Matt: April 20, 2011

Dear family,
So let me start off saying something I wanted to say to Jordan last week, but didn´t get the chance to, here goes:

PARA BENS PARA VOCÊ
NESSA DATA QUERIDA
MUITOS FELICIDADES
MUITOS ANOS DE VIDA!
A BIGGY. A BIGGY. ABIAGOAJ AVBAPOFBHP YAY JORDAN!

ha ha That is the Brasil birthday song and it is crazy! Jor I hope that brings back some good memories.
So this week I have a little more time, but not as much to say. The transfer is ending and surely my campanion is heading out of here. I´m a little nervous about it, but whatev. We´ve just been working and going about doing good. We still haven´t been able to baptize that elect moça yet, but that should change here in a few days... Looking back on this week, pretty close to nothing noteworthy has happened so I will instead tell you a little story that I think is neat.
A few nights ago we were planning what we were to do the next day. We are kind of trying to get out of a rut, so we were looking through all the contacts we had made EVER in this area. I saw one that I did back in the first week that I had gotten here, a man named Geraldo, so we put it down in the trusty old planner and the next day we went for it. We were familiar with the street he lived on and went looking around for his house late one night. We couldn´t seem to find the right house number seeing, as how in Brasil there is no order whatsoever to how the house numbers go, and we asked some guy burning a couch, some trash, and a few tires if he knew where any Geraldos lived. "Oh yeah he lives over there." Awesome. So we went over there, even though the number was like 58 numbers off and Geraldo wasn´t home, but his step-son was. He is a recovering druggy and really liked the message of the restoration of the gospel. Anywho we went back there a few nights later and his friend Thiago was there on his motorcycle. We decided he needed to hear the gospel too, and after talking a little bit he said, "Hey my wife (Luciane) is a mormon."
Really?
"Yeah."
Would you mind if we stopped by your house and shared this message with you and your wife?
"Sure"
Anyway we were walking through the streets a different day and we saw this couple walking down the street and my comp contacted them, "Have you ever heard of the Book of Mormon?"
"Uhh yeah I have and I´ve already graduated from seminary and earned my personal progress."
"Is your name Luciane?"
And her eyes just went huge as she said, "How did you know?!?"
So we are going to her house tomorrow to bring her back into the fold and eventually baptize her husband.... Cool story Hansol. No! It gets better. A few days later we were walking down the road where Geraldo and his step son live, and I looked up at the street sign and was perplexed... The road we were so familiar with, that has the wrong number of Geraldo´s house, is 3 streets away from the real Geraldo that I talked to back in February when I got here.
The Lord works in mysterious ways. I don´t know if anyone of these new people we have met will get baptized, but that Luciane and her brothers and sisters are all returning to the church after a few years of following a very different path.
I know God lives and he loves us. Jesus Christ really did ressurrect on the third day and later appeared to a boy Joseph to answer his prayer. The church is true, and this is God´s work. Name Jesus Christ, amen.

-Elder Gagon