Cipó!

Hello to all!!!

I hope every one is doing awesome!! I will start out the email with a birthday shoutout to Scott on the 22nd!!!! I can’t believe you are already 23! Dang you are old! haha I hope you have an awesome day and know that I’ll be thinking of you! Sure love you bro!

Good luck to dad as well with the surgery! I hope everything goes well and know that I will be thinking and praying for you!

This this week was a nuts! On Tuesday morning we had the transfer which was super cool, except for the fact that my companion wasn’t there! No one knew where he was! So all of Tuesday I stayed at the mission office and became the referral secretary for the day! That was a whole bunch of fun! haha. Finally late Tuesday night my comp arrived! Funny thing is that he wasn’t in the MTC . He came straight from home and his flight was delayed all day. Elder Matsuzaki from Brazil! From the name it’s easy to guess that he has a little asian heritage in him! Yes he is japanese. His dad is japonese and his mom is brazilian but he has lived his whole life in Brazil, which is pretty sweet! He never even went to the MTC because he is waiting for his visa to go to the United States! He will be going to the Salt Lake East mission speaking english! So I’ll be training him here, teaching him our lingo, and then sending him up to you! He will only be here for about a month, though, which is a bummer, but it should be good for sure with him!!

Wednesday morning we stayed in the office in the morning waiting for president to come do an interview with him for his temple recommend! He hadn’t gone through the temple yet so we got to go! Oh man I was so stoked!! So Wednesday afternoon we went to the temple, which was super awesome! The temple is so awesome! So that was a good experience for sure. We then made our journey way out to our area, which is about 2 hours from our mission office. We didn’t get to our area until about 8 on Wednesday night, which was a bummer, but we finally got there! 

We are now in the Cipó ward which is super awesome! I’m in the same stake as I was so I’m more or less close to my old area, but it’s still pretty far away. This stake is pretty huge and foresty. Our area is less favela as well. It’s pretty cool! I’m really liking it a lot and the members are incredible! Wow they have a vision on what missionary work is! They have already been helping out a ton and they have big plans for activities and what not! So I think I will like this area a lot!

That’s about all I’ve got for you for now though! I’m doing great and loving this mission! What a blessing we have to be members of the true church!

Love You all

Elder Holmes