Thats what I feel like recently.. I feel like I am on the final strech! My time is ticking and I and running faster and faster. To be honest, I am super tired. Haha I was telling one of thesisters the other day how I need a vacation!! I swear the first week home I will sleep for a week… STRAIGHT!! Haha but I am loving this time. Its sweet because I feel like I am one of the more experienced missonaries and i am in an amazing area but with a challenging ward. To be honest I hope I “die” (end my mission) here to see what diffrence I have made. The Lord is really helping/blessing us in the work here. This pace has LOTS of potential and I am excited to see what will happen.

The golden family we foudnt the other day while knocking doors is doing very well. This weekend we will have stake coference and we should have at LEAST 15 investigators at church. President Araujo will be coming to speak which should be awesome. We fond out today that the area doctor will be coming as well which will be pretty cool. I am super stoked about this weekend!! I looked at all my records throughout the mission and this weekend I am fighting to beat my record of investigators in sac meeting.

This week we have Silva with a baptismal date. she has been taught for YEARS by the missionaries and loves the church. The ONLY thing that is stopping her fro being baptized is a “confirmation” that this is what she needs to do. She felt this when she was baptize/confirmed in the catholic church (she was 22) and wants to feel the same way to know that she needs to join this church. SO, what I need from ALL of you is the following:

PLEASE say a special prayer for Silva. Pray for the Lord to show her the truthfulness of these things and that she can receive this “confirmation”. Please pray for her to be baptized THIS WEEKEND. I know that if we get everyone reading this to pray, the Lord wil soften her heart.

Yeah there isn´t much else to say. Things are good, life is great, and the church is true!! What more do I need? 8 baptisms this month would be nice

I love you all!

Hello all from CRAZY THUNDERSTORM Curitiba!! Thats right, as we speak the heavens have opened and its raining cats and dogs. Unfortuantely, I did not bring an umbrella. So the forcast is a soaking wet Elder Boyack with a chance of wet clothing on the line that was out to dry. I LOVE THE MISSION! It never gets old

This week was spectacular. We had a baptism from a girl called Emily. She is a friend of a recent convert and loves the church. Unfortuately her family has tons of problems but we are helping them too. Tonight we are going to have a family home evening with all of them and it will be ACE (as says Jergy lol). This area has lots of difficulties, but we are being positive and doing our part. We are also having some difficulties with a few missionaries and companionships in the zone, but we really got everything out in the open and Prez is helping us out alot. Its sad when there are missionaries that really just dONT want to work, very sad.

This week I had ana amazing experience. I was on a division with an Elder from our zone, and it was about 7pm. There werent any more marked appointments and we were heading to another persons house. I felt a strong impression to knock (here you go up to the gate and clap) on a certain door and when I did a woman came out and let us in! There lives her, her husband, and two daughters. The husband suffered two strokes a year or two ago and has some trouble spaeking and moving but he manages very well and can understand perfectly. We gave the message of the restoration and it was amazing! There was a strong spirit there and they all felt it. They accepted EVERYTHING even baptism! The guy was so awesome, repeatedly saying “I am going to read this book” and “I WILL go to church”. We are going back today at 6 so those who read this in time PLEASE pray for everytyhing to go well! His name is Laerte hers is Lídia.

HAha mom you are always worried about what I study, DO NOT WORRY. Unfortuantely i am STILL in the Old tEstament, but almost finishing. I am also reading the manual “teaching, there is no bettter calling” or something like that, VERY good stuff. I gave a talk this sunday and burned everyone haha it was awesome. I did a MLK (MArtin Luther King) style talk and started out with “I, have a dream!” Then i told them how it is my sincere desire to FILL that chapel (the frequency is always very low). I told them how us missionaires CANNOT do it alone. We NEED the help of the members. So it was great, now I am just waiting for some refrences

Anyways thats all for now. Keep praying for me and our investigators please. I wish you all a prosperous week and look forward to hearing from ALL of you, yes, that means you!!

Love,
Elder Boyack

Man sometimes I am just amazed at how blessed I am as a missionary. Samuel Smith (the first mormon missionary) had NOTHING. I have a cell phone, sweet email, amazing house, and many other conviniences, not to mention Preach MY Gospel. Yet somehow the old school missionaries managed to baptize hundreds of people.. maybe technology isn´t so good haha.

