milagres da semana.

Well.  I am completely pooped. Yesterday I got ran ragged.  But my faith is ever-increasing.  Yesterday we witnessed a miracle. I was just informed that they are closing the email-center for lunch, and so I have to go. I am incredibly sorry. I will try to send one later, but I dont know. :( Carol was baptized, much to the chagrin of her evil grandmother. Servant of the Devil as we call them in portuguese. people who fight for the wrong side.

até mais.

EE

another brick in the well. yes I said well. not wall. well.

we drank water from a well this week, that was the highlight. wooooot. :/ 

okay, we found Carol.  She is ELECT. that was probably the best thing that happened this week.  We were knocking doors (much to my chagrin) looking for new investigators, and as we were passing a house, my companion said Elder, We HAVE to knock here, this house is the color of key-lime-pie.  Well, we knocked, entered, began talking about prayer, and the mom started burning the catholic church about repetitious prayers (we read Mateus 6 together)  Well, after a half hour, we decided to briefly explain the restoration.  Our LZs (*zone leaders) decided to teach us a new method of teaching about the restoration using a timeline. Well, I tried doing it, but Butchered it. Anyways, after an hour and a half, we left the house dis-animated. We returned taught about the Book of Mormon two days later with a member, who decided to explain for 25 minutes why he as a home-teacher refuses to enter a house with only a woman, as a base for the principle of Elders.   Yeah, it went south from there.  The mother understood almost nothing, but the daughter told us that she wants to go to church, so we organized a car ride for her (they live on the other side of the city) Well, the member didn't píck her up on Sunday, but she rode her bike to the church, made a friendship with another one of the young women, and when she said that the other young woman said the closing prayer, she felt somebody give her a "Big warm friendly hug" but there was nobody there.  When she took the sacrament, she felt that same sensation, and as she left, she felt a peace that touched her heart.  She asked if she can be baptized next Sunday.  We almost cried when we heard this.  The mom started to protest, but we used Check-mate techniques to calm the mother.  It worked splendidly, she already signed the baptismal permission form, and we will return tonight.  I'm pumped.  :)

I love the sweater, it's my warmest sweater. Thanks :)

I made stir-fry today, thanks for the taco seasoning I use it almost daily :D The Brazilians here in the south hate spicy food, they love garlic and onions. If you want to season your beef, salt. ONLY salt. and only on the beef, nothing else.  Thats about it. 

I had a really funny experience this week....there are a couple of really funny geeky men in my ward here in Osório, and they know about combat dive school, so when they asked what I did in the Army, they were quite surprised, and they asked me if I could kill them with a toothpick.  I looked at them and said, well, depends, do you want to die by a toothpick? Probably would be very painful, and its not very missionary-like. They started bouncing off the walls with more questions. Mostly about guns that they've been using on video games.  Kind of annoying and kind of hilarious.  

We also received 2 references this week for guys who have "served time" yeah.  One of them actually has interest.  The other ended up ditching us while his snakey 15-year old sister listened intently to my blue eyes trying to explain about the great apostasy. funny stuff. 

OH MY HEAVENS how can I forget?  the Purple!

Last week we decided to pull a small prank on my companion (the district leader and I -we 4 live in the same apartment)  He likes to complain, so we decided to give him something to complain about.  Sunday night, I took a shower and afterwards, put a little bit of dry paint powder in the shower-head.  My companion normally takes the first shower in the morning. Well......it didnt take. Nobody knew why.  We all took showers like normal and nothing happened. Well.....Thursday morning, I woke up and took a shower, and in the middle of the shower, the shower-head made a funny sound, and sploosh! Purple. Everywhere, and worse of all...its more permanent than Sharpie.  Until this morning, nothing fell from the shower head that wasn't completely purple. This morning, I dismantled the shower (its an electric water heater head because we don't have hot water here in brazil) got shocked some 3 times, and spent half an hour cleaning the dumb thing. my backside and legs are COMPLETELY purple to this day. luckily, the only drop of purple paint that got on my head yesterday rubbed off after 30 min. of scrubbing.  I am now missing a small portion of hair and skin on my head, but nobody can tell because my hair is already really thin.

anyways, we are going to work double double super-duper hard this week, like normal. :D

Fique firme

Amo Vocês,

Élder Eliason  

(Elder I-lai-são)

July 15 - Opah!

and so the saga continues....

this week, unfortuantely, was not extremely exciting. we didnt get to go fishing unfortunately, the man who was going to take us got completely sick.  we cut almost all of our investigators, and so we are almost at ground zero, nada.  Fortunately, we got permission to get the documents ready for the wedding of our member inactivo and her boyfriend, so that we can baptize him and his son.   and the famliy can be sealed.   but other than that...not much happend.  Oh, yesterday I set a new record on contacts on the road, I did 41 contacts on people passing through the Rodoviaria (uh, bus parkinglot???) it really doesnt have a good translation.  Oh, Busstation, but with lots of busses. whatever.  It was good. 

