"Elder Villela went home today."

Early this morning in front of our house as Elders Villela and Markham leave for Londrina

Transfers are today. That means I had to do all the numbers by myself which takes up most of the computer time. Also I had to get the transfer news and pass it to everybody. So I have little time, again. So sorry

Well, all of our baptisms fell through this weekend. There is a difference between Parana and Sao Paulo in marriage laws, so Yara and Wagner will actually get married on June 4. So she will be baptized that day.

Elder Villela went home today. His dad came on Saturday and bought us some food, so that was pretty nice. Also he was at church on Sunday.

My new companion will be Elder Braga, from Maranão. He was the financial secretary, so basically he is crazy to just get out of the office and work, so that will be good. He is a cool guy, I think we will have a lot of success.
There were a lot of changes in the zone, a lot of good changes.

I'm so shocked that Spencer is graduating this week. Congratulations, that is a great time. USU will be the bomb.

Love you all,

Joseph

Me, Jim and waterfalls

Waterfalls

ELDER J. P. BURT

CLASSIC 435 STYLE

"...five baptisms planned for Sunday, so pray for that to work out."

It's becoming almost tradition to write my emails to you guys on Tuesday instead of Monday. Yesterday we had another zone P-day with President. We went to this member's ranch. Ranches (CHACARA--I don't really know what the best word for this would be in English) in Brasil have soccer fields and pools and stuff. Also this one had a monkey and other animals.
So basically I just spent the whole time playing soccer on a grass field for the first time since that tournament with Logan and Kristen and their friends about 22 months ago. Its safe to say it was super tiring, like after one minute my lungs were already sore. But also it was super refreshing being able to kick a ball. I shoot better than before and I am just better overall. Which doesn't make sense since I have stopped playing.
We had interviews yesterday as well, and in the end there was no time leftover to use the internet, so President let us use it today. But once again I have so little time it's nuts.
But our investigator pool is good, we have about five baptisms planned for Sunday, so pray for that to work out.
The coolest is Yara, whose husband was baptized 30 years ago but went inactive. He stopped us on the street and we have been teaching them. They went to church the last two weeks. They are super self motivated, they go by taxi to church and arranged their marriage.
Also we are teaching Solange and her family. Her husband died two weeks ago, the same day her youngest of seven children was born. She is a relative of a member, so we visited her and she went to church with five children. She really needs the gospel, so we will work with her a lot on everything, especially the plan of salvation.
Thanks for everything, love you all!
Joseph

ELDER J. P. BURT

CLASSIC 435 STYLE

"No time"

This photo was sent to Doree by Elder Titus' mom.

L to R: Elder Burt, Elder Titus, Elder Parrott, Elder Yuma
All four were in the CTM together. Burt and Titus were companions there.

As the subject suggests, I have no time. We got back to Bauru today at about 1 pm. On Monday morning we got a van with a bunch of other zone leaders and we all headed out for Foz to see the waterfalls there!
It was super super bomb, I'll send lots of photos (I took 222 there). It was nice to be able to walk around in jeans a bit, but also really, really weird.
We had conference on Tuesday in Foz and headed back to Londrina, where we slept and headed out this morning. So I don't have a lot of time, we gotta get to the street. But Mothers day was super, it was great to see and hear you all.
Love you all, have a great week

Joseph

ELDER J. P. BURT

CLASSIC 435 STYLE

" We had a super spiritual conference with Elder Araujo..."

I wrote this a day late because yesterday Elder Villela, Elder Markham (our roommate/district leader) and I were in Londrina for some super sick training. I'll explain more about that later.

I'm stoked Osama is dead. Now all justification for the Afghan war is gone. Yes, their government isn't self sufficient. Yes, there is a big chance that Taliban will take over again. Yes, the republicans will keep preaching the Monroe Doctrine as long as possible, but in the end we just need to bounce and stop causing problems in other countries.
President Tavares sent us this really ominous email about the possible dangers to American missionaries. He said we should have a bag ready with a change of clothes so we can leave quickly if anything goes down, that we should have a "safe house" at a members residence in case someone is following us, and a few other anti-terrorist tips. But I think the most effective of all is the fact that Bin Laden basically caused 10 years of death and suffering for two Muslim countries. I think it is very unlikely that we would be the victim of any retaliatory attack.
But on with the letter.

We had a lot of success this week. We taught for the first time on Thursday this teen named Inara, who went to church once. We had a goal to baptize someone this weekend, so we invited her and she accepted. But in the end her parents and friend who is a member talked her into waiting a while longer. That is a little unfortunate, but alright.
On Saturday we had to go do an interview in a city in our zone called Lençois Paulista, so we got a bus there at 8ish. As we were arriving in the city we got a call informing us that she was on the way to Bauru because her dad got in a motorcycle accident there. So we turned around and went back. We ate lunch and soon after received a call telling us that she would be back in Lençois at 6 to be interviewed. So we got another bus back that took forever. Finally I interviewed her at 8 pm.
It was funny, I told her I am American and she was like "Wow, it's always been my dream to see an American up close!" So I was like, "Well, alright," and proceeded with the interview.
We stayed the night with the Elders there and got a bus home at 5:40 Sunday morning full of young adults on the way home from some party. This kid threw up behind me. Then we got home, showered, changed, packed up stuff for the conference in Londrina, went to church, ate lunch, and got a bus for Londrina at 3. We got there at 9:30ish and had to wake up at 5:30 yesterday.
We had a super spiritual conference with Elder Araujo (that dude that told the story about how he was inactive and surfing and a member walked out in the water to get him to go to church... I dunno if you remember that.). It was dang sick. We were going to stay til today, but President canceled the meetings we would have today. So we got a bus at midnight and got here at 4:30 am. And that pretty much brings us to now.

That might have not been a very interesting email, sorry. But I'm psyched to skype on Sunday! I will log in at 3:00-3:30 Brasil time, that's the best way for us. I will log on to my email, same system as last time. I don't have the member's phone number here, but I'll email it to you if a problem arises.

Love you all, talk to you soon!

Joseph

ELDER J. P. BURT

CLASSIC 435 STYLE