Wow! I don´t even know where to start with this week.... but usually a good place to start is the beginning so I will give that a try. After P-Day last week we packed up and headed in to Maceió again so we could have District Meeting, It was awesome. I don´t think I have ever learned so much from a DM but I loved it. We talked about the importance of making contacts and how there are people who are in our areas looking for us, we aren´t just looking for them. It kinda changed my mind on contacts because I had been a little frustrated with them lately, but now things are going great.
After getting back here in Viçosa, the ZL´s came out to make divisions with us and helped us out in the area a little bit. Miracles happen. I was lucky enough to work with my favorite elder here, Elder Guth, and we had an amazing time. He leaves the mission at the end of this transfer, and I am a firm believer that near the end of your mission you just become a super hero. It was so rad to teach with him, he taught so well and the people were so open to him. I have no idea how he did it, but I want to learn. Shokes and the other ZL also did some great work too. All in all we ended up marking like 8 baptisms and 13 new investigators just in that one night. It was so sweet and I learned a lot of things I want to start applying in my own teaching skills. Pretty much though..... Elder Guth is just rad.
The other big thing that happened this week is.... Shokes is getting transferred! The thing is though transfers aren´t until the first of April so most likely it means he will be training which will be so awesome for him. He really is such a solid missionary and though we had our differences, I really enjoyed my time with him. I really learned tons from him and I give him a lot of credit for teaching me Portuguese because he absolutely refused to speak English with me. It was such a blessing. So I have no idea what is going to happen with me but for some reason I have the feeling I might be training as well.... I have no idea why I have that feeling though cause I am nowhere near ready to train some noob. It is a lot more then just knowing the language really well, it is knowing missionary life, and the ins and outs of the mission as well. But who knows. We will find out tomorrow what the Lord has in store for me, either way I am pumped. We are going into Maceió again tonight and are going to spend the night at the AP's house. Should be a great time.
That wraps everything up here though pretty much. Please be sure to tell Grandma happy birthday from me and that I miss her tons :) Sounds like you had a good time up in good ol´ Idaho. My comp just about died when I told him you were there. If you remember he is from Chubbuck like right next to Pocatello. Also, thank you both Mom and Dad for your awesome e-mails this week. They were both very powerful and had a lot I needed to hear. Oh! I almost forgot! We had someone come to church!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So dope! She is a past gator who was literally in the baptismal water but she has a phobia so she didn´t actually get baptized but we kept working and praying with her and she is ready to try again this Saturday! Ah so pumped!
I love you all and hope you have a solid week!
Elder Squid Deal
So.... I am not going to lie to you... this week was pretty bland and not the greatest of weeks... I just don´t understand what is going on. We are working harder then I have ever worked and yet NOTHING is happening. Literally all this week we just had spiritual battles with people who had really shut their hearts and once again.... no one came to church. No joke literally every night this week we had a "lesson" that turned into a "battle". I dunno if it is my teaching style or what but maybe I just ask questions the wrong way so it looks like I am trying to back people into a corner I dunno... Frustrating. But the other thing that makes it frustrating is it usually happens with people or families I really like. Last night we taught one of my favorite families and during the lesson the dad just quit listening and started calling us out... I dunno it was just draining. That honestly sums up the week though.
