because I want to

I don't feel like writing a whole ton today, so i think I'll send some photos with some captions..... We had a miracle happen yesterday, 3 baptisms....., actually, 3 baptismal meetings, 6 baptisms, but 3 were of the sisters in the ward....but still, it was a VERY VERY white christmas :D

Christmas here they celebrate with large portions of meat, fireworks, and lots of beer.  being the fact that we are LDS missionaries, we have to make use of the 1 thing that we can do during those hours, the meat.........so we got together with some members and had a churrasco :) it was excelent.  Yes, sister costa and Sister Röpke were together with us....they're a lot of fun.

Baptism of Leonardo (18 anos, former Jehova's Wittness)

Baptisms of the 2 young women- 

 ------ Rubianie (17 years old, former evangelical)

------Vaneusa (15, irmã de rubianie, former non-denominational)

Baptisms of the sisters---the 3 kids.

Passo Fundo de novo!!!!!!!

So, I've been transfered to the zone Passo Fundo, (about a year ago, I was transfered here too, Erechim is part of Passo Fundo) 

I am serving in the ward: Planaltinha, 

area: Planaltinha A.

Zona: Passo Fundo

Companheiro: Elder Spadari

He is from: Long beach (Praia grande), São Paulo

We are the LZs of 23 missionaries, the biggest zone in the mission.

We share the ward with 2 crazy-as-Murdock sisters.  Sister Röpke, de Recife, e Sister Costa, from a city on the outskirts of  São Paulo.   (If you got the A-team reference, you are awesome)

We baptised a young man this week, his name is Maikon.  He is 13, and loves the church, the elders found him knocking doors last week, and he went to church 2 days latter, and yesterday, Elder Spadari and I baptized him.  He is AWESOME and  super funny. He also wants a Temple marriage (yes, he has already chosen the young woman hahahahaha) and to serve a mission.

His sister (age), probably will be baptized here in 2 or 3 weeks, she has a lot more work to do to get ready, he was super elect, she will have to change several habits..he he he....  

anyways, I have spent some time this week thinking about personal revelation.  I have come to the following census. (I wrote this to a friend who asked...)_   

So, if we were to live before the birth of Jesus, you would probably see an angel.  Because of the fact that we live in this modern age, revelation comes through the whisperings of the Holy Spirit.  (B/c of iniquity, revelation has decended from the terrestrial level to the telestial level)   the first rule to recieve revelation, is to be obeying ALL of the commandments, if not, repent, and ask for forgiveness....talk to your bishop etc.... If there is something wrong, it will impede your revelation, (refer to the excelent discourse given by Pres. Eyering, "Where Is The Pavilion?") RE> http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/where-is-the-pavilion?lang=eng   your response can come in 1 of 3 ways.  

Type 1- the most probable and sure way.  Galatas.  The fruits of the Spirit are: Love, tenderness, peace, etc..... (I know the words in portuguese, but not in english...)   Also, there is that scripture in D&C where the lord rebukes Oliver Cowdary and says "Did I not already give you peace unto your soul? With what more of an answer dost thou need?" more or less....hehehe....   allright, so what you need to do, is unplug yourself from the world.  cell phone, computer, ipod...etc...the world, go to somewhere where you can be alone and is very very quiet.  I would suggest doing this at the end of a fast.   After much prayer and study of the scriptures, Ask a question VERY VERY specific.  Invoking the name of our Savior, ask a yes or no question.  Confirm or not. etc... if you can feel peace or a burning in your chest, it's the right thing to do.  If you have difficulty focusing or anything like that, it is the wrong thing to do.  If you feel that you have not recieved an answer, try again, pray, study more scripture, pray, study, pray study, ask....etc... continue.   My mother always taught me that as litteral descendants of our Father in Heaven, we have the Right to recieve an answer to any question, but first we must study it out in our minds, (introduction to the Book of Mormon, or Moroni 10:4)  and then ask with faith.  If we do not recieve an answer, try again, if not, try again, UNTIL YOU RECIEVE AN ANSWER.  I have a testimony about this one.

2.  Dream, you ask the question in rightousness, and a little bit afterwards, you will have a dream where you recieve your answer.  (you must be very rightous and have LOTS of faith, or the answer needs to be made know VERY abruptly)  rarely happens.

3.  Make a decision, and pray that the Lord helps you whatever the decision may be.  This is frequent also.  What it means? The two options are good.  Just choose one and pray for the strenght of the Lord to uphold you in your decision.  

