Winter is finally arriving; Tati was excited to go to church yesterday;

     Hey there everybody!  Thanks for all of the emails today.  It sounds like everybody is either enjoying summer or really excited for it to start soon!  Things are well down here in Lagoa Vermelha.  Its actually been quite a bit chilly this last week with a lot of rain.  It feels like winter is finally arriving.  The temperatures aren't really very low here, but it can be pretty cold because all of the buildings and houses feel like the same temperature as it is outside, so Ive been having to start using some of my warm clothes.  The rain has kinda been annoying because a majority of the city here is dirt roads so I've been marching through a lot of mud haha.

     Well it was a pretty productive week this week.  We continued looking for a lot of new investigators and following up the ones that seem to be the most interested.  We met this really cool lady named Tati.  She is probably in about her upper 20's and has a little 2 year old son named Taylor.  We first talked to her by doing a street contact and she was really interested and told us that she has been studying the Bible a lot recently and visiting different churches.  During the visits we've been noticing that she is really intelligent, knows the Bible way better than I do, and is really receptive to what we have to say.  She was super excited to go to church yesterday and even was sending us text messages to us to make sure we would pass by with a ride.  She has already become good friends with us and later today and more this week were are going to help her with a service project in her yard.  On Saturday we were having a pretty rough and rainy day when literally nobody was letting us in, but later that night we were able to teach two young and really cool families.  We had really good first lessons with them both and they both seem excited for us to visit them again.  It was a super good way to end the day and it looks like they are families that can progress a ton!  We still haven't been able to baptize Celso.  We have been trying to figure out whats stopping him and what are his doubts but I have no idea.  He always says he wants to get baptized but then always has little excuses to keep setting the date back.
     I'm not really thinking of any exciting or other interesting stories that happened this last week.  We are working hard here and doing all that we can to find the people that are ready to receive the message.  Thanks everybody for all of the love and support you always give me.  You guys are soooo cool!!  But I hope everyone has a great upcoming week!!  Cya later

Elder Gee

Good week here in Lagoa; I really enjoy small branches;

    Hello there all of you good people.  Whats going on? 

    So I had a good week here in Lagoa.  I'm starting to get more of a feel of the area, the members, and our investigators. 

     Since last Sunday was Stake Conference, I got to experience our branch for the first time yesterday.  Our branch is really small and there were probably 25-30 people there yesterday.  But like Vera Cruz, I really enjoy small branches because all of the members are really close and its good to make good friendships with them.  There was a family visiting from Bento that I met there and they are planning on moving out here which would be cool and help out our branch a lot.  We also found a woman this week that is less active while we were looking for new investigators and she was really happy to talk with us and then she went to church this last week.  I noticed that during the fast and testimony meeting she was feeling the spirit and she told us that she would for sure come next week too.  We will are planning on visiting her this next week and hopefully we can meet and teach her boyfriend that isn't a member.  We also marked a baptism date this Saturday with one of our investigators Celso.  He is a middle age man that is a good friends with some of the members and has already been frequenting the church for months.  He has been really hesitant when it comes to baptism, even though he already passed the baptismal interview with prior missionaries.  He thinks he isn't ready because he has a lot of confusion in his life and wants his life to become more clear and stable before baptism.  We had a good lesson with him and focused on the gift of the Holy Ghost and how it would help him with these important decisions after his baptism.  He was still a little hesitant when we tried to mark the date but then finally accepted.  We are definitely going to have to follow up a lot with him this week to keep him motivated and prepared for this Saturday.

     For this next week I think a majority of our work is going to be looking for new investigators.  Wish us good luck and that we can find some of the ``eleitos``  But I'm doing well here so don't worry about me :)  Thanks for everything and have an awesome week!!