Hello,
Thank-You for all the birthday wishes! My birthday was legal demais(Awesome) here!!!! I always hear how missionaries birthdays aren't cool or anything special. But my district and the members here really made it cool. I received alot of little gifts and presents. I also received a lot of calls from people in Mossoró (my last area) and other missionaries. One member here Duji, asked me what I usually like to eat for my birthday. I told him I always want cheesecake. So when I got there for lunch he had made a cheesecake, roast beef, mashed potatoes and stuff just like what you mom usually make at home even with green beans on the table haha but I didn't eat those because green beans are still nasty. But over all it was a good day so Thank-You to everyone!

This week was another slow week. Me and my comp are still trying to find that right area that we can find people to teach. But right now we are really just working with a bunch of inactive members in our area and working with this ward because transfers are coming. This Sunday the missionaries got the branch and the ward together. We had one missionary from the ward and one missionary from the branch speak and also a member.  Our purpose was to get these two groups united together and not just be "the ward" or "the branch".  Because there is a problem where everyone just stays in their own area to help the work. They don't have training here with everyone like they do at home.  They don't have activities or anything.  So it's hard to bring new people to church when there isn't any unity. I hope our plan helps here. I didn't get to speak but I learned alot. 

Ohhhhh that sucks that Gavin is starting school back up on his birthday. Happy Birthday to him, hahah!! No, but I hope everything will go all right on his birthday and he can still do something cool. Mom, I bet you are going to have so many more crazy stories working at the airport. Maybe  learn or hear about some cool vacation trips(; But i hope you still get those buddy passes because I want to travel with some of my buddies after the mission.

I like what dad wrote me in his email. This is what I was trying say, that high numbers are good to have but not to just baptize someone that you barely even know and throw them in the water without a testimony of anything. But everything is going ok here, it's just a really hard area. I felt really frustrated last week and stressed about pressure to get those numbers. But I didn't come here to just baptize. It's about helping, serving and strengthening the members too.
I love you guys,
Elder Mauter

The photo is of a school we passed by on our Pday. We got invited to talk to all the classes and tell them about ourselves. It was cool-