Letter From September 24th, 2012

These past couple of days have been good.   We were able to have a couple of people at sacrament meeting and all so we will start working hard to help the people that we have.  My new comp is super cool.  He is a way funny guy and we are getting along very well.   As I mentioned, he is from Sao Paulo and has about a year and a half in his mission.   He saw a picture of Emma and now he keeps on telling me how he is gonna marry her and jokes about that (ha ha).   But, he has a sister who is 17 and I just tell him that we could just make a trade (ha ha).   But, I am sure missing my old comp.  We got along really well.   I will see him today.  He is going to stop by the house to get one of the bags he left so that will be cool to see him, but weird at the same time because he will be normal (ha ha).

This week should be good.  We should be having another baptism on Saturday of a young lady who is friends with the girls that we baptized a couple of weeks ago.  So I'm excited!!  Things are going good here. We got up early this morning and went to our Relief Society president's house.   She has a bunch of weight equipment and a treadmill and stuff like that so we went to her house and she let us do exercises there which was awesome.  Even afterwards she invited us to have breakfast
with her.   We are gonna see if she will let us do that more often.  But hey - got to go.  Have a great week!  Until next time . . .

 

Letter From September 19, 2012

This week was a good and a sad week at the same time.   It was sad because me and my comp had a really tight relationship and it was sad to see him go.  He is gonna get with his parents tomorrow.  I will see him on Monday so that should be pretty cool.  He left one of his bags here at that house, so he will have to come and pick it up.  This morning we had to get up at 3 :30 to go to the bus station for him to go to the mission home.   That was a sad last hug as comps.   We only spent 6 weeks together, but we made a huge friendship.  My new comp, and most likely my last, is Elder Rinaldi.  He is from Sao Paulo.  He seems like a really cool guy.  I don't know much about him yet, except that he speaks really goood English and he has a pic of him and his family in the Word of Wisdom pamphlet that we use to teach  people (ha ha).  But, I'll be able to tell a little bit more here in a couple of days.  And, at the same time it was a good week.   We did end up having all 3 baptisms on Saturday and they were all confirmed on Sunday which was cool.   We had a young man who was baptized that he was super prepared to be baptized.  The Lord had been preparing  him for a while.  Pretty much all we had to do was invite him.  He is already visiting the members and pretty much home teaching already which is super cool.  And then we baptized 2 young ladies.  They are daughters of a member couple who are really cool.  They come from really humble circumstances.  The couple were baptized about 5 years ago and then had ended up falling away from the Church but we found them and got them to come back.   And it was super cool to see their Dad be able to baptize them.  It was so special and it was just an awesome feeling.  

But, I've got to go.   I'll be here again in a couple of days with more details.  Have a great week!!

Letter From September 10th, 2012

This week was super busy.  On Monday night, we had to go to the other Elder's house about an hour away from here to spend the night with them because on Tuesday morning we had to get up at 4 am to take a van to go to Joao Pessoa which is about 3 hours from here.  We went and had Zone Council there and ate with Pres. and Sister Hall and I got to see a lot of the Elders from my group which was cool.  Then we came back and got home a little late.  I think it was about 7 pm before we got home and I was just beat from traveling so much.  Then on Thursday we had Zone Conference which was about an hour away from here and we had to get  up a little bit earlier to do that as well.  So, a lot of this week was spent in meetings and traveling and all that fun stuff.

 

Yesterday we had Ward Council and when I got there they asked me if I could talk in sacrament meeting .  I got to speak for about 12 minutes which was cool.  I'm pretty sure that nobody was paying attention, but that is pretty normal here (ha ha).   I talked on Mosiah 25.

 

Yes - this is my comps last week, so we are gonna make it good!!  We should have 3 baptisms this Saturday, so we are super excited.   And yes, you will have to wait to hear from me next week until Wednesday.  It will be a little bit later since I'll have to wait for my new comp at the bus staion and for all of the Elders of our zone to get here.  Have a great week!!  Next week I'll have a little bit more to talk about.

Letter From September 3rd, 2012

Finally I'm sending some pictures.  The first is of my shoe.  As you can see here in Brazil we walk quite a bit (ha ha).  The next is of the lady and her son that we baptized last week. The last picture is of my comps b-day a couple of weeks ago when we threw a surprise party for him at our house. 

One thing that I thought would be cool that I have been looking for is a blue and white hammock for you guys to put in the house.  So, I'll keep my eyes open for that.  That way you can put a little bit of Brazilian taste in the house. Plus, hammocks here are pretty cheap.  I bought one the other day that was 60 reais, so that's only like 30 dollars which I think is pretty cheap for the size of the hammock. Today in our house we are going to put some hooks in the walls so that I can sleep in my hammock like I used to in my other areas.  Here the houses are made of brick, so it's a little bit harder to do stuff like that. We are going to have to chisel holes in the wall, then put the hook in, and then fill it all in with cement. So, that's going to be most of our pday today (ha ha)!  

This week went well.  I had another division with a different Elder this week and spent the day with him which was cool. Their house is super small - it's crazy.  We have an awesome family that we are teaching that they started the marriage papers, so they are going to get married next month.  We are super excited for that!!  We had quite a few people at Church yesterday which is good.   We are workin' our tails off here trying to find and teach new people and do everything that we have got to do. This week will be pretty crazy.  We have got a couple of meetings that we have to go to this week, so I'm pretty sure this week will fly by.  We also have Zone Conferences this week on Thursday ,so that will be cool to see some old friends and get trained by President.  This conference will be our whole state that  will go, so there is gonna be quite a few missionaries.  But, that's about it.  The work is going on and we are working our hardest to save souls here in this blazing sun.  It's funny because everyone - literally EVERYONE - always comments on how my face is red (ha ha).  I don't know if it's getting worse (my redness) or if they are just not used to it, but I always just tell people it's a family thing and that I was born this way.  

But hey - have a great week.  I only have one more email before transfers which is crazy.  These days are flyin' by.   Until next week. . . 

Letter From August 27th, 2012

This week went well.  On Tuesday we went on a division with some other Elders.  I got to go to their area and work for a day there.  The cool thing was it was an Elder who I had already known a little bit and we had even passed in the same area together.   So, it was cool to talk to him.   I wanted to send pics to you guys, but this computer isn't letting me.  

 

One sweet thing that we did this week was we learned how to make what is called coxinhas.   There is a member in our Ward who seriously makes the best coxinhas in Brazil!!  They are so delicious!!  We were just going to go there to buy something to eat and then he just invited us in to help him make them.  So, he taught us all the steps and stuff and how to do it.  It was awesome, so today we are going to try to make it oursleves at home.  We will see how that goes.   Coxinhas is like a dough thing that you can put meat or chicken inside of it and then you roll it in bread crumbs and then fry it.  It is SOOO good!!  I'll have to make it for you guys when i get home now that i know how to do it (ha ha). 

 

We did have a couple of baptisms yesterday.  We had a young lady and her 8 year old son who were baptized.   It was super cool.  She was an elect lady.  Whatever we asked her to do, she just did it.   She is really a special lady.  But, that's about it for this week.   Have a great week!!