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.