Then today is transfers!!!! I get to stay one more in the beautiful city of Paranaguá. I like it here… but its getting hotter every day I will be excited to go back to Curitiba where the weather is nice and cool.

Well President gave us half an hour today to write a quick letter so here goes.

This week was crazy! It all started with the mission conference on Friday. Everything went very well and there was a beautiful choir. There are so many talented people in our mission! We ate a huuuuuge lunch then afterwards did a white elephant gift exchange thingy. We got some cool presents from President, WAY better than last year haha.

On Saturday we had 5 interviews for baptism marked but two didnt show up and we later found out they didnt want to get baptized anymore… lame. But the other three were great! They were all baptized on Sunday night and it was amazing. One was Pedro, the father of two recent converts (Nei and Flores). The other was Lucas, the little brother of Marlo who was baptized a few weeks ago. And the other is LEia, who completely changed her life!! She stopped smoking and going to the crazy dance parties. She is divorced and has two kids, and i got to baptize her! It was an amazing experience.

Then today is transfers!!!! I get to stay one more in the beautiful city of Paranaguá. I like it here… but its getting hotter every day I will be excited to go back to Curitiba where the weather is nice and cool.

Welll thats all the big news! I am SUPER excited for christmas and for the phone call home! YES!! I love you all and wish you all a merry christmas!

Love,

Elder Parker Boyack

What a week! There is so much to say and so little time. The Lord has really been blessing us here in Paranaguá. On Saturday night when we were going in our door the bishop stopped us and asked us to give a talk on whatever we want. So i decided to talk about advesity Now you know how it is when you talk, about 50 percent of the people pay attention. But then in the middle of my talk i pulled out the letter Mom sent me telling how she had gotten cancer. I then explained about how Dad got laid off and how we all had a very hard time. I cried quite a bit haha. But it was a very good talk and I felt the spirit very strongly.

We were supposed to have a miracle baptism, her name is Leia. She completely stopped all of her bad habits, but the night before the baptismal interview she smoked So we postponed it for one week and last night we asked how she is feeling about this weekend and she said “ I WILL get baptized”. YES!!! She is so amazing.. she made the most delicious homemae]de bread, I couldnt stop eating it haha. We also have 4 other people who will be baptized this week, all of which are FIRME!! (thats firm in portuguese So like I said, we are being very blessed.

Anyways.. life is good. We are baptizing, what more can i ask for? Our zone is doing very well and all the missionaries are working hard. I am satisfied I know this is the work of the Lord, and that he helps us. There are so many prepared people out there in the world just waiting for the truth. So, share the gospel! This season is the BEST time to do it. I know you can do it and the Lord will help you.

Dear Everyone,

What a week! There is so much to say and so little time. The Lord has really been blessing us here in Paranaguá. On Saturday night when we were going in our door the bishop stopped us and asked us to give a talk on whatever we want. So i decided to talk about advesity Now you know how it is when you talk, about 50 percent of the people pay attention. But then in the middle of my talk i pulled out the letter Mom sent me telling how she had gotten cancer. I then explained about how Dad got laid off and how we all had a very hard time. I cried quite a bit haha. But it was a very good talk and I felt the spirit very strongly.

We were supposed to have a miracle baptism, her name is Leia. She completely stopped all of her bad habits, but the night before the baptismal interview she smoked So we postponed it for one week and last night we asked how she is feeling about this weekend and she said “ I WILL get baptized”. YES!!! She is so amazing.. she made the most delicious homemae]de bread, I couldnt stop eating it haha. We also have 4 other people who will be baptized this week, all of which are FIRME!! (thats firm in portuguese So like I said, we are being very blessed.

Today we went fishing with Jefferson, a ninteen year old we baptized two weeks ago. We were talking with him about serving a mission and then he said to us “I have been thinking about it… I am going to serve a mission.” WAHOOO!!!! That is probably the coolest thing a recent convert has said to me. Then when we asked him where he wants to go he said “Wherever I am sent”. HOLY COW!! That is so cool haha. Anyways i caught a teeny fish… I had like a million bites though…

Umm.. I am SUPER excited for the christmas call and mission conference.. I LOVE CHRISTMAS! What a wonderful time of year. Our city (Paranaguá) has gone NUTS on Christmas decorations… they are everywhere! Oh and some really good news, they redid our road today!! Haha the road in front of our house had TONS of potholes and trucks always pass by… it was really annoying. So today they redid the pavement and it is soooo much better.

