Well,

Last week I said if nobody writes me a emails and asks questions I will take that as a sign that they could care less. I am happy to report that I received zero emails this week, so I love you all too. I am sure that you all had a lot too do, but I do especially loved this week.

It was a good week. Elder Latham and I get along great and the Lord is blessing us with lots of success. He is from Orem, Utah but he has only lived there for two years, for the rest of his life he lived in California. He is a good guy and together we are working our guts out to fulfill our goals that we set.
Last week was probably the hardest work week of my mission. We were practically running from house to house. We were talking with everyone in the streets and we were teaching as much as possible. Yet it seemed that the harder we tried, the worse and worse thing would get. There was a really scary thing that took place that I don´t feel comfortable writing about, but we are alive and we have a stronger testimony of the priesthood. Then we had three days in a row of the hardest rainfall I have seen my whole life. Yet, we worked and worked.
Ever since last week has ended we have only seen miracles here in our area. The bishop´s wife called us to give a priesthood blessing to a woman who was in a coma with a brain tumor. We searched and searched for the address and after a good long hour of searching one street for house number 520, we gave up. As we started to leave the street I was a approached by an extremely drunk man with 6 teeth. He grabbed my body, mumbled something and they he layed a big long wet whisky filled smooch on my neck then he smelled my neck. A group of nearby teenage boys saw the commotion and asked if I wanted a kiss form them too. At this point we said that we were leaving and never coming back to this part of town.
As we walked we started to see a part of the road that we had not seen before. We followed it and a little bit later we were standing in the front of house number 520.
We rang. To the front divider wall came a jolly little 16 year old girl named Thais. It was her mom Luiza who had the tumor. We gave her a priesthood blessing and it was an amazing experience. As we talked to the family afterwards we found out that Thais had been to church a ton of times and only wasn´t baptized because she moved. We taught the whole family the message of the restoration and all accepted the invitation to be baptized. It was truly a miracle.
Then we met another great family that night. Luis and Erica. They are amazing and are reading a ton in the Book of Mormon.
There is a family here in the ward with whom I have developed quite a friendship. The family of Cláudio, Márcia, Kathleen, Lucas, and Gabriel. Claudio is helping us a lot with teaching and finding people and we are helping his son Lucas prepare for a mission.

We got a picture of my new comp cleaning dishes today.
We got Christmas with Elder Rowely
The one with the food is the family of Valquiria and Acácio that prepared our Christmas day Lunch.
There is a shot of my trainer (Elder Freitas), with me and the missionary I trained (Elder Luciano).
And Elder Rowley and me celebrating Christmas in style with some non- alcoholic apple cider.


Things could not be going better out here. I feel great and I am so happy with the opportunity that I have to learn and serve. I know that this id the true and living gospel and the none can feel the fullness of joy without living and striving to follow the Gospel and example of Christ. He is the only way and he has once again established his Gospel among the children of men. The mission is the best.

Love,
Elder Nothum