We went on splits yesterday, Elder De Oliviera and I went to Santo Antônio da Patrulha, and our companions stayed in Osorio.  It rained. A LOT.  we had a family night where we played the flour game, but in the place of a coin, we placed a hard candy in the center.  It was awesome. I placed 2nd.  I just have to say, I completely love Brazilian food, looking back, I think the only thing that I ate in the united States was sandwiches and pasta....and chicken.  Here we eat black beans and rice, but I found out that you have the sauté the onions that you put in the beans beforehand, or they put a suferic taste in the beans. strange.

Mother- I got the sweater, and the taco seasoning! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! The sweater is not the prettiest of them all, but I still wear it :)  poop-brown with gray pin-striped slacks-looks kinda funny, but hey, the brazilians think its the best thing ever, so whatever.  wear it with a green tie, and we're in business. 

WE ate carne de Javali.... from what they described it as, its Wild Boar.  It was super delicious. placed on a spit over an open fire, it was incredible.  lots of salt on the exterior brings out so much flavor............ hmmm...... okay my mouth is watering now.
  We had a Branch council meeting at 630 sunday morning.. in the end, the Relief society president and the Elders Quorem president were arguing and yelling for the larger part of the time, we are still working on the whole "the spirit of contention is of the devil" thing.  Its kind of funny, because they obey with exactness the branch president, who is a quiet humble japonese man, who has some 4 years as a member of the church. anyways, we are still building the kingdom of God.  It's good. Did I tell you that we found a dead penguin last week with a ton of sand-dollars on the beach of Capão da Canoa, at Zone conference?

Ter um Ultimo dia :)

EE

esta semana

kay...so I realized that once again I blew away the majority of my time writing to brittany and tanner....but hey whatever

Strange-, I am writing this email in civilian clothes-  We are going FISHING with one of the recent converts, he is taking us fishing and we will cook and eat the fish for lunch on the beach of the lake.  Im excited. 
More news- I have not been transfered. I will stay here along with my companion, Elder R. Santos, weird huh? we both will pass 1 year on the mission together, normally this never happens, anybody with more than 8 months being with another of 8 or months... only Zone Leaders... weird, but hey, look, there are benefits, we are baptizing almost EVERY weekend...
This weekend we had the magnificent baptism of 2 super-elect investigators, Luciano and his wife Sonia.  (sonia in portugese means Dream) cool huh? well, a member asked them to come to church because we need more people in the church to get property and to construct the capella.  Well, the went as a favor for him, but they loved it so much that they started coming independent of him, they didnt let us come over to their house for a good chunck of time, but when we passed one day, they were home and we entered.....invited them to read in the book of mormon and pray.  Well, Sonia prayed and recieved an answer VERY VERY VERY clearly, so...she let us back, and we taught them and Saturday, they were baptized! :)  They have a daughter that is slightly rebellious, but not really, she is doing Catecriz, I have no idea what it means in english, but its like a Catholic Barmitzva, but anybody can do it... and she's in the middle right now, so we are trying to teach her about not worshiping Idols and images etc...its complicated, but we will baptize her soon, I pray. 

cool story- He got really really sick on Saturday (the devil trying to stop baptisms right?!?!?!?)  but he mustered up the courage and strength some how to pass the interview and be baptized- but he asked that we heat the water in the font. well....we tried. 2 automatic water heaters, 3 giant 40 liter pots on the stove of boiling water in the 800 liter pool....in the elders quorum room. it was still ice-cold and he still got baptized.

Mom, you asked what I did for the green pumpkin cake...well, I made it in the blender...maybe that was the problem.  I hardly did anything to get my visa, I have no idea why its so difficult to get it in Virginia. Sorry B. The 4th of july fest sounds awesome, I wore my America! t-shirt that night for pajamas...but thats about it.

I am INCREDIBLY jealous of Ryan, flying F-15s... Its my dream to one-day fly in one of them (they have 2-man cabins right?!?!?!?!?)

