More Pics from the CTM

Finally getting his first package! Yea!!!

Brian with one of his instructors

Brian and most of his district. Notice how tall he looks. Maybe he grew already. Either that, or his district is pretty short.

Week 6

Hello family,K I think I have the whole mail thing figured out now, last thursday I recieved my dear elder letters and think that that will be a good way to do it when I get to Macieo 3 week from yesterday! Like i said before the mail delivery in brazil is the worst and the delivery workers go on stike all the time so their mail gets helded back and just piles up. I also recieved the package yesterday and will show some pics of that, thankyou soooo much for the treats and pics. I also recieved the 25$ and that will be more than enough for the next 3 weeks. So mission ties work best untill im in maceio in 3 weeks then dear elder, if that makes sense.Jared I was very happy to get your letter and find out that your papers are in, I Want you to Email me when you get it. (Email Nanette at nbrinton1@cox.net so she can give you the email address) You have special permision to do this and it sounds like new zeland is lots of fun. Im praying you get sent to Brazil because theres no better place to get sent to than here. Let me know everything and give me your email, Mom dont freak out we are missionaries and my comp likes to spend 2 hours every pday to email and it gets very boring. Mark i have not yet craped my pants but you will be the first to know when that happens, Craig and Mark my suggestion to you is take spanish classes and study hard because chances are if you learn a language it will be either spanish or somthing similar to it and will bless you greatly when trying to learn português.John thanks for the words of encouragment, sounds like your bored there but your making the best of it and brazil is awsome and im glad I could start it here than in provo tell erin hello and eu ama vocêWell again I didnt go to the Musem last week but instead my distric went to what we call Wall Street, really called Polista Ave, tons of busy people and your message has to be fast or they wont listen and will just ignore you. It was fun but only placed 1 bom and like 10 cards, I found it easier to give my message as we cross the street so that way they have nowhere to go and my message really is´nt that long so I would just talk to them as we waited and as we crossed, I can understand what they say but cant explain well what I want to say and made me sad when this one guy told me that after crist died so did all of the commandments and his church etc...I couldnt explain much to him but that christ is our redeemer and that his church is on the earth again and that we are lead by a profet of god and gave him a free dvd about christ, he didnt seem that interested but keept on talking for a long time about not needing commandments and christ death....but there were lots of people that did like our message and that listend and some of the other elders in my district had some bad luck to were a person grabed the bom and threw it in the street where it got ran over, the elder just smiled, picked it up and gave it to someone else.Went to São Paulo temp again this morning, and has been a good week. I can se my imrovment in the language after going proseylting. I dont remember if I told you, my branch pres told me that in last month alone they called 45 new bishops in my mission, it sounds like my mission is growing fast and that ill be teaching alot of people, and pray ill be ready for that in 3 weeks. The weather here is well middle of winter and im only using my 1 sheet if that explains what im in for...and i herd that some parts of my mission ill be using a hammock and no tie and ill be doing my laundry by hand hehe.Emily I got your letter and Only can tell you to be nice to Gemma and let her brake all the reeds she wants to, take money from my bank acount it helps, you can get mad at mason or tanner but not gemma. and i love eu ama você and remember that if you love me keep my commandmentsSo yeah mother dear I am expecting an email from jared next week and from you, dont worry about the length of your letters, like I said it doesnt take me long to type and my comp takes forever. I thought I sent you a pic of him and me so ill send you another.Heidi thanks for taking the time to say anything your awsome, and jeff sorry i didnt do that for you when you were in argentina heheOhh and I think Ive gained like 6 pounds since ive been here but i blame the lack of my daily exercise, we spend all day sitting a class room and eat 3 times a day your bound to gain weight.So cant really think of much except that my cd player just stoped working a few weeks ago and if you send me a new one im not sure if it will make it...i guess if you want to buy me a cheap one that will read burned cds and if you do I think send it to my mission because thats were ill be by the time that thing makes it into the city and it might come in handy for me to have a card reader so i can continue to send you pictures through email when i get to my mission and if possible mabey another sd card por favor, obligadoK well pictures are from today and yesterday so enjoy and I love you all,Elder Robertsjust a picture of me and all my goodies, the one with me and just one guy is one of my instructors, he lives here in sao paulo north and served in this mission he is of italien background and a cool guy, and the other is most of my district.And speaking of forieners the ctm here get groups of africans, the church sends its african missionaries here to be trained, and then send them back to their missions in africa, most of them speak like 4 diff languages mainly french english portugues and whatever african language they speak, so its very diverse here in this country and in the ctm and I heard there are alot of black people in my mission so jared tell peter that im practically in africa.

