My second new year (and last :/) on the mission in Brasil

1-5-15

Hey family!

Mom, I believe you've always been this spiritually inclined, I believe that I’m just perceiving it more now. I remember when I told you I wanted to go to Mars in 2024 that you told me that I'd lose temple blessings so I'm pretty sure you've always been like this :)

Thank you guys again for your good examples, you guys are awesome.

My week was a good one! My second new year (and last :/ ) on the mission in Brasil. I really like the new year here it's really awesome. In the US there's one place that shoots off a bunch of fireworks. Here EVERYONE shoots off fireworks EVERYWHERE. And the cool think about this year was that we're living in an apartment building and I was able to go up on top on like the 10th floor so I saw a whole bunch of São Paulo, like a half of the whole city. It was awesome, just continuous fireworks going off everywhere. There were even some fireworks that some neighbors shot off that exploded about on our level which was kind of scary the first time haha.

I got some more Christmas letters from the following families that I’d like you to thank for me:

Ezra Hernandez

Peter Fortuna (I think I spelled that right....I can't read my writing)

Mark Burkinshaw

Fareed Betros

Tucker Family

Carver Family

And the Horton family :) haha Uncle Tom an Aunt Deena that sent me a guitar pick maker and some sweets :)

My week was good, we continue to do a lot of divisions or splits so it's rare that I’m actually working with my companion which is weird but it's good for us to all to learn.

We did a division with one of the Assistants to the president which was cool, I learned a couple of things.

We had a cool lesson with like 10 nonmembers and 4 members. It's not very often that a missionary has an opportunity to teach a group larger than like 5 or 6 people

The members of the ward are awesome :) they’re super friendly and they help one another and they help us too. The thing I've noticed about members is that they're willing to help, they just don't know how to help a lot of times or are afraid.

We had a mission leadership counsel as well with all the Zone leaders and assistants and the president and that was good as well, I took down a lot of notes to pass on to the zone this Wednesday at the meeting.

Oh and this past week I pulled an all nighter in the hospital with another companionship that was sick. I got home and went to sleep at 6:15 and woke up at 9:30 and continued with the day. It was tiring but it was good that we were able to be there to help the missionaries, they're getting better now.

How many Elders and Sisters are in your Zone?  

There are 14 elders and 10 sisters

How has your life changed since becoming a Zone Leader?  

I've become responsible for more missionaries, I do more divisions, the way I follow up with the missionaries has changed and the way that I'm followed up with by the assistants changed. I have to plan more things as a zone leader, it's a greater responsibility but I like it.

How has your missionary work changed? 

I've had to work even smarter because there are more meetings and divisions and baptismal interviews so there's no time to waste. The good news is that we have some highly probably baptisms in the coming weeks so we'll see what happens with that. It's kind of funny, we do so many divisions and it's almost always me who stays in our area that Elder Gomez doesn't know like half of our investigators.

Elder Horton