Better e-mail for July 19th.

Dear Family,

I have been really busy these past couple of weeks and lots has been happening. As I said in my last letter my companion got transferred and now I am with Elder Ribeiro Da Silva. He is really cool he was the finance secretary for the mission when I arrived in the field and so I knew him a little bit before. He is really cool he is from Curitiba Brasil. He is going to have one year in the mission the 30th of this month. I am only three months behind him in time in the mission so its really good with him. I am still Zone leader here in Sao Luis and I was excited to stay here in Sao Luis one more transfer. We had a meeting in Teresina on Tuesday and I passed through the mission office and I got my pictures and Debit card, but now I need you to activate it for me so I can get money. I thought of one other thing that I would like in my package the other day, A little hymn book in English would be awesome so if you could include it in there. So the area is excellent we will have another baptism this Thursday and we have some others who are ready to be baptized just have to teach them and get the interviews done so it should be good. Yesterday in church I confirmed the two kids that I baptized the week before and they are the first that I have confirmed in the mission and it was cool. It rained really really hard yesterday and we also got to watch the devotional of the Mormon tabernacle choir last night at the church. It was broadcast to us and it was good to hear some hymns in English. Last Pday we went to this place here called Ribamar and I took some awesome pictures of the church there and the sites there I will try to send them in my next email. We have interviews with President tomorrow and we found out today that the 27th we have another meeting with President in Teresina but it will be for 4 days from the 27-30 so we get to go to Teresina again which should be good training there. Well I am glad that you all got to see Uncle Steve I wish I could have seen him if you took pictures of them could you send them to me? I would also like some more family pictures in my next package of us in Goblin Valley and that place in Colorado where we went to the Indian ruins in the sides of the cliffs that would be awesome. Thanks family for the prayers and your support, I love you all and I am praying for you always.

Love,

Elder Crittenden

Short e-mail for July 12th.

Dear Family, This week will be another short letter but next week I promise I will write a more extensive one to you all. We had transfers today and I will be staying here in Sao Luis and my companion is going to Sobral and will be Elder Ashtons companion. I baptized 2 kids on Sunday, we wanted to baptize the entire family but the mom had some other problems and has to be interviewed by the President. I Love you all and I promise a bigger letter next week Love Elder Crittenden

4th. of July e-mail, July 5th.

Dear Family,

I dont have alot of time to write today because were going to the center of Sao Luis today to look around and we need to leave but I will write a few things and next week I will write more I promise. So we didnt have a baptism this week but some good things happened we found alot of new investigators and my interview with President was really good he helped me alot. We also did a split with the assistants on Tuesday and I was with Elder Cook my companion from the mtc and it was really cool to be with him too. On Tuesday night the stake here had an activity at the church for a celebration that they have here in Sao Luis call festival of the Boi which is bull. They had each ward do some kind of dance and what had all kinds of things there. We ended up setting up a little table with things from the church and got alot of references from that. The world cup is over for Brazil and everybody took it pretty well. Alot of people were sad and now everyone just grumbles about it but not much that they can do until 2014 when its here in Brazil and hopefully win. I didnt get my photos and card yet so I dont know if its arrived but I will let you know when it gets here. We have transfers next week so I might be leaving. It is crazy how fast the time is flying by. Sorry to keep this short but until next week. I love you all very much.

Elder Crittenden

June 28th. e-mail

Hi family,

So this week has been pretty good, sounds to me like you all had a good time there on the trek. It has been a little bit difficult to work with all of the world cup games going on and the funny thing about the US game is that I was told that they had lost about 50 times that same day. Everybody here was telling me that they would lose, so now I will have to cheer for Brazil. Today is their game and we wont even get a full P day we have to go back home at 3 and stay there until 6 which is when we will start working. I baptized someone on saturday but I forgot my camera so I will have to send you the Photos next week. The girl is the sister of Jonatah that we baptized about 4 weeks ago, she told us on Tuesday that she wanted to be baptized so we taught her the things she needed to know for baptism and baptized her on Saturday. Now we will be teaching her the rest. tomorrow is interviews with President, and we are doing a division with the assistants too. This week is also a big party/ festival for Sao Luis called Sao Joao and it is pretty crazy everyone has these costumes that they are buying and getting ready for it on the 30th I think. Even the church the youth here are doing a dance for it. We use the internet in Lanhouses or internet cafes and yes we pay for it. It usually isnt very much its only 1.50 reais for 1 hour so its not too bad. One thing that is using up my money really fast is using the busses which we have to use to go to other areas to do baptism interviews and divisions in our zone. To use the bus its 2.10 every time that you get on so its kinda expensive. I dont really have much else to say for this week other than things are going good and hopefully tomorrow I get my pictures and my card I will let you know next week. Also if you could please give me an answer about the Jazz stuff he wants to know about it so next week let me know what you found please. I love you all and until next week.

Love Elder Crittenden

E-mail of June 21st.

Dear Family, This week has been ok but a little bit difficult. With the games for Brazil and zone conference it was a long week. We had zone conference on Tuesday and it went really well it was also the first game of Brazil so after the conference we all went to our houses and waited til the game was over. President visited our house and he will reform it, that sounds weird in english but I cant think of the real word in english for it right now because in Portuguese it is Reformar so I will go with it I hope you understand. So he will reform our house and repaint it and some other things that should be good and I might be leaving here before its done so it may not even matter to me. When President was at our house on Tuesday it was during the game and when Brazil scored everything exploded the people in the bar below were watching the game and everyone cheered and there were fireworks going off and all these horns blowing and it was just crazy. Well President made the comment, `Wow you guys dont even need a tv to know what is going on with the game.´ I just realized that the keyboards here dont have quotation marks strange. Yesterday was a difficult day for people to go to church, because of the other Brazil game. We only had two investigators at church, also when I got there one of the speakers didnt show up so they asked me to give a talk. So yesterday I gave a talk in church on Prayer and it was good. We didnt have any baptisms this week and we are working on finding new investigators but it has been difficult because of the games. We havent had much else happen this week other than that. I have really had a desire to watch the games but we cant unfortunately and its worse because everyone talks about how great the goals were and everything. It is pretty funny all of the people here keep saying that the United States is going to lose but we are still in it. So for the bald man joke I think that they would put Unapplicable for him, and for the Oriental man I think yes he would become disoriented. These are really funny Dad I will tell them to some of the members here. Well I just would like to know about the Jazz Jersey and shorts for that other Elder so after the trek if you could give me an answer if you found some or not and just keep looking. I havent got my card with the pictures yet but it should have arrived in the mission office by now and we have interviews next week with President on Tuesday so I should get it next week I will let you know. I will be doing divisions the next couple of weeks so that should be fun. It is crazy to think but today is my 8 month mark. I have been in the field for 6 months already it is amazing how fast the time is flying. Well I am running out of things to write so I will finish this up with some questions. How are things in the US? What is Barrack Obama doing now? How are things in Heber? Who are some others who have got their mission calls in Heber and where? I love you all very much have Jessica write me and tell me how it feels to be graduated. I also want to hear from My big Bro Justin so he should write me. So until next week Love Elder Crittenden