Dear Family and Friends,

Olá! Como vai? Everything is going good here in Brasil. It has been pretty rainy, but I like rain so it’s not a big deal.

We had two missionaries return home this past month and this week I went on a division with both! It was way cool. Elder Hiar (my comp) has tons of work so while he chills here in the office I just go out with the RMs and visit people. It’s cool to share ideas and see how different missions can be. For example one dude served in Japan, there is a rule there that you can’t talk to women on the street!! I couldn’t imagine that.. here that’s all there is in the street, all the men are always working. The other guy went to BYU and we got talking about our experiences there, good stuff.

This week I got to do two baptismal interviews, two really cool boys. One wanted to get baptized so bad he was afraid of not passing the interview, it was hilarious. I told him usually people don’t pass because they committed a crime or something, so unless you committed a crime you got nothing to worry about! They both passed, and I will interview one more girl tonight, all will be baptized today! Pretty cool huh? As for my area and baptisms, things aren´t going to well. We still haven’t marked any dates for baptism, but we are trying! Our mission has a special lesson called the Lesson of the Atonement. It’s pretty much for any person who can’t make a decision. It’s funny because it’s like a memorized lesson, not like the Preach My Gospel lessons where you just study the stuff and teach it how you want. So it took us a while to get the hang of it. We shared it with a lady who is the wife of some guy who was baptized a few years ago, unfortunately she didn´t accept baptism and says she needs to wait some more. Its good though because to be honest we have been wasting our time with some people who are going nowhere, we need to focus on finding NEW people and working with them.

We got to go to the temple, man it was so awesome! President and his wife came too and it was an amazing experience. I brought my patriarchal blessing and read it in the celestial room, WOW! It opens up your mind to a while new perspective. One thing I learned that was way cool: We shouldn´t just read and study the scriptures. We need to ponder on the words. When you study in the morning, continually reflect on it and through this process the Lord blesses us with understanding and wisdom. Also, it keeps our minds and thoughts focused on the important things and they aren´t empty for Satan to come in and put in bad thoughts or temptations. So I need to ponder more. I’m not much of a ponderer, but I’m working on it!

Well that’s about it. Hope you all have a good week. Send me letters and packages full of candy and wonderful things from the United States. Thanks for all your prayers and support!

Elder Boyack

Dear Person reading this letter,

This week was pretty good. Luckily I am not freezing my butt off which always is a good thing. Things here at the office are starting to slow down. I get things done pretty quickly so I pretty much did 6 weeks of work done in about 4, usually that takes a person a couple of transfers to get used to! Guess I am just amazingly talented..  HA!

This week we had zone conference. It was really cool. We learned a lot and at the end Presidente Araujo gave a talk about the 3 kingdoms of glory, so awesome. We got some really good ideas to help missionary work move along, for example this chapel is probably the coolest one in Curitiba, it even has a huge soccer court (not a field). So you know brazillians and their soccer, we are going to get the three wards here to work together to get a weekly soccer thing going, should work out great!! Tonight we are going to have a gincana, not sure the word in English but there will be tons of fun games and stuff!

We also had a training this week for all the District leaders in Curitiba because they never get trained! President just calls them and they do what they think they are supposed to haha. So they set some rules and I got to give a training on baptismal forms (I got to show them some pretty ridiculous ones I get from them, pretty hilarious).

Today for p-day we went with President to a cool Japanese Immigrant Expo at some huge park. So there was some cool booths and reaaalllly good food. I am pretty tired though so I was definitely ready to take a nap!

Because the work has been slowing down, I will read an Ensign or some talk from and apostle to pass the time. I am really concerned with the “after(mission)life” haha. So what I am doing is establishing rules that I will do when I am back home. For example on the mish, you have a set hour every day to read the scriptures. There is nothing else to do so you do it anyways then eventually learn to love it. Out in the world you don’t have that set hour. Our schedule always changes and it’s hard to keep things programmed. Then people stop reading and start to give excuses and what not. I will not let that happen.

Also I was thinking the other day about what President said about the 3 kingdoms of glory. I became horribly frightened with the thought of just going to the Terrestrial kingdom… I can’t even imagine how terrible that would be to not be able to live in the presence of God and Jesus Christ. I became really scared! Some people just don’t ever think about it and live life normally. My view of this life and our purpose really has changed dramastically. Some people get so caught up in the present the completely forget about the past and future. I hope this week you can all try to broaden your thought perspective and remember the true purpose of life. Remember that our thoughts and actions are what determine who we are, and that is how we will be judged in the final judgment.

This weekend is a very special one. They don’t celebrate it here in Brazil but happy father’s day!! I would like to congratulate all of the Fathers reading this, especially my brother Connor. I also would like to publicly thank my own Father for all he has done for me. He has always been there to listen and I have seen him sacrifice much of what he has, especially his own time, for his wife and sons. Thank you Dad for all you have done for me, especially here on the mission. You are a big example in my life and I look forward to walking in your footsteps raising my own family. There is an amazing short film (Mormon Message) that the church put out about Fathers, here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhqRMP9meMc

I love you all, be strong and keep the faith!!
ELDER Boyack

My dearest Family and Friends,

Today I was going through my letters people have written me and I really could feel the love. So amazing! Its funny how when you leave high school, you lose all those people that weren’t really good friends. Then when you go on a mission, you really come to know who actually loves you and is thinking of you. I have so many amazing friends and an outstanding family I cant even begin to go on about it! There is one method of contacting people and it goes something like this “Hello! I would like you ask you a quick question, what of all things in your life is the most important?” About 90% of people say their family! Family really is the most important part of our life and I hope none of us ever think otherwise.

