This last Sunday was one of my best Sundays I've had yet. We had 18 investigators at church and was just nutz. We´ve been marking many baptisims and some have fallen and some haven't, but we have 5 baptisims that will happen this Friday and Saturday for sure and next week we have at least one more planned. Then we still have a lot more that we are going to mark for the next 3 weeks. So the ones that fell was a guy named Silvan. His mom said she won't let him be baptized because he was already baptized in the catholic church and we explained to her clearly why etc... but she has a very hard heart so he won't be baptized this week and not sure if ever. Then there's another guy João Paulo and the same story with his dad, but have yet to talk with him so we will see if that falls through as well. This week we will baptize the family that came, the mom of the boy we baptized a while ago, and a little girl that's been to church many times and just came again last Sunday. So we are working with her for this Saturday. Oh yeah the baptism last week fell through, but it was because she was having woman problems so I just left it at that and we will baptize her this week. So we have lots of people we are currently working with and many things to do and it's all in the last week of the transfer so it's a little crazy and tough when all your baptisms fall on the same and last week.
So next Monday will be transfers and that's when I find out if I stay or go. Something to point out is that all 5 of are baptisms this week are not people that we found or knocked on their doors. They came to church on their own and one was from a recent convert, so yeah we worked really hard this past 6 weeks and the Lord has really blessed us.
Today we helped the lady that owns our home move some stuff and also practiced singing some hyms in english that we and some others will sing at the baptism. I also spent awhile copying photos and buying stuff to send home to you guys and will send that out on Monday when I get the money to send it.
About the photos I asked for, just pictures of the home, city, outside etc.. they like to see what it is like where i used to live, and then if you can find my picture of when I was baptized and send that too. I think it would be funny to show that to investigators that will be baptised to get a visual of their baptisim. That picture is in a black binder in one of the tubes of all my stuff. I think it's easier to just scan and email the pictures.
Cardinals, I want them to win, but I am betting money that they will lose, but who knows maybe the second coming will be on Sunday. Happy birthday Craig, Mom, John, and anyone else.
Things here are going well. I forgot to mention that Elder Cook came to our mission and spoke to the wards here and had a conference with the missionaries last Sunday. So I got to shake his hand and hear from him and his wife. It was awesome and the man has a powerful testimony of the Savior like they all do and was really sincere and just good to hear from him. I think my first time hearing a conference from someone that only speaks english since I've been in Brazil, in the ctm and here they've all been in Portuguese.
Ok, well have a fun week with the superbowl an everything and we'll see how things go this next week. Pray for the people to be baptized as well.
Thanks, Brian
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The Cardinals are going to the Superbowl and I'm in Brazil!
Hey family,
Sorry for the short letter last week. Like I had said before there just wasn't time to write much. I've stopped arguing with my companion. I've decided instead of arguing with him I just mark in my planner every time he complains about something and blames it on me. So far the results are good and I just get a laugh out of it.
So this last week we met a lot of really good people to bring to church and come Sunday 0 of them came, but the Lord blessed us and when we got there at church there was a family of 4 and 2 other guys that came. The family was wanting to visit our church and found it on the internet and came alone and the other 2 guys came with a friend of theirs. So we taught the two boys and one of them wants to be baptized and then we taught the family last night and marked a baptism date for them as well. Tomorrow we'll see how their reading the Book of Mormon went and am sure we will baptize them too. Also last week 2 of our other baptisms we had marked, fell through, but hey we made up for it and marked more. This week on Friday we will baptize Olivan. She is the mother of the kid we baptized named Anderson. She has been good to work with and next week we should have more batisms.
Today for p-day we went to the bank in central and then to Mc donalds! My first time setting foot in McDonalds and guess what, the power went out and they couldn't do anything so we left. We then walked to another place called Bob´s Hamburgers which is the same as McDonalds just a little cheaper. I ate a double cheese burger with fries and a chocolate milk shake. Was awsome to get to eat somthing similar to home.
