Sexta-Feira Santa

ÒLA GALEIRA!

So first i need to just throw a big shout out to my dear aunt Stephanie... A package? Seriously? Is there anything better than frozen girl scout cookies? I would wager that there is not. And "Adjust A Button" has officially revolutionized my life. I now no longer have to decide between eating, and wearing pants. But you know what that means Aunties... Steph just officially jumped into first place in the favorite Aunt list: Step up your game. Just kidding, i love you all. Even Wendy.

This week was Easter. Did you notice? Oh yeah i learned a new holiday. Its called Sexta Feira Santa. Yeah thats right give it to the Catholics to dress up the death of our Savior as much as i can. Complete with Bloody paintings fun little sculpture's that are as gory as possible and LOTS AND LOTS OF CROSSES! I hate crosses. I nearly punched some dude in the face this week when after asking me if we celebrate Easter he snidely said "Oh so you guys celebrate OUR Holiday too..."

That is a great example of my next point. The Easter weekend has renewed my desire to become better, like our Savior was perfect. I have found SO many faults in myself on the mission. We all know the mission is for mostly to convert us, to wake us up of the retards we were in high school and make us at least somewhat respectable in the eyes of our Lord. I´ve felt this weight recently and sometimes feel like slapping my head a few times with an oven door like Dobby from Harry Potter, instead i try to read the scriptures and not make fun of my slightly handicapped companion.

Did i mention im a proud father? My son´s is Elder Arguello. He is from Washington. He likes Anime. Enough said :)

I had an absolutely awesome visit with Fernando this week. He´s the doctor that wants to speak English with me. Too bad i literally cant... He kept laughing at me and telling me that the reason he wanted to talk to me is so he can hear a real American. He can´t understand them... but he understands me perfectly! I kept trying to speak fast, but i couldnt! Obviously i can still speak, but i have to think and i pause a lot. Haha its so slow. Mothers Day is going to be a joke. But he basically told me that he hasnt been able to stop thinking about the Book of Mormon. He´s completely intrigued and read all about Joseph Smith. I brought Felipe with me last night to him and Pound a little more Restoration into him. He hasnt arrived to pray specifically about these things but he promised me he would, and he said he´d come to stake conference as well. Ohhhh yeahh...

Speaking of Felipe my reunion with him was so fun. I called Liana (Dani´s(his sister) friend) who i baptized and is firme as a rock, tear filled testimoy about the temple sunday (pow) to their house to chat with her and they had their whole family there with Felipe´s girlfriend too. It was a blast, he told me all about you guys and how much fun it was. On a random side note i literally laughed for a whole 3 minutes about how dad brought his cell phone to bed to taunt Britten about Fantasy Baseball. Thats the funniest thing ive ever heard. I miss Dad. And Fantasy Baseball.

Life is good. Hard, and so very much more difficult, with a lot more weight, but good. To practice we´re doing what i call STORY TIME on the road. This entails me making up a very simple story, in portugese, and my comp translating it to english. Right now a 2 minute story is taking us about an hour. Im hoping to reduce that to 30 minutes by the end of this week. Ill keep you posted. Im stoked for our conference with Elder Christofferson this week and happy to be here in Passo Fundo. Still. I love this gospel, and know Christ died for our sins.

Beijo

Elder Alex Allred
Terra de Gaúcho Tchê

Caixa Postal 13008

91010-971 Porto Alegre-RS

Brasil

My Last Day as a Junior Companion

Let me start from the beginning... Cause its been a stressful week.

Tuesday, I arrive at the Bus station to pick up my companion. I am greeted by 3 Brasilians hugging me and chanting WE ARE NOT WORTHY WE ARE NOT WORTHY, telling me I am a hero for killing Elder W. Silva. Yeah, it was a little funny... That being said i actually missed him after about 3 hours...

Wednesday and Thursday were not my finer days as a missionary. I broke the cardinal rule and absolutely blew up on my new companion. His name is Elder Gonçalves. I just could not take it anymore.. And I am here now to testify there is a reason Doctrine and Covenants says without the spirit ye SHALL NOT TEACH. Jeffrey R. Holland loves to emphasise this, and I can bear witness as well. It would have been better just to stay home all day. We did not do that.. But it would have been the same.

So as you can imagine I woke up Saturday morning feeling a little down... I got bit OUT OF MY MIND, by who knows what kind of Brasilian bug. And I wasn´t exactly in the mood to perform companion study, so i was in the other room on the couch studying portuguese. It was then i received a call from my main man and new Assistant Elder Feller!! I was more than excited to talk to him but a little confused at why he was calling. We chatted for a minute and then he asked me if i was ready for good news. He said "remember when we were talking and I told you you were going to turn senior and train at the same time??" I responded a little annoyed "yeah, and i told you it wouldnt happen..." Well, it happened.

The details. Two American missionaries arrived this week. And my soon-to-be ex companion will both be training one, and opening new areas. As you can imagine this has been an incredibly busy week of working with ward leadership trying to figure out how we can divide passo fundo, and preparing our apartment to house 4 people! An experience that is rare in our mission but i am excited to try. Yesterday we spent most of the day buying a new bunk bed, and trying to figure out how we could get two more dressers.. Still a LOT of cleaning to be done.

