October 3, 2011
Helloo family!
Soo yea I was supposed to go to Tapera on the island, but President Fernandes changed his mind and asked me and M. Santos to go to IMBITUBA. Haha I think the name is funny. But it is the wind surf capitol of the world!! It is pretty cool. Just a small, quiet town. It always has a really strong wind going, which is good because it is gettin gpretty hot. I am actually in a city 4 hours away called Criciúma right now, because we have to prepare a conference with the president for this zone. I don´t like Criciúma, its burning hot. Just pray I don´t go to Joinville, where it gets to 120 with 98 percent humidity.
I go on splits with an Elder named Elder Rolim. He is from Paraná, which would be like serving in twin falls idaho if you were from odgen. Poor guy is only 2 hours away from his house. He is cool though. I like with pure Brazilians ands its really fun. We have an investigator from Rio Grande do Sul, which is the southern most state in Brazil, and he is REALLY smart. He asks questions that none of us has the answer to. Like, for example; where did John the Baptist get his authority to baptize?? I went home and found the answer, but that is a really good question!! He will be baptized in the near future. Thats all the work I have done so far (we taught him the first lesson) but otherwise we have just been doing contacts the whole time cuz the area is struggling. One contact (she was really pretty) said I was really handsome and asked if I wanted to sleep with her. I said no, sorry. But now she is obssessed with me so I gotta be careful haha. But the people in Imbituba seem like good people. Its just a tiny little group that meets together so there is a lot of work to be done here.
I watched the saturday session and one session on Sunday in Portuguese. I can understand it well, but the translator loses some of the words and it just doesn´t have the same meaning sometimes as it does in english. So, I watched the last session in english on the stake presidents laptop. It was a really good conference!! I still haven´t seen the priesthood session though, it was broadcast at 9 here and we weren´t allowed to watch it. But I learned a lot. Every priesthood meeting that I have gone to with Dad I had always wondered why he cared to take notes. I always thought that just listening is a better way to absorb the message. But on my mission I have learned what he was doing. He was recording certain things that they said that stuck out to him and he was recording his feelings of the spirit, which may be even more important than what the speaker has to say!! I have already learned so much on my mission, I am kinda sad I only have a year left. But at the same time I am happy a year has gone by!! Dad, I too started to keep a study journal not too long ago. I like it, it helps me remember types of things that I always used to forget and didn´t even realize that they were forgotten because I had forgotten them! I won´t forget anymore though.
We rented a big old van and filled our investigators in it to drive to Tubarão (a city, which means shark) to watch conference. It was pretty cool. But Mom, I did get the oil package, thanks! I gave one to M. Santos but he already lost it. I kept one of them. The mail system is still on strike but some of them are starting to work now so I am expecting the package soon. Thanks for sending it. The people here think that Halloween is ridiculous. They laugh in my face for having celebrated it. They think its so dumb, but I am gonna be sad on halloween. Its ok though, they have a holliday every other weekend here. Mom, we don´t do english class here. I dunno why. I am glad likes his new job a lil better, thats what I prayed for!!
Thats all for this week. I really want to start being a normal missionary again so I can have emails that are more fun to read. But, I can´t do anything about it, sooo yea.
I love you all, I miss you more than ever.
Love Elder Baker
