Surprise Baptism

We have been working hard with the ward, doing our best to help all
the members contribute to the ward's growth, and we have seen some good
results of this. We are seeing the faith of the members increase, and
there has been an increased enthusiasm for ward growth.

OnThursday we taught Dani, who is the girlfriend of a member, Tiago,
that is coming back to church, and she accepted our invitation to be
baptized on the 26th! Now we just have to teach her all of the
commandments and help her to keep them.

To create more opportunities to find new investigators and encourage
members to invite their friends, we are going to start an English
class and also a Book of Mormon Study class on Wednesday nights in the
chapel. So we went to a school nearby, and asked if we could announce
the class.  It was pretty funny.  They basically just let us in, go
around and knock on all the classroom doors, and the teachers let us
in without even asking who we were and what we were doing!  Haha!
But something cool happened.


Last week, we were asking members for people to teach, and the seminary
 teacher told of us a boy that is a
friend of a member that came to seminary once. So we went to that
member, and talked to him, and he talked to his friend and arranged a
day we could teach him, which was on the same day that we went to the
school.  And it happened that we went into the classroom of the two I just 
mentioned!
When we entered and introduced ourselves, the boy said, ``you guys
are gonna be at Junior's house tonight right?´´ and so that was funny.
We taught him and he is really good, I think he will be baptized in a
few weeks. Then on this same day, a member told us that her fiancèe,
who had been taught all the missionary lessons before and been to
church, would be in town the next day, and wanted to be baptized, so
the next day we went to her house, met him, talked to him and stuff to
make sure he was ready, and on Saturday he was baptized  - Fun story.

I am working on my Spanish with Elder Hormazabal. I am almost finished
the book of Alma in Spanish. Also when we pop over to Uruguay I get to
speak a bit. Today I downloaded some conference talks in Spanish to
listen to. Elder Scott records his talks in Spanish and Portuguese as
well as English, and so I am going to listen to him in Spanish.


*Mother's note - Happy Birthday Alex!*

a HORRIBLE heyboeard

so heres the deal, teh computer im at right now has a HORRIBLE
heyboeard, so please aexcuse all the typing mistakes, there aarejust
goingt o be ato many to correct all of them.

This week I feel was a good week for us.  We started to see more
results of our work these last few weeks.  We are teaching
Danny who is the girlfriend of a guy named Tiagoa who is
returning to the church.  Tiago is a really good guy and he is really
decided on returning to the church.  Danny is also doing really well,
and we are hoping the she will be baptized this month.

We also taught this guy named Jardela, who is really good and wants to
be baptized.  But he is in the military, and traveled to a nearby
city, Bagé, for a week and a bit for military track and field
competitions, but he said he would be reading the Book of Mormon and
such.  He is good.

We are trying hard here to work with the members. One idea we had
was that we made a little message to the members, asked for them
to pray for us and talk about the gospel with friends, and then we
are going to buy magnets, and glue the magnets on the back, and
then go give it to the members to put it on their refridgerators.
We watched a lot of the Preach My Gospel videos this week.  They are
really good how they work with the members and such.
We are also working with some other really good less active
members that are coming back to church.  The ward is
growing.

On Saturday we walked a TON and we decided to do some exploring of
our area, to see what it had. So, we ended up walking about 5 miles or
so up to the northern part of our area where there is a lake and
stuff,  because our map said there were houses, but there turned out
to be basically none. Haha.
Tell Boone congratulations for being baptized!



Alex said, "Good Luck finding me!" - my mother's eye picked him out right away, last row standing before the stage, just to the right of center

Elder Holland

This week was kind of a tough week as far as work goes. 


 We are struggling to find good new investigators. But we are studying chapter 9 of Preach My Gospel a lot, and it is going well. On Saturday morning we woke up at 2 in the morning  to get ready and get the bus to Santa Maria, where we would have a conference with Elder Holland. It was really good.


I was able to get some good news there from Elder Andrade from Santo Angelo.  Five people I was teaching there were baptized this week!  The family of Gelson and Judith with their son Gustavo, and two other young men we were teaching!  Awesome! Yesterday Elder Menk called me around lunchtime.  They were eating at Alexandre and Luciana´s house.  I got to talk to them real quick.  They had some news for me.  Luciana is pregnant! ... with twins!  So cool.  I am way happy for them! 


Other than that, things are going well here. We are working hard. Sorry today's email is a bit short.  I didn't have much time today.  But stuff is good.

Linguistics

I just sent another audio recording to you all, I hope you receive it, but I will also type a few things.

