My New Area!

So this week I ended up transferred to a new area in the interior again... Like Piedade.... But it is like 1000x better! I am in a town called São Roque (Roque is pronounced kinda like hoky). But it is a really nice tourist town about an hour ride on the bus from São Paulo. It is in the same stake as I was in Piedade. But my area does not just cover the town of São Roque it is the biggest area in the mission covering 5 different towns. We have to take the bus anywhere we go and everyday but that is all right. Yesterday we spent two hours waiting on a bus to take us to another town where we taught a man who has been going to church with his baptized family for 15 years and is still not baptized. He says he just doesn’t have a desire to be baptized which is very sad cause I could see how much it hurt his wife when he said this... but we are going to do all we can to get him baptized so that they can be sealed in the temple and have an eternal family. Oh also my new comp is Elder Larsen. He is my first American companion. He is really good and I enjoy working with him! I will admit it is a little strange working with another American; we get a lot more strange looks than normal...

But as I said São Roque is a tourist town. And the thing that is the point of interest is wine... There are a lot of vineyards here and a lot of wine. They are really beautiful but the people in the actual city of São Roque are not very humble so it is really difficult to work in the city of São Roque. Everyone here is rich too and really, really strong Catholics cause just about all of the family is Catholic, so it is very hard to get people to change. But we are focusing more work in a neighboring town called Mairinque, which is a lot more humble and has several different churches there other than just Catholic so it is easier to work there. Also we have more members that live there so it is easier to work with members there as well. So that is how we are going to be working here in São Roque. I am really excited, although again like in Jd. Veloso we do not have a lot of investigators here. So I will be planting a lot more seeds again. But hopefully we will be having a baptism on the 20th of this month for a woman called Antoninia. We met her the day we got here at a members’ house we were supposed to have lunch with, but because of transfers we got there really late so there was no lunch. But we talked to her for a bit and marked to see her the next day. We taught the Restoration which went all right, but she did not accept our invitation to baptism. We went there two days later with the same member where we ate lunch and the lesson went so much better. We were able to finally get her to open up and the Spirit really was helping us teach. We marked a date for her baptism and then on Sunday she even went to church! It was really great and we are excited for her. But we need to keep on working to try and get more people like her. I feel like this area has a lot of potential, but there really is a lot more walking that we have to do due to the large area we have. But I don’t mind the walking. My knees are getting better and the scenery is a lot more beautiful than it was in Osasco. I really am glad to get out into the country again. Osasco really is an ugly place, it is just a bunch of houses stacked on each other and they all are worn down.

But one other great thing about this area is that there is a lot to do outside that is close by. Today for p day we went to a forest reserve called Mata de Câmara. It was really cool and really nice to get into the woods again. Unfortunately we did not see any cool animals but we tried! I heard they have toucans here and parrots. I will keep on trying to look. But we have quite a few other outdoor things planned for the next few p days. A member family agreed to take us to the reservoir one p day, which we are excited for as well. I hope to be able to do some fishing. But one more funny thing about my area before I go. They have skiing here. I don’t understand it very well. But from what I heard and seen in photos it is a nylon trail that you can follow on skis. Kinda funny, especially since when I got here I saw several cars that had ski racks and I was wondering why. But the signs on the road let me know why. But all is good here. I love my new area and I hope to stay here for a while. The house we have is a ton better than our house in Osasco as well which is nice. But that is all that is going on with me. I am excited for general conference this week and I hope you all are too as well. We should be able to learn a lot of new things this Saturday and Sunday if we open our ears and open our hearts. Also after this week only two more general conferences until I am back home! But I hope all is going well with all of you there in the good ole US! I hope you all have a great week this week! I love you all and miss you all so so much!

With love

Elder Shelton

P.s.

Here are some things to be thinking about in my birthday packages to me.

1) Beef jerky
2) American deodorant. I like the Old Spice Red Zone whichever flavor y’all choose is fine
3) Zip lock bags. Nothing bigger than a liter
4) Root beer (yeah I know its heavy so you don’t have to send it)
5) Reece’s Peanut butter cups. I like the minis!

Also sorry I didn’t send a lot of photos. The internet here is being weird today and not letting me send lots and is being really slow at loading photos....