Monday November 28th, 2016

     Oops I forgot last week that Thanksgiving was this week, but hey better late than never. Hope you all ate a ton!  This week was super super super HOT. and also an amazing week!!!! I can´t believe December starts this week. What happened to November and the last 4 months here?? It is passing faster than I ever would have imagined.

     We are finding new people every day here and all of them are so ready to hear the good news of the gospel! It is really incredible how the Lord places so many amazing miracles in our paths. I know he has a perfect plan for each and everyone of us. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be here, meeting new people everyday and hearing so many stories. It really was a truly humbling week. I know the Lord gives us difficulties because he loves us. It´s the cliché what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but hey it's true! Oh hey!! Everyone stop reading this email really quick, go to mormon.org and watch the new Christmas video: Be the Light of the World!!! and then open facebook or any form of social media and post it!!! ok?! 

Did you like the video? 

Ok now that you did that and are reading this email again, this week was pretty cool. We have 4 dates for baptism and they are all progressing really well. I love them all! Unfortunately, the transfer is ending here in 2 weeks so I don´t know for sure if I will stay here in this area but the Lord provides!! Thanksgiving was super legit (see pics to see how legit)  Other than that this week was a lot of talking and Portuguese! 

The usuaaaall! You all rock! 

November 21st, 2016

     I think the hardest part of the week is thinking of a subject for this email. This week was absolutely super duper incredible!!!! I am not even entirely sure why but life is just really really great right now.

      So yeah we found a lot of new people to teach this week and knocked doors for eternity. I´ll be honest, knocking doors wasn´t always fun and it still isn´t always fun but it is actually pretty neat. I love to talk to people and nothing quite matches the feeling of asking someone a question, them not understanding me and we just both stare waiting for the other to respond. It´s great! Ok but sincerely it is really cool and fun to get to know a little about tons of people.

     Nothing too exicting happened this week. We marked two baptismal dates with these two awesome guys that are loving the gospel! The weather is still really crazy so every day we leave with short sleeve shirts, winter coats, and umbrellas just in case. Kidding but we definitely should because it's cold, hot, and rains every day! Sorry this email isn´t very exciting! You all rock! 

Pics: We learned how to cook this week (sorta)

November 14th, 2016

     WOWEE this week was by far the best week of the mission so far! This work is incredible and I am so happy to be here in this ward in Brazil teaching and learning from these people!!!! 
     Ok so first we had a ward family night in the chapel It was one family´s missionaries homecoming and I was asked to give the message. No big deal right? Yeah well turns out this missionary is a pretty popular dude and there were so many people here. The American that doesn't really speak the same language as everyone else in the room was a little nervous. But the Lord provides and it went really well. ANYWAYS, after the message, this family came up to me and started speaking English and I was way confused and thought maybe I was fluent in Portuguese because I was finally hearing words that made 100% sense in my head! Turns out that wasn´t the case and it really was English but the crazy thing is this family is from Connecticut! What are the odds!? They aren´t members but they used to live here in Curitiba and are visiting here now! Crazy!
      This week was incredible! We found so many new and awesome people this week. We were (almost) never rejected! We found 7 new investigators that are all just really really awesome and have such big desires to learn more and yeah it was super good. We were a little down at the start of this week because one of our baptismal dates fell through and we were having trouble finding people but the Lord really showed us miracles after we showed our faith!
      We had the primary program this Sunday which is always the best! The primary in this ward is super funny and super cool! In other news, there was another hugeeee accident right outside of our house again making that accident number 5 right outside our house.
      The weather is still absolutely crazy. The beginning of the week was about 90-100 degrees and then completely out of nowhere, we got absolutely drenched by rain. You might wonder why we never bring umbrellas with us, and to be quite honest, I wonder the same thing...
      Anyways this week was supppperrrr dupppperrr good and I am way excited for this next week to see how our new investigators progress! You all rock! 

     Funny story of the week: So yesterday I was asked to say a prayer in English. Ok I can do this, only the language that I speak every day of my life. Yeah well turns out I don't know how to speak English or Portuguese now! I started off well and didn´t realize I was speaking in half Portuguese and once I realized I didn´t have it in me to finish in English. Way embarrassing but way funny too.

What the sky usually looks like at 3 pm

 Zone Meeting woo                            

November 7th, 2016

     HEY whats up everyone this week was pretty uneventful soooo this email is going to be among the more boring of emails sorrryyy.