One thing that is really funny about being with Elder Hormazábal, is that he has different and weird accent problems that the Americans don't have, haha.  For example, I am used to the Americans pronouncing Situação with theEnglish acccent, saying, sitchuação, from our pronunciation of theword situation.  But in Portuguese, the ´´tu´´ in a word does not make the ´´ch´´ sound like in the word ´´Portuguese´´, for example. But he has a whole other set of things.


In Spanish B and V are the same sound.  You can say
either of them, and people will understand you in Spanish, but not so
in Portuguese.  So for example, the word Varrer (to sweep), he
sometimes pronounces ´´Barrer´´.  Also, in Spanish, depending on your
accent, the y sound can also have a sh sound or a soft j sound.  So he
pronounces the word Achar, ajar, and other funny things like that.


This week we had zone conference, in the very same chapel where we had
my first zone conference when I was in Quarai, so weird.  I cannot
believe how time has passed by. 

Also, we had the baptism of David this week. He is a kid that we worked 
with a bit. His mom is a less active member, and he lives also with
his grandma, who is a very active member.  He is a good kid, and as he
continues firm, will serve a mission someday.
Have a good week!

Almost Uruguay!

Me - half in Brazil and half in Uruguay

Map of Livramento. My area is in the upper middle, Planalto. ITS HUGE!
Elder Hormazabal and I

Greetings from (almost) Uruguay!

So the arriving group this week was 3 guys from Chile, a guy from Cape
Verde (the first on our mission from the respective countries), and a
Brazilian and an American.
AAAAAnnnnnndddd... I am training one of the guys from Chile! Sweet!
Elder Hormazabal is from Vina del Mar in Chile. It's like an hour and a
half from Santiago, the capital. I'm pretty excited because now for
sure I'm going to be able to be fluent in Spanish before I get home.

When I passed through Santa Maria to pick up my comp and do the n
ewbie training and stuff, I was able to stop by some of my
converts here in Santa Maria, and they are all doing awesome.
Alexandre and Luciana said that when they get older they want to
serve a mission as a couple!

This week, since we are both brand new in the area and know nothing,
we spent a lot of time visiting the members, getting to know them, and
offering to serve them in any form. We have one baptismal date marked,
for a kid named David, for this next week, he is a good kid. His mom

is an inactive member, and he also lives with his aunt who is a
very active member, and he has been reading the Book of Mormon a lot.
I'm excited to be on the border again (A Fronteira, the word is cooler
in Portuguese).

It has been kind of weird to see a few parts of the city that I
remember from a year and a half ago. But it's cool.
Our area is absolutely gigantic. We have got a lot of work to do here.
Elder Hormazabal is a great guy. He was baptized at 16, and is the
only member of his family. Before being baptized, he had started
studying to be a Padre.
Well, I hope you are all doing well!

Livramento!

Well first off, I just got the news, i´m getting trasferred to Livramento!
It's a city down on the border of Uruguay, close to Quarai, Livramento
is basically together with another city called Rivera, they are
basically one city together, but the internacional border of Brasil
and Uruguay cuts them in half right in middle. Cool right?
Also, I will be a trainer there, and I won´t even be any sort of
leader, just a trainer (that will be a weight off my shoulders, it's
been over a year since i was called Zone Leader).
My area there will be called Planalto.

I am kinda sad though, because there are some awesome people that we
are teaching right now that are going to be baptized this transfer.
This week I did a division with Elder Pagotto. It was really good, he
is awesome. He is district leader in Itaqui, way far away.
Gelsom and Judith, this family that came to General Conference is
doing super well and are going to get baptized, also Leandro is doing
quite well, also going to get baptized.
This week we got together some of the young men from the ward and 2 of
their friends, taught them, and they came to church on Sunday and
liked it a lot.
I also got some news from Elder Menk that some people we taught there
in Santa Maria finally got baptized, sweet!
Anyways, i need to go make my bags!!!

General Conference

Hello family, how are you all doing?
I am doing great.
This week was a great week for us.
Obviously the crowning event of the week was General Conference, our
own experiences listening and watching, and the people we were able to
bring to watch. Leando, a guy I have mentioned we are teaching, came to
3 sessions, and liked it a lot. He is awesome, and I am pretty sure
that we are going to be able to baptize him this next month. After the
Priesthood session (which was really awesome) he went up to one of the
Brothers of the Branch who will be moving to Rio de Janeiro this
month, and told him that he wanted to be baptized by him before he moved. (sweet!)
Also we were able to bring a family to church, Gelsom, Judith, and
their sons Gustavo and baby João Augusto. They liked it a lot, and are
excited to come back next week.
General Conference was a truly great spiritual experience for me. I
felt as if certain talks had certainly been written just for me. These
men truly are modern prophets and apostles. How good it is to know
that! The pathway is made clear in all ages. We live in a time when
more than ever, we need the guidance of our Father. I hope all is
well, and that great experiences are had at EFY.