Anyways.. life is good. We are baptizing, what more can i ask for? Our zone is doing very well and all the missionaries are working hard. I am satisfied I know this is the work of the Lord, and that he helps us. There are so many prepared people out there in the world just waiting for the truth. So, share the gospel! This season is the BEST time to do it. I know you can do it and the Lord will help you.

I love you all, have a grrrrreat week! Mom, Dad, I will talk to you next week!!!

Love,

Elder Boyack

Dear Everyone,

Yo, whats up. How are the states?? Man people her bag so much on America its kind of annoying. But its all good, I bag on Brasil a lot The weather here has been nice. I have been caught a few times by the rain without an umbrella, but I enjoy a shower once in a while. The heat has yet to come! The next transfer is Dec. 23 so we will see if i escape the Paranaguá heat.. probably not.

Things are going great. This past week we had a baptism, its a guy named Jefferson. He is 19 and truly an elect. He plays VERY good soccer and was going to our chapel to play on Wednesdays then we started teaching him the lessons. He is doing very well and I got to baptize him! (see attached picture). This next week we are hoping to baptize Pedro, he is the dad of Nei and flores, two recent converts. I had a good talk with him yesterday and he said he is not happy in his life. I told him that we have what he needs, and the only way he can find tru happiness in this life and in the next is by being baptized and following the gospel of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately he has not been able to completely let go of cigarettes… but we are working with him on that.

SPEAKING OF CIGARETTES… hbaha so we are helping these two sisters (both a little older and with a couple kids) to stop smoking. They both really like the church and want to stop smoking, drinking, etc. And find a nice husband who wont betray them. So we  bought a butt load of oranges, vitamen C pills, and then plastered their house wiht 3×5 cards with little do not smoke messages.. its awesome! One stopped smoking AND drinking coffee and the other is having some difficulties… its quite a challenge!!

Today we went to a rest home to spend some time with the older persons of Paranaguá. It was awesome! We sang to them and talked with them. To be honest, i am not so much scared to get old.. I am more worried about getting my life all in order so I can be old and be happy. These poor people are a mess. One guy kept crying when I talked about his family and other things.. I felt it was better to let him just watch TV then make him remember his home and start crying!! So I have decided I am going to start preparing myself so when I am old everything will be all figured out and I can just rest and not have any worries. I asked my friend missionary Elder C. Williams if he thought old people or children required more patience.. we decdided old people haha.

Well not much more to write about… life is good! Next week we will have the mission christmas conference, I CANT WAIT!! It will be amazing. I have really been working on being appriciative for every day I have on the mission. I am going to think back about if only I could just have one more day…. SO I am focusing on taking advantage of EACH day. This could also be applied to our lives. We have so few days here on the earth. This is a time of preparation. We need to use each day for GOOD and not waste time.

Have a grrrrreat week! I love you all and appriciate so much the support and prayers. Keep it up!!

Elder Parker Boyack

Dear Everyone,

Hello! I am in a really good mood I always love this part of the misson. There are so many emotions so its always nice when I am happy haha. Today its crazy hot. I don’t stop sweating. And to top it all off, our fan broke!! Hooray!! HAha but I am over it. I have learned that the principle of “ask and ye shall receive” is true. 4 TIMES I have asked for rain/wind/cold weather and the Lord gave it to me. Its quite amazing.

Things are starting to pick up here is PAranaguá. After those four baptisms we had in October, we had nothing to work with. Then we started working a lot with the friends/neighbors/family of Nei and Flores, two amazing boys we baptized. This past week we baptized two of their friends Juninho and MArlo. It was a great experience but there was a problem with the heater so the water was boiling hot. We had to fill up buckets with cold water to make the water colder and finally got it to a “bearable” temperature… quite hilarious. This next week we will baptize another dude called Jefferson who is amazing.. he read, he prayed, he went to church, and got an answer that this church is true. That’s all you need to do! Read, Pray, and go to church. It works!!

We have been focusing on baptizing every week and the Lord has been blessing us. I have also been working hard to get rid of my bad habits. I wasn´t using every minute as best as I could, and now I am trying to not waste a single minute. Its awesome!! I am reading a book mom sent me by Henry B. Eyering, its so good! I cant remember what its called though haha.

So I totally agree with what Ryan said. “Thing that drives me crazy is the unawareness that the members have with recent converts. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, when sacrament meeting starts, look to see if there is someone sitting alone (recent-convert, investigator, inactive) and sit with them. It will help soo much. I have run into a lot of people who have said, “I always wanted to go back to church, but I juts don’t feel welcome there” DO NOT let that happen.” SO true. We need to leave our comfort zone to make these people feel welcome. The best way to make a person feel welcome at church is when people talk to them and make them feel welcome. There is no better way.