Anwyays things are great here in the Curitiba mission. We have an easter choir practice going and it is SO cool. There is a small group that will sing “This is the Chirst” and I was chosen!! I am way stoked. The weather has been great, a little wet but i prefer to be wet then for it to be humid!!

Our teaching pool is going ok. We have a girl marked to be baptized this Saturday and she is awesome. She is still unsure about baptism but its mainly cuz her whole family is messed up and she realizes it wont be easy to be an only member in the family. Luckily she has a freind next door that is an active family which helps out alot. We have been finding some good people but the people here are a little more difficult. Lots of craziness.. the churches here are nuts. I will have to send you guys some pics of the churches here haha they are huge.
I am getting along VERY well with my comp. He is a really cool guy and works hard. He has a little trouble when it comes to leadership, as in he doesn´t have much patience with the missionaries. I am helping him and he is helping me. I really hope we get to stay together at least one more transfer.

Well i spent to much time setting up this email and other stuff so i promise I will write more next week. But before I go I wanted to let you in on something I read when I was studying this week. I was reading “Truth Restored” by Gordon B. Hinckley I think.. and there was an amazing part about when everyone in Nauvoo was sick. If you have seen “Jospeh Smith: The PRophet of the Restoration” you will know what I am talking about. Joseph, himself being sick, stood up and began to heal everyone. In the story there was even a certain point where he when to a group of people by the river and commanded them to all be healed, and they all immidiately recovered. There was a certain man that was on the edge of death, the Joseph healed him and the man “lept” out of his bed, ate a little food, then left his house with Jospeh and the others. THAT DUDE WAS DYING!!! Joseph Smith truly was a prophet of God, and he did NOTHING by his own power, but through Jesus Christ. I testify that he restored to true church in our days and that Thomas S. Monson is his sucessor.

Unitl NEXT Week,
Elder Boyack

Dear Whoever is reading this,

Hello from Curitiba! MAN its great to be able to say that. It was pretty sunny but NOTHING like PAranaguá. BUT it has already cooled off and even rained all day. Today was the first time I have put on a long sleeve shirt in MONTHS!!! I love it! My comp is GREAT. His name is Elder Rossi and he is from the Capitol of Brasil called Brasília. He is probably one of my favorite brazillian comps. I was getting a haircut today and just couldn’t stop laughing because of what a crazy dude he is. The lady cutting my hair thought I was ticklish haha.

My area is pretty interesting. Our chapel is being remodeled so we are meeting in my old wards chapel, MAN was it cool to see how STRONG that ward is! All the people I baptized are FIRMEZÃO and doin great. Lots of people moved in the ward and no one has left. Their frequency (or # of people in the meeting) was about 110. OURS was FOURTY TWO. It was… empty. I have been finding out bit by bit the problems haha but the Lord has been helping me to stay excited and positive. Lots of people left or stopped going because of the bishop, as well as the remodel. We have found lots of “apostasy” and scheduled an emergency meeting with the bispo to get every thing at least running smoothly. He is really excited to help us out and wants to work, he just doesn´t know what to do haha. I walked a TON yesterday looking up inactives and really got to know the area. I am really excited because I can see so much potential in these neighborhoods, we just have to FIND these people who are waiting!!

So I heard a cool idea for all you members. There was a ward here where the scheduled a 40 day fast for missionary work. Every day a member fasted so the missionary work in the ward would progress and that he could be an instrument in the Lords hands to help his children. When talking to the missionary who gave me this idea he said he came into the area right when they started and he said he didn’t do ANYTHING, all he did was baptize. He recognized that it was the power of the members. So to keep track they had a 40 piece puzzle and when a member did his fast he put in his piece. It is a very cool idea and I challenge you ALL to put that into practice in your wards! Miracles DO exist!

Well I have officially reached that stage. When people ask how much time I have I tell them (usually) 1 year and a little bit. But when I tell them how much time I really have they always say “aw man you are almost done then!!” man it is the WORST thing. Haha but the members here are great. There are two AMAZING rapazes (young men) and a great recent convert. One big problem about Brasil is very few people do their visits. So this lady and one of the rapazes go out and visit all the old ladys! How awesome is that! So we will work with them a LOT to lift this ward and do some WORK!

