Email of March 18, 2013

This week was extremely hectic. My companion got sick and went home. That was on Friday. So there is an emergency transfer and I will go to Cuiabá. I´ll be there for a week until the actual transfer happens. We had two families at church including 3 married couples. I´m kind of disappointed not to get to teach and baptise them, but its ok. One of the families is a mom and her 4 children, 2 of which are married. All of them and their spouses read the parts of the Book of Mormon we left and received an answer that the Book of Mormon is true. The couples will have to be married civilly, but the rest can be baptised in the next weeks. The other family that came was a couple who have their baptism date marked for next week. We went to teach them after church and the husband was drunk. We will teach the Word of Wisdom next week and help him stop though. Not "we" actually because I will be gone. I would have stayed here one more transfer. I´m really sad to have to leave here. I really love this area and the members here. I am really excited though to get to see a new area and start over again. Every time a change happens we get to start over again applying all the things we learned before and learn new things. The mission president just found out that American missionaries can not stay even a day more than two years. That means I´ll go home like normal. September 2nd. I´m really excited to see my first nephew. He doesn´t know it, but he´s gonna be a missionary some day. That's something I love to think when we teach families with little boys. I tell my companions and they think it's funny. Anyway. Thanks for all the emails. Especially mom and Carlene who are exceptionally diligent. I love hearing about what's going on at home. It is the best thing as a missionary. I love you all. See yah in a couple years Marc

Email of March 11, 2013

Hello Everyone, This week was pretty great. We are teaching a few families now that I´m pretty excited about. Not much to tell actually. We are teaching a woman whose husband is a less active member. She and her children are not members. The church attendance fell a little, but it was much better than it was a couple months ago. I´m really excited about the mission work right now. Anyway. I love you all! See yah in a couple years :) Elder Skiles

Email of March 4, 2013

Hello Family, Sorry about not sending a letter last week. I wrote it. I remember typing it out. I must have shut down the computer without sending it. Oops. The work here is going very well. We baptised last week and the other Elders baptised this week. The church attendance is staying high. 81!!!!! yay!!!! We are getting so many references from the members right now its crazy! Its amazing because its the members that are doing all the work right now. This makes our work much much more effective. I had an interview with the mission president last week and I asked him if I could stay 1 or 2 more transfers. He´s gunna let me stay 1 more transfer! yay! so now my mission will go until the 13th of October. More than 30 after the 14th of September would require special permission which is really hard to get, but the transfer ends just within this 30 day limit. I´m pretty excited about that. We are losing 3 branches to the Manaus Mission because it will be split soon. There will be a New Mission: The Brazil Porto Velho Mission. A lot of sisters will be coming here to the Brazil Missions. Brazillians and Americans. Brazil now has the second most missions in the world after the US. The church is growing here. Fast. Its really exciting to see these things happening. Anyway. I love you all. See yah in a couple years! Elder Skiles

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

Email for January 28, 2013

This week was pretty good. We had lots of investigators at church. I asked the mission president about staying on the mission two more transfers in my letter and he said we would talk about it. I don´t know what that means. I feel so happy on the mission. It's interesting how on the mission you can get rejected the entire day and still feel great. My companion has his ups and downs still. I think he´s doing much better now. It's hard to start out the mission. I try not to talk in English with him, but its hard. This is the first time on my mission that I live with another American. It's weird speaking in English. He´s learning pretty quickly though. Alex Burt took 4 years of English right? If he did, the language should come really fast. As long as he has a Brazilian companion. If his companion speaks English it will take a little longer. It's raining like crazy hear in Lucas. The mission president made some minimums for our mission. Most of them are pretty normal, but the real big one is 42 contacts per week. That is a lot. We got 24 last week. We missed a day though traveling to Sorriso for an interview. 42 is a lot. Its going to take a lot of work, but I´m sure we can do it. Just like Nephi says. The Lord provides a way. Anyway. I love you all. See yah in a couple years! Marc