"Dear Sir or Madam could you read my book?

April 16, 2025

Welllllcome back gang. T'was a phenomenal week and to be honest I'm getting more impatient every second I'm spending writing and not talking about what happened so let's get into it!

This week was the baptism of Nazareno!! Dude's incredible, hands down. After his baptismal interview, the Elder that did it with him was like "I've never seen someone so ready for baptism." Dude has so, so much faith in God and that this was the path he had to start to live with him again. Quite literally he was just waiting for the invite (he told this to us). Felt super grateful to have met him along with the rest of his family, and help him arrive here and make his first covenant with God! It was a super happy time.

This week was what our zone called "Zone FSY," 'cause we had so many activities this week that involved the zone so it was like a miniature fsy. We had a meeting all together Sunday, Zone Conference Monday and Tuesday, District meeting Wednesday, and hit up the temple Thursday. The Multizone was a blast, it was great to see some of the old pals again that arrived with me! President and Sister Ribolla dished some wisdom like always, and President used a little drawing of mine in one of the presentations which was fun to see. The Temple was also amazing, gosh I love that we've got a temple in our Mission. Whoever wrote "I love to see the temple" had the right idea lemme tell ya. It was crazy too cause afterwards there were like a million and a half monkeys jumping around these trees right outside the temple. It was a whole temple monkey extravaganza

One of the members of the Bishopric told me last week I'd be giving a talk this Sunday. He told me to prepare for a 20+ minuter, and so I got all this content ready and then by the time it was my turn to talk there was like 8 minutes left in Sacrament meeting ended up using like one of the bullet points I had written down but I think it still went well

Gotta give my man Grandpa Beck a shoutout cause every free night we've got me and the fellas are getting our Skull King on, and it's been a party. Guess I'd be horrible at gambling though cause every round I bet 0 to try and win big (basically the equivalent of "all in") and when I bet 0 everyone else just starts laughing like evil villains and dedicate all of their efforts to try and get me to gain cards so that I lose. Playing with literal pirates out here smh 🤦‍♂️ (swashbuckle me hearties) 🏴‍☠️ ️

As for the scripture I'd like to share this week, there's a chance I've already shared it but it's Jacob 4:7. Been a favorite of mine ever since the MTC, it says:

7 Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things.

Since arriving here on the mission, my weaknesses and shortcomings have become maaad apparent to me. But the purpose of being a disciple of Jesus Christ isn't to be flawless, that's what his role was. Our role is to acknowledge our flaws and strive to be better each day! Sometimes the closer you move to Jesus Christ, the harder things may become or the more apparent your difficulties get. Becoming more sensitive to the Spirit means the spirit will make known unto you how you can improve, or what aspects of your life may need to be changed, and Jesus Christ is the pathway to achieve the change. I testify that genuine change, the change of heart, comes through humility and faith in Jesus Christ. And like the scripture says, as much as your weaknesses are made known unto you, when you one day overcome them you'll know with a surety it was because you stayed faithful in Jesus Christ and his redeeming power.

Love you all so much! Enjoy the absolute mountain of photos from the week, shoot me an email if you like me, and I'll talk to yall next week

Email Title is from the lyrics of The Beatles’ “Paperback Writer,” from their album “Past Masters”

1-3. Multizone flicks

4. Elder Emett the special 🧎‍♂️

5. Templo

6. I will not conform

7. MONKEY

8. Elder Almeida the goat

9. I love Venice

10. NAZARENO'S BAPTISM

11. SISTER'S BAPTISM 🏄‍♂️

12-13. Tough️ or Enough