So it's gonna be forever

 (Elder Mackrory)

Boa tarde meus queridos! Como estão?

Essa semana deu uma caída em fuscas devido a minha nova área. Vimos 12, totalizando 1206.

My new area has significantly less fuscas, but the quality of fuscas has gone way up. There are some spanking nice bugs here. Anyway, this week was so packed, it feels like I haven't written in like two and a half weeks. Nonetheless, it was a super fun and spiritually uplifting week. Let's start with Christmas.

We just hung out Christmas morning in our house. But then there was a super goated member from the neighboring ward that invited the district to have lunch. This couple has lots of family living in the states, and so they gave us some twizzers, which I have missed. Afterwards we had a cool spiritual moment with them and we all shared 2-minute messages. Super awesome. We then went home and played some soccer as a district and played cards.

Thursday we were back in the races. We had zone conference which was super spritual. I got to sing (in four part harmony) "What child is this?" From the new hymnal with some awesome friends. We had a gift exchange with everyone and I got a super sick benjamin franklin tie from a Sister. Friday was more stuff. I probably contacted tons of referrals and registered some cell phones and sim cards. A bunch of the same fun on Friday.

Saturday was my favorite day of the week by far. We had pday again (don't ask, I don't know why either). And we went to the temple! Since I had been really far out in the mission, I didn't have this opportunity for a long time. About 213 days to be exact. It was so awesome. Go to the temple guys, it's so spritually uplifting and I truly feel at home there. But! We didn't just go to the temple. I was actually there to participate in the sealing of a recent convert to her husband from my first area! We were really close to this family and it was super special to be invited to the ceremony. What was also cool is that my old trainer Elder (not Elder anymore) Nascimento was also there, since he was the one who baptized her. Super incredible experience in every way. On the way home, I wasn't planning on sleeping, but before I realized I fell asleep, Elder Ribeiro tapped on my shoulder because we arrived home.

On Sunday we had church, and it was super cool. A nice 2nd hour about missionary work. We had a few friends come, including Vinicius, who has his baptism date next week. It's gonna be great. That night, we found out that another missionary would be staying with us for the week he's doing on-line MTC. He's from the neighboring stake, but his home doesn't have good wifi, so he's living with us. Elder Eloi is super cool.

On Monday we had more work in the office and some work in the streets. Nothing super interesting I don't think. On Tuesday we had some more, and we went home afterwards to do online work. We decided it would be best not to go pit in the streets on the night of new years eve. I also finished up version 2 of my goals spreadsheet and sent it to president saying "just in case you're interested". Later that night saw that he was messing around on it testing out all it's features. So that was pretty cool. Then I went to bed. Because of what happened last new years eve, I was not inclined to do anything. But then I was woken up because my roommates wanted to go up to the roof of the apartment building to watch the fireworks. I was already sleepy, so I was reluctant, and the fireworks were pretty impressive. We got to see Copacabana's show, but not super well since there was so much smoke it blocked our view. Then we went back down and I went to bed again. Much better than last year but you guys can be sure that ill be in bed at 10pm next new years.

Well, that's it this week. Happy new year.

Tender mercy: This week Elder Ribeiro was a little sick, which meant I had many opportunities to serve him! Little things like grabbing a cup of water or making a bed, but serving brought me and him joy. It was a win-win situation except for being sick.

Spritual thought: this week I started a new study of the Book of Mormon and it's been AMAZING. Funny thing is, I haven't gotten past the title page. I've found a love for writing my thoughts, and I've written about 4 pages about what I liked about the title page. I'll include a foto.