Email of November 26, 2012

Hello Everyone! I´ve been here in Lucas do Rio Verde for the last week. The area here is much more difficult. Its a very rich area with a lot of catholics. Its been 6 months since this branch has had a baptism. It will be a challenge. The members here are great though. Really helpful. I´ll be going over to meet with some of the church leaders this next week. We´ll see how excited they are about missionary work. Its much cooler here. Theres wind and it gets cooler at night. A huge relief after 45 degree weather in Rondonópolis. There is lots of wild life here. Its a smaller town more in the middle of the wild. I´ve almost gotten tired of seeing parrots already. There are a lot of them. Ive seen some turtles, and lizards as well. The other missionaries saw a couple of monkeys a while ago. That must have been cool. We were talking with a member family the other day, when a huge cigarra (a big bug that makes a lot of noise. I think its casayda in english) landed on my head. I thought it was one of their kids grabbing my hair, but then I felt it and it wasn´t. Then I threw it across the room and it started to fly everywhere. Eventually we got it to leave. That was an interesting experience. We´ve had a few possibilities for baptism already. A 16 year old boy and a man that are interested in the church. One is Jefferson. The man is Himundo. We are also teaching a couple with 2 kids. The dads name is Batista. I forgot the moms name. They just need to recieve an answer that the Book of Mormon is true. I´m really excited about the work here. Its going to be great. Anyway. I love you all. See yah in a couple years! Elder Skiles

Email of November 19, 2012

Hello Everyone! This week was Great! I had the opportunity to Baptize Gabriel. The last child of the family. I will miss them a lot since Ive been transferred to another place. Ana Alice and Daniel and Gabriel all say they will serve missions. That makes me really happy. They are a lot more active in the church than most of the old members which is great. They never miss activities or church. I´m really thankful that I had the opportunity to teach them. I know that its a miracle from father in heaven this type of true conversion. We also had a woman who went to church today. She liked it a lot and said she wants to follow. Ive been transferred anyhow. I will go to Lucas do Rio Verde. I will be the companion of Elder Cayhuan. He entered the mission at the same time as Elder Impa. He is from Chile. I don´t know him very well, but I´m really excited to be his companion. Lucas is way in the North. Thats all I know about it. I´ll leave today at 3:00 in the afternoon. Its really hard to leave a place that I´ve been working 6 months. I´ll miss a lot of the people here. I´ll miss Elder Impa as well. 5 months with the same companion is a long time. I´m glad for it. This last weekend I had the amazing opportunity to participate in the first Sacrament meeting ever in Primavera Do Leste (A city about 2 hours from Rondonónpolis). A few months ago we started visiting there. Contacting the members that are already there and seeing how receptive the people are. We were very well recieved and so started to make plans to start up a branch. The branch won´t come untill much later, but we were given permission to start a group and sacrament meetings. We had 43 people in the first sacrament meeting. 7 investigators. We slept saturday night in the house of a member couple who was baptised 6 or 7 years ago, but never went to the temple and have been inactive for 5 years because they moved to Primavera Do Leste which didn´t have the church. They recived us very well. Made dinner for us at night and breakfast in the morning. On Sunday, the wife bore her testimony. She said for five years, she had been pleading with Heavenly Father for some way to be able to go to church again. One day she prayed to Heavenly Father for a sign. Anything that would give her a little hope. The next day, her husband found the other couple of missionaries when we had gone to the city for the first time. He went home and told her and the next time we went we were able to find them. Her prayer was answered. It was quite an amazing experience to hear her bear testimony of the joy she felt to finally be able to participate in the Church of Jesus Christ again. Anyway. Thanksgiving doesn´t exist here, but HAPPY THANKSGIVING. I love you all. See yah in a couple years. Marc

Email of November 12, 2012

Hey everyone. Glad to hear things are going well with all of you. Thats so exciting to hear that I will be an uncle twice. Its interesting what you said about whether its Mac or Caleb that gets the credit for the performance. Its the same thing with missionary work. When we have success is it because of us or because of the family we found. The responsability falls on both the teacher and the taught. If one fails, nothing will happen. If both work, the success will be great. If we fail as missionaries, the families we teach won´t be able to be converted to the Gospel. If they fail, we can be the most perfect missionaries, but they won´t be converted either. When we do our part and the people we teach are sufficiently humble, we can bring salvation to people. Anyway. Things are going great. Still no investigators at church, but we are still working hard and doing our part. Transfers will happen this week. We will see what happens. I´m pretty sure i´m going to train a greeny again, but lets see. There will be 13 new missionaries coming into the field. Thats great that Alex got his Visa and is going to Brazil. Good luck to him. I love you all. See yah in a couple years! Marc

Email of November 5, 2012

Hello everyone, This week was pretty good. One of our investigators (Israel) went to church yesterday. The rest didn´t make it, but thats just part of the work. Keeping faith and good cheer even when the results don´t come. Israel is progressing great. He will be baptised. The only problem is that he will leave Rondonópolis tomorrow to go back to São Paulo, so he won´t be able to be baptized until he gets back in december. Thats alright though. I did my part even if I won´t be the one to reap the harvest. We are still working really hard and finding lots of families to teach. This week we will find even more. I´m really happy here on the mission. The time goes by so fast. Its wierd how no matter how much time ive been on the mission. I still get nervous to talk to people on the street. Its interesting how that never goes away. Every time we go out of our confort zone to talk to someone, its an act of faith. What are Janais plans about going on a mission? Has she decided what she wants to do yet? Good luck with all the work Caleb. Just keep pluggin away because it will all be worth it. The skills learned working in the theatre have helped me a lot on the mission. Especially about forgetting yourself, working with others, and organization skills. In the end, youll make it. So don´t stress out. It will be so weird going back home now that everone has changed so much. I will have changed a lot too. Hopefully for the good. I did hear about the natural disaster in New York. People alwasy ask me if its close to were I live. Then I explain that I´m pretty sure the northeast of brazil is colser than I live to New York. I love you all. Good luck with all the work. See yah in a couple years. Marc