17 August Email

Subject: Osorio

Dear Family,

I got transferred last week from Carazinho to a small city called Osório on the opposite side of the mission (from the furthest city interior almost to the beach). Osório is a city of about 35-38 thousand inhabitants. It is considered one of the 4 beach areas in our mission, but is the only of the 4 that isn't actually on the beach. The branch here is really small. Last Sunday there was about 30 people in the rented house that they use as the chapel. My new companion is Élder de Paulo. It's his second transfer on the mission (I turned Senior also (with 8 months)). The area here is pretty dead; we don't have any good investigators. We have been knocking on a lot of doors lately in search of new people. Hopefully the efforts will pay off. Knocking on doors is pretty ineffective, but every once in a while you find someone that progresses. We had a zone conference yesterday and there is going to be some big changes in all the missions worldwide. Zone conference will be held every 3 months, instead of every 6 weeks (transfers will stay at the normal 6 week intervals). Also they are revising a little bit of the leadership responsibilities in the mission to make the missionaries more self-sufficient. All this will be in full effect by next May.

Tell the Relief Society thanks for the small package and the letters they sent.

I hope to hear from you all next week.

Love, 
Élder Steele