      ANYWAYS this was the first week with my new companion, Elder J. Santos. He rocks and we are teaching the gospel to anyone that wants to hear it and more! We knocked a lot of doors this week, well actually that´s a lie, every house here has fences so you clap and the dogs start barking and the person hears their dog and comes out. It´s like a rube goldberg machine doorbell. So we clapped a lot of doors this week and found a lot of great people.

      We are teaching two families of 4 and they are lovin it! They are progressing super well and I hope that it continues because teaching families rocks! A new group of missionaries arrived here on Tuesday so that´s pretty neat, excited to meet them.

      So our ward building is the stake center and this weekend they had a play about hope and life after death and all that good stuff just your typical ward activity. BUT NO this was not your normal ward activity! We were walking to the chapel and the streets were just packed with cars and people and it was a zoo inside! There were so many members (and non-members too!) and the play was way good and professional status. This ward rocks and I love all the people here. They rock!

      Other than that this week was pretty chilllll. We found a lizard in our house last night cause its hot during the day but cold at night so all the insects and animals like to join us at night lol Everyday is crazy and hilarious and awesome!

     

Love you all! Keep rockin in the U S of A!

Pic: Our new friend

Attachments area

October 31st, 2016

     One more time! One more time! WOW this week was amazing!! So much happened so I am gonna give a little summary of the week first and then I will explain the good stuff a little more.
      But first, Elder França was called as assistant to the president so I am now with Elder J. Santos! Transfers were today so this is our first day as companions, but we are super excited! 
      Ok now the week, So first it only rained on us once this week which is a way big improvement, thank you mother nature. We had the baptism of Thiago which was a super cool experience and he is super happy! 
      We had a zone conference with President Costa who is the the area 70 president in Brazil. We picked up 5 AWESOME new investigators that all accepted baptism on the first lesson so I hope that those will stand strong!      A member brought us to this super super good restaurant and we stuffed our faces. AND to top it all off, the van at the end of our street was selling sausages 2 for 10 reals! ($3) If that doesn´t sound like a good week then I don't know what to tell ya!
      Ok so cool things this week were that we were really struggling to find people to teach. We decided to start contacting people on the side of our area that we hadn´t worked much because it is really far from where we usually work and where all of our recent converts and less actives are. Anyways, we were having a little better success. We found one lady that said she has been praying for help from God to help her stop smoking and such so we taught the Word of Wisdom and she has already cut down a ton on smoking and said we were an answer to her prayers! After that we taught a man who was super excited about the message of the restoration and ´said he wanted to be baptized! AND THEN as we were walking back, it was way hot and we were really thirsty and tired and such but we decided to knock one more door. This house that we passed many times, pretty much every other day, without knocking but decided to this time. It was a family of 4 that were soooo receptive to our message. They scheduled the day for us to come back and are such amazing people. The cool thing is that the dad works every day except for the 4 hour period  that we decided to knock. If we would have passed by any other day nobody would have answered so yeah real life miracles happening every day here! The work is amazing and time is flying! You all rock! 

Baptism of Thiago

Guiherme and Leonardo, two awesome members preparing for missions

The legend: Shampoo 

My favorite tree

October 19th and 24th

 BOOM CRASH!!!!!!    Did I get your attention? But actually the subject means something because this week it did not stop thunder-storming. If I had a dollar for every time it started POURING rain while we were knocking doors this week I would have like 4 or 5 dollars. When it rains it pours here! The other night while walking home but way far away, it started raining really hard but this week has also been super hot and blue skies during the afternoon because summer just started here so naturally we didn't have our umbrellas or any sort of rain prep. We were soaked head to toe in 2 minutes and continued walking for another 15 or so. It is super awesome though because the stories are fun to have.     

      Some guy told me that lightning strikes more in Brazil than any other place on earth. Now I have absolutely no idea if thats true or not but that guy probably isn´t far off! The lightning here is insane! It strikes like every 5 seconds during a storm! Anyways that's the weather woo.

      Other fun things that happened this week are dia dos crianças which is kid day and basically the whole city has the day off work and it's just a huge barbecue and party. The streets we usually proselyte on were closed and filled with trampolines for all the kids.

      We have had some awesome experiences this week with people! So we teach a recent convert in our ward a 16 year old boy named Shampoo. He is super awesome and the other day we showed up to a lesson at his house and he had a friend there so we talked to him about the gospel and such and he said he loves the church and wants to be baptized! We marked a baptism for the end of this month and he is super excited. We are seeing a lot of really cool little miracles every day! Today we went to the temple here in Curitiba and it was awesome! It is a super pretty temple and the tropical plants and such are super cool!

