January 28, 2013

Howdy ma! 

This week, this transfer, have been SO incredible! Full of just plain old miracles! This week has rained a TON just a ton! and it has been so much fun! I've loved it! Elder Lindsey wakes up every morning and groans, and it just makes me laugh. But then we get out in the rain and we're just laughing the whole time! I've decided that Mr. Mac coat wasn't a complete waste of money after all :) But honestly we've just seen miracle after miracle. These last 2 weeks the Lord has helped us to find some  of the most amazing people. One thing I've learned, is that the Lord wants us to be diligent. He wants us to work hard, and when we do, He blesses us so abundantly. But one thing I've also learned, is that honestly and truly, the Lord wants us to be happy as we work. Elder Lindsey is still really young in the mission. He's only in his 5th transfer. He's been a stud missionary, but he is really young still. So in the first couple days of the transfer, things were a little rough and we did a lot of knocking doors, and things just weren't working out really well. No one was answering, andit was raining and there was nobody in the streets to talk to, so it was just knocking doors. and we just weren't having that much success and we weren't getting in many doors. This really made Elder Lindsey bummed. He had just been called as ZL and was just full of fire! but then things were a little rough for a day or two and he was a little down. I felt SO bad. So I just remembered when we were cleaning the house, that was never very fun, if we had music blasting, it was a lot cooler right? So I decided to become the Mo-Tab of Gaia :) We started singing and singing and just trying our very best to laugh and enjoy the work. And we talked to EVERYONE who would listen :) It was so much fun! all day long we didn't have anything. All of our appointments fell through, but we just went right on to the next one and mom, we were working hard. And we had SO much fun! then right at the end of the night, Heavenly Father guided us to a building that had 3 people right off the bat that opened the door and listened. And the were amazing! it was SO fun! Elder Lindsey was SO happy it just made me laugh :) And then, honestly, I can't remember exactly how this worked, but for some reason, we decided to pass by a family that Elder Bergeron and I had found 2 and a half transfers ago, that we were SUPER excited about! but then for some unknown reason, honestly I have no idea why, we quit passing by. I think they weren't there 2 or 3 times in a row, and then we just lost contact because we didn't have their phone number. And then, about a week and half ago, we were walking down this little shortcut that we found, and we saw a guy from a ways off, and we said, hey, let's contact taht guy. Turn sout it was this same man! Joaquim Silva! He was like, hey, where have you guys been?? We apologized so much and he was like that's ok, come on back to my house! so we set up an appointment. And then this saturday was the first time we were able to meet with him. But as we were teaching him, we found out that his wife was amember but she is in angola. Joaquim and his 8 year old daughter Maria Julieta were never baptized, but know a lot about the church. Me and Elder Bergeron had left a BoM with him, and he'd been reading it! As we were talking the spirit told us both, Elder Lindsey and I that we should invite him to be baptized. We taught him about the gospel, Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End, and Invited him and his daughter to be baptized on the 3rd of February, and he said, I believe this, I feel this is right, and I will!!! it was amazing!!! So we invited him to church that next day, (this is at 8:45 pm) and he said he wanted to, but it would be a lot easier if he had a ride. So we told him we'd get him one. I'm not gonna lie, I was a little bit nervous because it was already so late and there werne't many members that live close. But the Spirit just said, try it. Call them. So we called one member, and he couldn't. But then the other member came to our mind. So we called them, and just by chance, the mom had to work that morning so wouldn't be able to come to church, which left just enough space for Joaquim and Maria Julieta! It was such a miracle! Heavenly Father provided EVERYTHING that he needed!! And church was INCREDILBE!! the spirit was so strong and the ward was SO great! They met Joaquim and were taking care of little Maria Julieta! It was so amazing! It was such a miracle. It really really was. And we taught the Word of Wisdom and he accepted all of it with out question. It was so cool. THe spirit has just prepared this man, and a way for everything. It has been so much fun! please pray mom, that everything goes well :) 

So that's a summary of the crazy miracles that have been happening here in Gaia!! :)

January 21, 2013

Yesterday was Jordan's 20th birthday. I was missing him like crazy all day! We kind of make a big deal about being 20...It's a whole year of being nothing...not an adult, not a teenager, just nothing for a whole year. Anyway, I thought I'd just stick the first paragraph of my letter to him on here cause it's a funny joke on me, and it makes the first paragraph of Jordan's letter make sense...