This is the true church of Jesus Christ, and I testify Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. The Book of Mormon is true and was written by ancient prophets here in the Americas. I know I am doing the Lords work, and YOU ALL CAN TOO. We have such an ENOURMOUS blessing in our lives and we would be selfish Hippocrates to not share it with others. Maginify your callings, go visit your designated families, and share the gospel. If you do this you will be happy, and have the spirit. Have a spectacular week and I will talk to you all next Wednesday!

Love,
Elder Boyack

Hello Everyone!!

Well well well i was TRAAANNSFERRED! I was very happy to leave especially because my next area and comp are awesome. I am back in the Jardim do Sol stake, my second area was the jardim do sol ward. Now I am a ZL in the Parigot de Souza ward. And whats cool is they are building a new chapel here so my ward meets in the same building as my old ward! How cool is that?

My comp is Elder Rossi from Brasília, the capitol of Brazil. He is a VERY cool guy and we get along great. We cleaned the whole house already (it was a MESS) and I must say it’s a NICE house. I love being back in Curitiba!! It is so nice here. The mission has a new assistant and a new secretary which is nice because the mission was needing some big changes.

Well to be honest there isn’t much more to talk about. Unfortunately we didn’t have any baptisms this past week but I am positive we will have many in my new area. The beat the record in December in this stake with 20 baptisms! I will just have to get up to 25

I promise next week I will write more about my new area, companion, and our investigators. Have a great week and I look forward to getting tons of letters and packages from you all!!

Love,
Elder Boyack

Dear All,

Due to the small amount of email, I have 40 MINUTES to write all this! Thats a lot of time and i don´t have that much to talk about.. The weather has been ok here.. Paranaguá is weird because in one day it is hot and sunny then later rains. It happens almost every day. The big Carnaval holiday is coming up so there are groups of “bands” all over the city which basically consist of a bunch of guys beating like crazy on drums. The bad part is their practice starts at 10:00 at NIGHT. Needless to say, getting to sleep just got harder

Today was pretty cool! We played soccer at our chapel and the teams ended up with all the americans on one team (that always happens) and i am proud to say the good ´ol USA team is UNDEFEATED!! Haha the brazillians are furious. Can you imagine a group of brazillians coming and beating us at basketball or baseball or whatever? That would NEVER happen. So to have us come to their country and beat them is quite humiliating for them haha. MAN it feels good to win!

This past week we had a baptism. Its a girl who has a way messed up family and is currently living with a member family in our ward. She has been going for quite a while but would never let us mark a baptismal date with her. Then one day when we were teaching another lady there we marked with the lady and this girl decided she wanted to finally get baptized! We were all still a little unsure though if her mom (who lives in Curitiba) would let her but when we called her her mom was really happy and even wanted to come out to see the baptism! It truly was a miracle and the girl is VERY intelligent!

This next week will be transfers… i am so curious as to what will happen with me!! I have been here in Paranaguá for 3 transfers (4.5 months) which is the average time, but it is possible I stay one more. To be honest i would like to get out of here, Paranaguá is great but I would NEVER live here.. and it helped me realize how much i really love Curitiba!! We will find out Monday night then transfers happen next pday so it is possible next week i will be emailing you from another place.. cross your fingers!!

Well yeah thats about it. I would like to share a thought i had this week. There is a quote that is one of my favorites from Jospeh Smith that goes like this, “After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is to preach the gospel”. Now i want you to think about what he said. How does this apply to you? Certainly he doesn´t mean each and every one of you should go out in the streets crying “REPENT YE!” and things like that. As Gordon B. Hinckley said, we all have our own “sphere”. Now how can you preach the gospel in your “sphere”? Maybe its talk to the mailman about his religion. Maybe its send a dozen cookies over to the lady who is always alone. There are endless possibilities. Who remembers the second greatest commandment?

Matthew 22:37-39
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Now how can we love our neighbor? Heber J. Grant once said, “The best way in the world to show our love for our neighbor is to go forth and proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.” May we ponder as to how each of us can do this. I testify that as you do this, you will be immensely blessed. You will feel happier and have more of the Holy Ghost in your lives.

Have a wonderful week and go be a missionary!!

