April 26th e-mail / Zone Leader

Well my week has been crazy! So on Tuesday we had transfers and my companion Elder A. Santos was transferred. I stayed here in Sao Luis, but President made some really big changes to our mission. For instance I am Zone leader here in Sao Luis. I have 18 missionaries that my new companion Elder Alonso and I are over. So I found out about that on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we had a meeting with President in Teresina. So Tuesday night we headed to Teresina (6-7 hour bus ride) and had a meeting there from 8 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon. We had lunch there and everything and we learned about all of our responsibilities. We have to call all of our district leaders on Sunday night and collect all of the numbers for the week and we have to do a training at zone conference. So that was a big shock when I heard about that. Elder Cook was called to be an assistant, Elders Daniel and Banks were also called to be zone leaders and so when we all got to the mission office in Teresina we had a little district reunion it was awesome. I also while I was in Teresina picked up my package so I have my package and everything was in it Thank you. To tell you about my new companion he is from Sao Paulo. He is tall like me and everyone thinks that he is from somewhere else. This past week was pretty good we found a lot of new investigators but not many went to church so we will have to work on that. We didn’t have any baptisms but we should have some in the weeks to come. We are teaching a man and his family right now that is really interested in the gospel and will for sure be baptized but the problem is that he and his wife aren’t married so we have to marry them first. So that should be fun, my first marriage in the mission. As a zone leader, we have to give baptism interviews to our district leaders investigators and I did my first this last Friday. It was really fun, they baptized two boys, one was 11 and the other was 9. I have been teaching English to some of the ward members in our ward and in Vila Palmeiras ward and that has been really fun. In my package I really liked the Crittenden Clan Plates. They were awesome and the photos were good too. In my next package that I won’t need for a while I would like some new family photos or photos of stuff. We went back and visited that man that I bible bashed with on Thursday and bible bashed again and left him basically without a religion. He would try to answer all of our questions with his knowledge of the bible that had absolutely nothing to do with our questions and it was really ridiculous and a waste of time. I have not heard anything about this Dengue Fever or any missionaries in our mission having it but it’s good to know and I still have plenty of repellent. I hope that the boys’ soccer team continues to do well and get bishop Wheatley a state title. Give them my best wishes and good luck from me. I can’t believe that the recreation center is almost done. I am excited to see it when I get home. Dad you should send me some photos of it if you get the time. I passed my 6 month mark this past Wednesday and that was the same Day as mom’s birthday. I hope she got her card and the same day as our District reunion from the MTC so it was cool. I don’t really have much else to say or tell you that happened this past week so I love you all and am praying for you all. Love your Son Elder Crittenden