Mostly I´m a good mix between incredibly nervous, excited, and frankly a little relieved at this new opportunity. Its going to be incredibly difficult, but something new and exciting. And I am not sure how much longer i would have survived as a Junior Companion. Its time for Alex to do things the way Alex wants to.. Like i did the ENTIRE last transfer... alone. But im happy. It will be very fun to have 4 people, and im excited to have a son! I will get to call Lynn when the AP´s get here and introduce him to his grandson! Our lineage is rich with history....

Other than that it has been a pretty typical week. Trying to explain to people that THE GOSPEL MAKES YOU HAPPY. Not sure if i´ve ever told you about Maria and Jesus. Yes, that is literally their names. Jesus is a long time member that is a complete alcoholic, and basically doing everything he can to impede us from baptizing his girlfriend. (Maria) And last night come to find out his mother who is completely active and endowed in the temple... has been attending another church. She argued with us for almost 30 minutes last night that there was NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! I sat there in unbelief for about 5 minutes and then proceeded to explain... I wanted to ask for her temple recommend...

I did have an AWESOME visit this week. Saturday i got a call from one of my favorite ward members asking a favor. She has a brilliant doctor friend that is going to the U.S. to present some new live saving discovery thingy and wanted to speak English with a REAL American. I agreed to meet with him for 30 minutes and mostly just thoroughly enjoyed talking to him. He´s a great guy, a family man, and was deeply interesting in WHAT i was doing in Brasil. Originally we were just talking but the conversation shifted to the gospel and basically i ended up teaching the first lesson. IN ENGLISH! It was...SO DIFFICULT. I found myself stumbling and forgetting important things and unable to relate the first vision... It was so strange. But he accepted a Book of Mormon, told me he would give it a read and I am going to meet with him again on Wednesday!

Pray for me. This will be very different. But im excited and ready for the challenge. The church is true.

--

Elder Alex Allred
Terra de Gaúcho Tchê

Caixa Postal 13008

91010-971 Porto Alegre-RS

Brasil

The Good Life

Hey again. Things are normal here... We are winding up a transfer once again. My companion continually gets trunkier, but the work goes on. We had some good things happen this week and some bad... Shocker right. But mostly im just glad to be here.

Honestly it was quite an eventful week. I should have known it was going to be a crazy one by the end of my P day. So ill take just a second and tell you a story for each day!

Tuesday: Met up with an investigator we met from our English class. She had already warned us her husband was a little "different." But honestly i´ve met so many strange people i didnt even care. Unfortunately, he was REALLY different. Long story short he thinks he´s a prophet... And i started out laughing my head off and he is translating Apocolipse for us, but then it got real ugly and the smile got wiped off my face. It was really unfortunate because his wife is good investigator but the spirit was completely destroyed when we started to fight, so we asked if we could say a prayer and left. My comp said some extra choice words which i wasnt happy about but what can you do right?

Wednesday: Get stopped in the road by a frantic little man that wants us to come visit him and teach his wife. So we do. Im thinking man this guy is legit and ask Bishop if he knows him. He knows him all right... He´s an excommunicated con artist. He finds very stupid trusting girls, lives with them, and then convinces American missionaries to "teach them" until he can figure out how to rob them... he has already robbed our apartment 3 times in the last year, and the church twice. He´s obsessed with American things. I should have known as he brought out thing after thing that American missionaries "gave" to him, and then at the end complimented wow beautiful watch Elder! Needless to say we didnt return... he showed up at conference screaming at the top of his lungs that we were worthless missionaries and he was going to do this and that and call president and all that jazz... Great guy.

Thursday: My first incident with Drug Traffickers. I wont say much, but Brasil is scary. And Police dont exist... I am so blessed to have born where i was.

Friday: Did a division with Marchetti. Awesome. But we had to go to the mother of our baptism... to get her permission to perform the Baptism. Yikes. The mom was chill... but the sister immediately started to attack us, she is an atheist.. and thought we were some sort of cult.

Saturday and Sunday were my break from my hectic week... Although they were still very hectic. I absolutely loved conference though. I watched 1 session in Português and hated every minute of it.. But in English was pure bliss. Its amazing what you can take in when you watch all the sessions, and actually pay attention. I dont have my notes so i wont even start but it sufficeth to say that i know Thomas S. Monson is a prophet, and his counselors are called of God. Saturday after the second session we had the baptism of Liana. (See pictures) it was Great, but i nearly DIED it was so cold. Haha and she REALLY almost died after we had to do it again... i said the name wrong. (Brasilian names are messed up... and have like 6 names) But yeah... REAL COLD.

Other than that things are good... We are wrapping up the transfer, and we found out from Pres last night that we will have the biggest transfer our mission has had- 17 missionaries. 6 Americans. Pow. Which also means as i found out last night there is a decent chance i will be training... I kind of hope not. This week I also finally broke down my Bible strike and started the Old Testament. I was extremely surprised to know that I actually am enjoying it!! Who knew the Bible actually has good stuff... Instead of the "full of faith" crap all the Evangelics feed me!! Go figure...

Love
--

Elder Alex Allred
Terra de Gaúcho Tchê

Caixa Postal 13008

91010-971 Porto Alegre-RS

Brasil