September 5. 2011

Querida Família!

Sounds like it is really burning up there. We had a nice day of heat and humidity yesterday, but it is back to rain and cold today! But I got a scarf from Brandon and Alyssa this week! Well Alyssa anyways...unless Brandon is learning how to knit, hehe. But that is crazy that it is getting so hot, and that I am in winter and you are in summer! All the Brazilians can´t believe how hot it is in AZ too. But what is weird...Rio Grande do Sul is one of the hottest places in Brazil! All the missionaries from all over Brazil in our mission say it is worse here, it is a (different kind of heat). You supposedly leave the shower sweating....yaaaa..

Mexico sounds pretty awesome! Especially that the dolphins are being so playful. I´ve never seen the dolphins throwing food around or anything like that, snap some pictures? Speaking of pictures...where are the pictures from Amanda´s baptism! How are Diego and Maria and fam doing? Pretty excited to hear that Bentz is serving in their hometown! Way cool! Testimony meeting sounds very animated there; did you really have someone waving their cane in the air?? Our testimony meetings are great; we always have a good number of people waiting on the stand and a lot of youth! There is a huge group of youth here. They are all really excited to share testimony...some stories, but testimonies too :).

I´m glad you enjoyed the baptismal picture! It was so awesome being there and helping with the baptism. You should be getting some more pictures next week...!

The talent show had a lot of non member youth and some non member parents to watch their youth sing in English, so it was a success! And this Sunday we gained 3 new investigators during church alone. Laís is one of those 3. She is a friend of one of the youth and we taught her in the capela this Sunday and she has a baptismal date :) The other 2 are really promising too!

Torrin is getting his call this week!! WOOO! Wow we are going to have a lot of missionaries out.

Mom my stomach is fine! I am a big boy and managing my diet :) I had a close call a few weeks ago but that is because I didn´t use our filtered water bottle at the house of a member and I am not accustomed to the water. But I was fine, didn´t get sick or anything.

 Wow, cookies and coke at 11:30 at night in Mexico? You all are having too much fun without me. All the members want me to make American cookies for them hah. Your lips are swollen?? What? Haha perfect, huge lips and huge queen Latifa glasses. Ha! Joking!

Haha mom I am already struggling, majorly, to respond to all of the letters! But I appreciate the lookout :) But if you would like to do send an address, go ahead! I am making a collection. I already got an email from a friend of Chelsey Merrell. Ha. Oh and she is in Moscow right now teaching English?? What?

The shirt gun and mascots sound awesome! Send some pics when you get them.

We went to the Porto Alegre temple Friday! It was amazing! They are all so different but each is really something special and different. There is a different spirit there. I am sending plenty of pics for you all :)

General conference is coming up!!! WOOO! I am so excited! It really is Christmas for missionaries! You all better listen up, I will be quizzing you the following Monday...

So our (Mom) here, Irmã Teresa, has a nonmember husband that we are getting pretty close too...He likes us to call him dad. Ha! But we helped them do yard work Thursday and we are gaining a lot of confidence! We will be teaching him soon :) But Irmã Teresa always says that I need to be a fan of the Corinthians, a soccer team in Sao Paulo. One time I had to say that I love them to sit at her table haha. But her son lives there, São Paulo. It was going to be a surprise, but she spilled the beans! Her son is bringing with him a professional Corinthians jersey for me in October. WOO! But let’s see how transfers go next week...yikes. But she is always looking out for us and com certeza, feeding us.

Paulo, we can´t get find Paulo or family in house, even though we planned. Left a not over there so we will see how this goes.

Ronaldo & Isaías- They are getting ready for their baptism this Saturday at 4 in the afternoon! :) They have nothing that would prevent them from being baptized and they are ready.

Laís- Her mom is just really uneasy about the church right now, she is espirita. So she wants to be baptized the first week end of November. She is a friend of Lauren, a member in the ward.

Kevin- Kevin has 16 years and is on line dating a member in São Paulo. She said he had to go to church and he really likes it. He is a cool kid! We are meeting with him this week and see how it goes.

Maria and Vitor- they both know they need to read and pray but won´t. We are trying to accompany them as best we can but they are not progressing and we will leave them in the area book for the future.

Maria-Another Maria with a son, William that just gained 16 years and a daughter, Stephaney, with 10 years. They are new as of this week and we will check back with them. But they are really receptive and open. I really think they are going to give this a chance, to test God.

