Dec. 3, 2008

Hey! how are things going for you right now? i hope that all is well for you and that things are going really well. how has work been? i hope that it has been going well for you. how is the family? what are they saying about the country this week? what about the sports how are things in that department? well things here are going really well and i have nothing to complain about. and the baptismal service on Sunday was awesome. i have a little bit of a story about that........but things are going really well here for my companion and i, we had a baptism on sunday and had a pretty cool experience with that as well. he is a 21 year old young man and he is awesome, he is going to be a great leader in the church one day i can just feel it. he is at the age to serve a mission as well, so we are going to try and get envolved in the missionary work with us and he can get the feel of it and if he feels the desire to serve in a year he will be heading out to help even more people. but about my experience on sunday. it started out on saturday night when we filled up the baptismal font. we filled it up because we were going to have the his baptism the next day, but the font takes forever to fill up so we cannot fill it up on Sunday so we did on saturday. but when we got to church at 3 in the afternoon the font was empty......there wasnt a drop of water in it. and we had no idea what we were going to do. so we turned on the water to see how far we could get it filled by the baptism which was right after church. well after sacrement meeting the water ran out.......at the font wasnt very full at all. maybe a little ways past my ankles, like up to the first step in the font. and we were even more worried, but there was another area in the church that still hard water, i really dont know how to explain the whole water system here.but it sucks that is why this happened. but anyways we grabbed some buckets and decided to try and fill the font up the rest of the way in 2 hours. but before we started i decided to say a little bit of a personal prayer and asked that we would have enough water to be able to baptize Marcelo. and then we went to work and it was going really well for a while and we thought that we would get there but by the time came up to start the Meeting for his baptism the water wasnt even to the young mans knees. but my companion decided that he was going to baptize him and well of course since his knees were above the water beforehe was baptized when my companion dunked him in the water his knees were still completely out of the water. so we had to baptize him sitting down.....my companion got on his knees and the young man sat down in the water and there was still barely enough water to baptize like that. but it worked and my prayer was answered. when i prayed i wasnt thinking that we were going to have to baptize him sitting down. but it doesnt matter, because he got baptized and it was an awesome batpism. he was way emotional and it was awesome. it is even cool to find out how we ended up meeting him. he was supposed to be a referral from a member but the member kept forgetting to get his address. but we found him with out the help of the member, because the Lord trully wanted him to hear the gospel and it is just an amazing experience that we are having teaching this young man because he is just awesome. but that is my experience that i have been having and i thought that i would share that with you all. it was pretty cool and i am not ever going to forget about either. that is the same way that i told dad about it and i didnt want to write the same story two so i just copied and pasted it. but it was way awesome and things are looking really good with him. he is looking to be receiving a calling pretty soon and well it just might end up being the Ward mission leader. because the ward mission leader here sucks and we have been having some problems with him. but the rest of the members are awesome. they go out with us and visit the investigators when we ask them to. so things are going well. and yesterday on the my birth day things went well. we had a zone conference so i didnt work on my bday. but we were trained by the president and the assisants and the LZs and the DLs. it was a really good day, i love zone conferences, because we feel the spirit and also realize the things that we need to do better in our work. it was really good, and we also had a Pizza party because all the missionaries ate together and that is what we had for lunch. so i stuffed myself full of pizza yesterday and had myself a pretty good day. the elders in my apartment also woke me up at 530 in the morning to sing happy bday in portuguese and well i also burned my wrist on the iron yesterday. so i have this burn mark on my wrist that looks almost like i tried slicing my wrists. but yeah.....things are going well. beside the fact that my companion and i have to go searching for new investigators because we are having to leave a bunch of them because they are not progressing. so it looks like we are going to be doing some knocking doors and some contacts, which is my least favorite part about the work....the first contact. i still have a little bit of trouble with that, because i am a little bit shy. but whatever my companion is going to make me get over that and i hope that i can get to the point where i dont think twice about talking with someone. but i just open my mouth and talk like the scriptures teach. but things have been going great, i have nothing to complain about. but it doesnt sound like things are going to well for our country, but let us see what Obama can do to try and help. i hope that i can atleast help us a little bit, i dont want to see another depression and i definetly dont want to return to a dump country so you gotta call someone and tell them to get on that. because they only got a year and 1 months until i come home. they better clean up the mess that they made. i am just kidding. but i do hope that things can start cleaning up. but i am going to tell you one last time that you need to start a food storage. and not a small one either. but you are going to need a big one and i think that you should get started on that. but yeah i really dont need anything right now. my shoes are doing awesome and it looks like they might last me until the end of my mission. because i have using just one everyday and it looks like it will last me past my one year mark. so i am not worried about that and i think that things are going well. the only the thing that i need is a package. because i didnt receive a single one yesterday. the only thing that i got was a letter from grandma norton. but the mail system here realy sucks soif you want my package to arrive for christmas by christmas you might want to send it like today. because it will take forever to get here. but yeah i love you and i hope that all is well. it sounds like things are going well. and i didnt know that TJ was living with you, how long has that been? i hope that he isnt messing to much with my guitar if he is ever even playing. but if he asks i dont know if you should let him, because i dont know how he is going to treat it. but yeah i love you and i miss you. and i will talk to you next week, but give everyone loves for me. and i will keep praying for and the family.
Com Amor, Élder Jory B. Spotts