June 27th from Brazil

M and D at the Noite Familiar (FHE) last night. Elder Black served Maicom two HUGE heapings of Torta de Bolacha (Cookie Pie)

Everyone is pretty sad that our Mission President is leaving this week.  Personally I never really got that close to him what with being here only 2 months and when I first came in I could hardly speak with him.  It will be an interesting change for sure.  Next Monday we will have a zone conference in Porto Alegre with the new mission president and each of us will have a 10 minute interview with him.
     Last week was a little more disappointing then our previous week.  We only had 4 investigators show up to church, and both of our up and coming baptisms fell through.
     We showed up at G's house on Sunday to bring him to church, and he did not want to go with us for some reason.  He said he needed to go to his Brother's Birthday party, but we offered to have someone drive him to the Party after church but he didn't give.  We'll have to reschedule his Baptism for sometime in July, which is disappointing for us, but things happen.  Also we found out that his Mom does not want him to be baptised, so we'll be having a chat with her today to figure out why she doesn't want him baptised.
     A was doing so good last week, she got down to just 2 cigarettes in one day, but then her husband fell terribly ill last Saturday and so they had to go out of town to a decent hospital.  We couldn't visit her everyday, and so she ended up smoking again.  The adversary never stops working on our investigators, that's for sure.  She also was not at church.
     The one family that Elder Black keeps visiting on divisions and I've never really gotten to visit, G, M and W were at church this Sunday and are steadily progressing towards baptism.  I was very happy to see them there, and they even brought their Less-Active Mom with them!  They are already acting like awesome members, and they aren't even baptized yet!
     M and D weren't at church Sunday for reasons unknown, and really scared us last week.  We thought that they were going to drop us, because we asked them to get married.  M explained to us yesterday that he makes 300 reais a month, (about $150 USD) and that a marriage that costs 150 reais is just unreasonable for them to be able to pay right now.  We are grateful that the problem was just money, and hopefully the branch here will be able to help them out.  They are truly a special couple and we love visiting them.
     Our other investigator at church was M.  He's the son of a more or less active member of our branch.  He's 17, living with alone with his 16 year old girlfriend.  T, his girlfriend is 8 months pregnant, and he really wants to get married and join the church in order to raise up his family right.
     Brasil is a totally different world.  People get "married" at 16-18 and start having kids.  The minimum wage here is 600 reais a month, or $300 USD.  People work 2 to 3 jobs in order to keep a roof over their head and rice and beans on the table.  All this and I'm in one of the "better off" countries of the world.  I can't even imagine if I had been born here.  This poor little town is struggling to survive at best.  I never understood how blessed I was to be born and raised in the United States, and I don't even come from a wealthy family!
     Just as an FYI, I spent about $20 last week at a Walmart because they had all sorts of American Food that we were craving, and since you can't really send me packages, I took the liberty of buying myself a couple packages of Twix, Reese's, and Pringles.  As well as the all important Peanut Butter.  I try to keep from spending any money from home because I know how tight finances were when I was at home.  Let me know if I'm spending too much, but I probably won't be using the home money for another little while.
     Well that's all for this week.  Thanks for taking the time out to write me every week.

Love you bunches,
Elder Henry

It was the Zone Leader's Birthday (Elder Caridade, and Jaques) last week so the Sisters made Brownies and brought Ice Cream for everyone at district meeting. If you can see they requested a Princess Birthday Party, and look lovely in their princess necklaces Elder Black decided to jump in on the party as well. He's kinda huge!