July 2, 2018 T'chau Brasil!

Hey everyone! So today was my last p-day and it was definitely one of the best! We got permission from our president to watch the Brazil vs Mexico world cup game and Brazil went nuts with the big 2-0 win! 

We then went to a huge waterfall here in our area that's said to be the tallest waterfall in Brazil but I have no idea if that's true but it sure is tall! 

I have a bunch of pics but I wont be able to send them right now 

Buttttt the bigger news is........... 

This is it! My last email! 

These last two years have been so much more than I could have ever imagined. When I came on the mission I had no idea what was waiting for me. I was pretty sure it was going to be a good experience but to be honest I was totally afraid of basically anything I could have been afraid of. The MTC and start was a blur and I think Elder Garlick said it best when he said that trying to remember and apply everything you learn in the MTC is like trying to drink water out of a fire extinguisher. The majority just hits you in the face... 

I had 5 areas, 10 companions and way too many experiences to count. I had the hardest and the best days of my life and they usually came in the same week. 

I had the opportunity to meet two of the Lord´s apostles. I had the opportunity to talk to everybody that passed by me and feel the joy that comes from sharing the gospel. It's hard to remember what even went through my mind before the mission and I am so grateful for everything I learned but especially for the testimony I was able to build each and every day. I am so grateful for the people I was able to help in their individual paths to live with our Heavenly Father. I have absolutely loved every second of it! Brazil changed my life.

 

I remember when someone once told me that their new favorite word was "blesson" which is when you are able to see the blessing in the lesson that each challenge teaches us. 

The mission was full of blessons!  I am so grateful for the tough days and I will never forget all the best. 

This is my last week which will be full of too many hard goodbyes

I love Brazil and love the people here more than I ever thought was possible!

Alright that's enough of the sappy email! Love you all and see you next week!! Thanks to all of you that emailed me throughout my mission!!!

June 25th, 2018

Hey everyone! So this week I had my last leadership meeting here so we spent a lot of time traveling and we had to lots of baptismal interviews so we were in the bus a lot this week.

I am in the final days now which is really weird but it still hasn´t hit me yet. People keep talking about how I am going home but I still feel like I am new in the mish and definitely not my turn to go home yet! 

We will have a baptism of this little old lady this week named Jovina. She is so funny and excited for her baptism. Every Sunday when we pass by her house to bring her to church she is on the doorstep waiting for us at 8:30 on the dot! She always tells us about how it always seems to be such good weather on Sundays and how going to church just brightens her day! I am glad to be able to finish off the mission with a baptism! 

I will have to travel in the last week to get back to the mission home so I only have like 12 more days of work so we are just working hard until the last whistle as our president always says! 

Sorry for not sending any pics, my comp lost all his pics because he put his SD card into the computer and got a virus so I am not taking any chances!!!

 

love you all! 

Elder Reid

June 18th, 2018

Hey galera whats up?

This week was pretty crazy cause we had to travel a ton. We had zone conference on Thursday in a small city called Irati cause it's in between Guarapuava and Curitiba so it's the easiest place for everyone to meet. We have a van that passes by to pick everyone up so the guy from the van called us and said he was gonna pass by at 7:30 am and so we went to bed and set the alarm for 6:30. The alarm went off and right as it went off our phone rang. I picked it up and the guy from the van was like "hey I'm here and we had 6 elders sleeping in our house and so I woke everyone up and told the guy from the van to give us 15 minutes and in 15 minutes 6 elders showered and were ready to leave which was quite impressive! 

We got to the conference and it was my last testimony and last training which was way weird and sad. I love zone conferences and this was probably the best one so it was a good one to have last!

Then after that we got the van headed back and went to another city called União da Vitoria which is in Santa Catarina to do splits. It's a really cool and pretty little city. It's on the border of Parana and Santa Catarina. It's a mountain city so it was SO cold and I was not prepared for that and the bus ride home was like 8 hours of traveling and super cansativo. 

This next week will be my last leadership meeting and we have some splits planned as well so it will probably pass by flying! 

Life is good! Love you all! 

pics with prez and sis 

prez with that photobomb

June 4th, 2018

Hey all! 

SO this was another crazy week! Elder Garlick finished his mish which was way hard to say goodbye but it's all good cause here soon we will all be in Utah again!

So this week was nuts!

 Wednesday night we were walking home and I see a man laying down in front of our house and I was like humm wonder what that guy is doing there  and we get close and there is just a nude guy lying in front of our house and we were just tip toein by him to not wake him up as we went into our apartment building...

