July 22, 2010

Me, I am wonderful.  But at the same time I do not like my companion much.  He is super annoying and everyday he has something new to tell me that I am doing wrong.  It is irritating, but I have a good spirit and am trying not to let it bother me.  I was so happy about out baptisms.  It is such a great feeling to see the changes in these people's lives as they improve them for the better.  Yeah, Monique's baptism dress was a little bit different, and also it was see through, which was awkward for me when I baptized her.

We had an activity in our ward and everyone came dressed as their celebrity look alike.  One guy came as Obama, it was funny.  He really looked like him.

The guy the secretaries baptized did bring some people to church with him.  We started teaching his brother, but now I am not teaching him because I have my new companion, who is lame, and won't let me visit my recent converts.  But I think this guys bro will be baptized, which is good to see!  This week wasn't a really good one either.  If you can't tell my companion frustrates me, so I just leave him in peace to do his thing.  I do think it is affecting our teaching progress. I know that I am doing what I need to do, and I am not going to drop down to his level just because he wants me to. I am not getting discouraged when things don't go as planned, I just remember to keep my head up and the Lord will put someone in our path who we can help and who also can help us.  Everything is going good for me, so yeah.

President Tavares is great.  President Leal was really a numbers guy and had a lot of random rules.  The new pres. is working to get all the schedules and rules to fit with the guidelines in Preach My Gospel.  He really wants to work hard and expects us all to work hard.  He is easy to talk to and really tries to help when things aren't going correctly.

I guess my birthday day is coming up.  I don't really need anything, some different ties would be cool (I like ones that are bright solid colors), and that toothpaste that I like.  And MT DEW , Elder Carter got that for his birthday, so I would like it too.

Thanks for everything, I love you all.

July 14th, 2010

My week has been good, Last week was like super amazing, because everything went perfectly with the baptism of Nilda and Monique.  Nilda is missing the part of the bone in her thigh that connects to her hip.  So she can walk and stand a little.  Elder Villela baptized Nilda. But I stood in the water with them, just in case something went wrong and he needed help lifting her back up.  After Nilda was done, I baptized Monique and everything went perfectly!

I did finally receive my new comp, #11 if you count all of my MTC comps. His name is Elder Alves, he is OK but kind of strange and awkward to talk to and stuff, but I think that it will be pretty good.  It is good to be out of the office, what a boring job.  When I was there all I did was put baptism records into the computer and stuff Elder Carter didn't want to do.

Yesterday was a difficult day for me,  It was my first day back out in the field in several weeks.  We spent all day walking around and clapping at gates(here you don't knock on doors, you clap at the gate.)  We clapped at about 80 gates, and of those 80 about 65 answered, and of those 65 only 1 let us teach a lesson and 7 gave us info to come back another day.  It was just a long and tiring day of walking around and doing a lot of nothing.  I am hoping when we go back to those 7 people, they will be accepting of the gospel.  I guess we will just have to wait and see how that goes.

Koufos for Al Jefferson, that is a fantastic trade.  Jefferson is one of the best power forwards in the league, he was just on the wrong team.  Way to go McCann!  Always good when it is a Braves player being the hero.

I'm glad everything worked out with Bryson's call, it would be horrible if he couldn't leave until September.

It is crazy how fast the time keeps flying out here.  8 months already, only 16 more to go!  I'm sending a few more pics.  I love you all so much.

July 8th, 2010

Everything is going great.  Last week was very frustrating, I had to work with a different companion every night after spending 8 hours in the hospital.  There wasn't alot to do in the hospital, we watched a lot of soccer.  We did teach some of the nurses when they had a little extra time.  We just taught them simple stuff like the Book of Mormon, but it was pretty cool.  On Friday Elder Pumphrey went home to Ohio to have surgery.  He has 11 months left on his mission, so he is hoping he can come back.  Now I am comp-less and am just stuck with the secretaries until the pres. finds something to do with me.  I hope he does soon, because I don't really like being stuck in the office all day doing alot of dumb things.

My new president and his family (2 sons; one 16, the other 14) got here last Wednesday.  He is a great guy!  On Friday when Elder Pumphrey went home I spent the whole day with Sister Taveres, and she is awesome too.  I think it should be good, having them the rest of my mission.

