A New Start

Brazil is a country of change. In every city you pass you will find things completely different than the other, the accent in the way the people talk, the way people work, the personalities, the layout of the city. When I´m transfered from one area to another I feel like a started a new life. I drop everyone I knew, my companion, the way I worked aside, and start again. Recently I was transfered from the city of Erechim to the city São Leopoldo. It was a little hard to leave the city of Erechim. They had just start to put up decorations for christmas. They were building little santa houses and putting up lights on the light poles, and had a ginormous, fat santa statue at the entrance to the city that´s designed for people to sit on and take pictures if they want. When I learned that I would be leaving I called the couple that we had recently baptized 1 week before. They insisted on giving me a ride to the bus station. Normally we walk about 25 minutes to get to the station. At the station they gave me a present a note. I´m excited to be able to see them sealed in the temple one year from now. But here in São Leopoldo it´s pretty nice. It´s a little poorer than Erechim and richer than my first area Canoas. People here in São Leopoldo are suprised that I passed in Canoas, because they say it´s really dangerous there. O well, good thing I made it out alive. I have a new companion whose name is Elder J. Sanchez. He´s from Peru. He´s been on a mission for one year. He says he´ll be going to BYU in Provo, Utah after the mission! That´s means we´ll see each other quite a bit after the mission! It makes us a little home sick talking about BYU. It´ll be great.

During the past few weeks the time went by really fast and many miracles have happened. We are teaching a lot. We´re teaching about 40 lessons every week. The first week we worked here, we received 37 new investigators. It´s great to preach the gospel where lots of people are wanting to here it. On one of the first days I arrived here we went to visit a lady who´s a member of the church, but has a husband who hasn´t been baptized yet. This lady also has lots of cousins that aren´t baptized yet, so we visited these cousins together with the lady who´s a member. One of these cousins is a lady about 22 years old and she used to be very addicted to drugs, i think pot, i don´t know, it´s all porcaria. She told us that she had just a few days ago stopped using drugs and has no more desire to use them. But since she stopped she hasn´t been able to sleep well and has many evil thoughts continuously passing in her mind. She had heard about us the missionaries and knew that we would be able to give her a blessing. So after we had left a message with them she asked that we could give her a blessing. My companion asked that I could give the blessing. It was a wonderful experience. I know that the priesthood is real. The powers of God and greater than anything in the world. The room where we gave the blessing was filled with the spirit, and this lady who´s been suffering heard what she needed to hear, and was cured. We visited her the next day. She had slept perfectly the night before and no longer had any bad thoughts passing in her mind. We taught her about the church of jesus christ and she wants to baptized with the authority of the priesthood. We then started teaching her sisters and learned that her parents are members but less active. All of her 3 sisters want to be baptized. This lady and 1 of her sisters are preparing to be baptized this Sunday. 

I am grateful to be here in São Leopold, Brazil. It´s over 90 degrees in the middle of dezember, there´s tons of crazy people here, the city is ugly, portuguese is hard, it´s rainy and sunny on the same day, the dogs here are annoying, all of the food here is different, but in the end it is doesn´t matter because I´m doing the lord´s work. Love is the motivation. I love helping people to change their lives for the better following Jesus Christ. God put me to work here so I´ll go. I´ll do what it takes. I´ll work until I drop. 

Alone

I don´t know how to describe how hard a mission is. I´m being put through trials that I didn´t think were possible. I can´t complain because I´m sure many people have passed difficulties much harder than what I´m passing. Every person is given the difficulties of which he can handle. We go step by step learning many wonderful truths that will forever change our personal character. This is what God wants for us. Some days this week I felt completely alone. I heard many insulting and discouraging words. I felt many wonderful opportunities of joy for our investigators leave. I felt that almost everything I was doing was wrong. I felt unappreciated, tired, and sad. I don´t mean to wine or make this sound like a diary, but I really felt these things. Thankfully I received a few general conferences talks from my mom which greatly helped. In the character of christ talk by David A Bednar contains a sentece that greatly helped me. It says something like this: As we pass sadness, pain, and difficulties, our capacity to love will increase. As I passed these horrible feelings of lonliness I was immediately reminded of my savior Jesus Christ, and my family, especially my mom. As I pass these pains I´ve never experienced before I recognize what Jesus Christ sacrificed for me, what my family sacrificed for me, and what my Mom sacrificed for me so that I could be who and where I am today. As I recognize more of the sufferings of others, my love for them greatly increases, and I want to have more mercy for them. If you ever pass a difficulty with faith and hope, God will help you. I do not doubt this fact. At no moment doing the lord´s work do I feel abandoned by God, and his angels. Every day I feel tender mercies of the Lord that help me to press forward. For example, God knows me perfectly, better than anyone else. So he knows that I love food. Especially good brazilian food. It´s delicous. In the middle of a fight between my companion and I, a sister from our ward knocked on our door and gave us a loaf of bread. The fight stopped and we ate bread. Yesterday we got soaked in the rain. I was freezing. We had to planned to go with a member to teach the couple that we just baptized Saturday. We got to the member´s house and they gave us hot chimarrão, jackets, and a towel to dry off. When we got to the house of the couple we baptized, they had prepared a nice hot soup for us to eat. After the baptism on saturday a member gave us a tupaware thing full of bread, and cake. Last saturday we received 2 loaves of bread, snacks, and 15 reais to buy a meal. There have many more blessings of Lord. Mercies come every day by small and simple means. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a message of hapiness. But we will pass times of darkness. Know that at the end of the tunnel with come a wonderful light. While this week may have been the most difficult on my mission so far, it was the most fullfilling. On friday 2 of our investigators were legally married. On saturday we baptized them. I had the opportunity to baptize the husband and a man from our ward baptized the wife. Miracously one of the members bought a violin that he doesn´t play and has left in the missionarie´s apartment for us to play. For the baptism I played A poor wayfaring man´s of grief. I´m pretty sure the entire ward was there at the chapel to watch this baptism. everyone was super excited to see them be baptized. They couple will be a great blessing for this ward. The husband is preparing to receive the melquisedec priesthood this next saturday. Sunday this couple was confered as a member of the church of jesus chirst of latter day saints. There is no great joy than this, helping a family to enter into a convenant with god to follow Jesus Christ and change their lives forever. Do whatever it takes to be involved in this work. The world needs your testimonies and waits for your invitations. Go do awesome things.