"Feliz aniversário querido filho

I am so utterly ridiculous! Just so ya know…I’ve been moping around here all day cause it’s your birthday…this is a biggie ya know…you’re 20 on the 20^th…a whole year of nothingness starts today and there’s no celebration and no cake… And I was a little while ago thinking, “Man, last year wasn’t this bad, why is this one so awful?” And then I remembered that you left for the MTC AFTER your birthday last year. Yes, I am just that intelligent…(keep in mind that it’s like 9:00 p.m. when this amazing fact finally dawns on me)...are you laughing out loud right now in public …. Yeah, well, I deserve it! I’m sorta laughing at myself right now! Holy Mackerel!"

Hey mom!! THanks so much!!! Haha i've never been so popular on my birthday. I'm thinking that every January 20th I'm gonna head to Portugal from now on! :) hee hee :) Im a NOTHING!!!! haha I'm SO EXCITED!! I've been waiting since I was like 7 to be able to say that I turned 20 on the 20th! haha made me laugh :) But actually, here in Portugal, I'm not a nothing, cuz here when your 18 your a legal adult. crazy huh? and you know something else crazy. Here in Portugal, you can legally drink and smoke at age 16!!! CRAZY HUH?? Sad day :( But anyways....

hahahaha mom, I literally did laugh in public! It was super funny!! 

So. I stayed in Gaia!!!! I'm super pumped! I'm with a kid named Elder Stephen Lindsey from Kaysville Utah. He's way cool! He's only in his 5th transfer! He's a way good missionary. He speaks portuguese UNBELEIVABLY well. It's crazy! He's super funny though. We get along really well. He's a good worker. He's really excited about the work. and he's really good at making relationships with the ward Leaders and stuff like taht. Randomness....in my first transfer here in Gaia, we did a division cuz he was in my zone. Then he went to a different zone and came back to be my comp! and awesome story!! at the end of last transfer, a lady that we found and started teaaching together on that division was baptized!!! super cool huh?? it's been way fun! This week has been FULL of miracles! The Lord has blessed us to find some absolutely amazing people! ON Friday we had one of the funnest days of my whole mission. Not even kidding. We had weekly planning, and then we got out and got ready to leave, and it was windy and rainy and in aobut 3 minutes, my umbrella broke. Sad day. And I didn't have my big raincoat but I didn't watn to go back to the house to get it. So we walked around all day with just 1 umbrella. We were cool. But then it started raining SO hard! It was the harddest rain storm I've ever seen. Not even exaggerating. It was absolutely ridiculous! we were DRENCHED!!! so drenched. It was unreal. And all day, there was nobody in the streets.No one was letting us in the buildings and all of our appointments fell through. Elder Lindsey was a little bummed out cuz it was like his 2nd day in  Gaia, but I just felt so good! I was laughing so hard and it was super fun. And we kept working. We went from one appointment, which fell, so we knocked doors and talked to everyone that would let us :) and there just wasn't much going on. But then we had one more appointment before the ward activity that night in the church, but we still had about 45 minutes before that appointment, and we were wet. so wet. but we decided that we'd knock the doors in that area. There were a ton of buildings there, and I'd worked there a lot, and knocked a lot of them. But we just kept going. Then as we were walking trying to decided where to go. All of a sudden we just walked in a building. We didn'tknow why, or reallly how we got in, but somebody came out or something at the same time and we were in the building. The very first door we knock, was this amazing lady named Paula, who has 3 kids and her husband! we offered to say a pray with her, and she said we could. We prayed and the spirit was so strong. and we explained who we were and bore testimony, and she said she would love for us to come back and meet her family! It was amazing!! so we were super happy and super grateful for this miracle right? and then we go done to the next floor, knock on the door and these 2 teenage girls answer the door. We tell them who we are and ask them if they believe in God. They said....um...kinda. So we explained a little about prayer, and asked if we could pray with them. They said sure. THen as we prayed the spirit was SO strong again! then just as we were talking to them, we started teaching a little about the plan of Salvation, and who Heavenly Father is and what our purpose is here. We bore our testimonies of the Plan of Salvation, and the Spirit was SOOOO strong! It was AMAZING!! they said they wanted to learn more and we should com eback an dmeet their family!! it was AMAZING!!! Heavenly Father blessed us in a totaly of 20 minutes with 3 of His amazing children prepared for the gospel!! It was SO cool! Elder Lindsey about died with happiness!! it made my day! :) haha we said a prayer of gratitude and went back out into the rain :) It was SO Much fun mom. I just laughed the whole day! I loved it. 