Love,
Elder Parker Boyack

Dear People of the NOrth,

Greetings! I totally agree with Ryan, portuguese is so much better! I have found that i actually struggle when i pray in english haha. I feel my portuguese has improved alot in this area. People have been complimenting me on how well i speak and sometimes think i am brazillian! Sometimes i answer our cell phone and the other elders think i am my brazillian comp.. haha i love it! I am not sure how but in these next 6 months i am really going to try to better my portuguese. I want to master it. SPEAKING of next 6 months, i have reached my 1 year and 6 months mark! HOLY COW I AM OLD! It doesnt seem like it though.. President will be leaving in the end of june and i leave in the middle of july so i asked him if before he goes we (my group) could have lunch at his house and if he could give us the final blessing he gives all the missionaries going out. He agreed and so we will be his last group to go out, im so excited!!

My comp woke up sick this morning and wouldnt leave the bathroom lol. We had tacos and pizza last night (tacos actually dont exist here, but the bishops wife makes some pretty dang good ones). It has been HOT HOT HOT. Yesterday was probably the hottest day in my whole life. I was sweating so much i thought i would melt! I have been hearing about all the crazy earthquakes and stuff, can anyone say LAST DAYS!? Oh speaking about that i had an interesting “discussion” with a Jehovas Witness. I really enjoyed it because i learned a lot about their religion. I have no interest to do theology or anything like that but i really do like understanding other peoples doctrines and beleifs.

Unfortunately Andreia who was supposed to be baptized last week didnt pass the interview because she smoked. Then she has pretty much dissappeared, i think she has started going to her friends house a lot. So today we will finally find her and see if things are good for this week. We dont have any other firm baptismal dates, one is a cool kid that was breaking almost every commandment known, and miraculously has somewhat changed his life around. He should get baptized in the next couple of weeks.

Next week we will have our zone conference and the week after that we will have transfers! We will see what happens. This week we had a huge miracle. Unfortuantely our ward is not very good when it comes to retention, so already we were seeing some of our recent converts fall away. One, who is called Juninho (ju-neen-yo) didnt go and we found out he said he didnt want to go anymore. We went over to the house where he always plays computer games and left the 3rd message about the gospel of jesus christ. Afterwards he left with us and we walked over to his house and as he gave up some water i told him his friend Jefferson (that kid who has lots of problems) had gone to church. Juninho felt really bad and we decided to go visit Jefferson. We all read the Book of Mormon together and afterward Juninho said the closing prayer (he hates doing it) and asked for forgiveniss and for help in doing the right things and keeping the commandments. It was amazing! THEN after that he asked me to help him write his testimony so he could bear it this Sunday. HOW AWESOME IS THAT!? Before he was saying he didnt want to go tochurch anymore… miracles happen!

I have been reading recently the teachings of the prophets books (old Sunday school manuals) and i am really learning alot about our past prophets. I made a goal in my life to read all of them. The church has SO MANY useful materials and many people dont take advantage of them. Today I read about Joseph F. Smith. He was shipped of when he was 16 to serve a mission ALONE in Hawaii! His first task was to learn the language and he said he could converse noramally with a Hawaiann after only a MONTH. THAT my friend is the gift of tounges. It is such a blessing to have a prophet of God on the earth today. I sometimes feel an ungrateful feeling. Sure we can say we are thanful for a latter day prophet, but how do we SHOW it? Do we actually pay attention to what he says and put those teachings into practice? I testify Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God and through him we can know Gods will for us.

Have a wonderful week and BE A MISSIONARY! I promise many blessings from heaven to those who DO Gods sacred work. Want blessings? Then magnify your calling and share the gospel!

Love,

Elder Parker J. Boyack

Dear Everyone,

So i had like a bazillion emails and now I almost have no time to send a long letter!! Thanks all who send letters/emails to me, they REALLY help me out.

This week was full of rain and HEAT. I love it. You get out of the house sunny and hot and run in at night DRENCHED from the rain because you didnt bring an umbrella, so awesome!

This week was pretty intense. Some of our recent converts are struggling and we are really trying to help them and continue working with our investigators. It is hard stuff! Sundays are defeinitley the hardest.. SOOO MUCH stuff to do.

Yesterday we had a miracle in our area, but i was on a division! So i will tell you all about it next week when i really know WHAT happened haha cuz Elder Tenório tried to explain it to me but im still not really sure what happened. All I know is an eternal investigator decided she wants to be baptized!! Which is ALWAYS a wonderful thing

Well i am out of time, I need to go get a haircut then buy foooood, i keep eating it too fast haha!