Vlademir- He was a street contact and his fiancée Karina is receiving the Jehovah’s Witnesses for visits...but she can decide for herself :) we cleared a few things up for her. She has a little girl, Náthalyi that is 4 or 5. They want to get married in our capela too so we are going to bring bispo over there to talk to them. Lucia who is a neighbor, I think, was there too; she is elderly and pretty stuck on her catholic traditions, not religion, traditions.

Things are going great! The work here is improving and I am hoping that I don´t get transferred next week!

Love you all and loving the work! Thank you for all the prayers and thoughts. Stay safe and have fun! :)

Elder Bradley J. Dawson

August 29, 2011

Dear Family,

Sounds like the heat over there is finishing up with all of the cars! What was wrong with the mustang? We fixed about everything on that thing already. But that is neat that you got to help that investigator family dad, maybe a car would help or work here too....ha.

That is crazy what happened with Allyssa! But I am glad everything is alright! Will she be down for a while? Praying for her health for sure, it seems like our family has experienced a lot of health challenges but just haven´t learned our lesson yet :)

Torrin´s mission papers are in?! Wow! My official guess is Brasil, or Sweden that would be way cool. But Recifee, Brasil.

Wow the church is going to be publicizing a ton! That is way awesome; they should do this in Brasil :). But that is crazy that it received such good reports the last time around. It is the epistle of Corinthians all over again, always have a reason for the hope that is in you! The mormon.org account is a great idea. We might have to do this too one p-day. And the ward now has personalized pass along cards?? We aren´t even allowed to have them ha. I guess the missionaries in the past went crazy with them and they got rid of them here.

My week was good. A giant bag of unexpected all week, ha. We did not have the baptism...of Mateus this week. The talent show was awesome though! We had about 100 people there and the english class did awesome at singing! I have a video I will try to send...but I don´t think it will go. A lot of youth singing and playing instruments, a traditional gauchu poem about chimarrão a 11 yr old doing hip hop. haha that was great. Irmão Pinheiro in our ward works with audio visual things and brought a sound system, strobe lights and even a fog machine! It went a little long and we couldn´t stay, but everyone loved it :)

Haha, Mom my monthly allotment lasts and I am eating fine :) The avocado was just part of breakfast! I even splurged and bought cereal today! It is way more expensive here, but so delicious. I actually put on a little weight, but am losing it. I think the better question is… am I eating too much? I used to hate how you feed the missionaries all the sweets...now I love it!

Wow it is really hot there huh? It is bi polar here with the cold, rain, humidity, and everything else. What is it getting up to there? 120?? Everyone here is surprised when I say how hot is in AZ, they all think that because we are north of them that it is all freezing. But all of the humidity here makes everything more...fun. ahah.

Youth and social media should be the topic of every fireside these days! It is crazy. If the Savior and the apostles were teaching about this in the bible...how much worse is it now?! But it gives people the opportunity to make an extreme change to their minds.

Mom. You need to guard Ashley. Don´t let her leave the house. I am not there to tell them now and break something so I need you to lay down the law. I need to approve all and any that look her way. Torrin will be more than happy to break some arms too.

Mexico already?! You were just there! But that is awesome, Have fun and be safe! Dad should take a vacation and go scuba diving with Uncle Ron one of these times! That would be way cool! He seemed to love it last time. And we saw a shark! Be sure to tell Diego and Maria hi for me! Their fam. too.

Daniel is going to get crazy busy then. Yikes. I´m glad that my schedule is already put before me and I only have to think about a few things. And Adam will be delivering babies! Crazy! That is all really exciting though. What did he think about the psych rotation?

Glad Lucy is doing well! Is she looking lonely after the loss of Toby?

I have not been able to switch letter with any of them! I got a letter from Eric Lowe before he reported to the MTC but I was wondering if you could get the addresses of all the missionaries in our ward. The mission homes :) It will be neat to get and send letters to all corners of the world!

So you are probably curious about the baptismal pic! This is Sister Regina. An investigator of the sisters that is just awesome. I was able to help teach her a few times and give her a blessing and steal her cigarettes :) She calls me foginho...little red. haha. She is just awesome. Me and her are always laughing and having a good time. This was Saturday night.

Mateus- Well Mateus doesn´t want to go to church or be baptized any more. We passed by and called to pick him up from church and he didn´t want too. Told us later that he was done. A little sad about this one.

