Hahaha no family it is not what you think it means, I am in no way trunky except for one way... I miss the English super verb of, to get. It really has about a million uses in English and it does not exist in Portuguese and it pretty much kills me. I have a million verbs I have to learn instead of having one verb I can use for pretty much everything. It GETS really annoying, you GET what I am saying? Enough of this, I need to GET on with this e-mail.
So a little bad news for this week is I took some awesome pics of this weeks activities but.... I forgot my camera at our place, super smooth huh? We had a pretty eventful week actually. We both felt much better this week and that helped a lot. We didn´t do a ton for Thanksgiving, we pretty much just treated it like a normal day but we did end the night with a spectacular meal at Rodizo... So good. The one is Utah doesn´t even compare to the real thing here. You guys will have to try it some time! Hahaha Another fun activity of this week was... Elder Pinto and I both hit the 6 month mark! WOOT! Hahaha yeah I dunno if I have told you but my comp and I have the same amount of time out in the mission so it will be pretty funny when I end up leaving with my trainer haha. We had a little bit of a party and we burned ties together, memories. Sorry I have no pics of it though!
Work-wise this week was pretty awesome. We found two more families for us to start teaching and they are so dope. One was a referral from some Sisters and the family lived at the farthest place away in our area. It was an hour walk to GET there and when we finally GOT there they could only talk for maybe 10 minutes. So we just shared a quick message, but it was awesome. The mom just started crying and we could all feel the Spirit a lot and it just amazes me how fast the Spirit can work in our lives. Mom I really enjoyed what you had to say about the Spirit in your e-mail. Another thing that was cool about that family was that we, Elder Pinto and I, put on a activity at the church on Saturday and all of her kids showed up! It was a sweet activity we had about 20 kids there and we just played games and Elder Pinto did magic tricks for them, it was a memorable event. Since the kids lived so far away though after the activity we helped get them home and on our way back we had this guy stop us and say, "How come I never see you guys in the richer neighborhoods? I have had interest in your church but have never seen you come to my door." AWESOME. He had some great questions and we set up a meeting with him for tomorrow morning, can´t wait for it.
That pretty much sums things up here though. We are all getting excited for Christmas but I can´t tell you a lot of the traditions yet because... I don't know them! Hahaha so I will give you all those details later, deal? Mom I will be on the look out for a nativity scene of course but I will probably wait till next Christmas... deal? I love the picture of the Teach Me how to Douglas or whatever. I was dying cause that is my favorite dance move ever!. Thanksgiving sounded like a good time for you all and I hope the Christmas traditions are already getting started!
Oh! I totally forgot! I had to speak in church yesterday! Super intense because for some reason it was just me, not my comp as well and I found out like 5 mins before.. super legit. But whatever! I said a little prayer right before I got up and I could really feel Heavenly Father helping me speak correctly. It actually went pretty well and people said that they could understand me and liked what I had to say.. I am stoked. But what it all comes down to is the power of prayer is real, especially if you pray for specific things. Ah I love it. I love you all so much as well. Have another great week fam!! :) Stay Sweet...
Elder Big Deal
Ps that is awesome you saw Julie and Kara!! And it is even better you saw them at Café Rio... almost as good as the food here.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
"No unhallowed hand............."
Can stop the work from progressing, but a sore throat and a runny nose gets really close to doing it. That pretty much describes this week. Elder Pinto and I both got sick and it was horrible. He got it first last Tuesday and that is one thing that stinks about having a comp is if he gets sick, more than likely you will get sick too. Being sick on a mission is pretty much the worse thing ever. It is not like you can just make some ramen, cuddle up in a blanket, and play HALO til it goes away. You just sit there and think about how miserable you feel and about how you wanna go out and work. And if you do go out and work you are just out of it the whole time and it is really hard to feel the Spirit. It is no good. I am just getting over it though. I had it bad Saturday and Sunday, and barely got any sleep.
Oh my mom!!! That picture was hilarious. I am legit just laughing out loud in the lan house! Hahaha I had to write that before I forgot. So we had Zone Conference this week which was pretty dope. I actually understood and got a lot of it. Pres and Sister Gonzaga are just awesome people. I had to bear my testimony and say the closing prayer. It was actually not too bad. They say I am doing really pretty well with the language already cause I have a flow when I speak but I need to work on using the correct conjugations mostly. It will all come with time. One reason I really liked Zone Conference was because I finally got to meet some of the other missionaries here in the mission and hear about other areas. For the past couple of weeks I have just felt like it was my comp, and the two other Elders in our house against Maceió haha. There are some really cool people here though for sure.
