Letter #19- "It´s a great day to be alive!"

"I know the sun´s still shinning when I close my eyes."

Hello my dearest family!

Oh how I miss you all so much! But, I love it here. it´s the wierdest feeling! I want to be with you and I get that "Oh I miss you feeling," But when I think about how in 19 more months I won´t be here.. I get really sad too. I love it here. Every single second. Even if it is pretty dang hot like today.

Well, this past week has been good. Last Saturday, we had a wonderful noite familiar (family Night) with this family in our ward and some investigators. Oh man it was a blast. We watched a clip of the seminary Book of Mormon videos and then we talked about the gospel and the irmã made us hot dogs and cake. It was so good. On Monday night, a lot of people from the ward threw Elder Awerkamp a going away party because today was the start of a new transfer and he went home. He was a great missionary and I am going to miss him a lot. The ward loved him too. Everyone was getting teary eyed. At the end we sang families can be together forever. I cried. Of course I cried. That song always makes me cry! Then of course we ate food! (It´s Brazil!!!!) and played games and just chatted.

On Tuesday, we had some last minute things we had to do (Elder Awerkamp had to do) and then we went to this member family´s house and had a small party with them. They loved him and we had a lot of fun playing these silly games. Today was transfers! I stayed in my area and I got a new companion! His name is Elder Duarte! He is my first Brazlian companion!  I am pretty excited. Funny story. Talk about a small world. He was baptized by TJ Packard. I don´t know TJ but I recognized a picture and his name.

Well, as my wonderful father would say, "That´s all the bullets I have for now." I love you all so much. I am so grateful to be an eternal family with you. I love you all and I will talk to you next week. Stay sweet and don´t stop believing!
-elder askins
p.s. sorry this is so short, but this week was a little uneventful