This week

This week has been awesome, terrible, but awesome.

1- Viadutos. We started the group out in Viadutos. Well, we arrived, and the house that we were planning to use was full of people. When we inquired as to what was happening, the response was that everybody was waiting for the new pastors to arrive *(us)* well, we had 33 people attend our little sacrament meeting. With the Rap/Funk that was playing on a boom box from a nearby neighbor, we had the most spiritual meeting that I have ever had. We went on splits with some members of the ward, so I went to Viadutos while Elder P. Souza went to Erechim.

 

2. Our incredible investigators Paulo and his family have yet to be baptized, they are waiting for him to stop smoking. Pray for them

3. The Ward has all of a sudden realized the urgency of new members in our ward, so they are bringing literally all of their friends to church and giving tons of references. It is incredible and a miracle, but we are getting run ragged running from appointment to appointment, one side of the city to another, because people in this city work a LOT. so they only have a little time each week to recieve us, so we have to be there when they are available....very complicated schedules

 

4. Tons of datas for batismo, but few are actually going to happen. When I said we invite on first lesson, yes, we already always do that, but to try and mark a baptismal date the first contact on the road is difficult, strange, but fantastic.

 

5. We had a family home evening with a family who is very against the church, their son is a member, but it almost destroyed the familywhen he told them. He actually ran away from home to be baptized...but things are getting better. We made sloppy Joes with them (build repor) and watched the Testaments with them (always brings the spirit) which was incredible. We gave them a book of mormon and the mother said that this time she will actually try and read and pray about the truthfullness of these things. I have a lot of hope for them :D

 

6. Last night we visited a reference from a member, we arrived, and the family was super happy to have us. Aparently they have tons of friends that are members and awesome examples for them. The father started out by bashing literally every church I have every heard of by all of their faults and how they are all created by man, and how. He then turned to me and told me quite literally, that he has no idea how to bash our church, well, we steered him in the right direction, and told him that there are a lot of things that people say about the church, but we have to use the spirit to discern what is true and what is not. He was fascinated that we actually teach the members of the church to pray and ask God for answers, not the pastors, and that we are to act by the whisperings and promptings of the spirit. We gave them a book of Mormon and invited them to be baptized and read and pray, they accepted, and while we were drinking chemmarrao afterwards *as is custom in their house* the son, (age 18-ish) read the entire chapter that we marked *(alma 36) and pointed out some of the verse that he liked, especially about repentance and the feeling of joy that accompanies this righteous act. I am super excited for them (they've already been to church one time, and they will come to general conference this weekend. ) YEAH!!!!!

 

Anyways, It was fantastic to hear about the trip to NYC, Enjoy life

Te amo, e A Igreja é verdadeira

Elder Eliason

Week

Well, thank you so much for the emails, I thoroughly enjoy reading them and the letters too....

 

NEWS! CONGRATULATIONS TO ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS LIZ KITTELL, OR SHOULD I SAY MRS. LIZ GREEN NOW! WOW, I JUST GOT THE NOTICE THAT SHE GOT MARRIED LAST WEEK. WOOOOOOOTTT!!!!!!! I'm supersuper happy for her.

okay...this week, well, thursday morning we got a call from our leaders telling us to go to Passo Fundo, we arrived there and stayed the night, friday morning we went to Caxias do Sul for a conference with the Doctors from São Paulo, and to recieve orientation from President and Sister Wright, and the assistentes. It was fantastic, but the new theme is inviting people to be baptized in the contacts on the road. Well, everybody was laughing and jesting about it *(its extremely uncomfortable to ask someone if they want to be baptized in the first 30 seconds of knowing them) well....we have found 4 new people to teach this week who accepted. !!!!!!!!!!! How crazy is that. The number of baptisms in this mission is skyrocketing now, in January we had a grand 28, this month we are on track to have more than 100. Yeah, think about that. Here in the south. The state that baptizes the fewest people in all of Brazil. The work is hastening 100x it is incredible.

 

My new greenie? He is incredible. The first week was a little difficult, seeing as how he spent a grande 12 days in the CTM versus the 9 weeks I was there. This week was fantastic, we are both learning tons from each other, and I have certainty that there is a reason that the two of us are here in Erechim. We found out this week that Bispo Udoh has decided to allow the city of Gaurama and Viadutros to host their own sacrament meetings so that the members out there don't have to spend a third of their income to go to church every other week. Well, if it continues like it is, they will have a branch out there in less than a year. We are working really hard to reactivate a bunch of people and here in a little bit, there will be enough preisthood holders to start a branch. I am super excited for this.