Brian thinks this elder looks like Obama

July 23, 2008

Hey Family hows it going?

Thanks for all the letters but i have to tell you that i guess dear elder is only emails for me...the cookie place however delivers emails you send me the price of a letter i think the day after you send it or the day you send it..they call it mission ties...so instead of dear elder use mission ties, im not sure how it works but i think they explain it on their website...

I should explain that i have no use of my debit card while in the ctm and only have a little money to spend every week.

The cookie shop place here that you put money in for me i can use that for email, mail, cookies etc...25 American dollars is like 45 real $ here and a cookie here is i think 2.50 so about 1.25 in dollars. However they usually send me a notice at the ctm if you gave me any money so ill ask the people here if i recieved anything.

Umm i should also tell you that brazil is the worst in the World when it comes to mail. Their mail carriers go on strike every other week and takes anywhere from 5 to 10 days to solve their issues and then they get pilled up on mail to deliver and of course they are still on strike to this day...its been over 10 days i think...but packages do still come for some reason i think they are delivered by somthing else, and i still dont have the package you sent me but it should get here any day now.

ill answer question now:

The language is coming along it has nowhere to go but up...i just do my best and have no other choice but to put my trust in the Lord.

I go to the museum on friday and will let you know next week how that goes...

Well the ctm here is probley similar to the mtc...our district is kind of a funny district and do all the stupid pranks and stuff that goes with being a missionary...i have video and pictures of everything so youll have to wait 2 years to see those...

On P-days i get up at 5:30am and go to the temple for a session, then I email you this letter, then i eat lunch, then my comp and i and most of our district go out to get ice-cream, go to the post office, go to the candy store (my favorite), get pictures develouped if needed and kind of explore our boundries. Last p-day as we were just eploring we ran into this kid that looks around our age and found out he was half german and i spoke to him in german and had alot of fun doing that, we talked to him for problly an hour and then explained to him that we were missionaries and gave him a fee dvd pass along thing, mabey we´ll see him again today. We have to be back at the ctm by 5:00pm and we then eat dinner and then by 6:00 we have mdst or missionary directed study time (tate will learn what that is), but luckily after that we have gym, we get gym 3 times a week and happen to have it on pday, we play basketball outside and sometimes volleyball, its really fun and goes by fast.

There are six elders in my room 2 brazis and 4 from my distict

Our lunch everyday is white rice, beans either brown or black, meat chicken or beef of some sort, always lots of good fruit, the deserts are allways decieving, and the drinks here are good.

Well its good to hear that everyone is doing well, tell liz to get better.
Umm glad to hear my letters that i sent a long time ago made it, not sure when ill recieve any letters with all these mail strikes, but like i mentioned above the mission ties thing works like a charm.

With all my love, Elder Roberts

ps enjoy the pics...president obama came to the ctm

Brian was trying to explain (at the top of his letter)another option for sending him letters to the CTM. There is another site called missionties.com that you can write to him. I think he is saying that dearelder.com isn't sending him his letters through the mail, only through email. However, I am not sure if that is true, because I don't know that they have his email. It might be because they have had a mail strike down there for the reason he hasn't received his letters through the mail. I would still send your letters through dearelder if you have paid for that service. If you haven't then you can try missionties. Either way, he will get your letters. Thanks, Nanette

July 16, 2008 (One month in MTC)

Well I guess your in chicago or somthing so I hope thats going well. Tate's time is up, let me know how the temple and mtc trip to provo goes.

