Agua Verde Semana 14

Temple. Baptism. #goodweek

Happy to report that the baptism of Josenildo last saturday went all well. We were praying to know which member would be right to share their testimony to help Terezinha, (the wife of Josenildo)... and *ding* Sister Edna Mourão popped into mind. So we called her up and she accepted. Terezinha was glued to every word that Irmã Edna was saying. That´s when you know that you aligned your plan to the Lord´s. So we´ll see how she´s doing this week and help her to make her decision as well.

As I write, the font is filling up again for Elizabeth, the 8 year old daughter of our "recem-ativo"... (less-active, turned recently-active). She is super excited for the baptism. Her uncle was going to perform the baptism, until she got scared that he´d drop her like he did with their neighbor last year :) But I think all will go well.

Our teaching pool got a little stagnant with all of our focus on the people closest to baptism (and we lost a bit of time organizing the visit with the Federal Police that will happen on Friday... and it´ll be the first time that we don´t have a Police agent who is a member to help us out on the inside [insert://pleaforextraprayers] so we´re sweating a little even though we´ve got A/C in the office). This coming week = study and application of chapter 9! We´re going for at least 15 lessons with members and as many GOOD referrals as possible.

This morning we went to the temple. What a blessing to have a temple in Curitiba. It is so wonderful to go in and have the temple President say, "well, I dunno if there´s gonna be space for you, cause 2 stakes from Santa Caterina rented charter buses to take all of their recent converts and youth to the temple."  That´s when you know that the church is really growing!

I made chocolate chip cookies for the baptism last week and that was like opening "uma lata de minhoca..." Now the whole Relief Society is asking for the recipe (and for mom to send more chocolate chips)!

That´s all we´ve got for this week. Next week, Elder House vs. Federal Police and photos of Elizebeth in white :)

Love,

Elder House

Agua Verede Semana 13

I think it´s the 13th week here... I lost count :)

Today we will have the baptism of Josenildo de Souza Sr... who will be baptized by Josenildo de Souza Jr! One of the members in our ward is the CES director for Curitiba and for 30 some odd number of years has been waiting for this day to come. His parents are from Pernambuco and they came down to visit for a few months. That was all that Josenildo and the missionaries needed to finish the work that the Lord has been doing on the hearts of his parents. Vai ser bem legal!

It has been raining like crazy!! The favela turned into a swamp. Thank goodness for those timberland boots. When they die, I dunno what I´m gonna do.

This week was wonderful to have a zone conference all about chapter 8. I´ve been on my little soap box about planning sessions and key-indicators since my first area and everyone just rolled their eyes... until President and the Assistants gave an amazing training about the importance of following Preach My Gospel in every way possible. I learned so much and am way happy that my companions are catching the spirit of PMG!

I think I´m gonna move to Brazil to open a little cookie shop... cause when you make chocolate chip cookies (thanks Mom for sending the stuff!) todo mundo fica loco! My companion from Goias wanted to try making cookies without any help, so I let him try. They turned out pretty good but when he took them out of the oven the pan slipped out of his hand #cookiepancakes.

Love,

Semana Crazy

So there´ve been some pretty awesome thunderstorms here that knocked out the internet on our Preparation day... so President let us have a couple minutes today to send a quick email to let y´all know we´re still alive... you wouldn´t belive how many times I´ve had to answer the phone "oh is my missionary alright?! he/she didn´t send an email and I didn´t know if something had happened or etc..." That´s probably why the 1st presidency put a rule that you have to write an email to your family every week :)

Alive. Happy. Baptismal photos to come!

-Elder House

Christmas Conference Pictures

Agua Verde Semana 11ish

And a happy new year!

Preparation day is new year´s because there´s nobody in the city... Brasileiro só quer saber de praia!

We were very happy with the baptism and confirmation of Celeste. And everyone has already made all of the "you know what kingdom he´s going to!" jokes...

Christmas was great. We had our little christmas miracle.

     So Brother Bernardo invited us to have a christmas supper at his house. Cool. "Can we bring someone who we´re teaching?" "Of course!" So we started thinking about who to invite. Angelina... at the beach. José... visiting family in another state. Luciano... has relatives visiting. So we started going through the telefone looking at the names of our investigators and ex-investigators when we saw the name Noemi (no-em-EE). She had been avoiding us and we had dropped her from our teaching pool, but we felt that we needed to invite her. "Merry Christmas Noemi! How is your week going?" "I don´t think this Christmas is going to be very merry..." She then began to tell about how the month was going. Son has cancer, daughter needs kidney transplant, husband left her to live with another woman... and stole everything from their apartment, lost her job, oldest son ran away to join the army... So when we called her up to invite to a Christmas dinner she couldn´t refuse such an obvious answer to her prayers. There she was received with open arms and got all the hugs and kisses that she needed that we as missionaries couldn´t give. That´s how work with the members needs to be. I can teach. I can testify. I can give blessings and promise that more will follow obedience. But I can´t invite someone to my home to have dinner and feel the spirit with my family and feel the love of the Savior in a Christ centered home.