January 13, 2013

OK, I am a huge slacker, I know, but it's all updated now. I just cut and pasted, so there are typos and all kinds of stuff going on, but he's alive and well!

January 7, 2013

Happy First Week of 2013!!! 

That sounds like you guys had the funnest new years eve party ever! haha! What show did you go see? And was I with you when you went to that Pimpernel show? I think I was riding with Laura McGregor maybe? Idk....but that's super cool! Holy cow, -21 is crazy! But that had a good ending for you guys. congrats on that :) Watching basketball games in the marrito center is super fun! gets me super pumped! haha :) That's fun they won. how are they doing overall? How's their season?

I'm SUPER glad dad is doing better! flu is a bad deal! But I actually don't remember having it.....did I have it last year?

Ashleigh is so amazing. I love her so much. She has always just been super in tune with the Spirit. Such a rock star! I love the fact that she didn't question it. Sometimes we have the desire to want to know everything that will happen, or why it's not a good idea or stuff like that before we are willing to act and follow the spirit. But ashleigh has never had that problem. She's just super willing to follow what the Spirit tells her and it always works out great! Just like it always will :) Ryan will be ok. No stress. 

Oh mom!! You're not in the primary anymore! sad day! Heavenly Father's got a reason for everything eh?? ;) Funny story, our stake president's wife has been the primary president in our ward for a long long time. Like 6 or 7 years or something like that. A long time. And she has been telling us that she just doesn't have patience and she just can't do it anymore and stuff like that and everytime they are changing the callings and leadership in the ward she is just waiting for the release to come, but then it never does. And she was like "Why am I so stubborn! why can't I just learn patience already!!" Hahaha super funny. Moral of the story, you've already learned what you need to mom, so now you can move on to bigger and better things :) Sometimes I get frustrated cuz there's something I want to learn or want to develop or something like that, and I just can't seem to get it. And then after a while of me being frustrated and upset, Heavenly Father finally shows me the milk that I need to drink before I can eat the meat. Heavenly Father is the perfect teacher, sometimes we're the ones that aren't very good students :) haha :)

We had the coolest baptism on SATURADY!!! It was amazing! I think I already told you about this amazing brother named Adelino. He has been super anti-mormon....well not anti mormon, but kinda. His wife is a member of about 6 years. She always wanted to talk to the Elders, but they never knocked on her door. So Adelino passed them once in the street and brought them to his house so they could talk to Isabel, his wife. Then she was converted and was a really strong member, and adelino was just like fine whatever go for it, but I don't want to give up smoking or drinking. He was always super friendly with the missionaries but would always just raz them a little bit. He found a lot of Anti mormon stuff on the internet and used that a lot against the missionaries. A lot. Then when their daughter turned 8 he got really mad when Isabel allowed her daughter to be baptized. about 3 years ago. He was still friends with the members, but he said he jsut didn't agree with the teachings of the church and the commandments. Then his wife went a little bit less active, but always had a super strong testimony. Still does. Super strong! And then one day we passed by and she was like, Hey elders, Adelino wants to talk to you. so we went there again, started teaching him, and then step by step the Lord touched his heart. It was amazing to see the changes in him. He quit smoking, he quite drinking, he accepts the law of tithing and is amazing!!! He bore testimony at his baptism and honestly mom, it was the most amazing testimony I've ever heard! he told about how for a long time, his pride wouldn't let him accept the gospel, but then as he humbled himself, and became as a child, he accepted the ordenances of the gospel. It was so amazing. I'm so grateful to have been able to be there for that. It about made me cry! It made me super happy!! 

