Elder Garrett Horton: Maria Aparecida was baptized!

2-10-14

Mom,

I smiled when you told me about the new season of 24. I hope Jack ends up happy in this one.

I'm happy to hear that Elder Fowler is doing well on his mission and is learning and becoming a better person. How's the prospective Elder Fowler (Cameron) doing? Does he still have that girlfriend?

The lady from Italy is actually a sister, a missionary from the US serving in Italy. I think she should be getting the letter I sent to her in the next week or so..I sent it last week. I don't know how long it takes.

Did I mention I'm reading the book of Mormon in Spanish? It's pretty interesting. I thought I'd forgotten almost all Spanish but it seems that I just switched a lot of it to Portuguese and stored other parts in my memory because I understand almost all of what I read in the book! It's been difficult to read with an accent that's not Portuguese though but I'm getting used to it. I'm hoping to have a Spanish companion one day with whom I can practice Spanish. Maybe I'll come home tri-lingual! Maybe 4-lingual, I'm also learning a couple things in sign language....of course it's not universal sign language, it's Portuguese sign language and so only valid here. One of the members has a daughter that's deaf and so I learn some wordzinhos when I'm in their house.

I knew you would cry when I said you were one of my tender mercies, love you mom!

It's cute to hear about Isaac and Jana. Do they still remember me? If you showed a picture of me to Isaac, would he remember? I won't be downhearted if they don't

My week was good. We prepared Maria Aparecida and she was baptized this week! And so that was awesome. We'll have to follow up well with her and help her out. I thought about her situation when we were teaching her. With her weaker mind, is it really right that we baptize her? I try to avoid all appearances of evil (GH) and so I thought about it and I came to the conclusion that she needs to be baptized just as much as everyone else. The GH thing to do is teach her and then leave her. And so for this, I'm going to follow up good with her and make sure her needs are met. She's a sweet senhorinha. She was happy yesterday when she was being baptized. She gave me a hug :) I couldn't deny it. She doesn't work, her son supports her. I think her abusive husband didn't help but she also had 2 hemorrhages I think is what it is in English.

Oh speaking of hug, another woman gave me a kiss on the cheek! Yiche! I mean she has like 45 years but I wasn't really expecting it. We shook hands and she started to pull my hand and I didn't really know what she was doing but I was like okay and then she kissed me on the cheek! I wasn't really prepared for it and no one's ever tried to do it before so I guess my defenses were down.

This last Friday marked 6 months in the mission and less than 18 months left. I'm not counting (really, I'm not, not sarcasm) but the time flies. But it only flies if you're working.

Delia and Francisco are good. They didn't get baptized this week :/ because the boss didn't let her have a day off to get married legally. But this week she'll have Saturday off and they'll get married. The only other thing is that she has to stop smoking. She smoked 2 cigarros yesterday and she knows she has to stop and I know she can but it'll be difficult. We'll stick with her on this one. Their daughter, Kesia, is also accepting our messages. She's liking them and curious to know more. She's not like dying with curiosity but she has enough. We taught her the word of wisdom and she doesn't do any of the 5 things....kind of. She doesn't smoke cigarro but she smokes narguilo or hookah and she thinks it doesn't have a bad effect and doesn't make you addicted. I'm going to research it more today and I'll talk with her about it tomorrow. She accepted the invitation to be baptized but it won't be this week but probable the next.

It's funny you said the high that day would be 29 and I thought "Oh about normal for me at night" and then I realized "wait....that’s Fahrenheit, ohhhhh that's cold" like -2 Celsius. And then I saw 58 and I thought "dang that's hot!!" even though just before I'd realized that it was Fahrenheit. It's different being in a different country.

Anyways...I don't have any cool stories for this week I think...if I think of any I'll let you know. Everyone, when they find out about my spy pen, always wants one for themselves. Everyone wants me to ask for one for them but I always say that I can show them how to get it but I won't buy it for them because I don't want to be responsible if something happens.

Thank you for your words of love and comfort and counsel and your stories from home, I love you mom :)

Elder Horton