hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but I'm an Elder, Be baptized maybe?.....

October 14, 2013

So, this week was REALLY SLOW..... The weather improved!!!!!!! woohooo sunny, and 80 degrees. Except for yesterday morning, when it was POURING rain, so hard that I couldn't even see my companion who was by my side.  The branch frequency dropped significantly because of the rain. That's what happens when half of the branch walks to church, and the other half rides their bikes. Oh well. 

Me- well this week, I renewed my visa! wooohoooo I was reading the fine print, and if I the mission had waited 2 more weeks, I would have been deported, talk about cutting it close...  I also found out that my return date will be July 22, 2014.  Almost 9 MONTHS! Wah! cadeu missão?!?!?!?  oh well.  

A car passed really close to my companion yesterday and splashed him with a really huge puddle- he got drentched from head to toe. bahahaha, Luckily, We were on division with a couple of members, and I was in Santo Antônio.

We had to cut a ton of our investigators that stopped progressing, so unfortunately, we have almost nobody to teach again.... and I've knocked the majority of the doors in our area (we have 3 neighborhoods here in Osório...) so we decided to focus more in Santo Antônio again.  We figured out how we can double our working hours there, and are going to work better with the members that are living there. Vamos lá!

This last week, we had a really huge let-down, that we are still kind of bummed out about.  We  had an investigator, Jovelina decide that she wants to be baptized.  That was until Saturday night, when her son came over from his house in Viamão, where he was living.... He was able to convince her that she is not ready and that she doesn't know if she really wants to be part of the church.  He got inside of her head and mixed her up so much that she doesn't even remember half of our lessons any more.  I was so extremely bummed, and we tried all that we could but unfortunately, she told us that after what her son had told her, she had no idea if she realy wants what the church has to offer (eternal salvation through holy ordanances?) Well, We were really bummed.   REALLY Bummed.  Anyways, that was the highlight of the week.  

Have an excelent week everybody.  Love helping your Elders.

Elder Eliason

esta semana

October 6, 2013

Well, this week was slow, really slow, but we have an excelent new investigator named Gladdis (yeah, like Gladys Knight) but she's excelent! She has so much faith! She works in beauty salon, doing women's hair, nails, feet, and other hair-things.... the beauty salon is below the Wizard, the member owned English-School/chapel here in Santo Antônio da Patrulha.  She smoked about 2 packs of cigarretts every day, but when we passed for the first time, we were talking about our lives...and she commented that she wanted to stop smoking, so I told her to stop, and to be baptized, she needs to stop.  Well, I call her every day at 9 hrs the night, and ask her how was her day (not a danger, she is like 50) and if she smoked.  To this day, she has not touched another cigarette. :) wooohooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE PEOPLE WHO HAVE FAITH SUFFICIENT TO SHOW THE LORD THEIR WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tanner, (not mincing words here...but in the most lovingly condoning older brother type tone....) you are an idiot.  I love you, but you are an idiot.  To be frank, I would have done the same thing.... Poison Ivy is definitely worth not getting tagged in XC tag.  

Preston, that little brown trout looks like 5 inches, you ate him??????? Please tell me no....

****************************CRAZY STORY************************** 

MOM= Prepare yourself, sit down and drink a cup of water before reading........ and take a couple of deep breaths...

I am fine. I am safe.

Those  sentances are the result of a very very very big miracle, thanks to the work of the Lord.

Wednesday, we were teaching in the beauty salon, downtown SAP. Well, we hear a huge ruckus happen out side, and looked out to see what was happening.  As we looked out, a dude ran past us as fast as he possibly could. Without realizing what was happening, we keept looking on.  The man pulled out a revolver and started shooting back, in our direction.  Three policemen with M-16s and 9mms started shooting back at him.  

Us in the middle. 

