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

Agua Verde Semana 5 , 6 , 7

Que fubeca... neh?

This week marks the beggining of transfer 2 in the mission office... woohoo!

Elder Rocha is off to train and divide an area, so he was all giddy this week. Unfortunately, he started think about the new area a bit too soon and kinda gave up on our area :(

So now I´m the full-fledged mission secretary, (but the computer still isn´t recognizing me... which is a bit annoying cause we need to go to the Federal Police office this friday to register the new gringos that arrived.)

Our area is a bit interesting, because it takes in one of the richest neighborhoods, as well as the poorest. So our teaching abilities have to be well rounded to teach all types of people. Yesterday we met a man from Spain who is the head chef in the fanciest hotel in Curitiba. We told him that we´re gonna pass by to leave a Book of Mormon with him in spanish, or english, or italian, or french, or portuguese, or what ever language that he´d prefer. (Here in two weeks we´ll even have copies in Creole to teach the Hatian refugees).

Our investigators are having a bunch of problems with their marriages, divorces, or separations... depending on the situation. Geraldino wants to separate, but the woman won´t leave the house; Gisele wanted to separate, now wants to marry, and is lacking money; Ruth is waiting on the judge to finalize her divorce; and Kelly is trying to convince Fabio that it is time to marry... This is serious motivation for me to:  date -> court -> marry -> continue dating ;) (with my wife of course).  Speaking of dating after marriage, being close to the mission president is very neat. The other day, he was leaving the misison office at about 4:00 in the afternoon (very early for him) and he told us that he and Sister Fernandes were going on a date... and made it abundantly clear that she was the only Sister in the mission who could go on dates. Este Presidente é uma figura.

This week was Thanksgiving right? Well we ate rice and beans and pressure cooked meat and pickled onions. Halloween is catching on a bit down here, but `Dia de ação de graças` still doesn´t have much representation. I had a dream about that cranberry salsa on cream cheese with wheat thins that mom makes. Yup, I had a moment of trunkeza while I was sleeping.

This year I am thankful for the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon is a magnificent present that the Lord has given us. It contains the sacred writing of ancient prophets who lived in a place very far away from the prophets of Israel. This record was written and preserved for us, and I am thankful for the generations of ancient prophets who wrote what the Lord told them, which would be to our benefit today. I am thankful for the spiritual strength that we recieve daily as we study the words contained therein, and appy the simple doctrines we learn. I am thankful for the Book of Mormon as a testimony to the divine call that it´s translator recieved, and for Joseph having prayed in a grove. I am thankful that I can live in a time when the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ is being preached in every corner of the earth.

-Elder House

Agua Verde Semana 4

This was a wonderful week full of progress.

We have lots and lots and lots of people to teach... so now the difficulty is knowing who the Lord needs us to visit most. But we made headway with Rute and José (eternal investigators) with the documentation needed for them to divorce with their ex-spouses so they can marry with each other, the only part frustrating is that a distant relative who is a member turned Macumbeira (which is the name for a person who participates in a rather unpleasant African chicken sacrificing religion with ties to Voodoo) showed up this week to spend time in their house and now it is very hard to help them feel the Spirit in their own home... solution? Take them to member´s homes!

It is because of odd religions like this that Halloween hasn´t really caught on too well in Brazil. Some of the Evangelical churches got all up in arms when they heard that we were hosting a Halloween activity for the youth, but all of their kids wanted to go... 10 points for the Halloween party :)

Being in a ward with many of the oldest members in the city is very interesting because you learn much about how the church has grown in the city. There are about 45,000 members in the city, and less than 70 years ago there were 0. That´s a lot of people in one lifetime.

Today I think we´re gonna go sing and play the organ in a really old catholic church close to the mission office. We were thinking about what we could do today, and this slightly odd but rather attractive idea came to mind... `go sing in that church!` So after lunch we´re gonna go get our Gregorian chant on. :)

Love you,

Elder House

Agua Verde Semana 3

Bom Dia dos Mortos!

(or Dia de los Muertos like they call it in all the spanish speaking communites)

Just to clear up any misunderstanding, Dia dos Mortos has NOTHING to do with Halloween. It´s basically Memorial day on steroids.