And Jhenyffer, the little brazilian girl is progressing so well!! she's reading from the book of mormon, coming to church and she feels that the church is true!!! Oh my word she's so cool mom!! you'd really like her. Her sense of humor is almost exactly like yours! haha :) she's going to an FHE with our stake president tonight, it's gonna be amazing! She's only 13 but she has had some of the most honest sincere desires to know and do what's right. She's been studying with the Jehovah's Witnesses a little and it's made her really confused, but she has been super sincere and has been asking such great questions. Heavenly Father has definitely prepared her for the gospel! It's been a fun ride with that whole family! haha :)

so to answer your question, Elder Rodrigues (pronounced Ho dree gus) (portuguese, not spanish mom :) :) :)haha jk) 

yeah he goes home next monday, so we'll see what happens. The Lord knows where I need to be and with whom I should be, so we'll see. I love gaia. A lot. The ward is incredible and has made SO much progress. I'd love to be here one more! we'll just see what the Lord wants i guess :)

Well momk, I gotta run, sorry this isn't the greatest letter, but you're the greatest mom, so that's totally makes up the difference :) Thanks for everything and don't even worry about the package mom, I'm not even a little bit worried about it :) I love you so much!

Tchau tchau!!

Love,

Elder Brady

December 31, 2012

Hey Mom!! 

So something that was really really cool happened this week! We had a goal as a mission, to have 100 baptisms in the month of December as a gift to the Savior. All month long we've been focusing on making this goal! All of our conferences and district meetings and everything were focused on reaching this goal. And yesterday we found out that the total number of recent converts in Portugal in the month of December was 98!! We were SOOO close! It was a really fun month and the focus of the mission was incredible. As a companionship, Elder Rodrigues and I want to keep this focus going through the last 2 weeks of this transfer and rock it here in Porto. This transfer has been amazing up here! We've been so blessed. The misisonaries in our zone are really focused and are very obedient. We haven't had any serious problems. I'm really super grateful for that. Just keep praying for all of us ok? We want to end this transfer super strong! And also we had that 3-zone zone conference with Elder Teixeira, that Area President. It was amazing! He focused on working with the members, especially with the Leadership of the ward and stake, and also we focused a lot on our teaching. He challenged us to start teaching 21 lessons a week to investigators (we are at an average of 11 in the mission) He shared an experience with us about when he was amission president and how the average number of lessons was 6-7 per week per companionship and he challenged his lesson to do it. He talked about how one elder took the initiative on this and lead his companionship, district, zone and finally mission to reach this goal, and in the end, when they were teaching 21 lessons a week, they had 241 baptisms!!!! It was super cool! Elder Rodrigues and I have decided that we're going to focus really on reaching this goal and teaching the gospel more frequently. It's going to be really fun! 

So just a really random side note real quick, I found out the other day at the zone conference that one of the guys that Elder Weiss and I started teaching right at the end of my first transfer was baptized about a month ago!!! I don't know if you remember the Indian family that we were teaching, but his name is Kamal. He was baptized the last week of last transfer, and then Elder Bergeron actually went to Figueira da Foz and was there when he was confirmed! I was SO excited! It was really cool to hear! made my whole day! anyway......

