December 15, 2014 - Photos

T     His week was very normal but elder matheus and i sifted dirt for 2 hours with like a glorified sifter for juice and our arms it was so fun! our arms were so sore the next day but it felt good, I have so much to tel you abot brazil on christmas! It will be much better than these emails sory theyre always so short, but this week we had to cut 3 investigators it was sad, we are hoping to hav a little more sucess this week with people coming to church, everyone is always tired from partying saturday night to wake up sunday morning at 8 is tough except for the missionaries! Ive been making a book with everthing ive been learning here and in the scriptures its 600 pages long and has a lot more filling to be done but i enjoy it, what else, the words massa and maça are the same for me but for portuguese speakers there completely different! the ç makes an s sound but one is nasalized. massa is cool and maça is apple. haha i love portuguese! I can understand probably 80 percent of whats being said and say probably 60 percent of what i want with confidence, but i know im bleseed to be understanding and saying as mucvh as i can, poor amigos of mine, i have a feeling thyre struggling a little bit! Im going to buy panetone this week, im very excited. 

     My one thing thats really funny abut brazilians is that they cant keep secerts or just get too excited to keep them, we had a surprise birthday party for our district leader of the ward and getting everyone quiet was a task but it turned out great! THis week i learned to just be more happy even for no reason, it just makes everything so great! actually there is a reason, WE have a loving heavenly father who has a plan for each and every one of us! Haha the peple here fala que eu sou muito rico i am very rich and now i just say yes i am because i have the gospel and a family that loves me and im a missionariy! So thats what happened this week, we had an investigator come to church who almost was abot to be cut but not anymore! THis friday im going to be accompanying a member on the piano for a performance for the whole city! Im a little nervour but its a small city, i think ill be fine and im practicing alot! Mas eu devo sair agora, i should leave now, love you all see you in 10 days!

PS thanks for putting together this care package, and to all of your ability try to include the things on the list, thanks!

Dec 1, 2014 - ONly 1 hour to write!

This will be short but alot happened this week, we as our companioships got to visit the Agroreservas of the church, its a huge farm that the church runs here closeby, and the highlight was we got to climb to the top of a wildlife observation tower and look out over Mato Grosso! It was so cool! When the wild blew the tower shook and we were about 80 feet up in the air, so awesome. This was in the city of Unaí

The next significant thing this week was on Wednesday night as we were going to bed at around 11 we heard 4 gunshots extremely close to our apartment, but after theywent off we heard nothing so we just went back to bead because were were tired. The next day while we were at our investigator Julios house the daughter of one of the policeman here told us that the barber that cuts our hair and lives across the street from us was arrested for sexually abusing kids and thats why there were gunshots. We were just in shock because he seemed so nice and friendly, but the worst part was that one of the kids he had been abusing was Lucas who calcelled his baptism last week. After that we just didnt know what to say. .It was very shocking, After that it seemed like it might have been for the best that Lucas had cancelled his baptism for the time being because he wasnt ready, and knowing that has made it much easier this week to have faith that the lord knows best.

Yeah it was a crazy week, were still trying to talk to lucas, he is very reclusive lately, but i just hope that we can help him how the lord knows he needs help. On a happier note, we had a record of 57 people at church this week! It was great, and stephanie is still on track for baptism and now her cousin wants to be baptized too! Its so great to see families come closer together, here in Brazil, family means alot and i think we can all learn to keep our family close like brazilians do. 

Thats all, here are some pictures!

Emus that were roaming around on the farm

THe missionaries of Cabeceiras!

The view from the tower

November 24, 2014-Faith!

Hey everyone! I had my first zone meeting this week, for one night there were 10 missionaries in one apartment, some of us had to share beds, needless to say i felt much closer to Elder Matheus than i have before haha. Its been raining alot still but its such a blessing because the church farm workers couldnt start planting crops until there was enough rain and there finally was! THis week at church we had a lot more people come than usual, the school building was full! And our district leader (we are technically a group right now, it goes like this; group, branch,ward,stake) announced that we are going to have 3 meeting every sunday now! We couldnt before because to have priesthood meeting there has to be at least 15 men attending church and we finaly have enough! Haha its great to see the church in a different aspect like this. Even though there arent many members the faith is strong! Also yesterday we went to a pesquisadores house for lunch and they were having a party because the grandpa of Julio had his birthday yesterday! It was great, everyone was asking me about America and what its like, we realized that things in America like shoes cars houses and anything electronic, are so much cheaper in the states its ridiculous! Later that day we went and picked mangoes and gave them to a member and ate some ourselvs they were so good. 

    Sadly, Lucas the boy who wanted to be baptized told us that his step dad and mom were fighting about his baptism and he told us he wasnt going to be baptized anymore but he wouold still come to church and receive lesons. It was pretty heart wrenching, especially because it was because of his parents, he is so ready to be baptized too! But later that day we talked with another family and one of the daughtres wants to be baptized so that lifted our spirits. THis family is so funny, the mom is 24 with 4 little brazilian kids who have so much energy and their house is tiny and they dont have much but they still enjoy life all the same. WE were teaching the restoration to them and they were all squirming around on the dirt floor playing and they when we shared the first vision they all got quiet and listened it was really cool the spirit was there helping us for sure. 

THe other elders had a baptism on saturday and it was in a lake! It started pouring raing after too and it reminded me of the primary song I Like to Look for Rainbows because it says I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain, so it was just reallly cool to see that connection. THis week i also realized how much prononciation matters in Portuguese, for example, avô and avó. THe first is grandpa and the second is grandma, its so hard to distinguish the two! Also depending where the stress goes on words changes the meaning, saí is I left, sai is YOU LEAVE! Haha so ive been trying to be careful with my pronunciation so as to not offend anybody. Its funny, in portuguese there are verbs that mean to fatten and to skinny, so i hear that i need to fatten alot haha and my companion says he is trying to skinny right now. THe food is so good here i think im going to gain like 10 kilos by the time i come home! I havent gained any yet haha

THis week i think i learned most about faith, in the book of Ether, Moroni gives a great summary of faith and the miracles that are brought by it in the Book of Mormon, also in 3rd nephi, Christ tells the nephites how he does not reveal everything at once because it is to test our faith and if we are faithful he will make more marvilous things known to us. It really helped when finding out that Lucas couldnt be baptized, i am grateful for the scriptures so much more now! THanks for all the writing and such i love reading them i hope everyone has a great week!