April 6, 2015 - He lives

Hey everyone!

This week we had a zone meeting, transfers and of course Easter and conference! Lots of great things, i have a new companion his name is Elder Oliveira from Sao Paulo and hes 23! Its great to have a change though!

I think the thing that struck me most during conference was bringing people to Christ! Even if they have fallen away from the church, especially them! If you have a friend or anyone that you know that once was baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints please invite them to activities and help them come back or just help them to get a stronger testimony!

Difficulties are just an opportuninty to put into practice all we learn in the gospel and the scriptures, if we never had them, why would we need to learn how to be like Christ?

All those stories of dedicated saints in conference could be stories about YOU! Even when they had difficulties they had their eyes single to the glory of God! So you can be a dedeicated saint to!

I also realized theres never really like a bad and good choice, its usually an excellent, good, okay, and bad one. But if we listen to the spirit we can always choose the excellent!

One funny thing that happened this week was when we were walking back from an investigators house and 7 people stopped us on the street and it was like 9 at night already dark. I was nervous thinking they were going to mug us or something but they just started talking about their church with us and asked questions, they were from an evangelical church on the corner and i think their pastor told them to talk to us but we invited them all to conference and then they wanted to say a prayer, so we were like sure yeah of course, then they all held hands in a circle and started reciting a memorized prayer so we just stood there and said amen at the end and went home haha it was great!

Thanks for the emails love you all!

March 30, 2015 - Week 5 here in Taguatinga

This week was pretty normal, we saw a motorcycle crash like literally 4 feet in front of us, if we were three more steps in front the motorcycle would have hit us! The guy was okay he just had scrapes and bruises, and was a little hungover, but the motorcycle suffered the most. 

Here the missionaries use this slang word ``fubeca`` to describe a bad missionary or lazy guy, i was wondering what this word was in english so i asked some members if they knew and they were like ´´thats an english word! That guy on the football team that doesnt run very much and stays in the back´´ oh a full back! So after 6 months of hearing the word i finally know where it came from.

The other day when we were getting home we saw a car get stolen, it wsa pretty crazy! The police chased them out of sight though, i think he was caught. 

A guy we were talking to on the street said a funny thing ´´when i die i want my ashes to be spread over the shopping mall because then my mom will visit me at least 3 times a week!´´ it was funny just random though haha

This week was good though nothing that exciting, we had more investigators at church than before so that was great! 

Thanks for all the emails and love everyone have an awesome week!

March 24, 2015 Week four here in Taguatinga

Hey everyone! This week was great here are some funny experiences from it,

A guy stopped us and told us that he wants his son to be Mormon and asked if there was a test to do so, but it was awesome talk about miracles! His son lives in another city, so we got the address and passed it to the other missionaries and then asked this man, his name is Carlos, if he wanted to be Mormon too and he was like ´´me no no i am okay but just for my son!´´ but we will get him to church this week haha

We had been teaching a deaf man and his wife only that we had to cut them they werent progressing that much but it was a good experience and even though we didnt speak sign to him directly we could feel the spirit there just as strong as any other lesson

Some people we teach confess to us that they cant read, it makes the whole keeping commitments with reading a little harder but theyre faith is so strong!

A boy who wsa recently baptised has been helping us with references and splits and he owns a pair of rollerskates. I mention the rollerskates because i noticed that all the neighborhood boys take turns using them it was so heart warming because they dont have much to play with and this simple act of kindness was just great!

We went to the zoo today thats why we switched P day but it was great it only took like 2 hours to get back by the bus haha the animals were awesome though!

If theres one thing i learned this week its to be positive and dont let people affect your positivity, weve been working hard here and then not one of our investigators went to church, but were still looking up!

Thanks for everything and I love all of you!

Mar 16, 2015 Week three here in Taguatinga

This week was great we had a baptism and lots of lessons with the members! We had zone conference today and it was a great time, this computer is fulll of viruses and is sending annoying pop ups every second so no pictures this week sorry guys but love you all, gotta go!

pictures worked! It was Luiz Eduardo who was baptized, awesome kid and now were going to reactivate his dad! 

