Week 47: "And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: 'We will not go quietly into the night!' We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive!"

Today we celebrate our Independence Day!!

(Thanks to the people that sent me the quote to help me out!)

Hey everybody!!

So, its been an interesting week for me here in Julio de Mesquita. This email will have a different format, largely because nothing interesting happened with the work, and everything interesting happened in other news of my life/the mission. So, lets start with the biggest and work on down.

Firstly, I am FINALLY being transferred!! Our new mission president, President Farnes (more on him later) is doing transfers differently, so Ill be able to tell you about transfers before I get transferred! So, tomorrow, I return to the grand city of São Paulo, to an area called Amador Bueno (yes, that is Spanish, I believe for "Good Lover", so this should be interesting.) It is part of a zone that Ive heard has a ton of baptisms and success, so we'll see what happens. I'll be working with Elder Baron, who arrived with me in the field, and he's super legit, so it should be a freaking awesome transfer. 

Also with this, I was called to be a District Leader! It really doesnt change a whole lot for me, but it just adds a bit more responsibility for me. Basically, I'll be running trainings that we missionaries do on Tuesdays (itll be a group of 8 misisonaries or so, I think,) talk to missionaries a couple times a week to see how things are going, and when people are ready to be baptized, I get the honor to interview them to see if theyre ready for baptism or not. So thatll be cool!

And, we got to meet our new mission president this week! He seems absolutely awesome! Although hes still relearning Portuguese, President Farnes has a giant vision for the mission! Hes already changing a TON of things, including liberating service projects and more things that we can do on P-Day! And he seems to be freaking intelligent. When people asked questions, he could just open up his scriptures and give an answer. So Im super stoked for the future!

And in World Cup news, the Brazilians have started to calm down a bit about the cup. Unfortunately, Neymar (the star player) broke his back, so...hes not playing with a broken back. And theyll play on Tuesday, but its against Germany, who will destroy them. But I have hope!!

But yeah, life is pretty good here this week. ANd next week, Ill send you all an email from Amador Bueno! Thanks for everything! Love you all! Until next week!

Elder Youd