The Work is Going Great!

So I tried writing earlier today and the power just went out every 10 minutes and I’m also feeling bad today and having the same allergy problem and have been half dead today. So the letter will be short and then I’m going to go to bed.

So last week we did baptize André and we have 3 other people we have marked and are preparing for the next transfer and things have shown a lot better these last 4 weeks in the branch and are getting close to it turning into a ward. The work we did in getting rid of the names of all the people that don’t live anymore in the area and of visiting all the members inactive, we have narrowed down the list and have gotten a frequency of 80 people for this last month which is a lot better than it was when I got here. I believe after my last interview the other day that I’ll be leaving. But I feel like we just got this area started and that it’s just going to get better so I hope the next missionaries here keep it going and baptize those other people we are working with. I also found out the other day that all my recent converts in Arapiraca are firm and going to church again! Most of them had gone inactive and visiting other church’s and made me really sad and then was a real joy to hear they are going again and Antonio the son of a lady we baptized there wants to go on a mission and is getting ready for that.

Well we don’t have satellite or cable here so we will have a bus on Sunday take everyone to the stake center in Arapiraca to watch the last session. I might go watch one of them on Saturday with an investigator that we taught Monday because she won’t be able to go Sunday so we’ll see tomorrow when we talk to her.

Yeah there is a mail strike going on and is driving my comp crazy, but I did get a box from my grandma the other day. (My first package that didn’t have anything of candy or sugar. Was really good though)

So transfers are on Monday and I believe I’ll be leaving to a new place and you´ll just have to wait and see where.

K well looks like I wrote more than I thought I would.
Love you all and take care, Brian

Expert Cake Maker!

Brian made this chocolate cake two nights in a row. He must becoming an expert cake maker...or an expert cake eater!

Time is Flying!

The weather this past week has been hot with little rain and has been lots of fun to work in. This last week we worked hard as ever and hey we found a family knocking doors and they accepted to get married and prepare to be baptized and we got excited because it was something that could have been done before this transfer ends but ran into problems Sunday and they didn’t go to church so we will continue to work with them, but they wouldn’t be baptized until the next transfer, so if I stay another transfer here I might be asking for help with the wedding but that’s if. Also we will baptize André, the 30 year old man that is separated for some time and living with his sister and he is way excited for his baptism this Saturday.

They do sell bug poisons and stuff here, but don’t think that will make much a difference, and yes we have ovens, but the question is if it works. I think half the time it does and the other it doesn’t. The oven in our home was so old and rusted out and got to the point the we had only 1 of the 4 burners working and so sister Beynon told us we could buy a new one and we just got a new one last week. And if you want to send a mix, send the confetti cake mix with confetti cake frosting. They don’t sell frosting, but we made it from ingredients another person’s mom sent from the states.

The activity was good, we had like 25-30 people and they really liked it and was fun. We were hoping for more people, but this is normal for all the activities here and is just hard to get all the members to go because a lot live in areas were they don’t feel safe leaving at night and other members believe it or might have to watch their novela and w/e other excuses they have. But overall was a good activity and was where André came in and we got another reference too.

I did start off this week sick again, well not sick, but with severe allergies again and just gets worse if I go out in the sun and heat and had to just stay home. I only left to visit the people we are still teaching and that was it. This morning I had it again, but I’m feeling better at the moment. It's annoying having the allergy sinus problems, but all a part of life.

Umm well I did write a letter to bishop a few weeks ago and then I don’t remember the address to his home and so I don’t at the moment have anyone’s address. If you can just send me an email with lots of random peoples addresses that would be great.

So I love you all and time is flying and tell everyone hi for me.
Love Brian

This road is in Brian's area.

Knocking All the Doors in the City

Hi Mom, how is it going?

This week was good, we had one guy to church and we got him excited for his baptism on the 26th and he is really firm for that. We taught him few weeks ago and he lied and never went to church, but we did that activity last Saturday and one of the members invited him to it and he went and liked it and went Sunday and started to ask about baptism and you know the rest. So we are excited for that and have been working harder than ever and been actually teaching a lot more than lately. Ivé been knocking doors and plan on knocking all the doors in the city before I finish this transfer.

So I think I have a new record of roaches I've seen at once, well I think. But yeah I woke up to shower and found a whole happy family of roaches waiting for me and killed 6-7 of them and then that night when I went to shower again found the grand daddy of them and had fun killing him.

