Afonso Pena Semana 2

World Cup: Today Brasil will play against Chile, and we would have to stay in our house for a few hours anyway, so President moved preparation day to saturday so that we can work on monday and not lose any time. Hence the saturday email.

We thought that our teaching pool was filling up really fast. And it filled up with couples who are all legally wedded! #miracles 

But yesterday we had ALL of our marked visits fall through. Which stinks when you are with a member who was super excited to help you out (the high priests get really excited to go out with the missionaries!) and at the end of the day he says "well boys, we did all we could do... which was absolutely nothing" and chuckles to himself. Yup that kinda stinks. But compared with the sucess we were having, I think the Lord felt we needed a dose of humility.

I went on an exchange in Jardim Ipê (second area) and I was very happy to see some of the people who we taught, baptized, reactivated, etc. But the primary purpose was to help that area become productive again. President called Elder Ritchie during the exchange to ask why Ipe was going so poorly, and poor Elder Ritchie got an earful... and forgot to mention that we were in the very same hour, in exchanges to help them! :) It is a great ward that I hope I can help out again.

Afonso Pena is a great ward. Everyweek on the mission, I understand better the need for the members to bring their friends to church, and fellowship the people who are visiting. Manytimes we teach people  who have a special experience with the Book of Mormon, but when they go to church, the sisters in the ward look down on the wife because she didn´t have time to brush her hair while she was preparing the children, or the husband never used a tie in his life and it was a bit messy on his neck... etc. It needs to be a place where they´ll get a hug, and someone with take the children off to primary, and someone will ask their names, and someone will sit down beside them and explain how to read a himnal, and the bishop will tell them that they are welcome to return next week. Afonso Pena has enourmous potential for the Lord to bless them with converts because the bishop is fantastic at making everyone feel welcome, and he personally asks them to come back next week. 

I love this ward. I love the Lord.

Love,

Elder House

Afonso Pena Semana 1

2 Confirmations. #complicated

We had the ward Festa Junina on Saturday which was the best way ever to meet all of the members at once. Imagine the ward fall festival, but put a huge redneck twist on it, and lots of foods made from corn.

Rain makes corn,

Corn makes pamonha,

Pamonha makes the cultural hall

Erupt in pandimonium

I don´t think my future has Brazilian country singer in it...

But I´m loving being in the field. I had to remember how to teach a lesson at 10h in the morning, and what to do at 3 in the afternoon. My companion is absolutely nuts. Totally crazy. Insane."Piradinho" But that´s totally fine by me cause he works super hard and is gente boa. Elder Ritchie is from Texas/Illinois/Missouri/California/Ohio/three other states, and belive it or not, his dad isn´t in the military. He has been out on the mission for 1 year and 3 months and served for a little bit in San Diego waiting on his visa. His last 2 companions were ZL´s going out of the mission, and he thought that I would be more of the same, but this week, I think he was happy that I´m not draggin him down :) We are working a bunch.

Just a little info on my area.

It has the airport, and therefore the trunkiest area in the mission. But we´ll see if it gets the best of Elder House. My bet is NO! There´s too much work to be done. People to be taught. Exchanges to go on. Training to do. Frisbee to be played for excercises. I had one of those, "i´ve only got 3 months to be in Brasil as a missionary!!" moments this week, so I think it´ll be okay.

I am filling the shoes for Elder Poe and Elder Woodruff who finished their missions here, so the ward has a pretty high standard for the kind of missionary that they like to work with. So lets go to work!

Love,

Elder House

Aqua Verde...Drum roll please...34

Last week in Agua Verde... Mixed feelings.

Ze-zinho is progressing about as fast as a snail. But he´s still movin forward.

Irineu wants to be baptized urgently, but still has problems with the word of wisdom. we´re hoping this customized cigarette case will help him out

Well I wanted to go out of the office to be a trainer (maybe a DL Trainer). But the companion that President had put me with in the transfer scenario, ended up postponing his mission call for a few months... So he put another with me, but that guy didn´t end up going to the MTC on time... And before President could put me with another greenie, we got a call from the MTC saying that another one would have to stay in São Paulo for at least another week to have a surgery...

Sooooo President got the message from the Lord and didn´t put me as a trainer (#rats!)

Looks like I´m going to be zone leader in São José dos Pinhais, in the Afonso Pena ward. Which means that I´ll be in the same chapel as Jardim Ipê! Which means I can see my recent converts there :) That´s exciting. There is one couple that is almost ready to marry in the temple and I think that I´ll be allowed to go participate. That´s nifty! (Also means that I´ll have another São João in São José!!)