This week we obviously didn´t get a ton of work done but we had a cool thing happen with Rosa and her family. We went to just stop by and remind them about church and when we got there we found out it was someone in the house's birthday. We didn´t wanna interrupt so we tried to leave but they pulled us in and just started feeding us all this good food, plenty of coxinha :) But it was just so amazing because in all honesty, this family really doesn´t have a lot and there are a lot of mouths to feed but they were so willing to share with us and make sure we were full. It was super spiritual for me. Just the amount of love they have for us and their being so selfless was awesome. I love that family so much.
That pretty much sums this week up though, I didn´t eat anything weird this week or have anything too crazy happen. I am glad you all had a great week as well. Liza, mom said you got a pretty solid tan, we will have to compare :p hahaha Oh! for Christmas, I honestly don´t need anything. I guess the deodorant here isn´t that great so you could send some axe dry to me and that would be helpful. For Christmas I honestly just wanna buy soccer jerseys, they are ALL I EVER WANTED! (Prince of Egypt) People make fun of me here cause I haven´t picked my Brazilian team yet. It is kinda hard though when I can´t watch anyone play! Oh and another fun fact... cleats are super expensive here which just ruined my hopes and dreams of buying a really sweet pair but whateves I´ll live. I think that sums it all up though... Love you all so so so so much! and in case you didn´t know it.... THIS CHURCH IS SUPER TRUE!
Elder Big Deal
P.S. Elder Miller has been out a year now... what a nerd and the pics are of a baby lizard we caught, our room and a night of cockroach killing. We actually killed about 8 more that night I just took the pic a little early :/
Monday, November 14, 2011
Elder Goozy....Relaxa!!
Fam-a-lam-a-ding-dong!
Once again another awesome week here in Maceió! I really can´t get enough of this place it is so perfect. So I think it is time to talk about the food here. Usually it is pretty awesome, 90% percent of what we eat is chicken/sausage, spaghetti ( my favorite!) and rice. Then we usually have some type of delicious juice to go along with it or Coke. Everyone here LOVES Coke. So generally lunches are pretty good. I haven´t had to have a lot of beans yet which is fine. My comp doesn´t like um either and so when ever we have them we play a game called the QBean Sneak to see who can get the other comp to eat more beans hahaha. So the food is pretty good it is just the random meals that are crazy... like this week... I had goat stomach... Yum! No actually it was pretty gnarly and rubbery, not a fan. I should have stopped eating it when I noticed my comp not getting any haha. One food here that is such a tender mercy is this thing called cuxinha, it is this deep fried ball of chicken and cheese that is just delicious. It is my sub for T-Bell right now.
This past week was a solid week. I finished Jesus The Christ which is possibly one of my favorite books ever. The detail he goes into is amazing and it states everything so clearly. I honestly could not put it down, it was a constant flow of the Spirit while reading it and I loved that. I am reading Our Heritage now and after that I just am going to really focus on the scriptures which will be great. The people we are teaching are awesome. We have an awesome family we go and visit, the mom's name is Rosa and she has ... 3 daughters and 2 sons. They are a great family and are close to baptism, we just need to help get them to church! The two boys are around 7 and 8 and we are best friends. When I first meet them I couldn´t say much in Portuguese so I would just make faces at them and now that I am more comfortable speaking we just make jokes and laugh and they help me learn the language better too.
I have found that if I just relax and talk I do a lot better, hence the subject of the e-mail. I have been going 100 mph since I got here and I need to just breathe a bit and learn to have patience. I love working hard but I need to slow things down a bit so I can listen to the Spirit more instead of trying to do it all myself. During lessons is where I get the most stressed and if I just chill a bit and allow the Spirit to help the lesson will go so much better. The language is coming along well but I am still nowhere near where I want to be.
But back to the people. I love them, everyone is just super chill and always giving thumbs up and it just makes me smile. Oh! Except for this Saturday we were waiting to cross a street and some punk in a bus threw fruit at me!! I didn´t get anything on me but it hurt a bit. I love it though that is an awesome mission story now!
I think that covers most of it... Mom thanks for your e-mail! I really liked what you had to say about v/h teaching. I hope everyone else is doing well! Danger... I hope you are still being Dangerous and have you started playing HALO with the Bros. yet? Ian, sounds like you have a lot going on right now! Good luck with it all champ! Just remember, if your plane crashes it is because the pilot was a loaf of bread hahahahaha. I hope you all have another great week and don´t cause too much trouble. I love serving a mission so much, every night when I go to bed just physically, mentally, and spiritually spent I just think to myself, ¨this is awesome, I would never have stuff like this happen if I didn´t serve a mission,¨ then I peace out because I am so beat. This church is just so true!!! Love you all!!