Today we had an incredible experience... yeah, it´s p-day, but when you´re in the mission office, if there´s work to be done, we do it. So... in the largest cemetery in Curitiba and the little public square outside, we showed up with about 5000 liahona magazines, 400 Livro de Mormon, 300 Restoration pamphlets, 800 Plan of Salvation pamphlets, 2000 pass-along cards, 600 DVD´s, and a few of these same materials in English. So we show up in the spot that the city gave us to put up a little tent and it´s right in front of the HUGE Catholic church that was setting up to have Mass... but there are SO many people that go to Mass on November 2nd, that they hold it outdoors concert style with a big bandstand that the city sets up for them. If  you´ve never been to Brasil you really can´t understand what the Catholic church is here... In the US (and everywhere else in the world) the services seem to be very ceremonial and reverent, but here, they are a big concert... lights, smoke, special effects, all of the Padres have professional showman training, instead of reading the passages of scripture and what not to a calm music, you need to imagine full out Lady Gaga rock band set up complete with electric guitar, saxaphone solo, and drumset... and the city put us in the middle of where all of the people would stand to watch :). It was pretty awesome. Two zones of missionaries running around giving people church material, mixed in with the little ladies in yellow jackets giving out the little ´Santa Seia` wafers being accompanied by dudes holding umbrellas (no it wasn´t raining, I think it was just to indicate where they were at), and everyone coming up to ask us about the church and the Book of Mormon, and how they could get a copy. During the week, I designed a few banners to be put up in front of our stand that a brother from the ward sent to be printed (really fancy!), and everyone wanted to know about what the pictures meant, giving us chances to talk about genealogy, eternal families, temples, the Atonement, etc. Our little tent was being swarmed by people wanting to know more and the missionaries frantically scribbling down addresses and giving out material. Elder Rocha and I grabbed a bunch of material and starting walking around all of the grave sites (grave sites here are super nifty... they are usually about 10ft. tall with several members of the family put into these vertically stacking coffin boxes, usually have a little space on the base to put candles, a little box on top to put live flowers, a little glass case to put pictures of the deceased and figurines of `Nossa Senhora da Aparecida`) talking to people about the Plan of Salvation and helping people cope with the loss of their loved ones. Almost everyone we talked to has friends who are members of the church and were very receptive. The Japanese weren´t too friendly with us (until we found a Liahona with the front page being a cute little picture of an Asian-ish father teaching his daughter... they liked that one :)  ). Today we Hastened. Our mission literally ran out of materials with one huge activity. We showed up at 6:00h with a mountain of materials thinking that it would never run out, and before noon it was ALL gone. We returned to the mission office with a few Liahona in English, and a half pack of pass-along cards.

Next year we are gonna do this in EVERY cemetery in the mission. That´s how we do it in Curitiba South.

Pictures will come soon :)

Love,

Elder House

Agua Verde Semana 2

Working like dogs (who know how to use excel).

President Fernandes decided that we had lots of projects to complete, so he changed the P-day of the secretaries to Saturday to more effectively utilize the business hours of the week. So I´m not being a ´fubeca´ the correct day for me to send email will be Saturday, at least for the next few months.

The mission office is a crazy place. Every night we plan what we will need to get done in the next day... then we get here in the morning and President has a big ol list of emergencies that need to be resolved immediately (in addition to the things we needed to do anyways... we almost need another secretary just to handle the emergencies). So we buckle down and start working and go go go until 5:00pm when president kicks our ´bundas´ out the door to start proselyting. But really, we get more done in those 4 hours than anyone else in the mission (Zone Leaders, Assistants, you name it, we beat em :)   ). It is a great blessing to be companions with Elder Rocha again. We didn´t end our other transfer very well together, which was something I always wanted a chance to change. Now we´re doing that, and then some.

We work in a little part of Curitiba called `Parolin` which is really sketch. I´ll be sure to write down all of the experiences that we´ve had in less than two weeks, and i´ll share them after the mission. It´s not too hard to pull someone out of the ´favela´ but literally, only the Lord can pull the ´favela´ out of them. We are teaching people who have been fighting with sin for all their lives, and only now are they being able to win.

This ward is crazy good. It is chock full of ex-bishops, ex-stake presidents, ex-mission presidents, etc. We are thrilled that they are really catching the vision of how missionary work should work. They find, invite, and support... and we teach. We are seeing how well the Lord is preparing the people of Curitiba to hear the gospel, and with more members opening their mouths, more of these people are being found. It´s very exciting to be at the heart of it all.

I shared the rootbeer candy that mom sent with everyone, but brazilians seem to think that it tastes like medicine :)

Finally this week I got an email from my trainer, Elder Trevisanut. Looks like he´s doing pretty well and looking forward not backward! `Estou feliz que ele está trabalhando na obra missionária ainda... é muito facil tirar um missionário da missão, mas para um missionário que serviu com coração, deve ser imposivel tirar a missão dele.` That was my little trunky experience for the day.

I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I know that if someone wants to know if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints is true, need only to read that book... some will know by hearing about the book, others will know by reading, others will know by putting in practice the doctrine taught therein, and others will know asking Heavenly Father about it´s divinity. And with time, all of these experiences will lead you to a certainty that the book is from God.

Love,

Elder House

p.s. Happy Halloween. I´m going to be a missionary :) Next year, I´ll be a Brazilian postal worker!

Our crazy zone out there in the boonies (aka, Guarapuava)

When you spend all of your money on 5kg of babyback ribs, 

all that´s left is money for rice and beans :)

There´s a really funny story that goes along with this picture, 

but I´ll have to write it out some other time!

So much for the two year mission guarantee! :)