esta semana

dear people,

So, this week was fun.  It was really hot, and then it got really cold, and then it got really hot again.  Fun stuff, everybody is getting sick, because of the change in temperatures.  I ate mamão, (don't try and translate that one) Its just a giant papaya.  It is really good in smoothies.....Which I still make almost every morning.   We had a huge WAVE of rain last night, which was really awesome because it was SWELTERING, and the rain makes it a lot cooler here......I had to ask the Sisters (who live in the apartment buliding on the side of our appartment building) if they had an extra blanket.....I've been sleeping on the ground with a bed sheet for the last month and a half, and because the temperature dropped so suddenly, I got cold...and I know that the sisters had a ton of quilts and blankets, so they gave me one.....  I found out later that it was the one that they would do exercises on....so it smells of "sister sweat" and is covered in hair.  Well...that was fun, we don't have dryers here, so to wash it would take about a week to dry.....and I wanted to be warm last night, so I slept with it like normal.....but had nightmares the entire night about sisteres trying to kill me. It was very very crazy.  

This week we had the baptism of our great friends Eufrodinha and her great-granddaughter, Cris.   Eufrodinha, or vovozinha as we call her, is about to celebrate her 86th birthday.  She is almost deaf, but we taught her anyways.  Her great-granddaughter, Cris, is awesome too, but I just have to say that I was VERY nervous that the baptism of Eufrodinha would not go well (usually the water is ICE COLD) but by some miracle, the water was very warm.  It was on Saturday, which was VERY cold, the entire week was pushing 95 degrees, but Saturday decided to hit 60 and rain.  We were very worried that we would have to confirm her in the temple.....hehehehe. oops... anyways. Besides this, there wasn't tons that happened this week....we taught 26 lessons with members this week...I think that is a new record for me...oh well.  oh!! Eulfrodinha is the oldest baptism that I have had yet, the closest to her was Francisco (age 72) who will recieve the Preisthood this Sunday! :D  

Anyways, Brittany, drinking Onion Juice is probably the funniest thing that I have ever heard of as a joke for a greenie,... we thought about doing the member change in Osorio, where our friend (Marcelo) who looks 19 but is a married RM etc...2nd councilor in the branch.... would grab his old name-tag and meet the greenie at the buss station, take him down to the apartment building (2 blocks away from the bus station) where we would be hiding and tapeing when his wife (she looks very young too)  would come out and they would start making out.  Just to see how the greenie would react.  But we decided better to just pretend that they were all investigators and eat lunch. But....it would be VERY funny anyways....

1 more week until the transfer day....so next week, we'll know if I'll stay here in Passo Fundo, or if I'll be transfered. Thanks for everything everybody :D

Love you all to the dust,

Elder Eliason

vamos lembrar que ela tem quase 86 anos....

 

 

 

This week, on the Price is Wright.......

heheh- Wright- the name of our Mission Presidente, Presidente Wright....

 

okay, enough with the games, this week was ROUGH.

Spiritually, it was fine,

but fisically, for the most part - intestinally......

 

Part 1- Let me start off by saying, as of tonight, over the course of the last transfer (the last 5 weeks) since I have gotten here with Elder Spadari, we have eaten 35 xis burgers. Yes, 35.  That's what happens when you discover that Xis-do-Scooby-Doo has a missionary promotion of 6 xis-burgers and 3 liters of soda for R$27 (aka ~12 USD) and delivery is free.

 

------ Exemplo of when we would eat xis: Xis batismais (every time we baptize) Xis farewell- We found out that one of our sisters had to go home because of health issues, so the night before she left, we threw a "party" which means 5 minutes of Orange soda and xis in front of our apartments.  We got a new Sister, Sister King- from Squim, Washington. (She's best friends with sister Schumacher, just FYI Sister Eliason)   .... etc, I love xis.

 

Part 2 of my problem. Lunch, Wednesday.  The brother served Cartilage and Nerves.  With chick-peas.  He had gone to the butchers, picked up a cow spine, pulled out the cartilage and nerves, and bought them.  He then continued to throw them in a Cast iron pot on a wood stove, then with olive oil and a bit of salt, melt them together. Boiled chick-peas to mix with and then serve over white rice. I can not say that it was the most, ahem, succulant nor tender thing that I have ever eaten, but ...... we ate it.  A LOT of it.   The brother made sure that each one of us had a very LARGE plate full of it.

 

Part 3 - 3 other days during the week, lunch was chicken pieces covered in soy-bean oil and then thrown in the oven to cook.  "Lubricated chicken" we call it (between my companion and I).  Usually it is served with Tang and White rice. mmmmmmmm...... XP

 

Part 4- I have recently gotten in the habit of making fresh fruit julius's. like Mango Julius, Plumb, etc............. way more fresh fruit than normal...... with sugar and milk.  mmmm..... XD

 

well, after that nonsense.....

 

 

 

We had 1 baptism this week, Flavio.  He's awesome. He's taking us out tonight to eat Xis and drink Terere.   He says that he knows the best Xisaria (xis-shop) in the city.  I'm excited.  XD

 

He knew some Young women when he was a Young man that were members....he got in contact with some of them and in the end he will marry one of them here in a couple of weeks, and he wanted to know what she believed (religiously) well, they started talking about it and he said that it was to good to be true, but he began to go to church, and yup, 5 weeks later, he appeared for us and said, Elderes, I need to be baptized.   WOOOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!!!   Many will say he got baptized because of the wife, others will say that he was one of the Elects of God.  What do I say?  D&C 20:37. 

 

amo vocês,

Elder Eliason

 

Flavio foi batizado :D

 

so....I'm beat.

