Nov 7-6 months in Encantado

So transfers are tomorrow... and I'm staying here again with the same comp... we are all trying to understand why our president is doing this... we have had missionaries in the same area now for at least 10 months. so I could be here forever... I don't know? But its all good I dont mind the situation, and I'm content with the area.

Today was my comps birthday and we surprised him... he thought we forgot about his birthday and was kind of mad, then we went over and made a cake without him knowing and surprised him with a b day party during lunch... it was crazy cool! We also baptized again this week. Our youth are very strong and a great support system for all the new youth getting baptized. also this week one of the missionary's in our apartment got kidney stones because of lack of water and abundance of sun and salt. He has been throwing up a lot lately, and in bed a lot as well in pain and has been to the hospital as well multiple times. Actually everybody in our apartment is staying(all 6 of us) we should have another baptism again this week of a older lady-she has quit smoking for over 3 months now and has finally accepted to get baptized and is so happy for this next week, it will be a wonderful day.

This week we had a cool thing that I had never worked on before. we got a call from the stake president and then he asked us all to come over and have a breakfast with him in the stake center, and talk about missionary work in the stake as well. So that's what we did. The breakfast was very good, and then he told us the stake mission plan and we told him our goals and they matched with his, then we told him all the things good and bad about our ward to help it grow, because it is one of the newest stakes in the world and probably one of the smallest as well. and one of the things we told him was nobody was doing visiting teaching and home teaching, the next day was Sunday so he had a meeting with just our ward and told the ward about the blessings of home and visiting teaching and hopefully planted a little desire into the members! That was all that happened that was really exciting this week. We also had lots of interviews to go to so we were on trains all week as well. but that's about it and I hope you all have the best of weeks this week and I will continue hoping and praying for all you all!

Oct 31-Encantado

This week was way good, we baptized again, and also our ward is growing so much. Our ward mission leader has a vision that he finally was able to present to the ward this week and they are all going to work on the plan together now. Sooo many good things are happening; and it was all because of a vision of a member. We had our ward primary program this week and it helped me realize the times when I was in primary as the oldest kid and 2 feet taller then the other kids- and it was very funny. This week I had a nightmare that Mushu was sleeping on my bed and there was nothing I could do about it to get her off. I woke up sad... also I saw a twin of Mushu this week... not nearly as cool but she looks like her twin. Our ward is so united right now. when I show the picture of this weeks baptism look how much support this kid has from the youth-even one of the youth baptize him, that's how it should be done. This week was just work as usual, still not a whole lot to talk about... which is why I have been getting better with pictures out here on the mission. because its hard to just talk about work and make it exciting. but its cool to always see the final peice of the finished project. so think when you see this weeks pic about the unity of the ward, the success of the work and the support system that is set up. That is a finished piece to my time in this area, and that is what we have been doing with a lot of help from others. have a wonderful week!

Oct 11-Encantado

(whoops Mom messed up and forgot to include this one first- so this is the oldest of the three I posted today-sorry)
lets see. over here in Rio something big just finished, Rock in Rio, it was way cool, there was some very big time bands there this year that would have been very cool to go see. In my aria on the last day Justin Bieber came and played at the soccer stadium and I walked past the 2 days he was playing during his concerts; the funny part is that when we usually pass by its a soccer game and there are big manly voices, but this time there was all 14 year old girls. so there was high pitch screams all over the place and whoever didn't bring ear plugs probably died from the sound.

Our ward is continuing to progress a lot. my comp and i had recently visited everybody on the ward list, we came to find out that the majority of inactives had moved and that lots of people were just in other wards now. So this week we showed that list to the ward Secretary and he was very happy and also said the activity rate of Encantado was about to be much higher. What my comp and I are putting in place will help this ward for generations. We had lunch this week with an unbaptized mom of a RM and after lunch we showed her a video of temples and she loved it and is going to start preparing to get baptized. Her son was sooo happy, and the bishop was happy about this as well and is going to help us make a goal with her this Thursday. such a great thing in this life!

Oct 24-Encantado

Hey this week was very normal. One cool thing that happened was we got DVD players to use, and all got to hear from our president, so that was nice. Good things always come when we do what he says. Its a very cool thing to watch happen. With thee dvd players we watch segments from this teaching program called the district which is a mission district somewhere in the states. The DVD filmed teaching of the missionaries and their investigators. What we are supposed to do is watch this film and see what areas we can use some help with in our own teaching-and we can use this during comp and personal study time in the morning. It is kind of a nice tool, I never thought it would do me any good, but the way president explained how to use it really helps us and its a very cool thing to have. I also understand we are about the get tablets instead of aria books to use, so that should be nice.

