"I made a promise with myself and the Lord that this week I would be as perfect as I can possibly be, haha. I don´t want anything on my part to keep this family from progressing and entering into God´s kingdom."

Dear Mom and Dad,

That´s great to hear about your inspired dream. It´s amazing how the Lord speaks to us in so many ways. The Plan of Salvation is now my favorite lesson to teach. At the beginning of the mission, I always thought that the Plan of Salvation was the most complicated and difficult lesson to teach, but I realized rather recently that it can be a turning point for people. After all, it is the exact same plan that was presented to ALL of us in the pre-existence, and our purpose in this life is to make a choice: to accept and live the Gospel, thus fulfilling God´s plan, or to reject it and never reach our divine potential. Eternal life and happiness, or eternal damnation and misery. The choice is ours, and we make that choice through faith and repentance expressed by good works, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.

As for the work here in João Pessoa, we had great success this week! We had ten of our investigators attend church yesterday, including a family of six (and the parents are MARRIED!) We found them on saturday, and we will be working with them this week and doing everything to mark a baptismal date. This family has 3 teenage sons and a pre-teen daughter, so they are for sure future missionaries. I made a promise with myself and the Lord that this week I would be as perfect as I can possibly be, haha. I don´t want anything on my part to keep this family from progressing and entering into God´s kingdom. On top of that, we have a mother and son who (with a lot of faith) are preparing to be baptized this week. The son is absolutely ready, he even went to the youth campout last weekend. The mother has a few things to work out, but it´s nothing the Lord can´t help with. I hope to have great news in next week´s email!

How ´bout them Hogs, eh? Sounds like they´re starting to climb back up the ladder! We´ll see what bowl they´ll be going to in a couple of weeks now.

Happy Thanksgiving!!! Make sure to send a hug to all the family! People down here are putting up Christmas lights already. It´s really weird, because as long as I´m being broiled in this Paraíba sun, I
just can´t get used to the fact that it´s the Holiday season, haha. Oh, and one more big news! Last week, my MTC companion, Elder Beavers, finally arrived in Brasil! So now, all 8 of my MTC group are here in the mission! And his "trainer" is my former companion, Elder Castro, haha. I´m sure he´ll adapt quickly, he´s a great Elder.

That´s it from Brasil this week! I love you all! And Christmas is just around the corner! Looks like I'll have to start working out the details for the anticipated skype call. It all depends if I stay here in this area next transfer or not. Transfers will be December 10th, in just over 2 weeks.

Com amor,
Michael