Then on Thursday we were walking home and we pass by these two guys at a bus stop and I was like freak Elder Lira, they are gonna rob us, so we just tried to act natural and say goodnight and all and they got all scared and we passed them. But like 2 minutes after we there someone came running after us and he was like... run! We got all scared and were like woo what happened??? The guy said, " those two guys just robbed my phone" and I was like wow... why didn't they assault us? But the Lord protects so we got out of there fine.

Then on Friday we did splits with another area. We ended the splits at 9:30 pm.  We were leaving the terminal headed home and these two guys were running towards us and I was like... freak!   This one security guy came out of nowhere passes by and jumps off his motorcycle and just slams the guy who was running in the head with his helmet and just started this huge street fight

.

Then we walk a little and hear this girl screaming,we get to the park by our house and there were like 20 dudes just beating each other up and we just slowly slid by tip toein till we get home.

Life is crazy!

It's starting to get cold around here!

Love you all! 

May 28th, 2018

Yo whats up gang!
 So this week I actually have lots of cool stories!

So first off I am officially the oldest elder in the mission which  is way freaking weird! 

Elder Garlick went home which was also way weird but this last week went out with a bang

First off Elder Garlick and I had our birthdays this week. We had to go to Pitanga to do some interviews which was interesting because of some huge strike going on right now. We got there at night and had to leave at like 7 am to avoid all the angry truckers. When we got home I walked in the house and Elder Moreno and Elder Oliveira decorated the house and bought a cake and a bunch of elders were there for a little surprise party before all of us had to go to Curitiba for the mission tour.  Elder Holland came on my birthday which was absolutely incredible but it was quite the struggle to get from Guarapuava to Curitiba because the entire country is on strike right now because of gas prices here so all of the semi truckers stopped working and blocked off all the highways. that also means that nothing is getting transported so all of the gas stations don't have gas in the country and there are no cars in the street anymore. On the highway leaving Guarapuava they blocked off the roads for nobody to get in or out unless it was a chill reason to leave so we got our van who luckily had enough gas in his van to get us to Curitiba and back. We got to the border and all the truckers stopped us and asked why we wanted to leave and we were like yo we are just missionaries plz let us by and they did which was a blessing. Then we got to Curitiba. the meeting with Elder Holland was incredible but it was cut a little short because the airport had limited fuel for the planes so he almost wasn't able to leave and had to get a different plane to get out of Brazil.

He said and taught some incredible things and his testimony is so incredible that it's impossible to hear him talk and not know that this is Christs church. 

There were two things he said that really stuck with me. The first was that he said "the church of Christ will always be progressing there will never be any U-turns or wrong directions but will always be based on eternal progress. make sure that is always true in your own life"

and the second was "The mission should affect every single day of your entire life. If that's not true for you, shame on you and if I cant help you guys understand why that is true, shame on me" 

Also last  Holland quote was "you cant have a million dollar experience putting in 20 cents of effort" 

Basically Holland just motivated me to finish strong and be the best person ever cause he is truly a beast. Basically the best birthday present I ever could have received!

When we were in the van on the bus home the whole zone started singing happy birthday and the sisters had made two cakes so we stopped at some random bus stop and all ate cake together so needless to say it was a pretty lit birthday. 

Earlier in the week we were at one of the families we are teachings house. The dad travels for work and is only home on the weekends. but one day while we were there he called saying he was working when this random drunk guy walked up to his back and stabbed him like 7 times. So he came home and he was all cut up but nothing to serious happened luckily. The guy that stabbed him went to jail. A couple days later we went and got the kids of the family to bring them to a soccer night at the chapel and when we brought them home after, the mom was crying in the front of the house saying the guy had gotten out of prison and came to their house to find the dad and was all crazy trying to hurt the family so the whole family ran away and it was pretty nuts. The police couldn't even get there because they don't have gas cause of the strike so its been pretty crazy these days!!

The stores don't have meat, milk, bread, or fruits and vegetables anymore so hopefully this strike ends soon so we can keep working normally cause it has been crazy!

Anyways this week was awesome! i love you all! 

pics: the district 

birthday

the big 2 0 

May 21st, 2018

Hey all!

This week was another great week on the mission! 

This week also starts the last transfer which means I am officially the oldest missionary in the mish! craziness! So this week the temps dropped tons and it is now freezing here. We are all walking around in winter coats and gloves and such.

The best part of it was that we baptized this week, a man named Vlademir that is way cool. His baptism was Sunday morning and that was the exact day that the heater stopped working on the font so I just about froze my body off getting in to that freezing cold water to baptize him but just tried to remember the pioneers and went for it!

