Wk 65 - Happy HaLloWeEn

--baptism Nonato

--baptism Nonato

--baptism joão paulo.. and his mom came!

--baptism joão paulo

--baptism jp

--packages and letters!!

--a very short sink

---do you recognize them??

--me with 2 local hippies

--eatin pizza with mayza, sávio, and their friend

--prado painting a speaker of a car

--lunch last p day

Area: Parnaíba
Companion: Elder Arrant

Well, this week was one of the best i have had. I saw some big change
in some people and we finally had some baptisms! Sounds like you are
all doing good and i loved the costumes! pretty sweet! Halloween isnt
really happening here... but Happy halloween! party on. And that was
cool that matt and kyle passed by... man its been a while. well have a
good halloween.

Last tuesdy we had district meeting. I was asked to give a 45 min or
so training so i talked about our purpose as a missionary.. lots of
people talk about baptism and that we need to baptize and everything..
thats like all they talked about here... so i kind of talked about the
connection from what we want to acheive on our mission and how that
relates to baptism... We had lunch then went to visit. we passed by
vitor and ione´s house becaus they were sick and asked for blessings.
We visited Raimundo (the less active that came back) and João his
friend that we are trying to baptize... We then went to Bruno´s house
to teach a young man named Weeltyone. he knows the church well, but
has a few problems to fix before he gets baptized. We passed by
Prado´s house quickly and he was painting a man´s speaker box in the
car.. it was pretty cool. then we ended at irmão francisco´s house who
was baptized about a year ago and is about 75 years old.. he´s pretty
funny because he talks and talks and talks.. just like the energizer
bunny. just keeps going and going an going... its pretty amazing
actually.


Wednesday we went to João Paulo´s in the morning... and guess what?!
we got permission from his mom to baptize him. that was the first
miracle of the day. Then his mom invited us to stay and eat lunch..
they kinda like us i think. Its really cool to make friendships here.
a lot of people have a prejudice against you at first, then they find
out that you are normal.. then its just fun. after lunch i went and
saw an awesome miracle as well. We showed up at our friend nonato´s
house... we knocked and he asked us to wait a second. Then he opened
the door... but something was different. he answered the door with a
shirt on, big smile on his face, and his little 10 ft X 12 ft house
was cleaner than before. We sat down and asked how he was doing and he
said he was good and happy. we had a first prayer and then asked if he
had any questions... he did. He asked, Well, ive been to church a
couple of times now... and i want to know... how is the baptism in
your church? Nothing will put a bigger smile on a missionaries face.
We told him there are some commandments that we need to keep and that
we do it how Jesus taught us. We gave him some pamphlets and a book of
mormon and told him we would come back the next day... we also
mentioned that on sunday we were going to have a baptism if he wanted
to come and see. We then taught irmão chagas and his wife about
patriarchal blessings because they were wondering. and at night we
went and got pizza with mayza, her brother, and their friend.. very
good day.

Thursday we had our weekly planning and all.. had lunch... then went
out again. We visited João and Raimundo.. joao was planning on getting
baptized on sunday, but fell away and doesnt want it anymore...
bummer. Then we went to Nonato´s... again an amazing experience. we
went in to his very very small house... like really you would be
suprised how small. Again, this time i heard him sweeping it up
inside... he had cleaned the house and welcomed us in with a big
smile. We had a prayer and asked him if he had any questions and asked
him how the reading went. He had read 4 pamphlets, the restoration,
the gospel of jesus christ, the law of chastity, and the word of
wisdom and 10 chapters in the book of mormon... after 1 year and a few
months in the mission, i had never seen that before... it was
amazing.. when i first met him, i would have never expected it....
dont judge someone by their appearance. anyways it was awesome and we
marked his baptism on sunday, the 30th. We visited a less active
member named Messias... yeah he didnt come sunday.. i dont know if
he´ll ever go again. Then to end the night we went to Antonio and
Osailde´s house... they have a son named David that got to know the
church and converted. he decided he wanted to go on a mission and got
called to the utah provo mission. I gave this old couple pics of our
family and all while i looked through his mission album.. i saw a lot
of things that reminded me of home, the 4th of july parade in provo,
deer, snow and lots of places when all of a sudden i passed a picture
of some people that i recognized... the evans family! i think they
said it was 2004.. im not sure but i think sean was on his mission.
but it was pretty funny/cool. David still lives in Utah, he moved back
after the mission, and i think he studies at the UofU... but they said
he lived in provo.. so i dont know. Anyway, pretty cool.

