Bad Week.....But I'm Happy!

"This has been an eventful week. First off, this has been one of the worst weeks of my mission, but I'm still super happy! It was bad because three of our families shut the door on us...half our teaching group. I think I cried, I can't remember. Also we threw a huge open house with our zone leaders ward and nobody...NOBODY came, so we lost a lot of time, but the open house was really good. I'll tell you about it later.

Yesterday Elder Hancock was transfered. My new comp is Elder Nodal from Albuquerque, NM. This is his second transfer and I'm his second companion. He is really new to the mission. My zone leader got a new companion, too, an Elder that I really like, Elder Bradford. His is super humble, super excited and super happy all of the time. We still live with our zone leaders, so it's still crazy at our house all of the time.

The open house was really well done. We had the church decorated really well and each room was about a different aspect of the church. Our room was the Missionary Work room and we had the baptizmal font open and running. It was cool! We had a bunch of neat banners from the mission and there was a room that had a pathway made out of old liahonas. It was pretty neat!

I saw everyone yesterday at the mission conference. Elder MeEwen was the happiest to see me. He got the present and said he nearly cried when he saw it. Elder Pereira nearly knocked me over when I gave him the ring you sent for him. I told him he didn't need to pay for it. Elder Benson, from my CTM group, was made senior companion and Elder Rossi, my old comp and (at the time) his comp said that Elder Benson was praying that he and I could be companions. I may not have baptized many people yet, but it seems like I'm making a big difference in the lives of many of the missionaries here.

We taught two rich ladies the other day...one lady's house was as fancy as anything in Park City. She called to receive a Book of Mormon. What happened was that she found the number to call while she was channel surfing waiting for her husband's surgery to finish. She happened upon a church film (about the Beck family, one of whom, the subject of the film, I know from Sunday Singing) and she called then and there in the hospital. When we invited her to be baptized she told us the she never thought she could be baptized, that she couldn't convert to Mormonism...that we were like the Jews and that you had to be born one. We were like OF COURSE YOU CAN! She said that she wanted to talk to her husband first. The other lady did something that nobody has ever done before. She wrote down the date and time of our baptizmal invitation! We will have to call both ladies to go back and that will happen tomorrow. Please pray for them. Their names are Ana Maria Mandoza and Ivone Wagner Bento. We also need to teach their families.

I'm happy and working and loving the mission. Thanks for the information on my friends. Will you find out if Casey (Bangerter) knows an Elder Monson in Fortaleza. He was one of the zone leaders that I got to help call and introduce while I was AP in the CTM.

I love you. Elder Christian.