Haha yeah I'm a little bit worried about this whole weight thing. I'm right on track to do the exact same thing that Brother Mickelson did! haha, but that's ok. Um....our running thing hasn't worked out too well.....BUT, Elder Rodrigues has taught me about 6 ways to do pull ups, so that's pretty cool! haha. That's a really cool exercise program that you guys are doing! What are the rules in this whole exercise game? What counts as exercising? and what's the individual prize? Sounds like fun! And I'm really excited about this whole thing, because I don't want you guys to die. So this will be good :)

Man Brandos taking off!! He's gonna rock it! I can just imagine how powerful he will be. I have NO doubt that the Lord has great things in store for him. That's super cool about the gingerbread houses. And actually, last week, I showed Elder Egbert (an elder in my district) that picture of our gingerbread house last year, and he was super impressed. That's how cool we are brando. Those pretzel walls were totally worth it! haha. Yeah I'd love to see some pictures! pictures are my favorite part! 

That's super funny about alyssas apartment! I bet ash just LOVED that! haha :) today was Elder Rodrigues' turn to clean our bathroom actually, and when we got done, he said that we had to go to the Church because he needed to go to the bathroom and didn't want to use ours cuz it was so clean!! hahah made me laugh :)

Here in Gaia (Guy-uh) Things are going super great! we need all of the prayers that you can send our way this week. Adelino is super excited for his baptism on saturday, but he's still holding on to 4 cigarettes per day. We're working really hard with him, and he's working hard too, but we can use some Brady family prayer power to help him out :) We're going to an FHE tonight with our stake president and his family and Adelino and his family so that will be really cool! The Lord has just been doing so much work here in Gaia it's incredible! The other day we found this amazing sister named Ana and her family. We talked to her in the street and she was super nice! she gave us her number and address and invited us to come back another day. We were super pumped! she had 2 amazingly cute little kids and was super cool! then as we got there, we started explaining a little bit about who we are and why we were there, and the spirit was just super strong, in such an edifying way. Then we started talking about the Savior, and that we're here to help people come unto Him and follow His example. And then we talked about baptism and what a blessing that is in our lives and how we accept the Saviors sacrifice through this ordenance. And we invited her to pray about baptism, to know if this was what the Lord wanted for her and her family. Her response was AMAZING! she said "Elders, I don't need to pray about it. I already know!" MIRACLE!!!!!! It was so cool! we told her that absolutely we are here to help her take this step in her life. She told us that she has been going from church to church, just looking for something, but hasn't been able to find it. She's been lead and prepared by the spirit. We're going back tomorrow! I'm learning day after day, that honestly, Heavenly Father is preparing His Children to receive the gospel in their lives. He loves all of them so so much. All of us, and He is pulling strings, working miracles and preparing the way, even though we can't see it. I really love Nephi's testimony in 1 Nephi 9:6. The Lord knows everything from the beginning. He's been preparing the way since the beginning for His children to accept the gospel. It is so fun! I love being a missoinary! :)

One last thing that I want to share. One of the greatest things I've learned since being a missionary, is that trials, completely depending on our attitude and view of them, can be our greatest treasure. Trials come in all shapes and sizes, whether a hard day at work, a little doubt or weak spot in our testimony, or a financial struggle, or maybe even a member at church who did say that in the perfect way. Whatever the trail may be, this are just moments for us to grow. They are moments of learning, trying, failing, and relying on the Lord, and trying again. I have had some of the hardest moments of my life on my mission, but I'm so grateful for every single one. I know that Heavenly Father knows everything. I know that even when we don't know why, or maybe even when we doubt that maybe Heavenly Father doesn't know, He does. That we may hold on to that faith and trust in Him day after day and look forward with an eye of faith is my hope. I know He loves you. I know He knows you. And I know that He is our Father and the Savior is our Brother and Friend. Our best Friend. I leave this testimony with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Mom I love you so much!! thank you for everything!! I loved talking to you! You are looking really good with your blonde hair....just sayin :) fiquem bem! boa semana e até logo!!! tchau tchau!

Love,

Elder Brady

Why have you not been baptiiiiized?? (Yes that's a Nacho quote) December 24, 2012

MMMMMMMMMMÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Hey mom.