We are gearing up for another mission transfer and things in the mission office are crazy (as usual). We´ll be receiving 21 new missionaries! More than double the number that any other Brazilian mission will receive this coming week. So everyone will train...

New Year´s eve was crazy with tons of fireworks. We didn´t even enter our area yesterday because of potential danger. Every new year´s eve, the gangs go crazy in the favela try to kill as many of their rivals as possible in the three hour span where the thousands of fireworks overwhelm any sounds of gunshot... I don´t know if the nametag is bulletproof but I didn´t want to try my luck.

I know that the Lord lives. I know that this is His work. I know that He does His own work in His own time... and the that when we align our will to His things go better. Because He knows the path much better that I do.

Love,

Elder House

Agua Verde Semana 9 , 10

Isn´t the gospel great?

Today we had the opportunity to teach on the temple grounds. In the middle of Paraná there´s a little city called `São Mateus do Sul` but the Church has yet to get there... From that city, a young woman named Fabiola moved to Rio de Janeiro and became familiar with the church, got a testimony of the Book of Mormon, was quickly baptized and a few years later began dating a returned missionary. A few weeks ago, the office received a call from her, explaining that she would be taking all of her family to the temple in a big van, and she wanted the missionaries to teach these relatives who had never heard about the church... on the temple grounds! I didn´t know anything about this plan, until 6:30 this morning when I got a call from a number with the Rio area code asking if the plan was confirmed! I called President right away and asked him who had agreed to/been assigned to teach this family. He didn´t know anything about it either, but liked the idea and sent me and my companion! So we got a taxi right away and went armed with a bunch of copies of O Livro de Mormon, and Joy to the World DVDs. Needless to say it was very neat. The Spirit testified to the simple truths of the Restoration in the garden of His house. Casa do Senhor - Santidade ao Senhor.

This was the second time that we taught at the temple this week. The other time, we took Celeste to the garden (he works on "the ranch" which is what he calls the little gardens that he cares for in the middle of the city, and he absolutely loves plants). He got all emotional as Brother Darlo told him about the temple and the joy we can receive entering the Casa do Senhor.

In other news, I´ve been running around like a chicken sem cabeça trying to gather up a Mission History to send off to the Church History Museum (I didn´t know that every stake, ward, mission, etc. has an annual history that is stored in SLC! But now I know, and I´m figuring out how to make one :)  ).

Looks like Christmas, is gonna be hot again. How odd, neh? But Curitiba weather is kinda like Oregon weather... you can get rain, sun, wind, fog, hail, drizzle, all within the same hour.

We´re still teaching away, and singing for everyone. The idea of caroling is absolutely foreign to Brazilians, and they get a kick out of it. If I were mission president one day, I think I would put musical street contacts as a key indicator!

Merry Christmas,

Não se esqueça o aniversariante!

Love,

Elder House

Agua Verde Semana 8

Well I survived my first trip (yesterday) to the Federal Police office to register the new Americans and declare change of address for those who were in São Paulo. It is pretty crazy to know that having one number or letter incorrect on one of the 8 processes for each missionary, could potentially mean that someone has to go home, or having to pay fines between R$50,00-R$ 800,00 to fix the documentation. So having a member on the inside, and a box of chocolates for the grumpy PF Officers helps a bunch.

Today we went to the temple... It´s been almost exactly one year since the last time I went, so it was great to worship and learn in the temple of the Lord. The garden around the temple is immaculately groomed and pruned and cared for... including the mighty Araucária trees (a type of tree that only exists in this part of Brasil, but I swear that I´ve seen before in Dr. Seus books). We took some great pictures on my companion´s camera, but on the bus back to the mission office, he accidentally deleted ALL of his photos #nordestino

We are anxiously preparing for the baptisms of two older gentlemen, Celeste and Jorge. Celeste is a wonderful little man who is famous for saying, "the only thing I didn´t learn in school was how to be mean." Jorge is the father of one of our Recent Converts, Luiza who has been praying and fasting that she can bring her parents into the church... Jorge already knew several members, but no one ever thought that he would one day enter the church... no one except Luiza, that is. She´s also starting to reach out to many of her friends, and always calling us with references and marking visits for us. If we could just call this 15 year old young woman to be our Ward Mission Leader, I think that the vision of the Apostles in that broadcast would be easily fulfilled! 

Natal struck Curitiba. Everything is all Christmas-ed out with little Papai Noel figurines in all the stores, and lights adorning many of the apartment buildings. We are now using the Joy to the World movie to enter more homes and teach about why Christ is so important that we celebrate his birth. This movie is amazing to me, because it uses the accounts of the birth of Christ as it had been prophesied in every corner of the world in every dispensation! His birth is reason to rejoice

I love being a full time missionary. I´ll love being a missionary for all my life.

Elder House