September 15, 2010

hey everyone! how are you all doing today? i am doing pretty great.
sounds like you guys had a pretty good week though. right now i am in
são manuel. we are all going to play basketball today!!! i am pretty
excited. there arent many basketball courts in this part of our
mission. we actually have to rent the court ha. so we will get a good
two hours of playing time in today. but i am pretty excited. there are
8 missionaries here. it should be awesome ha. but i guess i will hurry
and tell you about my week and i will try sending those pics that you
guys didnt get last week. i will probably send a dvd of all my pics
home this next week. there is a member that is putting them onto a dvd
for me. so i will get that sent pretty soon!
but i guess i will hurry and tell you about my week so i can go play
basketball! this week was an alright week. it wasnt exactly like we
had hoped though. we werent able to have a baptism this week. it fell
through. but maybe this week! i have been talking a lot of english
this week though ha. it is weird to work in english. there is a new
couple in our ward, daniel and sima. daniel is brazillian but he went
to study in greece. sima is from iran but her family left and found
the church. daniel and sima got married and moved to brazil. sima
doesnt talk portuguese. haha she is learning a little bit. she speaks
like 5 other languages and is teaching english here in brazil. we had
dinner there and she invited one of her students. we are teaching
leticia at there house now. things are going great with her. it is
difficult to trade from english to portuguese at there house. once we
leave we have a headache. but leticia is progressing very well! it is
just hard to teach her cuz she studies so much. but make sure to pray
for her alright?! this week doesnt have to many exciting experiences
to share with you guys. sorry! but everything in our zone is going
well! the missionaries are learning a lot and so am i! there is no
better place to learn than in the mission!
i went on an exchange with a new elder, elder carlstrom from provo. he
is pretty new. i think i was able to help him with his teaching. he
was able to teach the restoration with me. he usually has had
difficulties with the first lesson but it went well. i think i would
like to train. actually, i know i would like to train ha. it didnt
help that we were teaching some weaker investigators when he
practiced. they didnt even want to try to understand. it reminded me
of those frustrating months at the beginning of the mission. that was
pretty rough!
elder ficklin is doing well. we are still getting along great. i like
him a bunch and we are learning together. i think we are doing an
alright job leading the zone!
but that is about all that happened this week! but i love you guys!!
have an awesome week! this week, we might baptize tainã. thats the
same girl from last week. but our teaching group is a little weak
right now. but it will get better this week!! love you!
love,
elder long