 

Reading your letter mother, made me realize that I want to learn Zulu....hmmm, I'll use the internet to learn when I get back. For now Portuguese and Spanish will have to do. Crumb! I just realized that I used a lot of my time reading the emails.... >:P   hmmm, oh well,

 

For all of you people who know the significance of numbers, we taugt a grande 15 lessons this week (as opposed to the normal 35-40) but we now have 9 dates marked for baptism, we had 7 go to church, and we have 14 who are progressing. This week was one of the best and worst weeks yet *(by way of the numbers) but I have decided that I don't care about numbers. I am only going to teach the people who want to be taught, have a desire to be baptized, and live the laws of the Lord. If somebody is going to resist and try and reason around it, I will do exactly the following, tell them to read the scriptures, ponder the things therein and pray. If they feel that God wants to make an exception to the laws, (which he won't) they can feel free to continue, but they can not be baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ. I just won't put up with it. I'm done teaching people who are lazy and won't progress or go to chuch. It's that simple. Anyways thats whats been on my mind this week, I hope that my family truly enjoys their journey to NYC (yes mother I knew that there exists a Korea-town, I have a friend that used to live there)

 

Te amo, e A Igreja é verdadeira.

Elder Eliason.

hey

This week has been interesting....

I have gained a testimony about inspired questions...Yesterday we visited a contact that we did on the street...his name is Amadeus. Yes, like Amadeus motzart. He was just walking down the street and he stopped us and asked us what we do. He is in fact evangelical, but a recent convert to that church and is learning to follow christ. well, he asked us if we preach the end of the world and if we think the end of the world is coming... of course I told him no, but the Second coming of Christ is coming, and his eyes lit up, " you really think so?", "I don't think so, I know so" "Wonderful, would you guys mind passing by my house and we can talk about it for a little bit this saturday?" "we would be glad to". Well, we passed by his house, or his shack more like, you remember the house where the Hulk was staying (in human form) at the begining of the movie the Avengers? where the walls are made of random planks of wood, the roof is plastic bottles and the walls inbetween rooms are thin sheets? yup. We walked in and the wooden stove in the middle of the room was smoking, he ran outside and removed a paint can that was on top of the smoke stack (to prevent rain from entering) just to give a visual about where this man lives. Well, (actually I think I will include this story in the main letter so hmmm...whatever) he started talking and talking and talking and talking, my companion was getting a little annoyed that he was talking so much, but I was listening, listening is a huge part of missionary work, and is definitely something that we all need to work on. Well, it turns out that after about 15 minutes of him talking, he began telling us about how he found Christ...he was a cocaine addict, alcoholic, and 3 boxes of cigarette smoker daily. He overdosed one day and whent to the ICU, afterwards, he decided to go to rehab (a rare thing here in brazil) where he spent 6 months. Six months of battling hell and his own desires (of his body) he was sleeping one night and had a dream, in the dream he was led by the Holy Ghost to the ocean (of which he has never seen in his poor state) and the Holy Ghost asked him what he saw, he replied the Ocean, the Holy Spirit responded that it was a creation of God and that it is beautiful, and perfect, and a giver of life. God gave him his life, and he needs to make it beautiful, perfect, and he needs to help others and help them live. Well, turns out that he was in a coma, 3 days later he woke up. It was the middle of the night and he was in his hospital bed. He looked over to the door of the room, and he said that he saw a man. The man beckoned him to come. He arose and approached the man, and asked him who he was. The man shook his hand and told him that he was Jesus Christ, and that he had knocked at the door and entered. The investigator, Amadeus looked at the door, it was locked and the guards were asleep. The man, Jesus Christ, asked him what his desires were. He responded that he desired to return to the presence of his Father in Heaven. Christ asked him how he plans to do that. He responded that he needed to give up his addiction to Cocaine, Alcohol, and cigarettes. Christ replied, and thus by your faith it shall be done. He did not share the rest of the story, but continued to tell us that the next day he left the Rehab center and has yet to touch cigarette, alcohol or cocaine again. He was wandering in the streets and asked God to give him guidance. He united with the first church he found, and found faith in Christ. Two years later, he asked God through prayer how he can become a better man, grow in faith, and obtain eternal salvation. He decided to dedicate everything he did to God, two hours later, he stopped us on the road and asked us about the second coming of Christ. He is the poorest man I have ever taught, yet he is the richest. I am truely honored to be working with him here in Erechim, and I am excited to see if he accepts the Restored Gospel.