Thanks for everything, Mom, because Brittany has not sent info about the Skype, lets plan on 4 oclock chistmas afternoon :)  thanks :)

EE.

Photos-1. Baptism of Francisco last week,

2- Maicon. Yesterday.  Só batiza!!!!!!!

fun stuff.

So, Ive been transferred, yeah. 

This week we had two baptisms, Julia e Francisco.

Julia is the sister of a less active member, William.  He is 20, was using all sorts of heavy chemical substances, decided to return to the church, he will serve a mon here in a little bit, but told us that before he serves a mission, he wants to see his whole family baptized.  well, we have the start... :)

Francisco was a contact that the (incredible) Sister (Erin) Young did in her area.  She contacted him on the road, and then the next day, he was talking with his cousin (who lives down the street from us and him) and turns out that she is a recent convert.  Sparked interest, he just got out of a messy divorce, and is looking to change his life around (aka, heavy smoking, drinking, and drug usage).  Well, after 4 weeks of working with him, he was baptized yesterday.

I've been transferred, Sister Eliason will arrive in Brazil tonight.  I'm so excited.

I love everybody, 

thank you so much.

please, avoid Babylon.

Elder eliason

 

 

p.s.  I played the piano yesterday for sacrament meeting.....yeah.  I know that God helps us in times of lots of prayer and need.....

yeah.....

EE

so FYI, I lost all of my photos....

Really, my flash drive is clean, it got a virus and boom, couldn't open any photo.........or so I thought, I put it in the computer, and only showed some scans that I took before the mission of my Dive Course certificate that I had to scan and send to the Army Office out in Provo..... I took a look at the properties and everything, but there was something wrong, 3 gb used and only 56 mb shown in all of the files?  the photos were still there, but the computer wouldnt read them.  Change computer. still no.  Change computer again. again no.  Problem in the chip.  hook the camera up with the memory card in it and pass all of the photos to a DVD, and then reformat the memory card.  So I lost the videos that I took on that card. But......I still have all the photos on a DVD.  Same deal with my other memory card, so- to this point, my 4 gb of photos are safe on my DVD.  

SAFE.  yes mom, you can breath now.....hehehe.

Anyways,  First of all.  Mother. Breathe.  That last email sounded VERY agitated.  Between the terse sentance structure and diction choice I would say that you need a good walk in the park and a dinner at Café Rio (there's one in Provo).  I'm glad that everybody's healthy and happy.   I got the package (THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!  Everybody, my mom sent me socks from the other side of the world :)    also twizzlers, which don't exist here ;) so good :D:D:D:D  I also got the 4 packages of letters from my cousins.  

concerning the cousins----  Parker, your training out in West Virginia will be destroyed when you arrive in Rio.  The difference in the teaching is incredible.  You will go from teaching 2 or 3 lessons a day of high quality, worrying about everything and preparing everything, to 8-12 lessons a day and doing everything on the fly.  Relying LOTS on the spirit, because you have NO idea what is lying await for you in each appointment.

Sarah--- A sister in my zone wants to know which mission you are in, norte ou sul?  she's from Guyaquil sul.  Sister Martinez.  there's got to be a billion of the from there, but just a heads up.  

Elder Bennett----- You guys are going DOOWWWWNNNNNN in the World Cup.  yeah, that's all I have to say about Argentina.

Bennett Elder---- The difference between our missions is incredible. 

Also, to ALL OF MY COUSINS AND FRIENDS ON MISSONS: PLEASE. STOP WHINING ABOUT HOW CRAPPY YOUR BIKES ARE AND HOW FEW MILES YOU HAVE TO USE IN YOUR CARS!  

 ( count your many blessings, name them one by one...........)

Anyways, ahem, I love you all.  

Carla was not baptized, Turns out that she is legally married.  Like we asked.  But that's not the problem.  We weren't specific enough.  She is legally married to another man, who is not her husband.......  yeah, problems.  Her baptism will be delayed probably for anther 2 months unfortunately.  

Mom, you asked about conferences as ZLs.... we hav 1 conference every month at the Mission office.  It lasts 6 hours, and includes (as of recently ahem....) calling Elder Eliason at the last second with 2 minutes beforehand to play hymns on the violin.  * I just want to clarify that it's been about 3 years since I stopped playing the violin. It was rough, but I helped a friend in a tight crunch, so whatever.  Thanks Elder Nelson and Anastacio............ :P

Its getting hot in here.... wait a minute, it really is getting hot in here.  But I bought a fan, so It doesn't matter, I can finally sleep now :)

I'm out of time, love you all, have the most fantastic exelent week ever.

