Monday, February 25, 2013

Hey Mom and Dad!
   It's so good to hear that Bekka is doing good, and the boys are doing good as well. Bekka sent me the email with their pictures and names. I thought their names were cool. Are they gonna call them both by their middle names? I guess they liked that about Tanner. lol. Anyways, this week was much better than the last. Not in terms of lessons or news or anything like that, but we baptized!! I think I told you last week of a family that came to church, a family to complete where the wife was not member. She was baptized yesterday!! It was so cool. Her name is Thamires, and her Husband is Fagner. They are probably around 20-22 years old. It's cool because they are all super excited about the temple and going there to be sealed. They are really well integrated with people in the church as well. After years I think of trying to get her to be baptized, me and Elder Pimentel finally baptized her. Also, the zone had two other baptisms, with one other area completing another family. It was a successful week. But this week I spent almost all my time in other areas helping interview and firm up their baptisms.
    Specifically there was an area that had a family that wanted to be baptized, but weren't married. These last few weeks me and Elder Pimentel did some research about how to marry a family faster than normal Brazil time. We found out how to do it. We showed this kind of marriage to President Lima and he was all for it. He said we were good to go and the family would be able to get married and baptized this week. We were so happy. If it worked for this family it would open the gates for lots of other families in the zone to get married and baptized, including one in our area. The only problem is the Stake President here likes to think that he has to give permission for things like this to happen. It's annoying because he has absolutely no keys in this respect, its president Lima who holds the keys for baptism. But he did not agree with this kind of marriage and prohibited all bishops in the stake from performing this marriage. This sucks because the Bishop is the one who needs to do the marriage. So now he sent an email to the seventy president of Brazil asking if President Lima is allowed to do this. That pissed me off, going over President Lima's head like that. Our Mission President called him and explained everything to him and that he had approved it, and he still prohibited the bishops from doing this and sent an email to the area president!! Talk about not supporting your leaders. Anyways, I'm fine now. Sorry about the rant. So I'm happy cuz we got 6 baptisms in the zone this month, but we could have had 9. Next month though, we will get lots more.
   We have a meeting this week, just our zone with President Lima. I think it's about the new mission. Did you guys hear? The zone I'm in is being turned into a new mission. The Rio mission is dividing cuz it's doing so good. So no longer will be zone Juiz De Fora, but it is being turned into Mission Juiz de Fora! We are happy. I still don't know if I will stay here in this mission or if I will stay in the Rio mission. I won't know for a few months. But it's so close to the end that it doesn't even matter to me too much. Not sure what more to tell you guys. Everything is going good here. The weather isn't too bad. I'm just praying lots for you guys back home, and especially for Bekka and the boys. I love you guys.  I'm praying for you.
Elder Baldwin