Well the time is brutally short today because transfers were supposed to happen next wednesday, but there was a change and they´ll happen on monday. Which means that I´m sacrificing preparation day to write a manual of instructions on how to be a secretary for Elder Leite to use. But I think it´ll help him out. He is undoubtedly one of the best missionaries I have ever met. I´ve learned mcuh with him in the past 6 weeks.

I hope that where you´re at, the sun is shining. If it´s not, please count on His timing.

Love,

Elder House

Aqua Verde Semana 33

I just noticed that last week, I forgot to finish my words... I´ll be returning to the field in the middle of the World Cup. This week will be the opening game, and we will... wait for it... stay at home :/ How exciting right? But at least we will be safe. Actually it should be pretty fun because President will let the Assistants come across the street and stay with us. Also, shockingly, Elder Lima will receive a new companion to train as auxiliary secretary (and have 1 week to train him), so this next week we´ll have 5 secretaries.

5 Secretaries + 2 Assistants + Free Time = Bagunça

Yesterday we had a huge baptism. 1st, Anglo is huge. 2nd, there were over 100 people. 3rd, He made great changes in his life before this could happen. I don´t even know where to start to explain his story, and how we started teaching him. But suffice it to say that the Lord can use the strangest means to help get His children on the straight and narrow path.

The baptism yesterday kinda swallows up all of my thoughts from the week.

One more thing. This week we took José (Zezinho) to the temple to help him feel more ready to take the final steps to being baptized. He had a few problems with the Word of Wisdom, and has been clean for almost a month now. He is very worried that he won´t be able to stay away from the bad influences that are all around him. So we took him to the temple where there are ZERO negative outside influences that can impede the Spirit. President Fernandes showed us an amazing scripture afterwards that I wish I had known beforehand. 1 Kings 8:41-43. It takes place in the dedicatory prayer of the ancient temple in Jerusalem and the promises made are applicable in our days as well. It is a huge blessing to have a temple close by. I can´t imagine missionary work without a temple.

Well I think that´s it for this week. Thank you for the prayers.

Love,

Elder House

Agua Verde Semana 32

Elder Leite is picking up all the office tasks quickly, so in a few weeks this weekly letter should be coming from somewhere in the FIELD! The only bummer is that I will return to the field in the middle of the

On Sunday, we had a little miracle happen. During the week, we spent some time exploring the darkside of our area... the darkside because it takes forever to walk there and there are basically no no members or old investigators there. And we thought that it had all been in vain, because nobody let a couple of cold missionaries in. But ONE lady (and her granddaughter) who had been contacted and invited to church came to church. They just appeared in the Sacrament Meeting! One minute, Irmã Flávia was sitting with her family, then all of a sudden Eloiza was at her side. "Legal!" And it was on the day that the youth gave a special musical number and all of the talks were extremely well prepared. I strengthened my testimony of the importance of working to have a good Sacrament Meeting. When all of the people giving talks really put in the time to prepare and there is good music, the Lord really does see the effort and blessed the meeting with the Holy Spirit.

Today I got trunky emails from almost everyone... Or they are finishing missions, or engaged, or recently sealed, or etc. But that´s life right?

Agua Verde is great! When we arrived at the house of one of our investigators he told us, "hey, I rented a view films that the guy there said would help me know more about the Mormons." My heart froze solid. I thought that he had gotten some film produced by one of the anti-mormon groups in the US that they had translated to Portuguese (luckily there is very little of that sort of thing here)... but when I opened up the DVD case it was the 3 films of The Work and the Glory!! So now he is watching those instead of Rambo. :)

Well I hope the family is well and that Christian is getting excited to be a Cougar!

Abraço!

Elder House

Agua Verde Semana 30

Calling home was a great treat! Mom and Dad were the only ones who seemed more or less the same, but Christian, Carsten, and Calli all look (and sound!) different. I called from the house of a family who recently sent their son off to the MTC in Santiago Chile who will serve in Vinha del Mar and got to call in from the MTC for a few minutes. I was with Elder Lima, and he got suUUUper trunky before and after the call home. Beforehand, he could hardly eat and wouldn´t respond to anything anyone said to him. When he finished, he kept saying to himself under his breath, "they´re all good at home. everything is okay." Elder Silva II, Leite, and I thought it was hilarious, until our proselyting stunk for a few hours and until we said, hey man, bring your head back from Goias!