My new companion? Elder P. Souza from Maurillia, interior de São Paulo. He now has 3 weeks on the mission. My old companion? Elder Lucas de Souza, he got transfered to Moreira Cesar, Caxias do Sul. We are here in Erechim.

I know that this church is true, and that God is preparing the world for the second coming of Christ.

Te amo, e A Igreja é verdadeira.

Elder Eliason

hey howdy hey

Well.............I am going crazy, it's eleven ten, and our zone leaders have yet to call us and tell us about the transfer! today is the transfer! AAAAAAKKKKKKK, I know at the very least that I am going to train, I don't know if we are going to open up a new area, fill an old area, or even if I will be transfered, but I got an e-mail with the list of trainers that have to show up in Porto Alegre tomorrow morning to get the greenies or verginhos in portuguese. AAAAAAAKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!! this is definitely a test of my patience.... :( I don't enjoy tests of patience, oh well, what can I do... well, I can call them, but that won't solve the matter. Humpfh. Oh well, this week we...had P-day da zona, which was fun for a bit, but we had not much planned and so it was a lot of sitting around deciding to do nothing...yeah, it was funtastical. :/ Oh well, the really cool thing that happened this week was that we did a "super blitz" a blitz is when a pair of missionaries leave their area and go to another area to work there and increase the number of investigators and such. Well, there exists an area in our zone called Lagoa Vermelha (red lake) and they were having a branch conference, and the president of the mission told them that if they could get 100 people to go to the conference, the branch could upgrade to ward status. Well, the entire zone went over to that area (all 16 of us) and we worked all day there doing contacts on the street, knocking doors *(much to my chagrin- here in Erechim, I refuse to knock doors) and visiting less actives. Well, yesterday, they had 74 people show up, as opposed to the normal 25. Presidente is taking this into consideration, along with the fact that a man (not an investigator prior) showed up and had a dream/vision while he was listening to the speaker. He's going to be baptized this sunday :D how cool is that!

Something really funny about Erechim...Elder Warner went on splits with me and we did a contact and met the garage full of girls right? well, Elder Lucas de Souza and I keep returning and one of the girls, Rafaella, has been reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it. To this moment she hasn't "recieved an answer" but every time we talk to her, I can definitely feel the spirit. She's 17 and super snakey, but thats okay, if she is doing all that we ask of her, we will keep on teaching her. Funny how stuff like that works. hmm...Im going to be training, I wonder if he will be American or Brazilian, or from Africa, we have quite a few Africans in this mission. Im super excited.

hmm...Something interesting from this week in church, a brother was teaching the lesson in Elders Quorum, and he said something about how we show our love through service and dedication to one another, and then he went on to describe how dedication is the true sign of love, using several splendid examples such as missionary work, families, etc...and then he went on to use a negative example that proved his point...negative example? prostitues and how they gain beautiful gifts, but they don't get the dedication. It woke up everybody in the entire quorum and made me laugh. I brought my camera this week, so I'll send a couple of photos here in a bit.

Thanks for the photos and love, I love it. Best of luck to my friend Jenny Lee who left for the mission a couple of weeks ago NY, NY, North, Mandarin speaking, parabens ela :)

Te amo, e A Igreja é verdadeira,

Elder Eliason (whose stomach is feeling a lot better, thank you)

Alo!

