Another great week

Everyone, what is up? (Jim Rome...?)   Sorry for sending some pretty lackluster letters lately. So first off, our mission broke the area record for baptisms in a week this week, 85! Whoa. That was cool. And our new mission president is changing a LOT of things up, for the better I might add, this week to help us be more effective. (Like zone P days). Hollaback! Okay, so, taking my mom´s advice, I started writing stuff down that happened this week so I could remember it for the weekly letter. Well, it mostly ended up as a bunch of funny quotes from my companion and I as we make astute observations about the world around us. So I´ll just kinda throw them in this letter as it happens. But as for the good stuff, we picked up two new families this week. They´re Jehovah´s witnesses so they were really tough to start teaching, they invited us in to bible bash, which we don´t do, and jokes on them because they´re marked for baptism on the 7th of August. Oh, also, Eric´s dad wants to be baptised but the thing is he´s just living with Marlí, ( a normal thing here), and she´s not divorced from her first husband here yet... and Renato´s a little crazy. But hopefully they can prayerfully consider what to do and get things moving in the right direction. They have this awful dog, ironically named Alegria (Joy), that is ALL OVER THE PLACE, and bites the crap out of my ankles all the time. So I mildly hate going over there, but it´s been really cool seeing their lives change as they´ve re-opened to the gospel. We also are teaching two exceptional young men who go to the church to play volleyball with the ward twice a week, Felipe and Caique, and they´ve been going to church lately. They really love Gospel Principles class because it´s so easy to understand. And yesterday they showed up at church with a shirt and tie and everything! Imagine my surprise. The only thing is these guys grew up without a christian background so we have to teach them starting with who Jesus Christ is, and why he´s important and everything so it´s a little slow, but they live in the ghetto so it´s always fun to go teach them. Oh, one of the people we´ve been teaching for 40 years, Volquiria, will be baptized finally this coming week. If all goes according to plan. Last time she was supposed to be baptized, they had a VERY SERIOUS family emergency and she went into limbo (yes, like Inception) and pulled out for a little, so I hope she can step up this week and follow her faith into eternal bliss. Here´s something that´ll make Mom laugh. This week we were walking down the street with all the car dealerships and saw a motorcycle. It was really sweet. Flat black, with auburn accents and everything. Just like, boom. Then at a closer look it had a name on the side of it, and that name was... Motard. Haha. Motard! Does 6 year old Brad own that motorcycle? It was hilarious. Elder Holmes didn´t get it. Also, we celebrated the release of the Dark Knight Rises this week by eating yogurt. Don´t ask me how it relates, because it doesn´t. Also, the streets here are dangerous to cross so we often just run across the street out of instinct and Holmes did it once with absolutely no traffic, and when I got to the other side of the street he said, "Speaking of uneccessary run..." but I thought he said uneccessary nun, because there was a nun on the other side of the street so now whenever we see a nun we say "speaking of uneccessary nun.". I don´t really expect anyone else to think that´s too funny. But let me just say we have quotes that would make Paul Sorenson proud. Last awesome experience of thwe week. Last night we went to have a family home evening with our favorite family (Barbara´s) and Barbara invited her new boyfriend, Leandro (yes, I baptized him too). Let me just say, I could not be any more proud of anyone up to this point in my life than I already am of this whole entire family. They did the whole thing. Prayers, maessages, spiritual thought, everything, and it was literally spiritually ground shaking. It was nuts. Barbara was just testifying on one side of the room, Dulcemir was sharing her conversion story on the other side of the room, Wellington was talking about serving a mission neext year, and they ALL (including Leandro) have set a goal to get to the temple next year. I can not adequately communicate the feelings I was feeling in that house last night other than that family already has made this mission worth it. And in the end of this life, seeing them on the other side, will be the greatest reward I can imagine, for my short, and sometimes falting service to my Lord. I am not perfect. I have a TON of weaknesses and difficulties. But these difficulties are making me the man I need to be in the future. But, I will keep working hard because experience has taught me that I´ll be grateful for this stuff in a bit. Thanks everyone. Have a great week.   Elder Marley