Pérola 12

Dear people,
This week was entertaining.  We worked hard like usual.  Diego, who we baptized, is super pumped to be a member of the church and whenever we go over to his house he has lots of questions about being a member.  His mom also started reading his Book of Mormon and decided she wanted to go to church with us too so she went this past Sunday.  That was pretty cool to see how much the change in her son could effect her.  On other notes I learned how to do the cup song this week from the Young Women's President.  So now in our house we just always do the cup song for like 5 minutes straight without stopping.  I guess that's what happens when you don't have a cellphone to waste your time.  Another exciting thing is that our energy got cut so we spent the last three days sleeping without a fan.  So we haven't actually been sleeping and I wake up about 4 times every night to take a cold shower.  However, hopefully it comes back Tuesday.  Generally the transfer would be this week, but however, it's next week so everyone is a little bit stir crazy and wants to know what's going to happen to all of us especially with the President being new and all of that.  Sorry there isn't too much to share this week, but next week should be fun because it's the last week of the transfer.
Love,
Elder Holcomb

Here's some of the pictures Isaac sent last week:

Pérola 11

Hello people!
This week was a really good one, but at the beginning of the week my companion got sick so we didn't do much besides study all day and watch the rain in a hammock.  However, at the end of the week we did end up getting to baptize Diego, the cousin of a member that lives in a different city. It was great to be able to baptize him because he had such a strong desire to for a long time, but his mom wouldn't let him because she wanted him to be baptized in the Catholic church.  However when we went to talk with her she was super nice and gave us avocado ice cream, and turns out the only thing we really needed to do was teach her.  All the other missionaries had just taught him, but when we had offered to teach her she accepted, and after hearing our message she understood and let him be baptized in the church.  I think it's interesting how much understanding can change things.  Just like in "Our Search for Happiness" written by M Russell Ballard. The whole reason he wrote the book was just for understanding, not trying to convert anyone, and the reason we taught his mom was just for understanding, and that made her realize how important it was for her son and let him be baptized.  I will send pics of the baptism and the rain too.  Have a good week!
Love,
Elder Holcomb

In our letters we were discussing the portion of last week's Come Follow Me lesson that teaches about the people who witnessed Jesus Christ as a baby (shepherds, wise men, Simeon, and Anna).  Isaac wrote:
Yeah, that's what I liked too.  The only people that recognized Jesus only knew because of the Spirit.  In this part and His whole life we can have as much proof and evidence as we want, but we will only recognize Christ and the truths of the gospel if we are listening to the Spirit.

Isaac sent photos, but forgot to give me permission to access them, so next week I'll share them.

Pérola 10

Hey people!
This week was pretty fun.  It rained a whole lots so it was a bit difficult to enter into people's houses to teach them because we were all wet and muddy.  However, we had lots of contacts in the street so that was fun.  The kid from last week that went to sacrament meeting is super awesome and wants to get baptized.  He talked to missionaries like a couple years ago in Manaus, which is a different city here in Brazil, and really wants to get baptized so we will be able to baptize him this Saturday after we reteach him everything [in the missionary lessons].  I taught him how to solve a Rubik's Cube so that was pretty fun and I was surprised I still remembered how to do it [not part of the missionary lessons].  We found some cool people to teach this week but no one was able to make a visit in the church except for the people we already have been teaching for a while that already have a date to be baptized.  That's pretty much what happened this week. 
This morning Elder Bell and I decided to run to the bank, but when we got there the money hadn't gotten on our cards yet.*  We were counting on the money we got from the bank to buy the bus ride back home so we had to end up running home too which was funny hahaha.  However life here is good. I will try to do more interesting things that I can share in the emails and will try to send some photos from the week too.
Love,
Elder Holcomb

[*All missionaries pay the same amount to serve a mission to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  That money then gets redistributed to the missionaries, based on costs of living, to cover the costs of their food, rent, bus passes, etc.  Each missionary gets a bank card with the allotted amount for a certain amount of time- I think a month, but I'm not sure.--MH]

[Isaac and his companion made covers for their planners]

Pérola 9

Hello People!
This week was pretty normal.  New Year's was a blast of fun.  We were able to spend the night at a member's house and we got eat a lot of tasty food before going back home.  We thought working was going to be really hard this week because of the holidays, however, we ended up working very hard and finding lots of new people to teach.  On Sunday we had two visitors that are both friends of members and they are super cool.  We taught both of them about the restoration and agreed to pray and ask if was true and will talk to them again tonight.  We have another girl that we are going to baptize. However, her step mom ended up losing her baby in the hospital (that would be great if she could get some prayers), so we had to move her baptism to a later date.  We also have one guy we are teaching that is super fun.  He is 23 years old and is a waiter at a restaurant and an Uber driver with a baptismal date for the 19th.  So the work here is going really well.  Two hour church was pretty great. Now that they got rid of the Gospel Principles class we got to participate in the young single adult class and that was super fun.  Also there were three Americans visiting from Colorado in our ward because one of them got proposed to from a Brazilian in the neighbor ward so I got to talk in English with them.  It was pretty cool to talk to Americans, however, they talked about the snow and then I got missing snow a lot.
Love,
Elder Holcomb

[These are pictures from a hike this morning]

Pérola 7 and 8

Hello people,
Sorry I didn't email home last week because of the skype [video chat with family on Christmas day].  However there isn't much to share; the work has been a bit hard because of the holidays, everyone is traveling and visiting family.  However we have still been having fun. The Relief Society gave us a present of a bunch of cookies so that was tasty and a bunch of balhina de chuva (which is basically doughnut holes). 
However I do actually have some pictures to send now so I hope all of you can finally enjoy pictures after a long long time. 
Remember to always smile and be happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And get pumped for the new year and set good goals!  The new Come Follow Me manual looks pretty sweet and we got one for our missionary house and we are planning on doing it as a missionary family :-) I'm excited to study better about the New Testament and get more knowledge on the mission of the apostles because I always understand and know the mission and life of Christ, but what happens with all of the apostles and their missions after I always seem to forget the context of those letters and parts.
I will try to share the photos on google drive.
Love,
Elder Holcomb

[Isaac shared a lot of pictures so I'm just going to add a few here in case he doesn't send more next time so I can share some then.  Second to last photo Elder Holcomb and another Elder went on a run wearing each other's high school team jerseys; and the last photo is the view of Santarem after their run up the hill.]