Week of rain, rainbows, and miracles.

So.  This week was a toughie, but ended excelently.  Let me explain:

It rained.  It rained. It poured. Cats and Dogs. 

Did I say that it rained?

Well....because of the fact that we are not allowed to watch the weather forcast, we have no idea what the weather will be.  There is a little blurb of a forecast on the missionary home-website, but it said that the entire week would be sunny and hot.  -.-  *deceived*

Every day started bright and sunny with little puffy clouds in the distance.  By the time that lunch ended, the clouds started rolling in.  By 4 o'clock every day, the rain started.  

We were without umbrellas.....in that rain.  My boots have holes in the soles (where the sole has disappeared, dissolved, or melted from so much walking), so any moisture instantly is absorbed into my boot. yay.  Thursday, we were hiding from the rain under a slight outcropping in front of an apartment complex, when  the brown river (aka the road in front of us) got REALLY SWOLLEN.   As my companion and I were watching the water levels rise, (over the course of 2 or 3 minutes)  a very large car passed by.  They view us, and swerved at us.....to do what?  to create a GIANT WAVE that just drenched us head to toe.  To be completely honest, it didn't make a difference because we were already drenched, but it's the principle.... XP

Our baptism for this week fell through, Sunday morning, he woke up throwing up....so we were slightly disanimated, but.....as we were greeting people in front of the church, a grandma and 2 grandsons came up to us, I only recognized one of them, I had seen him once before in the other ward....He introduced himself a Anderson.  Well...he returned from the Brazilian army 1 month ago, and his family had fallen inactive....His brother is 9 years old, and needed to be baptized.  *.* :D :D :D :D :D  He had gone to church since his birth, but because the family was inactive, he hadn't been baptized.  We talked to him for a bit, made sure that he was all squared away, he passed the interview, and yesterday, his older brother baptized him.  It was awesome :D  *Miracles*  The kid's name is Artur.

Anyways,

We'll hopefully have a couple more baptisms this week. We found a family where the mom is inactive and she has two kids that are youth-aged.  They liked the church, so we marked their baptismal date for Sunday.  I'm excited.

Anyways, I love you all, Mom, enjoy the Oregon weather.  I'm highly jealous.

amo vocês,

Elder Eliason

Batismo do Artur e Samuel (batismo das Sisteres---he chose me to baptize him)

 

esta semana no preço está certo.....

This week was really really rushed.  We went bowling with the rest of the city's missionaries  (Planaltinha B, Passo Fundo A, and Passo Fundo B) for Sister Passini's birthday (P-day) (We are Planaltinha A).  Tuesday we took a bus to Porto Alegre for the leadership conference.  Wednesday we took the bus back, but the ever-so-brilliant secretary bought the indirect passes for us, so we sat on the bus for 7 1/2 hours visiting every bus station between porto alegre and Passo Fundo (~25 other bus stations)  which normally is a 4 hour ride.  yeah, that killed wednesday.  we worked the rest of the week, and baptized Alison Saturday.  It was awesome, up until the fact that we filled the baptismal font so many times (bummer :D :D :D) that the pipe exploded somewhere under the pavement....so our chapel is without water. (how to baptize without water-impossible) so....we went to the neighboring chapel, in Boqueirão.  Us 5. My companion and I, Alison, Artur (melhor amigo dele) and the president of the quorum.  It was good, simple and spiritual. 

New challenges this week: 

-how to convince a 15 year old girl that has no problems that she is not bipolar.  

-the "Mamão" effect stops having its effects......

-my companion reveals that I have been speaking Portuguese incorrect for the last year and a half.  

-I run out of Tek-Bond, my best friend with which I fix everything.  Its like gorilla glue strong, but dries instantly, like super glue.  AWESOME.

anyways, that's what has happened this week, I'm sorry that it's not more.  

I'll send some photos.