We hit the deck, and crawled back inside of the cement-walled salão de beleza, and waited for the shooting to stop.   What happened: The man had hijacked a semi-truck full of fresh leather hides out in Canoas (city close to SAP)  and was diving it in our direction, he was passing through SAP when a policeman saw him *(they had put out an APB on the missing semi)  Well, the hijacker saw the policeman, and because of the fact that he was stopped at a stoplight inbetween cars, he couldn't escape, so he ditched the semi, still running.  Well, the first policeman ditched his own car, and jumped into the semi as it started rolling into the oncoming traffic, and stopped it, while another policeman started to run after the man.  Shots were fired, and finally the policemen wounded him in the leg after he jumped the fence on the side of the beauty salon.

Miracle:  he did not enter the beauty salon to escape, the door was open, and it was probably a more realistic escape route for him.  

May I just say that I feel blessed and protected by the Lord.

I loved general conference.  We didn't have the opportunity to watch the priesthood session, but Ill listen to it here in a little bit.  Obrigado :)

Amo vocês 

Elder Eliason

well........ the real letter

September 30, 2013

hahahaha, 

well...... Carine was baptized!

The 2 were Confirmed!

to this day, I have had 19 baptisms here in Osório.  All are active except for a man and his wife, that decided to be offended from one of the lessons in the Gosple Principles class, which is a personal problem, that they have to work out with the Lord.  

I will stay here in Osório and Santo Antônio da Patrulha for atleast 6 more weeks.  that makes now 6 months in total.  1/4 of my mission.  

I'm excited because one of our inactive friends that we were trying to reactivate over the last 4 years.... (yeah, its been a long process, they give lunch to us every month, but they are not married, so he can't be baptized, and she feels guilty for breaking the law of Chastity) he finally proposed yesterday!!!!!!!! we were there, it was at her birthday party..... sooooooo gooooood!!!!!!! woohoooo!

I realized something the other day- It has been a really really really long time since I have written any letter.   I'm sorry for anybody who wrote me, letters have really lost my interest, I love reading them and all, but Ill be home here in 10 months, so if you have something important, send a letter, if its just an update, send an email (teliason@myldsmail.net) or if you want to marry me, well, send a package or a Will-Ferril, Elf-like, singing christmas-gram.

okay, I hope that my sarcasm has not become too prevelant.-Im out of time, this transferencia has created a chaotic mess of my inbox.

te amo, todo mundo, te amo

Elder Eliason

wooooooooooooohooooooooooo it's raining again :)

So, for the last 4 days it has been non-stop rain again.  A sure sign that it is spring now here in southern Brazil.

  Well.... We had another baptism this weekend, the brother of Cassianie:  It has been quite a deal working with them, they are SUPER POOR, I mean, REALLY poor, they are in 7 brothers and sisters, and their mom and stepfather.... Well, the stepfather went to work this week and never returned home, so .... yeah, they are suffering a lot of problems right now, and in her hysterical state the mother told her sons that she doesn't think that they are prepared to be baptized, MUCH to our chagrin.  They got it stuck in their heads about it (they were super excited to be baptized last week, but now they were super resistant) I insisted that they atleast have the baptismal interviews and see if they are ready.  Luiz was the first (he is 11) he went into the interview, and after 30 seconds our DL got up and called the mom to the room.  Well, I don't know how, but after 5 minutes she returned with a huge smile on her face, and the kid passed the interview and she signed the permission slip.  Miracles.  Luiz Henrique was baptised at 1o'clock yesterday.

Mother, you asked me about my companion- Well, for the first 2 transfers I was with Elder R. Santos, he is from São Paulo, and worked as a parking ticketer for the government.  Yeah.   Well, he got transfered 5 weeks ago, and Elder Araujo de Souza arrived.  He is from Caucaia, close to Fortaleza.  Speaks with a REALLY thick accent, and uses a lot of really strange jargin and slang.  He has 7 months on the mission.

I forgot to say, I am eating a Panatone right now, its like a giant chocolate-chip muffin, the size of my head.  VERY delicious, it is also the only thing that I have found here that has chocolate chips.  

This Friday, we will have the baptism of Carine, it is her birthday, she is turning 12, and so she wants to enter directly into the young womans program.  Wooohooo!!!! Pray that everything goes right.

