Hello!

Wow. What a crazy week! So this past Wednesday I was sitting on the couch and my comp walks over and was like congratulations!! I thought he was crazy but then he reminded me it was my one year anniversary! What a crazy feeling. It was so weird. This past year seems like it flew by, but at the time time took forever. Anyways I decided to celebrate with a Chocolate and Strawberries pizza, see attached picture

This past Wednesday we had the LZ counsel. So normally its some day long boring thing here in Portão, but this transfer President wanted to do something different. So normally the secretaries aren´t allowed to participate, but I told President I could take tons of pictures and he really liked that and let me go!! So we get to this place called Parque Barigui (Bar-i-guiy Park) and then we pretty much played games allll day. Except every game had a special lesson. The best one was at the end, its called “The Iron Rod”. So there were 4 groups with 5 ZL´s in each group. Me, President, and the two assistants led the groups literally through the jungle. They were all blindfolded and had to hold on the iron rod, actually a rope, to not get lost. So we get to this part which was pretty much swamp, and because I saw the mud I jumped over it, unfortunately my group did not see it, and they weren´t too happy I didnn´t warn them So when we got to a certain point, we told them the first team to make it back would win, but first we ran off and left them in the middle of the jungle. So awesome!!

This past week has been TERRIBLE weather. Freezing cold, and rain. NOT fun.  People make fun of me because I am from the U.S. and that I should be loving the cold, then I explain how I am NOT from Salt Lake and that where I live its actually quite warm. People here LOVE Californians, who doesn’t!?! haha anyways I hope this passes soon because its quite terrible. Swine fever (however you say it in English) is approaching. There have been a few cases recently, nothing with the missionaries luckily.

So this past Friday we had a big step taken in mission history. We had our first training, ONLINE!! Normally to train the missionaries they come here, but I found a cool program the church uses called meetingplace. So we had to train the new DL´s, and they all went to a LAN House and then we had a conference call. So this program is amazing. You can use powerpoint, share your desktop, lots of stuff. It went very well, they all loved it (except for the two that had to give a prayer over the phone, haha akward!!!)

As for our investigators things are slow. We had found some good new people but its not working out. There is this one guy who pretty much wants to “discuss doctrine”. We leave the lesson feeling terrible, because of the lack of the spirit. Things are ok with our recent convert Nadir, his wife is a witch. He has so much patience its unbelievable. We have lots of refrences that have never been contacted so we are contacting those. To be honest (Connor is going to laugh) I can’t wait to get out of here. I am excited to get back into normal missionary life. It is the best thing ever. To devote yourself 24/7 to the Lord, is such a privilege. I definitely took it for granted. Those of you that are able to serve a mission and for some reason have not gone, I URGE you to think and pray about this. It is such an amazing thing. It literally is the best two years of your life. Have a good week, I love you all! Please send me letters, im not getting very much any more… haha.

Falou!!

Greeting to all reading my words,

This week was great. I have a good comp and I am pretty much in charge so we are getting a lot done. The work here in the office is going well. My first transfer I  got all my work done in about 4 weeks. This transfer I have done almost all of my work in 2 WEEKS. Its ridiculous. So this transfer is going to be a little slow, due to the fact that I am going to have to look for things to do here in the office.. haha the other day I did something wrong to my computer so now I have to take off EVERYTHING then reinstall the entire operating system, should be a BLAST.

Here on the mission pretty much everything bad that happens is a result of miscommunication. Its incredible. For example this past week, we had a play fight with the assistants. It was the Americans versus the brasileiros. So then after they thought we were talking bad about them and they got so mad they didn’t talk to us the rest of the day. In fact we didn’t say ANYTHING, they just misinterpreted the situation. So because of that, our work went terribly that day. There have been so many situations where someone heard something differently, didn’t even hear what the other person said, so on and so forth. I have learned the importance of clear communication, especially by the spirit. Just us missionaries talking and “convincing” the people isn’t enough. They need to receive that special witness that doesn’t come from the missionaries. Just as the Lord says, those who have not the Spirit cannot teach. But as easy as that sounds, its one of the hardest things. You have to be %100 percent obedient, and then listen for the promptings of the spirit. Its like a radio. You have to be tuned to the right frequency to get a clear transmission.

\Well this next week I will be celebrating (should I be celebrating this? Seems like I should be lamenting) my one year anniversary here on the mission. Wow has it flown by. After I graduated high school, my life has become a blur. Those who are in and around this age, make sure to take advantage of your time, but DON’T be stupid. Make good choices. What you decide in these few years, will change your life FOREVER. I am starting to get those feelings of “crap, I should have done this”, or “dang, why didn’t I do that’? when it comes to my mission. Luckily I still have ONE WHOLE YEAR (sorry mom, it will go by fast I promise to do the Lords work. Now is when I kick it into high gear. Those of you who are familiar with cars, (Ryan, Jordan, etc.) lets flick our NOS switches!!! Haha lame I know but seriously, this year goes faster so we need to work harder to make sure we have given our all and done our best. There will ALWAYS be room to improve. And the better and harder we work now, the less guilty we will feel after the mish. Have a good week everyone, don’t forget to read your scriptures, say  your prayers, and SHARE THE GOSPEL!! I love you all.

Dear Family and Friends,

Sorry I couldnt get a letter out on time, we had a lesson marked that we COULD NOT miss. There is a family in our ward who was baptized a few years ago and they wanted us to teach the grandson. It went very well, he is a really smart kid and is gunna be baptized next week!