Stay strong

Elder Eliason

 

Bowling on Sister Pasini's birthday.  (she's the one with the black shirt)

Elder DeYoung decides that he doesn't want me to cut his hair......so he does it alone in the mirror XD

the baptism of Alison (he's on the right) (artur on the left)

We made a "cake" for Sister Pasini's birthday with what we had in our apartment....IE ramen, mayo,  margarine, pene noodles, bulion cubes in powder, and a leaf that we found.  I almost vomited as we made it. But it got lots of laughs as we gave it to her.

 

"heeeeeeey yall, heeeeeey yall"

so.  This week has been really good and hot.  We worked our butts off, I lost 5 pounds.  I feel like a popsicle.  In the furnace in one of dad's fabs, you know, one of those that makes plasma etc...that is hotter than the sun?  It was rough.  I know that the Lord really was thinking about me when he sent me here.  Both in Passo Fundo and in the Rio Grande do Sul.  I don't know if I would survive any other mission to the north.  Passo Fundo is the coolest city in the mission. but, Nevertheless......  my boots melted this week- we use cheap mason's boots that you can find in any construction store, mine say that the can take up to 300ºc.  I call their bluff.  They melted to the point that I am walking with about 3 cm^2 exposed of the sole of my foot on the blacktop, stonetop, dirttop, etc....  enough about my shoes.  I'll buy new ones this week, they're cheap, usually about 15 bucks. 

We were going to have 3 baptisms this week, but they all fell through, how dissappointing :(   the first, Vitor, marked the baptismal interview, but when Interviewer arrived, 1 hour behind schedule, he had left and was in another city.   REALLY BUMMED.  The other two are Lua e Leonardo, they are brothers who are 8 and 10 years old.  Very very intelligent boys, but the problem is that their dad is a drunk crack-addict, that treats everybody horribly. Well, he wanted us to teach them, and take them to church.  Cool right? well, we can't baptize anybody unless they have a resource (family or friends) that can help them '1- go to church and 2-stay active.  Well, our family that we got them to be friends with and everything got in a car-accident out in Argentina, and will have to stay there, for a LONG time...so we got another family to help us, but when we went to get them Sunday for church, they weren't home.  The house was completely open, but there was nobody there.  What sadness :_(   So.  Going on.  

We ´pulled some teeth' this week, and got a reference out of a member that said that he didn't  have any.  We visited the reference 10 minutes after lunch, and wow.  We will baptize him this Saturday.  Talk about incredible.  We got to his house, (his name is Alison)  he's 18, studying Civil Engineering at the University of Passo Fundo.  Talk about a very smart dude.  Very VERY smart.  We talked to him, he had already conversed with the missionaries before hand, but hadn't been baptized because he wanted to continue the family tradition of being Catholic.  Well, we challenged him to read 2 Nephi 31, and then the first 30 verses of Alma 5.  Afterwards, read the last 2 paragraphs of the introduction.  He accepted.  We came back 3 days later.  We came in, sat down, he gave us popsicles and said "Elderes, this is crazy".  I asked as to why, and he responded that he read the 2 chapters, and it blew his mind.  He said that he sat there for almost 3 hours thinking about the questions from alma 5, and how he needs to prepare.  He then admitted that he lost the introduction page, and didn't read it, but remembered that we challenged him to pray after reading and pondering and he did such.  As he prayed, he said that he felt a "wave" pass through him, of peace and tranquility.  He was asking for an answer as an opportunity to help somebody find what he found.  As we came back, and he said this, I felt constrained to read Galtas 5:22-23 with him.  He quickly identified that what he felt was a clear and utter influence of the Holy Spirit.  We then read Moroni 10:4-5.  He read it slowly, then read it again. Looked up at us and we all got crazy goose-bumpy.  He looked at us and said
"dude, I'm freaking out here. It's too perfect."  We then read the last 2 paragraphs of the  Introduction of the Book of Mormon, which clearly states, that he who recieves the Holy Ghost will 1- know that Jesus Christ is the Savior, 2- The book of Mormon is true, 3- Joseph Smith was the Restoring prophet, and 4- that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is the kingdom of God here on the earth in preparation for the 2º comming of Jesus Christ.  

