Swell

Well, it has been another week here in Erechim and Viadutos, There have been very little changes, Iliana e Marcelo are continuing to be incredible, Ilianie and Zolan are super sad that I will be transferred because I have been the only person in a long time to be able to calm down their deficient son, Jonny.  We actually were able to teach them the Word of Wisdom through Jonny.  It was incredible to see him smile and tell us about how much he loves watermelon and papaya. We explained to him that it is very healthy, and that our bodies need special fuel.  We have been teaching a kid by the name of Mateus, he has embraced the gospel, and is absolutely loving it, but his father is pretty hard, we had a date marked to be baptized last sunday, but he never told his dad until the night before....yeah, we didn't know that.  His mom sat in on all of the lessons, and is very loving and is willing to support his decision to be baptized, but the fight now is the father.  The interesting thing is that his father was almost baptized in in the 7th day Adventist church some 20 years ago (a church VERY strong and influential here), which means that whether he realizes it or not, he is open to different ideas other than those of Catholicism.  The future missionaries here in Erechim will have to talk to him directly and teach him about the church. This way he will allow his son to be baptized. 

Oh, I litterally just recieved a notice that I will be transfered tonight. Beleza.

Well.  That's what's important. I'm doing fine.  I've eaten my weight in avocado this week.  The brazilians refuse to accept that we eat avocado in normal foods, and not for dessert.  They only eat it in stuff like ice cream, smoothies, and milkshakes.  yeah.  my companion has eaten over 30 avocados with just sugar in the last week.  The problem is that everybody is thinking that they're doing us a favor when we are walking on the road, people hand us avocados.  They grow wildly on the roads here.  Like lemons and oranges.  EVERYWHERE.  Everybody's house we visit they make lemon juice or orange juice (fantastic!) or juice of avocado (not too delicious, but of course I accept and drink and say that it is fantastic).  

We have 4 families that are in the process of getting married so that they can be baptized, please pray for them: Indioné and Marisellie, Rodrigo and Sandra,  Diego and Elizianette, and Ilianie and Marcelo. :D

thank you for the wonderful letter, Mother thank you for the photos :) 

You all have a fantastic week, 

Keep your stick on the ice,

(manter seu taco no gelo)

Elder Eliason

Eliason heritage

Well, welcome to one of the most roller-coaster-like weeks of the mission.  Well, started off with last Sunday, having the opportunity to speak to the family, via Skype, which was fantastic.  I am currently eating uma Pedemoleke, which in the end, is just sugar, sweet and condensed milk, and peanuts.  Its incredible and extremely rich.  This one has a chocolate bar melted into it, extremely delicious. Sorry.  okay, well, last Friday, we went to lunch (lunch every day is with a member, rarely is dinner) well, and so we got there and the member just arrived from her class at the local university, and had not prepared anything, so she told us that it will take about an hour to make lunch (normal time, but to wait is a huge waste of time, seeing as how we only have 1 hour to lunch) and so we left and did contacts on the road for the next hour waiting for lunch.  Well, it was my turn to do the contact, and I saw a couple sitting on the curb outside the jewel factory.  I walked up, introduced us, and told them that we will be having a baptismal meeting on the 26th of this month, and we want to know when can we pass in their house to prepare them for this day.  They kind of looked at me funny, and told us to pass on the weekend.  Well, we get a TON of contacts, and it takes a little while to visit them all, because when you get a new investigator, it is necessary to visit them several times during the week.  Well, we visited them that Sunday, (last Sunday) and we arrived at the house, and they live in a neighborhood that I have never set foot in *(yes, I know, I have been here for 5 months almost and there are still neighborhoods that I have never tread, that's how huge our area is) They lost their only son (of 4 months old) about 1 month ago, and have been suffering a lot. Well, we taught them about the Plan of Salvation, the incredible joy that it brings to the families and how we can be with our families for eternity.  Well, they were so incredibly attentive that they stopped me every ten seconds to ask a question.  This is a signal that they are actually interested in what you are teaching.  Many times we are teaching and the investigator just says uh-huh, uh-huh, hmm.... and this really doesn't give us a read on how well they are understanding or if they are even paying attention. Well, we taught them about the Plan of Salvation, and gave them a little booklet about it *(you can ask your missionaries for one, and they would be more than willing to give one to you)*  We returned Wednesday night to check up and see if they read or prayed or did anything about it.  Well, she, Ilianie, read the booklet cover to cover, studied all of the scriptures written therein, and had been praying fervently to know if it is true.  Well, when we returned, the first thing she said is "Those Pastors have returned!!!!" and opened the door, and asked me as we entered, what more she needs to do to enter the Celestial Kingdom to be with her son.  Almost brought a tear to my eye.  Those are GOLDEN WORDS for a missionary to hear.  We taught them about the restoration and invited them to church.  Well, Yesterday, they showed up to church 20 minutes early as to make sure that they didn't miss anything.  there were 5 members in the chapel at that time, including us, the ward mission leader, the relief-society President, and the 2nd counselor in the bishopric.  We all got acquainted and gave a tour of the chapel.  As elders quorum started, our newly ordained Elders Quorum President (we have been without this entire time that I have been here...until this week) introduced himself and asked if Marcelo (the investigator) is just visiting, he responded the following "Today is my first day in this church, my wife and I are looking to find a church, and I would like to stay with this one forever."  our Elders Quorum president, Irmão Gabriel responded with a grin  looking at us "Opa!" which basically is the same thing that they say in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Opa!  It's an exclamation that means excitement.  Yeah, Opa was just the beginning of my emotions.  We visited them again last night and asked them how it was.  They LOVED it!!!!!!  Turns out that that morning, when they woke up, they were feeling the pull of the devil, tired, cold, and a little bit disanimated, but Ilianie opened her Bible and started to read.  She opened to Psalms 107, which talks about the Lord and how he is wiser than us, and that he is guiding every single on of us on a journey to the Promised land, whether we know it or not.  Well, she took this to apply on herself, meaning that all of her trials and tribulations have brought her to this point, to this local, where she was willing to accept the true doctrines of Christ, and when she went to church, this was confirmed.  About 1/3 of the ward was there yesterday, so she had a very nice personalized lesson with the Relief Society president and 2 other women, who are very dedicated to the church *(the caravan from the temple arrived at 2 AM)  yeah, so the President of the Relief Society worked with her to discern her feelings, and turns out that she decided that God sent her son, so that he could have the sickness, so that they would have to move from that small town in the middle of nowhere which didn't have a hospital, to Erechim, where he served his purpose, died, leaving his Parents there to find the gospel.  She told us this last night, and told us that she knows that the church is true and is willing to follow it with everything she's got.  There's only 1 problem, and that is that they aren't legally married.  We can fix that.   They have a couple of avocado trees....last night they gave us 10 kilos of avocado.  I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WE ARE GOING TO DO WITH THEM, but hey :) Guac anybody?  actually, they make smoothies with avocado, which is actually terrible, they eat them with sugar and other sweets, even to the point of making ice cream out of it.  hmmm.... the other day, i had corn on the cob ice cream, it was delicious. anyways. yeah, that has been the excitement of our week.  we have 1 more week before transfers again.  OH and President Wright asked me to find a house to rent in Viadutos to put missionaries there!!!!! :D :D :D  the Elders in Erechim won't have to blow 2 hours every day and 10 Reals on a bus to get there!  wooo HOooooo!!!!!!!  I'm excited.

