Elder Pieper of the Seventy; Apostles are super cool; and a picture of yesterday's Priesthood

Hey everybody!

I'm glad to hear everything's going well at home. Super happy the new ward is great, and I guess it'll be fun to come home to the new ward.

We had a training on Friday with Elder Pieper of the seventy, which was fantastic. It'd be tough to summarize all of the things he spoke about, but it sufficeth to say it was about missionary work, and it'll change the way we work in respect to certain aspects of missionary work.

Things are moving along. It's been tough to meet with Fatima--she's been working a ton lately, and we've only been able to meet with her once a week. She also hasn't come to church for the last couple weeks. So I'm getting a little concerned about her, but as far as I can tell, she's still on her way to be baptized on the 6 of March.

Our friend who is the high councilman working with the Portuguese Group was here on business this past week.  We went to dinner and also asked him to take some CDs to E McGregor.
I'm glad Brother Baker was able to fill you in on what the work is like here. And I really appreciate the CDs--we were all getting tired of hearing the same stuff over and over =]

Elder Oak's address at Chapman* was really good to read. I'm constantly amazed at the Apostles and how super-cool they are. I remember seeing you guys watch General Conference on Saturdays and I was always like, "what's the big deal?" But I'm starting to get it now ;)

I hope everything's going great! I love you guys so much! Have a fantastic week!

Elder McGregor

*http://beta-newsroom.lds.org/article/elder-oaks-religious-freedom-Chapman-University

(We sent him a hard copy of this)

Elder McGregor is front row far right and his companion, Elder Emmett, is back row fifth from the left:

We also got this message and the picture above from our friend:

I thought I would pass along the report from my fellow High Councilor that manages the Portuguese Group with me – he’s the one that takes pictures.

“In Sunday School, there was a lot of participation from the members during class. Elder McGregor taught the class.  At the end he told about his personal experience. He was first called to serve in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  However, he was not fully prepared to be on a mission. Because of that, he was sent back home for 7 months.  At the end of 7 months at home, he was ready.  He was called to serve in Georgia.  To his surprise, the Lord had a plan for him.  He was able to serve in the Portuguese speaking area.  As a matter of fact, because of his ability to speak Portuguese very well, he is extremely useful for the area. President King told Elder McGregor that he was an answer to prayer. Telling his personal experience brought a very strong spirit to the room, especially to the Nogueira family.  They currently have a similar situation in their family.  Their son just came home from his mission in North Carolina for 6 months for a similar reason.  Tears were shed, and testimonies were shared.  Overall, it was a very sweet and touching Sunday School.

We had to set up a lot more chairs for priesthood meeting today.  A photo of the combined priesthood class is attached. The group is progressing well.  Attendance has been constant in the mid 30’s.”

I’ve attached the picture for you.  Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the Sunday School meeting due to a talk I had to give in one of our Spanish branches.