26 May 2014 - Viçosa, Brazil

Howdy everyone! I hope you all enjoy a wonderful Memorial Day. Please take the time to find a serviceman, servicewoman, and/or veteran and thank them personally for the sacrifices they make and have made to protect our freedoms.

As for Elder Frogley, he's still working hard and loving being a junior companion again, just focusing on teaching the gospel. Also, Dad mentioned that he really feels old now that the last of his kids is graduating high school this week. But anyway...

Haha, ya dont look old yet! Ya look good! Everyone here is amazed that youre not 40. Ive even heard 34.  I think that was the youngest. Its weird that my little bro is finishing hischool. Just strange. Any way, when i get home, im gona have to take a trip up to the old house just to see it again, and say hi to the bensons. 

Were workin it up here. This week we marked 10 baptisims. Turns out being junior is WAY more fun then being district leader. All i have to do is teach and help my comp think of people to visit. Were living with two guys from Peru. I forgot to say. One of thems from Lima. Haha, theyre kinda weird and everyone here calls them the primary missionaries cause they look like 10 year olds. Haha. But i had a cool experience the other day. Actually several. Ill start with Liane.

Shes a 22 year old girl weve been teaching for a while. She reads almost everyday, and shes prayed already, but she said she didnt get an answer. We tried to teach her  a little bit about the spirit and the feelings we get when he touches us. She said shed never felt like that. I decided to just try to follow the spirit to help her feel the spirit. I whipped it out right in front of her and started flipping through all my marked scriptures. As i was looking i opened to a scripture in 2 nephi i believe. When I think Joseph is talking about the things hed writed and for people to believe them, they should judge, and then hed meet them at the bar of god and testify to them face to face. I  had to explain i a little to her but after some talking, she said she felt re energized and a real desire to search and pray about the scriptures. Shes great and the spirits great if you just give him a chace to guide you. Were teaching her little sister too but she wasnt there. 

Another great experience was when we were teaching a women and her family. After we taughter, i thought shed be kinda flimsy with the comitments like to read and pray. But when we came back, she said shed prayed, her daughter prayed, her brother prayed and her other daughter prayed, and theyd all recieved and recognized answers from the spirit. The Mom also decided out of know where that she wanted to stop smoking. But ive never seen a family so addicted to cigarets and coffee. EVERYONE smokes. Including the 16 and 17 year olds. And the mom lets them. But they sacrificed their cigarrets to us and they havent baughten more. They gave us their coffee pot too. The mom said she thought i was kidding about the coffee and steeling their cigarrets, until the daughter said that my comp holding coffee was tempting her, so i took it and threw it out into the street. They all just looked at me like i was nuts. It was great! And they didnt buy more. We braught them some coffee substitute and they liked it alot.

Were also teaching a girl whos friends with a member. Shes a great girl but she has some problems with sexual orientation. But she reads every day, she started from the beginning of the BofM. and she prays every day and already got an answer to her prayer. She accepted all the invatations we gave her.

Apart from investigators, the power went out last night, and since were in a farming town it was black! And we could see ALL the starts. Its been a while since ive really seen stars. It was cool.

Thats about it! Love you fam!

Elder Ian