Elder Holland and Bishop Edgley's Visit

hey familia!
this week was good. We did have a baptism last week of a 17 year old boy. It went well, i got to baptize him. the family we had also got married but because they were drinking coffee they had to wait to be baptized. at least the marriage part is out of the way. they'll probably get baptized this week. the Pres. Jayme's first counselor came and talked to the people here about the little fights and people getting offended and that they can't have a stake there when all that is going on. the missionaries didn't get to hear it, because it was just to talk against the fights and stuff and restore peace to the little Itcoatiaran district.. hah. I got to renew my Brazilian ID here so now i'm not here illegally anymore! the mission was supposed to send me to renew my ID last October, so it's been about 6 months after it should've been done. Monday was pretty interesting. So we were sending the weekly reports and all, and one of the assistants gave us a call and said "hey, Elder Holland said that some of the missionaries that are a little bit further out can come and watch the conference, so you guys can get a bus ride here and watch the conference on Wednesday." We're like "YES!" because we were expecting all this time that we would stay there in Itacoatiara and just watch a recording or something, but we got on another 4 hour bus ride to Manaus and watched two conferences. That one little phrase just affected us 4 there in Itacoatiara. We watched one conference yesterday with Bishop Edgley and his wife, (He's the 1st counselor in the general authority bishopbric) and with Pres. and Sis Jayme. They talked to 5 of the stakes here and in another place Elder Holland talked with the rest of the stakes. Sis Edgley talked how every fairytale has it's problem to be resolved like cinderella and her evil mom and sisters. But prince charming comes and takes her away in the end. but it wouldn't be a story without the problem and difficulties. We need to make our goal a happily ever after or eternal life. Bishop Edgley gave a bunch of interesting stories with the temple. There was one where he was visiting some church workers in Africa and they had a time to make questions. One man asked "How many of us will make it to the Celestial Kingdom?" And he said that he thought to himself thinking what an odd question.. and answered, "I don't know how many of you will make it there, but if you will prepare yourselves to enter the temple, enter, and be loyal to the convenants made there that you'll be there." and then he thought to himself "what have i just done? They'll never have a temple here!" and then 3 years after he passed there, Gordon B. Hinckley announced they would receive one..
The next day, or today in the morning, he spoke again and also Elder Holland. It was pretty cool, when Elder Holland it was a lot different that what i expected. He walked in touching some elders on the shoulder as he passed by, went to the front blew a kiss with two hands to everyone and waved for everyone to sit down. We all got up after the first hymn and shook his hand. He gave everyone a hard pat on the back as we passed by. Bishop Edgley gave 5 principles of a successful missionary. 1) Called of God, we're in power 2) our primary message is Jesus is the Christ and he restored his church and way to save the human family called the gospel 3) the gospel is pure, simple, and logical 4) the worth of souls is great D&C 18 5) and then the formula for success which is 5 more principles... (5 more haha...) 1) the spirit testifieth 2) "seek first to obtain my word" (study) 3) worthiness is required to have the spirit 4) Work 5) God is preparing people for you to teach. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland talked about how Preach My Gospel is designed to convert the missionary, which in turn converts the investigators. Nothing affects the truth of the gospel and the church. It doesn't matter if they don't believe it, you don't believe it, i don't believe it it's still true.. so in turn it's important that we do believe it. The minute we entered the temple, God gave us all that he has to us. Yes, he could add to it with blessings here, wealth and things, but after passing there we inherit all that God has if we're loyal to our covenants. We're preaching God's gospel, not our gospel which means we have to do it God's way, obeying God's rules and commandments. If it was my gospel, I could have my own rules, but being God's gospel we have to obey His rules.

I'll write the letter again here. I tried to print it off at the LAN house there, but they said that the guy that knows how to print off papers wasn't working at the time so i'd have to wait. i'm here at the mission offices again emailing you guys, so i'll write it, print it, and mail it off here. Glad to hear that things are going well there. I hope you guys have a great week and enjoy the messages Elder Holland and Bishop Edgley left with us. Love you guys!

Love, Andrew