work

    This week we worked. I decided to talk to as many people as a could on the street. We managed to do 39 lessons in total this week. As we talk with people on the street it´s very easy to start talking about religion with them. We then ask if we can do a prayer to share a message with them. We share message of the restoration and then ask them to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. Almost every single person accepts to be baptized. I asked one lady if she felt she was ready to be baptized immediately and she said yes. I told her she wasn´t ready yet because we had some things to teach her yet. We found one person on the road who said he´s been looking for a church to join for a long time and he wants to be baptized in the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. Great! We asked him when we could visit him again and he said to come by his house the same day at 4:00pm. We ended up being late because of some othe appointments and ran into him on the road again on our to his house. He talked a lot about how he had a lot of questions concerning religion and loved the message that we had shared with him. I´m excited to visit him again. There´s a couple we´ve been teaching for a while now and they´re doing really well. We visit them every sunday night with another couple who are members. Both of the couples have a sons about 5 years old so they play in another room while we teach the lesson. For our last lesson with this couple we got them signed up on familysearch.org. It was awesome! This couple is really excited to get going on family history. Right now we are waiting for their marriage papers to come through. In brazil the marriage process is complicated. You have to pay money to get the license and you also have to post the marriage in the newspaper for about 25 days before they can be legally married. They´re super excited to get their marriage papers so they can be baptized. I´m really excited too. I just hope I don´t get transfered to another area. As of right now we have to wait about another 20 days for them to be legally married. 

       The members here in Erechim are awesome! We´re having ward council every sunday morning. All of the members are super exicted about missionary work. We´ve been getting tons of refferrals. It´s almost more referalls than we can handle. They also give us lots of food! I love food. and I love anyone who gives me food. The best people to find are members, and the best people to teach are missionaries. If you ever want a missionary to teach someone you know about the gospel it´s very simple. Invite your friend to your house and tell him you have have 2 friends in the church called missionaries who teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and that you would like for him to hear a message they have for him. This message explains how the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored once more in our days. Then you call up the missionaries and ask them what hour works for them to come to your house and teach your friend. Then confirm this hour with your friend. When you talk to the missionaries schedule for them to come to your house a little early so you can talk about quickly how you want to teach the lesson. Then the friend will arrive. Then you guys teach the gospel. And then this friend will have the opportunity to follow the example of Jesus christ and be baptized if they have that desire. it´s a process that works well. If you just hand an address or telephone number of someone you know to the missionaries, nothing will probably happen. The member needs to be the one who invites the friend to meet with the missionaries. Please help the missionaries. They need it. There is no greater work than missionary work. I´m so happy to be apart of it.

      Share the gospel in all times and in all places. Every week at district meetings we recite the scripture Doctrine and Covenants 24:12 which says:" Em todos os tempos e em todos os lugares abrirá a boca e anunciará meu evangelho como com a voz de uma trombeta tanto de dia como a noite, e dar-lhe-é uma força que não é conhecida entre os homens." I feel a great power behind me when I start talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ with people. I know that this is god´s work. God will provide wonderful opportunities for those who are willing to work for him. As you work for him you will see miracles and your testimony will increase. As your testimony increases your desire to share your testimony with others increases. We have to tell people about the book of mormon. We need to let people know there´s a living prophet of god named thomas s. monson.

People need to know that they can receive personal revelation for any righteous question that they may have. Don´t worry if others don´t believe what you´re saying. What´s important is what you know to be true.

Famílias Eternas

On the mission we have the opportunity to completely change peoples´ lives. A little time before I wrote about a family that Elder Niver and I had found through doing a street contact with a lady on the road. Street contact means that we walked up to her and started talking about the gospel even though we didn´t know her. There was no physical contact. Well actually we shook hands, but that was it. Since we found this family they´ve been doing really well. There´s a mother, father, a son 4 years old and a 19 year old son. Yesterday we taught them about the Family:A Proclomation To the World. They loved it. They said they´ve been searching for a church that focuses on the family. Later we talked about baptism with them. The father shared his testimony with us about the church. He said that he´d been praying for a while to receive a material answer that this church is true and that he should be baptized. He said that he really likes the bird "pombo" I´m not really sure what kind of bird that is but I know it´s a bird. They´re not very common here in Rio Grande do Sol. One Sunday during the morning they were getting ready to go to church. The father went into his 4 year old son´s room to wake him up and there on the windowsill he saw a pombo. It was a bird sitting peacefully on the windowsill and didn´t move. At this moment the father knew that God had answered his prayers. They have continued coming to church, are reading the Book of Mormon every day, and are filled with the Holy Ghost. Great joy comes in seeing others have joy in receiving the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. The most important thing in the lives of this family is getting more involved in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints so that they can experience the blessings of truly living the gospel of Jesus Christ. Everytime we visit this family they are beaming with joy and anxiously waiting to learn more about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even the 4 year old son jumps up and down getting excited whenever he sees us coming to their house. 2 sundays ago we had a confirmation so I was in the bishop's office getting his signature. While I was in there the 4 old son ran in asking to shake my before his family would leave. I said "Com certeza, obrigado por vindo" (Of course, thank you for coming.) Families need to here the message we have, that Christ lives and wants everyone to hear and live his teachings.

