Elder Helvey: Sevilha, Brazil Week 6

Oi! Well my first 6 weeks in Brazil have come and gone and this week was the last week of the transfer. Elder Christiansen and I had a great week! We set goals for this week to beat all our goals from previous weeks and we did! We met and taught many new people and we´re excited about many of them. This week was especially great because we had a baptism!!! It was awesome!! We have been teaching this 11 year-old boy named Matheus. His aunt and cousins are members of the church and he has been going to church with them for awhile. We weren´t sure for awhile if we could baptize him or if it would be other missionaries because there was some confusion on where his primary residence is. But we got it all figured out and so when we were teaching him on Saturday we told him that he could be baptized Sunday, like the next day. Right when we told him that he jumped out of his chair and shouted for joy and came and gave each of us a big hug. He then went around the room high-fiving and hugging his family. It was awesome!

So after church we had the baptism. It was such an awesome baptismal service. Many members from the ward stayed for it and the room was packed. After the baptism we sang many songs from the hymn book and it was just an awesome experience to be in that crowded room with all those people singing Portuguese hymns. I am so happy for Matheus and he has already talked about how when he serves a mission that he will be called Elder Silva. He is a great kid and I am way excited for him!

Well, every 6 or so weeks we have transfers and today was transfers. I thought for sure I would be staying in my area since I had only been there for 6 weeks and had just finished up the missionary training program, but last night the Zone Leaders told me that I was being transferred, but no one knows where they are going until at the transfer meeting. So I packed up all my stuff and we went to transfer meetings this morning. At transfers President Souza announces all the new companionships, trainers, zone leaders, district leaders, APs, etc. So he went through the list and then announced that the new Executive Secretary of the mission would be... Elder Helvey. I was quite shocked and in all seriousness had really no idea what that meant. Still don´t know all too well. But I have been transferred to Aldeota, Fortaleza and will be working in the mission office. My new companion, Elder Allen, is from Arizona and he will be with me for the next 5 weeks training me to be the secretary of the mission. Not sure what all I do as the secretary but I will find out soon. Elder Allen has told me a little bit and he says that I do a lot of things to get ready for the new missionaries coming in and also correspond with Church Headquarters a lot, and pretty much do whatever President needs. He also has told me I have to translate for President Souza sometimes. It was all kind of a shock and I´m still kind of in shock and feel very under qualified for all this, especially my Portuguese. But Elder Allen says I will learn it all really fast and will be surprised at how used to things I will get. As for now I am excited! Tomorrow we will pick-up 28 new missionaries at the airport.

Anyways, that´s my week. It has been good and I am doing well. My Portuguese is improving really fast but I still have a long way to go! Thank you for the love and support. I hope you are all doing great!

Until next week.

Love,

Elder Helvey