I'm three weeks away from leaving the office. Woohoo! Only two more Pdays after this one and I'm out.
This week we had one more baptism. Adriene (see photos), Andreia's neighbor was baptized. She has a very strong testimony about the Book of Mormon, and had a great desire to be baptized, but the problem was that she worked on Sundays in the morning. We finally convinced her to just simply tell her boss "I can't work on Sundays anymore" and she did. And he was fine with it! It was fantastic.
This week President Frei got a letter from the First Presidency stating that Pass Along Cards are no longer to be used by missionaries. Only members can give them out now. Now we no longer have an "in" to talk to people. I always go up to people in the street with a card in my hand and say "can I leave this present with you?" and then start in on the conversation. Now I have to find a new tactic.
But on Monday, our first day without cards, I got off the bus and the very first lady that I went to talk to was very excited to talk to me. I got her address and marked to go to her house the next day. On tuesday when we went there, we taught her about the Word of Wisdom and the Book of Mormon with her. She gave us all her cigarettes and lighters and we marked her baptismal day for the 5th of April. We went there again last night and she not only read the part that we marked for her, but five more pages. She hasn't smoked since we took her cigarettes and is very excited to go to church with us on Sunday and to be baptized on the 5th.
We got kicked out of our apartment last week because they made a new rule in the apartment building that says that the people who live in the apartment have to remain there, and since the assistants and secretaries are always changing and every six weeks people come and go we have to find a new place to live. We'd been looking all week, and finally found one that accepted us. We'll probably move in next week. Unfortuantely, I wont have much time to enjoy the new house.
Elder Rodrigo's birthday was on Tuesday and some of the members made a cake and threw a party for him (see photo). Then on Wednesday President and Sister Frei invited us all over for cake and ice cream to celebrate as well. Score.
'Til next week!
Love,
Elder Sisco

- Elder Montgomery, Kaylor Sister Frei's nephew, and me
- Missionaries and Andreia
- Everyone at Andreia and Moacir's baptism: Bishop William, Andreia, Moacir, Erondina (his wife), Irmã Irma (a supportive member), Adrienne (friend of andreia), me, montgomery, rodrigo, rospirski.
- The 4 secretaries.

