January16th, 2017

Wooweee..... what a great week! SO yeah we really killed it this week just trying to get out there and talk with EVERYONE! So this week we had the new missionary meeting for Elder Araújo basically where we meet up again 4 weeks after arriving in the mission and talk about how everything is going so that was fun to see some missionaries that we don´t get to see very often..... ONE OF THEM BEING: ELDER RAFAEL!!  It was way good to see him. He is now working way in the interior of the mission and seeing those missionaries is pretty rare so that was a super great surprise! The meeting was way good and I definitely learned a lot about planning this week. I don't think I have ever planned a day in my entire life so that was definitely something new I had to learn in the mish! But after a while I was seeing that we were making the same goals every day until ONE DAY I was reading in Preach my Gospel that says we need to make goals according to the desires of our heart and not what we think is going to happen so Elder Araújo and I started cranking out some hefty goals and praying lots and we really saw this week that the Lord prepares the way when we put all of our effort and show our faith! 

This week was an awesome week for our investigator! He´s living the word of wisdom and loving it 

We are helping him with his wedding that's coming up soon and he is super excited for baptism! He loves going to church. We have sacrament meeting the last hour of church and we said the final prayer after the 3 hours and he looks at us and goes "its over already!?" And after was asking to go on a tour of the chapel and all! The guy rocks and I am loving working with him! 

This is the last week of the transfer so I we will see next email if I will finish training Elder Araújo here in Vila Aurora or if one of us will be transferred! Lovin life! 

Hope you all watch the packers and falcons game for me cause i know they'll kill it! 

I love you all! have a stellar week! 

Pics:

Strict diet of spaghetti and orange juice

Elder Rafael feat. Elder J. Santos feat. my tie that Elder J. Santos stole (just kidding)

January 9th, 2017

WOWEE if i had a word to describe this week it would be... WATER! Cause the rain really never stops here so lets take a recount of how many times it rained this week: every day... I don´t think I have ever seen a worse thunderstorm in my life than I witnessed last monday after we sent email. It was pooouuuurrrrinnnngg literally all day. The problem is our house is sealed in by concrete so the water just builds up until someone forgets to lock the door, the wind blows it open, and water just starts flooding into our house. But no worries, it's all dry now. I think we walked completely drenched this week more than we walked dry.

I had splits with Elder Graças this week. His area is outside of the city and super pretty.

So yeah now with the teaching. We are finding some awesome people and families that are loving all the restored gospel has to offer! One of our awesome investigatorsis progressing super super well. He was drinking about 2 liters of coffee every day when we first found him and smoking at least a pack a day. We told him about all the blessings that will come if he stops and he told us that he was never going to smoke or drink coffee again. We trusted but stopping isn´t super easy. Turns out what he says goes and after that conversation he is completely living the word of wisdom! But wait miracle alert: so he is a site developer but has been working with other things because his site business hadn´t had a single customer for over a year. ONE DAY after he stopped smoking and all, he has had clients calling all day long. Not a single client called in over a year and miraculously now he has appointments every day. The gospel is good! God is always waiting to bless us we just need to do our part! I love you all!!

Pics: The first 10 minutes of the rain

Splits

January 2nd, 2017

     HEY hope you are all killing your goals so far in this new year! This week was tough but we are just out here trying to give it our all! Everyone is travelling so contacting and teaching was definitely a lot harder this week because nobody is home.

      So new years eve here is absolutely nuts. I have never seen more fireworks in my entire life. Everywhere around here sells fireworks, not your dinky little fireworks, these bad boys are professional Boston fireworks deal and EVERYBODY has them. All day long they were going off one here and there, but I thought a war started here at midnight!  Literally everybody in town just in the streets, in our driveway, on the roofs lighting off these fireworks. Good luck trying to sleep through that. In 5 minutes the town was just filled with smoke and it was just bombs going off forever right above our heads, in front of our house, EVERY WHERE. It was definitely super sweet! But anyways yesterday was definitely the craziest day of the year!!!! (lol) but actually I think that will hold through for a good amount of time.

