The Promised Land

I made it!  I love it here in Rio Branco!

Hello!  To Answer your questions...

My companions is Elder Parmenter. He is from St. George and he has only three months on his mission. I am his second companion. Remember that I told you guys that I got to take some brand new missionaries out on their first day when I was in Carrasco? Well I took out Elder Martinez who is Elder Parmenter´s trainer. Elder Martinez es un capo! He has been killing it up here in Rio Branco and they have been seeing good success.

I honestly love it here, but getting here wasn't that fun. We went in bus to Melo. Melo is part of our zone and is where the zone leaders are and most of the missionaries in the zone live. Oh the zone leaders are Elder Leavitt (who is from my group, he is a stud) and Elder Gallacher (He lived with me in Florida). They are super awesome. But the day of changes we left Montevideo at like 3 in the afternoon, but didn't get to Melo until like 9:30. My comp was in Melo waiting for us to get there. We ended up staying the night there in the zone leader's house, and then we got up at like 5:30 to catch an hour and a half bus ride to Rio Branco. So we got here on Thursday morning.

The area is really awesome. The whole Melo zone is known in our mission as the "Promised Land", because they tend to have a lot of success. And that is what is happening here in Rio Branco. We live in a pretty nice house;) with two other elders: Elder Vaatuitui (he is from Liberty, Utah but yes he is Somoan) and Elder Ramirez (from Idaho). It is a ward, not very big, but yes a ward. All four of us are in the same ward. I am still District Leader, and I love it! Elder Ramirez is also a district leader... kind of interesting having two DL in one house.

Seriously though it is awesome here. We had two investigators who were planning their baptism, but they had to have an interview with President Cook because they had an abortion. Abortion is a big problem here, there are so many people that have participated in them... really sad. But Adelia and Ledo our investigators are really awesome and it was a long time ago. Any who, President Cook and Hna Cook came up here on Saturday and did the interview. Well Pres did the interview while Hna Cook was shopping at something they call here the free shops. Everything is a lot cheeper here than anywhere else in Uruguay because we are close to Brasil. But the interview went great, and they are going to be baptised on Saturday! Oh I have a story to tell about the baptism but I'll tell it next week.

We may also have another baptism on Saturday. Her name is Marina and she is from a part member family. She is I think 10 years old and really cool, but she couldn't come to church because she was at her mom's house which is outside of town in the middle of no where. Anywhere outside of town we call la campaña, just like the fields. But even without Marina in church we had 8 investigators come to church. It was such a miracle!!! We weren't expecting like half of them either. They were just friends that members had brought or people that just showed up. I don't even know what happened, but it was amazing. I think that a big part of it is that Elder Parmenter had a big desire to be obedient and work, which is just a little different than Elder Brown. I believe that all the success is due to Elder Martinez and Elder Parmenters diligence and also our obedience this week. But hey I just saw the mission newsletter and it said that Carlos from Lomas de Solymar got baptised on Saturday - that makes me so happy!

Guys I love the mission. I'm glad to hear that everything is going great there. Macy is stinking going home this week, I literally can't believe it!!! 

I love you all more than you will ever know.

Elder England

On our 8 hour journey to Rio Branco