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 ............ : _)]

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

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.