Some Big Changes are Going Down!

Hello all!

So some big changes have gone down. Basically the following has
changed: We used to have an interview with the mission president,
every 6 weeks. Now it's being changed to once every trimester. We
have zone conferences now every 3 months as well. Every month, we
have 4 days of intensive training for 8 hours and we practice in
proselyting for the rest of the day. We're doing this to help prepare
the mission field for when the MTCs switch over to a new curriculum.
Basically it focuses heavily on teaching techniques to help improve
our lessons. I'm really excited, because this is something I'vealways tried to improve, but it's a little harder when I try to do it
myself. I like to have steps and guidelines that show me what it is I
need to do. I'm just weird like that I guess.

So these 4 days of training start tomorrow and go to Friday. Luckily
I'm in Teresina now, so I don't have to travel anywhere. Other Elders
have to travel from all the different areas and stay here in Teresina
for 4 days.

We had a pretty good week. We're helping a member with his addiction
to alcohol and cigarretes. I'm really excited to help him. It's been
going really good so far. He really wants to change, but he's just
heavily in this addiction. He's tried to quit before. But I hope as
we apply the Atonement to his efforts and help him avoid the triggers
and such he'll be able to overcome this addiction. Helping him really
makes me want to be a therapist. I've been thinking about it in the
past, but this is just steering me toward it even more.

So I sent 3 pictures today. The first one is Elder Manning on the
left, Elder Banks after him, ME in the awesome Rome soccer team shirt
(GO ITALY!), and Elder Santos! Elder Manning has a million and a half
soccer team shirts so we had fun taking pictures of them. The other
two are from Parnaíba. It's this place called Porto das Barcas. Ask
David what it means, because apparently he can understand Portuguese
but I remain in doubt ;) just kidding! It's where all the boats camein and docked. So they mantained it and it looks really cool at
night. I had fun taking pictures of it!

Anyway, I'll let you know how the training went!

Love you all!

Elder Rackham