Week 4

This week was stressful and full of a lot of thinking.

On Wednesday at 3pm we had to get a bus to Londrina (a 4 hour bus ride) to sleep there. It was cool once we got there because I got to see some Elders that I hadn't seen for a long time. We slept there and got up early on Thursday morning for the Leadership Conference. It was way different from Zone Conference. At Zone Conference it's like Sacrament Meeting; you sit and listen to everyone speak. Different people get up to give trainings, talks, tips, and testimonies. But at the Leadership Conference, Elders would give a suggestion and we'd all give our opinion. For example, one of the Assistants to the President said that we should be able to adjust our weekly goals (the numbers) in the middle of the week. Then President asked us (the Zone Leaders) what we thought about it. I raised my hand and said that I thought that was ridiculous because the missionaries in the mission wouldn't care about goals anymore. Knowing that they would be able to adjust them when they want, they would lose a lot of respect for the goals. I said that and some agreed with me and some didnt'. I just thought it was cool because I know my opinion counts. Stuff like that was discussed. I learned a lot more at the conference about how ideas are suggested in the mission. There are a lot of changes and new things that occur in the mission that I always thought "who's idea was that?" or "there's another crazy idea from President Leal". But in reality it's the mission leaders that decide everything. I thought the conference was cool.

After the conference we got a bus at 6:45pm to Assis-sao Paulo. It's a city about an hour away from Marilia. There's a companionship there that was going to have 2 baptisms. We got there late on Thurs night and slept at their house with them. We worked with them all day on Fri and had the 2 interviews that night. We missed our bus to Marilia on Fri night so we had to sleep there again. We got up really early to get the bus to Marilia on Sat morning. So, we were out of our area from Wed until Sat.

On Friday night we stayed up late with the Elders in Assis goofing off. We were punished for breaking the rules and staying up late . . . Elder Carneiro (my comp) and Elder Brasil (cool name huh?) wanted to wrestle. I didn't want to and neither did Elder Agostinho. So, we got our cameras and filmed Carneiro wrestling with Brasil. Carneiro ended up hyper-extending his knee. Now it's swollen and he walks even slower than he already did. I have the whole thing on tape. Goes to show that boys will always be boys, even when they're serving full-time missions.

I'm having a good time here. The people in Marilia are a lot meaner and ruder. But we are going to baptize a man named Rogerio this week; my first baptism in Marilia. For a while I was getting a little worried that we wouldn't baptize someone this transfer. But he will be baptized this week for sure.

Have a good one.

Elder Carter