Elder Mortensen was still able to make me my cake, it got destroyed on one side but he did a good job, lol. I'm going to miss Morty, he was one of my favorite comps right after Burch and Welch. Elder Sosa and I get along pretty good, much better than at the MTC. The first few days were a bit frustrating because I'm not used to his teaching style, but I'm getting him into shape haha.
Morty and I said goodbye to a ton of people we met together and members that helped us out a lot this week, it was sad but at least I'm still here.
This is Ivanildo. He is getting baptized this Saturday and he is one of my favorite people in the entire world. Morty and I were having a tough day, we had been walking for a long time and all the people we talked to on the street were blowing us off and stuff. I was frustrated, so as we came around a corner I told Morty "Alright, I'm going to contact the very next person I see and he is going to get baptized" and as we turned the corner, I saw Ivanildo in front of his house pulling water out of a well. I went up to him and invited him to sit with us. I could tell he didn't want to talk to us, but we insisted and he told us to come back later. So we did, and we had the most powerful 1st Lesson of our entire missions. At the end he just cracked open and confessed to us how he had been drinking and using drugs and how it was destroying his parent's hearts. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted. Every time I see him now it just seems like he's brighter and happier. He's really excited for this Saturday, it's just a little sad that Mortensen won't be here to see it happen.
His parents are really well off, but both from different religions. His dad is Catholic and his mom attends a church called "Templo Mayor" both are super active members of their churches, but Ivanildo was never interested in religion. He is 27 years old and spent 2 years at a university in Bolivia, that's where he learned Spanish. He learned English by himself from books and movies and is very fluent... every lesson that we've taught him has been in English because he likes practicing. He's super smart, he is fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, English, and a little French. When we found him he was working on getting his driver's license, which he finally got this past week. He is now looking for a job but nothing specific, he just wants to help his parents out.
His mom cares about him a lot, it's a little sad to see how worried she was. Once we went over for a lesson and he wasn't there, but his mom answered the door and she called him like 10 times in a row and when she finally got a hold of him she got after him and told him to get home right away so we could talk to him. We tried to tell her it was ok and we could come back later and she said "If I couldn't get him to go to church, I'm praying that you two do, I just want him to change." We are going to make sure both parents can go to the baptism, maybe we can convert the whole family, fingers crossed!