We also made a chocolate cake last night and the night before too, it was so good we did it two nights in a row. That's good that you are helping the missionaries. I'm having a hard time getting the members to help, but with last week's activty we already got a baptism marked and another reference to go see still. And I'm also doing my best to get them involved in teaching with us at every appointment we have. I think here it's like every 120 contacts we do is a baptism and every 1 out of 2 references from member is a baptism. So help from the members is always good.

Looks like the summer was fun....it's starting to get hot here and less rain, but it's all good and time just keeps going.

Well love you all, Brian

Conference in Sao Miguel dos Compos

Yeah I got the package yesterday. Thank you soooooo much. The mission started a website if you want to check it out: missaomaceio.blogspot.com. There's one in English, but I don't remember.

So Monday was a holiday here, and they had the whole parade of their bands and dancers in the streets with fireworks etc...and we ate lunch at the church were they had a bar-b-q and then yesterday we got up at 4:30am to get a van to Arapiraca and then got another van to São Miguel dos Compos where president Beynon will dedicate a new chapel and we had conference there. That afternoon we all went out and handed out invites to the open house and got a lot of references for the missionaries there. Then we got home last night at like 8 and I spent this morning cleaning up our home. Our Brazilian comps are really lazy when it comes to cleaning and is just ridiculous the way they live. I don't know if it's because of the culture here where the woman takes care of the house, but in my opinion they are just being plain lazy and stupid.

But anywhoo I'm doing good and just like Tate I hope that I get a new area after this transfer. Ok well I love you all and again thanks for the candy.

The Middle of Nowhere

Yeah learning a different language definitely wasn’t easy, but was fun. (I asked if he could remember when he got there and couldn't speak Portuguese and how he has come a long way) So this last week went fairly good. Church didn’t have any firm investigators, but we have better hope for this week.

Monday we went to Arapiraca for zone meeting and had fun doing that and ate lunch at Irma Nazina´s home. She’s the lady were I shared my first message in the mission not knowing anything, and was also the lady that asked me before I left that area if I would miss her and I told her no, but it was because I didn’t understand her. But she is an awesome lady and always made dinner and lunch for us and had a huge lunch with her the other day in Arapiraca.

Then yesterday we decided to start knocking doors and decided to go way out in the middle of nowhere off on this path that leads to just a bunch of houses in our furthest area and just knocked all the doors out there and found a lot of people to go back and visit. Just hope they have the faith to walk to church this Sunday, but we will find that out later. I’ll try n take some pictures when we go back there tomorrow. It really is in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know why people build houses there and not in the city but w/e it has a good view.

Today for p-day we will go and watch the Pirates of the Caribbean and tonight will be English class again and hope we get more people this week. But if not any people come I’ll just stop offering it.

Oh last Sunday we did get another inactive member to church along with her sister-in-law that isn’t a member and we marked to teach her again this week. It’s just that she lives very far away, out side the city and so she has to come here for us to teach her so it will be a bit hard. Sunday after church we went to her home and watched the Testaments with everyone and I helped make a huge chocolate cake! It was lots of fun and is just tuff to get these people excited to go to church.

This branch has sooo many people inactive and with stupid little things keeping them from going to church. But we are planning to do an activity in two weeks with everyone. We called it the ‘Search for the most desirable fruit’. We are going to create the iron rod with ropes and blind fold the people and if they make it to the end they get chocolate. We didn’t tell anyone what the activity was to leave them all in suspense, we just told them the name of it. So hopefully all goes well and hope we find someone elite this week. Well can’t remember anything funny that happened, but if something does I’ll write it down to remember, hehe.

Love you all and until another week. Love Brian

People Here are 'Molly'

Hi

I know I don’t write much. I’ve been in the same area for 3 months and will be for another 6 weeks and maybe 3 months. We don’t have good investigators and the people here are well very molly. (Don’t remember how to explain molly, it’s a term we use for I think something like cold feet or something)

Today for p-day I think me and my comp will see if we can get Rodrigo, (he’s one of the bishopric counselors in the ward here and only a return missionary for a year and already a high priest), to watch the movie Wall-e at his home. Should be fun but I haven’t gotten hold of him on my phone. We also marked with Jane, who is a member in the branch, to go to some kind of Indian place here where you need to have permission from the chief Indian tribe dude just to visit it. So we need to get that from a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy to get us permission and I think we’ll be going there next week to take picture etc...should be lots of fun. We also planned to go see if we can find waterfalls or something that people said exist out here on some trails w/e not to sure, but will be fun as well.