enjoy!
Elder Sisco

Today we went to play soccer again with all the missionaries here in Belo Horizonte. It was way fun, especially since my team won most of the time. Not much thanks to me, but it's still satisfying. And now I am broken. I probably will have difficulty walking tomorrow.
This week Andreia finally got baptized! Thanks for all your prayers and help. I'm so happy- it only took her six weeks. Sheesh! I think most missionaries would have dropped her by now. But she decided it was time, and went through with it on Sunday. Also, Moacir, the husband of a member in our ward, got baptized after many months of attending church. The missionaries in this ward have been teaching him for a long time before I got here. We'd been there, stopped, gone back, stopped, etc. quite a few times while I've been in theis area as well. But something changed and he finally decided he needed to take that step.
So far this month we've baptized four people, and the assistants have baptized two. If we hit 10 we will break the Staff record for one month! We have two strong prospects for this next week, and so do the assistants. It's looking like a definite possibility. Woohoo!
Elder Montgomery and I found this lady through a street contact named Elizabeth. She lives alone with her two 19 year old twin sons, Matheus and Lucas. They are jerks and treat her very poorly, and also she is crazy.
On Saturday when we went there she was at home with her son Matheus, and she was making dinner, so she stayed in the kitchen while we talked to him. We kept inviting her to come participate, and she kept saying "I'm making a delicious cake for you all. You're going to stay and eat dinner with us." And we had already been there for like, 45 minutes. I asked if I could wash my hands, and walked over to the kitchen where she was. When I opened the door, a cloud of cigarette smoke wafted its way into my face and I saw her standing there with a burning cigarette in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other, churning the cake mix. On the counter next to her was an empty beer can. I quickly washed my hands and went back and told Elder Montgomery "we need to go, I'm not eating here." Matheus left, and we told her we needed to go and she kept saying "no, you're going to stay for dinner." She came out and sat down with a glass of wine in her hand, offered some to us and was like, "okay, I'm ready now." So we started teaching the first lesson to her. When we got to the end, and tried to mark a baptismal date with her, she resisted. She acted like she wasn't going to accept, so we decided to leave. We asked if we could say a prayer and end the lesson. Then she got very serious and said, "You are not going to abandon me. I need help. I deserve help. No one helps me. Don't you dare abandon me," as she pointed her finger in our faces. We told her to keep reading the Book of Mormon, praying about it, and to be at church on Sunday. She did all those things, so now we have no choice but to go back and teach her. She's pretty crazy, but maybe there's hope for her and her family.
At church on Sunday a couple people commented to Elder Montgomery and me: "Whose that lady? Is she your investigator? She's pretty weird." So it looks like she'll fit in well.
Sister Frei's family came down to visit last week, including her 13 year old nephew Kaylor. On thursday we invited him to go proselyting with is. It was lots of fun- even though he didn't understand anything, he seemed to enjoy it as well. He told his parents that the highlights were riding the packed city buses, doing contacts with people and seeing cockroaches on the street.
On Monday we got a phone call from the owner of our apartment telling us that she wanted to pay us a visit and see the state of the apartment. No one went to their area to work on monday night. We all went home to clean the house and make it at least appear decent. Yesterday morning when she went to see, she said, "you're going to have to move out." Apparently not because of the apartment, but because the rules changed in the apartment building and they no longer accept the fact that the people living in the apartment always changes- because of transfers and all that. So we have 30 days starting yesterday to find a new place, and to get out of the apartment that the missionaries have lived in for eight years. Dang.
Welp, that's all the news I have for this week. Hopefully I'll hear from you guys later.
Love,
Elder Sisco

Here are the pictures from Yasmin's baptism that was on Sunday. She chose me to baptized her! She's the daughter of that member Adão (Adam). In the first picture is Elder Rodrigo and me, her, Adão, her two little siters and Adão's fiancé Antonia
The other one is the four of us, Elder Rospirski, Rodrigo, Montgomery and me with Yasmin.
Até mais,
Elder Sisco

I almost forgot that I have pictures to send.
Here they are:

- Elder Rodrigo and I with the Bishop, wearing the poncho that we gave him as an... us going away present. He loves camping and outdoors-y stuff. He loved the poncho.
- Elder Rodrigo and I and Gilvano in front of the church before his baptism on Sunday
- Elder Rodrigo and I and Gilvano right before his baptism on Sunday
- I thought someone might find this interesting. Elder Rospirski did Curt Cobain's baptism and confirmation in the temple... yes, Curt Cobain the lead singer from Nirvana. Not that I support them or anything, i just thought it was interesting. Maybe I'll try to do Paul Simon's temple work when he dies...

