Gravy

Hello to all and a Happy Thanksgiving! All is well here in Manaus. The rainy season has officially begun and it seems like all it does is rain. It is a season true to its name. Just in case you are wondering, they do not have "Turkey Day" here for obvious reasons...it's not the United States of America.

This was a good week. Nothing too different happened except for some serious street flooding, which is amazing to watch happen. Yesterday, we were walking around our area and it started pouring all of a sudden, so we took shelter under a tree. Within minutes, there was a river flowing in the street about half a foot deep the full width across.

This was a cool week for the Church here because it was Stake Conference. However, it is not exactly the same as it is back home. It was a broadcast that went out to only three areas: Manaus, Fortaleza, and Brasilia. Elder Christopherson and President Eyring spoke along with Sister Julie Beck. It was interesting. They all spoke very broken Portuguese except for President Eyring who chose to speak English, which I didn't mind at all.

As far as teaching goes, we continue to teach new people every week, but there is a core group that we stick with. In actuality, these people are the only ones progressing. Maricia and Patrick (who are niece and uncle) were baptized last Friday. I know it sounds weird, but it's true...they are only four years apart in age.

Something pretty interesting occurred this week. We heard that the Baptist preacher (who is having his congregation raise money to buy him a car) completely smashed our missionary work here. We have converted approximately five people from his church and it appears that he isn't very happy about it. He said essentially that our entire religion is a big lie and to keep the missionaries away. He warned his congregation to not even talk to us. So, now as we walk down certain streets, everyone runs inside and shuts their door. By the way people flee when they see us, I feel like a bandit walking through a town in a western movie.

On a lighter note, we have two more baptisms marked for the 6th and quite a few investigators still progressing. Rather than being known as the local missionaries, the locals call us out by name and wave hello because we've been in the area so long. It's pretty cool to see majority of the community support our work. Sorry, no wild animal encounters this week, but I hope you enjoy the picture from the last baptisms we had. Elder Cavalcante, the new missionary, is the second from the right. Take care and have a great week.

Elder Taylor Mackay