Vitor- He is not progressing and not reading. He knows that he needs to do this, but won´t. Letting him sit in the area book for a while. Sporadic visits with not a large frequency.

Maria- the same as Vitor.

Ronaldo- a kid from our English class that wants to be baptized and has gone to church once already! Date set for the 10th :)

Isaías- Friend of Ronaldo that is in the same situation! He showed us his favorite scripture in 3rd Nephi 11. It is verse 33 that says all those who are baptized will inherit the kingdom of God...that invitation was easy :)

Happy birthdays Liz and Dan!! Nope...I didn´t forget! Feliz Anniversarios!!!

Love you all and anxious to get things moving with some new investigators!

Love you all,

Elder Bradley J Dawson

A boy performing at the talent show. 

The baptism of Sister Regina (an investigator that the Sisters worked with).

August 22, 2011

Querido Família,

That is beyond weird to here you talking about Ashley driving to school and everything...I am old! But that all sounds exciting! Think you can really get a t-shirt gun? It would be cool! But it will never happen! Ha, I got so many things less dangerous than that shot down during my time there that I can answer for the faculty. What do you think of the Portuguese?? Pretty cool huh! I got a letter from Kevin Villela in Portuguese! It was way cool. And I understood everything! Ha. Actually, my Portuguese really only struggles during one time during the week, after email...it takes a little bit to get back into the flow.

Speaking of that! We had a special conference of the zones this past week and I spoke some English there with some other missionaries....It went like this ¨I don´t can´t speak English¨. I literally said this. It is a foreign language now. But it was fun seeing all of those missionaries together and having fun! And get some letters from the office... :) At the conference we got a new motto! We are a mission consegrado. With great talks and training from president and sister Swenson. A chapel full of missionaries yelling ¨Na missão consagrado...Nós Batizamos!¨ haha.

That is was cool that you got to talk to someone who served in the area near me. He is lucky; he has the Porto Alegre temple in his mission...barely! How did he like the food? And it is feijão, Dad, ha.

I see how it is. When I had the mustang, Dad and I fixed all of the main parts of the car, the engine, transmission, all that good stuff. But when Ashley has it you just fix up the looks... How vain! Kidding! She is fixing it up for me when I get home. Kidding! It will probably die before then. Because of the 220,000 miles, not Ashley...I know what you all were thinking.

Sounds like the big office move has left you even more busy Dad! Did they leave your office space until very last and move it all over during the night so you could keep going? That is way cool though. And your office is a lot closer to home now!

Mateus- Mateus cannot be baptized on Saturday...he didn´t go to church Sunday. We met with him Saturday night, had it all worked out, and then he went to his aunt’s house and stayed the night. We called in the morning to pass by and get him but he was gone. But we are meeting with him tonight to reschedule. But honestly I think this is a good thing. He his having some trouble taking what we are teaching in and reading.

Paulo- We met with just Paulo and his wife Angela yesterday, President could not go with us. They told us that they are only hearing us out because of what happened in the life of Paulo´s sister, Sandra. Sandra is awesome and has an amazing story. The gospel saved her life, quite literally. But they still want to hear from us. The only sticky thing in this situation is Angela. She is not exactly willing to put the Book of Mormon to the test. But she committed to read! So we will see how this goes. We have 2 families in the ward that we are working with to make friendship??? Fazer amizades. I prefer Portuguese...

Vitor- He has been really really sick! We have passed by several times but he is really not well right now. The last time we talked to him we had teach about forgiveness. Apparently some sisters at one point in time were pretty rude to him... This of course is not an excuse. But we are helping him work through some things.

Maurisa and Carol- Maurisa is a non active and Carol is her daughter! The sisters made a contact with her last week and we visited her the next day. She is very very open and wanting to learn more. We have only been able to find them at home once. But we have a better schedule now.

The aula de inglês is really starting to grow. We had a crazy number of youth there and the adult’s class is growing too! Funny story, Sunday morning we were headed to church worried about Mateus, carol and Maurisa (none of them were going to church with us) when sitting in front of the church were two of the guris from our English class! They said that their moms were super happy and way excited that they woke up early to go to church. We are going to visit their families this week.

C.T.G. This stands for centro de tradição do Gaucho. Every Thursday night all of the gauchos meet together at various places for traditional dancing, chimarrão, churrasco, and everything gaucho! Paulo and Angela are huge gauchos and have invited me. Of course I can´t go, but they love to talk to me about it.