Friday morning we had interviews with president and he brought our
packages and letters! jackpot. it was sweet. i got the
halloween/thanksgiving and the christmas package. along with a package
from the hope family! made my day. now i have some candy to eat! haha.
i always forget how good american candy is.. its good. We had lunch
then i did a division with elder olson who is from evanston, WY. He is
a good guy and we had a good day. We taught nonato, joão, and joão
paulo. At night we got pastels from jorge lucas and joão vitor..
definitely a good day!

Saturday morning we had the zone leaders come and do the baptismal
interview of joao paulo. everything went well.. joao paulo´s mom then
invited us to stay for lunch! cool stuff. we did a quick visit after
lunch at brendon an invited him to the baptism. we had the baptism and
brendon came and it went very well. We then were going to teach
english class when the zone leaders showed up and told us that they
dont give us authority to have english..... what?! seriously you learn
a lot of patience out here!!! there is a little problem here in brasil
that when someone gets a calling, they think they have power over
others... not everyone, but there are many that think this. they said
that it is a waste of our time and that we should be out teaching...
so we had to sit in a room and talk it out while elder olson taught
english alone.. there are about 3 people that we met through english
that are going to be baptized soon.... it was just ridiculous. anyway,
i read the suggestion in chapter 9 of PMG that we can teach english as
a way to get new investigators, as well that it is our responsibility
to take care of our area and decide how we will use our time and not
theirs.... it just kind of was wrong how they came about it. so we did
our last visit to joelda but we were just very frustrated so it was
hard to teach....

Sunday we had district conference. We have it at a local auditorium
because the church isnt big enough.... just like last year. We had 9
investigators there! it was a good conference and pres. and sister
dias were there and it was a good meeting. We had teresa cristina
there and in the middle of the meeting she leaned over and said that
she wants to get baptized... so we need to somehow talk to her mom for
her mom to understand.. her mom still hates the church because she is
so fixed on her own church... it gonna be tough. We had lunch then
tried to have visits.... but noone was home... like literally noone
could talk to us. Then we had the baptism of nonato at night... It was
a great baptism and a great end to the weekend!

Great week but im exhausted.... elder Arrant and elder Olson went to
teresina for a few days for training to im here with elder amaral..
he´s a good guy... but there isnt anything cool to do here for
halloween! but we´ll have a family night tonight and we planned to
carve out watermelons! should be awesome. im excited...

well, see ya later

Wk 64 - Weekly letter

-Nonato and adriano

The Post office
-i know its hard to tell... but im like way taller than anyone there

our pet tarantula... lasted like 3 days before we couldnt stand him anymore

i wanted to climb up that ladder and get a coconut..

skateboarding again.

-me and joão Gabriel

me and irmão vitor

-long day... had to drink a coke.

-it rained!

Area: Parnaíba
Companion: Elder Arrant

Well hello again…. It was good to hear from you, as usual.. I still
don’t like this internet thing… ugh. Its kind of boring… but ill keep
doing it for you mom. You asked me to and I told you I would… but
sounded like your week was pretty cool. I loved the videos of ruger..
haha looks like a stud! And byu football is still doing better? That’s
good to hear as well. School is going and all… sounds like fun. And
baseball… just like always.

Well this week was a little different…. Kind of…. Tuesday did not
start with district meeting! Haha. There were some transfers so we
didn’t have time to do it. We had lunch as usual, but we had Elder
Yorgason (he is from west valley, ut) with us because he and elder
amaral were waiting for their companions to get there. Me and Elder
Arrant were the only two to stay together in Parnaíba this transfer.
We played a little guitar at lunch cause they had one.. that was fun.
Its little things like that that keep us goin. We went with João Paulo
to a school fair his school was doing… that was interesting. It talked
about pollution because that is a huge problem here. We visited Nonato
and his brother Adriano… it was a tough day to work, even though we
got a couple of visits in. we went to irmã ivanez´s house and she
taught us how to do a cool dessert. She gave us lunch on Wednesday and
wanted to teach us how to make the dessert the day before. We went to
visit Tiago who wasn’t home and later a lady from our ward called us
over to eat….. Chicken noodle soup! I don’t know what it was, but
that’s what it basically was. It was good. And she gave us ice cream…
good stuff.

