Aug 19, 2013

Gostaria di Falar na proximo semana?

 

So guess what i had to do yesterday! Give a talk in church! woo hoo!!!

Hello every body! i´ve been doing good! all is still great!

Heres the news for the week!

I finally got your package and also a letter from carson! =) like a goof i decided to open up the package during zone... reunion. (i´m not sure what its called in english... but it wasnt a zone conference...) and because of this fun little mistake i felt obliged to share my skittles with the 13 other people there including my self. needless to say the skittles died fairly quickly. =) haha! but hey this is good news! i got the package! which means i think it took a little over a month. wow... hopefully it doesnt always take that long.

so let me tell you a little bit about the week. We did another division this week which means that i had to lead my area with one of the zone leaders judging my every move... he was an american and we worked well together. and while where were going about to our scheduled plan, a recent convert, (who i think was already less active cause i didnt recognize him) said hi to us and we started a conversation with him. well he was working on repairing his bike and just as we were about to leave his friend calls to us and says ´´Hey! i want to here what you guys tell people!`` =D so he invited us into his house and told us that he loves jesus and is part of one of the very prominant churches here. (Assembléia de Deus) so we start explaining things and we get to the end of our schpeal and ask him to do what we ask every one to do. Pray about it.

This struck him hard. he said that it all the years he´s been preaching and teaching about christ he never thought about asking god about the truthfulness of what he teaches. It was pretty cool to listen to how his mind set changed from, we are too young men trying to get to know jesus, to we might actually have something really worth hearing. It reminded me so much of kelly in montana. the woman who tracked us down with just the intent of hearing ´´the Jesus word`` it was really cool to be apart of.

so also i had to speak in church this week. They gave me a week to prepare for a twenty minute talk... (IN PORTUGESE!!!) it was kinda scary... so I spent my personal study every day for the past week preparing this talk and i think it turned out rather nicely! I decided to speak on Hope and how it is an anchor for the soul. I didnt realize how many times the scriptures refer to hope and faith as an anchor for the soul. it was really cool! but i´m not entirly sure what happened while i was speaking but perhaps the spirit took over or i just said a whole lot of gibberish... haha! so i was speaking and I thought that i gave a talk on hope. but when i returned to my seat and just went trough chuch like normal. when church was over people thanked me for my talk and said all sorts of diffent things. such as thanks for the talk, I really need to work on my Patience, , and thanks elder for the examples of abraham and his PATIENCE, so... i´m not sure what happened but i dont think that i said what i actually thought i said... haha!

just for info! Esperança = hope Paciência = patience.

so yea... that was my week in a nut shell! Pretty cool this week! i´m super excited that i´m finally able to have very simple conversations with people I can usually understand the subjects of what people are talking about now. every word is still difficult to pick out but i´m certainly improving!

 

ok well hope all is well! i´m way stinking jealous about the grand canyon and stuff! you have no idea... haha! if there´s one thing that i miss here its the mountains. i have no sense of direction without them! haha! well i better go! até mais!

Elder Americano

Aug 12, 2013

Dia dos Pias

 

Yep... Yesterday was Dia dos Pais here. which means Fathers day... so... HAPPY FATHERS DAY... again... haha!!!

Oi Minha Familia! espero que tudo é bom com tudo mundo.

So this week not much has really happened. nothing super spectacular that is really awesome for this week. BUT! i will still write a great super thrilling to read letter. I hope...

So this week we had a lot of baptisms in other companionship's and my companion has to do all the interviews in the other places. so he gets the bright idea of going on divisions with the other elders and going with one to do the interview and having the other one go with me to work our area. GREAT IDEA! IF I COULD SPEAK PORTUGUESE!!!!

so I went along with it and started visiting people that we had planned for the day. as usual about half of the people we wanted to talk to that day were either ´´accupied´´ or not home. thank goodness for that. but eventually we found a person that we planned for the day that actually wanted to talk. hooray... so i try my best to start up a light conversation with her, and a miracle occurs. =)

no I did not start prophesying in Portuguese... BUT!!! I actually held a decent conversation with one of our investigators. yes i had my other Brazilian companion to help. (his name was elder Souza) it was fantastic because for the first time since i´ve been in Brazil, someone said something kinda funny and instead of laughing cause everyone else was. i laughed because i actually understood what they said! HOLY SMOKES! no my language wasnt perfect. no i didnt understand every word. but hey! i actually understood a joke. WOO HOO!!! it was a good day.

not much else has happened. I´m still working at my portugeuse. It stinks that i´m not a miracle child who learned the language in a month and called it good for the rest of his mission. i actually have to learn the language. haha! Patience is great... when you have it. haha!!!

Well Eu vos Amo! Eu Sei que todos as coisas que estã possivel quando temos fé em Cristo. quando acreditamos que ele vai respondar a nossas oraçoes, ele vai nos ajuda durante esperamos pela resposta. eu sei que a igreja de jesus cristo dos santos dos ultimos dias é verdadeira. esse obra é o obra do senhor e eu tenho o privilegio para ser parte dele. no Nome de Jesus Cristo Amém.

Elder Cornwall

Aug 5, 2013

BATISMOS!!!

YEP! it finally happened. =)

 

SO!!! time for the story to commence. last week we were talking with a couple of the ward members after church. and it was kinda strange cause we had one of the youth from the ward just kinda sitting against the wall waiting to talk with us. we get our lunch schedule for the week and strike up a conversation with her.

THEN!!! she tells us that she was never actually baptized. she´s been attending church for two years now. is acutally enganged to one of the members. (yes people get married really young here. she´s 16.) this was incredible because me and elder leonan have been praying and fasting for someone who is interested in this gospel enough to get baptized.

so during the week we set up for the baptism and did talked with her for a couple days deterining whether or not she needs to be taught anything before the baptism. she knew everything quite well. it was incredible. so we set up an interview and she was so prepared. she answered all the questions perfectly and was way excited when we told here that we could baptize her the following saturday. (2 days ago.) so we did.

however preparing for the baptism was a joke. me and Elder Leonon go to the chapel early to get the font filled. set up chairs. do the program. yada yada yada. so we are talking about who can give thoughts and prayers. then we here the water stop running.... and we both kinda flip a brick. the running water here is not the most reliable of systems and turns out the the font had no water left in reserve to put in the font. so we start running all over the chaple trying to fill up buckets and fill the font that way. but we dried up the entire chaple and had only about 1 foot of water... we had 2 hours till the baptism... so we start calling members and eventually resort to go to the nearest members house which is about a quarter mile away filling up buckets of water and running back to the church. MY ARMS WERE DEAD BY THE END!!! but we got the water up to about 1 and a half feet by the time the baptism started...

so we ask her if it will be alright if she just sits down for the baptism. she said it would be fine and so we continue. so we go through with it. and everything is going fine. she enters the water. her fiancés grandpa does the baptismal prayer and then he tries to dunk her... her knee was above the water, so we did it agian... and again... and again... i think i counted 8 times... yea... eventually we had to just hold her knee down for her and then push her sholders down slowly. but eventually we got it. it was quite an experience for everyone. it was really cool because you could hear the whole room relax when we finally got it right.

so yep. thats the story of my first baptism. way cool. i´m hoping more people will follow her example. =) i dont have any time left so... yea

love you all!!! keep on keeping on!!! i´m so jealous about the boat... YOU ARE ALL FETCHERS!!! haha! tchau!!!

love Elder Desenhou uma Parede de Milho