This week is my birthday and Elder Holland is coming to visit our mission on my birthday! so that will be basically the best birthday ever! It's strange because now I am starting all the "lasts"

Last zone conference, last transfer and last testimony! I love the mish and I am just trying to soak it all up now! love you all!! 

We were sitting at the bus stop when a truck passed and got my comps shirt all dirty lol 

May 14th 2018

Hey all!

This week was obviously way good cause of Mothers day! Love you Mom! 

The two baptisms we had fell through at the super last minute which was way sad. We were filling up the font in the chapel and when we went to go get the family an hour before the baptism they had a little family problem and were not able to go to the baptism which was way sad but we will remark with them today!

We have some other awesome investigators that are progressing. We are teaching one family that was baptized in another church recently but felt as if the person that baptized them was not authorized to baptize aka didn't have the priesthood and they are going to be baptized! We are helping them build their new house which has been fun!

People are starting to go crazy round here because of the world cup. Go Brazil! 

We played basketball this morning with some members and it was lots of fun. 

Sorry these days I don't have a whole lot to say but life here is good. Its getting colder so like 60s 70s which is actually a huge drop for here. 

Like a thousand years ago it snowed here in the city I'm in so who knows maybe I'll get lucky to see snow in Brazil!

love you all!! 

May 5th, 2018

So this week was another good week on the mish!

We are teaching some awesome families here and have been seeing a lot of progress in all of them which has been way cool. People here in Guarapuava are so different from Curitibanos.

We went on splits to another small city called Pitanga which is just tons of farmland and craziness but it was way fun. We found 37 new investigators yesterday and taught tons of lessons! It was a way fun day! 

Our p-day got last minute switched to today so thats why I am on right now!

Love you all! 

pics! 

Just gettin lit with some of my favs! 

April 30th, 2018

Whats up!?

So this week was nuts! 

Lots of travelling! We got to Guarapuava last Monday night and we were able to work here a couple of days. Two other elders got here too so we had to divide our area in 2 because we now have 4 elders in the branch. Our area is a mix of extremely wealthy and extremely poor which is nuts. I have seen some of the nicest houses ever with Lamborghini´s in the garage and houses made of cardboard which has been quite the mix and quite a shock but it has been amazing so far. We started getting work done but on Friday we had the ZL meeting so Thursday morning we got the bus to Curitiba to get to there at night, slept in the office house and had our meeting in the morning. It was pretty fun as always but also weird cause the next time we have this meeting will be like two weeks before I get home!!! Craziness!!

Our meeting went a little late and sister Cuvelier ended up driving s to the bus station and we just BARELY made the bus and bought the last two seats which was a miracle but also kinda sucked cause we sat in the back which is always super hot and the only bus to Guarapuava at that time was the one that makes a way big circle so we ended up making a 5 hour trip into an 8 hour trip and got home at like 10 pm wooohooo

so Saturday was definitely one of the most incredible days on my mission! We started off the day finding 10 new investigators which were 2 really cool families and a guy whose wife had passed away recently. We had so many spiritual lessons and invited all them to be baptized. One of the families is marked for later may and we are way excited for them. At night we were walking home on cloud 9  when we heard a really loud cry coming from a dark street so we looked and saw this lady crying in the middle of the street and she told us her husband had been killed and we sat and talked to her and helped calm her down and it was really crazy how everything happened and was a miracle of how the Lord puts people in our paths!

Sunday was different going from the biggest ward in the mission to a branch haha but I'm loving the new area!

Love you all!

REAL MILK!!!!!!

April 23rd, 2018

Well gang as always I bet you're just super anxious to get the update on my super exciting missionary life lol

Shout out to those that still read this email because I think the hardest thing I do every week is just try and figure out what I should put on here.

Well the big news of this week is I will be ending my mission in a little city way far away from Curitiba called Guarapuava.

My area is huge and im working in  a branch

So big changes going from the biggest ward in the mission with 8 missionaries to a tiny little branch and district!

But president has goals to make it a stake so thats my new personal goal before i head home!!

Life here is way good and it was way hard to say goodbye to my ward. Love araucária with my whole heart and soul and it forever changed my life #blessings 

i dont have a whole ton of time nor much to say because i spent the whole day on the bus today but li do have pictures!

i love you all! 

Pictures!

the man the myth and the legend Lacerda!

                                                   first selfie in my new area

the gang

mission tour

we bought some açaí and got famous so check us out on insta and face

Ward FHE

April 16th, 2018

What's up gang!