We had a good P-Day today though, we went on a hike to some of the waterfalls "close" to Viçosa and it was pretty rad. It was hot and it took a lot longer to get there than we thought but it was for sure worth it. I hope you all like the pics too. I like the one with the Tree of Life hahaha. I always knew it was here in Brasil! It was also nice to hang out with some of the members too, not only do they have really strong testimonies but at the same time they are really funny too. I did get a little jealous though when they all started swimming but I am over it. I couldn´t do gainers there anyway so I will wait 'til I am back at Cottonwood Heights. But it was nice to just get out and do something different for a change. I forgot to put sunblock on my legs so they are pretty burned but I am pretty sure I´ll live. I mean come on, I wear slacks 99.9% of the time, I don´t really think about putting sunblock on my legs! Hahaha
Also, for Danger, I did a little study of the Atonement this week just to see if I could find anything new for you to use. Just to start off my favorite scripture about The Atonement is Alma 34:8-10, it just explains how absolutely necessary The Atonement is. And the another thing I learned about this week is that The Atonement is not just for the sinner, it is also for the sinned against. Christ suffered every single pain, sorrow, and grief imaginable and so when those who have been wronged by someone or have feelings of malice or whatever, Christ can help them find it with in themselves to forgive the person who wronged them. He will be there with the person through every step if they are willing to accept Him. I don't know if I explained that too well but I think you will all get the picture.... I hope :/ I was debating on sharing this with you though Danger cause when you told about the next Danger Dave´s Day in the park... I just about lost it... Just about :p I already knew it is going to be so rad!
That pretty much sums everything all up, sorry my letters haven´t been that great lately. I don´t know too much about Jones Hall Ry, I didn´t really go in there too much but from what I remember it is pretty much just like Morgan so I wouldn't stress it. I hope you all have another solid week and keep doing awesome things! Just one question.... How does indoor golf work? I miss and love you all!
Elder Squid
Hello to my family that I love a lot... Like really, I love you all.. a lot! Hahaha. So this past week was a pretty awesome week spiritually but work wise... difficult. But either way it was still another solid week here in little Viçosa Brasil.
We had Zone Conference this week which was so awesome because it seems like it has been forever since I have seen Prez and a lot of the missionaries. We went into Maceió Tuesday night and stayed at our ZL house which was a blast because my one of the ZL´s, Elder Guth, is one of my favorite missionaries here in the mission. He is from Alaska and is going home after this transfer but I have already told him to be on the look out for Elder Hartman up there. I also convinced him that Utah State is the best place ever and he has plans for going there...WOOT!! But we just hung out there that night and ended up sleeping outside under the stars, because they have a backyard and it was so rad! I just stayed up pondering life and things and just had a great time thinking.
Zone Conference was great, we had a lot of really great teaching and it is always fun to hear the arriving and leaving testimonies of missionaries. It honestly seems like I was just giving mine. I am sure you all know but, usually at Zone Conference they have two missionaries give little 5 minute talks on something.... Yeah it was mine turn this time. I was honestly fine with speaking, but the thing that made it difficult was my DL forgot to tell us what the topic was. He told me five minutes before that the topic was going to be on working hard, but that I had a really low chance of speaking so I shouldn´t worry. I worried. I just knew from the second I heard missionaries had to give a talk that I was going to be giving one. It turned out really great and went pretty smooth. I talked about how Paul(?) baptized 3,000 and we can do the same if we have the faith to work hard every day even when it seems like no one is listening to us. Don´t worry I made some good jokes too. :) All in all it was a good ZC and got me really excited to go out and start working again. The only thing that stunk was I lost my little clip on tag... It must have fallen off in the taxi because we couldn´t find it anywhere. I still have my other tag though so it´s all good.
The work here this week was frustrating.... We found some really awesome new people and a new family which was great but NO ONE came to church. We literally got up early on Sunday so we could make sure we could pass every investigator's house and we only had one person even open the door. Ugh... I was furious I am not gonna lie. This has just been our problem here for a while now, no one has a drive to come to church and I just don´t know how to create that desire in them. It feels like we have tried everything but nothing seems to be working. I know it will all work out though in time and there is a reason for everything, it is just hard to see it sometimes ya know? But I will keep doing my part and I know, in time, the Lord will do His. He has to. It is promised in the scriptures time and time again.
