18 April 2011

Hey Guys,

This week was really crazy, but really good! I was called to be District Leader now, so that was pretty crazy. It´s been going really good though, and I´m liking it a lot. Elder Fernandes and Almeida said that President said I was going to be transferred with them, but I ended up staying here. I was happy. Right now I am with Elder Gallacher; he´s from Arizona too, from Gilbert. He´s a really cool guy. He got stuck in Tennessee for a few months and finally made it out here 3 months ago. It´s happening to a lot of Elders now, lots of them are getting reassigned, poor guys. I got lucky!! I know the elder that Travis met in Baton Rouge who speaks português. He is Brazilian. He came in the MTC with me the same day and I met him at the temple a week before I went in. That´s really cool!

Anyway, I´ve been trying to get used to the new things I have to do now as District leader. I get to make a lot of phone calls and keep all the elders excited and resolve all the problems, that´s always nice. I get to do baptism interviews as well which I hear is really awesome, so I am really excited and nervous about that; it will be a great experience I´m sure. We have a new Zone leader here, Elder Romo and he is with Elder Merrell who was here before, they are the coolest! We have an awesome Zone yet again. There is a new elder here, Elder Gentry, and he reminds me a lot of Cory; he is funny. He likes to sleep in a little, so I get the liberty of ripping him out of bed every morning. I´m sure he loves that. He´s a good guy. Elder Siqueira is his companion now. He only stayed with me one transfer, but we are still in the same house so it is cool. I liked living in two better, less hectic, but four is cool as well.

Now that our church doesn´t start until 3 in the afternoon, Bishop picked us up at 8 and we went and visited our investigators with him. It was really awesome! We found some amazing people this last week, we brought them to church with us yesterday, and loved it and were asking about baptism :) Ó Glória!! The Zone leaders came and helped us out as well and sat with all of our investigators that we brought yesterday; we had really good meetings. My companion and I had to give talks yesterday as well. He had a nice four day notice and had his talk prepared and Bishop asked me to talk right before church started, so I was still running around getting everything organized with our investigators, getting everyone there and everything, and I opened up the Liahona during Sacrament meeting and found a talk right before I was supposed to go and speak; it was the talk by Elder Bednar about the Holy Ghost in this last conference in October. It was good because Suzete got confirmed right before that as well. The talk went really well surprisingly. One of the members, Rudolfo, who is about my age was like, Hey Mac, good job. Thanks, I planned it as I was going up to the pulpit haha. It was pretty funny. It´s funny how on the mission a talk is just another thing you do. Before the mission, you sit there stressed out all week long wondering what you are going to talk about.

We found a really awesome family on Monday, Rómulo, Ramon, Ruan, and their mom. Their mom is already a member and they all went back to church yesterday and loved it. We are going to baptize Rómulo and Ramon this week; Ruan couldn´t go because they had to have someone stay at their house, but he will go this week! They are an amazing family! The Lord is blessing us so much here already! There is an older lady in our ward, Irmã Graça, and she is the coolest! She loves the Gospel and loves sharing it with everyone! She came up to me yesterday and was like, I´m going to need 50 Books of Mormon! I was like, oh man! Alright! Let´s go! She said that she invited her whole class where she is studying to meet with the missionaries and she told us to come over tonight to write down all of the references that she has. We also have another guy in our ward, Francisco, and he said that he is going to bring a guy to church this week that he said most likely will accept to be baptized!! It was a really cool week! The people that I´m meeting here are so amazing! I´m trying to show more love for the people here and trying to be a better servant of the Lord everyday out here. I have a long way to go, but am still trying to improve. I´m grateful for these elders and for their awesome examples for me. They are such great guys with so much faith. I´m so grateful for Suzete and her example of faith as well, to get baptized two days after she met us! That was so cool! She is an amazing lady! I will never forget these people and their examples! She has so many problems with her son who is using drugs and drinking and smoking, but every time we go over there, she is always happy to see us and always smiling! I love the Mission!!! I want to stay here forever!!! I love you all!! Have an amazing week!

Love, Elder McDonald