Elder Eliason

Weekly miracles.

Well, This week was hot, sweaty, and very very good. 

Miracles:

1- Tuesday, we decided to fast because Marcos was being influenced by the "other side" to try and not let his daughter, Victoria be baptized with his wife, Anna, on the 21st of December, as planned.  The argument: She's only 8 years old and doesn't know what she is doing.  He has yet to gain a testimony that the modern day prophets recieve revelation, as such the age for baptism is included.  We fasted and prayed for a miracle.  Well, that night, Marcos had a dream.  He drempt that he strangled his daughter, Victoria, to death, and then afterwards heard the voice of the Lord saying "Stop killing your daughter Spiritually."  Well, he woke up and couldn't go back to sleep.  The next night, he went to sleep and had the same dream.  The next morning, he had Anna call us and tell us that Victoria has to be baptized this Sunday.  So, yesterday, we baptized Victoria.  She's one of the sweetest dearest little children that I have ever met. Elder Lima baptized her.

2- Carla, who had been carrying the pass-along-card for 10 years and cried when we knocked at her door because "Jesus finally came" Went to Stake Conference with us Sunday.  yeah.  Her family are all Satanists.  Devil worshipers.  The type that call upon evil spirits and invite them to dwell within them for a spiritual experience....  Well, the family was doing their rituals and crazy things all night saturday until Sunday morning, but Carla hid in the kitchen, and when they tried to get her, she told them that they are wrong, and that she has a date with Jesus the next day.  She is legally married and when we knocked at her door, her husband tried to prohibit her from leaving, she pushed him out of the way, and told him that Christ is more powerfull than any devil he could bring.  She came to church, cried the entire time and told us (not asking, but telling us) that she will be baptized next Sunday.  I'm so proud of her :)

---End of miracles---

This week we did 2 divisions, 1 with the Elders from Neópolis and the other with the Elders from Parque dos Anjos.  I stayed with Elder Gonçalves (Parque dos anjos) here in Ala do Vale Wednesday, and we taught some awesome lessons, he is REALLY funny, but he knows how to teach and bring the spirit.  Really awesome- we were teaching a young man about Joseph Smith, and Elder Gonçalves pulled the Restoration flashdrive out of his pocket and asked if we could watch it with the investigator, who loved the idea (he's a 24 year old college student)  As soon as Joseph began to describe the first vision, (I saw a pillar of light, directly above my head, more brilliant.....)  the DVD player exploded internally, causing a large BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Elder Gonçalves looked at me and then muttered, "the enemy doesn't want him to hear the first vision" so we counted everything to the investigator by ourselves, withought the use of technology.  It was really good, we marked a baptismal date with him (first visit!) for the 22 de december.  I'm excited.

Our Nigerian friend (Francisco) Is progressing a LOT- he is preparing to be baptized on december 15th, but still has to stop smoking.  He has diminished to 3 or 4 cigarettes per day, but has fear of a relapse, and has yet to cut the last couple of cigarettes.  We will work hard with him this week.

I'm excited for almost everything.... we had a change of our Elders Quorum presidency last week, the new Quorum president has been a member for 1 year and 3 months.  He recieved his endowment last weekend.  The young womans president has been a member for 5 years and now is 21.  The young men's president has been a member for 2 years.  Fun stuff.  We have work to do.  

oh, during the Stake conference, we had the stake Relief Society president as the first speaker.  She burnt the living tar out of everybody.  Abinidai style.  She said that she had failed in her calling, as everybody else had during the year as Visiting Teachers.  The entire leadership sitting on the stand was alert with eyes the size of saucers.  Pretty awesome. Complimeted everybody, lulled them into a dull comfortable pleasing discourse, and then picked up the branding iron to say, and beat the living poo out of everybody listening. 

anyways, Love you all- I tried a new food this week.  Greek Yogurt with chunks of Coconut meat.  SO GOOD.  Also we ate supper at Churrascaria Pizza restaurant.  Where like Tucanos, the servers walk around serving you, but instead of meat, it was pizza.  I ate 24 slices and 2 plates full of french fries.  It was rough, but was worth it.  The best that made me laugh was the Butter and Garlic pizza (which by the way was DELICIOUS)  and the Jeremy Pizza (yes, that was the real name of it, the waitress told me).  it was about 4 inches thick of toppings.  I would call it "leftoverwhateverisinthekitchenattheendofthenight pizza"

amo vocês,

EE