First off, Mother, I am really sorry to hear about your loss. Peep was a good chicken, that lived well and died nobly, defending the others from many foes. That day that we hiked the two 14ers was a rough one. I remember that all the other guys either ran on ahead or didn´t want to keep going after the first 14er, so we were stuck in the middle. We had to stop about every 5 minutes to avoid dying. It was a really good time. Have a great time in Utah!
This week I got officially transfered to Barão (Baron in English) Geraldo. The area is pretty awesome. It´s a college town, so there are a bunch of college kids that really don´t want anything that we have to give them, but there´s also a ton of good people here, so it´s not nearly as hard to baptize here as the last two areas I was in. We're already preparing a family and a guy named Luiz to get baptized here in 2/3 weeks. Expect good things! Also, the ward here gets to church really late. Normally, in other wards, 8:45 you have a ton of people there. Here, the Bishop showed up at 8:45, and we had about 20 people until 9:10 when the bishop walked in to the chapel hall and church started. Then, as I gave a talk this week, I got up to give it, and suddenly I realized that we had 100 people in the chapel. It was really rather frightening.
Our house here is about double the size of my room back home. My study table is right next to the fridge, which is right next to the stove, and if I take two steps and a hop I´m already in bed. It sure makes cleaning easy! I took some pictures, but I´m having a ton of issues trying to get anything to work on this computer, so look for more in the picture department next week or in the future. My new companion is Elder Costa. I´ve not had him as a companion before now, but he was companion to exactly half of all my other companions, so there is that. Maybe you guys are confusing him with the general authority, Elder Claudio R M Costa. He was born in Brazil, but lived most of his life in Portugal. His mission story is a bit of a weird one. He was called to serve in Portugal, so he started his mission there, but, instead of being transfered within his own mission, after two transfers he got transfered to Brazil. Pretty crazy, huh? He´s a really cool guy, although he hates eggs. Reminds me a bit of Jacob, in a way.
I said that this week I gave a talk, so I´ll give you a bit of the topic. It was only 5 minutes, so I read some scriptures from Alma 26
"1 And now, these are the words of Ammon to his brethren, which say thus: My brothers and my brethren, behold I say unto you, how great reason have we to rejoice; for could we have supposed when we started from the land of Zarahemla that God would have granted unto us such great blessings?
2 And now, I ask, what great blessings has he bestowed upon us? Can ye tell?
3 Behold, I answer for you; for our brethren, the Lamanites, were in darkness, yea, even in the darkest abyss, but behold, how many of them are brought to behold the marvelous light of God! And this is the blessing which hath been bestowed upon us, that we have been made instruments in the hands of God to bring about this great work."
I shared my testimony with the members that we can all be part of this great work. We can become instruments in the hands of the Lord. Then I asked a question, that in my last ward our mission leader asked me. He asked "Who would you like at your side in the Celestial Kingdom?" To you all back home, I ask you the same question. Who would you like at your side? And have you already invited them to be there? Keeping this in mind gives me a strong purpose here, and I´m really grateful to be here serving a mission. I want to bring the largest number of people I can with me, and with the Lord´s help, I will succeed!
Elder Murray
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