Equating the 'Branch-in-progress' to math: 'Introduction to Pre-Calculus'; a lot of members live far away; and he's bulkin' up.

Bryon's questions this week:

1.  You said you would like a sweatshirt – do you mean a sweatshirt or a hoodie? Pullover or with a zipper? Do you care? I assume you are a size M or do you want a L?

2.  How many members are in the new Portuguese branch (excluding the 12 missionaries)?

3.  I understand that the Church is augmenting Preach My Gospel with 8 additional lessons to aid in teaching the Gospel of Christ (3 Nephi 11: 31-39) – has this rolled out to your part of the world yet?

And from Trent:
So, just a warning, we're at the library, and we're on 30 minute increments, and my first thirty is running short. and I'll have to get back on after I go through the loop again. So yeah. I'll write whatever I can and finish it in a bit. Sound good?

 So the thing is, it's not actually a branch yet. We're in the process of becoming a branch. I'll explain more when I've got more time. Love you guys!!

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Sweatshirt--you could probably just send me the white zip up hoodie in my room and that'd be great. Or you could buy a new one and surprise me. I'm happy either way =]

So like I said, we haven't actually got a branch yet. what's happening is that we have every week a Sacrament Meeting in Portuguese, and as we have more and more success (baptisms) we'll be able to move forward from there. So if you were to equate us to math, our little meeting is like Introduction to Pre-Calculus. The intro to the preparation of the real thing =]  But we had about 50 people at the meeting yesterday (including the 10 of us).

No news of new PMG (Preach My Gospel) stuff yet. Could be soon though =]

So we had some pretty good success this week--my companionship got an investigator to sacrament meeting, and we'll be able to teach her again soon to talk about what she felt, etc. We've got a pretty good teaching pool of people, and things are moving right along. sorry I'm not being very specific, because I've really been kind of pinched as far as time goes.

But being part of the little Portuguese Sacrament Meeting is awesome. It's a little different than normal I think, because a lot of the members who attend live pretty stinking far away, and we (Elder McGregor and his minutemen - [our nickname for the visa waiters since they could go at any minute]) can't really work with the members all that much as a result. So all those wonderful memories of working with members are pretty much just that--memories. I haven't had a lesson with a member present in the last three weeks because of our unique circumstances. Yep =] But all is well, tudo bem.

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And in another short email:

So guess what? When I was in Brazil I weighed somewhere around 165-170 pounds. Well, here in the GAN mission, I now weigh about 185-190. But don't worry--I'm not a fatty. I'm just getting to a healthy weight. And our apartment complex has a workout room, so every morning we go and work out. And I've been lifting weights recently =]   I'll let you guess what the result is ;)

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And later in the day our questions were answered about last week's photos:

001 - That must be Elder Blum at the chalkboard.  What was he doing?

Yep, that's Elder Blum. He's presenting his information. Read what's written on the board =]

002  Who's the elder in the Perry the Platypus tee?  Love it!

Agent P Elder is Elder Graff. He got his visa and is now in Fortaleza Brazil.

003   Elder DeMille also likes Rubix cubes.   Is that your apartment?  If so, niiiiiice  : )

Elder DeMille is using my rubix cube. He's gotten pretty good at it, but he's yet to beat my record (1m35s) =]

004   Who is Elder Muscle?

Elder Muscle is Elder Saldate. And he's a pretty big guy. He sure likes to work out. He's off to Santa Maria in the South of Brasil when his visa gets here.

005   Elder Roberts is looking very missionary GQ

Yep. =]

006   Who's about to be choked and why?  What's the duster thing?  Were you cleaning?!!!  Cleaning is good!

Yep, we were doing a bit of cleaning. And by we, I mean them. (just kidding =] )   Scaredy elder is Elder Bradley, one of my minutemen (our nickname for the visa waiters since they could go at any minute) :)

007  Wow!  I never saw you in your vest!  Very dapper. 

Well thanks. What can I say? It's a lot of fun to wear. Especially now that it's getting colder.

Well, I love you guys and I'll have some great news for you next week, I'm sure. 
Love love love!

Elder McGregor