Activity in "White Water"

Hey Family!

Thanks so much for the college information, Mom. I sent a copy of the ecclesiastical information to Pres. Cabral so that in my next interview with him (which might be this week) he can take care of that. Living at the Elms sounds fantastic. As for right now, I don´t have any roommate preference, since I have no idea who will be there during summer term, so you can stick me with whoever´s there.

What a shame to hear the news anout the Stinky Sneaker. I´m rather convinced that because the judges chose CV almost every year while I was there, they´re feeling pity for U-High now and letting them win now.

I´m really sorry again that I´m not able to send pictures from this computer in this internet cafe. Feel good knowing that I haven´t stopped taking pictures of my wondeful experiences in Rio. I´m glad you´re enjoying the conversations with Marlon, too, as well as Juliana! Elder Falkner called me last night and said that his companion (The one whose place I took in Bento Ribeiro) ended up going home, and that at least until the end of this transfer, Elder Falkner is serving in a different area. Poor guy. 3 different companions in one transfer, and it´s only been 4 weeks. So Maricá only has one companionship for now. I hope everything is going fine there for the mean time.

As for me and Elder Neuman in Bento Ribeiro, we´ve been working REALLY hard, and what has been bugging me is that we haven´t exactly gotten the results that I feel we deserve, BUT, I won´t let that discourage me. We´ve been getting to know the members, and especially, the less-actives this week that way we can get to know a bit more about the history of this ward and how to help them get back to having a higher attendance. We were able to have one lady come back to church after 10 years being inactive, named Ellen. She´s way cool, and she has an 11 year old daughter, Julia, that we´re hoping to get to know the church as well that way they can both be active and strong in the gospel and prepare Julia for Baptism in the near future.

We had an activity with the other elders and sisters in our zone in the Agua Branca ward (White Water). That happens to be the ward where one of my former comps is serving... Elder Inácio! It was way cool to see him again, he was an excellent missionary, and we learned so much together (I mean, you don´t really have a choice when you´re with the same comp for over 4 MONTHS). Anyway, we helped the bishopric visit about ALL of the less actives in the ward and we talked with everyone in the street on Saturday and helped the missionaries there find more people to teach. Elder Neuman and I went to one house where everyone had been drinking, but we still taught them about the restoration, they accepted to have the other elders come back another day, and they made us smoothies.

We spent a lot of time in our area trying to find new people to teach, knocking doors, asking referrals from everyone, and overall talking with everyone we run into. We, unfortunately, weren´t able to have anyone come to church this week, but we had some investigators promise to come next Sunday. Pray for me that everything works out for us! I love you all and I love the Lord who I serve!

Love,

Elder Braun