This week has been pretty good since Friday.  The secretaries interviewed one of their investigators on Friday and he said that he wasn't ready to be baptized.  On Saturday he called us up and was like "Hey, I want to be baptized today.  I know it is what needs to happen, so lets do it."  That was at 7:00 at night and at 8:30 we had the font full and baptized him.  It was a cool experience and I know that he will be strong on the church.  He wants to bring 7 people with him to church next Sunday, it's awesome.  On Wednesday we had another baptism for a different investigator pf the secs, it went perfect.  And now today we are going to baptize Nilda and Monique.  It is so freakin' wonderful to see them finally baptized, I am so happy for them.

It is crazy to hear about everything happening in the NBA.  I miss baseball a ton.  Last night we had an activity at church and we played a trivia game.  One of the questions was "How many baseball players are on the field at one time?"  Not one person knew the answer, it was sad.

Thanks for everything you do.  Hey, you should tell people to write me letter.  I want letters from other people, you know. Haha

I love you so much

Preparing for a Baptism

Getting ready for a baptism is a little different in Brazil:

First we have to get all of the "uninvited guests" out of the font,

and then we have to fill the font!

July 1, 2010

This week was going really great until the weekend came.  On Saturday we were scheduled to baptize Nilda (our investigator in the wheel chair), that morning she calls us and tells us she can't want to be baptized today.  So we started freaking out and then went to her home to talk with her.  What happened was Nilda had got in an argument with her daughter, Monique, and she felt like she couldn't be baptized because of that.  We talked for a while and Nilda realized that she did want to be baptized, she had just been upset.  Everything was all set and we were ready to go, but when we got to the church the water in the baptismal font was ice cold.  Nilda has a lot of health problem, so there was no way she could get in that freezing water.  My comp and I were like, "Crap, what is this all about?"  Nilda said it was OK, we could do it tomorrow (Sunday) and it would be great.  After all of this happened, Monique (Nilda's daughter) asked us if she could be baptized on Sunday also.  We told "Yes, of course you can." Now we are happy again.  Sunday we go to church; Nilda and Monique are there, the water is warm, everything is going great.  The ward mission leader asks if he can talk to Nilda.  They go into a room to talk and Nilda leaves the room on tears and says she is never coming back to church again.  We have no idea what has happened.  After talking to Nilda we find out the ward mission leader told her that he didn't think she was ready and that she could not be baptized.  I couldn't believe it, the mission leader did not have the right to tell her this.  Nilda is so spiritual and so ready to be baptized.  So, the baptism did not happen,  There was a lot of rage and everyone was so upset.  Since then we have had the chance to talk with Nilda, she still has a testimony and wants to be baptized.  But she feels like she needs to forgive Alex (the ward mission leader) before she will be ready.  Hopefully this will all get resolved quickly. Yeah, it was just crazy, hectic and so sad.

We did have another transfer and yes, I did get a new companion.  His name is Elder Pumphrey and he is in the hospital.  He has a herniated disk and the doctors say that he definitely needs surgery.  He will most likely go home to the States to have the surgery done, I will just be with him until he leaves.  Right now I have been staying at the hospital with him until about 4 or 6, and then I go out and work with one of the other elders.  I don't know who my companion will be when he leaves for the States, it's going to be interesting.

This area is very different than Marilia.  There we worked with a lot of part member families and inactives.  The aren't any part member families in our ward here and the inactives do not like us at all, so most of our contacts are just cold calls.

I do feel very close to the Lord and my testimony keeps getting stronger and stronger.  I am so glad I chose to serve,  This is something I needed in my life to help me grow up and become the person that I want to be.

I love you all so much!!!

New Mission President

Article in the LDS Church News:

Eduardo Lucio Mendes Tavares, 41, and Fatima Scarante Tavares, two children, Brazil Londrina Mission; Mangabeira Ward, Feira de Santana Brazil Kalilandia Stake. Brother Tavares is a bishop and a former stake president, counselor in a bishopric, stake Young Men president and missionary in the Brazil Sao Paulo North Mission. Institute director, Seminaries and Institutes of Religion. Born in Vicosa, Mg, Brazil, to Moacir Rodrigues and Maria Ines Mendes Tavares.



Sister Tavares is the ward Young Women president and a former stake Young Women president, seminary teacher, ward Relief Society president and stake family history center director. Born in Curitiba, Brazil, to Bento Antonio Victor Scarante and Tereza Helena Tavares.