i'm coming home

Well this is probably my last email and since we talked yesterday I am not sure what to say. 

 

I guess it is sufficente to say that I worked really hard. For two years I worked for Heavenly Father. And that is about all I can say. 

 

Sometimes there were results sometimes there weren´t that was up to him and up to the agency of the people who recieved my message. I can say two things I never stopped working and i never broke rules. 

 

That seems to have been the test. 

 

The Lord wanted to see who would be obedient and who would work.

 

I learned to Love him here. I learned to love Heavenly Father more than I did before. I learned to work hard and love much.

 

I hope you all have enjoyed my emails thanks for all the support and for the love,

 

Elder Noel

So I am in a new area with a new companion and a new zone.

 

Things here are different. Only 14 people in the zone as opposed to 24. And the zone is a stake instead of a district with a larger growth ratio in the last trimester. The stake has had a lot of problems in the past with missionaries and with members but recently has gotten a lot better and is growing a lot.

 

This week I had to say good bye to my district which was pretty hard. It is odd how much friendship you make even when you just see each other once a week when you are all working really hard for one goal. I made the best cinnamon rolls that i have ever made for the good bye district meeting. So many good byes as a missionary.

 

I got a letter from Catherine and 2 from Hannah. Catherine is doing well I guess. She wrote me from the MTC so I dont~know how she is right now haha. But she liked it. Hannah is doing really well. IT was funny because you said she was liking the MTC but she told me she wasn~t really liking it. haha She said the first 3 weeks were like an eternity.

 

I also got your Package which was nice. I loved the chocolate and the notes were fun :)

 

Good to here that SVU gave me some money. I hope that it all works out. I know it will.

 

This week we had a meeting with Presidente Fernandes that was really good. He talked a lot about Planning. Which is something I need to get better at. I get so excited to do something that I forget to plan and my work suffers. He helped alot by talking about vision and how we have to see where we want to go before we can get there.

He really is incredible. He has turned this Mission around. For 10 years the church in this mission was basically dormant. And now it is the mission that grows the most in Brasil. It is incredible to me to see how the Lord put me with a President that helped me work the way I wanted to. He isn~t worried about Baptisms he is worried about real growth. And that is what is happening. The number of priesthood holders and number of people in sacrament meeting went up constantly over the past year. Something that it hasn~t done in a long time. It is cool to see that because sometimes we think that nothing we do makes a difference because no one gets baptized but we know that things are moving forward.

I know that Christ lives and that he loves me. I know that through him we can be perfect and we can be sanctified. I love him.

 

I also love all of you.

 

Elder Noel

So this week started out with a trip to Florianopolis on monday via Airplane. Tuesday night we came back to Chapecó via onibus (12 hours) and we had 22 boxes that people sent to missionaries. The bus company wanted to charge us more for our boxes  because there is a limit for bagage that isn~t written anywhere I asked him to show me the rule and he couldn~t show me but told me that it was a rule. I had to keep my mouth shut not to yell in him face about how stupid it was to have a un written rule about baggage when everyone needs to know how much you can bring. I was pretty upset but he gave us a discount for the baggage so it all turned out good. 

 

We didn~t really sleep on the bus so we were tired and the next day we worked normally and then on thurday we had a zone meeting that we had planned for the last month and we announced it 2 weeks earlier to everyone so that they could plan accordingly. The day before a missionary called me telling me he would be late because he had to do some errands before coming and wouldn~t be able to come on time. Once again I had to keep my mouth shut. But ended up convincing to come on time (he just wanted to show up grab his boxes and leave) and stay for the meeting (actually i didn~t really convince him I just told him that if he didn~t want to come on time he didn~t need to come at all)

 

Then on thursday I woke up at 5 after sleeping on the floor because we didn~t have mattresses for everyone and had a very stressful zone meeting that no one paid attention to (that is super dissapointing when you talk and practice and pray and no one pays attention) so I was a little frustrated and tired ( luckily a letter with pictures cheered me up for a little) then we went on with our week and saturday came and I was planning to fast and almost cried thinking about fasting because I wasn~t sure I could but ended up fasting anyway and it all turned out well. 

 

Yesterday we had some lessons with members that were amazing and we are working on the baptisms of Claudio and Margaride. We are really excited for them. 

 

I love being a missionary!!!

 

Hope all is well on the home front!

Wright