Taking Your Steps of Faith

Ahh the holidays are arriving! I can almost smell the rice, beans, and occasionally spaghetti that ill be eating this Thursday. The stores are packed with Christmas decorations and toys that are found right next to the sunscreen and bathing suits. What a great time of year this is! I just really wished I had a Mormon tab Christmas CD with me! This past week was so busy with so many meetings but it was a great week, full of blessings.

Well Wednesday was really cool! My companion and I went to Porto Alegre to hear from the mission president and an Elder from the 70. I am always excited to go to Porto Alegre because it means a few things. It means we will receive letters! It means we will get to see our old friends in the mission too! To make Tuesday better, it was combined with some missionaries from the Mission Porto Alegre North. I caught up with some old friends from the CTM there. First the presidents of the missions spoke. It was funny because my president only has 6 months in the mission and the other president only has 3! He is from Draper, Utah and his name is President Wright. It was funny to see them both together because President Wright is really loving and calm and shared his testimony the whole time. President Castro drilled us on keeping the rules better then promised us love and blessings in the end. haha. President Castro is full of justice and obedience, but is good at showing his love too. I really love him as my president.

Unfortunately, there was another emergency in the mission that called the president away and our interview was pushed back until tomorrow afternoon. I really am excited for the opportunity to talk to him. Cant wait!

Oh, back to the meeting with the Elder from the 70. He shared alot of things that I really liked and really wanted to apply. The thing that hit me most was something he said about being in a Godly state of mind. Ive passed the 6 month mark in my mission and Im completely settled in. I feel really relaxed and I take the mission day by day. In the past two or three weeks Ive noticed that ive been learning TONS about life and the gospel. Its really cool. My favorite part of the day is study time. Right now im studying the Book of Mormon institute manual while reading the BOM again. Its fantastic! Anyways, the Elder taught us that we need to try to spend the whole day thinking about God and spiritual things. If we do this than we will be really close to the spirit and get alot more out of our mission. I really want to try to apply this in my life right now. We will see how it goes.

their apartment

Wednesday was pretty much are only full day of work in the entire week. We decided to do something really different. Our area includes a really tiny neighborhood that is really really far away from everything. We have never been there and decided to make the trip´. It was a dirt road the whole way and a 45 min. walk but way fun and way cool! There was nothing but a random house every 5 minutes. It was even more cool with my Brazilian companion because he showed me plants and animals that I wouldnt have noticed before. Did you know that pineapples are red before they are ready? Also, I saw my first tarantula spider! Ugh! It was as huge as my fist, but way cool to see. We picked up a cool family there so I guess we will making the long trip more often:)

Ill wrap this letter up with Sunday. 5 minutes before sacrament started the Branch President asked me to give a short talk because the member that was supposed to do it didnt show up! Ahh! It was my first time talking in front of people in Portuguese and I did so good! I talked about Faith and how we need to demonstrate more faith in our lives and it ended up being 10 minutes long. Pretty good for my first time huh? I wasnt nervous and I didnt really mess up with any of the language. It was a test of my faith but Im positive that I had the spirit there to help me. It was a great experience to remember. Later, Vania (a recent convert of mine) told me that I am starting to use alot of slang words in Portuguese (Which means im getting good!) hhaa.

I hope this Thanksgiving week will be great for you guys! Be sure to think of me when you cut into that deep fried turkey!! 

Love,

Elder Horst