Our ward parties are pretty awesome! You should do a churrasco there. But I won´t betray the gauchos and tell you the secret to cooking a real churrasco...oh yes. I know all right.

That is way exciting that Tyler is home! How is he doing? I think I might be as tall as him when I get home! I am not sure. But I think I am growing still. We´ll see.

When will I get to see pictures of Amanda's baptism?!? I am dying here! Ha

Today we are just taking care of our house and playing some soccer in teriazopolus? I can´t remember the name. But here are pictures of us doing email :) I didn´t take any other pics this week.

I love you all! Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers! One thing that President Swenson said this Sunday: ¨Every returned missionary raise your hand. Good. Now without hands, who of you has recently invited a family into your home to hear the gospel?¨ He said that a lot of heads dropped, ha! We are contacting all of those members asap. I am not calling you all to repentance or anything! Just remember to prayerfully seek out those you can help through meio of the gospel! You all are amazing and I love hearing how you are doing. Any funny stories are good too :)

Love,

Elder Bradley J. Dawson

August 15, 2011

Querido Family!

Barbaridade it is getting hard to remember everything and respond to emails but, I love it all! 

Keep it coming :)

Whoa, Ashley started school today?? That is weird. That is really weird. Summer, for you, has really flown by. That is way exciting. And the fact that she is a junior scares me to death. I am almost glad I am not there. I am not even going to recognize her when I come home in 2 years. But Torrin knows the drill, a little tease every now and then, scare off any visitors, and were set. But the mtn. lion idea sounds awesome! Remember that the lion needs to remain scarce. People need to wait and wonder when and where he/she will be. I can´t believe I 

remember this stuff. Just ask Amanda! She helped me with the mascot a lot!

You’re throwing out food?! I would kill for that food. I am not going hungry but my companion says I have a stomach without end. I guess you don´t have me to finish it all off now. Lately my favorite thing is granola and yogurt. We eat pretty healthy in our house.

The Portuguese is going very very good! Lots of missionaries and members can´t believe I have so little months here on the mission. So I would say it is going pretty well :) It is getting hard to talk in English too. And actually I can still speak a few things in Spanish! Some members like to play and say buenas noites and things like that and I say. oh tu puedes hablar Espanhol?? They think I am tri lingual! Ha! There are definitely key differences between the two, but there are some parts that are very similar as well. Let’s just say that I will have fun when I get back to Mexico...

There are a few kids in the neighborhood that like to longboard! Not a ton, they are way expensive here too. But they all use the same brands! They all like to see a few of the pictures I have of us longboarding that Saturday before O left.

Poor, poor mustang. I am scared to have Ashley drive that thing. I was fixing something on that car in the middle of the street every other week. But that why dad´s here! Ha!

My hair is perfect! All the sisters in the ward say I did a great job...with an exception of above the ears. I didn´t get that little part right above the ears, you can´t see it unless I grab it and pull it out over, but I am fixing it tonight!

The family mission plan is a great =idea. We started something like this this week. We are doing a special message with them all and returning in one month to talk to them about how it went. They actually have to make contact with the person and talk about the gospel.

It looks like we will have one baptism at the end of this month...Mateus! He went to church with us yesterday and is doing great. We brought him some fake coffee stuff to help him quit and it is going great. Teaching the members a lesson is a good idea. By doing this we could re-excite some of the members and get them to invite friends over to hear the message as well. Em verdade this is why we have family nights. We are doing a version of this. Our ward has 150-180 people. So it is really big! This is the active number.

Mexico must have been way hot!! Was it pretty humid? And Ashley drove the whole time...no comment.

That is way exciting that Brittain was baptized

Adam is not alone anymore! How are their two little ones doing? Zander is turning into a little man I bet.

Dan and Nicole can pick a house wherever they please...either way it is really far for me. Anya is talking like crazy huh?? Any missionary words in her vocabulary?

Brandon and Daniel staying really busy with work and school it sounds like too. Much longboarding and filming in their schedules? I miss filming kinda. There is a lot to film here.

I´m glad the procedure went well. But is it working?? Relieving the pain?? Coke-a-cola and some pills and you got a party mom!

Wow you will have a lot of time on your hands starting...today? Ashley in school and Lucy at home. Start another hobby! Use my rec center pass ;) I always said I wanted you to come with me! A I get the hint...lots of free time...I´m not home like I used to be...painting walls...my room is already being transformed isn´t it! Please just put me out of my misery. What will it be?

