Jan 28, 09

So many things have happened this week. I don’t know if I’ll have time to go through everything. Well, Elder Cook came and spoke to us. It was very cool. I got to shake his hand, along with the rest of the missionaries (it was cool, but I have actually had a conversation with him before at the church office building) which I actually talked to him about at the conference here. I talked to him a little about the people I used to work with there at the church office building and he said he´d tell them I said hello. Ha-ha. Can you imagine? Elder Cook...an apostle of the Lord, is doing me a favor and telling my ex-coworkers I said hi. Ha-ha I thought that was really quite humorous. Anyway...his talk was AMAZING. I felt like it was just for me. Seriously. He talked a lot about how to be a better missionary and such...and he told us that there is no better place for us to be right now than here, serving the Lord and spreading the gospel. He couldn’t be more right. I really needed to hear what he had to say because we went through a couple of rough days last week where we didn’t teach a single lesson. Wow. It’s hard to find people in our area...but we´re chugging along. Oh yeah, and at our zone conference we were asked to fast for a baptism. Our entire zone was supposed to have a baptism this week. Well, Sis Bueno and I did what were asked and fasted, but we knew we didn’t have anyone to be baptized...our only progressing investigator is on vacation right now. Well, we had a miracle. One of the ladies in our ward has a friend and she brought her to church last week...and then again this week. We started teaching her. After the first lesson, we challenged her to pray and ask heavenly father if this was the true gospel. She received a very special and personal answer and she agreed to be baptized....ON MY BIRTHDAY! Wow. It was truly a joyous day. It is truly a blessing to be a part of someone’s conversion process. I highly recommend it to everyone :) It was very special to see her progression in such a short amount of time. She already knows a lot about the Bible and has a very special relationship with Heavenly Father and now she has gained a testimony of his true and living gospel on the earth! There is nothing more special than that. I can’t express to you how I feel about this. I couldn’t be more excited for her. This is just the first step she needs to make in order to return to live with our Heavenly Father once again, but it is certainly a necessary step. Wow. It’s exciting. On another note, some ward members found out my birthday is on Saturday and they want to have a birthday party for me. How sweet huh? So we´re going to have some cake and celebrate on Friday. I´m excited. Well...we went to the temple today for the first time. It was very cool. Man...Try going through the veil in Portuguese...that was rough. Ha-ha. The temple is beautiful though. I only have 5 minutes left here...anyway....um, no, I haven’t gotten your packages yet...I’m waiting patiently....okay, more impatiently...I probably annoy the secretaries asking them every time we go to the mission office if my package is there yet. I don’t know when it’s going to come. It’s been more than 3 weeks. Hopefully sometime before next week...transfers next week!!!! Wow. I don’t know whets going to happen. I don’t know if I’ll stay here or not. I’ll let you know.
Tchau
Com Amor,
Sister Ortolani