Crazy Weekend

This was a crazy weekend. This week we had transfers and I received a new companion. His name is Elder Lima. He is my first companion that does not speak English. At first I was a little nervous about this but I´ve actually been really comftorable just talking in Portuguese all the time. We worked like crazy this week running around to all of our different appointments. We didn´t knock any doors this week because I already had enough commitments planned to visit this week. Saturday we did a baptismal interview for one of our investigators. He is from Nigeria so his native language is English! Our district leader made the trip of an 1 hour and a half from Passo Fundo to Erechim Saturday morning to do the interview. He passed the interview and then we went to some appointments. at the end of the day we grapped our investigator to be baptized and walked with him to the chapel to be baptized. When we got to the church the only person there was the missionary leader. No problem. We got ready to the baptism and found out that the water in the baptismal font was cold as ice. No problem. I put on my baptismal clothes and went in the water. I walked into the font trying to keep a calm expression as to not show my investigator how cold the water was. Then my investigator entered the water and stared panicking a little bit and using words we don´t call friendly. I´m glad I´ve already baptized a few times before because I was able to get that baptism done really fast, and then we ran out of the baptismal font to get dried. Sometimes salvation is painful, but I´m glad my investgator was willing show a lot of faith. Sunday we went to church, had a delicous lunch, taught people on the road, and then went to visit the best investigators in the world. We have two investigators who are a couple about 40 years old each, and they have 2 sons, 19 and 4 years old. We have been teaching them for almost 2 months now and they´ve been to church two times already. They love the church and are really excited to be baptized. Right now they´re getting their marriage papers in order so they can be legally married. Sunday we taught them about temples and family history. We set a goal with them that they will be sealed one year from now in the temple. If they do I will be able to go and watch them be sealed one year from now! Woohoo! Thank goodness today is P-day. Doing the lord´s work drains every drop of energy you have in your body. Tchau.

Semana de Milagres. (I thought I would try Portuguese this time. Go Brazil!)

Eu pensei que eu devo escrever em Português por uma semana. Eu acho que você pode botar estas frases na google translator e isso deve dar certo. Muitos milagres aconteceram esta semana. Milagres muitos vezes são a única coisa que motivar nós como missionários. Milagres ajuda nós para lembrar que Deus ainda está conosco e quer que nós fazemos esta obra missionário. Um dia esta semana nós encontramos uma mulher na rua come quem Elder Niver fez uma contato. Nós explicamos que somos missionários da igreja de Jesus Cristo dos Santos dos Últimos Dias e queremos ajuda a família dela seguir Jesus Cristo. Nós estamos bem surpreso quando ela estava bem animado a ver nós e quis marcar um compromisso conosco por causa ela e o marido dela gustam de conversa sobre religião. ou! Isso não acontece muitos vezes. Ela começou explicar onde ela mora e decidiu para dar nós uma corana para chegar na casa dela. Nós decidimos para visitar eles no domingo e encontrar o marido dela na capela da igreja para receber uma carona. Isso aconteceu na sexta-feira. Durante esta dia eu estava bem doente e foi bem difícil para continuar andando. Nós tentamos muitos vezes esta dia a ligar para Sister Campos mas não deu certo. Quando chegamos na casa aquele noite nós aprendemos que a celular de Sister Campos estava na armário dela toda dia e ela só conseguiu ligar nós perto de 9:00 da noite. As 9 horas da noite eu foi pronto para cair morto, mas Sister Campos disse que precisamos ir para o hospital imediatamente. Então nós fomos para o hospital depois sendo perdido por um pouco tempo. La nós tínhamos que esperar muito tempo. Quando nós visitamos o médico ele decidiu que eu precisei uma teste sanguíneo e uma raio x. Eu não sei porque. Depois uma enfermeira tirou meu sangue eu tornei bem branco e comecei ver muito preto e não consegui ouvir muito bem. Quando um das enfermeiras notou isso ele pegou minha cabeça e empurrou para baixo e disse,"empurrou para cima." Isso ajudou um pouco e depois eles ofereceram me uma cadeira de rodas. Eu não quis aparecer fraco então eu levantei e disse que eu não precisei a cadeira de rodas. Isso foi uma decisão mal por causa enquanto eu estava andando eu comecei ver muito preto de novo e quase cai. Com sorte um das enfermeiras pegou um cadeira de rodas e dirigiu me para o lugar para fazer uma raio x. Eu tive que tirar meu camisa por o raio x e não tinha muito força para vestir a camisa de novo então a enfermeira depois dirigiu me para uma cama de hospital. Eu deitei e ficamos la até 12:30 da manha. Depois eu levantei recebei um novo remédio e voltamos para a casa. Chegamos na casa a um hora da manhã. estávamos cansado no próximo dia. No domingo tivemos seis pessoas que são de Haiti que quiseram ir para a igreja. dois deles aparaceram da pé e tivemos um membro quem ajudou nós levantar o outro quatro para a igreja com carro. Eles não falam muito de Português mas gustaram muito da igreja. Nós estamos planejando para batizar todos estas seis pessoas na dia 29 de Augusto. Mais tarde no domingo estávamos voltando para a capela para que pegássemos uma carona com o marido da mulher na rua quem quis que nós visitamos elas. Estávamos atrasado para encontrar o marido dela na capela mas em nosso caminho nós achamos ele no lado da rua esperando no carro dele. Ele dirigiu nós para a casa dele. Ele falou que ele estava tendo muitos dificuldades com outros igrejas e quis aprender sobre o religião mórmon. Perfeito! Nós ensinamos ele, a esposa dele, e mãe dela. O lição demorou muito tempo mas depois todos deles aceitaram para ser batizado. Eles são bem animado para aprender mais em nosso próximo visita. Deus vai dar oportunidades para as pessoas que querem servir ele. Elder Niver e Eu estamos bem animados para continuar trabalhando aqui em Erechim e vendo os milagres de Deus.

