Natal Time is Here

Here´s a random pig I found in a bathtub on the side of the street #OnlyInRio

Hey guyz!

So what another wonderful week for Elder Gonzales and I! Just to answer some of your questions really quick, I´d love to apply for the foresters scholarship... again. Maybe we can talk a little bit more in details later this week.... when I call you guys.... face to face. Haha I love being able to say that. The plan is call you all 3 o'clock Rio time. As far as the google hangout password, I don´t have a clue what my password is. I´m not sure if I even remember my username, but I´ll try a few times on Thursday. If it doesn´t work out, I´ll send a quick email, so be ready to answer my plea for help if I end up needing it. 

Some crazy news for us this week in Abolição: We moved!!! Yeaa we´re finally living in our area, and now we don´t have to walk for an hour every day to walk to and from our area. We received some used furniture from another house in the mission, although our dresser is still dissasembled. We moved completely on wednesday

 and were able to sleep for the first time in our house that night. We quickly discovered that where we live is a very, well, sleepless community at night, with lots of loud music playing in our neighbors houses and many motorcycles flying by at night. We live close to the entranceof a favela, which is show de bola. But I like the house. Big, roomy. Although we locked our selves in the hallway. That´s another thing I´ll have to take the time to explain on Thursday. Oh I love saying that a lot.

This week, unfortunately, the guy we were teaching, Mauricio, who reminds me a lot of dad, decided he didn´t want to investigate the church anymore. We felt that we ought to teach him about the word of wisdom and the law of chastity this past week, and although the word of wisdom wasn´t a huge issue, once we talked about the law of chastity, he started to get really nervous and undecisvie about things. The lesson went fine, we felt the spirit, but his girlfriend later told us that he wants to go a little slower about preparing for baptism. We´re hoping that all goes well in the future.

As we were walking the other day to an appointment, a lady on the other side of the street called us and said she was a member of the church from a different city calle Salvador. She was passing the holidays here in Rio and was happy to see us that way she could attend the nearest sacrament meeting yesterday. She was with some of her neices as well, who aren´t members, that were curious to become more familier with the church. We saw her AGAIN the next day. Yesterday, we were able to see them at church, and as we found our that the bishop knew this family that isn´t members in our area, we became more excited to teach them more about the church. That was a pretty cool miracle for us. Today we´re gonna give a sock-knocking lesson about Christmas for their entire family #Heisthegift

We were sad that some of our investigators that have been going well weren´t at church this past Sunday, BUT one lady we´ve been teaching, Lúcia, was able to attend a ward activity last thursday. She said she loved the environment so much and that she plans to become a member. She wasn´t able to attend church though because she had to go to the doctors office. But when one of her daughters told us about her impresion of the church, we were happy to see the interest that it bought for her daughter to hear our messages.

I love you all so much! I can´t wait to talk to you beautiful people on Thursday. Our Mission President has given us a limit of one hour to talk to our families, so I recommend those in the family be ready at the time scheduled in your time zone. Feliz Natal for everybody!

Love,

Elder Braun