I’m going to be starting an English class at the church and are also planning to do an activity with the branch members to help unify them a bit and seek references and tomorrow night we will be watching a movie with them at the church on a projector screen with popcorn etc with the same purposes. So this last week was transfers and nothing new so it will be another 6 weeks here with a new start and hope we do better this transfer. So there’s your update. Hope you guys have a good week and nice to hear Roberts doing better.

Love you all, Brian

Clean Up in the Jungle

While cleaning up, Brian found a coconut.

Some neighbors help the elders with cleanup.
Preparing to burn some of the branches they cut up.

Smoke signals???

Cleaning and Baking!

Well I just don’t have that will to write a lot, but for you I’ll try. (After last week's email that was short due to a bad computer, I told him we expected a lot from him. :)

The area here is doing ok. We have lots of people we are teaching and getting to church, the problem is they are just all molly and not real firm. So I have yet to baptize here, but with a miracle we can get one this week or any week. My comp is cool, he teaches really well and likes to work and I believe I’ll stay here another transfer with him.

So I think I know why everyone in our house gets sick a lot. Our water boxes are dirty. Just picture water brown with a giant dead lizard and all sorts of bugs and mosquitoes and dengue. It’s a blessing none of us ever got dengue or any other crazy thing. So we spent all morning today cleaning out our water box and we cleaned it out good with acid and refilled it. Forgot to take pictures, but you can imagine it. Our backyard is looking like a jungle. I think we will clean that up next and we also cleaned our car port with acid because the tiles there were looking green. So we just cleaned everything all day today and it was fun.

Last night I made an orange cake and it was good. I think tonight I’ll make a chocolate one.
Last week we had interviews with president and he took us all out for chuhassco at that same Texaco place, all you can eat. Was lots of fun as always.

So things are just as normal as ever here and have nothing much else to write. Still teaching the same people and no one yet real firm for baptism.

So love you all, and hope everyone starts feeling better (He is talking about the Hubers and Robert)
Brian

(This is Brian’s response to sending him a picture of the food Tate eats. Brian thinks it looks really good. It probably looks better than it tastes. The photo is below.)

AHHAHAAHHhhhhhHAHAHAHAHAHahThat is not what we eat here but it looks way good and makes me have a mix of emotions of mad because I can’t eat it and sad because it’s a long ways away from me. But I’ll live. We eat rice, beans, spaghetti everyday so it isn’t much to complain about.

Computer Causing Trouble

Well mom, the internet is being retarded so I'll just email next week.

Umm Robert and Jim are both looking good.

And yes I am drinking a lot of caffeine here in the mission; coke, guarana, chimahão, pepsi, you name it it has caffein. The president says we can drink it. The members give it to us for lunch and all my comps drink it like water. But I'm not really addicted, so dont worry there. That's one of the things I learned from you was to drink apple juice so I know after the mission that won't be a problem. (I asked him if he was supposed to drink Mate'. Some missions don't allow it and his comp loves it and has him hooked on it too. That's the reason for his comments, because he is answering my question)

Anywhoo, love you and thanks for everyhting and will keep you all in my prayers.
Love Brian

Cleaning Up the Jungle

Cleaning up the backyard of a girl they are teaching. They are hoping to gain the confidence of her mother to let her be baptized.

Brian with his roomates and his companion doing service.

This Week Was Fun As Usual

Well it’s good that Robert is doing better. All that stuff sounds painful and like lots of fun. You should ask my sister Stacie for help, she’s a nurse now I think and knows how to take care of things like that.

So this last week was fun as usual. We have a new family we are teaching and the mother went to church. She has two sons and is separated from her husband and lives in a nice home and has a car and more things than most people here have, but is unhappy and doesn’t know if God loves her because of some things with her son who she thinks is with an evil spirit or something. But I believe the kid just had a bad childhood with parents who didn’t love him and a mix of teretz. So we are teaching her and her two boys, one 10 and the other 8yrs. So the thing she wants is for us to help her son. So we are going to play games with him tomorrow and try to gain his friendship etc and get him excited to go to church. And our other girl who can be baptized I’m not sure if it will be this week because her mom is all against her being baptized and she is scared of what her mom will do and wants her support and she won’t let us talk with her. So we are working with her and trying to get the trust of her mom. Yesterday we did a service project in her backyard and cleaned up their jungle backyard real well and helped show a different side of the church and was fun at the same time. Then that night we watched the movie Charly with them and had cake n popcorn and juice, was lots of fun. So I have some good people I’m working with and hope all goes well with them.