      If I had a dollar for the number of times that I knocked a door and was let in to the house without explaining who we are I would have two dollars. I know it's not a lot but weird that it happened twice right? So yeah I don't know what the deal was but yesterday we are just doing the usual, knocking doors, and we knock this one door and this family lets us in without us even introducing ourselves, we sit down and she says so who are you guys? Hahaha hey I´m not complaining cause it was an awesome lesson and we found two great families because the same thing happened in the next house we knocked. It was a tough week for our investigators because everyone was travelling  and partying it up but things should calm down a little bit.

      It´s definitely summer. Christmas and new years was a cool 105 degrees so that was super fun! The Christmas tradition here is to eat a lot this sweet bread called panettone and needless to say I am panettone-ed out! We ate a whole ton of food and life is just rocking like always here! Hope you all have a super good week! 

 

Elder J. Santos soakin up some sun! (jk rain)

What I imagine lehis vision must have looked like

Panettone for life

December 26th, 2016

     Hey everyone!!! I hope you all had a killer Christmas and ate a lot of Christmas food cause that's always the best!

      Just another killer week here in the big  B R A Z I L soo yeah Christmas here is just a little bit different and by a little bit I mean completely the opposite  sooo all of the celebration goes down on Christmas eve night until like 5 in the morning on Christmas eve. A whole ton of people shooting off fire works in the middle of the streets and lots of people that rent out huge speakers and trampolines and just kids and families partying all night long and then everyone just sleeps basically all day on Christmas.

      The work was definitely a little bit harder this week cause everyone is traveling and nobody wanted to let us in and it was blastingly hot all week. I can now say i have lived a Christmas over 100 degrees. This week we also had the Christmas conference with all the missionaries which was pretty lit. We played some basketball and ping pong at the mission home and then ate a super super big Christmas lunch that was spectacular. But wait there's more! President, as always, gave a killer conference about the work here in Curitiba and now we are all just super hyped to spread the good news of the gospel!!!

      Christmas day here was pretty normal minus it being super duper hot. Definitely will be a little sad to see all the Christmas festivities going away like the Santa that gets towed around in an old fishing boat throwing candy all around town or my bff Santa that sits outside his house singing and playing the accordion all day long. you know, the good stuff!

       The man, the myth, the legend

Our friend came back!

I hope you all had an awesome Christmas with fam and food and lots of thinking about Christ because he's the reason for the season! You all rock!!! 

December 19th, 2016

     HEYYY sooooo this week was super great! I bet you´re all dying to know who my new companion is!! His name is Elder Araújo and he rocks. We are just really trying to kill it from day one so everyday talking with everyone and teaching in every opportunity! It was definitely a super great week and I am excited to see what´s gonna happen in this area!

      We had the ward Christmas party this week which is more like our ward fourth of July party. It was like 80 degrees and we grilled steaks and ate potato salad. The best ward Christmas party ever! I´m kinda loving this whole Christmas in July thing.

      As always, we had a couple huge thunder storms this week but these were crazier than ever. So yesterday we were just walking in the street, sharing the good news of the gospel when it just started to pourrrrrrr. We were drenched in seconds but at this point not really much you can do so we just kept walking. Lightening is striking everywhere and super close when the thunder and lightening come in the same second. All of the sudden there was a huge lightening strike that struck way close to us (probably not that close) but was super bright and loud and scared the living daylight out of me. But no need to fear, someone saw us in the street getting drenched and screamed "enter! enter!" so we ran over to his house and this guy let us in and we talked about who we are and taught him about the plan of salvation and it was super cool! Funny how often we are put in the perfect place at the right time every day!

      I can´t believe that its almost Christmas but also that here in a little I will have 5 months here in the mission! What happened to the time! That´s crazy!!! It is passing soooooo fast! Cherishing every day here and just loving the work. I love this ward! I love this city and I love Brazil! Hope you all have a super awesome Christmas! 