Wednesday we had lunch with that dessert we made before… it was an ice
cream type thing… pretty good. We went to João paulos to talk to his
mom… she wont let him baptize yet so we have to talk to her to get her
to let him get baptized… its been tough. We visited a recent convert,
chagas and his daughter… she was baptized about 6 months ago. They
gave us coke and cookies… not the best mix but whatever. We had a
lesson with joelda. It is a lesson that we used cups and knifes and 3
things that represent prayer, going to church, and reading the
scriptures. It´s how we get a testimony and keep strong in the church…
it is a good one. Then we visited Alan.. we were lucky to find him at
home.

Thursday we visited raimundo, who was a member in a different city,
but now he is going back to the church after a couple of years. We
passed by bruno´s house to go to another appointment and it started
raining. We stayed there until it stopped, then we got a ride on the
back of a truck to cross a stream of water that was passing because of
the rain. We had a meeting and it was a nice cool night because of the
rain.

Friday we went to joão Paulo, then we went to bruno´s to teach teresa
cristina. Teresa just got back from São Luis and brought back peanut
butter. They had it in a walmart there.. well its called bom preço but
it’s the same as wal mart. So we had bruno go get bread and jam… but
it ended up being mocotó with flavoring of strawberry.. it looks like
jam, but its made of cow hoof and horn.. it wasn’t that good. Anyway,
Teresa was reading and wanted help again and read moroni 7… she said
it helped. She is an elite investigator. We visited a lady named dona
graça, and then I did a division with elder albequerque. My comp had
to do some interviews and I went with another elder that is pretty
crazy… very just… weird guy.. but he´s funny. He went home for a while
and just came back to the mission. We taught Joelda and it was pretty
good. She came to church on Sunday.

Saturday we had lunch at vitor´s, it was good. We split up with the
zone leaders because they wanted to do some sort of interviews for
us…. Baptismal interviews. Anyway, I stayed at the chapel and helped
cleaned up for their baptism later… then we talked to joão Paulo, then
went to ciro and Vanessa. They live in the zone leaders area, but we
were divided so I got to go. They are getting close to a wedding and
it will be cool when they finally get that! And no we didn’t baptize
this Saturday… but we should this next week I hope.

Sunday we went to get people for church.. and everyone we went to
wasn’t home or couldn’t go… it was not cool. But we had 6 people
there! It was nice. We visited João and a less active member and his
family.. his name is Lindomar. We had Vitor with us as well which was
awesome. Anyway, later we met up with a kid named Weeltyone as well.
He just moved from a different ward and stopped us in the road and
said that he wanted to be baptized… or was thinking about it… pretty
cool.

Anyway, it was a good, long week and I just feel this way every week….
I get to p day just spent and it works out perfect… thank goodness for
p day. Today we are going to chill and play cards, wash clothes,
sweep, then play soccer a little later.. should be good.

Well have an awesome week… I´ll try to do the same.

Love ya

Wk 63 - Another week

--ridin the bike, brasilian style

-i wrote my name on a wall... haha it was someones wall and they
pulled into their house when i was doin it... we had to go back to
take a picture

--makin cookies for junior´s birthday

--Tell me he doesnt look like uncle travis...brasilian style

--Hulk

--At lunch on sunday the four missionaries from our house and Bruno a member

--junior linhares... he lives in rio grande do sul

--ADAM SANDLER?? this is wilson that we have taught in the past.... he
looks like adam sandler

Area: Parnaíba
Companion: Elder Arrant

Well your emails were awesome! thanks. hope bailey´s homecoming was

good... i loved the pics and the video. he´s the man. And Tayton, keep
up the good work bro! i loved hearin about your baseball games. And
Byu is doin better now? haha serves them right. they changed their
quarter back right?

