Good things come to those who wait!

Hello wonderful family!!

Well what a week! I know that God does bless us according to our needs, faith, and diligence. Sometimes we may not have room to receive these multiplicities of blessings, and others we do our part and wait for the Lord´s timing, and be still and know that He is God. Happily, the less active Brazilian lady we´ve been working with has been coming to church more consistently and is moreso back on her feet. We passed her by last Friday and read with her Elder Holland´s powerful talk `None Were With Him´ from this past General Conference. (I just read that again this morning in my personal study and I will never cease to be amazed and feel the love from Jesus Christ´s perfect, infinite, and complete Atonement for us all.) We took turns reading the copy of the talk we had printed off and left it with her. Sunday we had arranged a ride for her, but the member ended up not really knowing where she lives and came to sacrament meeting without her. We did a division, Elder Sagebin and Hansen stayed at church and I went with Fernando (the member) to pick up Nilzette at her home. She didn´t utter a word of complaint at all, and came with us happily, and was able to meet with the branch president after the last church meeting to talk about the help she needed.

After church and taking care of tithing, we were finally able to meet with Ivan and Sorene, our wonderful Brazilian couple. Ivan has been so busy with work this past week and all of our previous appointments and attempts to meet with them fell through. But good things come to those who wait! Irmã Tina, a wonderful member who lives right across the road from them, was with us, and we finally were able to talk to them about baptism. And best of all, they readily committed to pray to know about being baptized and to prepare themselves for baptism! *That´s what it´s all about!* Not baptism itself, but true conversion and coming closer to our Savior Jesus Christ through faith and making and keeping covenants! I love the gospel!!

So yeah, that´s the gist of the highlights right there. Last Wednesday we stopped by the mission office and I got the letter from Mom - thanks! Oooh, and Kit and Kevin! Thanks for the package you sent! I got it Friday July 31st, and my companions were a bit perplexed at first as to why the mailman would be delivering a pizza with English written on the pizza box! Way to be creative and frugal, and thanks for the laffy taffys, frisbee, and note. Pass on my love to Ryn, Elle, (and Eden)!

Well, life is great. Elder Hansen is finishing his mission, and we´re taking him into Lisbon today to send him off. Godspeed! We caught word of a lot of big changes happening with transfers. But no biggie, because God is leading His work through revelation to His called and set apart representatives, including President Torgan.

Mom -- I´ve still been emailing these newsletter thingymobobs to you, at ----, so I hope whatever is wrong gets fixed. If it somehow keeps going, would someone please forward my emails to her please?

Rachel -- a-a-a-aHEM! I do assume you are still getting my emails and were talking to the rest of the family when you said you didn´t get emails from anyone except our marvelous Grandma Turtle?

Marko Polo -- CONGRADZ on the board results! I´m so happy for you!

`Well, I love you!´ Thanks again everyone for your great love and support, and have a great week! Tchau!

--Elder Ellis V
CM SBF FDP S&H