Telegram from Catalão

Hello Family!

I'm loving the new area! Catalão is everthing I ever hoped for in an area. It's a town that we can cross walking fast in an hour and a half (which we do about twice a day to get to where we work, close to the church) The Group Leader, Marcelo, and his wife Salete are super members. They're from Santa Catarina (the south) And Salete reminds me a bit of Sister Willard. She makes friends quickly with any investigators, and blows up the Relief society with awesome lessons. Of the four days I've been here, we've eaten lunch there twice and they also invited us to dinner but we had other appointments. Super nice family.

For now we have 3 Melquezedek priesthood holders, we need two more to become a branch. This week a member named Gotardo was ordained to the Aaronic priesthood. We've got an investigator that will get married and baptized here in a little bit. An investigator that will be baptized this Saturday and a recent convert's friend that we want to baptize this week also.  

As a group, we're kind of on our own out here. The members are meeting in a school until we become a branch and can rent a house. In my opinion the school is even better, it fits more people. We had 31 people at sacrament meeting 5 investigators. So attendance here is already going really well! To baptize people we either use a pool in a private school, or the resevoir in the middle of the city. I'm excited to get things going, we have a lot of potential here.

It's so good to be in an area where the people are anxious for the church to grow! People here are really receptive, it's easy to get in and teach. I think the Lord blesses the city because of the members.

My companion is from São Paulo, Elder Eric Badu. He's from the same ward as Elder Silva, This is his third transfer so he just finished being trained. He's super excited and has a lot of faith. I'm learning to understand the slang they use in the capital haha. 

Besides this I'm just happy and excited to be here. I feel like Amon when he said, "yea, I desire to dwell among this people for a time, perhaps until the day I die"

haha.

We're so close to being a branch!!! Just need a few more priesthood men to step up and do their part!

Love you all and for sure next week I'll send some pics!

Elder Wallace