Week 17 - Language and baptism.

I’m doing OK with Portuguese.  I’m nowhere near fluent but I can speak OK. I don’t use big words but I talk with people and have conversations with church members.  I talk with my former companion, Elder Faustino, in Portuguese even though he knows some English.  I understand a lot of Portuguese.  I for sure understand way more then I can speak.

The lord blessed us this Sunday.  The young man we have been teaching and trying to get to come to church came!  He came with his mother and they both really enjoyed it!

Two really special people will be getting baptized soon.  They have already asked me to baptize them.   I’m way excited!!!  I don’t know what I’ll do if I get transferred.

Week 16 - It's been a hard week.

As far as this week goes, it has been the worst week yet.  It's so difficult to do work right now.  My companion likes to do street contacting.  So far this hasn't been effective.  We've tried but have been rejected.  We have no investigators and we are not going to get new ones without doing something.  One day we went to another area and did contacting for the missionaries there. The first guy I talked with was super interested in the church.  We found six contacts for them that night!!!  We were only there for an hour.  We need to find something that works in our area because we have nobody either.  Our numbers this week were the lowest.  I'm tired.

Our preparation day has been good.  Elder Faustino came with his companion and we went to Av. Paulista and to the big famous market. It was nice talking and being with him again.  I bought two more really cool Brazilian border ties

They told us not to drink the water in the MTC  ;)

Week 15 - Lack of investigators and avocado's

We need investigators and we don't have many.  Contacting just isn't working.  It's hard to do things with church members because they are working all the time. This is the hardest area in the mission. It's funny because in the MTC I always said I wanted the hardest area to prove you can find people to teach.  Now that I have it, I'm not sure I want it...

One of the members works for Cisco.  He just got back from the US and we had lunch with him Saturday.  He took us to this huge mall.  We went to the food court and he told us to buy as much food as we wanted.  I had Pizza Hut.  The pizza is different here.  It was just like oven pizza.  Afterwards he took us out for ice cream at a fancy Argentina ice cream place.  It was way good.  He gave Elder Villca and I a can of root beer. I saved mine and am going to make a root beer float for an investigator.

I gave a talk Sunday on missionary work.  They give you a fancy little card when you give a talk.

We were walking the other day and these huggggeee avocados just fell in front of us.  I mean huge! The pit is like the size of a baseball!

Week 14 part 2 - Brazil and Football

Here are some pictures showing the Brazilian people's support for their fútbol / football / soccer team.

Here are some interesting facts on the missionary work in Brazil

Week 14 - Elder Villca and a special family

Things are going well with my new companion, Elder Villca!  He is a crazy hard worker!  He has a lot of crazy good ideas too!  I can understand and communicate with him just fine!  We are getting around the area well too.  We have yet to clap any doors. [The missionaries clap in front of the door because of all the fences and bars in front of them].  He doesn't like clapping doors because he has had bad experiences in the past.  He gets nervous doing the door-to-door thing.  He loves street contacting which is funny because it is hard for me.  I love the door-to-door thing.  He is really good at street contacting!  I on the other hand am not.  I'm not sure that street contacting is the best thing for this area because this is a really big tourist spot.  A ton of the people don’t even live here but it's something new and it’s a good thing to learn.  I do it and follow the instructions of my companion.

Elder Villca

Right now we are teaching a special family.  They are angels.  I don’t know what I would do with out them!  We always go over to their house when we have a rough day and all our appointments fall through.  He is always there and he always listens.  He is the best member and he isn’t even a member yet!  He is giving us referrals and he is willing to come out and help us or do splits with us! [Splits are where a couple other people team up with the missionaries so they can “split” and cover twice as many appointments] This doesn’t happen often here.  I love this area so much because of him!

In Alma 36:24-25 it promises that if you do missionary work that you will experience a joy like nothing else!  I testify it is true!