June 25, 2012

This week will be 6 months on the mission! Time has gone by so fast already! It's amazing how fast time flies and how much we learn here on the mission so fast. I feel pretty much fluent in the language, and it's only hard to understand the drunk people in Portuguese now. 

This week was a bit interesting... A few things happened and me and my companion weren't able to work on Tuesday or Wednesday, so we lost two days of work. But on Thursday we went right back to work and everything was good! We have been visiting a lady name Conceição for the past couple of weeks on and off. She's a bit hard to find at home, but she's really accepting of the gospel and loves the missionaries. We talked to her on Friday afternoon, and she said she would go to church on Sunday and everything was good. Then Sunday rolls around and she didn't show! When someone doesn't come to church, it's really hard for us in our area because our chapel isn't in our area. So we didn't have the chance to go look for her. But after church we went to her house with a priest in our ward and ended up teaching her and her son a little bit. Turns out that she didn't go to church because she was a bit embarrassed about clothes and the fact that she didn't know anyone in the ward. So we're going to try and visit her with some members this week so that she gets to know them and gets more comfortable with the ward. We've already taught her almost all the lessons, but she still hasn't gone to church a single time, so she has to wait at least three more weeks to be baptized!

We were also able to talk to Herison's dad this week. Herison is the kid that was told by his dad that he can't talk to the missionaries for a month and all that jazz. So we talked to his dad, Diego, and he told us that we could start visiting Herison again! That made us really happy, and so now we just have to go and talk to Herison some more and he could be baptized this week! He's still strong in the testimony that he had and really wants to be baptized. We just have to make sure that his dad doesn't get drunk again and decide to change his mind!

I was looking on lds.org today and I saw a talk that I really like by Elder Cook. He talks about being in tune with the things that really matter and magnifying our callings in the church. It was really good and I think you all should go read it, too! 

Here's the URL: http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/in-tune-with-the-music-of-faith?media=video&lang=eng

Well, I hope you all have a fantastic week! Recover well, Mom! And I forgot to say this last week, so Happy Father's day, Dad! I love you so much and I'm so grateful for the instruction that you've given me throughout my life!

I love you all!

Elder Hopper #1