Things are going really well here is Brasil. I got bit by a monkey and woke up with a snake wrapped around my neck, not to mention the billions of mosquitoes that eat my arms and legs all day. JUST KIDDING! That’s a big joke here that when the Americans get their call they imagine a jungle with monkeys in the street and what not. Here it’s actually a really nice place. The houses are a little different but other than that it’s normal.

I am getting a lot better at work here in the office. I always look for the easiest way to do things and get it done in much faster time. Next Tuesday we have Zone Conference and its gunna be sweet. I think I will give training, not sure. The weather is warming up, a little bit. The work is slowing down here, its such a challenge. We have to do everything the normal missionaries do, in about 1/8 of the time. Sometimes I get pretty bummed out about it. Not fun!

This past Sunday we had a new boy come to our ward, his name is Eduardo and hes 8. He does commercials and stuff and is by far the most intelligent and awesome 8 year old in the world. Sadly he has a really messed up family who doesn’t live in our ward boundaries but they love us so much I think they are all going to come to this ward anyways!! We will see…

I am almost done reading Doctrine and Covenants!! So good. I miss the Book of Mormon though, MAN I love reading that book. I learned so much. We explained to a lady the other day that the bible and Book of Mormon aren’t like other books. You don’t just read it and your done you know everything. They are scripture. You can read them a MILLION times and no matter how many you still learn new things. Amazing huh? Never forget that! Have a great week I love you all, and PLEASE, share the gospel. Its so important. And even better, it’s a commandment!! So if you aren’t doing it, REPENT. Haha have a good week!

Love,
Elder Parker Boyack

Dear everyone,

What a week! First let me start of by describing how horribly cold it has been here. I have been freezing my butt off. When I heard I was going to Brazil, I thought it was going to be like Arizona weather, little did I know I would be living in a Utah climate!! Today it warmed up a little, but its still freezing! I was talking with Elder Hiar and we decided the best time to be in the office is during the summer, because there is air conditioning. So unfortunately we are here in the winter… Anyways things are rolling along.

This past Sunday I gave a talk on the blessings of the gospel. I gave the members a little “queimadinha” (little burn) on how they aren’t doing what they need to be when it comes to missionary work. This ward is a pretty old one as in it has been around a long time so here they don’t like it when some new missionary comes in and tells them what to do. Well at least that’s what the last missionary told me. I don’t care! People need the occasional “arousing of their faculties” to realize what they are NOT doing.

Every first week of the transfer is the Zone Leader Counsel. All the zone leaders from the mission come here and there is a big day-long conference. Really cool. I got to give a training on the new referrals site, I did very well!  Also it was cool to see my trainer Elder Boswell, he is in the furthermost zone of our mission so I only see him once a transfer now.

So we broke a mission record in May! We had the biggest baptizing month in mission history! Actually the first month it opened they had 200, we got 175 this month. It was so cool. People are starting to work harder and desire baptisms. President is working really hard and its paying off!

So  I have really come to learn something these past couple weeks. You will get a much better result if you have 100 people praying for your investigator then just the 2 missionaries. So this week I am going to ask for your help. This month (June) me and Elder Hiar have a goal of 4 baptisms. We have many perspective investigators, but all of them are going to need divine help. SO please put these people in your prayers (family, and personal) and ask Heavenly Father to bless them with a desire to be baptized, feel the spirit, etc. Here is the list:

-Adalton (really cool guy who is very interested, recently got back in contact with him)
-Idete and Bruna (wife and daughter of our last baptism, Nadir)
-Hilda (wife of member, cant overcome habits and doubts some doctrine of the church)
-Alana (daughter of a recent convert, mom doesn’t think she is ready to be baptized)
-Fabrícia and Eduardo (amazing family who just NEEDS an answer this is all true)
-Renato and Rose (very nice couple, NEED to go to church!!)

PLEASE help us out. I know that Heavenly Father will bless us if we sincerely ask with faith. And if you think 4 is a lot, just to let you know the goal for the month of June of the assistants is 16!! They are really exercising their faith, they even shared their goal with the bishopric and the ward.

This is the truth, and we MUST share it!! It’s a commandment! So if you aren’t helping out with missionary work (doing divisions, giving referrals, etc.) you are breaking a commandment and need to repent. May we all try harder this week to be instruments in the Lords hands by bringing people to the true church of Jesus Christ. That way, we can get blessings! Just like D and C says, every commandment has its specific blessings. I don’t know about you, but I loooooooooove blessings Haha! Have a great week, and write me a letter or email telling me HOW and WHAT you did to be a missionary this week. Whoever wins gets a famous Elder Boyack smoothie. Tchau!

Elder Boyack
Praça Joseph Smith 15
Portão – Curitiba – PR
80610-210   BRASIL