Oct. 28, 2013

Did you know...that I can solve a Rubix Cube....

its true! and it gets even better. Usually people when they how they learned how to solve the little 3 demensional square, they say."oh i just had my friend teach me." but guess what! I have accepted no help from anyone. I solve it way different then the rest of the world but i can do it. =) thats probabaly my biggest occomplishment of life... ever. haha! I actually figured out the rubix cube. =)

So... I finally got some mail. I got 2 letters. Neither of which was the pictures of the grand canyon. so... you may have to send those again. sorry. the letters were dated the 23 of september... so i think the pictures got lost in the mail. sorry. but hey! recieving mail is always nice! still waiting on the birthday package which i am secretly really looking forward too. =)

I guess i´ll tell you a little bit about the week. We had a lot of these fall and a lot of new work to do this week. We had a baptism lined up for yesterday last week she went home to go see her father. turns out that her father was really sick so she came back just to say goodbye and that she probably wouldn´t be able to be active in the chuch if she was baptised now. cause she had to go home and support her family for the next year. It was really sad but she told us that she will be baptized for sure in the comming year. i was happy to hear about her commitment to the church.

Pretty much no one that we´ve been teaching came to church this past sunday but the members did a really good job of invited friends. So we were able to talk with a lot of them and schedule appointments to visit them in their homes. one of these peoples name is Liria. (lee-dee-uh) she´s super quite (for brazilians) and when we teach her seems rather disinterested. but when we´ve followed up with her a few times she´s been keeping the commitments, going to church and wants to be baptized. its certainly a strange mix. haha!

So thats just about it for this week. this week really was a good week. this week was also transfers week. but everyone in my district is staying. Really nothing changed. Perhaps we will get some new people during the transfer because of the visa waiters but i´m not sure.

Well hope all is well at home. Sounds like things are going great. Hearing about all the new toys and stuff that you got for your birthday makes me really want to see the new house that i´m going to return too when i come back. New tv´s, new book cases, new couches, yea... i want to see it haha! know that on your birthday i was wishing you a happy birthday in my heart mom! Hope the birthday was memorable! Dont get too old while i´m gone! haha! Anyway! I love you all and hope you know what you all mean to me. Talk to you next week!

Elder Cornwall

Oct. 21, 2013

Missionaries are Missionaries...

So... About less then one hour ago I was wrestled to the ground, tied up like a bull and locked in a room... yea... Missionaries are rediculous... haha!

HEY EVERYBODY!!!! I hope that all is going well. The work is going great! But the weeks are starting to blend together and i´m not exactly sure what i´ve told you and what i havent... so... if i start repeating my self dont freak out to much... haha!

I guess i´ll start by answering your question. No I didnt recieve the pictures of the grand canyon yet. but in all honesty i´d wait for another little bit. because i live in one of the farthest places from the mission office. it could be here by now just running its way down the ranks of the missionaries. the ZL need to go to the mission office to pick up the stuff. so... give it just a little bit longer before you send them again.

So for a Quick culture update. i´ll explain how the houses are here. lets just say its completely different from the united states. many people ask if its a better living condition in the united states and in all honesty its just hard to answer that question because it truly is just so much different. we use wood and sheet rock to build our houses. they use bricks... we use carpet or wood flooring. they use tile. we have yards they have patios. with gates. we knock on doors to talk to people in their house. they clap their hands and scream the name of who they want to talk too. the housing down here i´ll admit is slightly less comfortable then that of my own home. but its just so different that its hard to tell people whether its worse or not its just mostly... different... haha! its kinda hard to explain.

I guess i´ll let you in on my thought prossess for a little bit and what i´ve been concerned with. I´ve been thinking a lot about baptism for the past couple weeks. and what it means when someone is truly prepared. Many of the elders have established a motto which i´ve found very hard to accept. and that is só batiza. or, just baptize! If we feel like they haven´t truly repented but want to be baptized what shouuld we do? só batiza! if they´ve only attended sacrament once but want to be baptized this weekend should a baptize them? Só batiza. this idea of Just Baptize has really bothered me. luckily i have not brought anyone into the waters of baptism yet that i havent felt is prepared. i´ve understood that the covenents made at baptism are sacred and necsessary. but I do believe that being baptized without knowing who joseph smith was is slightly questionable.

