Learning the Ropes

Hey Dad,

I have had an exciting week.  I have been a little stressed, and have not gotten enough sleep but I think things will calm down now.  

First off, something about emails.  I think that it would be best if you all continued to send emails on Monday morning.  Because I don't have a p-day that is the same every week it will be best for me if you continued to send emails in the same way.  If you all would like to send emails on other days of the week feel free but I may or may not be able to read them, but it is always nice to get unexpected messages.

Last week we did a division. Elder Moreno went to Entroncamento (45 min going by bus) and I stayed here in Telegrapho.  I worked with Elder Cardozo, who is from Paraguay, on Friday until Sunday.  We both were new in the area and we did not know anyone, members or nonmembers, so it was a bit rough.  We looked in the area book for a few people to visit but the records were really old -- 2008. So we spent a lot of time doing contacts.  Unfortunately we were not able to locate many of these people.  But at the end of the week, I had a meeting with the Bishop and he helped a lot.  Unfortunately for me I will have difficulties working in the area because I will be traveling a lot this month.  So that will be a challenge without work in Telegrapho.  

We had a zone council yesterday.  So the past few days we have planned the topics of our talks/trainings.  I still feel a bit lost in my calling and I don’t talk a lot in the meetings we have with Pres. Scisci, mostly because I don’t know what to say...yet.  I´m learning fast.  At the Zone council I gave training on how to help missionaries become more resilient.  There is an all too common problem with missionaries staying dedicated and constant in their work.  Many times missionaries lose their drive when they encounter difficulties.  Ironically that is the time when we need to work even harder.  I shared an article from the Liahona about how to raise more resilient children.  It was an interesting article and had a bunch of principles that can be applied to leaders in the mission field as well as parents. When I read the article I noticed a lot of tactics/principles that you and mom had already used raising us.  I think that they worked.  

This week I will be flying to Macapá to go on divisions with the elders there and have a zone conference. I will leave tonight and get back on Wednesday of next week.  After that I will fly to Santarém that is located at the fork of the Rio Negro and the Rio Tapajós.  So that will be exciting. I have to go and prepare for the trip now!!

I love you guys!!!

Ben