So this week was full of cool stuff!! 

We had our temple trip on Tuesday which was awesome! 

We then had a super special opportunity to have Elder Mark Basset from the 70 visit our mission!

We had a meeting with him and all the zone leaders on Wednesday where we learned lots about how to be more effective leaders and work with what we have.

On Friday we had a the conference with like the whole mish which was way fun to see the whole crew and even better cause we got lots of cool words of wisdom.

Something really interesting he taught about was how the only thing that is ours is our will and we are blessed specifically with how much we give our will to our Heavenly Father

It was a really spiritual experience!

Other than that this Sunday was actually pretty cold here which scared lots of people off from getting up early for church which was sad and we didn't really have much time to work in our area this week but we are still out here puttin in our best cause this is probably my last week in Araucária which is super sad but that's how life goes I guess!

love you all!!

I'm on google maps!

April 10th, 2018

Hey everyone! So sorry for not writing last week! I totally forgot but this weeks email will be better hahaha

SO the Assistants called us and told us we would be going to the temple on Tuesday which is why we are emailing today!

So we knew we were going to have to get up really early because our temple session was at 9 am and we live like 3 hours from the temple by bus and like 30 minutes by car just for you guys to have an idea of how long these freaking buses take to get anywhere. So us four elders decided it would be better to have a member call an uber for us cause it'd be a little more expensive but we could sleep like 2 more hours haha so we called a member the night before to confirm the price and they said it would be about R$30 which is like $8 and then in the morning we are all getting ready to go and the member calls us and was like Elder because there aren't any drivers here in Araucária the Uber is gonna end up being about R$80 and we didn't have the money in cash with us in the house to pay that so we were like freak. I told the member I would call her back and we hung up. We were like well freak lets say a prayer. We prayed and literally right as we said amen the member called and told us that one driver had logged in and offered to do it for R$30 which was the first #miracle

As the uber was getting there, Elder Eddington lost his wallet with his recommend so we said another prayer and as we said Amen he went and it was on his bed #miracles

We get to the temple and I had some real spiritual experiences and got some real answers to some questions I had for a long time. It was definitely one of the most spiritual experiences i have had in the temple and it was a lot of #miracles

then we get to the temple store and in the beginning of my mish I bought the book of Mormon triple combo in the mtc and was like well I don't even know Portuguese so I'll buy the bible to finish it off in the end of the mission. When I walked in to the store there was a sign that said the leather bound bibles that were usually $50 was now only $10! So I went to grab one and she was like actually we are all out! And I was sad and all and she was like but you can look in the back! So I went digging and found 2 leather bound bibles in the back! The only two left all hidden in a  ton of boxes! #miracle

Then I have been trying to get my hands on  a certain copy of Jesus the Christ in English but that's impossible to find here cause nobody speaks English but I decided to ask her and she was like no we only have in Portuguese and then like 5 minutes later she walks out of the back and was like you are not gonna believe what I found! Salt Lake randomly sent us a box with one english hymn book, one English book of Mormon and one English copy of JESUS THE CHRIST and i was like whattttttttttttttttttttt and then she was like the only problem is I don't know what the price is so after a long process talking to São Paulo she said I was gonna have to come back another day and I was like but we aren't allowed to we only come once every 6 months then out of nowhere she got a message from São Paulo telling her the price literally right as we were leaving! #miracles

As we were headed to the bus I realized I didn't have money to get the bus and was like frick. We walked to the bus station and I didn't know what to do and when I put my hand in my suit coat I found R$4.25 which is the EXACT bus price which was NUTS or as we like to call it #miracles.

Life here is literally the best

Tomorrow, Mark basset the area 70 is gonna be here and we have a meeting with him and all the zone leaders and on Friday we have a zone conference with him which  will be way lit and I am so excited!!!

I love the mission and I know the Lord is willing to bless all those that will keep his commandments and show faith in him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love you all!!

some of my favs

this owl just being a straight up savage 

the gang at the temple

March 26th, 2018

Hey everyone! 

SO this was a week with lots of rain and even more roasting in the sun! 

100% of the time we are sweating or getting rained on and on a really good day both!

This week was lit as always cause I'm in Araucária!

The biggest news is that this week we had Cristianes baptism! 

She asked president to baptize her so he came out for her baptism and there were tons of people there which was way fun! 

Today I had to go to the Policia Federal to get some documents that I will need to head home which is absolutely CRAZY to think that I am coming up on the end of the mish.

The mish has changed my life more than I ever thought was possible! 

It has been a year and 8 months full of craziness and funny moments all day every day! 