Saturday we will have a pizza competition as the ward activity. (my idea, thank you)   Only the men are allowed to cook (again, because if the women were allowed, their egos would be destroyed, and we would lose about 80% of our ward frequency).

I just remembered that next week we have transfers. wooohoooo..... Transferencias are better than Christmas here!  seriously!

fique firme! 

te amo,

Elder Eliason

This week, on the district...

Sept. 13, 2013

Well, it has been fun, this week was crazy.

We started off with a family home evening on monday, where the brother, Irmão Carlos Martins, asked us about the little girl with the afro that went to church.  My companion looked at him, and asked, What girl?  He tried to describe her, but we had never seen her before.  He told us that the family of Edélcio (our recent converts) had brought her, she is their neighbor.  Well, he told us that he would be willing to take us to their house the following day.  We went, Mateus, the son of Edélcio took us to her house.  Her name is Cassianie, she is 14, and has absolutely embraced the precepts of the gosple.  We taught her and her 6 brothers and sisters and her parents.  Yeah all 9.  We baptised her yesterday.  Carlos Martins took us to visit her every night last week.   EVERY NIGHT.    Yesterday at the baptism, all of her brothers told us that they all want to be baptised too.  WOOOOOOHOOOOOO its a dream.  The parents are very suportive, but the only problem is that they are not married..... rarely anybody here is married, it's expensive, and very labor-intensive.  We will have fun this week again :)

We also were teaching Rafael, the young man of 15 who smokes.  He decided that he wanted nothing to do with the church, but his mother, who went to church the week before loved it, absolutely adored it.  He lost interest, but his mom and sister gained interest.  We taught them every night last week too, just after Cassianie (thanks to Carlos Martins)  They too were baptised yesterday.  I am so extremely excited for them.   They brought ALL of their neighbors to watch the baptism, and so....yeah, we are going to teach EVERYBODY.... 

We also had a young woman appear yesterday in the church for the first time...her name is Carine (which means tender loving care) and is the sister of our miracle baptism last month, Carol.   Well, she declared to the young womans program yesterday that she will be baptized on her birthday.  yeah, um...thanks for telling the Elderes...... (we had no idea)  well... This will be awesome :) she was an ex-investigator, that we cut (she never progressed) but now she has decided that the time has come.  WOOOOHOOOO  We will have a family home evening tonight with her, her sister, her mom, and Carlos Martins and his wife, Sandra.  

 I absolutely love that family (Carlos and Sandra), they have recently become active in the church, decided to serve a mission as a senior couple, but decided to stay in their own branch to help it.  Well, they are willing to do ANYTHING for us.  I love them.  They are hillarious, Carlos hates americans, not because of us, but because of our international oil domination (it's really funny to hear him rant about it) Sandra is an angel who puts up with the absolute rediculousness of Carlos.  He declared the other day that he will buy the first coppy of the Liahona in Portuguese....for over 300 reals, which is completely absurd.  She just looked at him, looked at the computer, and looked at him again and asked: How do you know that that person actually will send it and not just take your money? He began to speak, and then stopped and thought and said Your right! Well, Ill buy a whole bunch of other junk with that money (*he is a retired justice enforcer worker, as they say in Portuguese, like judicial security I think...)  Kind of funny.

Funny thing- this lan house where we use the computers is playing some music in english...the brazlians have no idea what it means.... really funny.

I love you all....

Elder Eliason

yup.

This week, has really been the week that we gave it all back to the abism....

I know that really somehow, there's a word that rhymes with schism....

I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about baptism....

and all the water we now use is frozen

and all the saints that need our help have spoken

there are many people that I would like to get wet, 

and I know how.....

its called baptism,

you know its going to happen,

be baptized now..... (X3) 

 

okay, I had that song run through my head about 200 times this week, it has been placed on the music-car playlist to attract people to the attention of the banners..... 

okay, so this week rocked in the fact that next week we will have at least 5 baptisms. We had 7 investigators come to church!!!! que coisa maravilosa!!!!!

okay, so heres what happened.  

