Letter to Alissa - February 3rd 2014

So this week has been pretty great actually! I feel like I'm actually doing missionary work now! We found a few people who said they'd go to church. One of them is named Neto, and the other one is named Alexandre. Neto is just awesome. He's 27 years old, and he's super spiritual. When we met with him at his house the first time, he was saying how he doesn't really have a religion. His religion is him praying to God. He reads the Bible once in a while, I think. Anyways, we taught him the first missionary lesson, and invited him to be baptized, and he said yes! :D He came to church on Sunday too!!! And he seemed to really like it! He had a lot of input and questions, and it was great. The other guy, Alexandre, is probably in his 30s or 40s, and we taught him the first lesson too, on the same day. He seemed to be pretty receptive of it, and we had actually invited him to be baptized during our street contact with him, and he accepted then! It's crazy how often that happens here.. haha! But yeah, he was supposed to go to church on Sunday, but he didn't show up. We went to Neto's house and Alexandre's too, Sunday morning, before church, but neither of them answered and there was no sign of them. It was raining, and we got pretty wet, so it was freezing in the chapel with the A/C on! haha! I was praying during the Sacrament that our investigators would show up, and then a few minutes later, one of the Sisters' investigators showed up, and so did Neto! I bore my testimony in Fast and Testimony Meeting, but I waited a long time, so when I finally got up the courage to do it, I only had like 1 minute to talk!

Neto went to Gospel Principles and Elders Quorum after that, and he seemed to like it a lot. At the end of church, we showed him the baptismal font, and explained a bit about it. He said he has quite a few doubts about our religion right now, but that he'd go to church a few more times to learn more about it. Awesome! I hope we can help him resolve his doubts! Mormonism is a huge thing. I don't even know everything there is to know yet! I can see why he has doubts about things if I did once in a while last year after being Mormon for my whole life! So yeah, hopefully, we can teach the other 3 lessons to him this week, and he will be baptized next Sunday! :) We need to follow-up with Alexandre though. Oh and apparently he can't read very well, so we'll have to work with that too. But I have a good feeling about him! :)

I feel like I'm trunky every day, thinking about how awesome it's going to be to go home and be able to do the things I like to do, and be with you again :D and my family! But, my companion said the first 2 transfers were really long/slow for him, so maybe after these first 2 transfers, I'll stop being like this. I guarantee that I will still miss you and being home and everything, but I will have accepted that I'm going to be here until November of 2015. :) It's hard being away from everyone and everything, but, I mean, missionary work itself isn't too hard, not yet anyways, it's actually really enjoyable. Especially seeing investigators progress. :)

Other than that, I'm doing well, and every day is enjoyable is different ways. I find American or English-speaking people once in a while, especially at church! There are quite a few! And it's nice to be able to actually talk how I want and say exactly what I want to say, and not feel like I'm dumb/mute (joking, haha!). I don't know if I mentioned this yet, but there are a TON of people with shirts in English here. Oh and the other day, I saw this lady with a shirt that said I <3 Nueva York. haha! The heart was upside down for some reason, and the text was in Spanish and English, and not Portuguese. I was like, "Yeah! Woo, New York!" haha, but yeah, there are a ton of shirts in English, and people don't even know what they say sometimes XD There's also a ton of American music here, like, the majority of the songs I've heard, have been in English, I'm pretty sure. haha! Also, the majority of the movies they watch here, are from America, and have Portuguese subtitles XD or Portuguese voiceovers. Same with the video games, almost all from America!

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Anyways, so I'm not writing a newsletter this week I guess, due to the lack of time (I had 26 emails this week! A lot of them were just missionary updates, so I skimmed through them[…]) but yeah, I spent half of my time reading emails!

I love you so much. I really, really do. I miss you every day. It's so hard being away from you! I enjoyed reading your emails, like always! :)

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I forgot what I was going to say.. so I'll just send some photos instead! I hope you get your mission call soon! Don't forget that there is a missionary in Brazil (me) who loves you very much!!! Ever!!! :)

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I love you sooooo, so much!!!!!!!!!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Have a fantastic week! :) :)

Elder Canto

P.S. I'll send the photos separately instead!