Tuesday was district meeting... we talked about finding new
investigators...so this week we were gonna do a lot more contacting
and searching for news. we had a pretty far lunch, which is pretty
normal, it just stinks for me and my comp because we go way into the
other area and have to come all the way back and down into our
area.... oh well. its food right? We got back and had a member with
us, João Vitor, and we went to go teach his friend Brendon. We had a
really good lesson about the Book of Mormon and we watched the
Restoration DVD. This kid will get baptized pretty quick if his mom
doesnt get in the way... he is 14. We then went to see felipe, the kid
a baptized a year ago, and this time was cool because we ended up
talking to his whole family... well his mom and her boyfriend as
well... it was a good lesson, but its gonna be a lot of work to get
them to church and all. We taught Joelda, who is about 21ish, and she
is pretty cool. We have taught her a few times now. and we went to see
Junior Linhares who lives in Rio Grande do Sul, but is originally from
here in parnaiba. He was here to get a surgery done.

Wednesday was a holiday here... Dia das Crianças... or in other words
Childrens day.... dumb holiday if you ask me. oh well. So it was
pretty empty. but we taught joao paulo.... we tried to teach in the
afternoon but we didnt have much success... we went to teach maria de
jesus but she was busy preparing for a party so we helped her blow up
balloons.... and the afternoon was spent making contacts. and at
night, it was junior´s b day so we went and made him cookies.

Thursday we had our weekly planning... later we visited brendon with
joao vitor the member... he had some friends over so we taught them
all. We visited Joelda to make sure she was reading and praying... we
came back friday cause she had more time. We finally got ahold of Alan
so we had a good talk with him... and we ended at Prado´s house, but
we just talked to his wife valda that was there.

Friday we taught Joao Paulo with his mom.. we have been talking about
baptism but he cant get baptized without permission.... his mom still
didnt agree but we´ll keep workin with him. We had a far lunch, but it
was a nice place so it was worth it... funny story. So in many
brasilian houses after lunch or whatever they will ask if you wanna
take a shower to cool off or something.. we always deny... but i was
always curious if they really let you. so she offered if we wanted to
take a shower at this lunch and i accepted... she gave me a towel
haha. it was nice. We spent the day visiting all the people we
contacted on wednesday.. and they were all home! miracle. we saw
junior again and at night we visited Joelda with her sister Josieda.
We taught them about my two favorite things. Because of Christs
sacrifice we can be forgiven of our sins, and that our families can
last forever... good lesson.

Saturday we had lunch, and then went to go visit a contact. She wasnt
home so we talked to her son. it was good. we had our english class
which is really fun. and at night we visited Tiago who is a new
investigator.

Sunday we had a huge Round-up to get investigators to church. We got 7
to church! it was pretty cool. It is hard to get people to church, but
we did well this week. we walked a lot to get people there and had a
couple come on their own! it was nice. We had lunch that was about 2+
miles away.. we spent a while walking and all... we got back to our
area finally, and it was a rough day. we even took 2 members with us
to visit and nobody was home or could talk to us at the moment... it
was a long day. All i can say is that as soon as i got home, i was
ready for p day...

Thanks for the emails again. i love to hear whats goin on and i love
pics. love ya,

Elder Smoot

Wk 62 - TGIP-day

me and João Gabriel (Vitor´s son)

skateboardin at bruno´s

-Burritos!!!

--Futebol!!

the sand dune that Wagner took us to

-footprints up the sand dune

-The wind on the sand dune was insane

backflip... yeah we got a little dirty up there

-superman

some surf dude we saw... and got his address to go teach him.

Prado and Kayque.. cool family we teach

The catholic party we passed

-In doggão with elder martinez, jorge lucas, joão vitor, elder
arrant, eu, and elder amaral

me elder amaral and elder pearson! (he got sick this past week...
the doctor made him stay for the night.)

me elder arrant and teresa cristina

some street

Wagner me and elder arrant.. wagner speaks really good english

our lunch... hot dogs and mashed potatoes... yum

Area: Parnaíba
Companion: Elder Arrant

Well im really glad its P day... its a day that we can take a little
stress off of our backs. But as i was thinkin.... i got an email from
matt tenney and man.... i would rather stay out here than go home!!! i
gotta live it up while i still can. Oh and go to Elder Bailey´s
homecoming... i wanna hear how it was.

