It was a very merry Christmas 26 DEC 2011

Well my dear family,
This week was rather spectacular. We are extremely tired today, because we were running to and fro trying to close the deal on our baptisms for the week. Saturday we had one baptism, Francisco, but the others fell through, because they decided to visit family for Christmas at the last minute. No worries though, they´ll baptize on the 31.
On Thursday we had to travel to Uberlandia for a Christmas zone conference. We had a normal Brazilian Christmas dinner, which included: rice, beans, lettuce, turkey and chicken. For dessert we had ice cream. I saw Elder Wolsey and said hi. President Prieto spoke a lot about love in our work, and about how we have to develop a Christlike love with our companions and with those we teach. Sister Prieto talked about how we normally only look at peoples defects, but we can´t do that, because we ourselves aren´t perfect. She had her baby granddaughter in her arms and compared how the only perfect people are babies, because they came directly from the presence of the father. She said that when we treat God´s children badly based on their imperfections it´s like taking that precious baby and chucking it across the room. When she said that last part, she took the baby and chucked it at a missionary, who almost had a heart attack. That was when we discovered that the baby was a doll. I took some pictures. On the bus ride to another companionship´s house we sang carols with about eight other missionaries.
Saturday we had the baptism and bought a cake to celebrate with everyone afterwards.
Sunday we only had sacrament meeting and about only the usual number of people came.
I must confess that I gave into temptation. Christmas Eve I was thinking about how there wouldn´t be any time to do anything the next day, like open presents, so I opened them two hours early, at ten.
We continue to work a lot with the members, and hope to have a ton of sucess before the end of the year.
with lots of love e suadades de vos,
Elder David Short

Feliz Natal!...De Novo 19 Dec 2011

Dearest peoples,

These past weeks have been quite spectacular.

We are getting pretty anixous, because we´ll be having at least FOUR! baptisms this coming Saturday.

Our investigator who stopped smoking last week, has been able to give up cigarettes completely. Last week we tried to set a baptismal date with him for this last Saturday, but he wanted to get baptized on Christmas eve, so the baptismal will be this Saturday at 7.

The three daughters of a less active family that we´re working with, will also be getting baptized Saturday.

Our goal is to have five baptisms this Saturday, so we´re planning on having a miracle.

One of the members here has a lot of coworkers and this week we taught three of them and marked baptismal dates. The work goes so much smoother when you work with the members.

This Sunday we repeated our record of seven investigators at church.

I´m feeling really good about the coming month.

This Thursday we´ll be having a Christmas Zone Conference, so hopefully I´ll be getting all the letters everyone sent.

I don´t feel like writing too much since I´ll be calling on Sunday.

Until then.

Love,

Elder David Short

The end of another transfer 12 Dec 2011

Well my dear friends and family,
another six weeks has come and gone.
We got Elder Swenson´s replacement this Thursday. Our new Elder is Elder Santa Rita from the state of Bahia. He is also ending his mission in a month, so we won´t have too long to get to know him.
We still don´t know if we´re going to have anymore changes in our district. I´m hoping to stay for one more transfer. We were greatly blessed in our work this week. This Sunday we had seven investigators at church, which is the most we´ve had at church since I got here. We tracted down a less active family that we had previously last tract of when they moved. It has been nine years since this family has gone to church. We found their house and taught the first lesson. Saturday we returned to see if they´d be going to church the next day, and the dad said that it was up to the mom. I think it was the first time that I got down on my hands and knees and begged someone to come to church, but it worked! The whole family came to church yesterday! Our next step is to start teaching they´re three daughters that aren´t baptized.
We did have some disapointment. One of our investigators, who could be getting baptized this week, didn´t come to church, because his son tried running away from home. Everything got worked out in the end, but not until after church had ended. This week we started a program with him to stop smoking. In order to get him started on the right track, we bought him a ten pound bag of oranges, and stole his cofee. After we stole his cofee, we took it back to the house and disposed of it in the best way that I thought possible (picture enclosed).
That´s all I have for this week.
Write me a letter.
love,
Elder David Short

Finally! (received 5 Dec 2011)

I´ve been telling amazing stories of amzing people, and this weekend one of those people was baptized!

