Hospitalized Again! Need to Return Home.

The following e-mail was received today:

Well, I couldn´t get through a normal day without having problems. First day on the job, everything was looking great. My comp is awesome, and the area had great hope. Later in the day I felt a sharp pain in my chest--the same pain that led to surgery the last time, and led to surgery again. Through a long and difficult process, I went to the hospital and the surgery was done. Stayed there for a while and got released yesterday. 

At the moment I´m staying at the office again, and this time I´ll be going home. They haven´t determined the exact date, but it will be in a few weeks. I´ll be looked at by the doctors back home to try and figure what is up with me. The Lord has other plans for me at the moment. 

I´m happy that I was able to help all that I did here...and also I learned so much during this time. I learned that everything happens for a reason. Sometimes we don´t know why until later...and a lot of times it can be a blessing in disguise. I´ll be happy to see you all again.

Until then,

Elder Castagno

Elder Castagno will be returning home to receive medical care.

New Area--First Time Out of Fortaleza!

The following e-mail was received on 8/20/12:

Well, transfers happened, and what do ya know? I got transferred. I was hoping too be transferred though, so that´s good. Montese was good...but it´s pretty burnt out. There wasn´t much left to do. 

Now I'm in area Rio/Pacatuba. Kinda far from the city. Our area is a small city in itself. Should be interesting. First time I've been out of Fortaleza. My companion is Elder Bott. From Utah! Yeah! It´ll be good having an American comp again. 

Probably the biggest thing I learned in my last area was patience. I had to have a lot of patience with people. My investigators, my companion, and with the area itself. Also, I learned about prayer. Prayer really is powerful. When you ask a sincere prayer, the Lord is ready to respond and help. It´s interesting. 

Well, I´m excited to start off in a new area. It´ll give me some animation [excitement]. Everything else is good here. Hope to have some good stories to share with you these next weeks. Until then.

Elder Castagno

Downtown Pacatuba

A Talent Show & a Baptism

The following e-mail was received today:

Well, the last two weeks have gone by pretty fast. We´ve been busy with some activities, and this last Saturday we had a baptism! Yes! We´ve been working with this person for a long time, so it was a relief to finally see the work paid off. 

We had a huge activity that involved three wards last Friday. It was a talent show/ ice cream thing. I played a couple songs with some of the other elders. One elder had a harmonica, so we jammed some good old American blues on the stage. Yes. Show these Brazilians what´s up. It was a good experience. We had many investigators there too, so it was a success. 

Next week is transfers, so I´m sure that there will be a few changes. Other than that, not too much is new. Lately it´s been a little difficult in the area. Almost feel like no one wants anything....but someone always seems to show up. 

Have a great week,

Elder Castagno