Torrin´s mission papers are going in! Ha! How cool! I am betting on where he will go right now. Mesa, AZ Sign Language speaking... With his mom as a permanent companion.

The weather here has been bi polar. One day really wet and hot the next really cold and dry and every other combination of those.

So Elder Araúju told me the other day that I have been talking in my sleep for a little while now, making plans to teach and other things. In a mix of Portuguese and English! Ha! This should get more and more interesting as time goes on.

The English classes are getting bigger and bigger! But, all of the non members are in the area of the sisters...

Sunday was father’s day here! We had a big ward activity Saturday and we were permitted to participate! An elderly brothers son wasn´t there so I was his son. Ha! We played soccer and did a bunch of activities.

We had 2 family nights this week! We made tapioca at one, I sent pictures of this.

Mateus- Mateus is prepared and ready for baptism! We are making contact with him every day now and he is very excited for his baptism on the 27th :) :)

Mary- Mary is still not feeling the desire to do many things. It is almost like she is in a daze sometimes. We are continually praying for her and for the best though. She smokes and drinks and is trying to stop right now.

Vitor- He is hung up on an offense in the past. But we got to the bone of it with him. He is not reading The Book of Mormon and I was pretty straight forward with him...pray for him to get the desire!

Paulo and family- Paulo is the brother of a Irmã in the branch tunel verde. We have been trying to make contact for 3 weeks and we succeeded! Paulo and his wife Angela. daughter Aline and Fiance Talice, other daughter Andressa. The discussion went very very very well! We are way excited about them and they are very excited too! We talked to them Sunday and unfortunately we can only visit again the following Sunday. But President Swenson is coming to our ward this Sunday to speak and hopefully will visit them with us :) How cool would that be! They are all reading 3rd Nephi 11 together and have family prayers where they are going to pray concerning The Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and everything else! They are all of baptismal age too....the heaves just opened and started singing Hallelujah!

Little funny thing… The dogs in our neighborhood all 50 billion of them have gotten use to us. But today we left in different clothes to play soccer. They did not recognize us and went crazy! It was pretty funny. Usually they wag their tails and patter after us but this time they acted like someone had stolen our identity.

Oh and the picture with the dink is sugar cane juice with lime! They crush the sugarcane right there and squeeze it into your cup for one real. Real is like dollar. And that is Elder Lambrechsten with me! It was awesome being back with him again.

This past week we helped Irmão Pedro clear out the jungle on the side of his house...with machetes! It was awesome. I only got bit by 2...things. But I am fine :) Elder Arauju struck the water pipe so we had to fix that too...if the church wasn´t true, missionaries would have killed it a long time ago. ha so true. But they needed me...being the ¨big strong American¨ to remove and insert the pipe. ha!

I am healthy, not wealthy, and well! Things are going great and they time is flying by. I wish it wasn´t. There is so much we need to do still! I feel like there is not enough time in the day. I never thought I would say that as a missionary. ha.

Love you all and look forward to all of your letters ;) Oh and I didn´t forget about that contest I made...best ‘Dear John’ gets an awesome prize. ha!

Love from Brasil,

Elder Dawson

PS- Please remember Mary, Paulo and family, and Mateus, and Vitor in your prayers!

We got done playing soccer with all our zone and some from another zone about an hour ago, I got a Gremio jersey downtown. They switched sponsors so they were way cheaper than usual. I wanted to wait until the end...but I couldn't pass this! They will be twice as much soon.

We are making tapioca for a family night with Irmão Diego and family.

This is us after the English class Thursday night.

Grilling at the Father's Day Celebration

August 8, 2011

Dear Family!

I guess I owe you some explanations, about the pictures from last week! That drink that I am holding that looks like the goblet of fire is chimarrão. They all drink it down here! It is a very...natural? drink. It can be pretty bitter at times, but it is growing on me. The plate of black stuff with bananas in it is feijão! They all eat this here, I eat this every day. It is black beans, some real cheap meat, and other ingredients that I don´t know. But Elder Arauju says that his mom always used to put some bananas in it. Apparently a lot of people like this here; I am also drinking a smoothie I think. We make a lot of fruit smoothies for breakfast. We are actually going to central today to buy some granola to mix in them. The green writing on the wall was that laser that Brandon and Alyssa sent me. I did extended exposure and can write just about anything! 15 seconds of open shutter! I hope I covered everything! Ask if you have any other questions. Oh and the one with all the missionaries is our zone in our building, the stake center.