We too had our primary presentation as did Ryan. Twin Peaks ward DEFEINTLEY has the best primary, but it was good here too. I am saddened to see here how some people do not fulfill their callings. For example when there is a meeting and every organization should be present, usually it’s the bishopbric, the Elders, and make the High preist quorum president. People just don’t take their responsabilites seriously and it will be sad when they have to report to Jesus Christ how they did. So the challenges of the week are:

1.      Talk to the missionaries and see who they would like you to sit with/talk to.
2.      FULFILL your calling. Ask your bishop what you can do better and seek the guidance of the Holy Ghost.

Have a great week and be happy!!!

Love,
Elder Parker Boyack

Dear people reading this,

Hello! How are you? I am… hot! Paranaguá is warming up to nice 100 degrees with like 500% humidity… so terrible!! This is the closest I have gotten to swimming on my mission We have a huge fan in our house which saves our lives haha.

This week was one of miracles. Fristly, President came to our stake conference to give a talk. It was amazing (as always). Then after lunch he interviewed our zone.I LOVE interviews with President.. I didn’t want to leave!! He is such an intelligent and powerful man. Its interesting how people are attracted (not in looks) to these kind of people. Happy people make other people happy. If you hang out with sad people who complain a lot, you become sad and complain a lot, its so simple!!! So if you want to be happy, find happy people! IF you want to be rich, find rich people!! Haha

So this week we had 2 miracle baptisms. They haven´t happened, YET! This Saturday we will be baptizing three people in total. Remember our recent converts Nei and Flores? Yeah we are totally baptizing their dad and two of their friends. We are teaching a few more which will be baptized in the upcoming weeks. We are really going for baptizing every week. I know its possible and have faith we can do it, now I just need to work even HARDER!! Yes!! One of the boys getting baptized walked up to us after stake conference and said “I want to get baptized.. what do I have to do?” how AWESOME is that!!!

Well, seeing as how its thanksgiving an all, I will share with you what I am thankful for. First and foremost, I am grateful for the opportunity I have to be a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ here in Brazil. I am grateful for my mission president and companion and all  that they do for me. I am EXTREMELY grateful for my parents and the sacrifices they all do for me. I am grateful to have such a wonderful group of friends that are all my heros. I am grateful for the privelige I have to have grown up in Poway, CA and to go to BYU. I am so thankful for the blessings the Lord has given m on the mission. I am thankful for the opportunity to be a member of the church of Jesus Christ and that my family also is a part of his church. I am thankful for so many things, and have so little time. Have a happy thanksgiving and eat some mashed potatoes and turkey for me!!

I love you all, sorry for the short letter! Have a wonderful week and share the gospel!!

Love,
Elder Parker Boyack

Dear Everyone,

Hello! How are you? I am…. OLD!! 21 years old? What the heck? Haha my birthday was pretty sweet. I gave a talk in sacrament meeting about repentance, then worked my butt off all day! What more could I ask for? Candy perhaps… but it was great and thank you mom and Dad for the amazing package!!

Well this week has been good. I had no time to say what happened for transfers so here goes. My comp Elder Wardell finished up his mission and is at home now! My new comp is Elder Tenório from the beautiful city of Recife. He has only been a member for 3 years!! Crazy huh? He is an amazing missionary and I found out in his last area he was baptizing EVERY week! So I am stoked to really get on fire with him.

I finished “A Marvelous Work and a Wonder” the other day, so good!! I recommend it to all who have not yet had the opportunity to read it. It really strengthened my testimony. I am pumping through the old testament, and its really cool. Unfortunately we lose lots of study time because of meetings and what not so I am trying to take advantage of every minute, I love studying!!

So there are these two boys we baptized a few weeks ago, Nei (16) and Flores (15) and they are AMAZING!! They straight up read the Book of Mormon at school, I NEVER did that haha. They are starting to go on lots of divisions with us too which always helps. So when we were teaching them we were going to baptize their dad Pedro. Unfortuantely he is living with his “wife” but is not married to her. So he couldn’t get baptized but we still continued to work with him. He stopped drinking coffee and smoking!! He is truly an elect, sadly his wife is pretty much a witch and is hindering him from receiving so many blessings. Anyways when Pedrio was leaving church he pulled me aside and said he wants us to come over again to help him get his life in order ( I Am assuming marriage wise) and talked about how much he loves our church. Whne he was talking he got very emotional and almost cried!! It was such a sweet experience and I look forward to helping that amazing man. He is one of the best fathers I have ever seen here in Brazil.