My comp is 19, from Rio Grande do sol, the southern state, he is really one of those not stubborn, but cocky type of people when it come to a lot of things and he even admitted that but he’s really cool and I’m addicted to that erva mate, called Chimahâo. We drink it every day and all night. The first time drinking it, it tasted like horse junk, but got used to it and like it now.

So I think that’s it for this week. Love ya all and will try n send some photos of the service thing we did.

We Worked Really Hard This Week!

That’s very scary, my prayers n fasts are all for Robert. Give him my love and support and keep me updated. Tell everyone else hi as well.

I won’t lie, I got a little sick again the other day and am still recovering today, but all part of life.

We have Paula who is excited to be baptized and is progressing well and went to church all on her own last Sunday. Our other family we have been teaching for a while didn’t make it to church last Sunday and was very disappointing for me and was a little mad at them for their sorry excuses, but will give them one last chance to go this week.

So yeah today I’m not gonna do much, but rest and do some visits tonight. This last week we worked really hard with the branch president visiting all the members who are listed inactive to help narrow that list down to know who has moved or if those people exist and look for opportunities to find investigators, so that made up most of our week. So send Robert and Nanette my love and until another week,
Love Brian

Silva, Souza and Santos

Oh that’s sad that my truck got hurt, but tell Craig it’s no problem and to keep driving and it’s kind of normal in our family to get into stupid accidents like that so be careful with Emily, hehe.

Yeah Santos and Silva and Souza and some others are a majority of names here in Brazil because of their ancestors who where slave owners. So yeah some missionaries will go their whole mission baptizing only Silva’s and Santos.

Ummm I remembered if you can some old spice after shave would be nice.

Tell Belinda hi and that all is going well and thanks for all the prayers and support and love.

So this last week was alright, didn’t exactly get anyone to church, but we are working with a girl whose cousin is active and boyfriend also is active and she isn’t a member but has desire to be baptized. Her mom is against it and so she is confused on what to do. She is 19 and went to church Sunday and we are trying to help her to make it to being baptized, but it can be confusing at times. We are also teaching a lady and her daughter and some of her sisters that live outside the city and they are all going to go to church this Sunday and are reading the Book of Mormon and are keeping the word of wisdom and are only lacking going to church and being baptized. So we’ve done a lot of work these last 2 days visiting all the members on the list of inactive and have been looking for investigators that way and narrowing the list of people of who have moved or don’t want us to come back etc...

Today for P-day we just played card games and think that’s what we will continue to do after.

So that’s about it for this week, thanks for everything
Love Brian.

A View From On High

The city all decorated for Sao Pedro'

Brian's new companion, Elder C. Santos, which makes his third comp with the name of Santos

Large statue of Christ that is on the hill in the city where Brian is serving. They got up at 4:30am so they could climb up and see this statue. Brian is showing us how big it really is.

This is the garden area of a Catholic church they went to see.
An early morning view of the city from the statue

A view of the city as they head back down to the city.

Brian holding Matte and the cup they use to drink Matte'. It is a huge drink in South America.

Long Talk on Fasting

So our week was pretty good, didn’t get better in our turnout in church, but had some good people we were teaching, but as always fell through.

They had me speak last week and I had prepared a 15min talk on fasting and then the second speaker didn’t show up and so they told me to speak longer and had my comp talk too after me so all I had in mind was to talk as long as I can to buy time for my comp. So the funny part of the story is while I was talking they passed a note to me saying my time was up, but I miss-interpreted the note in saying speak longer. So I spoke for 10 more minutes and when I finished the president just looked at me and laughed. It was funny and my comp thanked me because he didn’t have to speak as long. So I gave a 25min talk on fasting.

Yesterday was transfers and my comp was transferred and I stayed and as I feared they made me district leader here which means I’ll be here for a long time. My new comps name is C. Santos, which makes my third companion whose name is Santos. He is from Rio Grande do Sol which is in the southernest part of Brazil, and that’s the place where they drink mate out of their special cups and he has a lot of it at our home. I’ll send pictures today if time allows.