But i´ve come to this conclusion. I know that this Church is the Same church that christ established. I know that people need to repent and when they are baptized be prepared to be willing to serve till the end. They do not need to be perfect or even have the strongest of testemonies. they just need to be willing to take upon them the name of christ. thats the covenent. you dont need to say i will be perfect till the end. you just need to be willing. Its amazing how christ has set up this church. As long as you show that you are willing. whether you are able to do things right or not. if youre willing he will accept youre offering. my job is to bring people to the blessing of the church. not to perfect people. thats the job of our savior. I can do my part to testify what i know and invite people to take part in it. and if they are willing, how could I deny them that blessing. When you truly want the help from the lord. he will be their. perhaps not visually. perhaps you wont even feel his presense. but he´s there. he will give you what you need to continue. I know he helps. I know he´s real and the promises he made, he can fulfill. but we always need to trust in him.

Alright i´ll get off my pedestal. haha! thanks so much for your support. Keep on keeping on! love you all! Till next week. bye!!!

Oct. 14, 2013

Let it Rain!!!!!

 

So... yea... we had a lot of rain this week. I´m pretty sure that I kinda felt a little like the man who built his house upon the sand. He had no house and so he got a little wet... haha!

So this week was really cool! we had two baptisms this week actually! It was two little girls of members who were slightly separated from the church. they just didnt feel the will to attend church anymore. so we were able to find them and teach them. they remembered the differences that the church made in their lives and decieded to baptize their children too. It was a great expeirence. in all honesty, it was probably my favorite baptism thus far on the mission. just cause you could tell that the children, even though they didnt understand everything, they were very happy and knew that this was the right desicsion to be baptized. they didnt understand everything, but they understood the doctrine perfectly. they understood the plan of salvation, and what it meant, they understood what a prophet was and what the gospel was good for. it was really cool to see how even children can understand the gospel of christ.

this has been a great week too. we have quite a few people that we are teaching that are progressing really well. i´m not 100% sure all will be baptized but i´m sure that many of them will be. I´m hopeful for them.

So I have actually found a few things that I really like down here. they have a couple new fruits that i´m not sure they have there in the U.S. Maracaju, Graviola, Caju, and i´m sure a couple others too. my favorite is probably maracaju. Its pretty much fantastic. but it has a couple things in it that make you sleepy through out the day. so when we have it at lunch i cant drink too much of it otherwise i´m really dragging my wagon. plus they have this other thing they call terere. (teh-deh-day) its really good. you usually just buy a packet of like a koolaid thing, and then you mix it in with the terere mix. its like a bunch of herbs and stuff. its kinda like a tea but not really at all... its just great. you have to drink it in a certain type of cup though. otherwise youll be slurping down a bunch of plants too... its kinda weird but its really cool. so yea they have some really strange things and some really awesome things here.

So kev... Youre going to be all lonely now huh. I´ll talk with the mission president if he´ll let me take a three month break just for you... haha! =) maybe you could take the dogs down for a little while and have them puke all over your apartment. OR WAIT! better have max do it. he´ll be sure to find your pillow.

Well I think i best be off. I hope all is well at home. i´m doing well. I do have a few questions though. when does tanner leave on the mission? has he already gone. I remember he got the call to chili and i think i remember hereing that he had the farewell already. i could be wrong. so just let me know if he´s gone or not. if he´s already out i want his email. =) well thanks for all you do for me. I love the news from home. Mom i hope the fishing goes well. and dad I hope that india goes well. I understand if you cant get emails off while your their but i´d still like to hear about the football stuff too if you can keep track of it. sounds like Utah is really kicking trash... well everyone has their good years and there bad years and it turns out this one is probably going to be for the books for utah. anyway! till next week! bye!

Elder Cornwall

Oct. 7, 2013

Pictures!!!!

Oct. 7, 2013

I'm Too Legit to Quit....

 

Yep its the first thing that came to my mind! haha!

So first I´ll respond to the bold. I´ll be sure to keep an eye on the mail. i´m not sure how long its going to be. because the mission home is like 6 hours away from here and if we want to get our stuff we have to wait to the ZL´s go up and get the packages. so it will probably arive in about 3 weeks. and then who knows how long it will take the ZL´s to go there and get it after that. I still havent recieved the last one you sent i think you said about a month ago. the last one I recieved was the card with the smiles on it. (pretty dang awesome! its in my desk right now.) The language is coming great. I´m absolutly certain that the prayers are helping. as I pray and hear that other people are praying for me too is always humbling. thank you so much for that. I´m not cooking too much. the ward feeds us just about every day except P-day. and pretty much all the brazillions know how to cook like boss so i get fed will. but i´m back down to my normal 125-130 lbs range. i´m not getting any skinnier or fatter. but yes i´m picking up how to cook somethings here and their. its pretty cool.

So this week has been a little bit of an eye opener. because we´ve been asking for references from the members like a ton and the scary thing is, is that they are giving us a ton. we´ve had quite a bit of work too do the past couple days. I´m super grateful for the work but i´m pretty much exhausted every day. Elder Patricio is brazillion and loves to talk. so some nights we dont walk into our apartment until 10:00. (thats not super good obedience wise) but its cool. we usually have to talk to a bunch of people anyway. its been awesome having the opputunity to work in this ward cause the bishop is awesome. he so perfect for missionary work.

