The Importance of Activities - 4 August 14

Dear Family,

This week was a great week for me. We topped it all off by breaking the no baptism curse and an extra large number of people at church. So, ill start from the beginning.

Unfortunately, we did not get to visit the African this week. he is very busy getting legalized in Brazil and a divisions made us late to the visit with him and i think he left thinking that we wouldn't come. But don't worry. He is not avoiding us. I have seen that way to many times to get confused about this case. haha.

So, this transfer we got into a bad habit of kicking rocks and trying to get them in between your companion's legs. i was getting pretty good at it but was getting my companion in the ankles and the knee one time. This week he got some revenge. I let him have free shot with a pretty big rock and he launched it at my shin. i started bleeding and hurt really bad, but we decided that kicking rocks was not a good idea. especially because its not very missionary like.

Then we had our integration night and the leaders happened to come and do a division. they were very happy to hear when we got to go to an activity with food. We increased our numbers to almost 25 people  and i am getting a little better at using the members to help us out. We had a member bring some soda and then i only had to supply cake. i have been using my personal money to buy refreshments but i have managed to save up a small fortune for a missionary to that is not a problem. During the activity, our recent convert showed up with a friend and asked him if he wanted to be baptized. (hes already an awesome missionary right?) he friend really wants to but his mom didn't let him. unfortunately in this small city there are plenty of people with missionary history and that history sometimes isn't good.

Then we went to a lunch with the member with most time in this branch. 18 years. She started talking about the activities they did in the past and on the spot we decided to bring one of them back. We had what they call a BIG SOUP. and it was a big soup. another member that lives on a farm brought tons of fresh ingredients and went to town on a massive soup. We invited the entire neighborhood to come and we had a great time eating, playing soccer, even having institute during.

So we did get to baptise the girl that i told you about last week. Even thought we question her motives to be baptized she was still showing all the signs of a progressing. She is getting baptized mainly to get married with another member but she was reading the scriptures too. We only got really confused when she showed up late to church and didn't want to get confirmed. But eventually she accepted the confirmation. confusing right.

So the activities must have payed off because frequency at church this week was 53 without visitors from the district. the members also brought 6 friends and we had a great time trying to meet everyone and mark visits. i'm going to be sad to leave this area that i feel really like a part of the member family.

We did divisions with all the youth yesterday and visited a less active 8 year seminary teacher. it was a miracle when, again our recent convert Ariston,

asked why she was inactive and if she wanted to come to church with us. She accepted and will be coming with us next sunday. The president of the branch is going to be soo happy because her husband is a x branch president and the current president has been feeling really alone in the leadership.

Well the week was great as you can tell by the letter. I hope you all enjoy your weeks and feel free to write me about them.

Love,

Elder Jacobson



selfie with my new tie.