Pictures from Porto Velho

To Mom:

Ha will be good to talk with you guys on mother's day. It sounds like a bunch is happening there that you'll have to tell me about. the daughter was baptized, which completed the family! i'll send you a picture! With my companion all is really good. We've never argued still, and he's always excited to baptize and work hard to baptize. I learned a lot of good things from him, and he's shown me a lot of interesting talks. That's cool that laura is making toffee popcorn. That stuff is delicious. This week is stake conference. It's cool because they send a bus around to pick up everyone which is what they did for everyone in General conference. Is the bishop of the monterey ward now bishop baker? living worthily to have the companionship of the holy ghost is something we learn about every conference with our president. We have the holy ghost with us when we're obedient to the rules, and this is super important because we use the holy ghost in everything, finding people to teach, teaching people, resolving problems of people... also Bruce R. McConkie said something powerful too. In response to our level of obedience, the greater the gift of faith. The greater the obedience to the Lord, the greater the gift of faith. I started reading the book of mormon about a month ago i think and i've almost finished it in Portuguese. I've already read it once but i didn't really put much effort into learning and applying things from it, but this time i made a real effort to study, mark important things i can use in teaching, and apply in my life. I'm trying to read it quickly because i want to read the bible, jesus the christ, and our legacy as soon as i can to help with my teach (and with my portuguese!) That's cool that Brett came home! did he learn 2 or 3 new languages there? I remember that Uncle Tim was saying something about that. That's good that the trip to thatcher went well. Did you get to talk with Tiffany? I think i sent her a letter a few months back in the CTM but i never received a response.. how's she doing? And how's grandma and granpa doing? Do they have emails? And why can't you go to women's conference this year? Have to work? everything's going great here. We've got two baptisms marked for this sunday. All looks like it's going well and progressing. It's good to be here. We're doing a bunch of family nights, the members are getting excited to help and are giving references. we held a big integration party thing last saturday for the members to bring investigators and make food, and joke around. Went well, it was fun. Only one person brought an investigator but we're hoping that a trend will be started where every two weeks we have a great integration party. Well mom, it looks everything is going good there. Hope you stay happy and excited! Have a great week! Love you alot! bye!

-Andrew

"My old companion last transfer"

"Man we baptized"

"His daughter that was baptized the next sunday"

"The churrasco we made last week"

To Dad:

we met our goals for families and passed our goals for men baptized we ended up with 4 people baptized in total instead of 5. our area ranked the highest in men baptized.  it's kind of cool to see our area finally moving up and doing better now. We're working alot alot more with members. When i first arrived here all we did was knock on doors to find people and didn't really do anything, but the members are a lot more excited to help now, and our giving us a bunch of references. Our area is one of the hardest to baptize but i think the members are changing that now. We have two baptisms planned for this sunday, which will be a stake conference. It's kind of interesting here. for general conference and stake conference, the church rents a bus which drives through a few main residencial roads and picks up the members. it makes things alot easier, because many people don't have cars and also don't want to walk and wait for the buses to take them to the middle of the city and from there walk to the stake center.  I'm getting along with my companion very well. He wants to baptize, and he teaches very well. We haven't had a single fight or argument in our 4-5  weeks as companions. That's cool about the trip to nebraska. Are you going to look for a few graves there and visit some sites? what do you have planned for there? hope it all goes well there and that work is going well for you and mom. Laura's getting excited about summer, she can't wait till efy huh?

Love you a bunch dad! Talk to you next week!
-Andrew