Parabéns Tanner on your high SAT and AP and ACT scores!

Facebook IS worse than Cocaine....
facebook---we have a ton of investigators that we have challenged them to read and pray about the book of mormon right? well, almost all of them say when we return, bah! elderes, I didnt have time! I had to cook, and clean the house, and take care of the kids, and etc......  and then we ask the kids, or the husband, or spouse how much time they spend on facebook.  usually about 3 hours. then we look at the investigator and ask, really? they always turn red and then admit that its true...really annoying right? dont have time to read 12 verses of the book of mormon and consider what they read and pray, but they have enough time to blow 3 hours on facebook every day...etc... well, its obvious that they dont care...and so we threaten them that well never return.  this usually motivates them for about 5 minutes. But then the pleasures of the world aka facebook set in, known as "Facey-Bookie" in portugues.

Acabou tempo

Amo Vocês!

Elder Eliason

well....

this week was very very interesting...we had a ton of activity in the ward, we are working our butts off, and the branch is growing.  over the last 6 months, the branch has been fighting to have enough members to buy land to construct a chapel, -we are using a rented out house right now- while the sisters were here, the numbers were floating about 70 and 75.  After 3 weeks of us being here, the numbers started averaging between 90 and 95.  we needed 1 trimester of average 80, and as of yesterday, we performed this goal, so today they are buying land, but we have to keep this number until september to get permission to begin constructing.  In doing so, one of the members of the branch invited his friends to "give him a hand" so their family of 4 went to church to help grow our numbers that was 4 weeks ago, I am still deciding if that was the stupidest or wisest reason....because they are going to be baptized Saturday!  they LOVE it! we are working really hard, I know that it sounds like we are slacking and just having fun in my letters, but really every day is focused very very directly on the investigators, its just that stuff happens EVERY week that is fun, funny, and interesting, and thats what I send...so here it goes
we had a chicken in the church sunday, he was in the entrance of the church, and my companion decided to try and scare him away, but instead of running back home, the chicken fled underneath some pews... after 3 minutes, I finally grabbed him and took him to his owners (the neighbors of the church)

we had the competition of male cake makers....it was AWESOME huge success, and it was super cheap-ideas you leaders of the church...

every man made his own cake *(without the help of any woman)*  and the investigators were the judges, all 14 that showed up! we had 9 cakes, I made mothers chocolate zucchini cake, but turned out more like a brick....so i broke a couple of cookies above it in the shape of a tie, and well....yeah.  we each had to introduce our cake to the judges and the congregation, and we received a score, between 1 and 50 depending on creativity, taste, and appearance...unfortunately, I got last place on taste and appearance...it was terrible, terribly terrible.  actually there were only 2 that were edible, but we had a super fun time laughing...and integrating the investigators with the members....our super awesome family of 4 that went to church just to increase our numbers were there and commented afterwards that they dont feel like they do in the other churches, but that they feel at home, with a family.  I am so excited for them. I think my companion threw away the rest of my cake this morning. hahahaha

there was a riot this last weekend here in Osório...the problem is that the city in total has about 60,000 inhabitants, and so the riot had about 40 people...and nothing happened. hahahahahah  some of our investigators went, they said that the biggest thing was that their daughter rode her bicycle and that 3 dogs chased her....and that that was the biggest commotion there. 

sunday had an interesting talk done by my friend Fabio....(he is a professional singer..look up "A palavra é uma semente, por Fabio Severo" on youtube if you want an example...)  he commented about his friend of 1 and a half years old, who when he fell, got up and brushed off his hands.  at only 1.5 years old, the kid already realized that he needs to stay clean, that he needs to be away from anything dirty, how this is incorporated into our minds before we can speak, act for ourselves, etc...it is a principle of God.  Interesting huh?  We are also doing a course of "teaching, no higher calling" master-teaching, interesting, I think it is really cool, a preach-my-gosple for sunday school teachers, but im still learning things from both books...its awesome.

By the way, Brasil won the Cup of the Confederations yesterday, smoking Spain 3-0, yeah, it was really really really hard to find anybody who would listen to us during the game. :/ its going to get complicated during the World Cup next year....hahaha, normally the mission presidents just give in and let the missionaries watch the games in which their country is playing and the country of which they are staying (brasil). Unfortunately, I realized lately that my jersey is of a Uruguayano, Forlan, but he plays for my team, Inter, so whatever. 

Facebook is worse than cocaine

Elder Eliason