Hello Everyone!

Life is goooood. Haven´t been sick, weather is great, investigators doing good, what more can I ask for? A huge package for Christmas would be nice Me and Elder Boswell are getting along great. We figured out that we will most likely spend more time together than we will with our wife before we marry her. Elder Boswell has a girlfriend (I prefer to call her his fionce). It´s really funny haha. Anyways not many realy exciting things happened here this week.

First the food! Monday for lunch me and Elder Boswell got money so we went to Pizza Hut!! Man it was amazing.. I don´t think I have ever eaten so much pizza in my life. Then yesterday Elder Boswell decided we never really properly celebrated my birthday and since the lady forgot to make us lunch we went to McDonalds!! This time I got a burger WIHTOUT cheese and it was amaaaazing. I love American food! Brazillian food is delicious too

Yesterday we had interviews with the president. I finished off all of my requirements to be a senior comp. (review all preach my gospel, teach every lesson, etc.) so that was really cool. My portuguese has been doing great and everyone has been complimenting me The other day a lady said she could tell Elder Boswell was from America but she wanted to know where I was from because I spoke portuguese so well (I had only said like 3 words It was pretty hilarious. I am so grateful to be able to learn a language so I am trying to get as good as I can. i was talking with a guy from my ward and he said he had and american comp that spoke better than he did! Haha

Marilda is having her baptism this Sunday after Ward conference. She is really excited and is going to invite like 20 people! It´s funny because here you can tell who will get baptized because a. they feed you and b. they talk to all their friends. if they are doing that then you know you are in Her son Aroldo is awesome. He is only 4 but has mastered praying and loves primary. He is going to be a great missionary!

We met a guy named Everson a few weeks ago I think I might have talked about him already. He is just a really cool guy and loved church. Our members are awesome and really friendshipped him. We are going to try to mark a baptismal date with him this week. We taught a lady last night who called to get a book of mormon. i think she is skitzofrenic 9however you spell it) so it was a pretty interesting lesson. she was really cool though and accepted everything, we marked December 7th for her to be baptized She thought when Chirst was on the earth the church he established was the Catholic church, so we really had to teach well about the great apostasy and the need for a restoration.

Well that is about it for now, sorry my weeks are so boring! I will try to make them more eventful. I went through our huge stack of Ensign/Liahona magazines and have started reading them. Man there is some gooood stuff in there! It was hard to read those at home but now I love them. So when you have a minute, go sit down and read this months Ensign, and if you aren’t getting it, get it! I love you all thanks for everything.

I am SO VERY grateful for:
My family, including my amazing parents.
The opportunity to be a missionary! Especially in Curitiba, Brazil
My awesome friends
The gospel in my life!
My sweet house, area, and ward
The atonement, and this earth, and the plan of salvation
Prophets!
(I could go on but to save time will stop here)
Have a happy thanksgiving and I will talk to you next week!
love,
Elder Boyack

Address:
Rua Luiz Peligrino Toaldo 200 Casa 2
Butiatuvinha - Curitiba - PR
82320-270
BRAZIL

Dear EVERYONE!,

I swear, these weeks just keep flying by! The time just keeps going by faster. I am having fun and really in the hangs of things now. 1 Week ago after pday I woke up in the middle of the night and felt TERRIBLE. I had chills, felt like I had to barf, and just it felt like someone turned my brain on turbo mode, I just couldn’t go to sleep! My comp said I was acting craazy. So then I got a blessing from him and was able to go back to sleep. The next few days were pretty terrible, I had no energy and just kept having the feeling of puking, luckily I never did! But, I am all good now. I am back to normal and really thankful for my good health.

So as you all know my birthday was this past Saturday. I woke up and looked outside, and I felt like I was back in San Diego!! The sky was nice and blue with some clouds and a nice breeze. It was by far the best weather yet! Defeinitely a nice birthday present from mother nature I also was walking and saw a brand new Honda CBR 600RR motorcycle, I stared at it for about an hour There are millions of motorcycles here and they are all really crappy and loud.. so its really pleasing to the eyes to see a NICE one haha. I feel weird being 20! But I love it. We had a mini birthday party with ice cream, then one of the member ladies threw me a surprise party on Sunday night (my comp secretly planned it) she made REALLY good cake and we had a good time.