That one girl who had a dream about the missionaries teaching her was baptized and confirmed!

Now her younger brother wants to get baptized too.

Elder Swenson is leaving today and by this time thursday he´ll be with his family.

 I don´t really know what´s going to happen this next week, with transfers coming up and now we don´t have a district, or someone to play the piano at church, but all is well.

The only exciting thing that I can really think of that happened this week was the baptism, and now we have to work to baptize this week too.

I´ve only written about ten lines, but my mind is drawing a blank right now.

We made a pretty tasty cake for after the baptism.

I´ve have to go now.

ttfn

Elder David Short

Zone Conferences (recieved 28 Nov 2011)

This last week was pretty spectacular. We´ve been teaching this awesome girl, Graziely, who´s getting baptized Saturday. She´s really awesome and I think that she´ll be the example to getting the rest of the family baptized.

I´ve really been hoping to find an awesome family, but it´s not easy.

Wednesday we took a two hour bus ride to Uberlândia for a zone conference with president. There were about thirty-somethin missionaries. The main focus of the conference was about our ability to teach, and our effectiveness as the Lord´s teachers. One of the points that President Prieto focused on was our use of the scriptures in our teaching. We had about an hour and a half of practices, and afterwards we had a scripture memorization test thingy, where we had to stand and recite a scripture. It scared my tag off, because no one had told me that we were supposed to have memorized scriptures. Luckily I wasn´t called on.

Our Thanksgiving Lunch consisted of the traditional rice, beans and chicken (don´t misinterpret me. It was delicious.)

Our zone conference went a little longer than it was supposed, so we missed our bus. We spent the night at a district leader´s house. It doesn´t matter where we are, or what the situation is, there is always work to be done. We had about three hours before our curfew on Thursday, so we split up. I went to work with Elder A. Souza. We did some tracting near the house and we found an amazing family, that accepted all the commitments and a baptismal date. The only sad part is that I won´t be there for when the get baptized, but maybe I´ll get transferred to that area in the next couple weeks.

I had a weird dream last night that I got transferred to Uberaba, so we´ll see what happens.

Graziely´s neighbor came to church with her on Sunday. We´re hoping to teach her family this week. 

Family is aweome. I hope to baptize a few  daqui um pouco.

That´s all I´ve got for now.

Love,

Elder David Short

The Elect (received 14 Nov 2011)

First off, I must say that I am ashamed of myself. I felt like a doubting Thomas last night, and I felt like I got a spiritual slap in the face. So yesterday we to visit some people with a member from the ward. The visits that we had planned fell through, but we were able to find other people to teach. This member´s family isn´t baptized and has already been taught by the missionaries twice, but when we returned our member to her house, Elder Alvarez asked the mom and her boyfriend if we could share a message with them. I didn´t have too much hope in the message, but I thought I´d give it a shot. We taught the restoration and they agreed to come to church and to read the Book of Mormon. The mom gave the closing prayer, and as she was praying she began to cry. The Spirit was so strong; I wanted to spiritually defenestrate something. 

Our next lesson was with a kid whose whole family is baptized except for him. He´d also been taught by missionaries before, including me, but my companion was determined to set a baptismal date with him. We arrived, shared a lesson on the atonement and then my companion sets a baptismal date. I felt like a doubting Thomas at the end of the day, but now I´m excited for the coming weeks. 

Three of our investigators came to church yesterday! One is this awesome garota that been reading the Book of Mormon almost everyday, and she says that she feels that it´s true. She´ll be baptized at the end of the month.

In the coming weeks, we are going to accomplish things that no other missionary has ever accomplished! 

That´s all the miracles I have for this week.

Love,

Elder Short