That pretty much sums it up besides the fact I have sworn off English. I am seriously in love with Portuguese and I want to be a Brazilian so bad... Mom, are you sure I wasn´t born here? Ryley, I think you made a smart choice to live in Morgan because it really is right next to Snow but a lot cheaper. I don´t know if they did the renovations of it though but if they did, Morgan Hall should be awesome. You will love it I promise. Ummm box wise mom, no I don´t have A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, so I would love that and also, if possible, Great Apostasy and Articles of Faith by Talmage... That about wraps things all up but thank you all for your e-mails and Danger I will be sure to do a little study this week for you and see what I can come up with, deal? :) Have an awesome week everyone and be safe! Love you :)
Elder Squid
P.S. They have these coconut cookies/crackers here that are amazing and I am sure no pics this week because I forgot my SD card... Oops :(
So I am not gonna lie to you guys, this week was kinda of a slower one. We still taught a lot of good lessons, found plenty of news, and marked four baptism dates but, it just felt like a long week. In all honesty, not a lot out of the ordinary happened this week like, I don´t have to much to talk about which is kind of a bummer.
I did have another good study with the scriptures though. I was just reading them one day during personal study and the thought just popped into my head, "Why did I not read these before my mission?!" That is the truth though. Before my mish, the scriptures for me were just another thing in the Church we have to read as members and I slacked off a ton on reading them. A ton. And now I am really kinda regretting that I didn´t really read them more. But I am loving them now. I am actually excited every single morning to open them up and dig into them. There is so much solid information in them it is wild. One of my favorite things to do is read from the Bible Dictionary, it is crazy how many little interesting facts are in there. It is rad. So I guess this is just me bearing my testimony to you all that the scriptures really are, without a doubt, the words of Heavenly Father. He gave them to us not only so we can know how to return and live with Him again, but also how we can have an awesome life here on Earth. They talk about how to be successful in all aspects of life, people, family, church, money, if you can think about it there is a scripture about pretty much everything. Even dragons. Roar!
Elder Big Dill (Sucha rockin pic Ry)
Well, from what it sounds like, most everybody wants hear about how Carnival went, and is still going. Yep it is 4 to 5 days of straight partying and it is literally right next to our house in the center of Viçosa. To be quite honest with you it hasn´t been that bad for us because it has been raining a lot here the past two days so it has kinda bummed the people down a bit. But they still have no problem playing the same song over and over again until three in the morning... That is the hard part .... just getting some sleep. The work is also really hard because practically everyone, if they are not at the main party in the center, are having their own mini parties in the streets by their houses. So legit, more than half of Viçosa is just drunk for these four to five days and it is really hard too keep the Spirit with that stuff around.
And when there are little kids who want to throw eggs at you... That makes it pretty tough as well. Luckily we haven´t been hit yet, but one kid got pretty close to getting my comp. We have mostly just been passing by members and LAs since Friday and have still been doing some good work there. But another thing about Carnival is the Church, being rad, sends all the youth to a camp out away from all the craziness. And it sounds like it is an awesome time for them but it also seriously drops the numbers at church because pretty much everyone goes. Yesterday we only had myself and Elder Shokes with the Priesthood so we had to direct Sacrament, bless and pass, and give talks! Yep two in a row for me hahaha. It was a neat thing though cause we got to see what it is like being a real leader of a branch.
We still had a pretty solid week though here. I just have two things that really stuck out to me about this week. One was we had a really awesome lesson with this lady named Monica and her family. What made it awesome though is it really felt like we were really teaching her, not just talking to her about our church. There really isn´t a good way to put this, but the intelligence level here in Viçosa isn´t the highest, so we haven´t been able to really use the scriptures in our teaching. But that is what made our lesson with her so awesome; we were diving into scripture and having actually discussions on doctrine. Ah it was so nice! I really think we helped explain some things to her but because of Carnival we haven´t been able to see her since... Bummer.
The other thing great about this week was once again with the scriptures. Scriptures are the best. If you want to learn how Heavenly Father thinks and feels, read the scripts. But I just had a really sweet study of 2 Nephi 31 early this week. I love that chapter because it is all about the Doctrine of Christ. There are so many powerful things in there it is amazing. I don´t really have time to go into super details but I just love the last verse. It explains so simply that the doctrine of faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and continuing with faith forever is THE doctrine of Christ and it is only through Him that we can gain salvation. I dunno, it was just super powerful to me.