Last night we were able to go to the Clouse family’s house again! Her parents were there and they were really nice. We had a great time, ate some GREAT food, and left a dvd (joy to the world) and a book of mormon for them (we were running short on time so we couln’t watch the movie with them). She made burgers and we had brownie sundaes for dessert. SO GOOD! I feel like we are really planting a seed in their lives that hopefully (Alma 32) will start to swell and grow.

We had a zone conference this past Monday, it was SWEET! I got to see the new missionaries, and it feels goood to not be the newbie haha. MAN our mission president is awesome. We learned so much and got some good practice in. Usually you leave those things feeling like you have a lot of imporving to do, but this one I left totally pumped up! I just got so excited about missionary work and that really helps.

As for our investigators, things are slowing down a little bit. Marilda is getting baptized on the 30th and she is really excited. She makes us TONS of food which is sometimes annoying because we get super full from lunch haha. She already is talking to her family and neighbors and we are going to visit and talk with them. MAN I love new converts There is a family who the missionaries have been working with for months and they haven’t really shown interest except for the grandma! She is going to church every week now and we challenged her to get baptized but she is traveling until the 5th of December, so hopefully it will happen after that.. We are still waiting for Ezequiel and Jandira to get married, they haven’t gone to church the past two weeks because of no money and visitors, so we are a little worried. They are awesome though. They should get baptized the last week of November or the first week of December. We taught a guy called Everson and he was AWESOME! You could tell he realy felt the spirit and he even said the closing prayer! So cool. He will definitely get baptized And that is when its slow! Just imagine having tons of work haha..

Well my mom told me my letters need to be more about my spiritual progeression and not food so here we go! I have the wonderful opportunity to study the scriptures every morning. I have really developed a good habit of studying the words of the prophets, and have learned so much from them already. I have been reading Jesus the Chirst and it has REALLY helped me to strengthen my testimoney of Jesus Christ. I never really had any idea of how big of a role he plays in each of our lives. He literally is the head of this church and he is preparing people to hear the gospel. Its funny because EVERYONE here thinks as a missionary we know what we are talking about and we know everything. They believe anything you say and think its a credible source. My knowledge of the gospel has really grown and I love it! I have felt the spirit SO much (especially watching the movies, my favorite is the new Joseph Smith movie, so awesome!) and am really grateful to have the gift of the holy ghost. I have seen it happen with every missionary and it is happening with me, a mission REALLY makes you appriciate and love your family so much more. We are so blessed to have strong united families. Families are the core of everything and they are so important in God’s plan for us. Man, its really hard to talk this way in English! Haha I guess that is a good thing, well thanks for all of your support and prayers! Keep up the good work and remember, EVERy member a missionary.

LOVE,
Elder Boyack

Address:
Rua Luiz Peligrino Toaldo 200 Casa 2
Butiatuvinha – Curitiba – PR
82320-270
BRAZIL

Dear everyone,

Well well another week gone by. I am sad to say this was probably the most boring week so far! I worked hard and got a lot done, but nothing super exciting happened.. Tonight we have a baptismal interview with Marilda, the single mother. She is AWESOME! She is my first baptism and I am really happy to say I was at every lesson we taught her! Her baptism SHOULD be this sunday if everything goes well. The family of Ezequiel is doing great. Their marriage papers are in and we are going to hold a small wedding party for them at the end of the month then BAPTIZE THEM! I am so excited, we have been waiting for months.