So I'm probably not gonna write much today, just cuz I don't want to spoil anything for tomorrow eh? :) But we've got stuff set up so  tomorrow at 7:00ish here I'll be calling. Well either me or Elder Rodriques. I'm not real sure.  But it will either be 7 or 8 ish just depending on the situation. so that would be like 12 or 1 ish there I think. Is that gonna work? I'll be checking my email tomorrow right before to get the password and stuff for skype so if there are any problems, you can let me know by email. k? :) thank! :)

So mom, I'm super sorry about the caroling party! and I'm super sad that dad and britt are sick! That makes me super sad! I hope they get better! sickness at christmas is super rough. Christmas traditions are the BOMB! I'm super sad that it didn't work. sorry about that. don't worry, we're going caroling tonight with the ward, so I'll sing extra loud just for you ok? :)

That's super sad about Bryden! I'm praying for him. absolutely. Everything will be 100% fine. Heavenly Father has been watching over our family since the beginning, and I know that He's in charge. The more trust we put in Him, the more peace and tranquility comes to our heart. I know He's watching out for Bryden. Haha I have such amazing memories with that short little hairy man :) Mom, your whole family is incredible. From the oldest sibling right down to the youngest. Everything will be fine. :)

So just one more thing real quick, How is the Holyoak family doing? I've been a complete slacker and haven't written them but I thought about them the other day. If you could do me a favor mom and pass on my love for them with a great big hug and ask them if I can borrow some sweats that would be great! :)

Well mom, I'm gonna run, we still have a bunch to do today. We played soccer this morning, and I got destroyed, but it was fun! It just took up a lot of time....and since we're gonna talk tomorrow, i don't have much more to say. Just MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! love you!!!!

até amanhã!!! 

com amor, 

Elder Jordan Brady

Isaiah 55:9 December 17, 2012

Oi, mãe! agora estou falando como um brasileiro porque o meu colega e de lá! A cara é bem engraçada! 

Snow day snow day! those are the only phone calls I've ever liked at 6:00 in the morning. The ones saying you can sleep in! hahaha :) So how was it? did it happen? man it's crazy that you guys are still in school. This whole week here in portugal every one is out of school. Which is really cool actually because we've been planning a really cool activity with the young men during the week! It's gonna be super fun! I'm gonna get to play the real football for the first time on my mission! crazy little american kid playing with the portuguese rock stars, this could be interesting! :) Everyone here in portugal rocks at soccer, but at least I'll still have a shot at beating them, cuz we're gonna play basketball too, and basketball is a little bit weaker over here ;) 

~That's so great that lys will be home! she's jhust the world wide traveller! It's amazing how the Lord works. He is the perfect teacher. That has been one of the biggest lessons I've learned on my mission, is really the fact that the Lord teaches us. That He knows us and our weaknesses, and knows how to make them our strengths. If we let Him. And that is what alyssa has done. It's been amazing to see her growth. I'm super proud of her! And she's stopping in P-town! yeah Provo! :) 

Choir practice during the week??? Scandalous! teeheehee. haha jim wouldn't go. That's super funny. Which songs are you singing? It'll all turn out 100% fine. Dont even stress! And that's still so wierd to me that Jason is driving, and is probably getting really good a being a home teacher by now. That's so cool! That's one thing that I will do so much better after the mission. I will dedicate more time and attention to being a good hometeacher. I've seen the difference that this can make in the lives of the members, active or less active. I'm so glad to hear that they are doing so well. We're super blessed that way :) 

Thanks SO much for the Christmas eve thing mom! I got super pumped! Elder Rodrigues is pretty excited to try it out to actually. It will be a really fun thing for us too. don't you even worry! and everything got here just fine! thank you so much for that! and the long johns were a good idea too! It's FREEZING! haha and everyone says it's just gonna get worse in January. here we come! I just wish it would snow already! ya know the cold when it doesn't snow, just rain, and it's like freezing to the bones and you don't even have the snow to show for it? that's gaia! haha :)

