27 June 2011 - email

Hey!

So I got some new white shirts today! Wooo! Clothing that fits! Today is my Hump-day (and Mom's birthday; HAPPY BIRTHDAY!) which means that I am going to that Churrascaria again (I remember when it was hard to spell that word!) and this time I'm training, not being trained.

So, for a week we were living (against rules, because of some major lack of communication) in a house with six elders. It was crazy. The elders from Macazeira moved out. Now I'm the only elder that cleans the house and I'm the one that complains the least about how dirty the house is (what?).

We marked Wagner for baptism this Saturday. He's awesome and has already told his mom that he wants to serve a mission.

Not much of interest happened this week because of São João (Saint John - a holiday) and all of the drinking. This holiday is a little weird. First of all it is a festival of the country (like hillbillies/hicks not farmers) and corn...lots of corn. Everyone (even the little kids) dresses up in straw hats old overalls and paints their faces like they´re hicks. Then on top of that for one night everyone lights a ton of fires. When we asked people why they do that and where the tradition came from, a man said, "It's a tradition that comes from many years!" ... Thank you for the definition of 'tradition'! It turns out that it's something about São Pedro being celebrated at the same time and he has the keys to the heavens. They send up the smoke to make it hot so that he'll send rain to cool down...Is it just me or does that sound super-pagan?

Anyway, I don't have much patience for stuff like that. But it explains why our week was sooooo slooooow...

I love you all, and less than six months until I talk to you again on the phone!

Elder Page

20 June 2011 - email

Hey there,

So my companion's name is Elder Xavier. He's from São Paulo and he's pretty excited about the mission. He's going through first-month-trunkiness (most elders pass that), but he wants to do everything. He already knows how to bring the spirit into a lesson. I just have to help him learn the techniques. The new program for training new missionaries is a twelve week program (which makes it likely that I will be here for another three months).

I don't think I told you, but I'm also a District Leader now. Yeah, talk about throwing everything at you at once: New comp, new training method, new trainer, new district leader, new ward mission leader, etc. It's a lot! Thankfully my district is small (me and one other area) and they are hard-working, obedient missionaries.

Well, that pretty much describes this whole week; running up and down with a new missionary showing him everything and trying to pretend like I knew what I was doing. I remember what that was like, needing to trust that your comp knew everything. (Elder Wells was good at that. Two weeks in the area and he pretended pretty good.) New missionaries already have too much to worry about without their trainer showing discomfort or uncertainty.


Elder Page

6 June 2011 - email

Hey yáll,

So we're still working on Camila and Estela's baptisms, but it's come to a near stand-still until Raul does something, so we're working more with other people right now. That left us with very few things to do, so we started trying to get new investigators.

Then almost all of our investigators fell through with every appointment and commitment, so we had to take about 7 people off of the teaching list. I was pretty down in the dumps and Elder Sousa was too. So we decided to fast for the area to progress and that the people would soften their hearts to the message. So we started.

Then out of the blue 10 people went to church! 2 were investigators that went to the wrong chapel, two were Estela and Camila, 3 were investigators that we had given up on, one was Caroline the eternal investigator (AKA "dry Mormon"), and two were relatives of a really active girl whose family we are trying to re-activate.

Then after church we taught and all but marked three new investigators for baptism (they just want to get the answer before mark the date, but they agreed that receiving the answer they will follow!)

I am super happy except for one thing: transfers are coming! One of us will be transferred; I have never heard of two Elders staying as companions for more than 2 transfers, so either I'll stay or he will. I really would like to train, but I am sad to see this time end. One more week! We'll have to use it well!

Elder Page