So my comp got called to be district leader, which includes doing baptismal interviews! So our Zone leaders are in our district so we had to go do an interview for them in the center of Curitiba like the 7th. I went on splits with Elder Fortes and we did some contacts. He is an amazing missionary and I learned a TON from him. So he made up this amazing way to contact people. I will tell you how it goes. So we walk out the church and there is a group of like 7 construction guys all sitting around in a circle. So he walks up and says “excuse me! I am a missionary from the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints and we are doing a small survey, can we ask you guys some questions?” They are were fine with it so he pulls out a picture of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist and asks “so what is going on in this picture?” One of them knew a lot and shouted out Jesus being baptized! “Perfect! Now we all know Jesus was perfect. He never sinned, so why do you think he was baptized?” Then the one guy said “he set and example for us to follow”. “Yes! exactly. Now don’t you think its important to follow the example Jesus Chirst set?” All of them nodded their heads agreeing. “Now were you guys baptized the same way Jesus was?” ALL of them shook their heads and said no… HOLY COW!! “Well, that is why we are here” said Elder Fortes. “We are representatives of Jesus Chirst here to help people to follow his example and be batized with someone who has the same authority John the Baptist had. Can we take down your address and visit your family and teach you more about JEsus Christ?” We got all their addresses except this one old guy. You pretty much challenge the person to baptism in the CONTACT! It saves hours of time figuring out they dont want to get baptized. So every dsay for one hour we do that contact. I have already found a few people who want to get baptized Pretty cool huh?

As most of you know, my birthday is this saturday, 20 years old!! I feel so weird. I feel old. But I am really excited. I had a huge feast/bbq planned but we got a call from the zl’s the other day saying president wants us all to fast after lunch on the 15th to lunch on the 16th (lunch is the big meal in BRazil). So, there goes my feast! I was pretty bummed out but I know we are fasting for a reason (he wants us to fast for personal revelation to help us baptize more in our areas). So I went a little crazy and bought some sonho de valsa ice cream! Sonho de valsa is a chocolate candy, the size of a golfball. It is sooooooo good so I bought myself a little present Well that’s all for now. Thanks for all your letters and prayers! For my birthday present, I want all of you to go talk to ONE person about the gospel. just ONE! Let me know how it goes

Love,
Elder Boyack

address:
Rua Luiz Peligrino Toaldo 200 Casa 2
Butiatuvinha - Curitiba - PR
82320-270
BRAZIL

Dearest Family and Friends,

How was your week?! Mine was fantastic. Time continues to fly down here… Transfers are today, we got a call monday night telling us what was going down. All four of the people in our house are staying! We couldn’t have been happier. Any my comp is now district leader which is sweet. He is excited. So my address is still the same.

On Monday (I think) we reallly wanted McDonalds. So we went and it was so good! The burgers are huge but they have brazillian cheese which is gross so it kind of ruined it. But the fries are truly amazing. Also we got a ice cream cone afterwards, I could have eaten like 7. SO GOOD. Every night before p-day we have a pdays eve celebration So last night me and my comp bought some marinated chicken wings and barbequed them. We also made some homemade ranch dressing and pineapple. Wow. I am loving it here!

We had a general Authority visit us, Elder Neil L Anderson. He was really cool and he had a really bad american accent when speaking portuguese. A lot of our meetings have been on baptisms cuz they have been down the past month so they are really pushing us. We had stake conference the past week and during the Sat. priesthood session our mission president ripped the members apart. Our stake is the lowest in the whole mission! Our stake is called Iguaçu (ç=s) which means many waters. But then after that he was like I’m not seeing it! Man it was awesome.

Me and Elder Boswell have really been working hard and it is paying off. We have like 6 baptisms marked for this month We taught a lady the other day who kept saying “why are there so many churches!?” “God is one and he has to have one church” “I will read this book (book of mormon) TONIGHT” and “where is your church? I want to go” she was sooo cool. So I challenged her to baptism and she accepted. FIRST VISIT! Man I love that.

So Valdica, Mariza and Marilda are awesome. Valdica (the mother) was telling us how marilda is looking for a different job so she can have Sundays off (SWEET!) and Mariza, who is getting married, has been teaching her husband and telling him tehy need to join our church. They are all so amazing. Valdicas husband has been dead for a while and she told us about a dream she had a few days ago where she could hear him and told him to show himself so she could see him but he said he coulnt because he doesn’t have a body. So we explained about spirit world, baptisms for the dead, and why its important to get these ordinances (baptism done here on earth. It was amazing.

So tomorrow we are going back to teach the Clouse family (the super rich family the dad is the president of kraft brazil) and we are going to watch a movie and leave them the book of mormon to read. It should go really well, and a rumor leaked out that she is making tacos Yay!

