Pérola 3

Hello people,
This week was a fun one. Work wise was pretty much normal however we brought one guy to sacrament meeting who is pretty awesome. He is 22 and accepted our message and wants to be baptized on the 15th. I don't remember if I said this or not, but on the 15th of December we are going to have a stake baptism night where like all of the baptisms in the stake will be at the stake center and it will be like a big party so everyone is planning baptisms on the 15th. So he wants to work to be baptized then, and we have 3 other people that want to prepare to be baptized then, but the others still haven't made it to church and that's kind of like a key requirement to be able to be baptized is actual go to church. However the area is doing good. The ward mission leader is super good and always helping members go out with us to teach. This week we hit our zone goal for the month so everyone went crazy and celebrated and got happy and we were the only zone to hit our goal for a long time in the mission so the Assistants to the President got happy with us too, and we will probably be able to go to the beach and have churrasco on the beach one P-day.
Also Pres. Almeida got sent home early for health problems so the Mission President changed again and now it's President Nougeira. He was already president in the Brazil João pessoa mission (which is the mission that baptizes the most in Brazil). So everyone is a bit nervous to see if he is super strict or relaxed, just like when Almeida showed up. However he also is only going to be here about 6 months before he goes home and we will get a new president. So I guess President Staveskas who I thought I would only spend a little of time with will end up being the Mission President that I spent most time with and got to know the best.
Also I bought a camera from one of the missionaries that live in our house so now I can finally send more photos again. Also people are getting prepared for Christmas here so that's fun and it brings back memories of when I first arrived here in Brazil; so that's fun I guess I am an old missionary now.
It's fun to think about how much I have learned and grown. And yet lots of it has just been from personal study of the scriptures (lots from others too) but I was surprised by how much we can learn by personal study and prayer. We have lots of good teachers, but the best teacher of all is The Holy Ghost* so sometimes we need to sit and get a nice lecture from Him too.
Love,
Elder Holcomb

[*Here's some links I've added to elaborate on Elder Holcomb's thoughts:
(short, but has links to more) https://www.lds.org/topics/holy-ghost?lang=eng
(medium) https://www.lds.org/church/news/my-most-influencial-teacher-the-holy-ghost-helped-me-serve-the-one?lang=eng
(long) https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/04/how-does-the-holy-ghost-help-you?lang=eng]