Baptism!

Oi!

Well, Zeze got baptized! :D:D:D:D:D It was probably one of the best baptisms that i have had on my mission yet. Serioulsy, it was just a great spirit there. I´m soooo happy that she was able to get baptized :) It was wonderful! :) We found the most golden family too on saturday ever! I know we will be able to get them to church and baptism them! ah I just want to baptize baptize baptise! yes :P agora, they remind me so much of an american little family too, maybe that´s why I love them hahah :P haha.

It sounds like you guys are still having fun without me ;) haha. I bet that new star trek was awesome :P gots to see it. Mom, this itinerary i have been buggin the secretarties about for a bout 3 weeks and I finally recieved it too :p haha. But yes,l I bummed that i have to wait an extra 5 hours waiting! haha craziness! Hey, what are you shirt sizes? But It´s all good , it´ll give me time to think :) also phil and jess shoe size?

I think mountain mikes is what i want for dinner the night i get home :P haha. thinking about american food makes me trunkie :P haha. 

I can´t believe shawn is going on his mission! That´s craziness! This week I´m going to take out money just to let you know. Just in case money :)

Well, I got to keep going for a couple more weeks then I´ll see ya! :)

com amor,

Élder Grant Shaw Merrill!

Change!

Oi!

Well, I stayed in my area, obviously, haha and i have my new and last companion. HIs name is Elder Câmara, and he is exactly what i needed to help me endure to the end haha. He is a great missionary and very focused and it´ll be awesome. He´s kind of the oppoiste of my last companion that he´s really organized. So that´s good. We had really good sucess this week. We have 6 people that are possilbe to be baptized this week. One from last week fell through. But she is marked for this week now. So i´m pretty excited about that. If all goes well, we will bapitze her this week, a family of 4 and another lady. The other lady, Cíntia, is super interested in the church and it be great to teach her. I hope to contact another family we have but we still haven´t been able to do that. We are helping the zone out. This week was rough for them but we are planning on helping them out a bunch this week.

Hey, my reteiner (how do you spell) is getting old and gross. Is there any way that I can mark with bro bennion and get a new one? also, my card expires next month, so I think i will take some money this week just to make sure, so just make sure I got some money on my card , thanks pals :P hehe. 

So Adam is like offical now? that´s cool. 

Are the collins going to be here when i get home? I´m just wondering. 

Well, things are going well. I´m happy, working hard, and hopefully continue to baptize well. :) I love you guys and 5 more emails :P haha. But that´s for later :)

com amor,

Élder Grant Shaw Merrill!

6 more weeks

Oi!

It was great to see you guys. What a wonderful time. And now chegou the final 6 weeks of my mission. And it's time to go hauling. It seems like the wedding has fallen. After calling you guys, we went and visited them, and it didn´t look good. But, we probably will be having another baptism this week. I hope so.

It was great to talk to you guys. Hey, funny thing I did a while back! I shaved my chest. It got all prickly. hehe. oh well , it was fun. I hope that I can terminate my mission on a strong point. I will do what I can so that can happen. I can´t believe that gavin is talking already. It´s craziness! WHOA!! Haha... Man.. well, I guess I´ll have to wait to meet the others hehe. :P well, after seeing you guys, I don´t have much to say, I´ll have experiences this week, and let you guys know how this next week will go! :) (ps. my companion is so ready to go home :P haha)

com amor,

Élder Grant Shaw Merrill!

My companion has one week left O_o

Oi!

Well, we had a baptism this week! It was awesome! It was Carlos. He's a guy that we have been teaching for some time now. And finally a baptized and confirmed member. Firme as heck. Him and the other carlos both bore their testimonies this week. Way sick man :P daora.

Sad fact. Luana's parents didn't get married so we had to postpone the mom's baptism. They had a little fight because the dad forgot the rings :P haha. Oh well, rescheduled for the 17th. It'll be sweet!

It sounds like the YSA thingy was sweet! I'll be their soon :P haha. I'm not sure if i remember all of funky town dance. David will have to reteach me haha. Thanks dad for the list haha.

Yes 4:30 skype (12:30 your time) and i'll be skyping in the church so I'm pretty dang sure it'll be a good connection. But in just under 2 months we'll have a great connection :P hahaha. jk i'm focused hehe.

The zone is slowly getting better.

I can't believe I'm entering into my last transfer...

com amor,

Elder Grant Shaw Merrill!

Progress

Oi!

What´s up my peeps?!?!  This week was better. Some people that were to be baptized ended up not being baptized but there were some that were baptized. But another miracle did happen! This man that we had been teaching for sometime now, but recently he had been traveling, found us again and told us that he wants to be baptized! :) Yay! He had been going to chapel to chapel working for the church even. So he had a lot of contact with the church haha :) Taht´s great! So now, we will prepare him this week and get him ready for baptism! :D

Things are going well. We had a wedding on friday and then she´ll be baptized the saturday and confirmed sunday. woot woot! We got a lot of possibles in our zone this week. I´m pretty exctied! Here in a little bit this zone will be part of a new mission, but I´ll be home already! Whoa! Craziness to the max times 3!!!!!!!!!! For the past 3 transfers since I´ve been here in caragua we´ve had bikes, forgot to mention that. That´s been interesting... haha. We don´t ride them all the time, but if we are in a hurry or searching for people on sundays we use them. You should see me trying to ride a bike again :P haha. ... scary stuff man... I´m getting better.