So a few days ago we went to visit a couple we taught a little while ago. The guy has officially gone crazy and he was plastered drunk when we came. The wife insisted we come in and help him straighten out his life. So during the opening prayer, he fell off his chair. Then while we were trying to talk to him he kept smoking and blowing it everywhere, took about 3 years off my life. WE finally got him to sit down and listen to us. We had an AWESOME member with us who told the guy he was spirituually sick and we (the missionaries) were his doctors and the book of mormon was his medicine. It was a really cool analogy and I think it actually might have stuck in the drunk guys brain. I really dislike drinking and I can see how terrible it is. It ruins your life. Luckily he has a woman who loves him and is sticking around!!

Well that is about it for this week. I can’t think about anything else to write. I am really happy and working hard. I am so greatful for this opportunity I have to serve, and I am grateful I made the choice to come here. Missionary work is so important, and I know that I am changing lives! Everyone thank your for your support and prayers. Have a good week!

Elder Boyack

p.s. my birthday is on the 15th, letters and packages would be greatly appriciated
i will be 20 years old!! sheesh.. so weird

p.p.s. my address:
Rua Luiz Peligrino Toaldo Casa 2
Butiatuvinha - Curitiba - PR
82320-270
BRAZIL

Olá!

Everything is good here is Curitiba land (pronounced Kur-i-chee-buh). It had been crazy weather here. Earlier this week me and Elder Boswell were walking down a dirt road in our short sleeve shirts and it just started POURING. Luckily none of us brought an umbrella, so we stood under a tree. Then he turned to me and said, “if you were the prophet, what would you do in this situation?” So I said “keep working!!”. It was really fun and we just kept visiting people and contacting even though we were soaked.

On Monday we had an interview with Presidente Araújo. Mine went GREAT and my Portuguese was dead on. He was really impressed  He is a VERY powerful guy, just hearing him pray was awesome. So he got us pumped up, and we are going to have a VERY good month in November!

Well our wonderful investigator Marilda (who came to church without even being taught a thing!) is doing great. We taught her the 1st and 2nd lessons and they went great. She had a lot of questions, and had some doubts about joseph smith (they say his name like zhoseph esmeetch haha) but we had a family home evening at the relief society presidents house and watched the restoration DVD and it went GREAT. We have another lesson with her tonight and we are going to challenge her to baptism. Should go well 

So me and Elder Boswell have been livin large. We had a churrasco two night this week (bbq) and one night a HUUUUGE thunderstorm came in and it was hilarious. I was crazy windy and there was lightning everywhere and we were out side bbq’in. Yesterday we bought tons of sandwhich makins and made sanwhiches. They are soooo good!. Man I am loving the food, and haven’t gained a kilo! (2 pounds)

We talked with Presidente about Mr Clouse (the kraft president guy) and he said we could go back but we have to teach the first lesson. So we called him up and he was really excited to have us over again. He is a really cool guy. It will be a great lesson, and really fun to do in English 

So we were in the process of doing to marriages. And I gotta tell you it is the most annoying thing, takes sooooooooo long! And so we were visiting one of the couples the other day and the wife (16 years old with 2 kids!! Eesh) and she said they were going to move the next day, to a place in the middle of nowhere with no bus, or even mail. So we were NOT happy. But everything happens for a reason, she reads the BOM every day so that’s great. We went to the cartorio for the other marriage and got things moving along. They will get married at the end of November and baptized too! Man they are such an awesome family.

So we went to visit one of elder Boswells street contacts. And we get to the gate and see huge piles of garbage everywhere. Not like stinky gross stuff, but like cardboard, toys, anything… so we went in their house and taught them. CUTEST little girl I have seen in brazil, and quiet, which is always nice They really loved our message and accepted all the commitments, I even challenged them to be baptized and they said yes! But we don’t think they are married so we might have to go through that process, yippee. Pedro, the father, was SWEET.

So a few days ago, I think Sunday night, we were walking down the road and stopped to talk to this old  guy and his little kid. The guys name was Tony and the kid Tiago (james). So he invited us to go to their house, right then, and talk more! IT was cool but you could tell they are really catholic so I thought they just wanted to bible bash. But we set up another time and went over. It went really well then Tony started talking about how the little boy and his sister our really afraid at night and he wanted us to give them a blessing. So then when we asked the girl if she wanted one, she said “we don’t need one, he does!!” It ended up being him having a huuuuge drinking problem so we gave him a blessing to help him stop and we are going to work with him. The little kid, Tiago, is studying to become a padre Haha we are going to turn him into a missionary!! So we are going over Sunday, we will see how that goes.

