5 September 2011

Hey Everyone,

I just about wanted to break the dang computer; I wrote a huge email to you guys, writing for about a half an hour, and everything that I wrote got deleted and it didn´t save, what a joke, right? So now I will try to remember everything that I wrote to you guys before. So, first of all, with my retainer, I don´t have a permanent one, remember? Both the top and bottom are removable. The one that broke was the top one, so the member from Barreto fixed my old one for me and when you said that I needed a new one, he sent to make a new one, it´s about 25 dollars, so oh well, too late to go back now. I will just use it, I use it at night anyway, I´m asleep so it doesn´t really make a huge difference haha. And also, I don´t know when I am coming home; they haven´t told me anything until now. I think that it might be December 21, but that´s just guessing. I don´t know yet, nor do I want to know right now :) Just let me enjoy the time that I have, alright. I know you are all anxious to see me, I`m excited to see you all too, but I don´t want to leave here. Anyway, enough talk about that.

Today I got bombarded with emails, there was a ton of them!! I was excited! I got a lot from members in my old areas, saying how much they missed me haha I miss them too. I think that one of the families that I have been sending letters to hasn´t been getting my letters, that is really frustrating. I will have you send an email to them to see what is going on, ok? I also got an email from Brother Salas, it was really good to hear from him. Unfortunately, I don´t have time to write him today, but I will try to write back soon. Tell him thank you.

Sounds like you guys had a busy week, me too! This week was amazing, there were a ton of miracles that happened in the Zone this week. This week was really crazy, running around everywhere, doing divisions and interviews in all of the areas, but I´m happy to say that 4 of the 5 areas in our Zone had baptisms this week, including ours. And the area that didn´t have a baptism had a confirmation, so we are all happy with the results that we had this week! Now we will just keep working harder to have more results! I love these Missionaries, they are such huge examples for me!

The coolest thing that happened this week was the baptism of Neuza, it was amazing! I was on a division here in my area with Elder Knight, the new elder who is being trained. We were at the church Saturday morning with the Elders from São Gonçalo; Elder Roque and Elder Sanchez, cleaning and filling up the font for a baptism that we had planned at two o´clock that day. The baptism that we had fell through, but the Lord blessed us with another. Right as left the church, we saw one of our investigators who had already been to church a few times and she was supposed to get baptized this last week, but she was sick. She is blind and almost completely deaf and she was by herself making her way into the center. We went up to her and I asked her, ``Neuza, do you want to be baptized?`` She said, ``It´s what I most want!!`` Two hours later, she was baptized, it was amazing!!! It was the biggest miracle ever. We helped her to the church, then we helped her into the water. I let Elder Knight baptize her because he had never baptized before until now, so he was really happy. Him and Elder Sanchez went into the water with her to help her, it was really spiritual. She was really, really happy, and so were all of us. It was a really special blessing for me. We also had three confirmations in church yesterday. The Lord blessed our Zone a lot; we have been working like crazy and it has paid off. Now we will just keep going!! I love the mission!!!!! So many incredible experiences!!! I don´t want to leave this!!

This week will be really great because we will have a special Zone Conference with Elder Mazzagardi of the Seventy, I´m really excited. I have to play the piano for the conference though, oh yikes!! Pray for me, alright? haha I can´t believe how fast the time is passing! I can´t believe how many miracles the Lord is giving us. When I come home, I would love to give my homecoming talk about faith and miracles because I have had so many experiences with these things on my mission, it has been incredible. I love all of you guys. I get sad thinking about leaving the mission, I hate it. I want to stay here forever and help these great people and stay with these amazing people that I met, but we will come back and visit them afterwards, so that helps a little :)

I love all of you. I´m glad that now you will get this letter haha!! Have an amazing week!! Bye Bye!!

Love, Elder McDonald