January 21

Tomorrow marks 4 months until I come home, but now that it´s closer, I did a little math and I´m not sure what the deal is. I think maybe 2 of the next transfers are only 5 weeks. If transfers are next Wednesday, that means 16 weeks later, I come home. 17 weeks would make for 1 transfer of 5 weeks. There´s a week missing. That means I have less time than I thought. I haven´t decided if that ´s good or bad.

Well, this week wasn´t too bad. We found several new people, but our work was impaired because Elder Caetano fell and hurt his back. He´d already had some back problems after arriving to the mission, so we had to go to the hospital and get it checked out. He´s using a nice corset thing like I had, but a lot simpler. He can still work, but after a few hours on his feet, his back starts to hurt, so we have to head back home for about another hour or two for him to lay down and rest.

Aside from that, we´re teaching a new lady now. She´s the stake president´s cousin, and she´s showing a lot of desire to come to church and be baptized. She smokes, but she really wants to quit. She also doesn't like reading in front of people, so she didn't like coming to church because she thought it was a requirement to read aloud.

She didn't come to church this week because it was stake conference. It was an awesome stake conference. We had President Martins and his wife speak, the temple president and his wife spoke, and one a seventy who served in this stake came to speak as well. Elder Caetano and I were blown away with how many people didn´t pay attention with such a special line-up. Anway, President Martins gave a great talk on missionary work that followed up our talks last week. Basically he said the following: We see all of these other churches growing so fast, but they don´t have the authority of the Priesthood of God. Just as Hebrews 5:4-5 says, you can´t just wake up one day and have God´s authority because you think or you feel like you do; just as somebody can read and study all they want about the law, but, without being certified by the government, cannot be a lawyer. I think we can be a little more bold in sharing the gospel with others. We often say ``Excuse me, sorry, I just wanted to maybe share my testimony with you if that´s alright...´´ We see these other churches acting as though they have the priesthood, and yet, we, who actually hold it, sometimes act as if we don´t. 

I liked the ward mission plan. I think it would be a good idea for the ward here too. A lot of members don´t seem to know what they can do to help. Many seem to think that we missionaries are the only ones who do the work, and that the members are to be used as a resource. That´s completely wrong. We´re sent to each ward to be a tool in the hands of the members to help teach their friends and help he ward grow. I think President´s talk helped out a little too. 

Well, that´s it. I´m late. We got our hair cut today and it took a lot longer than we had planned. Oh ya, speaking of haircuts, we got all cleaned up because tomorrow we have a mission conference with Elder Craig C. Christensen of the Presidency of the Seventy.

Anyway, until next week.

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-Elder Candland