Fourth of July, 2011

How´s everything going?
This week was amazing! We had transfers on Monday, they called us at about10:30 at night, that was nice. I got transferred to an area called Manejo and it is amazing!! It was where President Bezerra was trained and it was his favorite area on the mission so I feel really honored to have been sent here,I´m loving it here so far! It is in my old Zone as well, Volta Redonda. It is in a city called Resende. My companion is amazing, his name is Elder Gonçalves,he´s the best junior that I have had so far on the mission, he knows how to work. My zone leaders are also amazing, I´m finally with Elder R. Corrêa, a really cool Elder that came out in the field with me, he´s incredible. It was a really crazy week and flew by really fast. I got here on Tuesday afternoon and we went to visit some members. When I was still in Usina, I came out here on a division one time so I knew a really cool family and I went back there and said, ``Hey remember me?`` It was really funny, they are awesome. They have a son who just got home from his mission not too long ago and his name is Danilo,he was really happy when he saw me. He´s an awesome guy and he helps us a ton.This Ward has ten returned missionaries, it´s awesome! Two of the returned sisters that came home just a few months ago left with us last night to visit people, they are amazing! We had a bunch of investigators at church yesterday,so that was awesome to start out the transfer well. We had two confirmations,and one of them is a deaf lady. She is an awesome lady! Her and her son were baptized last week and confirmed yesterday. We also visited another awesome family that I met on Thursday, such an elect family. The missionaries have been working with them for a long time; they were pretty much eternal investigators.The mom, Rose, didn´t want to let her kids get baptized, and she can´t get baptized yet because she isn´t married and she´s living with someone. So we went over there and left a powerful message. The Spirit was so strong there; Ihaven´t felt the Spirit that strong in a long time. I was telling her about an experience that I had when we baptized Ronan and Eduarda, two kids in my last area, and how them being baptized made a huge difference in their family and everyone ended up going to church, including their dad who never listened to our messages when we came over. I was looking at her and she started getting teary-eyed and I knew that she could feel the Spirit because it was incredibly strong. That was an amazing experience for me. Then, the next day, I went on a division to Barra Mansa to interview some people there while Elder R. Corrêacame here to my area to interview Rose´s kids. Rose loved him as well; he is an amazing missionary. She finally decided that she would let them get baptized if it is really what they want (they have been dying to be baptized for the last few months). We are going to work with them this week, such a great family! We also met a really awesome lady, Maria, who went to church with her nephew and they both loved it. Maria accepted a date to be baptized this Sunday, so we will work with them as well; it will be a busy week! We are going to have a Zone Conference this Friday in Petrópolis again to meet our new President and his wife, President and Sister Lima. That is going to be awesome!
We have a General Authority that lives in our area; he was a Seventy, the SãoPaulo Temple President, the Fortaleza Mission President. We went to his house yesterday to give his wife a blessing; his house is incredibly nice. They both speak perfect English. Supposedly when we eat lunch there, they get the missionaries phone numbers and when we leave, they call our families. That will be cool. Be expecting a phone call in a few weeks. Our bishop is a really awesome guy! I feel so welcome in this Ward already, it seems like everyone already knew me. It was the first Ward that I came to where they announced that they had a new missionary and I had to go up and introduce myself and bear my testimony,  that was pretty cool. These returned sister missionaries, Anelise and Monique, are really awesome. The both of them and Danilo help us out the most with teaching people with us and helping us out with the work. This Ward is amazing with helping the missionaries out, I love it already. My areas just keep getting better and better, as well as my companions. The Lord has been blessing me a ton on the mission. I´m so grateful for Him. I have been trying to sacrifice a lot more to thank Him for everything that He has given me. I must have done something right to deserve all of these blessings. My district is amazing; I have really hard working Elders in my district so that is good that I don´t have to get on anybody´sback about doing better. The Mission is so amazing! I love my new area, it´s so cool! I want to try and visit Usinaheh heh. My companion said that when President Bezerra would come here to visit, he would always cry because he had so many spiritual experiences here. I´m scared that the mission is going to end too quick, but I`m going to enjoy my time while I`m still here. I love you all! Hope that you have a great Fourth of July! Say hi to everyone for me! Oh, and by the way JJ is engaged now and is getting married on the 24th of August!!!! How crazy is that? I just got an email from him today, I will have to write him. Love you guys!!
Love, Elder McDonald