It's Raining, It's Pouring, P-day is Boring!

This week we baptized Tania and Jonathan. Everything went according to plan. Pres Leal had to interview Tania on Tuesday night. Her baptism was on Wednesday night and Jonathan was baptized on Saturday afternoon. Pres Leal also interviewed all the missionaries in our zone on Tuesday afternoon. He told me that there were a few reasons that I stayed here in Marilia as a zone leader. 1- because there were a ton of changes in the zone and there was no way he could have taken the 2 zone leaders out at the same time. 2- because the zone/stake isn't doing too well and he wanted me to animate the members and missionaries here. He said that I was more animated than Elder Alves. 3- because he strongly felt that the Lord wanted me to stay here for a little more time. Those were the reason that he told me that I'm still here.

This week we're going to baptize a 20 year old girl named Flavia. She's the perfect investigator that was basically ready to be baptized before we met her. The only thing is that she's hiding all of this from her parents. I dont really know too much of the situation but we told her she should probably tell her parents.

We went on a trade with the elders from Garca-SP. I did a baptismal interview for them and worked there for the day while Farias stayed in Marilia. It was cool. We went to a restaurant that night at like 8:30 to an all you can eat pizza buffet for 10 reais. It was good. In Brazil they eat all sorts of wierd pizzas; banana, chocolate, pepperoni, pineapple, cheese, guava, garlic, etc. But it's all good stuff.

We're working a lot with a couple that has been to church 2 sundays in a row. They're about 55 yrs old and they're not legally married. They both say that they want to get married and baptized. But for some reason Edson doesn't want to rush into anything? Edson a little afraid of being legally married...I dont know why because they've been together for over 30 years! Marinez wants to do everything as soon as possible. We're praying for them daily.

Things are getting better here. The mission has baptized 50 people in this month of January and our zone has 10 of them. So things are definetly moving in the right direction. Elder Farias loves walking around with a cell phone. Zone leaders are the only missionaries who are allowed to carry it around. Farias loves it so I just let him make all the calls and answer all the calls - less stress for me.

Next Monday won't be P-day because we're going to have our zone conference here. I imagine that P-day will be on Tuesday. So don't freak out when you dont get an email on Monday!

love ya,
Elder Carter