      Other than that I don´t have a bunch to say this week! The church is true! The food is amazing! Life rocks! 

3 Attachments

     HEY! Time is flying here because I feel like the last time I emailed was earlier today! Every day we wake up, talk to people for what feels like 20 minutes and then its already 9pm! It's only been 4 days since I emailed last this email isn´t going to be very long or exciting. The good news of the gospel just wasn´t selling like hot cakes this week. A week full of rejection after rejection after rejection and not much progress with the people we are teaching.

      We have (hopefully) two baptisms this week for two awesome investigators. Thiago (15 year old boy) is super excited about the church and last Sunday when we set our clocks back an hour for summer here. He woke up all his friends 2 hours before church started cause he forgot to set his clock back! We thought it was pretty funny but I don´t think his friends did lol He´s awesome!

      The coolest story of this week was on Saturday. Our ward had an activity at 4 pm and we were knocking doors and having no success all day. At around  3:50 we decided to go check out the chapel to see if there were any possible missionary opportunities. Right as we turned and started walking, a woman came running and screaming "I want a Book of Mormon!!!" We talked to her and it turns out she was baptized about 15 years ago and has just been too nervous to return but wants to start. We were like woah when does that happen BUT WAIT!  As we finished talking to her, a man pulled over in a truck and honked at us and said "I want to talk to you guys!" He was super interested in the church and came to the activity with us. He apparently had a bunch of Mormon friends growing up! Those are the things that makes the work worth it!

     

Another cool story of the week is we found a place that sells ice cream this week right by our house! First, understand that ice cream is really expensive for a missionary budget here so finding any at all for way cheap made for happy missionaries. Life is good here! The days are flying! It is really hot and sometimes really cold and also usually raining so everyday is a surprise! You all rock! 

October 10th, 2016

      This week was absolutely wild and next week is going to be too!
      So I think I found the only place where the weather changes more frequently than it does in New England. This week started off in my winter coat. Freezing and super windy all day but we were sweating the next day in short sleeve shirts. AND THEN we had the biggest rain storm I have ever seen in my lifeeeeee. It was nuts. So the houses here are all cement walls and share a wall so our little driveway had about 4 inches of water in like 30 minutes of rain. We were at lunch and it was sunny but we were absolutely soaked on the way home/all day. It was hailing like no other too! Just outside of where we were they got like 3 inches of hail so basically snow. Everyone was showing us pictures of the madness cause they never get snow or anything this crazy so it was a huge deal. 

     Anyways this week was amazing! We got rejected more times than I could keep count! Awesome right? YES it actually was because every night ended in crazy miracles that made everything ok and we definitely saw the hands of the Lord in our work everyday. After 4 appointments that fell through that NEVER fall through we were walking, wondering what to do when we randomly ran into a recent convert on the sidewalk. He invited us in and we got to have an awesome lesson with his family who are not members and now have frequent lessons with them! THEN the next night the same exact thing happened with a different recent convert. It was awesome! THEN the coolest story of the week. We were doing our thing; walking, knocking, talking. The usual. We found this one family where the mom was suppper sick and and could hardly walk. She was super struggling but allowed us to come in. She talked about some difficulties and we had an awesome lesson and ended in giving her a priesthood blessing. We set up an appointment for the next day. We returned the next day and nobody was home so we were a little sad and started to walk away when suddenly she comes running down the street from the market with hands full of groceries! She who could hardly walk less than 24 hours before. Priesthood power is real!!!!

      Ok and the funny story of the week happened like 10 minutes ago. Today we had a zone activity and played lots of games, basketball, fun things wooo. So first, the buses here are craziness. Always packed and the roads are filled with potholes but, the buses just fly, and everyone inside just bounce all over the place. It's the best cause it's so funny. But anyways I just so happened to be the last one on the bus this time and I kid you not there was no room for me on this bus anywhere but I had to be on it cause all the other missionaries were. I was half way on and the door closes and the bus just peels out. Meanwhile I am like halfway out of the bus with the doors trying to close on me and I have a bunch of things in my hands from zone conference. I am trying to push on the bus but there is literally no where I could fit. I am just dying of laughter cause when does this happen? I finally got in and am just smashed up against the wall. We get to our stop, the doors open and this bus is spring-loaded and just shot me out lol man the funniest things happen here everyday! I love Curitiba! I love being here and hope life in the states was as good for all of you as this week was for me! Life is crazy but it rocks! You all rock! wooo go everyone!!!! BYE (oh next week i will email on Wednesday cause we are going to the temple!) 

 After the giant rain storm!

ZONE PARTY wooooo