The baptism of Anna Gabriela was awesome! She is in the middle, with her mom (Erica) to the right, 2 of President Fernades' daughters to the left, and the back row from left to right is Moisés, Elder Lima, Silva, House, and Leite. Erica got very emotional during the baptism and is preparing for hers as well. The only bummer is that they moved to just a little past the limits of our área, so the Sisters of Jardim Botanico will be teaching them.

We had a few neat experiences with contacting referrals from members and other missionaries. We had received a referral from Rute, a woman (Maria) who had heard about the blessing we gave to Odair and how he had been cured, and commented with Rute that she wanted to meet us. But when we went to her house, only her husband was at home. So we taught him (Aginaldo) about the Restoration and he became very happy to hear about God calling a modern day prophet! He is now going after a testimony of the Book of Mormon to have his answer from the Lord. Today we´ll meet Maria!

Well this week, I went a little bit crazy cause I found cheddar cheese. You don´t even know how hard it is to get cheddar here! Everytime I found "cheddar" in the grocery store I it was falsificated mussarela with cheddar flavoring. Then I started finding a bunch of things like cream cheese with cheddar flavoring... g-ross. But I even asked for a family who was visiting New York to bring back some cheddar cheese, and what they bring... spray cheese. :´( But this week we had a half hour to kill near the Rodoviária and went the the Mercado Municipal, where I found imported English smoked cheddar. Was it expensive? Yup. Did I care? Nope. I paid about R$30 for a little block of the yellow stuff, but it was worth it. Today we´re gonna make American style burgers with REAL cheddar. And if we get real fancy like, we´ll even put it in Brazilian tapioca (which has nothing to do with US tapioca... it´s like a salty fried tortilla made from tapioca starchyflour)

Well the oranges and persimmons are in season so fresh juice for breakfast is a must. A sister in the ward has a huge orange tree with the juiciest oranges I´ve ever seen! She gave one to us to peel and eat while we were talking with her about her neighbors and who we could visit, but when we opened the oranges, they practically exploded all over us... So we decided it would be better to take a few home to make juice instead of eat. One day, I´ll have a pé de laranja e um de caqui.

Well this week it´s supposed to start getting cold, so I´ll have to pull out the big overcoat and the sweaters and gloves and scarf. The cold is good, cause everyone gets lazy and stays at home :)

Love you,

Elder House

Aqua Veerde Semana 29

Minha nossa essa semana voou...

This was the first week of training Elder Leite to be the new secretary. Which means 5 more weeks until I can return to 100% proselyting! He´s picking up on everything super quickly and will end up being a much better secretary than I am (which really shouldn´t be too hard to do).

(yes, Elder House and Elder Milk [Leite] are together, along with Elder Oaks, Elder Blackberry-shrub [Silva] and Elder Lemon [Lima] in the mission office... the only one who doesn´t fit is Elder Ameigeiras which doesn´t translate into anything from any language)

I´m writing as the baptismal font is filling up for the baptism of Ana Gabriela. Next week i´ll have pictures and the story of how we started teaching her!

Our teaching pool is continuing to grow as we are going back to a few people who I met back in October/November. It is amazing to see how sometimes all someone needs is a few months to think about the things you taught to see the difference that the gospel was making in their lives, so that they have a stronger desire to apply what we teach. One man named Emerson was going through some very serious problems with depression, that he ended up having to be put in a clinic to resolve, but now he is out and has a newly built house! And is very excited to come to church with us this week.

Our recent converts are all going strong. I feel like a mother duck leading our little group of recent converts and visitors through the giant chapel from class to class each Sunday.

This week we were planning on getting 9 missionaries, but when the plane touched down, there were only 8! President called up and wanted answers. Unfortunately I had left my little zip-lock baggy of answers in the office and I was on the street... and was unable to contact anyone in São Paulo or Salt Lake who could explain... It wasn´t until we got back to the office that we had an email explaining that the mission in Arizona that was sending the 9th missionary got the dates mixed up and sent him one day late. President made it very clear that if I ever messed up something like that, then I would finish my mission as "tia" cleaning the mission houses (He didn´t use those words exactly, but I think he would do something like that). In the end, Elder Leite and I went to the airport to get Elder Bussiere and bring him to the office the next day.

I´m excited to call home again! But I´m a bit scared to see Calli as a small lady instead of a little girl

Love,

Elder House