Strength from the Lord.

The mission can be very tiring, but through it all, God gives me the strength I need to do his work. This week we worked in a neighborhood called Três Vendas. The reason why we worked there this week is because the week before a random guy on the street told us to go visit people in Três Vendas and we felt that was an answer to our prayers. The work went pretty well and we found lots of people who said that they wanted to be baptized, but by the end of the week we cut everyone except one family. It´s not fun to cut people from your list of investigators, but as a missionary in Brazil you have to do it a lot.

This week we´ve seen a miracle with an investigator that we just confirmed last Sunday with the gift of the Holy Ghost. He is from Haiti and only speaks French. All of the lessons were taught to him by using a member in our ward who´s also from Haiti and knows French and Portuguese. It´s been a cool experience this week to re teach the lessons to this investigator in portuguese while having the translator translate our portuguese into french for the investigator to be able to understand. This investigator has a very strong testimony that the church is true and it´s amazing to see him go to church and love it even though all of the classes are in Portuguese. This is because he likes to feel the spirit. Every time we go to his house to teach him, he just tells us that he feels good with us there and he feels good about our message. As we´ve gone to this investigator´s house to teach him we´ve started teaching some of the other people from Haiti that he lives with. They are very open to the message and have a desire to follow Jesus Christ. 2 of them said that they will be baptized. Another person who lives in this house is from Nigeria, Africa, and he speaks english as his native language. He doesn´t know portuguese very well so we actually taught him the first lesson in English. It´s a good thing my companion and I are american. It was really weird teaching in english. This guy from Nigeria is going to be baptized later this month.

The winter has stopped and the sun is very strong here. I´m glad that God gives us miracles and gives us the strength we need to help his children return to live with him after this life.

Adventure!

This week I got transferred to a different area. It was hard saying bye to all the members I came to know really well, and not knowing where I would be going. At the same time I never felt sad. A lot of the members were kind of confused when I told them I was getting transfered and I was happy about it. I was ready to move on and experience the missionary work and a different location. So the way the transfers work is I received an email saying I was going to be transfered, but I didn´t know where to. I spent the P-Day packing and then on the next morning as I was finishing packing all of my things I grapped a bag which had my shaving razor in it. When I grabbed the bag, the blade of the razor cut through the bag and cut my left finger open. At this moment we had to go in order to make it the bus station on time. I rinsed it with water and quickly wrapped it with knapkins and baind-aids to keep myself from dripping blood everywhere. We traveled  to a big bus station near porto alegre and there I met my new zone leader and he showed me where I would be going. I found out that I would be going to the zone Passo Fundo and be working in an area called Erechim. We waited at the bus station until 12:30pm when our bus arrived to take us to Passo Fundo. Most of the trip there we were climbing up hills because Passo Fundo is about 3,000 feet above Porto Alegre. We arrived at the bus station in Passo Fundo at about 5:00pm. At around 5:30pm my new companion showed up there. His name is Elder Niver. After talking a bit we grabbed another bus to take us to Erechim. At this point, riding on another bus was making me feel like I was going to throw up, because the bus drivers here are crazy. After arriving in our area and then grabbing a taxi, we got to our apartment at about 9:00pm. That same night we went to a hospital where I got my finger checked out and it actually wasn´t too bad, there was just a lot of blood. Better safe than sorry. We live on the 8th floor in pretty nice sized apartment room. It even has couches. I only live with my companion here.  My new area Erechim is the area farthest away from Mission office in Porto Alegre. It´s great to be on the outskirts of the mission. It´s really hard to find people in Erechim who want to listen to our message, and it´s really hard to baptize here. But I believe in miracles. I really like the area especially because it´s ginormous. Our area is also full of hills and looks beautiful. It takes about 4 hours to walk from one end of our area to the other. The mission is awesome and has the best work anyone could ever be apart of.

Miracles

    Elder Fávoro and I had an amazing last week. A week before yesterday we had the opportunity to baptize a daughter of God. She´s about 40 years old and has been living alone for most of her life. She was abandoned and denied by any church that she tried going to in the past. She´s been praying and asking God if there is really any purpose to leaving the house and worshipping God in a church with other people. About 3 weeks ago is when we walked to her house and clapped. I don´t remember why we went to this house, but it just felt right. The week that we found her we had a few lessons that week with her. She had a lot of doubts about our church and had heard a lot of strange things about our church from other people. We spent a lot of time listening to her and then resolving her doubts with truth and teaching her how our church really is. Every time we would answer a question that she had she would smile and say, "That´s very different." Whenever she said that I always thought, "I know how you feel. I´m an american in Brazil." The sunday after we met her she went to church with us. We brought her there early before the meetings started to show her what the chapel looks like and what the different rooms are for. My companion did most of the touring because I was looking in the kitchen to see if there was any left over food from the last ward activity. As members started to show up to church we introduced her to some sisters in the relief society and they guided her into the relief society class. Then we attended the gospel principles class with her and then guided her to sacrament meeting for the final hour. The next time we went to visit her she actually invited us inside of her house. She said that our church was very different and that she felt better there than she had in any other church. In our previous lessons we had asked her to pray about the church of jesus christ of latter day saints and ask if it is true. She had stayed up until 4:00am praying about our church. She said that she had also had a dream a night before she went to our church. In the dream she said she was in our church. She was sitting in a group of people with everyone wearing white. She said that on an elevated surface in front of her stood another person dressed in white. I thought the dream she had was very interesting, especially since she had never been in our church at that point. After a lot of praying and dreaming she said that she had received an answer that me and companion were servants of the Lord and that the church of jesus christ of latter day saints is true. Yes! After we heard that we set a date for her to be baptized the following sunday. She accepted. Yes! The baptism went really well and a sister even made a delicous chocolate cake for afterwords. Yes! We continued to visit her after the baptism and her physical appearance was very different the first time we visited her after the baptism. She was glowing with light, smiling more, more confident in her speech, and had an even firmer testimony about this church. During the week after she was baptized she said she had a lot of people from other churches on the road and at her door invite her to go to their churches. She said no to all of them because she already knows which church is true. We explained to her that because she was baptized in the true church she´s showing God that she´s on His side now, and saitan doesn´t want her to continue going to this church. That is why so many people invited her to go to another church. She said that never in her life has she had people invite her to go to their churches until the after she was baptized in this church. Yesterday was the day we confirmed upon her the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Every time we visited this lady she had always prayed about last message we left with her and had the Book of Mormon and the last pamplet that we had left for her on the table. She always read the entire pamphlet and any part of the Book of Mormon that we had left for her to read. I know that if you have a sincere desire to find truth and follow the Holy Ghost, you will find the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints to be the only true church on the Earth.