Well that’s all for this week. I am having tons of fun, lovin the food, the people, my comp, and the work. It was hard at first but now I love being a missionary! Everyone please help the missionaries in your ward, it is 1 MILLION times easier with the members help. Remember we are God’s children, and he loves each one of us. That really helps me out sometimes. Well, talk to you next week!

Elder Boyack

p.s. send all letters and packages to the mission office.
I cannot remember the address, but its something like:
Praça Joseph Smith, Portão, etc. thanks!

Queridos Amigos, Familia, e alguma outra pessoa que está lendo isso,

Yo! Things are great here. Lots and lots of work but I am really loving it. You don’t really comprehend what people mean by it was the hardest two years of my life till you are actually doing it! Me and my comp. Elder Boswell have been trying to get a lot of new investigators and we are doing pretty well. We had 2 families at church (the two we are marrying and baptizing, just waiting for the documents) and one new investigator, Marilda. She is awesome! She is the daughter of Valdica, the big black lady we are teaching. Valdica told us to go visit her and we went on Saturday to mark a date where we could come back, she was REALLY nice and invited us in. We mentioned church on Sunday and she said she wanted to go! So we picked her and her son up and they loved it! So cool. We taught her the first lesson yesterday and it went really well. She really likes the youth and relief society programs.

So today was the mission Olympics. There was soccer, basketball, chess, ping pong, and volleyball. I was nominated to play chess haha. I had an INTENSE (never though chess could be so intense) first game and won, but the next round I lost.. haha it was fun though. Our whole zone got these cool blue jerseys. One kid got a concussion playing soccer and another tore something in his knee playing basketball, pretty intense!

SO, a couple stories. My comps dad is waaay high up in the Kraft company (think mac and cheese). So he is good friends with the president of Kraft Brazil who is some young American guy with a couple of kids and speaks barely no portuguese! So we called him up and set up dinner at his house, he was (and we REALLY were) excited. So Friday night around 5 his driver pulls up to pick us up! He was really cool. So we go to their house (we had permission from the mission president) and it was sooooo nice. They had a pool (NO ONE has pools here) and tons of sweet stuff, including a macbook and apple tv Anyways they are a really cool family, and Mrs. Clouse (the wife) made amazing American food, including her homemade bbq chicken. We had tons of fun and watched finding faith in Christ then bore our testimonies about Jesus Christ. It was awesome and they really want us to come back. So we are going to see if we can go back one more time and teach them the message of the restoration. They gave us a bag of treats, including Pringles and rice krispy treats!! We are livin the good life.

Last night we were at Ezequiel and Jandiras house. They are getting married and baptized. I LOVE that family! They have three boys and one little girl. Already from keeping to commandments and going to church you can see how they are being so blessed. So Jandiras father walks in and he is WAAASted drunk. He talked to us for about an hour about how he can get blessings from God and have peace in his home. It was hilarious, luckily I held in my laughter. I felt REALLY bad for the kids though.. could you imagine that guy being your grandpa! (Thanks grandpa for being a good example!) But we said a prayer with him and he finally left and we taught a really good lesson.

I am doing really well with the language, and really starting to get the hang of things. Being on a mission is great, and I am glad I made the choice to serve. I have really been thinking a lot about how insanely blessed I have been. I have a great family, awesome house, amazing friends, and all throughout my youth I had an amazing ward with sweet leaders. Not to mention being born in the church! I am so grateful for everything I have, and I want to thank EVERYONE who has helped me to get where I am today. Help the missionaries, Joseph Smith said there is no other more important work than missionary work. It starts with a desire. You need first a firm testimony, then love for the people. As Moroni said, you can pray for this love. Then once you have those, you will have no problem sharing the gospel. Keep up the good work and thanks for all your support!

