December 7 & 8, 2009 - Letter Home

 *No photos this week    :(

Hey my family! I have P-day today because transfers are tomorrow! Cool huh? Brendon, is your situation the same? Anyways, I'll write more later, but I just want to let you know that your letters were heaven. Thank you so much Dad and Lyns! I feel like you're right here in the internet cafe with me! Mom, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the photos! Oh my gosh I can't believe how awesome seeing all of my family and glimpsing the thanksgiving vacation is! So sweet! I will print them out and hang them on my wall above my desk. :D
I love you guys, will write later about my week (which was pretty good!). Tchau!

Get busy livin or get busy dyin

Hey my family!
     This week hás been great. And I’m feeling much better! I know that your prayers have been a great help to me, and the thought has popped into my head often that my blessings were probably because of the prayers of someone else. Very cool. Also, I just finished re-reading everyone’s letters and printing mom’s photos, and I feel very close to you all right now. This is what feeds me for the rest of the week. Thanks so much guys!

     I’ll tell you first about the experience I had this last Thursday, because it is what made this week so good. It’s nothing very big, but it was very important to me. As you know, I’ve been feeling pretty homesick for the last couple weeks. After last P-day I was feeling pretty horrible, for no reason. I didn’t know what it was. I had somewhat run out of desire to keep working as hard as I had been. Excitement for the work was gone. This was because I had nothing to fuel my mission. All through the CTM, all through the days leading up to the mission after the call came, all through my life leading up to getting my mission call, I had a hope for some sort of unknown adventure which would be worthy to fill volumes with. My childhood was made of stories, mostly from reading books, also from movies, shows, games. The question always was, “Where’s the next story?” “Where’s the next action packed experience?” “Where can I get the next rush?” And that’s how I lived, from story to story. So you can see how this mode of life would make it easy for someone to want to serve a mission, because it’s this big blank spot in your life which will be YOUR big story. Finally, you’re the main character, living and not just viewing.
     Through the CTM, this is the thought that kept me going. Okay, cool, I’m done with the CTM. I arrive in the mission field, everything is new and exciting and you’re meeting new people and finding your way through this strange place and all for the grand purpose of bringing souls to the light. Sweet! And there’s a lot of awesome experiences worthy of being written in a book, that far exceed any written or recorded in a book, especially because you’re living it. But what you’re not ready for, what I think no returned missionary ever tells you, what maybe our parents and our leaders in the church maybe neglect to tell us some times, is that missionary work is hard. It’s not an amazing experience every second. You can’t just turn the page and have the next plot point jump out at you and give you that jolt of adrenaline. Some days you end up walking and sweating a lot, some days you can’t contact anybody on the street because the rain and the wind is too hard for anyone to hear, sometimes your investigators don’t receive a miraculous answer to their prayers, or aren’t super excited about the message you have. For surely a mission has many great experiences contrary to this, but I believe most of those experiences are bookmarked by a little suffering or a lot of patience.
      Isn’t this the way all stories are, though? Every movie, game, book does what it can to remove the mundanities of life, and if it does include any, it’s only for a short time to allow the next huge event to be greater in comparison. It’s orchestrated. It gives the rewards while guarding the pain. That’s why we like stories. A story is just real life without the duller parts.
     And so I think I needed some time to realize this truth on the mission. What this meant though, was that I did not have the hunger for a story to drive my service. Why keep working when there was no story to enjoy in the future? It wasn’t enough. And of course it wasn’t enough! Frodo didn’t accept the ring because he wanted a good adventure! I don’t think any true hero had a good story or a good adventure as their reason for embarking! It would be like a plant watering itself! I spent a lot of time thinking about this, about how I had run out of the gas fueled by the need for an adventure. After I had concluded this thought, I felt completely lost. How did others do it? Where did they find the desire? I especially searched the missionaries of the scriptures, and I found a scripture I had heard of before but never really wanted to understand:

“Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble.” Mosiah 28:3

There! Desire! A scripture solely about what I wanted to find! Desire! Especially about desire to do missionary work! This is how they did it, this is why!
And I thought about it. Why did they feel like this, anyway? I thought about the people in my area. Sure, I wanted them to accept the gospel, and I knew it could make them happier, but for certain I didn’t feel any reason to quake and tremble! Many of the people here are very happy, and have a very nice existence already! They could be a bit happier through the gospel, but not by much, right? And many people outside of the church even still seemed happier than a couple of the member families we had visited. What is the point? And why is it that souls here could endure endless torment? That doesn’t make sense right? That’s why we have the spirit world: so that everyone will eventually learn about the gospel anyway, and have their chance. Why teach people here anyway? They’ll have their chance!