That pretty much sums my week up. We also had transfers this week but we are both staying here so that is nothing too exciting. Sounds like things are going solid at home. 8 inches of snows sounds like a blessing for sure. Danger, I am here in the LAN house laughing because I think this is the first time in my life I have ever missed shoveling snow but right now it sounds so nice.... Hahaha. Mom, things that would be sweet in a package would be deodorant again... because last time you sent gel DO and I use dry..... Sorry :/ And I also have a lot of other books I would love to read, one being Mormon Doctrine, but I think that might be a little too big to send. I am spacing on the name of the other book I want right now, I think it is "The House of the Lord" by Talmage but I am not sure. I dunno just any books you think I would like would be awesome. Oh also! The little white cord for my Ipod would be great cause I want to start downloading talks from General Conference. But really that is about it. I hope you all have another great week and just take it easy. Play some Halo, go snowboarding, or to a dance party for me k? :p That would be rad! Love you!!! :)
Elder Big Deal
Hello to my family that is both awesome and cool! So I legit felt like this week we were living in the jungle... Not only do we sing the Jurassic park theme song everywhere we go because our area looks like the movie set, but I also caught a huge frog, many lizards, and had a pretty gnarly scropion in the house! How rad is that? The only animal we were really missing, besides squids and all of their greatness, was a snake! I am sure I will be able to find one, too. I have also secretly been hunting for the Brazilian Wandering spider, one of the most dangerous in the world, but I don´t think Pres would be too stoked on me if I had to go home because I was flirting with danger. Thats what Mom did before she got married. Hahahahaha Get it? Oh happy Valentines day also!
We had a pretty solid week here though in beautiful Viçpsa Brazil. But still not the week we wanted. It is getting really hard to work here in Brasil right now because it is Carnival season.... Pretty much it will be four days of sin in the streets.... Wow. I don´t think that is a very good missionary environment if you ask me. We have already gotten our instructions for what to do for those four days and it pretty much is, listen to the Spirit. If we feel like we can work, then we can go work but we should be home before * usually because after that things just get wild. The other thing is, the main party for Carnival will legit be right in front of our house.... It is going to be a rough few days of sleep that is for sure. But even with all of this, we are still doing good work here and will more than likely have another baptism this Saturday... Woot!! But honestly work-wise this week was just normal. My comp got sick for a day so we had to stay close to home just in case he had more problem,s but we were able to find some good solid people close.
We also had just some funny things happen during the week. Last P-day we went to go play soccer with Anderson and the boys and they didn´t have a ball. So I of course went and bought one for them and so I could use it in the morning for exercises. I paid about 25 bucks for a good ball and within the first ten minutes of playing real socer with it.... it popped. I was so frustrated. That is one thing really kinda of frustrating about Brasil. Everything here is super expensive, but not super good quality. But it ended up being a good joke for the week, but I am still a little bummed about it.
Also this week, I had to give another talk in church. But I felt a lot better about this one. It really felt like what I was saying was flowing and just that I was remembering all the rules and grammatics of the language. I spoke on faith and I really think it went well. I just spent the majority of my time reading from Alma 32 but there really are so many other good scriptures on faith. The scriptures are siiiiiick.
That about sums everything up though. Sounds like ya´ll had another good week. Ry I am stoked about you wanting to stay at Snow. Even though I didn´t live there, that is where I spent the majority of my time. Just always leave your door open when you are in the room and you will make so many friends it is ridiculous. The only thing I have to say about Ian is I hope he gets an Army haircut soon cause he looks like a Super Sayan in the picture you sent me. Haha OH Snap! Mom... You should for sure, with out a doubt, ask to learn how to cook coxinha. It will literally change the lives of our family I believe. Oh get this, there is a restuarant here called "Tia-bel" And they sell coxinha for only one Real... Tia-bel... T-bell, for sure a tender mercy. Well have another awesome week and be sure to go hit the slopes sometime soon. That is funny you guys were golfing in February... I thought only Brazilians could do that. Well I love you all so much and I know you are all doing great things right now. Have a super week and stay sweet....
