Email for February 18, 2013

Hello Everyone, This week was pretty exciting. We had a ton of people at church today. Normally the attendance is in the 50´s to 60´s. This week we had 87. Everyone was really excited about that. The members are really getting in to the work now. We are teaching a woman (Pablita) who is from Paraguay. She is progressing very well and would be Baptized but she's not married in the law. It's kind of a complicated situation, but we are trying to get him to come to church. Our Ward mission leader got changed. This one is a little more motivated and very humble so I think he´ll be great. Something heavenly father is trying to teach me right now is that there is no secret golden key to this work. I always thought there was a magic thing you could do to be a good leader and to have miracles in the mission work. But we don´t need to think of crazy new ideas or different techniques. There is no secret golden key. Everything we need is already written in the scriptures and in Preach My Gospel. The path is already laid before us. If we humble ourselves and do the simple things, the results come. Anyway. That´s great that we will have a Christmas all together when I get home. I love you all. I´m excited to see my new nephews! see yah in a couple years! Marc

Email for February 11, 2013

This week was extremely eventful. Our recent convert family had an extremely life changing experience. The mom who was pregnant (Vera) had her baby this week. The baby died immediately after being born. The members have been extremely helpful during this time. She receives visits from members every day to help her clean the house, make lunch, and go out to buy her medication. I was really happy that the members stepped in the help her. Her testimony has grown a lot and she is very excited to do visits and help serve as well when she is better. This experience has helped strengthen the branch and her family a lot. This kind of selfless service that the members have shown is a great example to me as well. We had a baptism as well this week. Jefferson. He´s 20 and is really cool. He´s already started to attend meetings and activities with the branch. This week he will do visits with us. He´s thinking about maybe going on a mission. I´m crossing my fingers. Anyway. That was my week. I´m so glad to hear that things are going well at home. I´m excited to receive pictures of my new nephew. I love you all. See yah in a couple years! Elder Skiles

Email for February 4, 2013

Hey everyone! This week was great! We had an new investigator at church today. We have been teaching him for a couple weeks now and he went to a baptism of a married couple on Saturday and went to church on Sunday. He will be baptised next week. I´m pretty excited for that. He´s 20, so he still could serve a mission. We´ll see how it goes. My companion is doing much better. He´s a lot happier now and is getting used to mission life. He is a little sick though. I´m pretty excited to see how this next week goes. My companion is trying to ask the owner of the internet house to print something. He´s doing great with portuguese. I feel so happy on the mission right now. I´ve realized how sacrifice brings blessings. When we say we want to serve God, God asks us what we are willing to sacrifice for him. I love you all. See yah in a couple years! Elder Skiles