Enjoy!
Love,
Elder Sisco

I have a few rather interesting/exciting things to report this week, finally.
First off, we took our Pday today instead of tomorrow because the Belo Horizonte Zone Pday was today and a bunch of the missionaries rented an indoor soccer field/court (Futebol de Salão, if that makes more sense) so we all went to play.
There were enough people for three teams of six, so we made a Staff Team. We spent the majority of the time on the field because Elder Do Nascimento, one of the assistants, is a soccer fiend, so we lost very infrequently.
At one point I was going down the sideline with the ball, and this one Elder (American, obviously) came running at me, slipped on the synthetic grass and crashed into me, took my legs out from under me, and threw me into the concrete wall. It hurt. A lot. But I'm good now.
But I made some sweet goals before being taken out of the game.
Important news and events:
I am now training my replacement, and Elder Rodrigo is training his. That means we are now four secretaries, and six people in our apartment. Elder Montgomery from Mesa, AZ will be taking my place. I will be leaving the office on the 15th of April. Elder Rospirski from Santa Catarina in the south of Brazil will be taking Elder Rodrigo's place.
On Sunday night President Frei went to get them in their areas and dropped them off at the chapel where we were having our baptism.
Yes, OUR baptism. Andreia, however, was not baptized. She got "sick" and said she wants to wait just a little bit longer. She did not go to church on Sunday. I will be so relieved when she finally gets baptized. It's giving me a headache.
Last night we went to her house (Elder Montgomery and I) and we were talking to her seated outside in front of her apartment and this drunk guy came up to the gate and started talking to the three of us. He was talking about how he had seen us (the missionaries) and he just need to come over and congratulate us for the great work that we are doing. Then he started testifying about how the church is the only true church and how if he had followed the council the missionaries gave him in the past he wouldn't be in such a rough situation like he is right now. He smelled horrible and talked forever, but at the same time he was kind of testifying, so we decided to let him keep talking. He said he was baptized about 10 years ago and was a fool and stopped going and now he's paying for that decision. Eventually he started repeating everything he had already said and mixing that with some nonsense, so I told Elder Montgomery to talk to Andreia while I tried to get the guy to leave us alone. After about ten more minutes he finally left.
Elder Montgomery was talking to her about putting on the armor of God, and how after her baptism she would have the help of the Lord to get through the trials and temptations in her life. She's scared about taking that "leap of faith". So I asked her if she had ever seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. She had not, but I explained the situation to her: Indiana Jones is standing at the edge of a large cavern/canyon inside a giant cave and he needs to get to the other side. Suddenly he remembers the words of the old knight or whatever he was (I couldn't remember what the words were, if anyone could help me out that'd be great. I think I'll probably use this example in the future, I liked it.) that had something to do with a leap of faith. I stood up on the bench we were sitting on: "And you know what he did? He stepped off of the edge. But he didn't fall. He stepped onto solid earth. And the same thing is going to happen to you when you're baptized. You can't see your life after your baptism from where you are right now; you can only see where you are and where you want to be- but I promise you that the Lord will support you once you demonstrate your faith and take that next step forward." I don't know if I stated the scene from the movie correctly, but it worked to get the point across. And she seemed to understand it quite well.
Anyway, Gilvano was baptized on Sunday. Our first baptism in almost three months! (I'll send pictures after) I think I explained last week but he's the fiancé of a less active woman. Now that he has shown interest in the church she and he go together, and they're even going to get married in the church at the beginning of April (they are keeping the law of chastity, yes). The baptism was awesome, the Spirit was very strong.
There's another guy that we taught who is the husband of a member; he's named Moacir. I say we "taught" him because he made it very clear that he had no intention of keeping the commandments or following the church. He told us two weeks ago that he wanted to be baptized on the 28th of February "para que ela deixe de encher meu saco." In other words: so that my wife will stop pestering me about it (but in much harsher words). We decided baptizing him wouldn't be the best idea.
But on Sunday he came to church with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. He said he wants to be baptized on the 15th, and it's for him, not for her this time. I'm still skeptical, but Rodrigo thinks he's telling the truth. We'll see how it goes.
The daughter of that member is going to be baptized this Sunday hopefully together with Andreia. Elder Rodrigo and Rospirski are responsible for the little girl, Yasmin, and Elder Mongomery and I are accompanying Andreia.
Hopefully everything will go as planned. Keep those prayers coming, please. She hasn't been baptized yet! I think I said this already, but Andreia told us last night that she has watched the copy of the Restoration that we loaned her like, 15 times. She was like "I guess I should probably give it back to you. But let me just watch it one more time and I'll give it to you on Friday." I told her as long as she wanted to keep watching it she could keep it.
Well, that's all the news I have for now. Next week our Pday will return to Thursday as normal. Sorry about the confusion this week. It was a last minute decision that we all made yesterday to go play soccer today.
Transfers are next Wednesday, so this is going to be a very busy week for us. We have to get everything ready... I have to train Elder Montgomery how to do it all at the same time.
'Til next week,
Elder Sisco