Weeheww.... this week has been crazy. That is an understatement, this week has been nutz! We started the week off with a bunch of investigators that weren't exactly doing so hot, we cut them. BUMMER when your investigators aren't progressing, but they are doing it to themselves, not you. We taught a family of 10 girls last weekend right? They all acepted the invitation to read the first livrinho and pray. Well, we returned and there was only one girl there, the 16-year old... bummed and slightly disapointed, we asked her if she prayed and read. The people here are typically very honest with us because they have the fear of lying before God, so normally people say, "to be truthfull, no, I didn't..." and then continue with excuses about laundry and such...but she responded yes, I read and I prayed, I didn't feel anything for now, but I'll continue! We gave her a Book of Mormon and explained it and had an excelent lesson, that was one of the highlights of the week. The other highlight was when we went to go visit the family that went to church last week, of whom we had no idea who they were. Their house reminds me a lot of Brother Grigsby's, poor, but a home filled of love, comfort food made on a wood stove, and lots of chemarrão, LOTS of chemarrão. Well, we visited them thursday night, they live an hour away from Erechim, but are still part of our area, so we took a bus out there. they live in a little farming community out in the mountains of Viadutros, close to Gaurama. I absolutely love it there, away from the city, I have learned recently that I do not enjoy the city life, I want a farm when I am older. That is beside the point. They have 5 kids, the youngest of which is 9, and two of which do not live at home. We invited them all to continue going to the church and to study the Book of Mormon and pray. We also invited them all to be baptized on the 24th of this month. They all said that if they feel prepared, the would love to be baptized! They are incredible. The mother was telling me while I was drinking the chemarrão, that during the winter, when it gets really cold (about 20 degrees farenheit) everybody in their family gathers around the wood stove every night and they tell stories about their past and read scriptures together, what a family perfect for the church. The only problem is that their income is EXTREMELY limited, and it costs 10 reals round trip to go to Erechim, X5 for each person in the family each Sunday, would be a HUGE burden on the family so they are going to try and come every other week. Bishop wants to go out there with the missionaries every other week that they don't come and host a sacrament meeting out there with all the members out in those two towns. We are currently asking President Wright to see if we can open a branch out there and put a permanent set of missionaries out there (of course I would volunteer, that place would be heaven to work in, everybody is humble, but sincere, and they keep commitments.... :D) we shall see. For now, due to our limited income and time, we can only visit once a week, but we will see, we will see....

Today we are having our PDAY da Zona!!!! here in Passo Fundo, we have 18 elders in our Zone, and so we are playing football *(soccer), which is very not fun to play because the brazileiros are so good that when anybody (me) let the ball go, and is a clutz...they get upset. Volleyball, which is fun because I am actually pretty good at it, and of course the intense goofieness that happens when you put 18 elders together....due to the lack of sisters in our zone, photos of girlfriends, exgirlfriend, future girlfriends, and a couple of fiancés get passed around, compliments are always expected. It's pretty funny and good humored.

To the bummer part of the week. Wednesday afternoon, I got sick. We ate lunch, were walking aound visiting some people (about half an hours walk away from our apartment) and all of a sudden I hit a wall. Well, more like my stomach got flung against a wall. For the next few days I puked and killed all of the cockroaches that live in the pipes below the toilet...if you catch my drift....(I get double points for the play on words hahaha) but seriously, the last few days have been miserable...and just as I think I'm getting better, I start puking again. I am starting to see a pattern though, usually when I eat meat, I puke, so I'm going easy on the churrasco, which we have had several times since then, normally I would be overjoyed to eat churrasco, but, hey, what am I to do huh?

Anyway, I am so glad to hear from you guys, here in a couple of weeks I will call and set an hour to skype with yall on mothers day...which is different than in the US, so, yeah. Help the missionaries in your ward, go on visits with them, (TANNER DO THIS!) learn the principles taught in Preach my Gosple, live them, love them. BE AWESOME

 

Te amo, e A Igreja é verdadeira

Elder Eliason

Todo mundo, agora tenho o opportunid​ade para fazer uma email para vocês

Hey!

So this week has been awesome!

Carlos is incredible-just like the Gretz family, he goes out with the missionaries every sunday evening and every tuesday afternoon, and is continually looking for people that he knows to visit with the missionaries...he told me that he was saving money to visit the united states for a month, but now he is using that fund to prepare to serve a mission...he has been baptized for just over a month now, he truly inspires me.

Anderson was baptized saturday, unforutnately and fortunately 95 percent of the people that would have been there were at the temple, actually, there were only 2 families there to see it, but its just the same, he has started on the path of eternal happiness. 