Elder Big Deal.
P.S. There is a member here in Viçosa who really wants my Ipod. He talks to me almost every other day to see if we can make a deal for it.... So wild
Yeah, that pretty much describes this past week. Just kinda out of the blue we had all of our investigators/potential baptisms fall through so this week was a lot of tracking and contacting. Which in all honesty isn´t that bad, but it does get pretty repetitive after awhile. I know I shouldn´t say anything like that though cause I have no idea what it means to tract for like 6 hours a day like those crazy missionaries who serve in Europe. But we did have one pretty cool thing happen because of it. We contacted this Italian/Brazilian family!! The dad has the coolest Italian accent when he speaks and it just got me thinking about Elder Miller and Elder Mendel. But what else made it cool is the family was very receptive to the message and they're going to start coming to teach with us... Hopefully.
That is kinda of the problem here -- no one comes to church... It is super sad because really going to church and partaking of the Sacrament really makes your week so much more fulfilling, but if people never go to church... they never experience that and then they have no reason to go to church. So that is what I am struggling with right now is how to teach people how to have a desire to go to church. We do have a lot of our recent-converts going still which is good. We gave some ties and white button up shirts to Anderson and his brother so they can feel more comfortable in church and it was really funny trying to teach them how to tie ties. Those two are my favorite people ever... We are going to be hanging out with them today after e-mail time and I am honestly just stoked.
Other than that the week was pretty normal. I had some really good studies this week and I am loving the BOM. What makes me stoked though is I am exactly with Mom in her reading. I am in 2 Nephi right now as well and so every week I get to hear Mom's in-depth study of what I just read and it just makes it all the better. I honestly love 2 Nephi though, probably my favorite book in the BOM. Yesh, the Isaiah chapters are rough, but there is so much good doctrine in 2 Nephi. So rad! I think my favorite chapter is 34 though.... I always share the scripture about "Feasting on the words of Christ" after lunches with people and I have this little lesson that goes along with it. Also, while talking about the BOM, I would invite you all to read the talk from Elder Holland in the November 2008 Ensign "Safety for The Soul". Easily one of the most powerful testimonies of the BOM I have ever heard.
That pretty much sums it up... Sounds like nothing exciting happened at home...... beside the fact I AM GOING TO BE AN UNCLE TO A BABY GIRL GUZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you tell I am excited? Not gonna lie, I was thinking about that all throughout the week and I am so happy right now. A little baby girl Guzy... So adorable already ah! Mom and Ian, I loved the pics you both sent me this week. I was legit just laughing at the computer. I am pretty sure Brazilians think I am nuts cause I do that a lot but, I can´t help it, you guys are so stinkin funny. Also Dad talking about the word "mingling" Hahaha best times ever making Mom embarrassed during church.
Well I hope you all have another fantastic week and I will be praying for you all of course. Ry, I hoped you loved USU... Still my favorite place in the word even though I love Brazil. Parents when you go up there, feel free to stop by the Admissions Office and ask for some help or a tour and they will hook you up. Have a great week :)
Elder Squid
P.S. My comp and I have been singing " They´re taking the Hobbits to Isingard" all week.... Youtube it, I dare you. And the pics are of high class Brazilian security and coxinha!!
After getting back here in Viçosa, the ZL´s came out to make divisions with us and helped us out in the area a little bit. Miracles happen. I was lucky enough to work with my favorite elder here, Elder Guth, and we had an amazing time. He leaves the mission at the end of this transfer, and I am a firm believer that near the end of your mission you just become a super hero. It was so rad to teach with him, he taught so well and the people were so open to him. I have no idea how he did it, but I want to learn. Shokes and the other ZL also did some great work too. All in all we ended up marking like 8 baptisms and 13 new investigators just in that one night. It was so sweet and I learned a lot of things I want to start applying in my own teaching skills. Pretty much though..... Elder Guth is just rad.