This week was decent. some good days... some not so good. but overall
good week. Tuesday i officially hit 14 months! sometimes it seems like
i just started... others seems like this mission will never end.
either way, im glad im still here. the day started as usual with
District meeting... it was a holiday in Parnaíba so it was pretty
empty in the city... but because of that, we had a very good lunch
because the family had a lot more time to prepare it... it was very
good. Since we didnt have a ton to do because everyone was gone, we
went to visit our friend wagner... he lives just over the bridge and
you actually have to take a bus to get there... the bus that heads
toward the beach. (you get off about 10km before the beach though)
Anyway, we talked to him then he went and showed us a big mountain of
sand that was close to his house... thus the sand dune pics. he is a
cool guy and speaks english fluently. He has a very interesting style,
but a very good guy. We came back and taught Prado. We talked about
conference and the importance of prophets. at night, we went to go get
hamburgers at a place called Dogão. They were a little expensive, but
very good. We had to walk through a big Catholic party though because
it was a saint holiday.... everyone here is catholic.

Wednesday we did a division. I went with elder amaral to my area. it
was a pretty tough day to work. i think we passed in about 10 houses
during the day, but only 2 were home. the others were just a waste of
energy. we spent most of the day walkin. we did teach maria de jesus
and prado though which was good. we also visited elder pearson who was
at the hospital... he wasnt feeling good but was fine when we went...
it was funny because the doctor made him stay the night.

Thursday was pretty much the same as wednesday. we walked a lot and
almost noone was home. But we did find some dudes in the street
playing volleyball... so we challenged them to a game.. they played a
lot, but we are american ya know... haha just messin. but ya we beat
them pretty good. we were a lot bigger than them... but they were
really suprised that two dudes in church clothes could beat them after
they practice all the time.. they were like 16 years old. Anyway, even
the members werent home. bruno wasnt home when we knocked, karate
class fell through when we showed up with kayque, Vitor couldnt leave
with us, but finally we saw alan and we taught him. again, another
great lesson, but he didnt go to church and i havent found him at home
since then.

Friday morning we taught João Paulo. he´s doin good and keeps going to
church and stuff... so i think he´ll be baptized soon. we still have
to talk to his mom though. We had a great lunch at Bruno´s house.
after lunch we even tried to ride his skateboard.. that was cool but
im not very good at it. We had a good day though. we taught francisco,
who is 13 and just a kid i started talking to in the street. We talked
to him, his mom, and his older brother. Then we met up with Teresa
Cristina. She cant meet up with us often and not at her house, so we
went to a members house to talk. Then we taught Joelda who was there
with her sister josieda who is a recent convert. it was a good lesson,
but i dont know if she went to the afternoon ward with her sister...
we´ll see tomorow when we go teach her.

Saturday was a basic saturday. we had lunch at irmã gorete´s. she
forgot about lunch so me and elder arrant had to take her bikes to the
store and buy a chicken, that was fun. We had jonathan come with us,
he is kinda annoying but he is good for helpin us, we went and visited
that surfer guy that i took a picture with.. he is kind of not doing
anything with his life, but he said he´ll go to church next sunday..
guess we´ll see. We then had english class... that was a lot of fun.
We have some people, one of them is wagner-the rocker dude, and they
speak english very well. we just talk and they ask us questions. that
is the advanced class. After english class we went to prado´s and
watched the restoration DVD. good day.

Sunday was good as well. We had João paulo in church again. After
church we had lunch at prado´s house. he did lunch, then a churrasco
(meat)(assado), and he had a guy from scotland there, and gave us
dessert afterward. It was a fun lunch and a good time. We had João
vitor and jorge lucas do visits with us. We visited a man named
francisco and we marked his baptism for the 22nd. Oh, and i was on
another division but this time with elder Martinez. And we visited one
of joão vitors friends from school named Brendon. it was a good lesson
and he will go to church next sunday. anyway it was a good day and a
good end to the week.

All i gotta say is TGIP-day. Every week you end just dead and p day
just saves you.. its nice. Well, i hope you also had a good week. it
sounds like BYU is doin ok... thanks for the updates. anyway it sounds
like the cold weather is movin in... lucky!! its just hot here... as
always. anyway, have a good, colder than mine, week! love ya.