     So I remembered this scripture: “This life is the time for men to prepare to meet God … if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.” Alma 34:32-33

      Ah, so for some reason my view of the spirit world was skewed. It wasn’t an escape hatch. It’s something else that I’m still trying to research. But for my purposes, it was enough to know that we can’t rely on any second chances.
     And with this knowledge, I hoped and I tried to imagine each person on the street and how much they needed the gospel, because otherwise they would endure endless torment. Hmm… I know this sounds cruel, but for some reason that didn’t help. Even with the knowledge I was still found lacking a desire. It seemed too big, too hopeless. After the fifth person you meet on the street, the fifth person who you remind yourself will have endless torment unless they accept the gospel, you just don’t want to encourage that kind of guilt and responsibility any more. The fuel worked but it might’ve been too strong for the engine to take for a long while.

     I knew that the desire would have to come from love. Not desperation. Of course it was love and charity that kept us working so hard through the difficult times to reach one soul for the light. But even encouraging desperation in myself didn’t work. How? How to get this love?
I ran across this scripture:
“My beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God;” Moroni 7:48
      Is it really that simple? I felt somewhat stupid for not turning to prayer here. Elder Losee played the song “Did you think to pray?” on his iPod a bit later and I felt stupid. What I had learned from this scripture was that I needed to “pray with all the energy of heart” Now I hadn’t done that before!
It was a bit difficult to get to the point where I could do that, but I did it. And it totally worked. There’s been two days where I haven’t done this in the morning, and it’s been completely different. Cool huh?

Actually, I got to go but I will return soon and email more!
More actual practical details about my week in an hour or so!

Elder C

12-8-2009 Opa!

So after being rushed off of the computer yesterday to go bowling, and after an hour of typing up a letter about my week this morning, my email was not working, and all of the missionaries here couldnt send e-mails. LAME! Fortunately we have a couple minutes now, but need to hurry up.

Mom! I absolutely loved your letter and have read it four times already. Mom, I love you so much. I wouldnt be anywhere without you. Thank you so much. I had to keep myself from tearing up this morning because I needed your message so bad. I know I have what I need to continue working hard here, and I have the Lord on my side. However, even after I wrote that letter yesterday, I woke up a little blue. I think I’m through analyzing it: it’s just homesickness and it will pass. I’m praying that it does. It will.
      But Mom, the Relief Society Christmas Program sounds like it was awesome! Good job! That was a big project! And it was a success! Para bens (Congrats)! I am also ever so jealous of your white out, because it’s either rainy and humid or super hot and humid here. Yes, the weather has been a bit crazy! Many other places in the mission have been completely flooded, leaving some missionaries dislocated! Crazy huh? Luckily Passo Fundo is in the hills, and has come away unscratched. Very lucky.

     So I saw Elder Losee off this morning. It was a bit more difficult than I thought. We shed some tears, and I’m still working out in my head how it all went and what to think about our transfer together. I love him a lot: he’s a friendly, funny, nice guy, and very spiritual. We had a lot of good memories together and I learned a lot from being his companion, and I miss him.
     My new companion is Elder Duarte! He was Elder Barker’s trainer, who was my roomate in the CTM. He was in the nieghboring area and now he’s in Boqueirao! He’s a really funny, cheerful, energetic guy, and he’s Brazilian! So I hope I get pretty far with the Portuguese this transfer. This is his last transfer, which means in missionary slang that I’ll get to “kill” him (be there when he leaves). Cool huh? I’m excited to work with him, but I’m also a little worried because Elder Barker told me alot about how he’s really "trunky" (missing home)  and talks about home a lot and that would be the worst thing for me now I think. So I’ll talk to him about that. Won’t be a problem I’m sure.