Today I got to go to the Sao Paulo temple and do initatories, it is by far a very beautiful temple and one I would recomend attending...

Hi Jeff, how is texas working out?

Emily, if you love me then keep my commandments

I still need my moms adress, i had a letter to send to her today

Stacie, if you love me then keep my commandments

Jared, how is the mission thing coming along?

Hey Robert if you can por favor send myself and Jared our line of priesthood obligado

Umm mom I sent that Mr. Cheneys mission tie thing, if you want to you can give me money to spend here since im on a budget at the ctm and they have amazing cookies and ice-cream here...

Hey David who won the Euro cup?

Happy late birthday Mason

Gemma my princess do you love me?

Ohh yeah you probably want to know how my first proselyting expereince went? Well our district last friday was sent to the metro station in the lower part of the city were we split up as companions and did our work for three hours. Me and my comp placed 4 boms and 30 cards...it was fun...i got rejected alot but many of the people were kind and listened and was overall a good experience of not understanding a word anyone was saying and probly embarising myself and not knowing it. This city is huge and that little part we went to has about 3 million people walk through there each day! I think we did good and get to go to I think a museum next week to do it all over again.

Mark cooley I am expecting you to get hold of jason and jared and whoever and getting me info on how things are going and jareds mission etc...and henry tell him to write me idk

Now that im going to the SP temple Ill be getting back earlier to the ctm so Ill be emailing sooner than usuall so make sure you email me the day before or somthing.

With love Elder Roberts

Another Week

Ohh yeah the trip to sao paulo, well there was a delay in phx so yeah i could
have waited an extra hour with you guys but didnt matter to me, after i went
through security in phx there was another elder there, elder kilgrow and he is
from flagstaff and thats were we found the flight was an hour late arriving,
there were two flights to sao paulo that night and we got delayed again we we
got to dallas because of traffic or too many planes coming in, but we eventually
got into the airport were we meet with another elder, elder howard from colorado
he had some delays as well and we switched our tickets for the last flight to
sao paulo which was also delayed 30min but eventually around 8:30 dallas time we
were off the ground, we did try to contact sonja and the ctm before we left
dallas but they never spoke english and we did get english eventually but they
either hung up on us or we would lose the connection except elder howard said
that he got hold of them and told them what flight he was getting on so they
expected at least on missionary to be late. So we tagged along and figured we
would just go with howard and turns out no one was there to pick us up at the
airport so we have three gringos who dont speak the language and we again had to
depend on the phone thing, well eventually we got hold of the guy that was
supposed to pick us up and just told him misioanarios and what number to pick us
up at, so we waited about an hour for him to pick us up and was a fun drive to
the ctm, so we were supposed to be at the ctm around i think it was 7am and
didnt get there till 11:30am, but the three of us decided that the delays were
ment to happen to elder howard wouldnt be alone on that flight because I guess
imagine yourself in a foreign country alone with noone there to pick you up so
things happen for a reason....

Umm this week they decorated the cafteria with american decorations and had an
ice-cream buffet, that was fun and we all sang the national anthem on sunday
conference, when we usually sing the brazilian anthem every sunday. Today we
went to campinas temple again and hope to go to sao paulo next week, tomorrow my
district goes to police federal to get fingerprinted etc, and on friday morning
they take us out to the city to do our first street contacts with pass along
cards and boms, i hope i do well pray for me hehe, breakfast is the same every
morning cold ham and cheese with bread roles, lunch is their biggest meal of
almost always rice beans meat, and dinner is the same as luch just not as big i
guess, ive developed the habbit of drinking their gaurana which is a soda famous
down here and they have really good fruit, so i do like the food and it reminds
me of sis castellanos´s cooking, i just bought 4 bags of their gummi worms today
that should last me the week, i have adjusted to their candy, currently there is
just four of us in our room but they will put 2 brazis in our room tomorrow im
sure and they stay 3 weeks then leave and then the next day we get 2 more, the
first week is the longest but is all downhill after that so tell tate to just
stick it out and its funny i think i might have eaten with his friend just last
night with some brazis, im not sure but i will look for him, well i appretiate
anything you send me and i did send some photos to emily and stacie and i told
them to share them with you so hopfully you get those and i get 45 min to email
and luckly the store is open because everything is closed today because its some
holiday here today and the streets are empty, ive never seen it this empty.

