9/27 Letter Home

Well this last week was the last week of the transfers and i got switched. It was actually kinda surprising cause i thought i would be staying maybe one more in my last area but president called me up on Saturday and said I would be transferred. Im still here in Mindelo though, it was just a little switch to the other zone on the north side. My new companion is Elder Fernandes from Portugual... he is a way cool guy and speaks english perfectly. The most surprising thing is that i am now zone leader of this zone.... i thought for sure I would be taken out of zone leader once i got changed. This will be my 7th transfer which is a way long time... i must still have something to learn as zone leader or something i guess. The most i have ever heard of someone being zone leader in this mission is 7 and it was my first companion of the mission so its looking like i might beat that, we will have to see though. I am ready to be taken out though and just be normal. Speaking of my first companion, he is in this branch that i will be serving in now so he will be helping us out a ton, he was excited once he found out i would be headed there. This branch and area will definitely be different though, it looks like its a lot stronger. They say that the members help a ton, there are a lot more people in church every week, and the area is going really good. We have a lot of people to teach it sounds like. Even though my last area was a little more difficult i am still going to miss it too, especially a few of our investigators and some of the members. I dont know if I ever told you about Patricia but her and her kids were amazing. She is just 27 and her husban is more like 45 (we never were able to teach him) and she has a 17 year old adopted daughter, a nine year old girl, and 6 year old boy. At the first she told us that she didnt really want to have anything to do with any church just cause they never practice what they teach, but she has completely changed with us. She told us that she doesnt know how we are doing it but we are converting her and that she wants to follow the church. I know how though, its because of the book of mormon. She reads like 20 chapters a week and takes notes of the things she learns. It is responding to all of her doubts! We told her that we would teach about baptism the next visit and she came straight out and said she is against baptism, especially because she doesnt think kids need to be baptized cause they dont have sin. So we left her with Moroni 8 to read which pretty much bashes on young kids being baptized and it completely changed her mind, her testimony grew even more with that! She told us that she heard bad things about the book of mormon before she started talking with us but after reading it that has all changed! We were also preparing the family of To and Paula for baptism. Paula and her daughter are excited but To still has some doubts. He is a stud though and he is progressing a ton and we are getting rid of those doubts. They are super nice and always give us a bunch of fruit that they get sent from fogo. Nothing is better than fruit from Fogo! Im excited for the new area though and i will let you know how everything goes. Im also way excited for general conference! We will be watching it in the couple's house thats here live so that will be cool, we will just have to miss priesthood session cause its so late out here. So how about the hunts... are you guys doing spike only this year? You guys will have to let me know about everything that goes on. Good luck with everything and sorry if i didnt really have time to respond to anyone of you guys... time was a little bit less cause i tried to get some pictures off to you guys. Let me know if they go through and i will send you some more next week. I will also make sure to send off some individual e mails next time too to respond back to everyone! By the way whats up with byu? They better get it going! I am sitting right next to Elder Rogers right now, the one that played there, and he is pretty disappointed hearing about all this! Well have a good week and thanks for all the support and e mails! Ill talk to ya guys next week.