Another One Bites The Dust (a.k.a the waters of baptism)

This week was incredible and I love the mission and my comp is awesome and I love the mission and I ate bugs and I love the mission and we finally had a baptism and I love the mission.

My new comp got here last Monday so he now has a full week here in Rio Claro. His first week couldn’t have been any more busy and tiring. Every single day this week we either had a service Project or a meeting for District or Zone leaders. I’m not kidding, Tuesday – Saturday we had something every day. It was great though. We are building a house for this sister from our Branch and we made the entire floor with cement churned with our own hands and shovels. We also headed up the mountain to a member’s farm to help him collect some rare fruit. The trees are huge and he had to climb them straight up hugging/shimmying up the trunk with a harness to get to where the fruit was. My comp and I were down below on “recoger” duty (I honestly have NO memory of what the word is in English so just Google translate it). {Editor's note: "recoger" means to collect or pick up -- so they were on pick-up duty.} It’s a rare Chinese fruit called Durian that he actually ended up selling for a good $120 pay day. LOTS of work this week but it was all fun.

After a looooong baptism drought here in Rio Claro we FINALLY had a baptism this week. A girl named Gipsy (yeah gypsy like tambourine, burn incense, live in a cave kinda gypsy), who we’ve been teaching for a while now, finally made the choice to follow our Savior Jesus Christ and be baptized like him. It was a great service and she was so happy. Her parents are actually members so her Dad was able to baptize her which was so special. Thanks for all your prayers guys. Things are changing here in Rio Claro and it's great.

I didn’t end up getting permission to accompany Omar to the temple this week. Yes his name is Omar, I know I said Oscar last week but hey here in  the mission you meet soo many people each day sometimes you even forget your own name. So I won’t be with him. But the important thing is that he’s able to go and receive these blessings from the temple. I love him and what he’s choosing to do. Thanks again for your prayers on his behalf.

Lots happened this week and I probably forgot a lot but that’s the gist of what happened. Love and miss you all.

Keep On Keepin’ On…

Johao and the Durians. 

He climbed the 40 meter-high tree barefoot like a typical Tico.

Gipsy's baptism with her dad.

These are the bugs I ate this week, courtesy of Quincy Adelman's challenge.