Letter #78

Dear Family,

You'll like this letter : ) though there won't be any photos as I left my adapter at home. . . which means that I'm traveling. . . and not a little. Since Wednesday morning I've been on the road, sleeping on the floor, teaching on the run, and baptizing on the fly!

Let's see if you can follow my route up till now:

Wednesday we surprised Elder Cummings and Pinheiro in Apucarana, arriving early and following behind them in the street for five minutes until they finally saw us. Pretty funny, our stealthy entry there. We promptly set to work and after a wonderful lunch I gave an impromptu training which has turned into something we are now passing on to the entire mission. We are revolutionizing the way the missionaries should work. Forget knocking on doors people! We had a blast with the only couple missionaries in our mission, the Limas, teaching them how to do contacts and then leaving them in the street to do just that - contacts. We stayed by the church and when it was opened up we began to bring families off the street to visit the chapel. #impromptuchapeltours! The President liked it and so now the whole mission is going to put it into practice.

Next we went to Maringá which has two zones and we spent Friday, Saturday and part of Sunday there working to help them uplift their zones in the best stake of the mission. All the while I have been breaking my record for most south EVER in my life : ) I spent all of Saturday with Elder Jouinsse, a simply fantastic missionary from Argentina. Sunday after church we caught the last bus out of there to Cascavel to meet up with Elders McGuire and Vergara. Six hours in the bus! quite the adventure. Then we got one more bus there for another three hours to get here, where I am now, in FOZ DO IGUAÇU! I'm very excited to be here of course. And as you may remember Foz has a very grand attraction that I will be seeing in exactly one hour : ) As cataratas, or waterfalls. . . . . . well, that's about all that's going on lately.

We are having great results from the mission even with the changes in rules about age and times in church. We are baptizing something like 600% more men and families than only several weeks before, and the faith of our missionaries is increasing and spreading like a wildfire. There are the inevitable growing pains from members to missionaries but we feel confident, really, down and hearty optimistically good, that everything is going to be great in this area as far the church is concerned. We have on the table four stakes to be created soon, four stakes that are on our drawing board to create within the year, some within months. President Genaro is the Man!

You are all incredibly wonderful. I got a package from the Duncans, THANK YOU SO MUCH!  I know my letter output is dramatically down but I promise I'll get back to you within the next six months ; ) Stay firm and be anxiously engaged in this great cause.

I was listening to hymns this morning ironing, (what else?) and I was struck by a phrase I've heard so often, "Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard? ´tis not so, all is right. Why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight? Gird up your loins; Fresh courage take; our God will never us forsake. And soon we'll have this tale to tell, ALL IS WELl, ALL IS WELL!" Let us not shun the fight but dive in head first sharing the gospel, living the gospel, and making the decision to do what Jesus Christ would have us do.

I love you,

Stay tuned for pictures ; )

Tanner