It's 2012?

Im tired. I thought Brasilians did a great job of profaning the day of the lord when they shot of rockets and gun fire from midnight to four in the morning on Christmas.. But I had forgotten what a party new years was.. My goodness.

This week was plain brutal to find people at home. Being so close to the beach here there are few people that stick around during the holidays. We did a lot of walking.. New Years Eve was painful. We spent most of the day stalling looking for someone we could talk to until our dinner. Which i really didnt even want to go to because last time i ate there they were all drinking... in front of the missionaries. My hope that that was going to change on the night where EVERYONE gets plastered drunk was not granted. For anyone that speaks portuguese they were the definition of "sem vergonha." I thought at least someone sober was going to be the one to take us home at 1030, I was wrong. I put on my seatbelt and prayed. The lord let us get into one little accident when my fluffy friend didnt see a speedbump, but he got us home. Thank heavens.

The next day was interesting. I felt like Will Smith from I am Legend. I didnt see a single person on my way to church. THEN i only saw about 30 persons AT church. Keep in mind they combined 3 wards so that the attendence might not be SO bad. So it was a pretty sweet stake conference... with 30 people. Brasil...

However that day was oh so eventful. Its funny how sometimes you plan everything perfectly and nothing goes right, then other times you dont plan everything and it all works out. Sunday we didnt plan a single thing, we just walked out with the idea to wing it, find anyone that would listen to us testify of christ. Long story short we found 3 drunk dudes that were willing! Well, i should clarify, they weren´t drunk when we started. They were drinking WHILE we taught. Long story short, bible bash´s with drunk dudes are difficult to win... but oh how they are funny. The lesson started out great, but when we got to the part of apostasy and Joseph Smith we started to get a lot of shaken heads. First they told us the Bible was the TRUTH and it was the only truth. Then when they brought up that it was impossible to see God I asked if they believe in Moses. No.. So now the Bible is "sort of" truth. Then after we established that two of their pastors disagreed on the same scripture the Bible was no longer valid. BUT when two drunk dudes make a stupid comment then turn and laugh at each other its a point for them!! I have high hopes for Marcelo, Ivondro, and Thiago. 

Wednesday was kind of fun. A missionary that served here brought back his mom and grandparents and had a little party at the church. We were invited as translators. I ate pretzels!! I love pretzels. 

So yeah.. my week was hectic and tiresome. But when we work hard the Lord always leaves us with a few tender mercies. Yesterday after walking all day and having just 1 lesson in the scorching hot sun we found something that doesnt exist here in Brasil... A full, complete family. Not just a family, but an AWESOME family. I wont tell you how many actual families ive taught on my mission, but i can tell you i can count them on one hand. We shared the message of the restoration, the BOM, and challenged them to pray as a family. They loved it and want us to come back Wednesday.. And best of all, the HUSBAND likes us to. Even better, The wife hates her church!! Wahoooo! Pray for them. Their names are Adriano and Jaqueline. 

Mom, take confort in knowing you have now passed the ONLY complete year you will ever not see me. Pow. Happy new year. 

Stay Classy. 

(Pictures of Gramado Chocolate (delicious) from my Brasilian Grandma, Her family, (Im going to baptize that 23 year old girl, count on it), and tereré. (Like chimarrão but its sweet and you drink it cold.) I drink it every morning.

Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas people.. Don´t be sad, Ill be there NEXT YEAR!! wahoooo!!!

It was a good week. It was so hot... I miss snow, but it was good. Christmas here is a lot different. They dont do anything on the actual day.. its all on xmas eve. They stay up till 12 and make a lot of meat (thats what i want, to stuff myself full of salt before i sleep) and then shoot guns and rockets off and scream and play loud funk music until about 5 in the morning. Yeah, its SUPER reverent. They LOVE respecting Christ´s birth. I heard next year they are inviting Ossy Osborne to sing the annual "Silent Night."

 We had transfers and i stayed here. My new companion is Elder Carrol from Cary, North Carolina. He´s the man, i like him a lot. He´s getting here in a firestorm of change in the ward, with everyone kind of recovering from the recent shenanigans. Our new bishop made a churrasco for us though on Christmas Eve and we had a great chat about what we can do to start the new year right to help this ward. Pride is dangerous, avoid it.

