Greetings from Pampulha!

Well I made it to my new area and it's been quite the shock. I've never worked in an area like this one before and it's proving to be a great experience. So let me tell you a little bit about my area first..

Our apartment is literally right next to the chapel. It's a nice apartment. Our area is one of the richest area in the whole mission. Every member that I ate lunch with this week gave us dessert and most of our investigators have pools in their backyards. It's crazy how rich some people are here. And every Sunday, the members all bring food to church for the missionaries. There are so many blessings here. I guess the only down side is that there are a lot of hills. But that's good as well since my legs will get in better shape.

Our ward mission leader is a recently returned mission president. He served as the mission president in the Curitiba South, Brazil Mission, which was the highest baptizing mission in the world at the time. He is super awesome and is surely going to be a great help with the work here.

Elder Volino is an awesome companion!! He is from Curitiba, Brazil and is pretty tall. He is always happy and likes to work. I will be with him until the end of his mission since he only has two transfers left. It should be a good time together!!

This week was a lot of fun! The missionary who I'm replacing here (Elder Horton) just finished his mission and his parents came to Brazil to pick him up! So he spent another week with his dad as his companion and was able to help us quite a bit. He performed the baptisms on Saturday as well since they were investigators that he has been working with for a while. Saturday was the first time the ward had baptized in a while and I felt blessed to arrive and be able to see the miracle of baptism right away in my new area! Dario, the husband of a member, and Maria, the daughter of a member, were baptized.

Tomorrow I will participate in the Leadership Council for the first time on my mission!! I'm super excited. And then on Thursday we will hold a Zone Meeting in for our Zone! I'm excited to personally meet all of the missionaries that we are taking care of.

I'm happy to be here being a missionary. I know that Heavenly Father loves me and is guiding me each day. I know that Christ is my savior. I'm extremely grateful for the scriptures and the light they bring into my life.  

I have quite a bit of pictures to send that will hopefully explain my week better. I love you guys!!

Elder Searle

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