The little engine that could?

I think the title of the email applies. Here in Parnaiba 3 are
starting to accelerate. We have 4 missionaries in total now like I
said last week and things were off to a slow start as we adjusted to
having new boundaries and working together instead of seperately in
order to help the branch. But like the little engine that could, he
started off slow but he chugged along and made it up the hill. I can
definitely see that we're chugging a long and pretty soon we'll be
really going!

Usually we have an average of 56 people at church on Sundays. But
with a few miracles, we had 72ish people this past Sunday! It's
amazing! We need to have a frequency of 120 people for 3 trimesters
in order to have authorization to build a chapel in this part of the
city. Another thing that was really cool: we've been teaching this
family, it started with the parents, then they weren't keeping the
commitments so we started teaching the grandmother, and things were
better with her, so we passed by her house to bring her to church this
Sunday but she gave us an excsuse (it may have been legitimate, I'm
not sure). But she pointed out her grandson and said that he wanted
to go. We never taught him. He listened to a few of our lessons, but
never a full one. We never invited him to pray about Joseph Smith or
read the Book of Mormon, but he wanted to go. So we took him. We
introduced him to some people and he took a look around, found a room
he was comfortable in and talked with a few of the members. After the
2nd hour, the 1st counselor of the branch presidency called Elder
Souza and Elder Santos over. Talis, the kid we brought, said that he
wanted to be baptized next Sunday, Mother's day! He has a Book of
Mormon already and he's made friends. It's just amazing how this
works out sometimes. This Sunday went amazing, and the week was only
so so. We have a potential 12 baptisms this next Saturday and Sunday
and they're all really good, firm baptisms that will stay strong in
the church.

I have learned a lot of things this week, mostly about pride and
humilty. Unfortunately I learned it the hard way. But in times of
difficult and trials, I think we tend to learn the most. I can't
imagine how much more I will learn and grow. But this week was one of
the weeks with the most learning and growing. Things continue to look
up!

Oh yeah, I'm officially addicted to Coca-cola now. They have these 1
liter glass bottles here that are returnable so it makes them really
cheap. In Teresina and Timon they were 1.50 reais, here in Parnaiba
they're a little more expensive, 2.00 reais, but it's cheaper than the
plastic bottles. Let's just say that I share one bottle with my
companion Elder Banks pretty much everyday. It's delicious!

Until next week!

Love,
Elder Rackham