Tuesday, May 3, 2016

May 2, 2016

Família e amigos!!! Eu fui transferido à Serra em Zona Vitória! Ive been transfered to Serra and I absolutely love it here. Its not too far from my last area, only about an hour. I got a new companion, Elder T. Santos. Hes been on the mission for 1 year and 2 months and has already trained someone so he has a lot of experience. He will end my training for the next six weeks here in Serra. My companion is exactly what I needed. He is from the north eastern part of Brazil and super legit. My first companion wasnt the best and didnt really teach me anything but this past week has been the best week of my mission cause he really know how to work hard and teach people not lessons. We also know how to have fun. He is hilarious and is just all around awesome. God truly answers prayers.
This past week has been great. The ward here is awesome and the area is great to work with. Our are now is about 20 times bigger than my last area. In Itapoã, my last area, I could walk that whole area in about 40 minutes but here in Serra from north to South its about 40 minutes by bus. We has so many barros,pronounced (byho) (barros are basically big neighborhoods) in our area and some that the missionaries barely even go into. In my last area we barely took a bus anywhere but here ive taken a bus somewhere at least once a day. The buses here are crazy. Just think of the bus on Harry Potter and how crazy they were driving its just like that here. If youre standing up, which is most of the time, you have to hold on with all your life in order not to fall over. But there are always these times when Im not expecting either a fast stop or a crazy turn and I stumble a little bit but its all fun and I havent died yet so all is good.
We have some really good investigators in our area. We are teaching a family in a barro about 20 minutes by bus which were a reference form the ward mission leader. They are super receptive and have a lot of questions. The mom says that she has always felt that there is definately something more than just the bible and when we taught about the Book of Mormon she was super excited and felt that what we were teaching was true and accepted our invitation to be baptized. The only problem is that she isnt legally married yet... This problem of not being legally married is huge in my mission so far and more so in this area. People just live together and have lives together but dont get married. We´ve encountered so many people that want to be baptized but just arent married so the baptisms have to be postponed a while. But we are continuing to work with this family and teaching them all the lessons and helping them gain a testimony about marriage and how it is a commandment of God.
This past week I have grown so much in my teaching skils. Elder T. Santos is a huge help and actually teaches me things everyday. This past week I was able to lead some lessons and invite lots of people to be baptized. Working with Elder T. Santos is amazing and Im so excited for this transfer to baptize lots of people. We have so many potentials that can be baptized here in the next couple of weeks. The most likely baptism we have is this 10 year old boy. He has been coming to church for the past 4 months and hasnt been bapized yet. Idk what the missionaries have been doing here during this time but im glad that im here now to be able to help him get baptized. The only speed bump we have with him is that there is a rule in our mission that for kids under the age of 15 they not only have to have permission from their parents to be baptized but their parents also need to come to church to get to know the church before we can baptize him.
The work here is great, Im so happy and loving this area with my new companion and I am super excited to keep learning and to baptized so many people in this area.
I love you all so much! I know that God love each and every one of you and all we need to do is ask for help and He is there waiting for us ready to help us with anything and everything we need. I know this chuch is true and I know that this work is ordained of God. Im am so blessed to be a missionary and a representative of Jesus Christ Here in the Mission Brasil, Vitória. This church is true and it is vitally important that everyone knows this and we can only know through sincere prayer and God will answer us. I love you all.
Love,
Elder Griffin

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