Yesterday was a good day for us. We were able to catch up a bit and contact some good references. At night we went to my boy Jacson and his soon to be wife Danielle. Im not sure if I´ve told you about them but they give me a lot of grey hairs. Its a family of members that never had testimonies. We go there to teach Jacson who is getting married and baptized on the 21st of January, but we very rarely are able to teach much. His mother n law is a member that hates the church. And all she ever wants to do is ATTACK us with faithless questions. She is one of those classic people that somehow manages to blame the church and its members for everything bad that has ever happened in her life. Instead of trying to prove the church is true she looks for anything she can find to prove it is false. Last night after calmly listening to them argue about whether tattoos were sins, whether it was possible to engrave 500 pages on gold plates, and WHY Adam and Eve couldnt have children in the garden of Eden, we had had about enough, people that cant walk (read the book of mormon) dont need to worry about running (exaltation)  We explained to them that we are here to prepare people to be baptized. We explained that we will not answer their profound questions any more, and that we will not move on to the next lesson until ALL of the commitments are kept. We promised them that if the people took the committments we leave seriously, there would never be an unprepared baptismal candidate. Members or missionaries to not drive people away from the church. People drive themselves away. THEY do not decide when they are ready to be baptized, WE do. 

Point to the story: Read Moroni 4:5. Yes the sacrament prayer. Think about what we promise to do each time we take that bread and think about what the Lord promises. We promise to keep his commandments, remember him, and take his name upon us, or to pattern our life after his. He promises us his spirit. When we do not take the sacrament we do not have that promise. We do NOT have the spirit, and thus we do NOT have the capability to rationalize, and see things the way he does. We will lose ourselves, and we will do it fast. We will have doubts, and there will not be answers. We will become pessimistic, faithless, and frankly pathetic. I made myself a promise last night that I will never allow myself to be in a position where i cannot take the sacrament. Its the greatest gift the Lord offers us. But when we dont take it, we have no guarantee, and its a slippery slope as my father likes to say. Take the sacrament every week, and you will never cease to find answers to your doubts. 

Im so grateful for the invaluable learning i have gained on the mission. I told my companion yesterday its not so much the my core desires have changes drastically (they have a little..) but that the way i view things and my perspetive of God´s plan on earth is 100 percent different. Love you all, Happy New Year. 

Stay Classy.

I don't remember what happened this week

I am excited for Christmas. It doesnt feel like Christmas here... Its freakishly hot and no one has christmas trees..

This week was a blur.. it passed so fast. I know we went to Capão da Canoa (the beach) and did our division with the district leader there. Then the next day we went to Torres (right on the border of the next state) to have our district meeting, and made the long trek home para casa. Friday and Saturday we worked our butts off to make up for the time we lost, and we made some good progress. We were super stressed with where our 2 baptisms were going to come from this month, (president is breathing down the necks of the LZ´s to get their 2) but now we have some good options. I think I´ve talked about that elect Lutheran lady that doesn´t know she is elect? She finally came to church this week with her daughter! Too bad right after we found out her husband was searching mormons on the internet and came across some FILTHY anti mormon stuff.. That is gonna be a super interesting/awkward visit tomorrow night at 8. 

Yesterday we had our Christmas Conference in Porto Alegre. It was super fun. For our apresentation we did the Birth of Jesus Christ: Gaúcho version. Beyond my belief our no-nonsense president agreed to be our narrator. For anyone that understands Brasil, everyone outside of the Rio Grande do Sul hates gaúchos and their accent. So you can imgaine how funny is was to have a Paulista (someone from São Paulo) trying to immitate a Gaúcho with all types of crazy slang. It was super funny, Ill have to send the video home. But I also learned a lot. Sister gave an INCREDIBLE training on the meaning of the word "messias." She helped us understand way better how the prophecies in the bible truly were fulfilled, and how Jesus really is the Christ. She is amazing. So knowledable, I always call her when i get into doctrinal arguments with my companions, and she clears things up. 

I cant believe we are aproaching the end of another transfer. Every one seems to pass faster and faster. Stranger that two of my best friends on the misison, Elder Melo and Elder Lynn are leaving! Im going to the temple with them today. Next week is transfers, so my p day will be on Monday. I´m about 90 percent sure that I will be staying here, but we´ll see. 