Love, Elder Boyack

Address:
(this is the mission office)
Elder Parker Boyack
Praça Joseph Smith
Portão – Curitiba – PR
80610-210
BRAZIL

Dearest Friends, Family, and other people,

Well this week flew by. It has been getting hotter which has it’s good and bad parts. Last night we had a freak thunderstorm, and somehow my comp slept through it. I woke up at 2 in the morning and watched the lighting for an hour. It’s really cool looking here. My allergies have been really bad. I’m not really sure why. So I got some prescription meds from the pharmacy and they worked the first night but aren’t working anymore. It’s really frustrating and hard to work when you are sneezing and your nose is dripping..

For a few days the past week our electricity was acting up, then one morning (while I was taking my shower) it shut off! So we finally got a member to come check it out and when we went out to the power box one of the wires had fell out! So we shoved it back in and everything works great. I LOVE electricity! There are no dryers here so if you dry clothes you have to put them on the lines. Also there are no water heaters except for a little dinky one on top of the shower head which works surprisingly very well. But water and electricity don’t mix very well so showers are quite entertaining

This week we challenged a girl we have been working with to baptism and she accepted! We are really happy. She promised she would come to church, but never came. We should have had like 10 investigators at church but not one came. My comp said this is the first time it has every happened to him. But our bishop moved and we got a brand new one, he is only 23! He was the gospel doctrine teacher. We are REALLY excited and we are going to work very closely with him. Our ward is amazing. We always get guys to go on splits with us and they are all returned missionaries. People sometimes get sick of having the missionaries over so much so its really nice to have a member they can connect with.

So we have been trying to get some new investigators and we were looking though our area book. We found Mariza (20’s, getting married (which is weird cuz no one does!) and has a kid. She is NOT living with her husband which is sweet, then her mom Valdica (big black lady who loooooves to talk and feeds us every time. So some how the missionaries stopped visiting them a few months ago. So we went and visited and re-taught the first lesson. It went VERY well and when we came back only Valdica was there but she said Mariza was reading the Book of Mormon with her husband and Valdica was listening! So cool. We are going to get them to church, even if I have to drag them there.. haha. We also have two families who know everything is true and want to get baptized but they aren’t married so we have to wait 20 more days till the papers come… very frustrating.

So this Monday me and my comp got these cool discount tickets for any restaurant. So we went to Subway! It was AMAZING. I am eating the best food here. We get pizza like once a week and its soo good. We always have a pday eve party and last night we made breakfast for dinner. Fresh squeezed pineapple/orange juice, ommlets, and bacon! It was amazing.

I am having fun and really learning a lot. It’s hard work but I love it. It is so cool to see people change their lives for the better. Speaking of which there is a member in our ward, Pancho. He hasn’t been going to church so we visited him and he said he has been sick and will come back. So we knew he had some weird history, so we asked him. Turns out he lived in Chile and was an ASSASSIN. He told us all these crazy stories about bombs, people chasing/protecting him, eating a dog, crazy stuff.

Any ways that’s all I’m up to. Thanks for all your support, I love you all!

ELDER BOYACK

Address:

Rua Luis Peligrino Toaldo 200 Casa 2
Santa Feli

Hello everyone!

Well I have been doing pretty good. This past week went by pretty fast. The main part would have to be conference. My comp. Elder Boswell said conference is like Disneyland haha. We bought some candy and got our own little room for all the missionaries and we watched it in English which is soooo much better! I really enjoyed it all especially Jeffrey R. Hollands talk on angels, so cool. We have a family that has been coming to church and they really liked conference so that was cool. Throughout the week we got like 15 people to say they would come but only that one family came, kind of frustrating.

We had a big storm the past week and it was cool/not so cool. We got soaking wet but I love the rain so we tried to just enjoy it and not let it get us discouraged. It was the first time I got to use my sweet trench coat so that was cool haha. I finally bought a sweater, it is purple haha. The weather is so weird here.. yesterday it was really hot and now its really cold. Makes it interesting!

So sometimes the irmãs give us money for lunch and we had the rare occasion of getting money on Monday which is when we have district meeting!! So were were downtown and so we ran over to the pizza hut. It was AMAZING. Speaking of American food, my comps dad is like the CFO or something of Kraft foods and he is really good friends with the guy who is the president of Kraft Brazil (he is American and doesn’t speak a word of Portuguese, its hilarious). Anways so today we talked with him and he wants us to come to his house to have dinner! We got the mission presidents approval cuz its out of our area so that will go down next Friday. We are so excited!! It will be cool cuz after dinner we will teach them the first lesson, in english  he has a nice family so it should be good.

