Reed's working so hard he has blisters!

Feb. 21, 2007
Well one more week, a million more experiences. Well it was great to get emails telling me about their life. Kari, the mission truly is a roller coaster, exactly like you said. I like the advice Bret gave me, The mission should be a great experience, with a few sad moments, not a sad experience with a few great moments. I think it was something like that, but it’s true. There are ups and downs but the ups should be the majority, and the downs the minority. Lisa, Wow, sounds like you are having fun, A blind date that actually went good. And taking him to a Suns game, now that’s my kind of date. Tami,50’s Sweetheart dances are always fun, but I hope you just dressed like rebellious Sandy and didn’t act like her. Haha, I know you didn’t but the dance sounded way fun and your outfit was legit. As for the guys, I didn’t get any emails from them this week. I did get Mark and Holly’s Christmas Letter with the really cute picture of Kaemon with Mark and Holly. I put it in my album for people to see. Anyway, as for the news here, there is so many things to tell and I’ll try not to forget anything. First of all, it is amazing here how prepared the people are. I am so blessed to be here where people are open to hear our message. The Joao Pessoa mission is really blessed. Here, the good missionaries baptize weekly. Sometimes it’s hard for me because sometimes it is a fight between the numbers and the people. Let me explain, lots of missionaries baptize a lot herebut they baptize a lot of children. Ya sure, Children are the kingdom of God, but that’s not going to build the kingdom here in Brazil. So there is pressure to baptize every week, so a lot of missionaries get lost in the numbers. I try to make every baptism special. I don’t know if you all understand what I am saying right now but I always talk about my baptisms and I hope everyone doesn’t get tired of hearing about names of people they don’t know but I hope people know that I truly find joy in doing this, I know that I couldn’t do this without the spirit and without a great companion, Elder Q Smith.So this past week we had 2 baptisms. Friday I got to baptize Luan, a 16 year oldguy who has already gone to seminary at 5:30 every morning for the past 2 weeks. He is really excited about the church and has already read For the Strength of Youth has started his Duty to God. We have taught him for the past 2 weeks and he has a lot of friends in the Church. He showed up at church 2 weeks ago with a friend and we started teaching him the next day. I really didn’t do anything, he was really prepared. It helps so much to have a friend in the church. Then onSunday we Baptized Fatima, Cristiano’s mom. It was so great teaching here with Cristiano. She is married but going through a divorce. She started crying many times during the lessons. It was funny, we taught her about the word of wisdom and everyone here drinks coffee. So she said she would stop and she didn’t drink any the next day, but the next she had a big headache and so she went and made a cup of coffee, but a bug got in it. So she made another cup, but then she went to drink it, her body rejected it or something because she couldn’t swallow it,and when she tried, she puked. She kept asking, do you think this was apunishment for trying to drink coffee? It was really funny because she said that she would never drink coffee again, and believed it was a punishment. This week seems like it should be a good week. Sunday we had 7 investigators in church. We could have quite a few baptisms this Sunday and I will write about them next week. I was sad though because Maria and Francisco didn’t go to church yet again. Normally we would drop a person but Elder Q Smith and I have a really good feeling about them. They are living in an unfinished house so we offered to help them and do some service. So yesterday All four of us missionaries (Elder QSmith, me, Elder Michael, Elder C Ferreira) went to their house at 8:00 in the morning to help him with his house. We moved this huge pile of sand and while we were working, it started raining so we got soaked. It was good though to work with my hands. I got a couple of blisters but its all good. Then the other 2 elders had to leave to go teach, but Elder C Ferreira wanted to stay, so me and him stayed while Q Smith and Michael went and taught. It was good, we made cement and put it on the walls ( they don’t use sheetrock here. Its just blocks that they cover with cement) so I learned how to do that. It was really good to talk to them and we stayed there until 12:00, ate lunch there, and then went home. They really appreciated us doing that for them. Francisco was going to do it all by himself and just to move that pile of sand would have taken him all day. He reminds me a lot of dad, he has a mustache and is always doing a project around the house (he’s not as bald though). He built his house all by himself in 5 weekends. They are really a special family and we are going to continue to work with them and serve them. Well this is getting pretty long but so much is happening. Things are going great here and the time is just flying by. O ya, this past weekend was CARNAVAL!!! A few areas in the mission closed but here in Felipe Camarao it was actually a lot more calm. Everyone left to go to the beach or to the “interior”. There were some drunks dancing around the streets and some loud music but nothing bad. We didn’t even have to go to our apartments early at night like some areas had to. Anyway, I love you all and hope the best for all of you.Things are great and I am grateful every day for all my many many blessings.
Your son and BrotherElder Crosby