March 21st, 2011

Everything here is going really good for me actually, well kinda. This week started out amazing for me and Elder Moake; we were just on a roll of finding new people to teach and we had so much spirit and desire with us to keep on working.  On tuesday, I had to go with the Zone Leaders; Elder Moake ended up finding a bunch of new investigators that are good. One of them is this 12 year girl named Laura, we are teaching her whole family, but she is just awesome. She reads everything we give her and prays about it, she told us that she even dreamed about Joseph Smith. She wants to come to church but were not to sure about her parents so much. Another person we found is Geysa, she has a friend in the church and has already visited a bunch of times. But, her dad might be a problem. I guess that he is super Catholic, even though he never goes. Every other investigator that we have seems like they are all good and don't have any problems as of right now that we know of'; I sure hope it stays that way.  The weather has returned to being super hot, but it's not as bad because it has been really windy these past couple of days. I have no idea what a Ninja does, all I know is that he goes on missions and protects people, haah. Hey have you heard anything about Colin Ainge? He is also was in Japan and I would like to kow if anything happened to him.
I just read the Parable of the Sower the other day and it is may second favorite parable in the Bible. It always makes you think about which one you are, and you you will continue to be that through out your whole life.  Great lesson to think about.
Thank you all so much for everything that you do for me, and for all of the help. You all help to get me through this whole thing.

March 14th, 2011

I can't believe that you went on another vacation whileIi am here in Brazil. That does sound exactly like Brian, gettin all got up in some business shpeal, haha. I do want to hear how the trip went and stuff, next week.
This last week i went to Londrina to get my visa renewed and while there I got to visit Nilda and Monique, that I baptized while in Londrina.  It was so nice to be able to see them again and to know that they are still going strong.  First to clarify, a Ninja Teacher is a guy who trains people to become Ninjas. Dead serious too, this guy is like a legit ninja. But the reference that he gave us last week didn't come to church this week . The ward is really cool. not many of them like to be friends with the missionaries, at least thats how me and Elder Moake feel. I do have quite a few friends in the ward though. Pretty much all of the youth here love me, because im just a little crazy and I try to become friends with them and it all works out. My District Leader responsibilities are going along good, but I really don't know how much I like being district leader because if something goes wrong in my district everyone gets on my back about it. It is a realyl good patience builder. Wr work with one other companionship, they are way cool, so that makes things a little bit easier on me. Elder Moake is great and yes, we are still friends.
So, its sucks to hear the Jazz just suck now, but its good to hear that the Braves are looking good for this next season.  Lets just hope that they can stay healthy, haha.

Thanks for everything. I know that I have some funny requests from home, but does that really surprise you, haha.
I love you all and thank you for everything!!

March 8th, 2011

Things are going great here today. we had the opportunity to go to Marilia and have another mission tour with Elder Asconoveita, who is a Seventy. It was way cool, both he and his wife talked about making covenents.  They explained how we can use them on our missions. It was also a good time to get to see all of my mission friends who are still in São Paulo. Poor Elder Hodges, we are at almost 16 months into the mission and he still has never left the state of São Paulo.  I, also got to see Elder Galdino and I will get to go with him to Londrina to renew my visa. Other than that the rest of the week was good, but a tad bit annoying.  It started raining last monday and it hasn't stopped yet. Claudia still hasn't decided to get baptized,  but is thinking about it a lot this past week. Also my first baptism that I had in Bauru, André, his ninja professor gave us another reference to another one of his students. This is awesome, because the only references of his that havent been baptized are the ones that are under 18 and that the parents wouldn't let them be baptized. Oh yeah, I got the Kara's chocolate heart and it was super good.  Elder Moake also says thank you and liked it a lot. He ate it all on the first day!  It is still so hard to get people to come to church. I wish that Brazis were like Americans, who when they say something they mean it. So many people tell you that they will come to church, that there is no doubt in there mind whatsoever. Then they have some lame excuse to why they didn't come.  But we are still working hard and I have a lot of faith that we will see the blessing from our work!
Thanks for all of the love and support, I miss you all!!!

February 28th, 2011

Life in Bauru is going great. Today we had transfers and the good news is that I will be staying  at leastone more transfer with Elder Moake, which just makes both of us happy. I cant believe that the Jazz traded Dwill, that is just freaking crazy! Everything seems to be changing so much in the world of sports, and I feel so out of the loop. I didn't like your lil' p.s. about going to watch the Rockies, it just made me sad that I have to miss one more baseball season.

This week was a good week, because Daiane and Jessica were baptized!!!  We were so happy to see them get baptized. It was cool because they really chose to be baptized because they got their answer, not because we had asked them so many times. When they both told us that they were finally going to get baptized, it was an amazing feeling. I didn't do any of the baptizing, Elder Moake and our ward mission leader did them. I did get to confirm them both which was  I loved. Now were are working a lot with one more person in this family because she told our zone leader that she wants to be baptized, but is just wants to wait a little bit. So. we are going to help her out now too. The only thing is that we need to really start finding some new good investigators, please continue praying for us.  After the baptism, we had a talent show and Elder Moake and I decided to to something. He got a guitar and played swing life away while I sang it.  Everybody loved it. It was so cool. even though I was so nervous to do it. The Chinese we get isn't as good as Panda, but it's still way amazing.

I love you all so so much and you truly all mean so much to me. If it wasn't for all of the support you guys give me I dont know if I would have made it so far along. Thank you all for everything.