Yesterday we also had President of Brazil visit Palmeiras here, he talked at the soccer stadium and was the first time I saw helicopters here and had military and soldiers on every corner, street, blockades, police in special cars everywhere, was cool to see.

Today for p-day we are doing nothing, we just played games at home.

Last week we walked past a lady and she called us over and so we talked to her and taught her and she really liked everything we taught her. She wanted to go to church, but she went to her family’s home on the weekend and will go again this weekend so it’s hard to get her to church, but we taught her again yesterday and her sister was there and they promised they would go next week and are learning things really well. She is reading the Book of Mormon and praying and was cool to hear them say that they were certain that we were sent by God to them to help them at a tough time in their lives and they are doing really good in my opinion and know that they will accept baptism after they go to church.

Well, my clothes are still good in my opinion. My garments are a little old and molding out but still holding up good. I’m sure Jeff and anyone else that served knows what I’m mean. Terms of package: umbrella and SD cards. I think there’s something else, but can’t remember at the moment.

Never been chased by a dog yet, but have been chased by a drunk man.Have had a gun pulled on me, but don’t think knife. Brazil did win, but was a close game. The USA was winning 2-0, but Brazil came back and scored 3 times. They went nuts and it’s easy to tell what the score is just by the noises outside and fireworks etc...

OK well love you guys and have a great week, Brian

Inside a Catholic Church

Well I won’t promise I’ll write a lot because we need to go eat lunch. ( I wrote less, so I told him he could write more, haha)

Sunday was well fun. Didn’t get anyone to church and the two people that accepted to be baptized didn’t go and think that they have changed their minds. We worked really hard last week with lots of members that are inactive and will eat lunch with some of them right now and marked family nights with them to play card games etc....

It’s been raining and don’t know if I told you but I’ve gone through 3 umbrellas already, and would like it if you could send me one in the next package along with the memory cards. The nice umbrella I took with me here was stolen and the other ones I bought broke and it keeps adding up every time I buy one. My line of authority you can just email to me and I’ll get it printed.

Today we went to the Catholic Church with a member whose dad is a Padre or something there and we got his keys so that we could go everywhere. Was crazy we went up these steep steps up to the top of the building in all these crazy rooms filled with bats and was fun.

Right now we will have lunch and make brownies.Tell everyone at the reunion high for me. Yes Michael Jackson is dead, all of Brazil loves him and all the street venders are selling and playing his music and is impossible not to hear it while walking down the street and has already been a week, so it was a big deal here. Where is the sister missionary girl from?

Ok well get better. I love you all and until another week,
Brian

Brian hits his 1 year mark!

Brian burning his shirt in celebration of being out 1 YEAR!

These 3 celebrated being out a year by eating at a Texaco gas station

Brazil vs. USA

Olá how is it going?

I know the email is late, but there is always a reason. The President didn’t get kidnapped or anything but the power went out while I was typing your letter and then we had our activity to go to and I didn’t have any desire to rewrite it but tonight we don’t have any appointments and it’s raining so I decided to come write you.

This last week was better, we didn’t get any investigators to church, but we did get some inactive members to church and a lot of the members know them and they we excited to see them and they’ll be going again this week. But the better news is that one of them brought her friend to church with here and was our one person to church and then yesterday we taught her and her husband and they accepted to prepare to be baptized! The lady that brought her to church also is helping her brother and his wife to start going and we talked to her husband and hope that he will get that desire to go too. We also met a return missionary who has been inactive for over a year and we got him going too and marked next p-day to eat lunch and play UNO with him and many of the members loved this guy and were excited to see him. So we are excited to work with these people and hopefully get a train reaction going with the members.

Ohh something funny was that Sunday at church happened to end an hour n half early on the day that Brazil plays USA in the championship cup in Africa. They said they did it because someone died and they said anyone that can, can go there to support here but I’m pretty sure few people went there and the rest went home and watched the game. I just laughed and thought about how this would only happen here in Brazil. I ended up just staying at the church with my comp listening to see who wins the game. That’s something you can do here is just listen and know the score without watching, when you hear the awwww it means the other team scored and then when you hear the cheering and fireworks that means they scored. And it was also Sao Pedro so there was a lot of fireworks and fires again and music etc....

So our p-day was good and we watched the movie, Chronicles of Narnia and was cool to watch a film. I just figured out that the lion is Jesus Christ and all the other symbolism used the film.

Ok well don’t know if I’m forgetting something but that’s about it.
With love n kisses
Brian