     Anyway, this week was very good, like I said. We did a lot of good work. We got 8 investigators to church this last Sunday, which Elder Losee said was a huge accomplishment! Seven of them are of a family of Isabel, her two daughters Juliana and Joselia, who have 5 kids together in their seperate families. And they are all interested in the church! They seemed to like it (testimony meeting) and their oldest daughter, Jessica, who is 12, went to a young women’s sleepover the other night, so we’re hoping very much that this all works out!

     We also had a funny moment last week where we weren’t carrying an umbrella, were very far from our house, when suddenly a freak storm started, and there was the hardest wind I had ever been in. We got completely soaked, and it ruined our planners and one Livro de Mormon, but all else was good. After a while of trying to get out of the rain we were just completely laughing at eachother and having fun in the rain because it wasn’t possible to get any more wet. It was fun.
    
     Mom, thank you again so much for the letter and the photos. I love you and miss you so much, and your letter helped me a lot and I’m sure will help me a lot in the future. I can’t wait to talk to you on Christmas! It will be so weird! I can’t even imagine it! Also I can’t wait to get your package! It should be coming with some new elders that are being transfered here this night. I promise only to open it on Christmas morning :).

     As for your questions, we only go grocery shopping every so often, and I really haven’t had good budgeting skills. I need to be better. I iron, wash, and hang up to dry my clothes almost every day. I know how to shine my shoes... I know this seems impossible but my level of cleanliness is actually quite formidable compared to a lot of people here. You’ve taught me well I think! I love you mom! Good luck on your future responsibilities!
     Dad, thank you again for your letter, encouragement, and testimony. They have also really helped me. I know I’lll be able to weather this storm and get through it stronger. It’ll only make the mission that much more worth serving. I love you so much and think about you and the things you have taught me daily. Keep up the good work on the business! I will talk to Gilmar if I see him okay? Thank you so much my dad. Have a good week!
     Lynsey, thanks so much for your letter! I loved it! I know you’re probably done with it already, but good luck on your (next) performance! I can’t wait to see how much you’ve improved when I return! I’ve told quite a few people here about my talented musician sister and they’re all very impressed! Maybe I could get some pictures of you drummin it up? Maybe that one in the hallway that you like so much?   ;)   Also, good luck on your finales! Study and work hard without stopping until the vacation! It is so possible to reach your goals in your class, especially if you pray before you start to study or do homework. And then you can enjoy vacation any more! I can’t wait to talk to you Lyns!
    Kaitlin! I love you so much my lil sis! I am so proud of you and your award for the Best Linguist in our ward! Good work! You did it! I think you are so smart and you are so good at learning languages! I can’t wait to teach you some Portuguese when I get back. How about I start now? “Eu te amo!” (Ayoh tchee ahmoe!) this means “I love you”! Eu means “I”, te means “you”, amo means “love”. But it’s funny because they say it here, “I you love!” instead of “I love you!” it backwards! Funny huh? Kaitlin, also good job on the hike on Thanksgiving break! You are tough! I can’t believe you climbed that mountain! I hope you had a fun time with your cousins, and that you’ll have a great Christmas and Santa will bring you many awesome toys! I can’t wait to talk to you my Kate! I am so excited!
     Brendon! Hey buddy! How are you? Still going hard? I loved that summer we went to all those waterparks, but Lagoon was awesome to. Hahaha! Good memories. How about the week we played Halo all the way through with eachother after Christmas? This happens to be on my mind because I just downloaded the Halo ODST soundtrack. Ask your companion how to download free music because all the Brazilians do it here and you can find so much music for free! Unfortunately you have to fix your iPod so it doesnt have to be synchronized to one iTunes account. I don’t know how to do this without erasing all of your music. And I accidentally did just that. I am still a little sad for the few tracks that I don’t have anymore, and I can’t find them for free here. So judge for yourself whether it’s worth it. The ODST soundtrack is really good but it’s not worth erasing all of your other music for, let me tell you. I want to know, how do you guys do on contacting and teaching every day. Give me a rough estimate for your numbers? Some days Elder Losee and I don’t even contact anyone. I will change that. But it’s been hard trying to do it myself. Very low standards here compared to "Law of the Harvest", and it’s been grating on me that I can’t pull myself together and make it happen. It’s hard to do when your a junior and your senior is a bit incredulous that 50 people can be contacted in a day. Oh well, it’ll happen. I love you bro! Baptize it up!
My family! Until next week!