We are working on finding a new teaching group which has been a little bit tough but we are praying hard and working harder to find new people

I really don't have too many interesting stories.

Desculpa galera 

Life here is good and I am loving every second of it!! 

We had a family night at Andrés house on Monday night which was way fun and we have lots planned for this week

this last week we had our Easter conference which was way sick.

Elder Nydegger, Eddington and I did some sick training using some good old football to get the gang all excited 

Then after our Prez taught some way sick stuff about how we can be better missionaries and follow the example of Christ.

He walked us through Christs last week before being crucified and it was a really spiritual conference!

I love the church and I love all you!! 

pics

there were like 50 cameras so that ended up in a lot of pics with nobody looking at the same camera 

noite familiar 

March 19th, 2018

Hey everyone! 

So this week was way fun cause im still here in Araucária and I freaking love this city with my whole heart!

We had Ubirajara´s baptism this week which was way cool. His wife was baptized in another ward and he got baptized this week.

We had a ward activity on Sunday night that was a devotional to help the missionary work out. Our guest speakers car broke on the way and he wasn't able to go so Elder Eddingoton and I just had to wing it and it ended up working out a little hahah but definitely have had better! 

Not too many updates this week because we did lots of organizing with the new missionaries that got here this week but I'll have more stories next week!!! love you all!!!

March 12th, 2018

	Mar 12

Hey everyone!!!

So time is flying and we got the much anticipated transfer call last night late! 

Anddddd I am gonna stay one more in Araucária!!! I will end up staying here for about 8 months by the end of this transfer which is nuts but I couldn't be happier!!!!

Sad news is that out of nowhere, Elder Garlick who has less time then me in the area got transferred to my old stomping grounds in Ala 5.

Needless to say that last night was pretty tough and there were lots of tears shed between the missionaries and the members and all but I know the Lord has a plan and that he is at the head of this work!!! 

This week we had Andres baptism!!!!!! It was so fun to see his whole conversion even though it took longer than we thought it would....

I have never had such a close relationship with an investigator as I am having here in Araucária. It really has been a huge blessing here and has changed my life being here.

Other big news is that because of all of the success, President talked to us last week about the idea of bringing another companionship to this ward so now we have 8 MISSIONARIES in the same ward. There isn't a single ward in the mission that has even 6 missionaries and we have 8!!! We have lots of activities planned and it's for sure gonna be another great transfer here in Araucária!!!!!!!!!! 

 Love this work and I love you all!!!!!!

March 5th, 2018

Hey everyone! So this week was great!

SO we have two baptisms marked for this Saturday that are both referrals from the stake presidents family! 

Cris and André. André is the guy we play basketball with. He has his answer he just needs to recognize it and make the decision but this week he said he's gonna make his decision! 

Cris is firme! She is way awesome and has made lots of changes in her life! 

Yesterday we didn't have a whole lot of people in church because there has been some insane flooding going on here recently! 

A lot of houses are getting damaged and it's been pretty nuts! 

Miracle alert: so here in Brazil it's a law that all 18 year old boys have to enlist for a year of army but not all are called to serve. André just turned 18 and enlisted but we thought he wasn't gonna get called. He calls us and tells us that they called him to serve so he wasn't gonna be able to be baptized because he has to live in the army quarters for a couple months. We asked if there was any way he could get out but you get sent to jail if you don't serve. So we started praying a lot and fasting tons for something to happen for him to not get in and in the end after already having been in the army for 3 days they sent him out and said they wouldn't be needing him for no reason at all! 

I know the Lord hears our prayers and he blesses us after the trial of our faith!

The good part was that for his "farewell party" we ate lots of pizza

pics! flooding

ballin out in curitiba

February 26, 2018

Yooo what's up everyone! 

So this week was super fun as always! Lots of fun memories made but the best part was definitely that Joel was finally baptized!!! 

It's so cool being a missionary because we can see the first moments of someone getting to know the church. We met Joel one day when Garlick and I were headed to the church. These two kids were biking down the hill and we stopped them to talk to us and 5 weeks later he was baptized! Way cool to see their conversion! 

We also went to the Temple this week with Andre to try and help him to make a decision about baptism! He has his answer but he is having trouble believing that it was his answer! 

We got to go on the day that our ward has assigned to the temple so we saw lots of them there too and had a superrrr spiritual lesson! 

We have been playing tons of basketball  recently!!! 

Life here has been way good! I have lots of pictures so hopefully that's more interesting because I have not much else to say tbh

Love you all!! 

Joels Baptism

more pics to come!!