February 20th, 2011

Things for me are going really well. Elder Moake and I get along really well and work well together which makes things a lot nicer and easier. He was in the area before I got here, so that made things easier too. He was with Elder Staats who I was in the MTC with. Our investigators are coming along well. Daiane and Jessica are two younger girls who we have been working with for awhile. Because Daiane's and Jessica's sister got baptized, they have had a lot of desire to as well. But the only problem is that they kept giving us a lot of lame excuses for not wanting to get baptized, like they didn't want to be baptized on this upcoming Saturday ,because there was a meeting for the young womenand they wanted to go to that.  And the young womens pres. told them it was perfect, they could be baptized afterwords. So, now that is what's going to happen, haha. Not going to lie to you guys, but this week was a very boring week. Nothing exciting happened, just the fact that Jessica and Daiane are going to get baptized, other than that it was a normal week. We are finding a lot of new investigators and we are teaching a lot of lessons, but we are just having a hard time getting them to come to church and have the amazing spiritual experience there as well.  But that's what we are working on.

I liked the scripture that you sent me, I like it because everytime I read it makes me understand that no matter what we do the Lord's promises will be true. And sometimes we don't even notice that it is us making it happen
Couple things i would like you guys to send me: yellow cake mix with chocolate frosting andeEaster egg painting stuff. Thanks!
Sorry for the short email, but it just wasn't an exciting week.
I love you all so much!

February 14th, 2011

Happy Valentines Day!!

First thing I want to talk about is, I cant believe that Jerry and Phil left the Jazz. Why in the world would Phil leave too? Whats going to happen to the Jazz now?

My week was pretty good one.  Nothing like super special happened, but we just worked really well. This area is, yet again, the hardest area in the city I happened to be in. That is what every single person has told me, but we are working really hard and I do believe that we are going to change that saying around. We have a couple of really good investigators.  I believe that I told you about Daiane, who wants all the attention. Well, we stopped giving it to her and focused on her two aunts. They are progressing a lot more than she is now and have a ton of interest in the gospel. Its going so well and it makes me happy to see them progress so much. This ward is the smallest of all the places i've been, the attendance rate is 55 and yes, it's a tad bit poorer than my last area. The members still feed us, but it's a lot of the same members during the month. Every thursday we go and get Chinese food, because there is a member who owns a Chinese restaurant and they feed us every thursday.  Its so freaking good!

 Elder Moake and I get along way good. We look kinda funny walking together and it's not just because of the height difference. We are always laughing and having fun, but at the same time always working hard. This week I learned something that I always forget about here in the mission, we need to focus on everybody in the house and not just the one that we think is progressing more. Our attention wanter Daiane told us that she doesn't want to be baptized so we  focused on her aunts. Now, they are thinking a lot about baptism and it's just such a good thing.  Another spiritual story this week, We went to this kids b-day party in the ward and he had some family there who weren't members. His mom asked us to give a message and I thought what should  talk about. That day me and Elder Moake didn't bring our bibles with us. So, I was looking through the Book of Mormon, when Ether 12:27 came to my mind. I read it and after reading it one of the family members told me thank you for reading that for me I needed that a lot right now in my life. It was a very cool experince.

Funny story now!  Coming home from that same birthday party, we grabbed the bus that normally goes close to our house. As we start going home it takes a turn that well, wasn't in the direction of our house. We ended up taking a 1 hour bus ride that only got us to a point that was still a 20 min walk to our house, haha. We felt really stupid when the bus driver asked us when we planned on getting off.

I can't believe that you guys got to eat dinner with Al Jefferson. What did you guys talk about with him? Where did you go to eat? Who all got to go with you?

I love you all so so much and I really liked that Stockton story.

February 6th, 2011

My District

Bauru is going good, the only problem is that is rains here like every night. Elder Moake is awesome, but he does make me feel like a midget. He is 6'6"! Its kinda funny because he also remember that Malinda, his aunt, told him to look for me, too. He lived Kinda by Wal-mart but now he lives closer to the Wendys on State Street. He has been on his mission for 5 months. He did have some visa issues but he was like me and made it to Brazil before his MTC time was over.
My new area is really good. The people though are kinda not nice on letting us in, but they are totally willing to give there address everytime, haha. We live by ourselves and we live in a house this time. It's not that bad of a house, it has some interesting things but Ican live with them. Also, we live in a house behind a members house. It is this old lady named Rosa and she just loves the missionaries. We always get dinner from her, like almost every night. I do like the ward and they are all so willing to help us, which is very nice. Our investigators are doing really well. Andre was baptized on Saturday, I would be sending home a picture but I just noticed that I forgot my camera. But everything went really well with his baptism. Its easy to tell that he will be a strong member. Our American family is starting to become really interested in what we are teaching them. We have another girl who is 12, who is doing all of the church activities, like new beginnings. But she is a little afraid of being baptized. Those are the investigators we are working are hardest with because they are the closest to being baptized.
Being District Leader means that I am in charge of a group of missionaries. I have to lead in the meetings that we have each week and give a training lesson each week on something different. The missionaries in my district are really cool. I never wanted to be a District Leader, I would have been happy just as a senior comp the whole time, haha.  But it's good.
Thanks so much for everything and yes, I'm doing really good and everything is going well for me.
P.S. Mom, news that maybe you already know, but Avenged Sevenfold has a new CD. This guy told me the other day because we were talking about music.