Elder Big Deal
P.s. I accidentally hit the S so it said Elder Big Seal Hahahaha I shoulda left it
Once again another awesome week here in Maceió! I really can´t get enough of this place it is so perfect. So I think it is time to talk about the food here. Usually it is pretty awesome, 90% percent of what we eat is chicken/sausage, spaghetti ( my favorite!) and rice. Then we usually have some type of delicious juice to go along with it or Coke. Everyone here LOVES Coke. So generally lunches are pretty good. I haven´t had to have a lot of beans yet which is fine. My comp doesn´t like um either and so when ever we have them we play a game called the QBean Sneak to see who can get the other comp to eat more beans hahaha. So the food is pretty good it is just the random meals that are crazy... like this week... I had goat stomach... Yum! No actually it was pretty gnarly and rubbery, not a fan. I should have stopped eating it when I noticed my comp not getting any haha. One food here that is such a tender mercy is this thing called cuxinha, it is this deep fried ball of chicken and cheese that is just delicious. It is my sub for T-Bell right now.
This past week was a solid week. I finished Jesus The Christ which is possibly one of my favorite books ever. The detail he goes into is amazing and it states everything so clearly. I honestly could not put it down, it was a constant flow of the Spirit while reading it and I loved that. I am reading Our Heritage now and after that I just am going to really focus on the scriptures which will be great. The people we are teaching are awesome. We have an awesome family we go and visit, the mom's name is Rosa and she has ... 3 daughters and 2 sons. They are a great family and are close to baptism, we just need to help get them to church! The two boys are around 7 and 8 and we are best friends. When I first meet them I couldn´t say much in Portuguese so I would just make faces at them and now that I am more comfortable speaking we just make jokes and laugh and they help me learn the language better too.
I have found that if I just relax and talk I do a lot better, hence the subject of the e-mail. I have been going 100 mph since I got here and I need to just breathe a bit and learn to have patience. I love working hard but I need to slow things down a bit so I can listen to the Spirit more instead of trying to do it all myself. During lessons is where I get the most stressed and if I just chill a bit and allow the Spirit to help the lesson will go so much better. The language is coming along well but I am still nowhere near where I want to be.
But back to the people. I love them, everyone is just super chill and always giving thumbs up and it just makes me smile. Oh! Except for this Saturday we were waiting to cross a street and some punk in a bus threw fruit at me!! I didn´t get anything on me but it hurt a bit. I love it though that is an awesome mission story now!
I think that covers most of it... Mom thanks for your e-mail! I really liked what you had to say about v/h teaching. I hope everyone else is doing well! Danger... I hope you are still being Dangerous and have you started playing HALO with the Bros. yet? Ian, sounds like you have a lot going on right now! Good luck with it all champ! Just remember, if your plane crashes it is because the pilot was a loaf of bread hahahahaha. I hope you all have another great week and don´t cause too much trouble. I love serving a mission so much, every night when I go to bed just physically, mentally, and spiritually spent I just think to myself, ¨this is awesome, I would never have stuff like this happen if I didn´t serve a mission,¨ then I peace out because I am so beat. This church is just so true!!! Love you all!!
Elder Big Deal
P.s. I accidentally hit the S so it said Elder Big Seal Hahahaha I shoulda left it
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
When It Rains It Pours
Opa fam!
Where do I even begin with this week... awesome! So Mom right off the bat I dont know all of the facts you want but I will try my best to answer everything. The address I have is just for the mission home cause that is where all of our mail will go so I dont know the address for my actual place, sorry. Here is the address:
Brazil Maceio Mission
Av. Dom Antonio Brandao
333 Sala 402 Ed Work Center
Farol 57021-190 Maceio-AL Brazil.
I am sure that is super confusing so just look in my call packet and I am sure you can find it there. My area is pretty sweet I am in the city pretty much, but not the actual city of Maceio. I can see it though. We have tons of investigators to me (coming from Oregon) but we are about average on Brazil terms haha.
The language.... is frustrating. I still can't understand people very well and the thing is I speak Portuguese, not Brazilian, and there is a big difference. And I am trying to catch on to all the slang terms and the pushing of words together but it is hard to learn how to listen. I guess that is where prayer comes in right? :) hahaha.
98% of our transportation is walking... which I am fine with. We ride buses and stuff when we need to go to the office or something, but that is pretty rare. The driving down here is crazy so I am fine with walking. We saw thess two trucks get into a accident and it was pretty sketchy. We do a lot of just street contacting, which I like a lot more then knocking cause I feel with knocking I am too much like a salesman. Street contacting I feel like a normal person with an awesome message about happiness and salvation haha.
