11 August 2014 - Viçosa, Brazil

We had a great time reading Elder Frogley's e-mail home last night as we joined my parents for Family Home Evening--they have been gracious enough to allow us to stay with them while we close on a house here in Layton. Also, as many of you may know, Elder Frogley has planned for a number of years to join the ranks of the chiropractors in the family, and I know Dad is excited to have him join him and Cory at the office in Bountiful someday. In any event, lots more exciting things happening in the life of our beloved missionary, including the fact that he has only TWO transfers left!! Wow!

Hey Family! Thats awesome that Dave lives close now! I can go hang out with him and stuff! Perfect! When i get home, i think yall will be pleasently suprised when i get home, i tend to clean for fun sometimes! Weird right? Haha, i like to think i changed a lot on the mission. Its weird to think im off to get my last comp tomorrow. Elder Harris went home yesterday, sad day. We took a pic with the whole branch and Jessica (our investigator who smokes) was crying, and it was sad. No one got transfered though. We Did have that emergency transfer and we have three Americans living in the same house now. We´ll see who pres sends to be my comp for my last two transfers. Who ever it is, i feel bad for him, if he´s not american. Livin with three Americans is tough. We´ll try to speak a lot of portuguese around him.

Our week was fairly uneventfull, sadly. We tried to get Juliana baptised, and she said she was ready. She was sooo close! but on Wednesday she traveled and we havent been able to visit her since. Our other baptisim to be also fell through. We were waiting for Pres. to visit her (branch pres.), but he never got around to it.

Alright, now that i got the sad news out of the way! Lets talk about something cool that happened! Jessica has made some great progress on her path to baptisim! We gave her a little time to ponder and to set her own goals to stop smoking. Her spirituality is growing again! She said that she had some depression the other day, so she started smoking, and as she was she started feeling some epic chest pains. She felt like if she kept smoking shed die. So she decided to stop smoking, and to call us to tell us she was ready for baptisim. Sadly she tripped up again, but she doesnt smoke on Sunday, and only every once and a while the other days. Shes soooo close! She reads the Book of Mormon every day, and shes been going to church. I think she´ll be baptised soon, along with Juliana who we havent given up on yet. 

We also taught a couple Saturday. Gabriel (inactive) and his girlfriend Maria (non-member). THey live together and we taught both of them sepperately several times. Maria wants to get marreied to Gabriel and be baptised. THe only problem is Gabriel is  heavy drinker. We had a great lesson about the Law of C and the Word of W. At the end Gabriel promised to stop drinking. And their getting ready to get married. 

Marcio is going to have a tougher time. He still hasnt made it out to church. Hes really intelegent, but a little dominated by his ´´wife´´. They definatly dont love eachother, but they have kids, so we cant tell them to just break up. its going to be tough for them. He reads everything we give him and hes making a lot of progress in everything else.

This week there was a LOT of rain and the river in the city got really high. Some guy that has a shack made out of old wood and cardboard right on the bank of the river, almost got his house washed away. It looked like the wate was washing through his ´´living room´´. 

Not much else to report! 

Ill get my last comp tomorrow!!!!

Love you!

Elder Ian

Yea it sounds a little expensive, but im looking for lots of stuff to do, and places to work when i get home. Im planning on donating blood frequently. Ill have a full time job, or two part time jobs. I was even thinking about moving to LA with my buddy here to work there from January until June. I really want to live close to the beach for a while and learn how to surf. Dont worry though, im making sure to plan money into it. He has some conections and hes looking for possible jobs for us. Ill make sure ill be able to afford school with an extra cusion. If he cant find a job that would make it worth it, i wont go. We´ll probably have some long talks when i get back about my futures. I have a plan bruing that sounds like my dream life. I still want to be a chiropractor and work in youre blossuming clinic, but my final goal is a clinic in Hawaii so i can be close to the beach in a warm place. Ill want some advice when i get home. Anyway. I also found possibly cheap of even free housing in logan for school. The Americans im living with are going to be my room mates. Ill need a car, i was thinking a fuska (bug) the old fashion ones. Haha, that would be awesome. Anyway, tell me what you think! Love you! And yes you can send my card. Thanks so much!