bad about me to a bunch of people, including some members.  He told some people that I phrased one of the standard baptismal questions in a very vulgar and very inappropriate way, which was an utter lie; I said it exactly as the question was written.  He then started saying that we were a cult and what not and it just got kind of crazy.  Turns out he didn't like the fact that I told him he couldn't get baptized so he started saying all of these mean and hurtful things.  Oh well, what are you going to do.

I also got to go on a division with one of the elders in my district to the city of Laranjeiras, which translates to Orange Trees.  The name of the city however, is very misleading, because there is not a single orange tree in the entire city.  THIS IS FALSE ADVERTISING!!!!  It was really cool, because it looks exactly like Viçosa!  Just more ghetto.  They've got this little group out there and they have their meetings in some guy's house and it's currently a little group with a lot of potential to grow.  I just thought it was cool because it reminded me of a past area.

A Cappella de Laranjeiras  (The Chapel of Oranges)

So now we're getting to the sad news of the week.  We had this baptism all prepared for this week, we were following up with here, everything was all set.  I was happy, Elder Coon was happy, she was happy.

Until Friday.

Friday the house fell down.  She disappeared off the face of the earth and no one has been able to find her, or talk with her since.  We showed up with the Zone Leaders to do the interview and alas she was not found.  We had faith that we would be able to find her on Saturday, the day of the baptism.  We even filled up the font as a demonstration of our faith.  However, she apparently had other plans and still hasn't shown up.  This naturally could be a big ol' slap in the face for my faith and self esteem, but it is all good, I did my part.

Needless to say, Saturday was a bit rough, we drowned our sorrows in Açaí and tried to teach some other lessons but alas, none could feel the gaping hole in my heart, which could only be filled by her baptism.  After a bit of light weeping, we did have a miracle in a different form.  Our recent convert, got up to bore her testimony during fast and testimony meeting and it was amazing!!!  Until now, she's already read:  The Book of Mormon almost twice,  The Gospel Principles manual,  Daughters in My Kingdom,  The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith,  The Pearl of Great Price, and is currently pounding down Doctorine and Covenants.  She got up a bared her testimony and she sounded like someone who has been a member for years.  She told everyone how she was searching for truth and to learn more and how God sent her two angels to come and show her the truth.  I was very happy.

The Acai I drowned my sorrows in.

So that about wraps things up for now.  This is the last week before transfers, because this transfer is only a transfer of four weeks. So we'll be working to end things on a high note.  Love you all, and just to let you know, that picture of the cast of the new star wars movie just made me tremble with excitement.

Star Wars 7 cast.

May the fourth be with you.

-Élder Johnson

Pitomba

Jabuticaba