Things are going good: the language is good, we have picked up the work a lot more now, but I fear that it will fall again with their Carnival season coming up in a week which means it will be hard to teach and find people during those two weeks just like Christmas and New Years. The Cardinals are going to the superbowl and I'm in Brazil....but they will probably lose and remain cursed.
We had zone conference with the president the other day and he was not happy at all, he burned all the missionaries about a lot of things, but one thing was the last phone bill for the mission and that was 12,000 reais and the maximum that the mission has for phone bill is 2,000 reais, so he yelled at us and said every missionary will pay 75 reais next month to help pay for it and went over a lot of other rules in the mission. Sound like a lot of missionaries are abusing the rules. I cleaned my bathroom last night :)
I think Craig's birthday is soon so happy birthday Craig! And yours and Johns should be coming up next month so happy birthday if I forget. So things are over all good. Transfer ends next week! I can't think of much else to write so I think I'll end it here, love you all and thanks for everything
Brian
Sorry for the short letter last week. Like I had said before there just wasn't time to write much. I've stopped arguing with my companion. I've decided instead of arguing with him I just mark in my planner every time he complains about something and blames it on me. So far the results are good and I just get a laugh out of it.
So this last week we met a lot of really good people to bring to church and come Sunday 0 of them came, but the Lord blessed us and when we got there at church there was a family of 4 and 2 other guys that came. The family was wanting to visit our church and found it on the internet and came alone and the other 2 guys came with a friend of theirs. So we taught the two boys and one of them wants to be baptized and then we taught the family last night and marked a baptism date for them as well. Tomorrow we'll see how their reading the Book of Mormon went and am sure we will baptize them too. Also last week 2 of our other baptisms we had marked, fell through, but hey we made up for it and marked more. This week on Friday we will baptize Olivan. She is the mother of the kid we baptized named Anderson. She has been good to work with and next week we should have more batisms.
Today for p-day we went to the bank in central and then to Mc donalds! My first time setting foot in McDonalds and guess what, the power went out and they couldn't do anything so we left. We then walked to another place called Bob´s Hamburgers which is the same as McDonalds just a little cheaper. I ate a double cheese burger with fries and a chocolate milk shake. Was awsome to get to eat somthing similar to home.
Things are going good: the language is good, we have picked up the work a lot more now, but I fear that it will fall again with their Carnival season coming up in a week which means it will be hard to teach and find people during those two weeks just like Christmas and New Years. The Cardinals are going to the superbowl and I'm in Brazil....but they will probably lose and remain cursed.
We had zone conference with the president the other day and he was not happy at all, he burned all the missionaries about a lot of things, but one thing was the last phone bill for the mission and that was 12,000 reais and the maximum that the mission has for phone bill is 2,000 reais, so he yelled at us and said every missionary will pay 75 reais next month to help pay for it and went over a lot of other rules in the mission. Sound like a lot of missionaries are abusing the rules. I cleaned my bathroom last night :)
I think Craig's birthday is soon so happy birthday Craig! And yours and Johns should be coming up next month so happy birthday if I forget. So things are over all good. Transfer ends next week! I can't think of much else to write so I think I'll end it here, love you all and thanks for everything
Brian
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
No Time Today
Ummm no time today. We had a zone activity and played soccer and football all day and don't have time to email. Things are going good. We marked two baptisms last week and hopefully all 3 of ours will go through before the end of this transferr. I'll just do my part in the work and hope for the best.
K well love ya and talk next week.
Brian
K well love ya and talk next week.
Brian
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
New Years 2009
Yea New Years was fun. I got a great video of it, but can't send it through email. It's too much space, but I need to copy all my fotos and videos and send them home to you along with a tape and w/e else I throw into it. I'm just lazy and haven't done any of that yet and still need to make cds for all are recent converts.
Yeah little different, opposite here (he's referring to what Tate is dealing with in Honduras as far as American missionaries being negative in their attitudes), the brazilians don't care for the rules and last Monday president changed our zone conference to interviews and talked to us for an hour about specific rules and pretty much burned us all and yeah was because of certain groups of missionaries that broke those rules and now all the Americans are getting moved up and lots of the Brasilians got moved down. A lot of missionaries that are just wanting the baptisim number and don't really help the people. Anyways enough of that.