This month we have baptized 3 people here in Erechim (2 the week before I came) and so we have completed our goal and this next week we probably will have a p-day da zona! but this one will be AWESOME and we will do churrasco and play Uno, a classic (elder Dowden gave me a pack of uno cards before he left that he brought from the US but never used....we play uno like normal, but with a few twists that make it a lot more fun, fast, and entertaining...if you have a card of the same color and number, you can place it on the deck even if it isnt your turn, and if you do this, the round automatically starts over with the person on the right of you...so funny...and you can stack skips...and +2 and +4....its so fun!) we had an opportunity to play because our Zone leaders did a Lightning Blitz with us on thursday...we were doing companionship study when there was a knock at the door. Boom, LZs are at our appartment 2 hours via onibus long from their area.... Oi Elderes! vamos fazer Blitz hoje! okay....so, we divided, I went with Elder Warner and elder Lucas de Souza with Elder Figureiro, and visited almost all of our investigators and visited tons of contacts and people...just to accelerate the work in this area. It was hillarious, because as soon as they left the next day, our Leader de Distrito showed up with his companion to do the interview for Anderson, how awesome was that!

Well, one of the lessons we taught (Elder Warner and I) was a group of cousins (5 girls and 1 boy) who were just chilling drinking chemarrão in the garage, well we taught them the 1st lesson, they didn't seem too extremely excited but said that they would pray and if they recieved an answer, would be baptized, cool huh? well, we visited them yesterday, and only one of them was there (the most snakey of them all) but her entire family and was there....so we taught them, and although the snake didn't have too much interest, her mother was on the edge of her seat clinging onto every word that we said. everybody concorded that if it were true, they would join, but she really was the one that was interested....you never know who is listening and who will be there if you talk...to all of the future missionaries---talk to EVERYBODY and invite EVERYBODY in the house to hear the message, and invite EVERYBODY to pray and if they recieve an answer, be baptized. It really works!
Thank you so much for the emails from Dan and Sarah, I look forward to reading them when we return to the apartment. 

I love the gospel, and I know that it is true...just search, ponder, and pray :)

Te amo, e A Igreja é verdadeira

Elder Eliason

Hey!

So, I have forgotten how fast an hour blows by when reading emails, so next week, I will take photos of each email, ...this week's email will hav to be quite a bit shorter than the rest, I am sorry...mother and father, and all else, don't worry about sending shorter letters okay? This week they made me smile demais.

 

well...this week has been a whirlwind. the first 4 days were really really slow and bummer days, we had to cut almost all of our investigators, none of them were progressing, and we had already given them many opportunities to progress. Well, it just so happend that we were reading in Preach My Gospel about how to find new investigators and of course the best way is to use the members, every day we ask the members at lunch for references, and we usually get 1 or 2 that they have already given to the missionaries, but we try again and again. well, yesterday, one of our recent converts, Carlos, age 20, asked us if we could eat lunch with him and his family. Of course we said yes, his family are not members. We canceled our lunch yesterday and went to his house. He not only had invited his family, but 5 friends also, to all of which he had been talking about us and were all excited to meet us. Well, they all said that they will try and come to church next week! Knowing Carlos, he won't let them forget. We then had another lesson scheduled, so we had to leave, but then after the next lesson we got a call from Carlos telling us that he had a family that he wanted to visit with us, of course we were excited and left with him. He is kind of short and he walks slow, so it took a while to get across town, but it was so worth it. We get there, in a very poor neighborhood, and go to the back where there is a very well-constructed cement house. He clapped and a buddy of his came out, along with the other 6 members of his family. one left right away, she had to go to work, but the others stayed and we talked for over an hour about the church, they had a billion questions. We covered the restoration and invited all of them to pray about the truthfullness of it. It was quite incredible. Carlos is incredible.

 

Saturday was also a day for the best. One of the techniques that Preach my Gospel says to look for new investigators is by going through the old investigators of other missionaries, and of course we have boxes and boxes of old files, so we started. We selected a few and left for the afternoon. Well, three days later of no success...we came across a kid named Anderson. Anderson comes from a very poor family, the mother abandoned them when he was young, all of his brothers and sisters are crack-cocaine addicts and the father works 2 full time jobs to put food on the table for them and clothes on their backs. Well, he is 16, and is trying to decide what to do with his life. About a year and a half ago, some elders ran into him on the street and invited him to learn more about the gospel. He accepted, learned a ton and was totaly willing to learn more, but he had to run away from home because of his family. Well, things got resolved back home, and we came cross his file, passed in front of his house and he was sitting on the front door step talking to a very old Gaucho, his neighbor, and smiled when he saw us. He is going to be baptized this Saturday. He went to church yesterday and loved it. He went several times before, but had to stop when he left. He is also very good friends with a family in the ward, who over the last year has gone to church maybe 2 times, well, when we told them that he was going to come to church yesterday, they went to church too, and they all told us that they are going to start returning. It is incredible. Count the billions of blessings, including the blessings of your own family. Seriously. Anyways, a little piece of our gigantic puzzle down here in the south.