I love you all, GO DO SOME MISSIONARY WORK!

Love,
Elder boyack

Dear Family and Friends,

So many things have been going thrugh my head these past weeks… i have no idea where to start or what to say. The weather gets hotter every day. I swear yesterday my shoes were melting to the sidewalk haha. Luckily brazillians have come up with two LIFESAVERS in this heat. They are known as “chup-chup” and “caldo de cana”. Chup-Chups are like homemade otterpops (popsicles). They are made with natural fruit and milk, and com in about every imaginable flavor, and the best part, they are dirt cheap! Caldo de cana is a delicious juice drawn from sugar cane, they run the sugar cane through a machine which squeezes out all the juice then they mix a little lime or pinapple to give it extra flavor. Needless to say I am loving brasil

The holidays were HARD especially here in the “litoral” (beach region) and our zones numbers were way low. BUT we are all pumped and working very hard and the results are already showing. We are doing a competition in the zone and some of the companionships are really kicking butt! Yesterday was a bonus day to see who could get the most lessons with member. I had THREE divisions marked and they all worked out but unfortuately hardly anyone was home or let us in.

One of the districts in the zone is having some problems keeping the rules, especially when it comes to managing our time wisely. For example one day they left the house at 1:30! So this past pday me and Elder Tenorio did a surprise visit AFTER pday was over and lets just say things were pretty ugly at their house (they all live together). So we had a VERY good talk and the spirit was really strong. For some reason most of them had lost their focus and forgotten why they were really here. We helped them to get pumped and to get back on track and they have really done a good job of improving. It was a very cool experience because sometimes the leader just lets it go or he just calls them and says dont do it again. That was something I learned with President… when someone is doing something wrong you NEED to correct them otherwise they wont respect you.

One thing i have been praying and fasting about is my testimony. No need to worry, I have a strong one!! But i realized how much more strong it needs to be. I guess i was satisfied with what I had and just didnt do much about it. One thing President taught us a few zone conferences ago was that the mission is the best place to build your testimony. Now is the BEST time I have to really develop christlike attributes. So in these next 6 months (HOLY COW) I am really working on always building my testimony and developíng my christlike attributes so that when I depart from this wonderful place, i will be prepared and ready to do my best in the real world.

It is so incredibly AMAZING as to how the gospel just makes sense! This HAS to be the true church, and I know by the power of the Holy Ghost that it IS. We truly are doing the Lords work and for that we will be blessed. It is by far the most difficult (fisically AND emotionally) thing I have ever done in my life and I am so grateful for this opportunity. I know Jesus Christ is our Savior and that He lives. He loves us so much we cant even understand it!

Today is my Moms birthday and I would like to publicly (i think thats how you spell it haha) express my love to her. I couldn´t have gotten to where I am without her. She is a huge example in my life and I am SO grateful she gets to live MANY more years here on this earth with us. I love you Mom and hope you have a very happy birthday! You will get your present in 6 months haha!!

Well I wish you all a Happy New Year and hope you have a great week! This year i challenge you to make at least ONE goal that relates to missionary work and I promise that it will bring you happiniess and peace in your life if you work hard at it all year. I love you all!!

Elder Boyack
Brasil Curitiba Mission

Family and Friends,

Happy 2010!! Wow… they call the year you spend on the mission your “black year” and mine hás come to an end! How crazy is that.. its a very weird feeling. I was looking at a 2010 calendar today and realized how close i am to coming home.. ahhh!!! Haha dont worry i am NOT getting trunky!

This week was great. It gets hotter every day. We have found some GOLDEN families recently and are focusing on them for now. Our teaching group is still pretty small but we are pushing for more.

We are doing a thing called the Paranaguá Cup where every companionship is a soccer team and then you get points depending on how hard you work during the week. Everyone here is really excited and pumped to win. We are looking forward to more baptisms! I am really excited for the new year.. we should be spending it at an irma´s house here close by. Sorry my letter is so short… ohnlny 30 minutes to write today! I promise next week it will be 3 times this size!

Have an amazing new years eve and day and make some good goals and STICK to them! I love you all and appreciate so much your support and prayers.

Falou!!

Elder Boyack