This week was pretty insane. So we had transfers, pretty much everything went smoothly. As secretaries we expect nothing to happen. But, President decided to change things up a little bit. This past transfer the Missionary Couple that was working in the office went home. So President decided to put two missionaries in that ward. There are three wards that meet in this chapel, it was the ward of the secretaries, the assistants, and the missionary couple. So these two missionaries are living with us. Here is the crazy part. Technically we are supposed to leave the office at around 6 o’clock. Elder Hiar was having trouble leaving on time, and I complained a little about it to President. So now these other two Elders do a division with us at 6. So basically Elder Hiar is my comp here in the office and Elder Sales is my comp out in the field. Elder Sales is a brazillian from the state of Rio Grande do Norte (Big River of the North). He is a way cool dude, he is even engaged already! Pretty intense stuff.

We are trying to work in a part of our area that has never been worked much, the only problem is its pretty far away. So yesterday we were walking back to the chapel after the lesson at 6, and I decided to take another road. So we were walking along, cold and wet, then all of a sudden I see a pizza place. Now, those of you who know me, know I love food, especially pizza, ESPECIALLY brazillian pizza. I am an experimenter so I decided to pop in and grab a menu to look at. I didn´t go in to buy anything, just to get a menu to have at home. It was a pretty nice pizza place, but there was only the young couple who owned it, no one else. Then when the guy saw who we were he got REALLY happy. He started telling us about how he was really good friends with some American Elders about 4 years ago and all his friends got baptized and even went through the temple and how much he loves the church. It was amazing. He is the coolest guy ever, and better, he owns a pizzaria!! So we marked to teach him on Monday night (when all the pizza places are closed). After I got home it hit me that was totally the Holy Ghost guiding me. I had no intention whatsoever to go that way. Then we found this young couple, who obviously the Lord wants in his church. I have always heard those stories of missionaries being led to some random door, I however, was led to a pizza place! HA! Anyways I am really stoked, I will let you know how the visit goes.

Oh! One more story. So the other day we were knocking on doors, in the rain. This one house seemed to have no one, then right before we were about to leave some really tall old guy comes out with his umbrella. It was a really long driveway so it took a minute for him to reach us. Then finally he came up and said “Diga” (What is it?). So I started to tell him we are missionaries with a very special message, the moment I said missionaries he said, (translated to English) “MISSIONARIES! You brought me out of my nice comfortable house for this!? I don’t believe it! Missionaires, you have got to be kidding me (throw in mumbling and possibly swear words). Then I proceeded to say “Yes! Missionaires! Can we share our message with your family?” And he said to “come another day.” I said “Great! What day would be good for you guys.” Then he said “Come back in a month!” HAHAHA I was like umm ok? Then he stormed back up his driveway, cranky and mad. So you know what I did? I got out my planner and in a month I am going to visit that man. Its going to be pretty hilarious. Anyways I thought that was funny.

Well, I got to get going. Have a good week I will talk to you all next Saturday.

Hello!

Today I am sending a letter a little early because we have to get out on the green pretty early. Yes green, as in GOLF!!!! Haha so we are totally going golfing with President today, I am so stoked! Should be amazing, I will take some pictures. On the office computers there are some pretty funny videos, one is of President last time golfing when he missed the shot and got really mad, hilarious!

This week was great. Last night we met with a family who was SO many problems… but the kids there are AMAZING. SO intelligent. There was a small baby that was born VERY premature. She has grown a lot but still is tiny. I couldn´t help myself but care for it the whole time haha. So we marked a date with the grandson (he lives with his grandparents). We were talking about baptism and he turned to his Grandma and said “Grandma, when can I get baptized?” Haha you should have seen the smiles on our faces. The grandparents drink a lot of coffee and smoke a lot so we made goals with them to help them stop. They have a big desire to be clean before their baptism which is amazing.

This week we had a bomb dropped on us. President randomly took off for Cascavel (the farthermost stake in our mission, on the border with Paraguay). NO ONE knew why, but we remembered that a few days ago he said something big was going to happen. SO during district meeting I was dealing with a phone call, and I got a message from the secretary in the Brasil Londrina mission (the mission above ours). He said “do you know about the news?” I said no then he told me that there was going to be a boundary realignment of the missions and then proceeded to tell me that two of our Zones (Cascavel and Foz do Iguaçu) are now part of their mission. WWWHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!! Now here is the worst part, every missionary currently serving there would also be transferred to the Londrina Mission. My best friend/trainer/LZ in FOZ Elder Boswell…. Is now a part of another mission. I was not happy. Niether was President when I called him and told him I knew the secret Now here is the best part. When I found out, the assistants were in here. So they knew too. President told us to KEEP QUIET. Now when my comp came back in the office after district meeting he immediately noticed something was different. He majored (already graduated) from college in journalism. So with everyone knowing something and he not knowing, he went CRAZY!! First he kept quiet until we left the office. Then he barraged me with questions. I DID NOT crack. Then he tried the being mean game. That didn’t work. Then he played the silent game. That one was my favorite because I was sick of him trying to manipulate me HAHA. Anyways he ended up finding out the same way we did, only a day later. So that was a pretty big change. Our mission had the biggest number of missionaries in Brazil, and with this change we lost 18. But this next transfer we will open 4 more areas! So now we will be able to concentrate more on Curitiba and its neighbor cities.

Recently I finished the Pearl of Great Price and started the big one, OLD Testament. Its pretty sweet. I really learned a lot in the Pearl of Great Price. Its so amazing the difference you see and feel in your life when you are reading the scriptures daily. Sadly I can see how many people in the church are not doing this. Its literally a tragedy, because they are missing out on so much!!! This week, let us all study the scriptures EVERY DAY. And none of the couple verses stuff, at LEAST a chapter. I promise if you do this your days will go by smoother, and your relationship with our Heavenly Father and his son will grow tremendously.

Have a good week, and remember, “EVERY member a missionary!”