Dr. Etsuko, the wife of our branch president, Presidente Chiake, found this family trying to hitch hike to the hospital where she was going to work...well, turns out that the dad passed out on the road because a car hit him and drove off, and the 4 kids (ages 10-16) were trying to find somebody who has a cell to call for an ambulance or give a car-ride... they are extremely poor, living out in the middle of no-where between cities.  Dr. Etsuko picked them up and after a couple of days, they returned to the home, with the help and care of our branch president....well, they asked them if they frequent any church, and the fact was that the father was looking for a church, but no pastor would let them in because they didnt have anything to pay tithes... (sound like the story of almulek and the rammeumptum?) [I'm certain that I spelt that wrong...] well, they went to church yesterday, and they loved it so much that they all want to be baptized this sunday! what an incredible miracle!  Im so excited for them.   Funny things about this family- the daughter is 12 and told me that her biggest desire in life is to be baptized.  I almost cried.  2nd thing... they had a giant painting of a naked woman on their wall, that they had found on the side of the road.  I was on a division when we went to visit them for the first time, and my DL, elder De Oliveira, when we entered asked if we could take the painting and burn it.  well, we started a fire outside...and burnt that pornography..... hahahahahahahaha, well, things that only missionaries would think of doing...  3rd thing. they have a wood stove, but no chimney, just 2 holes in opposing walls...so the smoke passes through the house and is taken out when the wind blows (*something that is possible in Osório only because the wind NEVER ceases here), when Entered, I thought that the house was on fire and hit the deck to avoid inhaling pure smoke....

We had a branch activity on Saturday, we had a combined churrasco....so everybody was to bring a dish for everybody to eat, and your own meat to be roasted.  Well..... we had about 50 people show up, and about 100 kg of raw meat.... it was AWESOME, and EVERYBODY got completely sick from eating so much meat. But it was soooooooo  goooooood....... Definitely an awesome ward activity that I will suggest when I return to BYU... 

So if anybody doesn't know by now....my family is going to move to Utah.  I still don't know how I feel about that....but it will be nice to not have to use so much money to visit the fam. on vacation. 

Today we had transfers again, I wasn't transferred but my companion was, So I'll stick around for another 6 weeks here in Osório and help this branch become a ward.  our average frequency for the last 4 weeks is over 100, as opposed the 50, 6 months ago.  Just something to chew on.

anyways, thank you for the wondeful emails everybody, have a fantastic week :)

Keep your stick on the ice,

Elder Eliason

Semana de chuva, e lagrimas, e mais chuva

Well, the title basically sums up what happened.... It rained, A LOT, our city doesnt travel by road anymore, we travel by canal....where the roads were.  Everything is soaking wet... HOLEY SMOKES!!!! Just witnessed a car crash in front of my computer....Im sitting by the door and booom!!!! wow.  Well it took about 10 seconds and there is military on the scene...its all taken care of, back to the week.... it rained A TON, and its the beach, so theres no drainage system, the drainage system is "wait until the sand absorbs all of the water...after 2 or 3 days".... yeah.  we were wading this week.  On top of that, it was cold.   About 40 degrees- and LOTS of wind.

These are the physical things that happened this week.... 

- A kitten climbed up my pants while I was teaching a lesson.  (it was surprisingly fast) and when it got up to the upper half of the calf, as I was trying to get it out, it hung on. By its claws.  >:(  that was pretty funny for all of us. Except for the allergic reaction afterwards- Mom, yes, Im still allergic to cats.

We were victims of a Drive-by shooting.  They shot us with rubber bands.  funny.

My companion, who doesn't eat a whole lot of sweets, got a huge packages filled with cookies and wafers, and more cookies, and a ton of ramen.  = HAPPY DAY

I got a blue card (dear John in portuguese) Thanks :) you know who, My companions couldn't stop laughing with the quote: "You know I hate it when you cry."  again, thank you.

