8/5/2009 Hello all

Hello Family and Friends,
Mom, how is everything going in bugville?
Things are cooling down here, we are as always working a lot in the normal things of a mission. We have been teaching like crazy that one family, but unhappily they did not continue to progress so we had to let them go for a while if not forever.
In good news we do have a baptism ready and we're excited for this Sunday, her name is Rosaine and she is really cool. We encountered her on the street three weeks ago and what happened is that she ran up to us and did a contact with us on the street and she said that she had always wanted to talk to us, but that we were always walking so fast that she didn’t want to disturb us. Today three weeks ago she just couldn’t handle it anymore and she stopped us. We of course were more than happy to answer her questions that she had for us. We went there the next week on Tuesday and we started teaching her and she has always been really interested in the gospel and has been really excited to learn more and more about it.
We also have this other family that we are teaching, it is a really amazing family that is progressing really well. It’s a family of five, Carlos the dad, Junha the mom and there three sons, Carlos Jr. who is 22, Guilerme who is 20, and Victor Hugo who is 7(just a little older). It is a family that we met last week and Guilerme has already gone twice to church and the rest of the family will go this next week except for the dad.
In other news I have been really excited for Jacob's mission, as of late I am always telling everyone that I know that my brother is going on a mission. I really am very proud of you Jacob, the only thing that I am a little sad about is that I will not be seeing you for another two full years, but I am really glad that you’re going out to the mission. You’re going to learn more in these two years than you have your entire life up to this point in time. I can tell you one thing for sure it’s going to be the BEST TWO YEARS of your life, it has been for me up to this point and it is continuing to be until the very last moments.
Whether or not I am excited to come home is yet to be decided. I am feeling as this one song says ``I’m torn between my home and this world I’ve come to know´´ while I’m really excited to see all of you and to reunite with everyone back home I’m still really hooked on this new place I’ve come to know as home for so long.
Mom and Dad please don’t worry too much about finances, the Lord always provides for the families of missionaries and for about six weeks you guys will have two of them.
There is a story that I would like to share. There once were two farmers who were passing through a situation that was very difficult, for there was in the land a very serious drought that had seriously crippled the local crops, the situation got so bad that the farmers started praying a lot for rain to come and water the sun parched soil. The first farmer after praying just sat in his house waiting for the expected rain to come, but the second after he was done with his prayer went out to his fields and started to dig trenches and to prepare his field for the much needed and expected rain. The moral of the story is that we always need to be prepared to receive the blessings that we so earnestly ask for from our Father in Heaven.
Please know that I am fine and doing well here in the field and that whatever comes my way in terms of trials I am being well protected by the hand of the Lord, as are all they that seek to do His will.
With much love,
Elder O’Brien