He looked at us and whispered.  "It's all true."  We then asked him what he needs to do to follow this anwer.  He responded immediately.  "I need to be baptized as soon as physically possible, but first I need to talk to my dad, to assuage him, can I be baptized next week?"

YES.

Yes, you can Alison.  I'm tearing up. 

Anyways, I love this work.  It's rough at times, but as they say here in the south, It's like peanut brittle, it's hard, but it's sweet.    

so.....My new companion: His name is............. Elder DeYoung.

He's from Ogden, Utah, he has 1 year and 4 months on the mission.  He is very obedient and has his head on the ground.  I'm excited.  He plays ukelele, loves the same type of music that I love, etc.  Very fun.  Elder Spadari went to Santa Cruz.  

anyways, GO USA, the brazilians don't really give a care about the winter olympics, they have almost nobody competing, so they're "nem aí"  or "not even there"

Thank you for the prayers and support- go give a refference!

Elder Eliason

 

Meu novo companheiro, Elder DeYoung

The p-day nap

The seat of my pants- Ripped as I did a squat with 3 boxes of 36 Books of Mormon. (in the middle of church)

 

esta semana

So..... this week was NUTS!!!!!!!

1-  We have been working overload to help people realise that this is the truth, and that they need to own up, and become part of it.  Well, We baptized again this week, his name is Gabriel.  He is 10, he is the little brother of Criz, that was baptised last week, he too is the Great-grandson of Euphrodinha.  She, actually, XD, decided to count a story to us yesterday about the first time that she saw snow, she was a new mother and lived on the farm with her husband and her parents-in-law. She was laughing her head off telling us about how her husband was running around outside in his knickers trying to stop the cows from eating the snow.  Year: 1958 

2- We found out last Tuesday that a woman in our area is going to try to sue us.  Yeah.  That rocks our world a little bit- here's the sitch:  We baptized her grandson, but turns out that he's 17, therefore of a minor age, so he has to have the permission of his parents (according to the church), but he lives with his grandma, but granny is SUPER CRAZY from the Assembly of God. (A very anti-mormon church here in Passo Fundo) So she wouldn't give permission, so we gave him the form to get signed by his dad who lives on the other side of the city.  So....he got it signed, we baptized him.  whoopty doo.... but the problem is that we learned afterwards, that "Dad" doesnt know how to read or write....so, the signature was forged...appears, which puts us in a pickle.... So, we asked our elders quorum presidente (who is a lawyer) if really she could sue us.  He took the situation, and laughed.  Turns out that the parental signature is actually a formality here in Brazil, the kids have the right to choose their own religion....weird.  He said that the only person that could try to sue us would have to have a VERY corrupt lawyer, and that even if the lawyer is super corrupt, the judge will look at the case, and congratulate the kid on being baptized and leave.  Bahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! So, after being super stressed about this all week (I think I lost about a half head of hair) I am feeling a great lightenment off my shoulders.

We have received the transfer-email, I will stay, but...... my companion will be transferred, so, I will stay here in PassoFundo :) yay. I love Passo Fundo, the culture is really strange but great here. We are going to have p-day the entire day today :D  (we made our goal of 18 confirmations last month) how do we celebrate? Family home evening!!!!!!!!! wooohooo!!!!!!! with brazilian hotdogs :) yum.   :D

anyways, the book is blue, the church is true.

take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!!!

Elder Eliason

p.s.(name that t.v. show) ????

pps. go seahawks

ppps.  Brittany, Ainda eu tenho minha rede, mas não tenho furadeira pra que eu posso botar os parafuzos dentro dos guinchos na parede. Porem, vivo com as baratas......... :_)

 

[translation: Brittany, I still have my network (hammock), but I have no drill so I can put the parafuzos within the winches on the wall. However, living with cockroaches ............ : _)]