I love you, Enjoy the spirit of natal. Stay classy. 

Oh yeah, and Im a hunter now. Tell everybody. The last picture is from the crazy tornado we had last week.

Time is Flying

Heyyy

My emails must keep getting increasingly boring. Every time I sit down to write one of these thingy´s i try to think back on the week and can´t remember anything that happened... Go figure.

Unfortunately we didnt have a whole lot of time to teach this week, but we were blessed with four baptisms. We worked our butts off against Satan for them, and as it always happens something ALWAYS goes wrong right before the baptism. But luckily for us it all worked out and they are all super excited to be members. Rosange is the best member missionary in our ward. She has given me more references in 2 weeks than my entire ward put together in 4 months. She is fantastic and talks about the church with EVERYONE. On the bus, in the streets, at her work. Its so pleasant to see one of your Recent Converts sharing the truth.

This week has been greatly administrative. We went to Osório this week to fix some apostasy that is going on there. Missionaries are kinda dumb sometimes. Then we spent almost the whole day yesterday trying to help Gravataí with some problems. This week we will be doing divisions almost the entire week. I won´t lie.. I´m starting to get tired. Not even so much my body, but I think more my mind. Its a lot of stress. But I am normally fairly good with handling tough situations and Ill get over it. The mission is just such a learning curve for life. It prepares you in all aspects for the challenges that will come.  

Sorry, I need to write things down during the week. Just know that I love you and pray for you all.

Stay Classy.

This is going to be short

It was a decent week, not as great as i hoped, but fine. Our pool is getting smaller and smaller. So we are going to have to go back into what i like to call the "finding stage." You returned missionaries know this stage as "hell." Just kidding. Yesterday we worked our butts off and taught 8 lessons, finding 10 new investigators. All the Lord asks for is our effort. If we are willing to give it, he is willing to bless us. Its not necessarily fun, but worth it if you are willing to take a walk of faith.

Friday we had a lidership conference in Porto Alegre. It was fun, but 105 degrees on a hot smelly bus is not fun. We had to bust it back in suits to do two baptismal interviews. Luciano (see pictures) passed and was baptized that night. He´s the man. Rosangie also passed, but then when i told her what time the baptism would be was like, wait, I´m not going to get baptized without my husband... Ahhh! Her husbands name is Reni. His brain is fried from 30 years of drinking. He just got out of a clinic where he was baptized by some dude from who knows what church. Basically as many times as we explain AUTHORITY he cant understand why the alcoholic from the clinic doesnt have it. He also is Brasilian, and believes that the only sins are killing and robbing. If you dont do those two things WHY do you need to do things like pay tithing, or live the word or wisdom. "Your not hurting any one else.." Yes, you heard me right, a guy that spent his families life savings putting him into a clinic off and on for 5 years thinks that he is only hurting himself. I love people.

Other than that we have just been doing fun finding activites to try and find new poeple to teach. Namely, knocking doors. But i have a new strategy that i would encourage all missionaries to follow. I call it "the wrong door approach." It goes like this.. You make up a name, and knock. You say does this person live here...? They say no.. why do you ask, and IMMEDIATELY come out to the fence. (Brasilians are super suspicious) Thats when i ask how long they have lived there, and show them my cute little pamphlet. Its genius. 

I love Hot tomales, Mitt Romney, and Coka Cola. The Great Apostasy happened. I PROMISE. If you dont believe me look up James E. Talmage. After that Christ decided that we were worth saving. How grateful i am for that. How grateful i am for the Restoration of the gospel. If you dont have a testimony of it, get one. It will make you so much happier.

Tchau gurizada.

Brasilian Stuff

Hello white people.

