WEEK #74

Friends and Family,

I hope you all had a great week! Sounds like summer vacation is wrapping up there, where did the time go?! I feel like time has gone by super fast! 

This week was pretty good for me and Elder Watchman, we spent lots of time getting things ready for the group in São Mateus that will start here in a few weeks, also we have been visiting a lot of less actives and contacting referrals that we received throughout the week from some of the members here in the ward. It turned out to be really cool, we met some great people and set up return appointments this week to teach them. A member brought a man to church that used to go to church for like 10 years, but then moved here to Varzea Grande after his divorce and then became inactive. As we conversed more with him, he told us that he was never actually baptized and confirmed, but he had always considered himself a member. So we are going to teach him and hopefully commit him to baptism this week! It should be very good.

Out zone had 2 baptisms this past week, so we are making progress! Hopefully we can get close to our goal of 20 baptisms for the transfer. We are about halfway through, and each companionship has many potentials and are working hard, so I know we will have a lot of success this transfer. My first transfer here the zone had 6 baptisms for the transfer, and last transfer the zone had 10 baptisms. So this transfer we are trying to push ourselves and get more baptisms, we are making great progress.

Elder Watchman gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting yesterday, it went really well. Everyone in the ward likes him too and always comment how he is the first black American they have seen in Brazil haha. But we are going to work closely with the members this next week, visiting the referrals that they gave us, it should be good. 

Yesterday after church we visited with our recent convert Alexandre, he is doing awesome still! We made American Brownies and they turned out to be really good! Alexandre will be receiving the priesthood either next week or the next one, he just has to have an interview with the Bishop but the bishop is out of town. But it will be such an awesome blessing in his life, we are super excited for him.

I think that about sums up the week though, we mostly focused on meeting new people that live in Sao Mateus and telling them about the group that will open up there, and contacting new referrals! This next week we will doing the same thing as well as doing divisions with a couple of the District Leaders in the zone, so it will be another busy week for us. But things are going great, all is well! I'm so glad to be a part of this work. On Saturday we will only have 6 months left on our missions, it is crazy to me how fast the time has gone. I hope to make the most of my time here in Brazil and work as hard as I can. I love and miss you all, have a great week! 

Abraço,

Elder Kyle Payne