Elder Swalberg: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 - Christmas Conference in Rondonia

Hey everyone!

So this week sure was full of some great stuff! I dont have a whole lot of time today because the internet was really slow today! But I will try to do my best at sharing a little bit and will have pictures attached too!

Well the first thing that was really cool was working with our Ward Mission Leader. I think I commented about how great our leadership is here in this branch already, but really our WML is best of all. We planned a training night with him for 3 recent convert couples, because he had them all called as branch missionaries! EveryTuesday night we are having a trainging class to help them know how to teach the 5 missionary lessons. They will then help us teach our investigators before and after baptism. It was soooo cool to plan it with him, his name is Brother Neno, and then help him with the training. The sisters helped too! It went really well. I also sang with Brother Neno (Joesphs first prayer) as a musical arangement that we put together really quickly. It was really cool! He plays guitar too and sings really well! We will surelly be doing more of this! haha

The work here is going well. We are in the process of cleaning out our pool of investigators and finding a lot. Because they had a lot of investigators that showed a lot of interest, and are families too, but just arent keeping commitments, especially coming to church. So its sad, but at the same time, we know we did everything we could.

We have been preparing a song as a district for the chirstmas zone conference we had yesterday, and so Brother Neno let us use his guitar this week to practice and it was great to have to practice and more so when we have brought it to some of our lessons and members' homes. We have been able to play a christmas hymn in our lessons and to share as our messge at our meals! It really brings the spirit and has been really fun!

The Conference was yesterday, but we left here after lunch on sunday about 3:30 and go there about 10 at night. We had 12 Elders in one apartment that night with only 6 small beds and one hammock. There was really no way I was going to sleep well,...I ended up sleeping on the tile floor, my back didnt feel to well after that night but I did get about 4 hours of sleep. But the conference was really good. We had the training part yesterday morning, and then we had a great lunch at the house of Pres. Quiroz (1st counslor to President Castro) And then we had a gift exchange that we had prepared for. (the first pictures are of me with the gift I recieved from Elder Ryan the other American in our house here in our area, and I drew my own companions name, ahah, so I had made a case for a planner.) Then we had a slideshow of pictures of the mission in the past year, and then did the talent show. We plan the first noel but Part in Portuguese, part in English and part in Spanish. It turned out really well, and everyone liked it.

While I was there I got to see Elder Bateman again, and Elder Gardner, my MTC Companion who arrived in the mission 1 transfer after I did. It was so good to see him again. I attached a picture of the lunch table after the meal, and then one of me with Bateman and Gardner (Same district, after 1 year and 6 months we were finally all together in the Manaus Mission! haha)

But we left after the talent show and then went to the bus station and waited until our bus arrived, at 10:30 pm. While we waited 6 of us Elders went around walking like last time and we bought Açai, I will send pictures of that in another email here really quick. But then we arrived back in our area today at like 4:30 in the morning, and after we slept for a little bit we had our p-day. But this email ends p-day for this week and now we have a lesson to get to, and then the training again for the recent convert missionaries! Should be another great week! :)

Thanks so much for all the support and prayers!

Love yall!

-Elder Swalberg