April 9, 2012

(Bradley talks about pictures, but forgot to attach them or they didn't come through.  Hopefully, we will get them next week)

Dear Family!

So, Elder Oliveira is going to be transferred tomorrow and I am going to stay! The other missionaries in the pictures are Elder Videira and Elder Bordolli, from Argentina.  They are serving in Belem Novo and excellent missionaries! The Easter sucker was a present because we had a competition with our work...we won :) The churrasco was yesterday…At Fabio´s house!  This guy is the man. He helps us out alot! Oh and look at all the chicken heart ;) and the little thing that looks like an embryo is a nut of some kind that we eat at Thiago´s house! Pretty good! It just looks really funny :)

Easter was wonderful! We even got some goodies from the branch :)  Friday we had a great activity in the branch. We had a lot of member and nonmembers! Oh and Thiago brought his sister and friends! Pretty soon we will be teaching that whole house :)

I think that covers the pictures...I hope!

Easter sounds like it was awesome for you all! For good friday everyone here eats fish...and mostly they don´t eat meat. It is a Catholic thing that has turned into tradition. There is no doctrine behind it. How could there? But needless to say, we ate fish for lunch Saturday!! It was the first time in a long time, and it was sooo good. Wow, I miss fish! But it was funny, because that night we had the Branch activity with little churrasco spits! There is another church, one that just yells and yells, on the side of ours. But it was funny because everyone that passed gave dirty looks because we were eating meat on Good Friday. But everyone enjoyed it and it was a great time for our investigators to make friendship with the members!

This Sunday we had 3 speakers that dominated and Thiago loved it! We got a bunch of candy, and I gave out a bunch of dum dums!

Thiago is the man. When we teach something, it is like he already knows, it is like the veil is very thin for him! I guess that would be the aspect of an elite and the spirit in this work. When we teach or talk about a principle, he understands and accepts everything. He really felt the spirit at general conference too. Something interesting- when we talked about the Plan of salvation, he found it very interesting, because the translation of his Bible is different.  This is a real problem here. The scriptures about the degrees of glory were different. But we were able to explain a little bit about the Bible and the problems that happened through the years, and the importance of the Book Of Mormon! Oh and he is already at Ether 3.... Yeah, he is the man :) He is a great friend!

The responsibilities here are going great! It is really helping me to learn more and feel more love for everyone. Like you said Dad, love for the people you are serving and leading, is the first step. I thought I didn’t have time left before...but now, bah! I am so busy now! But I love it! This transfer passed sooo fast!

I was able to learn a lot this week about our Savior Jesus Christ and His sacrifice. I love Easter. These last few days are the most important in all history. Without those, we would not be here, we would have no purpose.

I love you all, and I love my Savior.

Elder Dawson