     About a month ago Elder Fávoro and I were doing contacts on the street and met somebody who had just moved into Matthis Velho, the city where we live, a few months ago. He´s been studying different religions but never really settled in one religion because he always felt something was missing. He´s here living next to his parents studying to become a lawyer. To talked to him for a while and I was shocked at how nice he was. My companion said it´s because he´s from a small town. By the time we finished talking to him we had taught him a good part of the first lesson, said a prayer with him, marked a day to go visit, got his phone number, and he even asked to add us on facebook. The day we marked to go back we ended up having a different commitment and we never visited him, and we forgot to call him to set up another appointment. We thought it would probably be better to just focus on the investigators we already have and not worry about visiting him. One day we were walking down the main road to go visit people and were some screaming at us from behind. We turned around and saw a man leaning out of the entrance to a salon waving his arm at us to come over to him. It was the same man that we had met a few weeks earlier. He invited us into his house and we taught him the message of the restoration. We left him with an invite to read the pamplet about the message we left and read a part of the Book of Mormon that we marked for him. The next time we visited him that week we met his parents. We learned that his Dad was actually already baptized in the LDS church and is relatives with a family that goes to church in our ward. He hasn´t gone to church in a long time and his wife isn´t a member. We talked a little bit with them and they said that would like to get married legally and start going to the LDS church. Their son who we had met before said that he read what we had left for him, but he didn´t read the part we marked in the Book of Mormon for him, instead he read Moroni chapter 10, which is a perfect chapter to read, because it´s a chapter that bears testimony of the Book of Mormon. We came back to visit them the next Sunday, but his parents weren´t home, so we went into his house to talk some more. He showed us that he had continued reading in the book of mormon and he is only a few chapters away from finishing first Nephi. He said he spent a lot of time reading the Book of Mormon and he marked some of his favorite parts. During his study he compared the Book Mormon with the Bible and told us that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. He said as long as the Book of Mormon continues to be in accordance with what´s in the Bible, he´ll keep reading it. We talked with him for a long time that day. He told us a lot about what he believes in and shared some of his doubts about our church. We bore testimony to him about the importance of prophets who receive revelation and the power of the priesthood. He continued to talk saying the God has to have a plan for us after we die. He said we have to have a plan of salvation. Elder Favoro and I looked at each other smiling, and we handed him the Plan of Salvation pamphlet. We also invited him to pray about our church and ask if it is true. He said he will. After the lesson he showed us all of the books he had, because he really likes to read. As he was showing us his books he finally pulled and old looking book out from the bottom of the pile and said,"this is the best of them all" It was princples of the gospel book the church of jesus christ of latter day saints produced for the principles of the gospel classes. He was really amazed when we showed him that he favorite book was produced by our church and included the story of Joseph Smith seeing Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. I´m looking forward to visiting him again. Never stop being humble. Never stop studying. Never stop following the Holy Ghost. And you will be lead to the truth.

Just serve God.

This last transfer a lot changes happened. All 3 of the Elders I was living with before left to another area and I received a new companion to work with in the same area I´ve been for the past 2 transfers. My new companion has never been in the city Matthias Velho where we´re working so I now have the responsiblity of knowing where everything is and introducing my companion to all the people in the area. While last week I was mostly following 3 Elders and doing what they told me to do, now I´m leading the way more. Throughout this last week I´ve learned a lot. There´s a movie that I´ve watched  on the mission called "On The Lord´s Errand" It´s a movie about the life of prophet Thomas S. Monson, and how he´s followed the direction of the Holy Ghost to do what God needs him to do, and seeked to serve others in every situation. This has helped me to change my views about who I want to be. Many of us in the world have wonderful plans and visions for what can do and become in our lives. The righteous man will humble himself and realize that following what God wants him to do is the best life he can have. Every day God has an errand for us to run and we have to decide if we´re going to take that errand. One night this week we had just finished visiting our investigators started heading back to our house. It was very dark and started to rain really hard. We got back to the house feeling relieved to get out of the rain and were exhausted from the work we had just done that day. I looked at my watch and saw that it was only 8:15pm. Missionaries are not supposed to go back to their house until 9:00pm. My energetic companion knew this too and we got our rain jackets on and went out to the main road to do some contacts. While we did contacts that night, every person that we spoke a word to stopped to listen to our message. Because we were out there on a rainy night, people recognized the importance of the message. We received a lot of names and addresses that night. That night I learned that you have to continue until you have done all that you can, even if your tired, and the Lord will bless you.