We recieved a new washing machine! But! I think we burned it up, because it aint working. So still washing by hand. De boa. Just go! :)

So, probably 4:30 my time will work! I´ll make sure and let you know :) But sweet!!!!! That´s pretty exciting for Dallin! :) I bet he´s excited! It´ll be good for him. Is Jared happy with the new change? I bet a little sad a least. Dad! you keep making me want to go fishing more and more :P haha.

Alrighty, I`m heading out to clean up the house. :) See ya later!

com amor,

Élder Grant Shaw Merrill!!

P.s (If there is work in the bardyard for me to do when i get home, I call dibbs :P haha)

G-man jr, to the rescue!

Oi!

Man, it´s super disappointing when you have a lot of hope for something and then it doesn´t happen. But oh well, we baptized a lady in our area this weekend so that was good.She is a super awesome lady too! She is Marisa. She´s a miracle. She´s someone who we found my first transfer here in Caraguá and then the other missionareis here in caragua´ ended up teaching her. But nothing happened with her, then one day she found me and my companion on the road and told us that she wanted to go to church. So we went to her house and talked to her. She has cancer and had read half the book of mormon and prayed recieved an answer and like that she accepted getting baptized and really wanted to and went to church and then this week too and got baptized. And now she will be a firm memeber of the churhc! Woot!

So we tried a different tactic this weeek. Soccer :) We got a good turn out with it took and we hope to get some more references with it :P

Carlos (a recent convert) Got the priesthood this sunday. boom headshot! it was awesome :) He´s doing super well too.

This week we found some new peeps including a family. They seem prettty sweet. And the missionareis 5 years ago married them. Just still not baptized, so let´s finalize it! yeash! woot woot! Let´s go!

We went to Ubatuba today! Man, I want to go swimming :P haha. It´s super beautiful there :P It´s 10. It was funny there cause we had a little lunch and we got followed by a bunch of animals. Goose were being folgado (have phil translate the word I can´t think of a word for it) It´s like they were up in our faces and trying to eat all of our food. There was geese there, turkey, chicken, and other stuff. haha sweet.

That´s got to be rough for Jared, but I know he´ll be able to deal with it okay. I feel for him though, I would not have liked to do that. I miss that kid! I loved the picture.

It´s still weird thinking that DAvid is in house. I´m trying my best to concentrate on this mission :) don´t worry I´m working my butt off :P Just it´s interesting when you have a companion going home in a couple of weeks, your best bud is already home and you are going home in the next transfer. Won´t lie it´s a hard thing to concentrate, but that´s what I need to do right now, Because I really want these last 2 months to be the best theycan be :) (Ps. I think about those nachos a lot :P ahhahaha.)

So techinally I do have a date, just cause I know when the next transfer will end but my ticket hasn´t been bought yet, it´ll be bought in the next little bit though. So I´ll get home home on a thursday june the 27th. I´m guessing I´ll be gettting home around noonish. For example, my companion lives in Chico, Cal, and he gets home at 12:29 on may 16 and chico is close to home, so I suspect a similar thing. (ps. I want natalies :P hahaha. but that´s still to far away to talk about haha

Hey dad, I´m definitely calling. My companion doesn´t need to call. He´ll call and two-three days later he´s home hahah :P haha.

I heard about the boston marathon taht´s super sad, man.

Well, my peeps and other peeps, I´m kind of hyper and need to prepare some mad deep douctirne training haha just kidding. Man, I love being a missionary and I really am looking forward to some progress here in a little.

amo vocês. Eu tenho mutio orgulho por ser representante de Cristo. Não tem um chamdo mais sagrado do que esse. vou ser um pro resto de minha vida. Descuple mãe, não vou voltar ;) kkkk. tô bricando. te amo mãe, você é mais querida pra mim e sempre serei o seu filho querido.

com amor,

Élder Grant Shaw Merrill!

Come on!

Oi!

Well, our zone is still kind of stuck in a hole right now. We haven´t been having a lot of success lately and I´m trying to figure out what we could do differently to have more success. The last time it was like this for me was when I was in my second area. But in that case it was just my area and not the entire zone. But we will be able to get through it. We did find a miracle! In our area, we meet up with this woman that I had known a while back. Basically, we found her by visiting less active members and she was there and then we were going to visit her but we had to wait until after carnival but after carnival the other elders took the liberty and taught her. Well, they stopped visiting her because they never were able to find her in house and then she saw us on the sidewalk and told us she wanted to go to church. So we passed by her house and turns out she had said a prayer and received a response and read half the book of mormon and was wanting to get baptized! :) That´s the best ever! 

Luana´s parents marriage is marked for the beginning of next month! :) yay! it´s going to be so awesome :) 

I got to go, but I can´t believe DAVID´S HOME!!!!! THat´s crazy! ... man... really weird.. Tell me hi! probably alfready did haha... Hey I haven´t opened my garments yet but it looks like you just got those priests ones again? Could you get some souppy (how do you spell) neck ones too? Thanks :) It´s crazy that i have 2 and 1 half months left.... really strange, but let´s keep going until the end! :)

com amor,

Élder Grant Shaw Merrill!!!!!!

ps. first picture you sent me, is that shaun or tom?