I am working on getting some pictures of our English class and investigators. Hopefully I will have some where we are wearing white soon! :) But as you can imagine it would be kinda of weird to pull out my camera at the end of a lesson and snap a picture... But I am working on it!

My week has gone well! Lots of rain and wind, but we got a day of sunshine too. It can be more difficult to encounter people in the rain, but just keep working! Missionary work is starting to progress here! All the focus is on the youth right now that we can´t get any adults at the activities, but this is starting to change. The area is being blessed. Com certeza, but we still have a lot more we can do to progress.

Sounds exciting there at home! And sounds like a lot of cool movies are coming out; I have the privilege of seeing the propagandas on the back of all the onibuses. So this is how it turns out, Ashley is the last one at home, you feel sad for her, and she gets everything her young heart could desire! Haha, well we all knew it would happen...kinda of happened to me too! But that is crazy that school is starting already for her! She is going to be crazy busy. Daniel may have paved the road, but I lined it with diamonds, ha. Joking! That is really exciting though, I always liked the beginning of the year. You are actually going to let her drive?! The mustang at that?! Well I am at the very bottom of Brazil so I think I should be safe... I think. Kidding, besides, this is good for you Ash, with no one else at home who is supposed to tease you? Brincadeira! Remember who you are, high school, although it has a lot of cool things, is a trap for a lot of kids. But you have never had a problem with that.

Wow, Tell Dougy and K dog I say hi! And I am sorry I harassed them so much, ha. But that is really exciting. I have a feeling that you are going to be informing me about a lot marriages around there in the next 20 months.

Wow Dan! That is an awesome experience to see someone that you helped go through the temple. I hope to do that one day. How was the trip? I´m sure Dan loved getting out of the heat. Wow, Adam is going to be busy with that rotation starting...today? But that is awesome, he will do great.

Bentz is in the MTC! Crazy! But that is way awesome, I am so excited for him and Erik, they are going to be great missionaries.

Ipanema is staying cool...and very wet. Humid climates are strange and very foreign for me. Whenever any one hears that I am from Arizona they say, 'Oh like the bangy bangy movies!', haha and they say that AZ had a dust storm! Crazy! What´s the deal with that?

Good call with the dogs. It would be hard getting a new dog after losing Toby like we did. Tyler Francis gets home that soon! Crazy! Oh and have him tell you about how crazy it must have been having that huge soccer tournament in Argentina! Although I was told they got out pretty fast.

So an update on all the people we are teaching right now:

Mateus- He has accepted all the lessons, just lacking tithing and fasting. But he should be baptized on the 27th! He was scheduled for the 2oth but he couldn´t go to church yesterday and he has to go 2 times.

Vitor- Vitor is not showing much interest, like he knows he should have the desire, but is lacking it. He has not been reading the Book of Mormon, so this past week we passed with Bruno, member, and testified of the BOM and its importance, I think we got our message across... ;)

Maria- This is sad, I know, but Maria is the first person to let us enter her house in 6 weeks! We found her ´clapping doors´ha. (we don't knock here, we clap). But she had the lessons a long long time ago and is now accepting them again. She lives with her son and 5 grand kids. She is very accepting and very nice. We have taught her about the Livro de Mormón and the restoration. She has accepted to be baptized the 27th if she receives her answer by then. Which she will if she reads and prays with the desire to know.

Just some things going on here...

We had a family night with Irmão Pedro and made pizzas! We had a bunch of different kinds, even chocolate and strawberries! My idea :) They are an awesome family. We did this yesterday night, while you all we getting together too!  We now have these big posters outside the chapel for our English classes...we have already gotten a lot more people talking to us about it!  The ward is now starting to take off! Starting, it is still leaving the paper and turning into activity, but it is happening. A lot of families are starting to give us referrals and we even got a referral from President Swenson the other day! Well I have to go, but thank you for everything. You are all great examples to me and I am trying to be the missionary you hope I am. Please pray for the people in our area, that they will gain the desire to learn of the truth. I love you all and am grateful for all the prayers!

Com Amor,

Elder Bradley Joseph Dawson

So the rapaz with the longboard, same one as Torrin, is Jamies, or junior. He is 20 and we are working with him to go on a mission. We are at the church on Friday night for their seminary. And the others are of me cutting my hair! Woo! I am getting pretty good...4 on top, 3 on the sides.