FAMILY!!!!!

Holy Cow I miss you like freakin crazy!!!  So President is crackin down on the rules, so we can only email family.  We cant email friends or even other missionaries.  Pretty lame.  So if people ask, just send them this weekly email.  Also, we arent allowed to chat back and forth either.  Pretty lame as well!

This week had its ups and downs.  It is definitely a rollercoaster out here, but I think that the rollercoaster is going up.  It is just a rough adjustment for me.  I have never prayed so hard in my life.  Or so much.  I feel like I am constantly pleading with my Heavenly Father for help and he sends it.  I love prayer so much.  Through prayer, we are able to talk to our Creator one on one.  WE, insignificant people, get to talk to the most powerful being in the world.  How cool is that?  I feel a lot of help come through prayer.  I am so grateful for prayer.

So this week had some cool experiences!  We taught these two men, one named Lebloom and the other Ajona.  They are from Haiti.  We got to their house, and it was only one room.  There are three beds in there, a tiny TV and a stove.  I just wanted to cry I felt so bad for them.  We are so blessed to have so much.  They live in one room underneath an unfinished building.  This building is where they work everyday.  They are away from their family in Haiti.  Their kids and wives live there.  They told us how so many members of their family have died.  I just wanted to cry again hearing all this.  Super sad to hear how hard their lives are.  But we taught them the first lesson, and I did a lot of the teaching.  Elder Talvane pushes me to teach, and it really helps me use my Portuguese   At the end, we committed Ajona to baptism, and Lebloom is going to pray about our lesson, and if he receives an answer, he will be baptized.  So cool!  We want to have them baptized by the end of this month.  It would be awesome!

We are also teaching another lady named Jindira.  She has been taught for a while now.  She has been a smoker for 40 years now.  But she believes in the things we teach her and she knows the church is true.  She just needs to take that leap of faith and be baptized.  Along with her, we are teaching her cousins.  A wife, husband and young child.  We also invited them to be baptized.  They will pray about it and see if they get an answer.  I hope that they do.

Today we went on a crazy cool hike for PDay!  I took some super cool pictures.  Is there a website that I could upload all my pictures each week so that you guys can see them too?  I want to share all of them with you guys!  And sorry, I dont have my cable to upload photos this week.  On Saturday, we went and toured a Brazilian Navy ship.  It was super cool!!  Also, I teach English class twice a week each week.  I really like it, cuz I get to speak English! haha.  Portugues fries my brain each day, but all the people here say that my Portugues is the best they have heard for a new missionary.  So I just need to be patient with myself.

I love hearing all about your guys week!!  It sounds like you are having so much fun together!  Please please please dont worry about me out here.  Thats the last thing that I want.  I dont want you guys to worry about me.

I love you all and I will talk to you again next week!!!  Try to find a website or something that we can upload photos back and forth to eachother!

I LOVE YOU!!!

Elder Howard