The work is going good. We are finding lots of people and are plently busy. The people here are so nice and everyone invites you in and listens. We have been working on trying to get some new investigators cuz most of ours aren’t progressing. We have a few AWESOME families that are just waiting for their marriages to go through so we are just trying to continually visit them and keep them happy.

So all of your homework for the month: Men, GO ON SPLITS! Lessons are a million times better with a member, plus the investigator has someone to connect with. It’s inconvenient I know but when you are being judged, the Lord won’t care. Sacrifice your time!! EVERYONE, give referrals. Man I wish I could rewind back in time, I have like 10 people I would send the missionaries to. It is really hard and you are not sure what might happen or they might get mad at you. Just do it because you love them. Members can help increase missionary work success by unbelievable amounts, so get working! Thanks everyone for all your support. I am doing great and know I love you all. You can mail letters and packages to (Rua Luis Peligrino Toaldo 200 SOB 02 / Santa Felicidade / 82320-270 Curitiba – PR / BRAZIL) THANKS!!

Love,
Elder Boyack

Querido Familia e Amigos,

Well this week was awesome. It started off pretty rough cuz my feet were KILLING me. It was soo much walking. Plus we never got in any houses to teach lessons.. but I started to feel a lot better, and I took some Tylenol and my feet stopped hurting. We started teaching more lessons and getting new investigators. We confirmed a 9 year old boy in church who was baptized the previous week. His parents can’t get baptized yet cuz they aren’t married. We have so many people lined up for baptism but NO ONE is married here so we have to get them all married haha. Plus it takes 40 days for everything to go through so that is pretty tough.

I was a little apprehensive at first doing contacts but on Sunday you have to do all the contacts you never did during the week (15 a day) So I did 50 contacts and it boosted my spirits. The people here are really nice and always listen. I got my first address! I was feeling really good about some guy I was talking with so I asked him for his address so we can stop by and teach him more. He was really nice.

My companion is Elder Boswell. He is from Chicago and is younger then me! So weird. He went to byu for just fall semester so we talk about byu a lot. We get along great and he is a good teacher. He REALLY wants to be an orthodontist which I think is pretty funny haha.

My area is HUGE. We have the city of campo magro plus the neighborhoods of curitiba: Santa Felicidade, Butiatuvinha, and some other ones I cant remember. We have one big ward called ala(ward) felicidade. Its cold in the morning and hot in the after noon then cold at night, but I am getting used to it. Today is was POURING and there was lightning everywhere.. pretty cool, except im soaking wet. So we went home dried off and ate some pizza for lunch.

I am living in a condo with 2 other missionaries. It is really big and we always have tons of food. My bed is great and I am sleeping ok. Just like the mtc it takes me about a week to get accustomed to everything and get comfortable.

For breakfast I usually have a banana and some granola, then we have lunch with members every day except pday. They feed you SO much and it’s always so good. I loooove rice haha. Then dinner we will do whatever we are feeling. Last night we got a pizza and it was so good. Some nights we have top ramen. This morning (some lady gave us a huge bag of oranges) me and my comp made a ton of orange juice. So good.

We have taught a lot of lessons. Mostly the 1st one. But usually we just leave a small message about the importance of prayer, scriptures, etc. people here work a LOT so we can’t just stop by we have to schedule everything. Usually we will plan out lessons for the whole day but half will fall through so we visit other people, go tracting at the bus terminal, or just go around asking people if we can teach them.

I really got thinking why I came out here. The first couple days were rough. But I started trying hard and just kept working and everything got better. I am really doing good and having fun. My comp is hilarious and we tell stories to each other but I try to do them in Portuguese to practice. Keep sending letters and send packages to the curitiba mission home address. Thanks for all your help and prayers. Keep up the good work and HELP YOUR MISSIONARIES. Go on splits and give them contacts! Man I was an idiot before I left and wish I knew then what I know now. A lesson with a member present is a million times better. Tchau Tchau!!

Love,
Elder Boyack