Week 75 December 17, 2007

Family,

It sounds like you all had a great time at Grandma and Grandpa Shaw’s at the Christmas party. It’s so weird for me to think that I’m having my second Christmas here on the mission already. I remember the last Christmas like it was yesterday. I remember the elders who were in Alegrete with me and I remember calling home for the first time.

This week we had a pretty big storm that came by last Monday right before we wanted to play soccer. It was really hot all day but the minute we started to play, some pretty fierce winds came and then it started to rain really hard. We didn’t let it stop us though. We played in the rain. We play soccer on a concrete surface next to the church and when it first started to rain, we were slipping all over but after a while there were a couple of inches of water and we didn’t slip. It was so much fun but even the rain was hot. The temperature here is only getting hotter and hotter but I’m used to sweating all day now. Last year it was so annoying to me to be sweating so much but now it doesn’t bug me too bad.

Oh there was something that happened last week that I forgot to tell you all. When we had the Christmas conference, Elder Ellis put a few clips from the main news channel here in Brazil. There were five clips that the newscast flew to Utah to do a special review of the church. The owner of RBS TV, the news channel, knows a member and decided to do some documenting on our religion. As we were watching some of the clips I got to see temple square and even the Bountiful temple but what surprised me the most was as I was watching, I saw our stake president, David Beck. He and his family answered some questions for the news team.

We had a pretty good teaching week this week. On Tuesday we had our district meeting in the center of the city where the whole zone ate pancakes and syrup. It was so good- It was the second time here on the mission that I ate pancakes with maple syrup. We’re teaching some pretty amazing people. There’s this one girl named Monária that is really interested in the gospel. There will be transfers this Friday or Saturday I’m not exactly sure. I’m most likely going to stay here and my companion has a big chance of being transferred. I’m kind of hoping that he gets transferred. He’s a great guy and a good missionary but I really want to be the senior in the area. Since he’s been here longer than I have, he’s the one that says where we’re going and stuff and sometimes I want to do things differently. Elder Corrêa is one of the companions that I have learned the most from though.

Thanks for sending the pictures. I’ll need to send some pictures next week. All the stuff you gave me to give to other people was such a good idea. I sent a lot of letters to families in areas that I’ve past through and I’ve got quite a lot to write still.

Thanks for telling me about the talk that Emily gave. That’s such a great scripture. I hope that you all have a great week and I’ll talk to you next week and we can set up a time that I can call you. I love you all!!!

Oh and could you send me some pictures of the Christmas tree and the presents before opened and after like you did last year? I’m excited to hear about what everyone got. I’ll talk to you later.

I love you infinity!!!
Elder Fowler