I had a good week, a tough week, but a good one. Let me get my venting off my chest first, as i normally do. Brasilians can´t say No. It drives me insane. They will waste your time, energy, money, and effort, without blinking twice before they will say NO. I think i have mentioned an Old Lady that used to love us and make us dinner that we were trying to help stop to smoke so that her and her granddaughter could get baptized. When we really started cracking down on her not smoking she suddenly started to disappear. Every time we would mark with her (we have been leaving early in the morning at 9 a.m. to walk 45 min to her house) she was not there. We have literally been doing that for 2 weeks trying to prepare her to get baptized. Saturday we met with her and told her 2 Elders were coming from far away to do the interview in an hour, she´s like yeah okay! The Elders waste their time and money and come, not there. I call her, the minute she hears my voice, hangs up. We have wasted SO much time on them, because they always pretended way interested whenever we talked to them, but never wanted anything. Brasilians can´t say no, and it makes me CRAAAAZZZYYYY!!!!

Advice to South American Elders: Don´t waste time on people! Cut them!

Have i ever spoken about my friend named Rafael? He´s the PUNK in the first picture of the baptism of Reni. He is that ladies son, and he makes her cry daily. He´s super sick, but ridiculously prideful, and super mean. (Basically he´s me) And I´m like his counselor. So Friday we get there and his mom asks us to talk to him cause he said he´s quitting school. (Very rare to finish high school here) So we sit down and have a very long conversation. Long story short as I´m trying to explain to big picture to him, cause he´s super smart, he just keeps telling me im just like his mom and i dont understand, that i had forgotten what its like to be 16 and have a girlfriend. It was right about then that I looked at him and thought i was looking at myself in the mirror. It was really weird. I then preceded to explain WHY is was so important that he doesnt quit school, doesnt break the law of chastity, and does serve a mission, so he could have the perspective on life that i now have. It doesnt mean i dont remember what its like to be him, its just that i understand so much better what things bring happiness, and what things dont. When we are young it is so incredible difficult to see past the next weekend, or the end of high school, then we grow up a little and realize how little some things matter. I am eternally grateful to the mission for that, there is no greater blessing.

Last night we had another fun drunk person experience. (for the 100th time) So we´re walking home a little late and see this dude on the side of the road with a paper towel in hand. Dude is in a BAD way, but like usual i did my customary compliment. Baaaddd idea. Dude immediately SPRINGS forward to my comp trying to grab him, and we jump back fists raised yelling at him not to touch us. He then preceded to ask my comp for a "patriarchal" blessing (slightly aggressively) and my comp still a little wigged out is like no, no i cant. Also a bad idea, the guy gets all indignant and  points his blood covered finger at my comp and starts questioning his worthiness. (for sure a member) By about that point I decided it was time to take off, so we start backing up and as soon as were sure he didnt have a knife took off. Love drunk people, especially mormon drunk people.

More advice to South American Elders: Don´t come home late!

The mission is fun. Its so painfully devastating at times but mostly its good. I´ve picked up a new good thing from my companion. Whenever something crappy happens he says something to the extent of " its all good, this is not going to affect my eternal salvation." I feel like thats good advice for all of us. When little crappy things happen lets remember the big picture. I´ve applied that in my mission. I am STILL going to get married to a hot wife in the temple. I am STILL going to be a DA in New York. I am STILL going to be saved at the last day. NOOOOO WOOORRRIIIEEESSS. (this is for you DI, stress free!) 

I love you all. Me and Evans are both staying here for one more transfer. Big shocker. Not too happy about it. But hey, Christmas is STILL 2 months away. Stay Classy Orem.

Happy Halloween

No Halloween is not celebrated here. Well, not really. Its mostly just another holiday they stole from the U.s. as an excuse to not work and get as wasted drunk as they can. Last night was CRAZY.

Things are good here. It was a tough week. Lots of problems we´ve got to resolve in the ward and the zone, but thats life. If you can´t resolve problems, you´re going to live them. Mostly I´ve come to the conclusion that EVERY major problem that ever happened in the history of the world starts with pride. Don´t be prideful. (Steve, Alex, Colin)

This is the last week of the transfer. We are going to the beach this week, and then we have two baptisms this weekend. Its going to flyyyy... 

New favorite obsession- Mormon.org. I watch Brandon Flowers video at least 3 times every p day. Mostly just as an excuse to hear Killers music... but hey, its the church website!

I love you all, sorry this is short. I have no doubt this is Christ's restored church. Anyone that leaves it must foolishly crawl around or over the Book of Mormon, which has stood for hundreds of years in spite of being critically attacked. We would all be wise to strengthen our own testimony of that book. There are more important things in life to be found in there.