Hey Everyone

Here´s one picture from outside our house.  There are these giant, super awesome apartment buildings in the middle of our area.  It´s gives a pretty stark comparison because they´re the only buildings with more than two stories for miles. 

So what´s everybody up to?  It looks like things are going well for everyone up in the states, and things are going great down here!  Let me tell you about it!

   My companion rocks.  He´s in his last transfer on the mission and after that he´ll return to Chile.  He isn´t a little bit "dead" to use missionary lingo, but is working his butt off with every hour, minute, and second that we have.  

It´s great!  This week I learned a ton about the relationship between hard work and smart work, and how we have to have the two together to be succesful.  We worked harder and smarter this week than I´ve ever worked, and I´m learning so much!  The mission really is the best experience in the world, so serve a mission!!!

   Right now we´re trying to help the missionaries here do two things, invite EVERYONE to be baptized and talk to lots of people.  Many times as missionaries we judge people and decide that they aren´t interested in the gospel, and so we don´t even invite them to be baptized or come to church.  We´re encouraging the missionaries to invite everyone to be baptized, without deciding for ourselves first if they´ll accept or not.  We had a neat experience with this yesterday, when Elder M. and I were teaching a man that we found knocking doors yesterday.  As we talked to him he didn´t seem to be to interested, but he said that he´d be able to go to church next sunday so we decided to enter the house and teach him.  We got in the house, said a prayer, and taught him about baptism.  Even though he didn´t seem to be too interested, we still invited him to be baptized and he accepted!  He seemed to get a bit more interested after the invitation to baptism.  This is just one of many instances that we see the importance of this priciple.  So, moral of the story: Don´t judge people!  Just invite everyone to hear the gospel and let them decide if they want it or not.

   I hope that all of you have an excellent week, and I love each one of you!  Always remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and pray earnestly to comprehend and appreciate more deeply his incredible gift to us.  This is the foundation to conversion!  Got to go now, but keep being awesome, tá?

Falou!!!!!   E boa semana para tudo o mundo!

Elder Sweet

I didn´t take a lot of pictures this week, but I´ll do better this next time around!   Anywho, more pictures to come next week, I promise!