Nosso Batizmo- Francisco! he is 69 years old, and is SUPER happy to be part of the church. 

O batizmo das Sisteres- Larissa, she is 13 years old, and is very happy in the young womans program.

First things first!!!!! Mom- I GOT MY CHRISTMAS PACKAGE!!!!!! Thank you so much!!!!!!!

Preston and Brandon, I thouroughly enjoyed the candy :_) thank you!  I ate all of the boogers.

This week was CRAZY.  We had the Leadership conference in POA on Wednesday, but because we are in the longest zone from the mission HQ, we had to go on Tuesday. So: we had 1, p-day until 9oclock Monday, Tuesday we took a 7 hour bus ride to POA (normally its 4 hours, but because of an accident and some other nonsense....it took a lot longer). Wednesday we had the conference, and then imediately afterwards, we grabbed a taxi which took us to the inter-county bus-station (rodoviaria)  where we took 5 hours to get back home.  we arrived Wednesday night at 9, where we learned that one of our sisters was in the hospital....if she doesn't get better in 12 days, she'll have to go in for surgery.  Combine that with the fact that they cut the water in the sister's appartment, so we have to deal with all of their nonsense.....we got to work the last 4 days of the week.   We arrived at the house of our investigator Francisco, and he declared as we appeared, "Vivi (name of his daughter) the angels are back!!!!" When we entered and started talking to him, he told us about how incredible church was and how he knows that it's true.  He also told us that he made a goal of to never miss 1 sacrament meeting for the rest of his life.  We invited him to be baptized Sunday, but he said that he doesn't know if he's ready or not.  DUH. Every investigator in the whole world says that.  Easy fix, talk about the baptismal interview.  If he passes, he's ready, if not, then he's not.  Check-Mate.  done. He was baptized Sunday.  

That wasn't the only miracle.  As the second hour was ending, one of the recently-returned missionaries appeared in the Gosple Principles class and grabbed me and asked quite abruptly, "Elder, do you believe in miracles?" I responded that I do, and he said good, and led me to the front of the chapel where a man in a pink polo was standing.  He introduced himself as Flavio.  He already went to church many times when he was visiting his friends in Curitiba. He appeard in church and asked us when could he be baptized.

  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I thought that I had already found the 2 most Elect people in the world:

Flavia- who asked us when she could be baptized when we were teaching her nefew. (she is now the 1st councilor in the relief-society of Bento Gonçalves and is preparing to be sealed to her husband) 

Anderson- we walked in front of his house and he called us out and told us that he needed to be baptized. 

But.... this was the first time that anybody has sought out the church and everything beforehand and then approached us and declared that he thinks he's ready....

Now we have Flavio.   He's going to be baptized Saturday.  

I'm super super super excited.  

anyways, thanks for the love, I also got the christmas card from our new bishop.  Thanks for thinking about me :)

amo vocês,

Elder Eliason

ADDRESSES

To send BOXES: 


Visconde de Macaé, 245. 
Porto Alegre - RS.  
CEP 91350-290
Brazil 

email de semana

so.....

This week was CRAZY 

let me explain

We got permission to stay up to 10:30 outside if we had a car-ride to go home with a member new years eve.  Well, that morning, we got a call from the Assistants.  Turns out that as a mission we had the goal of 200 baptisms in the month of December (compared to the 28 that we had last year, it's quite the goal...)  We ended last week with 189.  The weekend didn't end the month, we still had 2 days....so what happened?  The assistants called all of the LZs who called all of the LDs who called everybody and told all of us that there are a tleast 11 people waiting to be baptized as a new years resolution. so, on new years eve, we ran through the city in search of 3 of our investigators that were preparing for baptism.  They were all visiting friends, family, and a whole bunch of nonsense....... we  were going crazy.  at about 1900hrs, we got to the house of our investigator Gabriel.  He is 17, but already got permission from the father to be baptized. Problem-he was not home.  Panicked, the grandma (with whom he lives) told us that he had been missing for 4 days.  Bewildered, we called the other elders on the other side of Passo Fundo to see if they would pass by the house of the girlfriend of Gabriel, who they baptized several months ago.  They were actually already there, inside the house teaching both our investigator and the girlfriend.  We almost cried.  I told the elderes there to do a check-mate on our investigator and bring him to the church so he could be baptized that night.  I then called the District Leader, Elder Lemes to come to the church too to do the interview.  We then grabbed an Onibus, and headed to Center to fill the baptismal font.  At about 2100hrs, they all arrived, and we had a small baptismal meeting and the baptism.  We closed the church at about 2200hrs, and headed home, when we got a call from the sisters, asking if we wanted to drink super-man champagne with them to celebrate the new year.  With 15 minutes of free time, we celebrated in front of our apartments. (our Apartment buildings are side by side..)  it was fun, but it turns out that strawberry-based, alcohol-free, superman champagne, really isn't that fantastic, but what was was that I got to pop the cork, and it exploded so high, that by the time that we poured the champagne, there was about a half-shot for everybody...(we also had the elders from Lagoa Vermelha over (for the district meeting the next day) along with the sisters from Passo Fundo B. (they live with our sisters) It was fun, short, and we were all tired the next day.... Fun stuff.  They explode so many fireworks here that to this day, they explode them every night because of the new year.... they are "Illegal" but nobody cares, and they sell them in every store.  

Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the baptism, my camera was in our apartment, and we didnt pass there before the baptism.  

in the end, our mission had.............203 baptisms in the month of December.  We are improving our techniques a LOT,  through dilligece, obedience, and heavy study, it's been a huge change. 

fique firme!

amo voces!!!!!

Elder Eliason