Oh yeah on Friday we had a Zone Leader counsel at Curitiba and it was awesome!! President is really pounding us on baptizing EVERY SINGLE WEEK and we are all pushing for it. Our mission keeps breaking records and everything is going well. Paranaguá is getting HOTttttttttttttttttttttt but its all good. People give us really good popsicle things called chup-chup where its like natural fruit blended with milk then frozen… SO GOOD!!

I know this church is true! Joseph Smith really was a prophet of God and restored the church of JESUS CHRIST. The Book of Mormon is the word of God and can bless us all if we read, study, and ponder it.

Have a spectacular week and be a member missionary, why? Because it’s a COMMANDMENT!! Haha

Love,
Elder Boyack

Dear everyone,

What an insane week! And sadly I only have about 2 minutes to tell you all about it!!! So It started off with Thursday, when we went to Matinhos, a nice beach city. The beach here is very pretty, and it made me VERY trunky!

Then on Monday we had a huge zone conference (more like mission conference) with Elder Asconavieta of the seventy, it was AWESOME! I learned a lot and he even sat down with me and my comp afterwards and gave us some tips.

Then today we had the mission olympics, and our zone DOMINATED everyone! I did well in ping pong, but choked at the last minute and lost. We did win at football (soccer) and basketball, which was cool cuz\ for us it was the same players the WHOLE time. All the other zones had so many people so they were switching out all the time. We are tired and sore, but we did great.

Well thats about it. It is getting VERY hot here which I am not to happy about. But I am getting a sweet watch tan, I love it. Thank you all for your support and emails/letters. Have a fantastic week!

Dear Family and Friends,

Things are going well here in good ol Paranaguá. Today we praticed as a zone for the mission olympics next week. I play soccer a lot better than i thought i can! But definitely not as good as the brazillians haha. The weather has been pretty good, its starting to warm up but then the other day it got cold again. Tomorrow we are (finally) going to the beach to do an interview for the sisters, I am SOO excited!! I will send some pics next week.
The work here has been pretty tough lately. Our teaching pool was really shot so we really worked hard and things are starting to look better. We dont have anyone close to baptism for now, but that will change soon. The zone is doing well and next week should be a record week for us in baptisms!

The other day I saw some short nordestino (means guy from northeast brazil) was walking around selling hammocks. I have been looking for a cheap one to put up at our house  and a better quality one to take home with me. So i said to myself, “i am willing to pay 10 reais (about 6 bucks) for a hammock. So i start talking to him and lower the price until 15 reais. Then I was like “I am looking for something for 10, but thanks for your help” and just walk away. I was just waiting for him to call me then he did! So I totally got a sweet hammock for 10 reais, I was very proud of myself. Me and Elder Wardell have been buying some cool soccer jersys and other brazillian things and we have become experts on bargaining, I love it!

So throughout my mission I have always thought about serving with all my heart, might, mind, and soul. As you all know, I am a pretty trunky guy. I like to talk about home and stuff, but not so much as to where I get unfocused and don´t do anything. So me and Elder Wardell realized we really need to stop. So we made a deal to say NOTHING trunky starting at 8 in the morning until 10 at night. It is NOT easy. And if you do say something you have to buy the other guy a bombom (really good chocolate candy). I have already bought a few bombom´s but I am learning!! I feel so much better though focusing on gospel related topics and the work.

Elder Wardell is amazing. He is probably one of the most spiritully organized people I know. Weird huh? He has a few journals.. one is his study journal, and the other is his “devo journal” for devotionals, conferences, etc. So i realized how much I am lacking in that area. I have always wanted to organize myself but never knew how so I never did anything. Then I thought about it a lot and figured out what I wanted to do. So I got two really nice books. One is my study journal for scripture study and other interesting things, and the other is my “devo journal”.  Elder Richard G. Scott said, “Knowledge carefully recorded is knowledge available in time of need. Spiritually sensitive information should be kept in a sacred place that communicates to the Lord how you treasure it. This practice enhances the likelihood of your receiving further light” (“Acquiring Spiritual Knowledge,” Ensign, Nov. 1993, 86). That REALLY touched me and made me want to do this. I highly encourage all of you to do the same.

Have a good week, and don´t forget to send me letters and packages because my BIRTHDAY is coming up!! (November 15). I love you all!

Dear Everyone!!!

