Matt: February 16, 2011

Dear Family,

Primeiro- Feliz Aniversario Elder Michael Gagon!!! "para bens para você, muito anos querida, muitos FELICIdades muito blah blah que ida" (?) KKKKK a canção de aniversario brasilheiro é legal de mais! Espero que você ouví-la bastante na sexta-feira e que tudo é otimo no dia que você tira o velho teenager e fica mais sabioso, mais poderoso, e melhor em todos aspetos da vida. Para bens mesmo. O, e minha nova palavra preferida em português é "Jacaré" kkk

What is going on? So this week was a goody. Getting to know a different area is nice, but it comes with some difficulties. My comp is pretty sweet, it´s definitely nice to speak english here and there and have more in common than you are both members of the same church, and serving a mission. So yeah things are good. We baptized the 9 year old daughter of a member on sunday so that was nice. This area is a little wierd though because we cover 2 wards, and instead of abandoning one and only focusing on the other (as is the missionary custom to do), we work throughout both areas and on sunday we sit through TWO sacrament meetings...WOOF! Ha ha but things are nice, the other ward knows that we won´t usually go there unless we have a reason, so they´ve been giving us a lot of references which is super awesome. We also had family night this week. There weren´t any investigators there, and it wasn´t anything more than 2 people sharing scriptures and thoughts with a multitude of gente, but it was so great. It reminded me of the times when we would have family night, and how much it rocked. I hope you all get back in the habit/continue doing weekly family night, cuz it is the best.

Yesterday I saw a dog open the sliding gate in front of a house. And these aren´t like your average dresser drawer, little kids have a hard time opening up these bad boys cuz they´re big and heavy and never slide as smoothly as you think they should. But this dog was just in the zone or something, and pawed that portão right open. I dunno, it was the strangest thing in the world. So yeah that´s how things are in the deep deep south.

Mom- It was super great to hear from you! I hope this birthday was as special as the one with Noah on the ark.
Dad- Great to hear from you too. Yeah if you want to know which church is the church of God, ask God. If you want to know the best way to send me mail, ask ME not President Doyle Smith!
Jor- Sounded like you had a good time in the Buff.
Nat- Baby shower city! FUN! Sometimes at night I think that I´m going to have a new niece here in the near future. wow.
Nate- Thanks for the pics
Nick- Looking good at dance time. I hope your digging lifeguarding and that your breaststroke skills have improved. I also hope Shelly isn´t there anymore...woof! Oh and remember that letter I said I was going to send last week? Well, it turns out this area doesn´t have a post office, so you might have to sit tight for another 6 weeks ha ha
Al- Life sounds good in the Buff. Your girls sound cute as ever. I´ll think of some good boy names and send them too ya prob next week.

Well I love you all. I´m trying each day to improve as a missionary and hopefully one day it´ll pay off.
te amo
tchau

-Elder Matt Gagon