Afonso Pena Semana 6

Last transfer call. I´m stayin put! Elder Ritchie is goin out to Gurapuava (that cold place out in the middle of the nowhere) and I´m now with Elder Forsyth who i´ll train as a zone leader! Woohoo! My third gringo companion.

Speaking of gringo companions, today I got the wedding announcement from Victor Trevisanut and I opened it up with Elder Gonzales. We both got super trunky, and I told Elder Gonzales to write a FB message to Victor with "parabéns." Elder Gonzales and Elder Rocha are on their way to the airport as we speak. It´s crazy when you are the oldest missionary in the mission, and many of your best friends on the mission have already finished. But that´s how it goes right?

This week we had an awesome baptismal service of Juan (pronounced as if it were spanish) and we were very excited to see all of his family at church again. They are such a special family that we worked with to help come back to church. The father of the family ordained his two sons to the aaronic priesthood, and Juan was confirmed. This transfer we only had one baptism, but we have 6 people reactivated who hadn´t come to church for over 2 years. I will try to take pictures with each of them in these coming weeks.

Afonso Pena is the sister ward of Jardim Ipê, so I see the recent converts from Ipê every sunday! And it looks like a third ward is going to be formed from Ipê and Afonso Pena!! It was my dream that I would see the day that Ipê would divide and I think I´ll still be here when it happens. I think that as a Zone Leader, I´ll probably end up in the newly created ward, but who knows?

Our teaching group somehow filled up with people who believe in reencarnation, so Elder Ritchie and I have been learning how to help people understand the resurrection. It is very interesting that reencarnation denys the power of Jesus Christ... because perfection is attained through trial and error and progress over many lives. Which completely cuts Christ out of the picture. The reality is that Christ overcame death and sin and taught the gospel to help us put of the natural man and become a saint. I don´t have time to write out all the things we are teaching, but I felt that I should make a quick comment about this.

Anywho,

I hope that all is well at home and that someone is freezing blackberries.

Love,

Elder House