There really isn't to much more that has been going on. We had a crazy bus ride home the other night. Alot of favella people wanted to get on the bus and go to a soccer game but not pay the bus driver for the trip. Right before they broke out into a fight or killed the driver or what ever they were about to do to him-the cops came with these big guns and told them if they didnt pay they couldn't get on the bus. This story was almost on the news that night. but thats about it-or all I can think about at the moment. just teaching and all of that.

October 17-Encantado

this week was cool we are moving into summer. very different here. it just gets soo hot that it sucks up lots of water then the next day it rains and rains then its hot again. kind of weird... also we hit day light savings here. and things are very positive here, because I have been changing the way I look at a lot of things. and just changing these little things has made a very big difference in how I look at life.

This week has been good. We did baptize again, but also we have been having lots of spiritual experiences and being very blessed. To understand how we have been blessed, you have to see where we started at the beginning of our transfer. We made a goal and in this goal we wrote what we wanted, and how we would get it and how the Lord could help us with this goal. This week the seminary gave us a reference of a kid who just one day showed up and decided to go to church with out knowing anything about our church or even a friend in it. so we marked a day to visit him... turned out he lives on the same street as the church. and then my comp and I went to go visit his house and his parents were married(very rare thing in Brazil because it is about 400$ to marry) and they where inactive from another church and the mom had many questions about the missionaries and wanted to always know what our church is all about. that is a very elect and amazing situation. and all of this is because of how we have been keeping our part of the goal and also following our mission presidents vision the best we could. also I have been learning lots of things about the lessons we teach people and really looking into the why in everything. I have been finding out that everything in this life is about family. The more you study that the more you will learn. so that is just my thought for the week and hopefully my comp and i will have the opportunity to baptize this family in 2 or so weeks! also i was pondering the story of Enos in the BOM. everybody always thinks wow how could he have prayed all day. In my opinion he realized just how important and powerful his prayers really are, so with this new knowledge he decided to in depth pray for everybody and everything because he realized what his prayer would acutely do, and the power it actually had.

Lemon Hay? (Lemon Grass?) Healthy drink

Jordan says this is a really good healthy drink and said it was lemon hay.

Recent Letters Sept 26 and Oct 3

So transfers are today, and I am still here with the same comp and the same area. but its no big deal, because we have some great thoughts for this transfer and are going to put them into place and get results and help the ward to grow even more. it is so wonderful to read everything about what all is going on up there in the great white north! Thanksgiving is coming up and the next Holiday is my birthday and I will be 20. that is so weird to say, when I look back on my life I could never imagine saying im 20, because that would mean that I am an adult and have to make my own decisions. but I guess I have been doing that for quite some time now. things here are good. our zone pretty much stayed the same, besides 1 zone leader went to the ofice for his last transfer and one missionary got brought down to a junior and his comp left to go be senior in a different area.
Missionary work should be good this transfer. we have 2 brothers we will baptize this week or next, then we want to baptize her mom after. We found a full family as well with a mom dad and 7 year old son. they seem to just be really warm and friendly people and love the missionary's and we taught them Saturday for the first time, this family also has lots of family who live close by. and this could be a wonderful opportunity of bringing people to the gospel! General Conference is coming up as well and I am soo excited for it. because here as a missionary I have many opportunities to use the things the prophet is saying and apply that to everybody.
All together that is what is going on, and I hope this transfer goes as planned. I will keep all of you in my prayers, continue to tell me how things are going and I'll do what I can here in Brazil.



This week was cool. the first part of the week we decided we didn't have enough people to teach so we went looking. I like to get references, and my comp likes contacts. I decided to let him do contacts-as usual we got about nothing, which made me even more unimpressed with contacts then usual, but it makes my comp feel good being on his feet and waking all day so you can say that was cool if you like getting no where. Its not that I am mad or complaining... I just think its funny. and that is how we spent the first part of our week. the second part of the week was way cool. we did lots of stuff dealing with preparing for General Conference and that was soo amazing. I was enlightened by the talks and am very greatful for the experience I had. We were also able to have 6 investigators watching conference so that was good. I'll show you a picture of how the Americans ended up watching the whole conference in English, it is funny, but very nice at the same time because the room had AC and that was the first time in a long long time I had used AC. Also I met up with my old baptisms in Irajá it was way cool, they both have callings and one is getting married in January or February and I hope I can go to the wedding!

This week in my studies I studied the importance of priority's in life; this study brought me into deep reflection and I was able to prioritize my life... or at least for the moment. and I put all those priority's into goals. and then at General Conference, one of the 70 (speakers) talked about priority's as well and he talked about everything that I had just done but I took it a couple steps further with the goal making and all of that so that was very cool. That is how my week was and next week we should get a baptism so that should be good. My comp and I work good together because we are 2 very different people so we end up covering everything and things work out very smoothly because of our balance. I hope all is well up in the great white north!