11-24-14 Loving the Old Testament

11-24-14

Hey mom

Yay! I'm happy to hear the news of Rie's new baby! Cute pictures!

I've been thinking about something. Mom you bought 2 RM Planners right? Lately I've been thinking a lot about my friends and people that I knew in Georgia and South Carolina and how I never really talked about the church with them or did much of anything. I've also been thinking about people that I knew that have become less actives. My original plan was return home and then go straight to college again but I feel like I want to go back to Georgia and South Carolina and help All of my friends to at least hear about my religion and have the opportunity to learn more. And so I could use the 2 planners, 6 weeks each, and visit the 2 states and all my friends. Rowers, school friends, church friends, old crushes, everyone. What do you guys think of this idea?

Elder Bolognini and I are continuing to do well and we have a lot of friendship so I'm able to encourage him to be more obedient in some things and work harder and visit more people. He really does have a gift to be able to talk with people and teach so I'm trying to take advantage of that and learn from him that ability

I'm reading the Old Testament and I'm really liking it. It's really interesting. It's hard to read sometimes in Portuguese but I have my English bible and a manual that explains background and meanings and what not which is very handy. I never knew that the Old Testament had so much symbolism and so many references to Christ.

How was your week?

My week was good! We're getting some more references from members to work with and one of our references is ready to be baptized this Sunday! She even asked "Can you baptize me next week?" To Elder Bolognini. She was watching the baptismal meeting of 2 other investigators of Elder Gilliat and Elias that were baptized (congratz to them!) 1 of the interviews, I even did at church because there wasn't time on Saturday. The president Andrew called us saying that we could baptize him. We needed his authority because he doesn't have 16 years, he only has 13. But he was super excited and he pulled his whole family to church at least yesterday and I believe he'll be the key to the conversion of his family and to changing the environment in the branch a bit. He's super excited and talkative which is exactly what the branch needs. But yeah so they baptized and I have 90% certainty that this weekend we'll baptize too. It's really awesome to work with the members.

How is it with your larger district? Do you have to travel more to be involved in their work and progress?

It's cool. Like I already said, I feel more like a district leader. It requires a bit more effort on my part to follow up with them. I also have to do more divisions/splits with the other area which is a bit hard just because of the distance. It's 15 reais just to go there and back.

Does your mission have any special plans for Christmas time?

Every Christmas, there's a Christmas conference so at this time the whole mission will be together for a conference

Do you still have the nativity set that E Steele gave you? Will you pass it along to another companion at some point?

Yeah I do, I need to give that to my son...thanks for reminding me. That's the tradition, that you pass it on to your children :)

Well that's about it for this week.

Elder Horton