Obey

When Christ´s desciples asked Jesus what they need to do to enter the kingdom of heaven Jesus told them to become like a child who is submissive, meek, humble, and willing to submit to the will of the father. God has ordained leaders for us that we need to follow. When I first entered the mission field I had the idea that I was a really good missionary and that I knew how to do missionary work better than the others. The past couple of months have been a great humbling experience. I learning the importance of listening to others and trusting in my leaders to lead me in the ways of righteousness. Obey with exactness following the spirit and using discernment along the way and you will be greatly blessed. 

Grow

Everyone on the Earth has something in common. We are all sons and daughters of God who have been sent here to Earth to learn, grow, and prepare to live with God after this life. I have found that similar to plants, the most powerful part of life is growing. Humans basically grow in four different categories: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. If we don´t continually grow in all four of these areas then we will feel that there is something missing in our lives and we will be wanting something more. Many people look at growing as an accumalation of music in their itunes library, more video games and movies on their shelves, buying a bigger house, getting nicer clothes, getting a nicer job, getting a raise or a promotion, or gaining more recognition. This is growth as to the world. These are some of the treasures of the world. We need to grow as to the things of God such as becoming physically stronger, eating healthy foods, learning new concepts and ideas, reading books, solving puzzles or problems, memorizing new information, developing musical talents, learning to work with other people, learning to see the good in everyone, recognizing your weaknesses, learning from others around you, reading the scriptures, learning moral lessons, being spiritually uplifted, developing your faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement, and more wonderful things. The best times in our lives will be when we are growing as to the things of God. Many people call a mission the best 2 years of your life because missionaries get to take a break from the things of the world and focus on growing as to the things of God. We were put on this Earth to interact with each other. I´ve found that the best way to learn about another person and have fun is to grow with them. Play physical sports with them, Study with them, Solve problems together, Simply talk with them, Share your testimonies with one another, search for media which spiritually uplifts and teaches that you can participate in together. I´ve loved learning and growing with my companion and we´ve had many great experiences together because of it. Grow with the family and friends you have and go out there to find some new people to learn and to grow with. 

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Gratitude and Adapting

Life is full of changes. Either we make the changes are our environment changes without us doing anything. Sometimes these changes are easy and sometimes they are hard. Whatever the change is, we have a promise from God that we can handle. In the Book of Mormon Nephi teaches that we never receive a commandment from God save he shall provide a way for us to obey it. That doesn´t mean that way is going to be easy. That´s means that way is possible. This has given me a lot of comfort as I´m trying to adapt to a lot changes being in Brazil. During this period of change I´ve found 2 things which help the most: gratitude and the will to adapt or change. In every moment there is always  something to be grateful about. If you ever find yourself in a less than happy mood simply write everything you can think of that your grateful for. Don´t stop writing until you´ve written at least 10 things that you´re grateful for. Our minds are constantly thinking, and it´s important to think about the good things, and how the bad things can be better in the future. When our environment changes that is an excellent opportunity for us to change and become better. We must always be open to change the way we do things. It´s ok to study other religions, just don´t belong to or be a member of two churches. By following the promptings of the Holy Ghost and seeing the blessings of this church I have found the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to be the only true church on this earth. That signifies that this is truly the church of Jesus Christ, not of another person, or diety. Always be open to learn something new. Always discern if what someone tells you is of God or of something else. Always evaluate your actions and think of how you can improve. Too often people blame the surroundings for their problems and never change. Things will get better when you begin to change and learn to love your surroundings. Become the person that loves your surroundings. Becomes that person who wants to be more like savior. Forget the bad things you´ve done before and look to your potential in the future. Because of the Savior that potential is always there waiting for you. Life is an incredible journey. Go.


Added by Mom

This past week we did a service project for the family that let me use their computer for skype. I told him a couple weeks ago that I did gardening on the temple before the mission and that I would be willing to do some gardening work for him. He told me to make a list of everything I would need to build a gardern. I gave him the list of materials and this last thursday he bought everything I told him to buy. So we went to house friday and built a garden for him. It was great to do real work again. the project took about 3 and a half hours to complete. He bought about 50 flowers, a tree, and 2 bushes. They let me design the whole garden and let me do whatever I thought was best. Here are some pictures of the service project and the baptism we had this week.

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Look who called for Mother's Day.....

I will be out of town next week so he got to call early.  He is happy and doing well and LOVING the food.  Soo fun to hear him speaking Portuguese to the people around him.