Dad- You are right, Here in Brazil, we baptize 1 person for every door they knock in Germany. It's really interesting, here in the South, it is not nearly as easy to get baptisms, but in the north, they baptize every weekend, families, they are very receptive to the church up north. It also is interesting because Elder De Souza is from Rio Grande do Norte, the nordeste- north east. Well, the way that the missionaries get converts and get people to be baptized is very different and he is still adjusting to the fact that people on the street don't imediately accept the fact that we have the gospel. It is very interesting, because the poorer areas are a lot easier to work in, so he feels inclined to work there, but the quality of the investigators and the duration of their perseverance in the church is usually VERY limited, so we have our little scuffles about where to work, but we are getting along very well. Mother, if you want to know what a gaucho is, google the following words:

Bombachas

Bomba de Chemarrão

Quia

Matte

Chemarrão

Faca de Gaucho

Garrafa termica

 

Little piece of the south

I love you all, the Church is true.

Elder Eliason

Erechim!

Hey!

well, this week has been a bit long, seeing as how its been almost 2 and a half weeks without p-day....Yes, we had the "pday da zona" but what happened? Everybody arived, the sisters arived and left for the hospital (one was very sick) and the majority of the Zone was working on the transfer (me included) so we blew the entire day making the transfer work. Note to self: Do not plan the pday da zona the day before transfers if you are in the office. Anyways, Yes mother, we are eating blackbeans and rice again every day, along with strogonof (the humble farmers extravagant meal) on a daily basis. The ward is awesome, there are few members (the majority are by far youth and they are all out at their version of youth conference out at the beach....bummer! My companion is Elder Lucas De Souza (that's what his name tag says, we have 5 Elder De Souzas so he had to put his name on it too). He is from Rio Grand de Norte, up near Forteleza, he speaks portuguese very very very fast, and with an extremely difficult accent to understand. He also uses a very different vocabulary than the people down here in the south, so a lot of the time the people here don't understand him also. It's really interesting to have a Brazilian companion, because now, I can't speak English at all. He speaks no English except for "Gootch Nitch" and "Ai love uuh" it is pretty funny. He actually is new, and I am training him also, If you don't know, missionarys here in the POA Norte Mission get trained for 2 trasfers, Elder Christaldo was his first trainer, I am his second. It is interesting because he picked up on a lot of things that Elder Christaldo did that are kind of strange to me, but he taught as normal stuff for missionarys. Not bad, but just different. It was a real eye opener to me to see how huge an influence that the trainers have on the new missionary. They litterally have the choice to make them a fantastic hard working baptizing missionary, or they can be lazy fubeccas. It's interesting.
 

Mother, I don't know if you realize this, but you said "I know you wish you could be in Caixa for the baptism..." Caixa means box in portugues...Porto Alegre is where the baptism will be, the mailing address says Caixa Postal, which is their way of saying P.O. Box. funny, you made me smile :) obrigado. Mother, I love you and thank you for sending new contacts, I have to ask though, what type are they? I got some new-ish ones right before I left, and it turns out that I am alergic to them, and if I wear them for more than 2 hours I get pink-eye. :) Just FYI. I remember Farenheit 451, it was an interesting book, but as an 8th grader when I read it, I don't think I percieved the significance of it or how well it was dictioned.

 

Elder Haddow's mission prep class sounds fantastic, he is a really pecuilier guy, and yes, Tanner would adore that class, along with yourself. Tanner is and will be an incredible missionary. I'm so proud of him.

This Saturday night was the first night of Carnival! Carnival is a lot of fun, but when in the larger cities, resembles a lot of 5 de Mayo, down in New Orleans, so the missionaries in the large cities have to stay indoors. We just have to be in our apartment before 8pm, not that much of a difference, but hey, we get a bit more time to study and sleep. Although it might be driven by the more carnal side, everybody here celebrates it in their own way-here in the smaller cities, they are a lot more happy, open, and energetic- everybody gets off work. We had to look long and hard to find a Lan House that was open to send an e-mail. It's a fun time, and there's tons of energy in the air all the time.

 

P-day is now Monday again, and I have to pay 3$R/Hr to use the computer, so the e-mails won't be as long as before, but know that I love you all the same and that Brazil is incredible, but the United States is my home.