Wasssup? This keyboard is terrible so sorry for all the mistakes I Will make. Anwyays how are you all doing? Things are good here in Paranaguá. Me and Elder Wardell are going crrrazy and working hard, i Love it! I think yesterday was one of our Best days. We came home and my brain Said, “ok, I have been working like crazy all Day, time to GO into hibernation.” Haha but I had a good feeling of peace like i really worked hard ad did a good job, it was awesome.

We have been going to english schools here in our área (there are a ton here in the Center) and it is starting to pay off. We are getting tons of refrences and people all around the city are loving us, so awesome. Its a cool way we can show we are normal people and aren´t freaks. So one cool thing I have been thinking up is an America party!! It would be a tour chapel and all the americans of the zone would do a little presentation on their city and what life is like in the us. I think there would be so many people there!! So keep your ears open to hear about that, should GO down in Novemberish.

We have been finding a loto f cool new poeple and taking some different angles on investigators that weren´t progressing and its really paying off. There is one (Her name is Patrícia) and she is the momo f a recent convert from our ward. Her son actually hás never been confirmed yet so we are working more with her so the whole family Will start to GO. She REALLY beleives in the bible but she doesn´t even want to ask God to know IF the book of Mormon is true, kind of weird. So w are taking a different approach. A few days ago we left a bunch of scriptures for her to study from the bible. So yesterday we wnt over them and mainly focused on receiving the gift of the holy ghost by the laying on of hands. NOT ONE other church does that, and it was something ALL THE apostles did (See acts chapter so we showed her a bunch of things like that and it was AWESOME! It went very well. So we left a TON of scriptures for her to study about apostasy, it Will be so cool.

I AM happy to say all of our 4 recent baptisms are FIRME!! They are all so cool. Especially the two boys Nei and Flores. I am happy to see their progress.

I listened to a talk the other Day by Jeffrey R. Holland about byu/education and it was fantastic! He talked about the sacrifice o four ancesters especailly in founding BYU. I really didn´t appriciate the opportunity I have to study at BYU until now. I didn´t do so well my first time, but i learned a lesson. Education is so important and we should make it one o four top priorities. My priorities were a little mixed up before the mission, but I would say I have gotten them straightened out.

Thank you all for your prayers and support. I Love you! Have a good week

Querida Família e amigos,

Wasssupppp? Things are great here in Paranaguá. It has been a little bit cold these past few days, but today it finally warmed up. I LOVE hot pdays!! Haha anyways today me and Elder Wardell are going crazy.. developing fotos, writing a million letters, buying tons of souvenirs and food, then cleaning the house and taking a HUGE nap. Yesterday we got a pizza (its really expensive here..) and it was sooooo good.

Anyways this week was awesome. We had 4 baptisms and they all went great. Our ward and stake is having difficulties with retention and helping recent converts stay active, so we are already focusing on how we can help our recent converts. One is a old lady that knows EVERYTHNG about the church but never would get baptized. Then she finally accepted the day I got here (she even asked me what tribe I am from!! Haha) so everyone was way excited about that. We also baptized two really cool kids called Nei and Flores and they are way excited. We might have enough to divide all the young men into quorums!! That would be so cool and really help them grow.

We have done a little more exploring in our area and found some really cool places. We are being a little more bold with all the inactives and challenging all of them, its so awesome! This past week we had a chapel dedication, it was the first one I have ever been too, really cool. So our whole zone was there and our main job was to get people to come to the chapel to visit the open house. So first we swept the entire neighborhood with invites, then we were all stationed in areas around the chapel and took people in to visit. There are tons of people here on bicycles and people even started stopping and going in, it was so cool!

This Sunday we had ward conference, and it sadly was pretty lame. There were only about 78 people in attendance, and as I sat on the stand (singing in the choir) I imagined how many people should have been there (including all the inactives) and it easily could have been around 200. Its way cool how as missionaries we develop a big desire to see our wards GROW. I would love so much to see the frequency DOUBLE by the time I leave here, and I am going to work to get that accomplished!!

Well life is good (except for my crappy ingrown toe… UGH) and I am enjoying my mission. Its hard but worth it. My comp is going home so I have to learn this area QUICK. Haha I think I am making him really trunky.. its hilarious because he really beats himself up. But its good because he needs to get ready for the read world!

I hope you all have a good week. Remember, “EVERY member a missionary”. Go out there and talk with everyone. Get OUT of your comfort zone and be bold. I promise many blessings to those who do this. Write me letters and don’t forget my birthday is on November 15th . I love you all!!!