Another week in the life, siteseeing today! March 9, 2015

THis week was good, we taught a lot of lessons with the members and lessons with members are always way better than just alone! 

On tuesday we went early to a house that we contacted to teach and it was a whole family there before and we had left the first lesson with them! Except this time it was just the mom waiting for us and with a notebook full of notes next to the BIble. Uh oh. But we didnt argue with her, it was just a testimony and leave kinda lesson, she was very persistent in her beliefs but i dont blame her because so am I! It just had me feeling sad afterwards because i knew that it would be hard for her to accept this restored gospel in this life and thinking that made me want to convice her, to beg her more like, to ask with an open heart, but people have their agency.

THe next day however we had a lesson with Wilza, who had interrupted one of our previous lessons with an investigator with lots of questions and trying to make us look dumb, but we offered to teach her anyways the next day, and so when we got there and shared the restoration with her she felt the spirit so strongly that she started to cry and asked us, why am i crying? So we talked about the holy ghost with her and invited her to pray and tomorrow were going over there.

This old Brazilian man whose name escapes me i think its Jose was telling us as we entered his home that he doesnt argue about three things, in this order or importance

1.Soccer

2.Religion

3.Politics

hahaa i thought it was a pretty good list to have, but we invited him to pray too, and left our number. 

We went to the capital today it was sweet! Lots of good picture taking, Not much else that happened this week, we will have a baptism next week of Luiz Eduardo! So were excited for that! Thanks everyone for the emails and love!

The fourth picture is ´´Attention: This can be a poem`` haha oh brazilian poetry, music to my ears.

Taguatinga! March 2, 2015

This week has been the first for me in Taguatinga which is about 30 minutes out of Brasilia, its a lot more populated than cabeceiras and is a ward with about 80 people attending church reguraly, for now! Its a huge area, it would take about 1 hour and a half to walk from one side to the other. THis week has been just memorizing names, streets, pretty much everything again, but now i feel ready to help this ward! 

We have a new bishop because the prior one passed away due to a sudden illness about 4 months ago, it was really sad to hear about, i never got to know him, but his family is okay, it amazes me how his son can be so happy still even being 10 years old without his father, he bore his testimony of how he came to this point and it was so touching. 

But ive been alright! Elder Mousques is ready to work which is something that some elders lack sometimes, so i am grateful for this! It rains alot here too which is better than the heat my goodness, i saw lucas from Cabeceiras at a zone conference, he is serving a mini mission before his real mission so that was nice! I have this spider bite on my wrist that is like a circle, but maybe ill get some special teaching powers of something! Thanks everyone for the emails!

February 23, 2015 - Baptism week and transfers!

THis week was a week of miracles for sure, one of our investigators Julianna who we have been working with for about 4 months and wasnt progressing went to FSY like efy And came back with such a stong testimony and dumped her boyfriend who was keeping her back from baptism and was baptized on saturday!!!!! 

ALso Milenna the sister of a recent convert came to us and we taught her the lessons and she also was baptized! Ademar was also and now his parents are looking to get married legally to become members too!!! Holy cow satuday was pretty emotional seeing these people ive gotten to love make the decision to follow our savior through baptism! I was priviliged to perform the ordinance for Ademar and Lucas a member for the others, it was a great day!

Ive been transfered to Taguatinga in DF which is much more city like than Cabeceiras haha i love it here! Saying goodbye to cabeceiras was hard after getting to know everyone but i know that the work will continue there! My new companion is Elder Mosques from uruguay! Hes awesome and way easy to get along with and has a good work ethic i couldnt ask for more in a missionary!

So this week has been crazy with changes, all good! Thanks for the emails and love everyone until next week!

 Me studying

 Lucas baptizing Juliana

 Me, Lucas, Elder Conceicao, Ademar, Julianna, Milenna

 Me and the Odells.

 Julianna's sister and Mom

Me and the branch president with his family