August 27, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

I still have not received the box you mailed me, but I hope I will this week when we go to the mission home for our interviews.  Yes, this week is interview week with president.  It is also the week that we receive all the letters from our family and friends. 

This last week was pretty good.  We had an activity on Friday with the young men and one of the young men brought about five friends which I thought was awesome.  We also had a few investigators at church.  One family did not show up because something came up and they were not able to go, but next week they told us that for sure that they will come to church.

We got a list of all the members from the church and there are about 180 or more members in our branch and only 18 are active.  So, my companion and I have some work to do with the less-actives and hopefully some of them can start coming back to church.  Also, I have noticed that the less-actives who are trying to become active again, are the greatest sources of references and missionary work in the church.  I wonder why it isn't the other way around?

The area is good and the food is great.  I bought a thing of hot sauce that holds actual peppers.  You don't eat the peppers, but you eat the oil (add it to your food).  Once the oil is gone, you add more oil (and vinegar if wanted) and then you can use it again. It lasts about two years or so and the older it is, the hotter it gets.  I need hotter peppers though, cuz the stuff I have is pretty weak.  All the members that feed us meals have pepper sauce too and it tastes really good on rice and beans.  Just add cheese and it tastes like a rice and bean burrito.

I read some of the Mormon chapters today in the Book of Mormon, and it is amazing to me how people don't realize that if they just look to Christ, the Lord their God, and seek repentance, their lives would be so much better.  And these people that Mormon writes about were not the kind of people that just lost faith over time. He reports that they deliberately turned away from God.  I look at it as:  they saw something evil and sinful and wanted it, even though they knew the gospel was true.  That's why Mormon was not able to preach to them.  It's not a happy period in the times of the Book of Mormon.

I know the gospel is true and I love you guys.  Have a great week.

Love, Elder Kevin Brady