This week was fun. Today we went to a churrascaria for lunch with several zones. It's for 20 reais you eat all you want, was fun. New Years we had a bar-b-q and like I said I recorded some of the fireworks etc and will send that later. We got no work done last two weeks because everyone here left on vacations. So no one was home and no one wanted to go to church and lots of people were drunk, but hope this week ends up better. We´ve marked two baptism dates already and hope those will go through. We have another we will try to mark with this lady, but it's a little hard because she wants to be baptised but can't stop smoking and drinking coffee. We have some other people we'll see if we get them to church this week before we mark a baptism for them. The way I work with my companion this transfer is we go to a street and he takes one side and i take the other and just knock every door. It's really helped me with talking to people and been picking up the language even more.
I was talking to my comp in the CTM last night and how we're in the worst mission in Brazil and how we just want to die. It was funny, but we really are in the most dangerous city in all Brazil, Maceio was ranked number 1 above Rio de Janeiro, so I don't know if you and Robert still want to visit this place. Three Americans is just asking to get robbed and shot at, hehe. The people here aren't the brightest of the flock but w/e we work with what you got I guess. Oh yeah, I forgot to ask you, in one of my tubs of all my stuff at home, I have a binder with all my fotos of my life. If you can please find that and scan the picture of me and my baptisim and email it to me that would be a fun picture to have to show people. If you see any other funny looking ones go ahead an scan them too. People like to see what my home looks like so any pictures of the home, yard, city, etc would be good pictures to have. So over all, things are going good. The Cardinals are doing good. So that's it for today.
Talk next week, Brian
Yeah little different, opposite here (he's referring to what Tate is dealing with in Honduras as far as American missionaries being negative in their attitudes), the brazilians don't care for the rules and last Monday president changed our zone conference to interviews and talked to us for an hour about specific rules and pretty much burned us all and yeah was because of certain groups of missionaries that broke those rules and now all the Americans are getting moved up and lots of the Brasilians got moved down. A lot of missionaries that are just wanting the baptisim number and don't really help the people. Anyways enough of that.
This week was fun. Today we went to a churrascaria for lunch with several zones. It's for 20 reais you eat all you want, was fun. New Years we had a bar-b-q and like I said I recorded some of the fireworks etc and will send that later. We got no work done last two weeks because everyone here left on vacations. So no one was home and no one wanted to go to church and lots of people were drunk, but hope this week ends up better. We´ve marked two baptism dates already and hope those will go through. We have another we will try to mark with this lady, but it's a little hard because she wants to be baptised but can't stop smoking and drinking coffee. We have some other people we'll see if we get them to church this week before we mark a baptism for them. The way I work with my companion this transfer is we go to a street and he takes one side and i take the other and just knock every door. It's really helped me with talking to people and been picking up the language even more.
I was talking to my comp in the CTM last night and how we're in the worst mission in Brazil and how we just want to die. It was funny, but we really are in the most dangerous city in all Brazil, Maceio was ranked number 1 above Rio de Janeiro, so I don't know if you and Robert still want to visit this place. Three Americans is just asking to get robbed and shot at, hehe. The people here aren't the brightest of the flock but w/e we work with what you got I guess. Oh yeah, I forgot to ask you, in one of my tubs of all my stuff at home, I have a binder with all my fotos of my life. If you can please find that and scan the picture of me and my baptisim and email it to me that would be a fun picture to have to show people. If you see any other funny looking ones go ahead an scan them too. People like to see what my home looks like so any pictures of the home, yard, city, etc would be good pictures to have. So over all, things are going good. The Cardinals are doing good. So that's it for today.
Talk next week, Brian
Friday, January 2, 2009
Merry Christmas From Maceio
Brian showing off the cute little Christmas tree and decorations he bought for their apartment.
Brian with his old comp, Elder Souza
Brian's new companion, Elder Compos. They get along really well. Brian said he is so skinny he could break him in half.
He didn't say what this picture is of, but we're assuming it's after a baptism.
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