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