Thank you so much for the letters too. I was so grateful for Sister Fluckiger and her kindness. I love her so much! the other day i just got some random bumbs that itched like crazy, all over my body, and I called her and she was so cute and helpful! I loved it! She was super worried about me and then when she was here in gaia the other day, we just got to see her for like 2 seconds at out christmas party, and she was like, Hey, how's your itch?? haha made me laugh :)But yeah, we thought maybe I had gotten the chicken pox, but after sending pictures to the misison doctor in Germany, he called me and talked to me, and we're still not sure what exactly it is, but he doesn't think it'«s chicken pox, so that's good! and I don't itch anymore, so it's all good. I just look kinda of goofy and some of the people are like hey, what's on your face? so that's fun. but I'm just grateful it's not chicken pox! :)

OH MAN!! Zumba and Gaston are AMAZING! they were baptized on Friday, and confirmed on Sunday and it was SO amazing! ZUmba asked when she could bear her testimony! haha oh my word they are so amazing. I've never met anyone so humble, so prepared for the gospel in my entire life. When we taught about the word of wisdom, they just had a few little problems. No addictoins, they just drank a little bit of tea and coffee. But when we taught about alcohol, Zumba pointed at Gaston and laughed, cuz he drank a little. Then we said black tea, and Gaston pointed at Zumba cuz she drank tea! haha it was really cute and made us laugh really hard! but they are so amazing and sacrifice so much! they walk an hour every sunday to the church, rain or shine! they are so humble. And Gaston is going to receive the priesthood next sunday! it is really such an amazing experience. And we haven't done anything. THe Lord has honestly and truly done it all. Heavenly Father just prepares the hearts of people to receive HIs word. I've learned so much from Gaston and Zumba.

And the other Elders that work in our ward had 3 baptisms this weekend as well! The Lord has just blessed Gaia 1st ward SO much this weekend! 5 new members in 1 weekend. It was SO much fun! I'm really grateful that the Lord has blessed me enough to be in this ward, in this district, with these Elders. It's been such a fun experience! The mission is SO great!!

Isaías, MIRACLE ALERT! so right before the baptism, we went to buy cake to share with everyone there afterwards, and when we got off the metro, we saw isais getting ready to leave, and we were like HEY! come watch this baptism! he was like um................................................fine ok. ha! so we went there and it was such a great baptism! Isaías was ready to get dressed in white too! it was so cool! and all the members were asking when it was his turn! haha he was like "ask Brady!" haha. he always gives me a hard time cuz he's had a date marked twice, but it's fallen because of this marriage thing. but long story shorter....He loved the baptism and is now a lot more focused on getting married! Heavenly Father works all these little miracles one step at a time. It's all in His timing and in His hands. This much I know. We're still trying to help Raquel. She's not quite as strong right now, but she'll come around. :) We still haven't heard about the paperwork. We went to the Consolate of Guinea, and basically we have to keep calling guinea. We're still working on it, but it's all in the Lord's timing :)

My comp right now is Elder Jason Rodrigues. He's brazilian, but moved to Florida when he was 8 and so he's american. He was an AP for a full year on his mission. He's a great elder! he really wants to do work and is SO funny! he's really helping me out on basically everything! and Elder Bergeron went to Figueira da Foz actually!! haha where I started! :) He is finishing the 2nd half of the training of Elder Smith, and is really liking it! 

Well mom, I love you so very much. Thank you for everything! I'm SO stoked to talk to you guys next week. I'm still not 100% sure when we will be able to yet. We have to confrim that, but next monday I'll let you know. We're still trying to figure out exactly when it's gonna be. But no worries, you'll know :) I love you mom! please keep praying for me so I can be more humble, and have more faith ok? I need all the help I can get!

And if you could also pray for a lady named Linda, she doesn't want her youngest daughter to get baptized, and we're not real sure why yet. We're going there tonight, and her daughter is INCREDIBLE! she's named Sonia. If you could pray for them both that would be awesome. Thanks! Love you!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Love,~

Elder Brady