Pic: Our new filhos. Elder Araújo and Elder Quaresma!!

December 12th, 2016

     HEY sooooo I bet you all have a whole seat but you´re only using the edge of it because you´re all so anxious to know what happened this transfer! SO here it is: I have no idea yet! haha sorry but the whole transfer hasn´t been released yet. The only thing I know is that I am going to train a new missionary. A group of new missionaries will arrive here tomorrow and I´ll find my new companion! Definitely a little sad cause my buds Elder Rafael and Elder Pinheiro were transferred to the other side of the mission. It´ll definitely be weird not having them in the house because I have been with them since I arrived here! I think the idea is I will stay in Vila Aurora but don´t know for sure yet. My companion Elder J. Santos is going to train as well so we are headed to the mission home later today to find out about what´s going to happen! Also love Elder J. Santos but I think we will stay in the same house so it´s not too big of a change there.

     

      BUT anyways this week was jam packed! First and foremost we had the baptism of Roberto! Now that I think of it I am not sure if I ever mentioned Roberto in an email. We met him 2 weeks ago and last p-day the baptism wasn´t 100% yet so I think I forgot to mention him but anyways he´s 27 years old, super happy and now a member! I´ll include some photos of him. The baptism was super good and he asked to share his testimony at his own baptism. It was super cool and he is progressing super well! We finished off the transfer with a bang!

      Teaching a whole ton and reactivating some less-actives that I have been working with since I arrived here which is so awesome to see them enjoying the blessings of the gospel! This Sunday we had a transmission of Elder Holland for all of Brazil! We heard from some members of the seventy and other leaders of the church! It was super legit and last night there was a Christmas activity in the stake and it was super cool cause woo Christmas spirit! 

     

Funny story of the week: So The other day I was on splits with another Elder, Elder Araujo. We were knocking doors and such and we knocked this one door that had a gate half way open and there is this dog super super mad there. This dog was not just barking angrily, this dog wanted to kill us but all is well cause the dog is chained to the house. Jokes on us! We took one step to leave cause nobody showed up and this dog is just going mad. All of a sudden the chain BREAKS and this dog just starts sprinting after us. I tried to close the gate but it was broken so we just started sprinting down the street and this dog running after this. Luckily there are a lot of dogs in the street so this dog started fighting with other dogs and forgot about us. We made it out alive but just barely! 

Anyways this week was awesome and filled with lots of laughs! Hope you all had an awesome week!

Pics: Elder Rafael´s dinner  (just bread, he didn´t eat the peanut butter) 

Before and after pics with Roberto 

December 5th, 2016

Hey everyone! Hope you all had a spectacular week and learned something new every day and are remembering to always wear a seat belt!
      Anyways I am gonna be super sincere and say that this week was definitely one of those weeks in the second half of the sentence they talk about when people say "sometimes you´ll have good weeks and sometimes you'll have bad weeks". People just weren´t jumping after the good news of the gospel like they usually do this week but not just that. This was a week with helping and dealing with lots of struggles which is always great and such but after a week of hearing sad stories and lots of mishaps, it starts to get a a little tough.
       But hey lets start with the highlights of the week cause its December 5th which means only 20 days till Christmas!!! Woooo yay santa!!! So the Christmas life is starting to pick up a little around here but a lot of people don´t celebrate and those that do don´t decorate much plus it's really hot so the Christmas spirit  is having a tough time breaking out this year. I think I could really get used to this whole 80 degrees on Christmas deal! The time is passing so crazy fast.  It's already almost 2017 so that's crazy!
      I don't really have anything crazy exciting or new to say. Sorry these emails are super boring. We are doing a lot of teaching and the weather is crazy as usual. The transfer ends this Sunday so who knows where I´ll be next week but I am super excited for whatever is gonna happen! I am loving the time and work here! The church is true and I hope you all shared the Christmas video on facebook, insta, twitter, snapchat, myspace, and whatever other social media people use! The gospel is true and I have absolutely no doubt about it!!!! Love you all!!!