Our walk to church isn't bad at all we can see the church from our place but to get where we e-mail it is about a 40 minute walk. I am fine with it. The church is really pretty here, I will get some pics of it soon when I am brave enough to walk outside with my camera. I am trying to think of what else to say area wise... The weather here is pretty awesome, not super hot but it can be. We had a lot of rain Saturday and yesterday so we were tracking in some mud and my shoes got a good work out. We usually get into our place by about 8:30 cause it is a little too sketch to be out after that. The black tag really is like a shield though. It is amazing how blessed I am just by being a missionary. Like a lot of the places where we work my comp said he wouldn't go down there in normal clothes and he is Brazilian.
The work is going great we are teaching a lot of cool people and I am actually helping with the teaching but the stuff I say is just kinda memorized phrases so I dont feel like I am doing much, but I know bearing my testimony helps a lot. I love how no matter what language it is in, a testimony is always so powerful. I always give the lunch message too, which I like cause I feel a bit more comfortable with members. The members here are awesome and they are super nice and help me learn the language more.
I think that is about it.. We had a black out last night which lasted for about an hour but it was pretty cool. They are common here. And then we killed 8 big cockroaches last night too... not bad. Oh! I finally had a meal with beans yesterday and I was more worried about the pig ear and intestine than the beans. It was actually pretty good but still... I felt like VooDoo. The food is good and I am still healthy so I can't ask for much more.
Sounds like stuff at home is awesome. Ry I am stoked for you and seeing that pic of Mac was awesome. I miss that kid so much you have no idea! Happy birthday to Trent. Get a Killionaire for me k? Have a good week, love you all so much!
Elder Big Deal
Where do I even begin with this week... awesome! So Mom right off the bat I dont know all of the facts you want but I will try my best to answer everything. The address I have is just for the mission home cause that is where all of our mail will go so I dont know the address for my actual place, sorry. Here is the address:
Brazil Maceio Mission
Av. Dom Antonio Brandao
333 Sala 402 Ed Work Center
Farol 57021-190 Maceio-AL Brazil.
I am sure that is super confusing so just look in my call packet and I am sure you can find it there. My area is pretty sweet I am in the city pretty much, but not the actual city of Maceio. I can see it though. We have tons of investigators to me (coming from Oregon) but we are about average on Brazil terms haha.
The language.... is frustrating. I still can't understand people very well and the thing is I speak Portuguese, not Brazilian, and there is a big difference. And I am trying to catch on to all the slang terms and the pushing of words together but it is hard to learn how to listen. I guess that is where prayer comes in right? :) hahaha.
98% of our transportation is walking... which I am fine with. We ride buses and stuff when we need to go to the office or something, but that is pretty rare. The driving down here is crazy so I am fine with walking. We saw thess two trucks get into a accident and it was pretty sketchy. We do a lot of just street contacting, which I like a lot more then knocking cause I feel with knocking I am too much like a salesman. Street contacting I feel like a normal person with an awesome message about happiness and salvation haha.
Our walk to church isn't bad at all we can see the church from our place but to get where we e-mail it is about a 40 minute walk. I am fine with it. The church is really pretty here, I will get some pics of it soon when I am brave enough to walk outside with my camera. I am trying to think of what else to say area wise... The weather here is pretty awesome, not super hot but it can be. We had a lot of rain Saturday and yesterday so we were tracking in some mud and my shoes got a good work out. We usually get into our place by about 8:30 cause it is a little too sketch to be out after that. The black tag really is like a shield though. It is amazing how blessed I am just by being a missionary. Like a lot of the places where we work my comp said he wouldn't go down there in normal clothes and he is Brazilian.
The work is going great we are teaching a lot of cool people and I am actually helping with the teaching but the stuff I say is just kinda memorized phrases so I dont feel like I am doing much, but I know bearing my testimony helps a lot. I love how no matter what language it is in, a testimony is always so powerful. I always give the lunch message too, which I like cause I feel a bit more comfortable with members. The members here are awesome and they are super nice and help me learn the language more.
I think that is about it.. We had a black out last night which lasted for about an hour but it was pretty cool. They are common here. And then we killed 8 big cockroaches last night too... not bad. Oh! I finally had a meal with beans yesterday and I was more worried about the pig ear and intestine than the beans. It was actually pretty good but still... I felt like VooDoo. The food is good and I am still healthy so I can't ask for much more.
Sounds like stuff at home is awesome. Ry I am stoked for you and seeing that pic of Mac was awesome. I miss that kid so much you have no idea! Happy birthday to Trent. Get a Killionaire for me k? Have a good week, love you all so much!
Elder Big Deal
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