Feb 29th - Valinhos!

Hi Everyone!

This week I finally got my cash card, and I upgraded my busted up Doc Martins to a pair of sweet missionary-pattern-compatible construction boots. They´re waterproof, they look cool, and they protect my ankles against the rough roads here. One day I´ll send a picture.

This week I was transferred to Valinhos! It´s a city right next to Campinas. About the distance from Highlands Ranch to Denver. It´s got 2 thriving wards and a giant chapel with three floors. It´s been raining pretty constantly here, but now I´ve got waterproof shoes so it´s all good. The area has a ton of hills, everything is hills. It actually reminds me quite a bit of Highlands Ranch. My new companion is Elder Mancilla. He´s from Chile, and he´s already got a year and 9 months on the mission. He´s pretty jacked because he worked as a road surfacer before the mission. It´s pretty crazy that I can be working together with a guy from a Spanish speaking country and we´re both speaking a non-native language, but we understand one another really well. 

This week we´ve been knocking a lot of doors and working a lot with less-active members who have family members who aren´t baptized. We´ve also been working with a couple named Nei and Cleigh. We´ve been helping him to stop smoking, and we did the math. If he stops spending money on cigarettes, he´ll save enough to buy a small car each year. It´s pretty powerful. He´s been making good progress. We also got stopped by a really large number of homeless people this week. We talked for a really long time with a guy named Gildo dos Santos, who called himself son of Baiha. He was really crazy and also drunk, but he knew the Bible really well and quoted a lot of scriptures. He then pronounced a blessing upon me. Sadly, he didn´t come to church.

This week I was reading in the book of 2nd Nephi, in the beginning of the Book of Mormon. I found a scripture that gave me a lot of hope and energy in chapter 6 verse 17. It reads 

" 17 But thus saith the Lord: Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; for the Mighty God shall deliver his covenant people. For thus saith the Lord: I will contend with them that 

contendeth with thee— "

 Sometimes it´s hard to have a lot of faith on the mission. Sometimes it seems like every person you teach has so many things keeping them from the Gospel, and it´s easy to lose energy and become depressed. But, here, as in other places, we have a promise that the Lord will fight on our side. He wants the best for us, He wants His work to succeed, and I know that with His help, I will succeed.

Elder Murray