Te amo, e A Igreja é verdaderia

EE

P.S. I have never drinken more Chimarrão in my life than I have here, it is incredible how much they drink, and that everybody drinks it here....today I will actually probably buy a quia so I can drink it on my own...I have developed a taste for it :/

I am going to Erechim, a farming area with a mini-center of high-rises...where we will live :) I will also be senior companion for the first time :D

T

well yeee-haw

E ai caras, como vocês estão?

well, its been a very office-oriented week....transfers are going down on tuesday, so we have (unfortunately but necessarily) been spending most of our days working out the transfers and what not. We have a new family that we go teach about every other day, they are incredible, the parents are a little bit fubecca-ish, but they have some of the most incredible kids ever! The parents were baptised several years ago, but fell away from the church, the kids were never baptised. They have a 16 year old, 12 year old, and a 9 year old, all of them are interested in the church, and the parents want to start coming back. The twelve year old is the sweetest little girl, and even though the mother has a really hard time understanding the scriptures (the older language really confuses her) the 12 year old is already in 1 Nefi 5, and we gave her a Book of Mormon on Wednesday. When I asked her what she thought of it so far, to see how well she was comprehending it, her response blew me away, and I directly quote/translate "Well, it would appear that the older brothers of Nefi were wrong in their motives and beliefs." BOOM! my head just exploded. SHE's 12! her mother didn't read with her, her brother didn't read with her, her dad goes to work at 5 in the afternoon until 2 am....She is incredible! I am super sad that I'm going to be transfered next week..I will not have the opportunity to see her or her brother be baptised on the 16th, but I know that they'll be in good hands. I will be leaving this super rich high-rise fast life style area, to go to a small farming community out in the Passo Fundo area (I can't tell where exactly it is right now because nobody else knows, just the Elders in the office) But I'm super excited, they are the real native cowboys and gauchos out there...I'm very excited.

It's really interesting to see how the church works down here because many times, it is so new that people don't know how the church is run some times. For example, there is a ward here where the bishop is new and he is actually a recent convert from Kenya. He relies on the other leadership of the ward for a lot of guidance, along with the manuals and the Spirit obviously. Interesting to think about, but seriously, the gospel is exploding here, there is so much potential, I would not be surprised if the number of LDS members here outnumber those in the states in a few years. It is incredible, and it is directed by The Lord, if it wasn't, it would fall to pieces. I have seen it here in the office, if it was not the true church, all of the missionaries would be having much bigger problems at the moment than worrying about investigators. We also had the opportunity yesterday to do companionship study with President and Sister Wright, what an incredible opportunity. They are incredible.

Besides that, lunch this week fell though all but 2 days, so we ate Xis-do Bruxo twice...bad idea, I always get the SuperBruxo, a 10 inch burger with a fried egg, grilled chicken strips, cheese, lettuce, tomato, peas, corn, bacon, pepperoni-like sausage, chicken hearts, and about a cup of mayo...all cooked together on a flat-top. SO deliciouis! All on a massive toasted bun. Costs about 7 USD, which for a Xis is pretty expensive, but it is so worth it. It is not the best of ideas afterwards to go walking for hours and hours in the 100 degree heat dressed in slacks and a white shirt and tie. But, hey we do it anyways. I have got to say the best thing to eat for breakfast is their "sonhos" or dreams.... Thick tough dougnuts filled with either Creme de leite or Dolce de Leite.

 

anyways....back to the spiritual side of the Mission....over the course of this month, we had 8 baptisms in our zone, with many more to come this coming month, but since 8 was our goal, we earned a P-day da Zona! or a Pday where everybody in the zone gets to spend p-day together, a rare opportunity to have fun with other elders and sisters we don't get to see very often. We are probably going to just chill here in the office, but the office also doubles as the institute buidling, and on the institute side, there is Billiards, ping-pong, air-hockey, and 3 tables of foos-ball. We also have a fenced in soccer and basketball court, so if any of us feels the desire to run around in the 100 degree sun, we can.

 

Mother, you would be proud of me, as I have been doing a lot of data entry for the office this week, I have been listening to Chopin and Rachmaninoff. I am feeling the pull to learn how to play piano again, but it'll have to wait until after the mission.

 

Thats all for now folks.

Do some good in the world today:

-A honey bee makes about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey every month, yet we can buy 5 gallon buckets of it- every little act of kindness counts

Elder Eliason