"He lives right next to this house that sells drugs day and night..."

Looking back on this week, I have been less stressed I think. Our zone had a good week as far as baptisms go, so that probably contributed to the positive feelings.
Anderson didn't go to church yesterday, and we haven't been able to talk to him since Friday. We made a goal with him to stop smoking cigarettes by tomorrow, hopefully that didn't spark a crack relapse. He lives right next to this house that sells drugs day and night, so that is a rough temptation. He got a job, but somehow lost all his identification and worker card, so he has to redo all those docs. That might take a while.
The ward had the June party on Thursday. I think it is pretty weird that the church in Brazil doesn't see any problem with a holiday commemorating Saint John. I think the whole saint thing will take a couple generations to wear off. That is if any current members make it beyond this generation.
Anyway the party was cool, a lot of inactive members from other wards found out about the party and went. Also a ton of members brought their friends who liked the party a lot. We have started teaching a few of them, they seem like good prospects. Unfortunately I was doing a two hour baptismal interview with Augusto during most of the party. I wish I could tell you what went down. He got baptized in the end, so its fine.
Yesterday in sacrament meeting, a member was speaking and said that Freud (that perverted psychologist) was one of the greatest scientists of the last 200 years, up there with Einstein and Marx (who he talked a lot about during the talk.) That was a good laugh for me and Elder Stinocher. I don't think anyone else knew who those three are, so it went mostly unnoticed.
Well the week was pretty much a big rush with divisions, baptismal interviews, problems with a companionship, and all that. But it was solid.
Love you all
Joey

ELDER J. P. BURT

CLASSIC 435 STYLE

"He didn't smoke marijuana all week and only smoked crack once."

Well this was a disappointing week. We had a lot of baptisms lined up in the zone, but three interviews fell through or didn't pass. Paloma was one of them, she said she would go to the interview, but in the end just didn't. Later that day (Saturday) she had her son Felipe tell us that she didn't want to continue her studies with us anymore. Pretty disappointing, but whatever. In the end it's her loss.
We keep teaching Anderson. He didn't smoke marijuana all week and only smoked crack once. He has cut in half the number of cigarettes he smokes per day, he is doing great. He is really dedicated, and we have seen him changing a lot in the last few days. He also hasn't been drinking. We are going to try to get him more independent to maybe baptize him this weekend, but baptizing him early (before he is totally good) would be suicide.
Things are pretty good, really not a lot to report this week. Elder Stinocher and Sherwood are talking a lot about how soon I will be home (for example, yesterday we were eating sweet rice, and I was like "this tastes like horchata." Then Elder Sherwood just says "you will be drinking horchata again like eight weeks from now" it was kinda a surprise.) But it hasn't been too distracting.
Love you all, have a great week
Joey

ELDER J. P. BURT

CLASSIC 435 STYLE

"We fasted with her on Friday..."

We had a pretty good zone leader conference at the mission home in Londrina, it was good. We talked a lot about beginning teaching and asking good inspired questions. It was a productive conference.
Things are a little down in the mission at this point, basically a lot of the good zone leaders and a good assistant went home, so there is like a huge leadership lack in the mission. There are like 10 people in their first or second transfer as zone leader, kinda ineffective at this point, but probably the noobs will pick it up.
We have this investigator named Paloma. She went to church two weeks ago, and we have been visiting her frequently. She stopped smoking and keeps all the things we leave for her to do, but she didn't feel like she was ready to be baptized, but had no motive aside from wanting to wait. We fasted with her on Friday so she could know if God wanted her to be baptized, and she got the answer that yes, he does, but she still feels insecure. We marked her baptism for Wednesday and an interview on Tuesday. Hopefully we and the interviewer can get her confident and stoked.
That's about all I have as far as work goes. We got some hilarious new "Preach My Gospel" dvds, they show missionaries teaching before and after the new fundamental principles system. Dang hilarious.
Love you all
Joseph

ELDER J. P. BURT

CLASSIC 435 STYLE