Josh first apartment pictures

Work

Hi, my name is Joshua Ritter. I am currently serving a full time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Porto Alegre North mission. I was in the Provo, UT Missionary Training Center for 6 weeks and I arrived in Brazil 5 weeks ago. My purpose as a missionary here in Brazil is to invite others to come unto christ and receive the restored gospel of Jesus Christ by helping them to have faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repent, be baptized, receive the gift of the holy ghost, and endure to end. To help fullfill this work I am assigned a companion and we have missionary standards that we follow. I live in a small house with 3 other missionaries including my companion. Every morning we wake up at 6:30am, workout, study scriptures, plan for the day, and study Portuguese. I did not Portuguese before I left for the mission so that´s why I have to study it every morning. We go eat lunch with a member and then we walk around our area preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. We don´t yell in the streets or sell anything. We simply visit people in their houses and share the message of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If people receive this message and want to learn more we teach them more. As people receive our messages and accept commitments to pray about our message and go to church they have the opportunity to be baptized. Baptism is a wonderful ordinance which can be done by someone holding the Priesthood, which is the authority of God. After baptism they receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and make a covenant to always remeber Jesus Christ and His Atonement, and obey His commandments. Here in Porto Alegre the church is growing very quickly. Many people here have been waiting for the message want to follow the example of Jesus Christ into the waters of baptism. We work hard every day to help people follow Christ. Every day we finish teaching at 9:00pm. At this time we return to our house, eat dinner, plan, and go to bed. One of the marvelous parts of missionary work that I´ve seen is the opportunity we have to completely forget about our personal desires and pleasures, and love to serve other people. I feel this more and more everday as I serve God. Yesterday I was doind a division with another Elder and we were contacting people on the street. We found a man sitting at a bus stop with a backpack and some blankets. We introduced ourselves and asked him if he would like to hear a message about Jesus Christ. He told us that he had already been baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints when he was 14 years old. He hasn´t attended church in a long time. He lost his family and all his possessions. He has no where to sleep and nothing to eat. The other missionary I was with talked with him invited him to go to church again. Then I pulled out a book of mormon and asked if he had one. He said he had read it and loves the book of mormon, but he didn´t have one. So we sat down next to him and shared with him a scripture about humility. We left the Book of Mormon with him and said he is welcome to come to church and then we left. He told us that just before we had arrived there he had been praying for help from God and he said he received his answer.

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

First Baptism

Yesterday I had my first baptism for the mission. It was a great experience! The man I baptized was very happy afterwards was excited to be a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints. Hopefully I will be able to baptize many more people. It´s wonderful to see the light of the gospel come into people´s lives. This week we met a lot of people who didn´t want our message because they said that they already know Christ and accept him as their savior. I studied this topic a lot and found that the answer is faith. Christ offers the gift of the atonement to everyone, but we also have to accept it. We accept the atonement by having faith in Jesus Christ. Those who do not exercise faith in Jesus Christ and simply accept him as their Savior do not know their Savior. Part of our purpose in life to come to know our Savior Jesus Christ. We do this by exercising faith in Him, repenting, and being baptized.

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Strength From God

There are so many wonderful things to do to help progress the work of God. I´m thankful for the opportunity I have to be apart of God´s work. It´s been amazing to see God help us in the work. Last Tuesday we had divisions and my companion told me about a wonderful experience he had with the other Elder. He met a man on the street who got really excited to see the missionaries. He grabbed my Elder´s planner from him and told him where he lived, his name, and when he wanted us to come visit him. So a couple days later we were walking down a street and a saw a man sitting on his car in front of his house and I told him we are missionaries and we have a special message about Jesus Christ. Before I could say anything more he had dropped the food he was holding and ran to open the fence for us and he started shaking my hand. We sat down on his sofa in front of his house and we had a wonderful conversation with him. I couldn´t understand most of what he was saying, but my companion told me he´s had a really rough life. However, I could understand that he has a strong desire to follow Christ and he´s been searching for the truth for a while. There are some people I´ve met on the mission so far that are strangely familiar and he is one of them. We talked with him for about an hour during which we shared the first lesson about the restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon. It wasn´t until after this visit that my companion told me that this was the same person he met on the street eariler, and then things made a lot more sense. We met with the same man a couple days later during which we taught the plan of salvation. Before the lesson we were privileged to meet his family. The mother told us she was very grateful that we were teaching her son. Later we told we were both from America. Right after we told her that. Shen ran into the kitchen and yelled at her daughters something like, "Did you hear that?! These two missionaries are from America!" After that one of the daughters came in to the room and started asking us questions like where we live and how late we can stay out. We made sure to quickly tell this family about some of the rules we have from the missionary handbook. I love the missionary handbook. The rules help us in so many ways. After our lesson this man gave us some free fruit and invited us to have shurraskoo with his family next Friday. Shurraskoo is delicous brazilian barbeque. Learning the language is not easy, but God has given me strength to do what I need to do. Yesterday was my first time bearing my testimony in front of Brazilian ward. I´m so thankful that the Holy Ghost helps me to know what to say. After that church meeting. The two investigators we have that went to church said they want to be baptized next sunday! Be grateful for the past and make the future awesome!

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Josh's district in the MTC.  He loved his district.  2 out of the nine received their Visas and went to Brazil.  The other 7 were reassigned.

Josh's first companion, Elder Burrus, at the Porto Alegre Temple the first Monday in Brazil.

Hurrah for Israel!

Miracles

I´ve been learning for a long time about what the gospel and how to live it. Many people have told me that as I live these things I will see miracles in my life. On my mission I am so privleged to see miracles everday. We find many people everday that are confused about life and have been waiting to hear our message. It´s wonderful experience to help them to see that life can be very simple and joyful by following the example of Jesus Christ. Part of following Christ is being baptized. There was one lady that we met in a park while we were walking to any appointment. I asked her if she had 5 minutes to hear a message about the baptism of Jesus Christ. We then taught the first lesson to her and she loved. She said everything made sense and that throughout the entire lesson she felt very good about it. She wants to be baptized on April 12th and she said she would go to general conference the next day with a friend. Sadly she wasn´t able to go to general conference because the location changed last minute. We also learned that she´s in the other elder´s area. I´m excited to see what will happen. Follow the rules of the gospel of Jesus Christ and you will see miracles.

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Brazil!

Wow! Brazil is very different from anything i´ve every seen. i´ve definitely had many elder calhoon moments since i got. I left the MTC at about 8:00am and i was a house in brazil teaching a lesson at 7:00pm the next day. i didn´t sleep at all between that time but god gave me the strength to do what i needed to do. when i heard the people talk in that lesson i was shocked. Whatever they were saying was very different from the language in the mtc. luckily as i have started teaching and talking to more people in brazil, i realized that the people we taught in that first lesson talk faster then anyone else in brazil i´ve talked to. the people in brazil are very kind. there don´t seem to be very many laws or cops here, but the brazilians are very kind with each other so they don´t seem to need cops. i have only seen 1 cop so far and no violence. i have seen a lot of batuki though. since i got here i recognize that this mission was called of god and there are people here waiting for me to teach them. being here has motivated me to learn the language more. i´m excited to get going and serve the lord. 

