Hey!
Wow, so it's been a bit crazy lately! As you know, I'm now officially a Portuguese-speaking elder and am the senior comp of two of the visa waiters. Our ward, Paper Mill, has its own district: Elders Mundt (DL), Bradley, DeMille, Roberts, Saldate (visa waiters) and I. Elder Seiverts, who used to be DL was bumped up to ZL with Elder Collette, and they live in the apartments in Paper Mill with us. Oh, and Elder Blum is still here, and still training. Elder Decker is his companion straight out of the MTC. Yep yep! So we have 10 Elders in our ward. Kind of unheard of. In fact, we're fairly certain that Paper Mill must be the only ward in the world to have so many Elders in a mission that's been around for such a long time. I'll make sure and get a picture of all ten of us and send it to you guys next week, along with a couple other fun pictures.
Gloria, who had fallen off the face of the earth (or so we thought) actually called me yesterday and wants us to continue teaching her--she had been in Florida but had forgotten her phone. Thus we had no way of getting a hold of her. But she's still extremely excited to be baptized.
Jay is doing well--we've been trying really hard to get him to church. He knows everything is true, but for some reason we can't seem to get him to the church building--something always comes up. There's also a member in the Elder's quorum that is doing a great job of fellowshipping him. Oh yeah, his family got wrongfully evicted from their home, so Elder Blum and I pulled all of their stuff back into their apartment and spent the rest of the day re-organizing it for them. Which actually was somewhat of a blessing because it really gave us a good chance to meet his family and show them that we're not crazy =] So we just need to get Jay to church and things will go super well.
Warren is a super special story--thanks for fasting for him. Elder Blum wrote to his family:
We were with a baptist Deacon who we have been teaching for a while now. He said he felt that the book of mormon was true but he needed a witness of it for himself. So feeling pretty bold and moved upon by the spirit i said lets pray right now! He kinda looked at me and said ok. So we kneeled down and i said a prayer then Elder Decker then he did. It was probably the most sincere prayer i have ever heard. The spirit was amazing in the room. After the prayer we sat in silence for a minute and he looked at me as said "i feel like im going to cry. Not because im sad... but because I feel so happy and warm." BINGO!!! GOTCHA! haha it was amazing. He know knows it is true and we are going back to teach his family and hopefully get the font ready. Whats particularly exciting about this baptism will be that he is a deacon in the baptist church. I am hoping and praying that he will bring a part of his congregation with him :D
Amazing, huh?
We're having a bit of a rough go with Heather --because she's not able to go to church, she's losing excitement. We're trying to get her out to church activities as much as possible, but it's tough because she works so much. So yeah, please keep praying for her.
Marcus has to move apartments, and today (November 1) is the last day he has to find a new apartment, so he wasn't able to go to church yesterday. He really wanted to though. I'm confident Elder Blum will be able to continue to do really great work with Marcus. I'll take a picture with Marcus next time he comes to church--you guys will love it =]
So we started our Portuguese work this week--Elder Bradley and Elder DeMille are my companions. We've got a couple new investigators we've found, but nothing terribly exciting yet. So please hold for next week--I'm sure I'll have some very exciting things to talk about next week.
Oh, but this is really fun--yesterday I translated the English Sacrament Meeting into portuguese for the other Elders' Portuguese investigators. Our ward has the translation headphones and microphone, and I translated all the talks into Portuguese! It was such a cool experience. I really don't know how to fit it all into one email, so I'll probably send you guys a letter over the next couple days or something, and I'll tell you all about it.
Christmas package? Let's see-- a sweatshirt, slippers, an electric shaver (self cleaning would be great), some thick black Sunday socks, short-sleeved white shirts (2ish), and that's about all off the top of my head.
Love you guys so much! I'll be on for another 30 minutes or so, so email me back if you have any questions.
Elder McGregor
unfortunately I didn't see his email until the 30 minutes had already passed : (
So let's see if I can get this straight. Paper Mill Ward missionaries
(the whole district of them!):
Elder Mundt - DL, Portuguese-speaking
Elder Bradley - Brazil visa waiter (probably a companion to Elder Mundt?)
Elder DeMille - Brazil visa waiter (probably a companion to Elder Mundt?)
Elder Roberts - Brazil visa waiter / E McGregor's companion, Portuguese-speaking
Elder Saldate - Brazil visa waiter / E McGregor's companion, Portuguese-speaking
Elder McGregor - Portuguese-speaking
Elder Seiverts - was DL; now ZL, Portuguese-speaking
Elder Collette - ZL
Elder Blum - Elder McGregor's former companion, English-speaking, (maybe the other DL now?)
Elder Decker - Elder Blum's new greenie
*
DL = District Leader;
ZL = Zone Leader;
greenie = new missionary;
visa waiter = greenie missionaries headed to Brazil who haven't received their Visas yet
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