Bunch of changes...

Hello Family and Friends,

This week has been interesting. This time my companion got DENGUE!! hehehe, So we didn’t really get to work that much, but something neat did happen! Ana Cristina is progressing a lot this week. She went to church and loved it. Henrique wanted to go but his wife was working. He will get baptized one day, even he said it, but he doesn’t like to go anywhere without his wife. But please continue praying for them, it’s helping a lot. While my companion was sick, there just happened to be another Elder that got Dengue at the same time, so he stayed in our house with my companion, and then I went with the other Elder to work in both of our areas to teach people. It was pretty cool. Then I did a different split with an Elder from São Paulo. He was baptized one year before he served a mission. The weird thing is that he is 28. It just goes to show how dedicated some people are. He changed his whole life around in one year, from breaking almost every commandment to being a representative of Jesus Christ. It is pretty cool.

I hope all goes well for Shawn and his new work that he will be picking up. I'll keep them in my prayers. I thought that they would be going to Shawn’s parents house? I'm losing my room to Lucy! Noooooo! Kooties!!!!

My iPod broke. Complete accident. My companion tripped and when he reached out his arm to grab something, he knocked the speakers that I have off the table with the iPod attached and when the speakers hit the ground, the iPod snapped off of it, breaking the insert chip inside. I was really sad, because you know how much I love my music. So I’ll just have to live off of others music for a while. At least it happened near the end of my mission instead of at the beginning.

I dont know if you saw the Fireside last night about missionary work, but if not, you NEED to see it as soon as possible. It was awesome. At one part one of the Apostles says, "Desire is not enough! You need to go do it!" Hard work is never done in vain, the Lord will bless. We just have to do our best and the Lord will do the rest.

Tell Nana Raine happy birthday. Please pass her this: "Nana, I love you more than a Saddled Chipmunk in a wheelbarrow!"

I forgot my camera, but I promise that next week I will be sending some pics.

Elder Smidt X

Happy Father's Day!!!

Family,

I’m extremely sad that I forgot to mention dad in my last email. I had totally forgotten about father’s day. I’ve gotten really bad in the past few months with things like that, but I think I just kinda stopped worrying about sending you guys things on Birthdays and stuff, because it feels like time is really flying by now, and in no time at all, I’ll be hugging you all in person.

I had a really good week. We had our leadership council and then the next day Elder Aguiar and I conducted our first Zone Meeting together. It went really well. I think everyone benefited from it. Today we went into the jungle and caves again, my third time, but since I have been more times than anyone else in this Zone, I am always the guide.

We have some good people with a lot of potential to be baptized. The first one is Henrique. His wife is a member but less active, they got married after she had already stopped going to church. We didn’t even know, we were just knocking on doors. He accepted to be baptized and she wants to return. Please pray for them. And we also got a family, but the oldest daughter (26 years old) is really the only one that has shown interest in learning more. Her name is Ana Cristina. She is a really neat girl and I hope that she will go to church and be baptized as well.

Gotta run today, but for all its worth, I love you a lot dad. I don’t think anybody could quite understand our relationship, with all the weird jokes, fast food lasagnas, name calling, etc. But it’s because nobody quite has a relationship as ours. I continue to say that you are my best friend and I truly mean that. I hope you had a great day! I Love you!

**I GOT COLEY AND HEIDI’S PACKAGE!!!!! I loved it!!! Tell them thank you so much! I also got Tiffy's Package! Sooooo delicious and I am going to use that excercise band everyday. Tell both of them thank you so much!!!!**

Elder Smidt X

There is sunshine in my soul today, but it didn’t get there without burning me to a crisp

Family,

This week has been HOT! This is the winter time here in Brazil, but here in Minas Gerais (the state I’m in) its simply just hot all year 'round. But I got my new companion and he is really cool. His name is Elder Aguiar and he is from Curitiba. This is his last transfer. He will be staying a few weeks after his two years are up. This is why he stays out longer. With some new changes that happened at the MTC regarding how much time the missionaries will be staying there, and the new missions that are opening up, the transfer dates got all switched up. So now all the dates that we arrived on the mission are right smack dab in the middle of every transfer. So the Americans that cannot stay any later than the 2 years (because our Visas expire), they will come home three weeks earlier, and the Brazilians are staying 3 more weeks.... hehehe, suckers. But yeah, that’s why I’ll be going home a little earlier. 

So I'm also still in Sete Lagoas and I’m getting really restless, but at least the members here are awesome! I have a good relationship with all of them. Last week, we had a “secret” farewell for Elder Forsyth at the Chapel. (It was a surprise for him). It was cool, there were a lot of members there and good food, and everyone signed a Brazilian flag for him to take home. It was really neat actually. I just played it off like we had to run to the Chapel to talk to our ward mission leader real quick.

Tomorrow we will have our Zone Leader Council, but now the name has switched to Leadership Council because of the new leadership positions that some sisters have now, and they will be attending.

I don’t really have much more to write, but this week has been cool. I have seen how much more I can show my love for the people and be outgoing with them with my new companion. I have really felt a difference this week.

My son that I trained is in my zone now. He has only six months on the mission, and he has been called as Senior and Trainer, which is extremely rare with Pres. Fortunato because he likes to keep missionaries Junior until at least 10 months on the mission. But that made me feel so proud to see that he is doing so well on the mission.

I love you and miss you guys!!!

Elder Smidt X

Packages...

Tell Nana Raine thank you so much for her package. I cannot believe I forgot to email her, and thank her, but I love it, and I looooveed those fruit snacks! I have not gotten Heidi and Coley’s package yet, and I am getting worried. I was really looking forward to that one because I have never gotten anything from Coley that disappointed. I’ll be super sad if it doesn’t make it. Who sent it? Just wondering because I got a letter a couple months ago from Heidi that had the MTC address on the letter and it had to be forwarded to me from the MTC, but with packages they don’t do that, only letters. I’m just worried about that. I'm sure it will eventually show up if it was mailed to the Mission Home address.

Elder Smidt X