Right coast, wrong coast, drifting round and round

January 17, 2011

Well, I'm still not working. I am going a little crazy from staying in the house all the time -- it feels like it has been so long since I was a regular missionary -- but everything's going well enough. My companion, Elder Ramos (HAH-moze), is a cool guy, but I think he's going a little crazy, too. We're both going a little crazy. If it weren't for the scriptures and my handy little chessboard, we already would have gone very crazy by now.

My toe is getting better, though, and I should be able to go back to work this Thursday. I hope.

The biggest news from this week is actually very big news indeed. My zone had our transfer-ly interviews with the mission president this week, so I talked to him about how college is going to work and everything. My group is supposed to go home on September 7th, which is the week after BYU starts. I told President that I'm here to serve my mission and I'll go home whenever I need to, but he said I could go home a little early to go back to school. He was thinking about giving me ten or fifteen days between getting home and starting college, but he didn't have his calendar with him at the time, so he left it in the air. Basically, I would stay for two or three weeks in my last transfer and then go home in the middle of it. Then, a few days later, he called me and asked what I thought about going home with the group before me, meaning that I'd go home a transfer early. By so doing, he said I will get to go home with a group of missionaries instead of going by myself, I can go through the temple one more time, I will go home at transfers instead of going in the middle of one, and I'll have a little more time to be with the family before going back to college!

Soooooo I'm coming home on July 27th. I'll basically have the month of August to transition into post-mission life and all that.

I can't believe how fast this mission thing is flying by. I made a year and four months yesterday, which blows my mind. I wish I could actually be out there in the white field and thrust in my sickle with my might and stuff. But I guess I just need to learn patience from this ordeal.

We're hoping to baptize a girl named Franciele this week. We have been teaching her for a long time now, and my companion taught her last night with one of our zone leaders, and apparently the visit went really well. She is worried that if she joins the church her family will abandon her. É complicado. We're praying hard and doing what we can to visit her regularly, and I hope and pray that everything will work out with her. As far as I'm concerned, if she gets baptized, my time in this area has been validated. So keep your fingers crossed!

Anyway, that's what's going on in Birigüi, São Paulo, Brasil. I hope things are going well in your respective places in the America.

I love you guys! The Church is true!

Elder Wiggins