Bom Dia Everyone!!!

        Yes it is very exciting that my visa has finally been processed ha. Now I am just praying that they will get it mailed here in time for the next transfer!! I'm pretty sure that I wont be leaving until then which is March 27th, but if I do then I will be sure to let you know:) Also, I got a call the next day after transfer calls and it turns out that the new missionary that I was going to train ended up not coming out so they changed some things around. Instead of Elder Ragozzine getting transferred, I actually got transferred and am now still a district Leader but I am serving in Knoxville Iowa! It is like 30 minutes south of Des Moines so not too far from the airport:) It is just a little branch though which is a lot different because I have not served in a branch yet. Yes I had to speak on my first Sunday there haha. There are some really good people there and it was really fun to get to meet a lot of people. I pretty much had the whole ward down back in Iowa City. My new companion is Elder Underwood. He is also a visa waiter!!!! Ha I never thought that I would get put with another visa waiter but it happened. He has been here for just one transfer less than me and he is going to serve in the Bella Horizonte mission. Its been good to be able to have more efficient language studies that's for sure. My new area is massive though. There are a lot of little towns that we have to drive to all the time, but we do have a full time car so that is definitely a blessing.

      I am a little sad that I probably wont get to see Amy get baptized because that was such an amazing experience to get to find her. Hopefully Elder Ragozzine and his new companion will make sure that she stays on the straight and narrow. But yes I have actually seen the new new temple video when I went to Nauvoo a couple of weeks ago. I really liked it a lot also. Its a good thing that I went to Nauvoo because now I am like 3 1/2 hours away. The work is pretty slow in this area and has been for quite awhile. Elder Underwood has been here for his whole mission and I think has seen one baptism so we are going to change that:) The Branch members seem very nice and I think we just need to focus on them and get them inviting their friends over with us. I'm pretty sure that this whole area has been knocked out multiple times so through the members is definitely the better way. Ha so P-day was a lot different for me yesterday. Usually it is emailing and then straight to the church to play basketball. There are no churches with courts any where around here. So I asked my companion where the nearest gym was and he has no idea. So then I started asking some members and they told me that there was a rec center just a little ways out of town. So we went there and offered service for them and they were happy to let us serve them and said that they would let us play for free now. So we are actually going to do service there right after we get done emailing:) it was a pretty big relief because I didn't think that I would ever be able to get any exercise. We went over to an eternagator's (eternal investigator) house yesterday and played some board games with him. Ha I needed to play more board games when I was back at home because I didn't know how to play any of them that he had, but it was a good time. He has a probably with the tissues in his body, so he can only be standing up for so many minutes before he is in real pain so it is very hard to get him to church, but he is very intelligent and understands the Book of Mormon completely!! I don't think he likes the Idea of Celestial Marriage though because I don't think that he is planning on getting married, but we will have to explain that better to him next time.

        That is awesome that Rigby beat Madison. It has been probably a good two years since we put a whipping on them. I'm glad everything is going good. Ha and I will probably ask the mission president if I can extend for a little bit if he lets me. We'll see how much longer I am here in the states though. Thank you for all of your prayers. I really appreciate it! Have a great week. Love you!!

Love Elder Polatis

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