Interiorzinha da Alegria!

We received the following email on February 1st from Elder Olivier.  He has been transferred to the Interior or in other words....the middle of the jungle!  He is really enjoying it there and here is his first email from his new area:

Hello everyone!

So this week has been super different and super awesome for me! First off, for the transfer last week I had to go with some other missionaries to the airport to catch a plane to Rio Branco in Acre. There I met my new companion, stayed the night at the zone leaders´ apartment, and the next day took a taxi for almost two hours to get to Sena Madureira. 

Sena is an awesome place. It´s pretty much (well, actually it is) a small town in the middle of nowhere, and by "nowhere" I mean the jungle. So I´m super pumped to be in the middle of the jungle. 

The church here is super small. And by super small, I mean that there are only about 20 people that come to church regularly and about 750 people who are baptized members of the church in the area. That´s a big difference. It´s a branch, so as the missionaries we have to do almost everything. That´s a lot of stuff to do. I had to give the gospel principles class, play the piano in sacrament meeting, and give a talk yesterday in church. 

My companion´s name is Elder Castelli, and he is from São Paulo, around Campinas. He is awesome. He´s a super focused missionary, and we´ve been working super hard this week. This transfer is going to be awesome!

So this week we have been teaching a ton of new investigators. So we´re been teaching the Restoration a ton. A question that my companion always asks is really good. He says, is it just for God to have called prophets to guide the people in the past, but to leave us today without a prophet? People always think about it for a little and say, no, that´s not just. Exodus 33:11 is a scripture that talks about how Moses actually spoke with Heavenly Father:

11 And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.

We truly have a prophet in our day, just like Moses, who actually speaks with God face to face, just like prophets in old times. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and he truly has a prophet today. I know that now more than I have ever known in my life. I don´t know why I had to come to the middle of the jungle to learn that, haha, but hey, there´s a purpose for everything.

I hope everyone has a great week! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Olivier!!

P.S. I´ll probably have more sweet pictures next week! I think!

Elder Olivier and his new companion, Elder Castelli.