Letters from London

Alec with investigator and Elder Andrade

Greetings familia,

It's been a good week thus far! Definitely some changes. On Wednesday I met my new companion. His name is Elder Andrade. He's from Lisbon, Portugal. He's 18, and played professional baseball before his mission. He loves volleyball, too.

6 LoL stories that describe my companion:

- When I met him, I said he has perfect Portuguese. His response " I don't like it when people say that" Lol

- We were about to take a picture together, and I asked him if I looked good. His response: "no" lol part 2. Elder Burgess got a kick out of that

- I asked about brothers and sisters he has. He answered with a smile, "with or without dead ones?" lol part 3. He has 1 older brother, 2 older sisters, 2 younger brothers, and there were 2 babies that died at birth.

- During dinner time he asked me "What are rules I should know about", and then proceeded to read some of the flat rules on the cabinet. lol part 4

- I made him record the voicemail for our phone and his response "I hate this. Come on. I hate my voice. Why can't you do this..." My response: "That was a good experience". Then his response: "yeah great. You just become my enemy" lol part 5

- Also, he said he learned English by playing video games lol part 6

FaceTiming investigator with Elder Andrade

It's definitely been another adjustment for me. Elder Nelson and I had quite a few things in common, and we had a good time together. I miss that goofy kid :) Elder Andrade is less social, and obviously comes from a different cultural background. He's quite military, too, because his dad was in the military. It's a good change for me, because I'm developing even more patience, and working on charity, too. I love Elder Andrade, and have had a few moments when my heart is really softened towards him. The mission will be great for him. Some rough edges will be smoothed over, he'll improve at relating with people, and he'll grow mucho. It'll be a great transfer!

The Work

Things are going great. Long story short, we aren't meeting with Zeph anymore. His life came crashing down recently (again), and his temporal needs outweigh his desire to meet with us. When he can get things sorted, he'll want to meet again. We extended some baptismal dates this past week, 2 of those dropped already, and the one left doesn't speak great English.

On the plus side, we found 2 super cool people. One of them comes from a quite different religious background than ours, and desires to learn more about Jesus Christ. The other just moved from a non-Christian country due to her family's conversion about a month ago, and we will teach her tomorrow. Definitely some good potential! I really hope to be able to baptise this last transfer. If not, I'm doing everything I can to find those that are prepared for the gospel.

Love you all! Have a great week

Elder Withers