anyways, have a fantastic week, 

Keep your stick on the ice

Elder Eliason.

May 6, 2013

Hello Everybody,

first-orders of business.

somebody please tell Bishop Craig Wade that I love recieving his letters, but he needs to stop sending them to the Porto Alegre South mission, I'm in the North  (see the postal address of Caixa Postal on my blogg) 

This week we I have 3 things to talk about.  

1.  We have found an elect of God.  She is incredible. We were wandering in a neighborhood really long away from our house Thursday night, we had no idea what we were doing at that moment, we have no investigators in that neighborhood, nor members.  As we were walking around in the darkness, we decided to go up a hill that we had never been up before. Well, when we reached the top of the hill, an Onibus passed and dropped off a woman and her son.  She got off the buss and called out to us, "Meninos, porfavor, para!"  meaning, my young boys, please stop where you are.  well, naturally we stopped, and waited for her to get to us. When she got close, she bent over and looked real hard at my plackard, and then asked "os Mormóns?"  we responded of course, and she almost burst into tears, she has been looking for us the entire week to no avail, she didn't even know if we had a chapel in the city.  Her sister has been a convert out in Curitiba, for over a year, and last week went to the temple for the first time, and called her sister and told her that it was the best experience of her life.  The two sisters are very close- they both have sons that have mental handicaps. This sister that is part of the church now has a very happy disposition that she didnt have beforehand, so the sister wanted to know what was the difference.  Of course she said the church, so when we appeared, she told us that she wants to know about the church.   XD XD XD fantastic! that was Thursday.  We taugh her about the restoration Saturday night, Sunday she went to church alone, without car ride or anything (*a HUGE indicator to see if the person will stay active in the church or not) and LOVED it, today is Monday, we have plans to teach her entire family tonight, and already she has invited members over to her house to visit, without our knowing.  We will visit Wednesday with the members :)  this is what we call an ELECT OF GOD- somebody who has been prepared by the spirit and angels to hear the truth.  (see Preach my Gospel and 2 Nefi)

2. Tuesday, we went to Viadutos to visit a bunch of investigators (we are teaching more than 10 familys here) well, we left early in the morning to do a service project for an investigator- he lives about an hour and a half by foot in the interior of the interior of the countryside.....we ate sugarcane, chopped a ton of firewood, drank chemarrao, ate a million tangerines (he has amillion tangerine trees).   It was fantastic, he is a farmer that lives alone, and he is the brother of a member here in Viadutos. Today we returned, and spent out P-day chopping wood, eating churrasco, and etc... it was a fantastic P-day.  Also, we did churrasco of armadillo, it was supprisingly delicious.  I took a TON of photos, but this computer is slow and doesn't have an SD jack, so next week will have to do.  :D

3. President Wright asked me to find a place to rent so that we can put missionaries in Viadutos.  YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D   I  am SUPER EXCITED, that would be a dream, to work every day here in Viadutos, they are a people that are ready to receive the Gospel.  The gospel is growing.  :D :D :D

anyways, do what is right, let the consequences follow.

keep your stick on the ice.

Elder Eliason

(from one of 3 computers in Viadutos that has internet access)