Heidi good luck driving just dont get caught speeding

Emily where are you?

Stacie hi

Mark tell jason and jared to write me and i need yours and their adresses and
find out the status of jareds mission and let me know as soon as he gets that
call

henry its weird thinking that i was just in your room and now youre there but i
still feel like your in newyork

have fun in chicago and ohh yeah i need my mothers adress as well and the
antonelis

I love you all and if you you want me to write you youll have to either send me
a letter or give me your (home)address because i was lazy and didnt get them from you
before i left. well again have fun and let me know how things go with tate and
the whole vacation things
Elder Roberts (they pronounce it hoberts) and theres this brazi that looks like
barrak obama ill have to send you the picture of us next week hehe

Brian with Elder White

Outside CTM

This view is from another bedroom window

Week Two in CTM

Yes I can believe it has been 2 weeks and time is going faster now, its just the first week to adjust to the new schedule and get the hang of things. For the moment I dont print anything I just read and then type.Tell my mom that the projector and everything was in the computer lab the last day I left lincoln and that I love her too. Henry´s number is 480-649-9274, sounds like it is hot, but believe it or not it gets a little cold here on some mornings and nights and there are times I wish i had that sweater, but then again it somtimes is hot in the classroom so the wheather is a bit weird here. It does rain but were inside most the time, and I never really see the sun. The only thing I can think of that you can send is Candy!(I´m down to my last bag of gummi bears) Any american goods would be greatly appreciated and the pictures of me at work and scouts and any other you want to add to that but remember it could take 4 weeks for something like that to get here so you would have to send it within the week I think. Thats cool that Tate is leaving haha yeah he is definitaley underestimating how busy he will be. We went to campinas this morning and are transfering rooms to the 6th floor and the highest floor so I´ll be doing that after this email. I´m glad to be going up there because we got a room on the outerside of the building with a sweet view of the city, i´ll send a picture when i take one next week. My companion is Elder Plaizier from Bountiful Utah and plays football. There are 12 of us total, and we had to say goodbye to our two brazi´s that shared the old room with us, elder xosto and elder silva, alot of the brazilians (brazi´s we call them) have the same last name and they come in every week and leave after three. Nothing much new, just a bunch of crazy elders here doing crazy stuff that I wont tell you about haha. So thanks for the picture Hiedi and Emily I hope you guys have fun camping, have henry write me. I sent him a letter last wednsday and 1 to emily and 1 to stacie today, not sure how long it takes it to get there but let me know. Hey Emily I was showing elder xosto (he is from the amazon in Manaus) pictures of our family and he said you were hot! Haha I put his picture in the letter i sent you.
Stacie I love you
Craig get to work
John and Jason good luck
Julie how are the kids?
Grandpa happy birthday! July 4th.
Grandma I love you
Susan good luck
Hiedi your cool
Tate is in for a shocker
Carlos how is it with Henry, tell me everything.
I´m still waiting to hear from Jared, I want to know everything and need his adress.
Jason Freedel I love you and write me or email me and i need your adress
Mother dear Nanette any other adresses you can think of send to meI love you all and farwell for another week in Sao Paulo!
Let me know if the three pictures i added work or not, the white elder is my companion and the other is elder xosto the guy that thinks emily is hot and the third is just another pic of the city from another bedroom.