5-7-12

Another good week here in Maraponga, Fortaleza! the week started out a

little slow, but it finished off on a good note with a baptism. Our

Bishop in this ward gave us a task to go to all the member´s houses in

the ward, and leave a book of Mormon with them to write their

testemonies in it, and give it to another family that they know, which

I think is an awesome idea, i'm excited to see how it turns out. Our

mission president wants us to really focus on teaching more families,

and i think this whole book of mormon thing will help. we've got a lot

of guys that we are working with right now that range from about 14 to

16 years old, which is cool, but at the same time a little annoying at

times, because one day they will be really excited to see you,and the

next day they want nothing to do with you. but at our baptism this

weekend it was cool because all the guys that we were working with

were there and they were sad because they couldnt be baptized yet, so

next week i think we'll baptize three of them, which would be cool. We

are trying to find more families right now, because it is a lot easier

for people to stay active in the church when they have family support,

so we're workin toward that right now. Oh and today me and my

companion bought kites and we're gonna go fly them later, should be

fun, i've never sucessfully flown a kite before ha. till next week!

4-30-12

well this was quite an exhausting week! So me and my companion, Elder Quadros, got to our new area and found that we had nothing to start off with. Apperently the elders that were in this area before us didnt work, and insulted some of the women in the ward, so they all started giving money for lunch instead of making lunch. So we definitely had some work to do. Last monday night we got a call from the bishop inviting us to a pizza place down the street for a welcoming party. When we got there it was bishop, the first counselor, relief society president, and a few other leaders from the ward, plus free pizza and coca cola, so it was a pretty awesome welcoming. the bishop basically told us how the mission work in this area has always been good, but the last few missionaries that passed through kinda destroyed the ward confidence, but he seems pretty excited to have us. He assigned a guy thats getting ready to serve a mission to go out with us the first few days to meet the members and familarize ourselves with the area, which was super helpful. The first day of work we had here was spent cleaning the house, and moving in beds and stuff like that, it literally took us from 2 in the afternoon, until 10:30 at night to clean, it was rediculous how dirty this house was, but its all clean now. The next few days were spent getting to know members, and trying to get a grip on our area. Most of our lunches this week were money, which was actually just fine with me because my new area is a little richer, so we have a huge walmart-type market, and best of all.... a Subway! i had subway four days in a row last week! i was in heaven haha. We were able to find a few good people this week, we met a 16 year old guy who seems pretty solid, and he came to church which is good, the only problem is that he smokes, so we're working on that. We found out that the ward has like 3 guys that have been coming to church for like 3 months, but the missionaries didnt want to work with them for some reason, so those should be pretty easy baptisms. so lots of good stuff goin on in this area. Bishop had me and my companion each give a 10 minute talk on sunday about ourselves, and what we plan to do, so basically stuff to gain the confidence of the ward again, which i think is working. after sacrament meeting all the members came up and introduced themselves and stuff. so it looks like things are starting to turnaround. should be a good transfer!

4-23-12

This week was awesome as usual! another week in paradise... except i dont really get to enjoy the paradise side of the city haha. So first of all just to sum up this week, we had two more baptisms of 2 teenagers, João, 14, and Nicolas, 15, their brothers, and the both break dance... really well actually. Its crazy how the Lord prepares certain people, and we just need to show up and teach a few lessons, and then boom, baptism. These boys were those kinda people, right from when we showed up in their house they linked with everything really well, and were baptized 3 weeks later. We've also got this one couple, Camila and Gilson, and they are doing awesome, goin to church every sunday, and are getting married in 1 week, and their baptism will be a few days after. Unfortuanately, we had transfers today... and i left the area, it was really sad because i had a lot of friendships with the members in the area, and all the members and people i baptized were really depressed that i was leaving, but thats all part of the mission. The area i'm in right now is called Maraponga, its in the same Zone that i started my mission in, and its like right of the edge of the city of Fortaleza. My new companion is Elder Quadros (it means squares in english ha), and he seems pretty cool, i've heard he is a bit of a nark, so i gotta be very obedient, which is good i guess, a little annoying though ha. We are opening this area together, i've heard that the area has been pretty dead for a few months, so we're gonna come in guns blazing and put some life back in the missionary work. So all in all i'm pretty excited for this transfer!

4-16-12

well this was a really good week, because i finally got the cist out of my wrist! it was a little sad because of the 3 year union i've had with it, but it had to be done ha. So originally i was planned to get it taken out on wednesday afternoon, but as we were heading to the hospital, which is like a 2 hour bus ride away, the doctor called and said that instead my surgery was scheduled for 6am the following morning, and that we'd have to sleep at the hospital for the night, which i thought was kinda weird. but by that point we were pretty much to the hospital already so we just hung out a the mission office and the center of Fortaleza because we had to get some marriage papers ready for a couple that we are working with, oh yeah i forgot to mention that we are helping a couple get married! and then they are gonna get baptized! its been so awesome working with them! it'll be my first wedding on the mission! pretty excited. so anyways, that night we slept in a room at the hospital, i had one of those cool beds that moves, and the best of all.. we had hot water for the shower! i almost cried! it was my first hot shower in 6 months! i took like a 30 minute shower haha. then the next morning i had my surgery, they had to roll me out of the room on a cart and stuff, and i thought it was all a little over dramatic because it was just a cist, the surgery was only like 15 minutes, it was a little weird cause they just numbed my wrist, so i could watch everything going on ha. then they rolled my back into my room and it was over, all and all a good surgery. my wrist is still pretty swollen, and i still have stiches in it, but i'm glad to have the cist out! the rest of the week was good. we had another baptism yesterday, and we have 2 more scheduled for next week, good way to end the transfer! well thats all for now!

4-2-12

Well this week was pretty good, no one got sick, which is good, and i was able to wash all the eggs out of my hair, another plus! this week was pretty boring in terms of any exciting events happening, which is probably a good thing, but it does make for a rather boring email haha. we found a few more people to teach this week, and by the end of the week ended up having to cut all of them from our teaching list because they weren´t progressing. we had a nice lesson with some Evangelist people though... not. The whole time they were just talking about random stuff, and during the prayer they would yell "ohhh Jesus" like every 2 seconds, i almost got lost while i was praying haha. we also had some lady invite us in so that she could bible bash us, we tried to keep calm and teach her, but in the end we just had to leave because she obviously wasnt willing to listen. but besides that the week was pretty normal. we've got one investigator who is progressing really well, and she was all ready to go to conference this weekend, but 2 days before she got some weird illness in her intestines and had to stay at the hospital for a few days, just my luck haha. conference was really really good though, i got a lot out of it, i wish i could highlight some of my favorite stuff for you guys, but i forgot my notes at the house, next time. well i have you guys all have a good easter, i'm not sure how it works her, i just know that the only meat they eat is fish for the whole passover week, but they do still do the whole eggs and chocolate stuff. till next time!