Sunday, January 6, 2013

Letter from December 15th, 2012

Feliz Natal!!

Yes, it is getting pretty hot here, but this week it cooled down. Actually, this summer has not gotten as bad as last summer yet. But the worst of summer will still arrive in January and February. I have not gotten the packages yet, but we are receiving many packages every day...I should say a ton of packages of every shape and size. And with that we always get phone calls from nervous parents wondering if their package has arrived yet...they can actually get pretty mad sometimes thinking that we are the ones working at the post office. It can get pretty funny and ridiculous.
This next Monday, Elder Godoy (General Authority) will be here and is going to do a conference with us in Porto Alegre and have a meeting with us here in the office as well.  He will then have a conference in Pelotas on Tuesday. We will then have Christmas Conference here in Porto Alegre and then we will have a Christmas conference in Pelotas on Friday...whooo! We have got a few things to get ready for :) but it will be a great week!! We will train and give a message at both of the Christmas conferences and direct everything for all 4 conferences...this will be exciting!!
Happy Birthday Nicole too!!! Sorry I forgot! Congrats on everything Nicole, you are an awesome mom and I always admired how you magnify your callings.
It sounds like the Rudolph´s express was a hit! Let me know how Santa´s slideout goes ;) That's right, Turkey trot, Rudolph express, and Santa´s slideout...let´s just say that I know how to start good traditions.
It sounds like the toddler party was a hit! I enjoyed the pics. That would be funny see Daniel, Ashley and me all as the Christmas elf...one day I knew those pictures would come back to haunt me.
You will have to send a big hug to Daniel Costa and Thiago Schardosim.  I was able to talk to Thiago a few days ago. Love that guy, I am so happy that he is set on serving a mission.
Haha, pretty excited for the Christmas phone call I can tell. Well we don´t know if we are going to call here in the office or if we will call from a member´s house, but I think it will be here in the office, we will just have to get a webcam  from a member or someone.
I will most likely finish my mission in the field, longer than 6 months as assistant is a long time. Elder Singelo goes home in April, he extended his call. I am not sure about everything that is going to happen still. But I will keep you informed, we can talk about it at Christmas.
So with all of the new mission calls our mission will receive many more missionaries around April-August, that is our estimation anyways. We don´t know how many will show up, but we imagine at least 10 more missionaries on average. It is much more complicated to take out missionaries from an area here in Brasil, there are many things that must carefully taken care of, when we don´t have many missionaries arriving we get short term missionaries out of the young men that are going to serve missions.
Thank you for the GCC info, dad. I had no idea that it was on my laptop.  Maybe it would be better for you to register me from home, but we have got time to talk about this.
I am very anxious to receive your talk on the divinity of Christ, Dad!! And I am ready to help you every week if you would like in the mission prep class. But I have a question, don´t they usually give that class through the institute? How will that all work out?
Wow, Jordan Fields is home!! Jordan Abner is probably coming home soon as well. What happens on the mission report? What questions, etc?
Well this week the transfers went well! Elder Kunzler and Elder Fernandes are training new missionaries, so we are now living with 6 missionaries at home!! Craziness! And don´t worry mom, I am definitely one of the neatest, that is for sure.
We picked 10 missionaries up from the airport on Tuesday and all of our lessons and trainings went very well. It is amazing to see the difference in all of the missionaries and see which ones took advantage of the mtc and which wasted a lot of time. It is very easy to see. The district leader makes a big difference.
Elder Arnow, from Mesa, went home on Wednesday...sad day. I liked that guy a lot, I am sure he will tell you all hi for me, I told him he had to go see you all...and Ashley haha. He is an amazing missionary and person.
Well, we are teaching this man named Luis, he has already gone to church 2 weeks and is liking everything a lot! He reads the Book of Mormon and is now trying to stop drinking coffee. He will be baptized in the near future. I will keep you all in touch. Luis is a friend of João Pedro, a young man of 14 years. That's right, the missionary work is for everyone. If João Pedro can invite someone to church, so can everyone! He is good friends with Luis, who is 45 years old.
Well, I will talk with everyone shortly on Christmas :)
But I love you all and am very grateful for all of the support and prayers
Love Elder Bradley Joseph Dawson

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