The ward split much like our ward split 7 years ago. the just kinda recombined everything and set up new bounderies that made more sense. We have 3 wards here now in socorro. Im not sure what the road bounderies are but we include. piabeta, marcos freire 2 and a couple other cities that i´m not sure how to spell. (i´m still a noobish american) but this is where we work most.

but I was able to watch general conference too. except I had to watch it in portuguese. that was certainly interesting. I understood the gist of what they were talking about but it wasnt super specific. so what i think i´m going to do is use my sd card to listen to the talks again in my mp3 player.

anyway thats about it for this week thanks so much for all the support. I wont let your prayers go to waste. Till next week! Tchau

Elder Cornwall

Sept. 30, 2013

So...about last weeks email...

 

Talk about prideful... haha! sorry about that... I´ve been kinda thinking about what i said last week about other the other missionaries and its kinda been bothering me... so yea... just wanted to say a quick apology. it wasnt super professional.

ANYWAY!!! now that thats out of the way this week has been pretty cool. We had a baptism this week too!! it was way awesome! and of course it has a story. So we meet this youth thats been going to the ward for about 3 weeks now and really likes what he´s been feeling and learning. so we taught him all last week. and invited him to be baptized in the followng weekend. (last saturday) he accepted slightly hesitantly but we promised him that every thing would be fine and that he would start something in his life that would change his life if he would allow it to.

so friday comes and we have the DL come by (for the first time i´m not with a DL) =) and do the interview and everything is going great. the interview finishes and he´s telling us that everything is fine. Then the next morning (the day of the babtism) comes and we get a call from his uncle (who´s a member) and tells us that he doesnt want to be baptized now... so we just about flip a brick and pretty much throw out our entire plan to go and find him and talk to him about the baptism. He told us that he just doesnt want to do it and he doesnt feel prepared... So we start looking for him about 2:00 and finally find him about 5:30.

We start by asking him about why he doesnt feel prepared. and he just tells us that he doesnt feel it. not really anything more than that. so we remind him about the interview. and asked him again if he had any problems with the interview. he told us that he didnt. and we asked him what might hinder him from being baptized. and he said nothing really. we asked him if he had a testimony about joseph smith and he answered with the affirmative. after this Elder Patricio and I bore testimony of the church and told him that this is one of the greatest decisions in his life that he could make. we promised him that this would help him on his path to be closer to his savior jesus christ. and he was once again a little hesitant but told us that he would like to be baptized. so I had the opportunity to baptize him. he was so happy about it after he was baptized. he recognized that he felt slightly different right after the baptism. it really wasnt anything grand but he felt it. it was so cool how he was able to recognize that for himself.

So that was the cool part of my week. Our ward also split and so we had to do a lot of work helping out with that to. we have one of the best bishops in the mission i think becuase he so involved with everyone. he really likes everyone and almost everyone likes him. he´s super trustworthy and makes the work a lot easier when he gives us some stuff to do in the ward. I also was able to eat something really strange this week. three things actually... this thing call Sururu, which is kinda like a strange type of mini clam... I had Chicken Heart... and Turkey intestine... yea the chicken heart was gross... but the rest of it actually tasted really good. i cant lie... haha!

by the way just to answer a quick question my area is I think Marcos Freira II and the other side of my area is Piebeta. if you look for Nossa Senhora do Socorro, you should be able to find it.

but hey I just want to say thanks for all the prayers to wrap up. I really enjoy reading the emails always. it always boosts my spirit a little bit during the week. =) I must say it its very interesting hearing about how you guys are cleaning out the shed. because against all my common sense it makes me crave helping my parents with these things. moving the boxes and the wood and all the stuff too and from the shed. I never thought that those memories would be cherished ones. haha! Its certainly funhearing about how the house is changing.

Dad thanks for the bit about the obediance. I´ve actually been concerned with that too. becuase many times i´ve reflected on the rules of the mission that in all honesty some i dont agree with. but i´ve reallied on the testimony of adam when he was asked why he sacrificed animals. and he responded, I know not, save god commanded me. but what ive never thought about is how the angel actually responded to him. and answered why he did it. So after that point it wasnt "Blind" obeidence. but more of and "Exact" obediance. I´ve come to apreciate the scripture line upon line and precept upon precept. becuase more often then not we dont know the whys of everything from the beginning but as we continue faithful we understand little by little.

Thanks so much for the prayers and support. I´m still going strong! i´m more excited every day to be a missionary! thanks for everything! till next week.

Elder Corny-vah-ool