We had lunch in a Pasteleria that is owned by some members, (a restaurant of pastels. like closed semi-hard shelled tacos, with whatever you want in it).  They gave us Churrasco e pastels.  I almost died, I ate 2 pastels (the size of my FACE) that were full of strawberries and white chocolate. my mouth is still watering. SO GOOD, afterwards, they told us that we could have anything in the restaurant for free whenever we want.  My companion got some ice-cream and we got some candied coconut.  Its pretty awesome. 

okay, Spiritually: 

Eder, our incredibly elect investigator that I found last week (my contact on the road) was almost baptized yesterday, but he had some problems.  He is super ready to be baptized, but has only 1 problem, everybody has only 1 problem..... He likes to drink.  His parents died 2 years ago, and to evade the pain, he drinks.  A LOT. Well, we visited him, worked with him, he quit for 5 days, super super excited and such, but Friday night was the birthday of one of his friends.  We were going to visit him and make sure that he was still clean for the interview Saturday, but unfortunately Elder R. Santos got really sick, and we had to stay in house and avoid the pouring rain.  He went to the party, and without thinking accepted a beer and began drinking. Well, halfway done with the beer, he realized and remembered, but got so sad that he finished the beer......and 19 others. Went out, found a "woman of the streets" and yeah....it just goes downhill from there. We remarked for this weekend.  He's still an awesome guy, he's 35 and completely ready.  Just needs some refining and polishing. 

We had some problems with Natalia, Luciano, and Sonia.  They had a really hard time understanding that they can't be sealed to their kids without them being baptized (kids age 15, 13, and 9)  who live with other parents.  Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but then runs the other questions, of hey, they have other fathers and mothers, who would be sealed to who???? with this, coupled with some other things that happened (super-gung-ho home teachers that want them to progress fast and accept all of the deep doctrines of the church, bad gospel principles class, etc....) They ended up being so offended that they decided and told us that they never want to set foot in the church again and that neither us nor anybody from the church is welcome in their house again.  Yeah, this week was rough. 

anyways, I know that the church is true, in any local in the world, it's true.  People are weak, and can be false, but the doctrines are pure and true.  Continue on :)  

Keep your stick on the ice.

Elder Eliason

Quote: Absolute faith is not knowing that God can, but that God Will. (Henry B. Eyring)

hey

A long long time ago, in a "[Country]" far far away......

there was a missionary.  Who completed almost every goal set by his leaders, but at the end of the day, the only investigator who was capable of being baptized, decided not to.  Imagine his sadness.  Imagine the sadness of that investigator's mother and father that were baptized last month and that sadness that they won't be able to be sealed with the investigator.  time.  Time. TIME. Time will tell.  oh well, that basically sums up the week. yup.

We hiked mount Bourussia,  the local mountain.  The other elders, (we live in 4) wanted to take the trail, not the road (not a problem), but we couldnt find the trail (problem.) and so they decided that we would climb anyways.  straight up the face of the mountain, through the forest.  The brazilian semi-tropical rainforest.  yes. Many spiders and mosquitos.  many many many mosquitos. We survived.  It was fun.

I did a division with elder Rollings, from Georgia. He's awesome.

I watched "Charlie" the chick-flick from the church..........it was pretty awful, until she died.   then it got a little bit better.  whatever.

There's really not that much happening here.....its all typical.  I'm trying to remember if anything cool happened last week.  Oh, Doctor Itsuko, (the wife of our branch president) a little japanese woman who is about 55, burnt the living tar out of the evil grandma of Carol, our recent convert.  pretty funny. We blew all of our monthly money making a marriage possible for a couple that is super dear to us.  it's going to be a weight-loss month again. :) it's all right, the ward takes care of us, they give us dinner sometimes, but always lunch, it's pretty sweet :)

I love the fact that Brandon Blake ate the chili peppers from the garden, out of all of the peppers, I think that Chili peppers have the best flavor.

no mom, I still haven't Kicked the habit. -----hahahahhaa, get the pun! hahahaha.

we made tacos last pday, this week I think that we will make breakfast casserole-my idea.

Love you all....

Elder Eliason

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)