Matt: June 1, 2011

Dear Family,
This week was better than last fo sho. From a missionary number´s stand point it was right nice. My amiginha Maria Eduarda met us half way on our surprise trip to wake her up and get her out of bed to go to church and get confirmed. So that was great. Also we baptized and confirmed Bruno. Bruno is awesome! If ever there was an elect golden investigator it would be Bruno. He´s 14 years old, and from the first lesson wanted to just know more and follow the right path. He also has a couple friends that go to seminary, so we invited him to go and he´s been going strong and memorizing scriptures ever since. Really seminary works miracles. I remember my boiee Kip Chaichana decided to be baptized after he went to seminary. It´s kind of a different story, but has the same happy baptismal ending. Anyway so Bruno is taking us to all his friend's houses and things are groovin. Also this week we confirmed another teenager (a word that doesn´t exhist in Portuguese) who got baptized back in November, but got in a fight with a member and didn´t go to church for the next six months. We always pass by his house because he has a sister who´s 10 years old and isn´t baptized and tell him, "Oi Jorge you gotta go to church and be confirmed." And he would always shrug it off like it was nothing. Then one day we were leaving Bruno´s house (who lives across the street) and his grandma bought a bon bon (chocolate thingy) for all of us, and Jorge came over and was like "Elder give me a piece of that bon bon." and in my limited wisdom I said, "Tell you what Jorge, if you go to church tomorrow and get confirmed I´ll give this entire bon bon to you." He accepted and went and got confirmed the next day! So things are looking up.
Also this week my friend Valmir, a man we were teaching, helping him quit smoking and drinking, and planning (kinda) his wedding, died. He had epilepsy and complicate that with a life long addiction to alcohol, and his body finally just gave up. It was super sad. I don´t have the right words to say about how I feel about him, about the word of wisdom, and how sometimes life just comes at you too fast.
The highlight of this week came Monday when I got uma carta grandiosa e maravilhosa from my irmã Jordan, a carta/cartoon from Michael, and my BIRTHDAY PACKAGE from Nat&Nate. Thank you SOOOO much! I was on a division with an American so we downed those Cheetos like our salvation was at the bottom of the bag, and enjoyed those new skittles thoroughly. Also that cinder block of a camera will help me out a lot the next time I need to take a photo of a baptism, or knock out one of the many dogs here Principal Rooney style (from Ferris Bueller´s day off). Thank you thank you.

I love all of you so much.

-Elder Matt Gagon