Matt: January 30, 2012

Dearest Family,


This week was one that I don´t think I will soon forget. Friday we had the opportunity to have 2 apostles come talk to us. Neil L. Anderson spoke in Portuguese which was cool. He also speaks French, Spanish, and English, so it came out kinda wierd at times, but it was incredible that he maintains the language as well as he does. Then M. Russell Ballard rocked the house right down to the ground with the help of a translator. It was amazing. They talked about how to better the work, and how this time in our life is so important and to cherish it and not take it for granted and all that stuff. It was sweet. Also this week we did the baptismal interviews of Evandro and Vanessa, the super awesome couple that we´ve been teaching for months now. Evandro had to work Saturday night, so Sunday morning we went there to do his interview, which he passed, and everything was set for a Sunday night baptism. Well 4 o´clock church rolled around and they hadn´t shown up yet. "Oh it´s Brasil" I thought, "Everybody´s late to everything here." Then 4:30 rolled around and they still weren´t there, so my comp and the WML went to go look for them. They weren´t at their house and at 5 oclock they still hadn´t shown up. Well to make a long drawn out sob story short, with a baptismal font full of water, back pack full of baptizing gear, and an entire ward anxiously waiting for the next members of the ward to come and get wet, Evandro and Vanessa ended up not being able to make it. I´ve thought a lot about what I could´ve done, where I went wrong, but I just keep coming back to the same few thoughts... The first comes from Isaiah 1 (I think) where it says, "for my thoughts are not your thoughts and as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways, sayeth the Lord." or something like that. And also the talk from Elder Christofferson where citing Hugh B. Brown he said, "Look I am the gardener here, I know what I want you to be, and someday you will look back and say Thank you Mr. Gardener for loving me enough to cut me down."

Dad- The J-dubs were as pesky in the post Mayan Guatamalan era when you were there as they are here in 21st century Brasil? Yeah everybody wants to baptize a pastor and his entire church, but you said it well when you said it´s all just personal vanity. It would be nice though. Congrats on the new job.

Mom- Thanks for the e mail, love you more.

Al- You had an entire room dedicated dedicated to collecting junk? Yesterday at church the Irmã who fixed my teeth rocked the house with a talk about time and prioritizing it and stuff. Maybe someday I´ll elaborate on that thought.

Devin- can you get in contact with Jason Jolley saying that I will NOT email him, but I will give some consideration to summer sales, but as for right now I don´t really want to.

Love you all,

Elder Matt Gagon