MTC Friends!

These Elders were all in my first district in the Provo MTC; Elder Hodges was my first companion and when he got his visa and left for Brazil, I was put in a threesome with Elder Shaw. We are all in the same area right now and were able to hook up at zone conference a few weeks ago. It was great to see them and talk to someone who spoke English.

Milkshakes!

My companion and I like milkshakes. There is a milkshake shop that we visit frequently. They had a drawing at Easter for this basket. Every time you spent 5 real (about $2.75) your name was entered in the drawing. Elder Galdino and I had a lot of papers in the drawing. And you guessed it... I won!

April 21, 2010

This past week was really good! My comp and I had our first baptism together and my second overall. Her name is Silvia, she is the one who drank the nasty cigarette tea. It was a great experience. She has told everyone how great it was and how she wishes she could be baptized again to feel that same feeling! I love it and know she will be such a strong member. We are still doing a lot of work with those two families and working to get them ready to be baptized. We should be baptising one person this Saturday. He is the son of a member and he was like my first investigator. He asked me to baptize him. It really shocked me because I thought he would choose his dad. His name is really hard to pronounce, I need to practice it a lot: Jose Rafael de Jesus Teixeira Quachio, haha. Luciana and Fabiana should also be baptized this Sunday, it is great to see them progress so much. we are working with another investigator who is really, really smart! But this gets in his way sometimes, he wants to be baptized but he thinks that he isn't prepared yet. I think because he is so smart, it is hard for him to depend on the spirit. But he is progressing and I think he will be baptized soon. This should be a really good week and I am so excited!

The pink tie I had on I had on in the pictures was actually my companions, but I just received my package and so now I have my pink tie!! (Thanks) Thanks for the peanut butter and the ctr ring ( it fit my friend perfect). Elder Galdino was so excited about the BYU shirt you sent him. It came just in time for his birthday and was the best present he received this year.

It is no surprise about Boozer being lame and hurt. But I hope they continue to do good. I need my Jazz to good, because I have about a billion things that are Jazz stuff.

I love you all so much!!

April 14, 2010

Everything is perfect here, minus the fact that we had to move and things were crazy. I guess the house we are living in was broken into a couple of times before I got here. A couple of nights someone tried to break into our house while we were sleeping. We all heard them trying to get in the front door and the window, it was a tad bit scary. So, yesterday we had to move into a new house. The new house is nicer, but a lot smaller for 4 people. It only has one bathroom which at the moment is broken. So, I haven't showered yet today, I feel disgusting!! Moving really sucked. The moving people didn't take care of any of our stuff, now all of our dressers and closets are partially broken. And we didn't get to do much this week because getting moved took up so much of our time.

Our families are doing good, we should have some baptisms this week. Great news, one of the ladies we made the "cigarette tea" for has stopped smoking. Which is awesome!!!

Yes mom, I get enough to eat. I still don't really like the rice, but if I smother it with beans it's not bad. All I really eat is lunch because there isn't really food here that you can just snack on. The worst part is I don't like the milk at all, so I can't have cereal in the morning and usually don't eat. But it's good for me. I am losing weight, but I am never starving. sometimes people think I am the "rich American" but it doesn't bother me at all, I just laugh at it.

That is awesome about Trace. Samoa would be a cool place to serve a mission.

Thanks for sending the raincoat I think I will need it. I loved the Hershey track meet! Tell Colin I'm rooting for him and to give it his all. I can't wait to talk to you all on mother's day.

I love you all and miss you.

April 7, 2010

Everything here in Brazil is great! It is starting to get a little bit cold, but I'm used to it and actually I like it a lot more. Easter was good, we didn't do anything special, except go to conference. I was able to watch it in English and thought it was an amazing conference. I loved all the talks. My favorite was Elder Holland's, it really hit me hard. My Portuguese is getting a lot better, but I am not fluent yet. I am able to have better conversations with people than I was before, which I really like.

Yesterday was transfer day, and everyone was telling me that I would be leaving. I didn't want to leave because I love my area and my comp. My companion is so helpful and just a great guy. But nobody in my house left!! I am still with all three of the same people.

This past week has been pretty good. Elder Galdino and I have been spending most of our time teaching the two families that are getting ready to be baptized. Two of the people have a smoking problem, they want to quit but haven't been able to. My companion told them that he knows of a tea that after drinking it 99 out of 100 people will stop smoking. So we made it for them, all the tea is is water and 5 cigarettes, yes cigarettes! They drank it and almost puked, but it helped them understand what they are putting into their bodies when they smoke. Neither has smoked for 3 days, it is so awesome. I am so happy because I will get to see them baptized. The other family is good, they just need to go to church a few more time and then they will be baptized, we hope on April 18th.

I need you to send me a new razor. There is a man in the ward that loves American things, so I traded him my razor and a tube of toothpaste for a machete!! I now own a really big knife, it is awesome! But I need a razor.

Yes!!! Go Braves!!! I miss not bring able to watch or hear anything about baseball, or basketball for that matter. I'll I hear about is soccer, soccer, soccer. I don't really like it, so thanks for the updates.

Next week I will send some pics, I forgot my camera today. I love you all so much!

March 30, 2010

Everything is going great. Things are going well with the two families we are teaching, hopefully we will be baptizing them the end of April. President Leal came to our area to do interviews this week and it went great. He is a great man. He brought me a package with 10 lbs. of treats! Thanks.

Saturday we had one of the young men, Julio (17), in the ward come with us to teach. He did a really good job, he is going to be a great missionary someday. The day was good, we taught alot of people but none were interested in having us come back. We also got rained on a ton, which sucked.

It was a good Sunday, one of our families came to church. Not only that, they picked us up to go with them, it was crazy. That night we had a special evening for the ward members. We watched the movie Charly and my companion gave a great lesson on the plan of salvation. It was cool and everybody cried, haha.

We had another young man, Fernando (15), from the ward come with us on Monday to teach. He did a good job, but he was really shy. We went to the house of a member who has been having migraines. We gave her a blessing and sang a hymn. This was the first blessing Fernando had ever witnessed, the spirit was really strong. It was cool

Tuesday I was on a split with Elder Frenades. It was a rough day, we went to all of the houses we had referrals for and about 7 of the 10 houses didn't even exist. We walked a ton and it was so hot. It was a very trying day.

I love you all and thanks for all you do.