Snail Mail dated 30 November '09 (written BEFORE his transfer to the new area)

Oi Familia!
So guess what! As I was finishing up my first letter, what arrives in the mail? A letter from the fam! Dated November 23! Yay! So more of Elder McGregor's snail mail for you guys!

So first, Dad wanted to know how many lessons on average we teach per week, how many people normally are in our teaching group, how many new investigators we get during the week, how many hours we spend tracting vs teaching, time spent with members, the greatest challenges in teaching, whether we eat out much or not, what I spend excess funds on, and who else sends me letters. So here we go:

We teach anywhere from 12-14 lessons per week, but we always aim to teach 20. We aim for 8 lessons with members, 8 others and 4 lessons with recent converts and less active members.

We have, usually, from 8-10 people in our teaching group. They're also pretty volatile, meaning we invite them to be baptized on the first or second lesson. And we baptize them or move on. So --

We'll add anywhere from 3 - 6 investigators per week. So we move pretty quickly. Some we keep for a long time, like Joaquim, based on what we think their potential is to be baptized. Others we cut quickly. It really depends on the person.

So when you say tracting, I assume you mean knocking doors? If so, we tract 0 hours per week. I haven't knocked one door here in Brasil. We don't have to. We do, however, do street contacts. 10 per companion per day is the mission goal, but we usually complete about 8-10 as a companionship. It might appear that these numbers don't add up, but we keep very busy. It's harder to teach lessons during the day because everyone works, but we always have a mountain of things to do after 6.

We spend probably up to 15 hours or more per week with members, asking for references, teaching lessons, etc.

The greatest challenge for us with adults is the fact that no one is married, which is necessary for baptism. For our younger investigators, it's getting mom and dad to let them be baptized. Not super difficult, but we have to be pretty convincing. Another problem is the difficulty we have getting people to go to church. "Will you go to church tomorrow?" "I will." "Great, we'll show up at 8:30 to go with you." We show up Sunday morning. "Oh, sorry, I can't go today for X reason." And it happens every Sunday. Blah. : )

We do not eat out at all. We have lunch every day with members (except P Day). And we don't usually eat until we get home at 9:00, so we eat quite a bit during lunch. : ) I do eat breakfast and dinner every day, though, don't worry.

We spend our money on food and bus rides.At R$2.50 per passage, it's quite expensive and that's without the other bus tickets for Zone Conference, the occasion what our zone leader leaves his cell phone at our house (which means we traveled 3 hours round trip & spent R$30.00 total). We also pay our water and electric bills, which are substantial. Thankfully, these things are generally reimbursable. (Not normal bus rides, though). But it takes about a week and a half to receive the reimbursement. So I find myself a little short on money at times, but it hasn't been a problem yet.

Grandma & Grandpa Fillerup, Jay & Judy, Melissa, and Amber Dayton write me regularly. I'll get a random letter from an old friend every once in a while, but you guys are the only ones that send weekly letters (which is totally fine. No complaints here. I get way more letters than almost all the other missionaries here).

So there you go. Hope that answers quite a few questions.

So Katie was watching the beginning of Beauty and the Beast when she wrote. I must say, the opening music I love. Sing along:
(here he does some doo doo doo's all up and down by pitch - it's pretty funny)

Too much fun. you wrote: "Katie, tu hermanita adorablita."
Portuguese: Katie, tua icmazinha adoravelzinha. Yay. : ) (I hope I typed that write - hard to decipher...)

Mom, I'm glad you're enjoying Seminary. I hope you know that it really does make a difference. Your efforts, though sometimes it may seem that they go unnoticed, make a difference.

Leese told me about New Moon, which is doing pretty well here in Brasil. I assume it was huge in the States. Let me know how our sparkly vampire friends are doing. Oh, and the werewolves as well. : )

Love you guys!
Elder Trenton McGregor