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Time is your most valuable resource.

    My companion and I are continuing to work hard in learning our purpose as missionaries and Portuguese. We're teaching many practice investigators and I'm really enjoying it. We even got to teach a member in Brazil over skype for about 30 minutes. Every since I've been out on the mission I've felt an added measure of strength that I haven't felt before. I know that God is helping me. The highlights of this week were going to a devotional by Quentin L. Cook last tuesday and talking to a native brasilian who only speaks Portuguese. My companion and I met a missionary from Brazil who's serving in Indiana. It's kind of funny that he's learning English to come up to the united states and that we're going Portuguese to go down to Brazil. As I've been at the MTC I've felt that Porto Alegre North, Brazil is where I need to be and I've gained a stronger testimony of the divinity of a missionary's call. I've been praying that I would get my visa so I could go straight to Brazil. Anyway, we talked with this missionary from Brazil and it was a very spiritually uplifting experience. It was incredible to see how much my companion and I could understand of what he was saying. Even when there were some words we couldn't understand, we could feel of the spirit of this person. He says the people in brazil have very strong testimonies and are willing to work hard to help the missionaries. I'm excited to go to Brazil and preach the gospel. I also learned there might be a civil war in Brazil because 49% of the people voted against their new president. That will be interesting to see how that turns out. I also got my flight plans yesterday. I'm leaving for brazil a week from tomorrow at 6:00am. That means the travel office has my visa! Que Maravilha!

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

teach people not lessons.

this last week has been the best week of my mission. yesterday i just barely finished all of the tasks our branch president asked us to complete before we leave the mtc. i have memorized james 1:5, the first vision, the missionary purpose, seven habits of a diligent missionary, and D+C 4, all in portuguese. i also just finished reading the book of mormon yesterday. it was a great feeling to finish all of that and i have seen many blessings come from it. we are currently teaching 5 investigators. the investigators are just actors but feel very real and it's great practice. this week we get to skype with church members from brazil and teach them. portuguese is a lot of fun. i love the way it sounds and it isn't too hard. last thursday me and my companion had a 24 hour fast from english. it was a great experience. it was cool to see what we did and didn't know in portuguese. we could actually carry some pretty decent conversations. one of my favorite parts in the book of mormon is when the sons of mosiah are on their way back from their missionary work with the lamanites and they see alma the younger on the way back. as they told alma about their mission trip and were brought into remembarance of it ammon fell to the earth because he had such exceedingly great joy. i look forward to experiencing that joy as a missionary.

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Humility and Diligence

 Being at the MTC has continued to be a wonderful experience! I am on my 3rd week now I have learned a large amount! I've become pretty adjusted to the MTC/ missionary life and I love it. I have a great companion and it has gotten even better as I have learned more about him. He's really interest in epic board games, so that gives us something fun to talk about whenever we're together, which is all the time. It was a little hard a first to understand the rules here, but I've begun to see great blessings from following them. My mind is continually becoming clearer and clearer. I'm becoming more focused on the other people and serving God. It's a wonderful experience to take a break from the many distractions of the world.

   Another principle I have learned in the past week is the value of memorizing. I challenge anyone who's reading this to go read about some new information that's helpful, like the scriptures, memorize your favorite part, and then teach someone else about what you learned. It's a wonderful experience. It will help you to socialize with others and learn faster. It also works great with learning music. Remeber God and the many blessings he's given. I would write more but my time is limited. At least I dont have write on gold plates. 

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

The Language of the Spirit.

      I arrived at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT on February 11th 2015. This has been a very different experience for me and was a little hard to adjust. The first day I arrived here I was directed straight to a classroom after receiving my materials where my teacher Brother Barlow was teaching us in Portuguese. To this day he has only been teaching in Portuguese. Even in casual conversation he will not use English with us. Because of this I have quickly learned many new portugese phrases and words.  My companion's name is Elder Maughan. He's from Orem, UT.

       Many people will tell you that time goes by slowly at the MTC. It really does feel like that. The reason why is because I feel like I'm accomplishing everyday the amount of things I would normally accomplish in a week. I love the things I get to learn everyday. I get up at 6:30am everday and go straight to class at 7:00am. From there I do personal, companionship, and language study until our intsructor teaches us for 3 hours in the afternoon. In the evening we've been teaching lessons to a practice investigator. We have to teach the lessons in portuguese for 20-30 minutes. I have alreay taught 3 lessons. It really motivates you to learn the language. I feel like Portuguese is the perfect language for me. It seems to come naturally to me. There have been 2 times where an Elder in my District told me I was sleep talking in Portuguese during the night. I guess that's a good sign.

      I love the MTC! Except I don't like what the food does to my digestive system. But it does taste good. There are many great missionaries here and I can definitely feel the spirit of these holy grounds. I look forward to spending 6 weeks here. The main thing I have learned is that the language of the spirit is more important than the language of Portuguese. Que Maravilha! Tschau!

       

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Josh MTC Address

Josh would love to hear from you.  Please write him at:

Elder Joshua Ritter
BRA-PAN
2005 N 900 E Unit 202
Provo, UT  84602

You may also send a letter via dearelder.com at no cost to you and the letters arrive within a day that you send it.  Basically, you send an email, they print it and then deliver to the MTC.  We anxiously await his first letter ;)

Josh was excited to spend the day with his brother Nick and sister-in-law Amanda before he entered the MTC.