Linhares - Week Nine

 Riley with either William or Ciaque (he didn't say which!)

 At their baptism.

 Playing soccer on p-day.

At a fast food place thinking it's funny to see Scooby and Shaggy!

Again, I'll just answer your questions first because I think it's easier that way. haha.
Yes, we use a cell phone, and most people have one, even the poor people. But we only have a certain amount of credits on the phone, and there is a stupid think in brazil called "liga a cobrar," which means, call to charge. Basically, if you don't want to use your money, they call to charge, which makes our phone ring, but if we answer it nothing happens and it hangs up. So then we have to (or not) call them back because they think the church has money. So this will be our second week without being able to call anyone because we ran out of credits. LAME.

The church we have here is pretty small. None of the churches here have carpet, just tile. No AC either, just ceiling fans. But even so, it's a nice building, and even has a family history center (which is small too).

 I have no idea why we don't have bikes. Would make the work SO much easier, but I guess they're worried about them getting stolen or maintenance or something. We hardly ever walk on dirt roads, about half of the roads are paved, and the other is like cement stone roads.

I still study the scriptures in English in the morning, but I read from the Portuguese ones a lot too. I understand just about all of it, there's just a few words every one and a while that I don't know. Especially because the scriptures use different language than the rest of the people here.

Anyway, I BAPTIZED THIS WEEK!!! WOO!!

The baptism was awesome.  It was just a great experience! We baptized the two kids, William and Caíque, (13 & 11) and we should be baptizing their mom soon too. It was just awesome! I've realized what a huge difference I've made in their lives, especially William. This week we taught them every day to get them ready for baptism, William even left with us two or three times to go teach people! He's just awesome, and will be such a great missionary. I found out at the baptism from his mom that just 3 weeks ago he was rebellious and hard to deal with but now he is completely different. He wants to go on a mission, when we come to teach he gets everyone to come and listen, and after the baptism he even wanted to stay and clean the chapel with us! He's just such an awesome kid. Caíque is great too! He just isn't as mature yet, but he's excited to go to church, and live the gospel with his older brother. Those kids, even though the family isn't that well off, bought white shirts, ties and dress pants for going to church! The mom Poliana will be baptized Saturday after next. She still has some problems with the Word of Wisdom, but I think the spiritually powerful baptism will help her change, and make the same changes that her son made.

Well this week was pretty good, we're still trying to find more investigators and people that we can bring into the gospel. This week we happened to find a relative of William and Caíque, who has noticed how much they have changed and thought it was awesome. We started teaching her too, there was also a friend of hers there when we taught her the first time too, who really wants us to come teach her, but because we don't have any credits to call people, we can't find her house. So annoying. umm I didn’t bring my planner to the lan house with me so I can't remember much...This week just went by so fast! Oh we did have a Zone meeting, but the Zone leaders forgot to bring the letters, so i dont know if I have anything still.

That’s about it this week. It sounds like everyone is having fun.  Has dad bought a new car yet?  Is Zack getting married yet? The political news isn’t that important to me right now, but I like hearing what going on. A member told me yesterday who was playing in the Super Bowl. I didn’t care much. haha.

Well I love you all, I’m having a good time learning and preaching the gospel!