A last assignment in Abaetetuba

So, this last week has been good.  I was not transferred after all.  I will stay here in Abaetetuba for about 6 more weeks with Elder A.  We had two baptisms this week, Leiliani (19) and José-Maria (11).  I feel weird about staying here in Abaetetuba for another 6 weeks.  I really wanted to stay to see some of my investigators progress, but for other reasons I was ready to move on.  But, over all it will be a great experience to continue to work with the members here and to learn to work better with my companion. 

My companion fell asleep twice during lessons a few days ago and I kind of freaked out at him, more because I thought that I was going to be transferred and I don't want the area to die when I leave.  He isn't very involved in planning and gets lost frequently during splits.  I tried to get him to make a plan to stop falling asleep in lessons because it really hurts our image and weakens our teaching.  He started complaining about the fact that he has had this problem for his whole mission.  He kind of gave up and said that he wouldn´t change anything because he already tried.  I ended up telling him that he had tons of things that he could do to stay awake: go to bed on time, exercise in the morning, eat less during lunch, participate more in the lessons.... etc.  I told him that I would try to help him change so that he we could help our investigators better.  I don't know; we will see how it turns out. 

Our mission is in overdrive right now, preparing for General Conference and the temple announcements.  Our mission baptized 70 people this last week!  Pres. Campos is finishing his mission strong and he is determined to shape up the mission and not send slackers on to the next mission president.  He made it very clear to the mission that if they where not willing to work, they could call him and in 30 minutes he could have them in a car to the airport.  I like that.  I think it's really frustrating to work with someone that doesn't pull their own weight.  But my comp isn't going to be sent home, he wants to work but just hasn't figured it out yet.  I'm going to work with him really hard so that we both can get better. 

So I got some letters this last week and I sent 2 today.  Hopefully they get to you all this week, last week they didn't get sent ; (.   Yeah.  So, I'm really thankful for the letters you all have sent me and hope you are all continuing to work hard!  Sorry, Emma, I'll write you an individual e-mail this next week. 

Pictures:

We had two baptisms.  The picture with the boy and the grandpa is of José-Maria, an 11 year old boy found and baptized in less than a week (he had already gone to church a lot we just didn´t know he wasn´t baptized).  The picture with me and the fruit that looks like an apple is forbidden fruit that Eve eats.  Yup, sorry Ellis, but the forbidden fruit is not a peach.  The other pic with the darker young woman is Leiliani 19, who was baptized this week.  She found us and was super easy to teach.  And the other picture is of Ataize 17, and Izani 15.  Ataize was baptized last week and Izani hasn't been baptized yet.

Yeah, so that's all I got with pictures.  I hope they attach themselves.

Sorry something happened with the Internet, so here is only one picture (Leiliani).
Love Ben