May 4, 2010 - Letter Home

Well, that's life! 
 Hey family!
What is super cool is that I’m going to be talkin to y'all in just 5 days! I am just SO excited, and I may even have trouble concentrating on work because of excitement (although I will try not to). For surely it hás seemed like less time between now and my first call (5 months ago) than my first call and when I last saw everyone (3 months apart). That’s a good sign! The next break will be our longest we’ll have in communication during these two years (now until Christmas – a 7 month period), but I am assuming that when Christmas comes it won’t seem like tôo much time hás passed. Cool.

This week was fast, and not tôo much happened. We had a couple really high powered days, where Elder Carvalho and I just promised eachother we’d work our heads off and do everything possible to find some great new families to teach. It’s so awesome; I’m learning how to be the type of missionary that I wanted to be. Praying every second while walking the streets or talking or teaching, trying to listen to and follow the Spirit, and thanking God for every little thing he sends our way. Let me tell you: it’s working! In fact, it’s incredible how it’s working! Our goal was to find new families, and we found 11 this week! We have 2 families that have really great potential: Carmen and Ezdra, and João and Salete and their kids. And we are hopeful about many others. I really feel like we were guided to these families.

But, there was a kind of duality to this week. After our great success, we kind of kicked back, visited some easy families, and for some reason we didn’t feel like continuing our awesome pattern. What’s funny is that at the end of all those productive days, I totally felt on top of the world, super happy, glad to be a missionary. How is it that in just three days you can go from that, to being kind of sad and homesick like I was today and yesterday? It’s an idea I’m kind of struggling with. Elder Carvalho hás been studying the teachings of Brigham Young exclusively for a while, and one observation of his hás been sticking out in my head. Brigham Young said that the most normal time to be tempted is right after a vision or a powerful insight from God, because the devil wants to trip you up before you do tôo much with your newfound insight or spiritual light. He referenced the experience of Moses and how Satan tempted him right after his vision of all the works of God and his conversation with him.

I also remember the words of that missionary book we bought, "Serve with Honor". It had a chapter all about the Spirit, and how one way you can lose the spirit is through sin, and the other way you can lose the spirit is through doing the right things, but then needing to be tested. It’s like God giving you all the instruction and help to understand something, but then drawing back, taking off the training wheels, and giving you the opportunity to do it yourself. If you manage get through the situation yourself, using what you’ve learned but not necessarily the Spirit, God will know you’re ready to move on to the next big challenge, and he’ll give you the Spirit to help you prepare for this.
So I feel like that’s where I am right now. Prayer, some time with the scriptures, some quiet thinking time, hás helped me to get through the last two days, and I feel good right now, but just very fragile. Certainly your letters have helped. I read a bit of my diary yesterday, and it helped me understand what was happening. My diary is actually really hilarious; unfortunately I write only one or (maybe) twice a week, and the entries more or less alternate: “I’m feeling really discouraged and confused” and “Man, the mission is great! I love this work! I didn’t know I could be so happy!” It might be kind of a personal version of the Book of Mórmon; how those people changed so quickly from righteousness to devastation and back again. Well, that’s life.
That’s my attitude right now. “Well, that’s life.” Heheh. Understand, I feel like this statement is like seeing a giant, swirling maelstrom approaching, tornadoes and lightning and thunder, pointing to it and saying, “Well, that’s a storm.” But really that’s the best I can do. Get this big and complicated topic and bundle it down to something I can cope with. Yep, that IS life alright.
What the heck else happened this week? We made bread! It fed me for a week. Bread is ridiculously easy to make! I feel happy that I managed to accomplish a feat that millions of people have accomplished for millions of years. It’s also ridiculous cheap to make. Want to eat for a week on $10? Buy flour, sugar, yeast, na egg, and the cheapest jam you can find ($1.00 for a jar of jam is a good deal we found here)! And make bread! Oh yeah, and boil up powdered milk for perfection WITH thrift. Want to switch it up? $1.00 for a frozen meat patty. It’s a deal. I could eat like this for my entire mission. We’ll see how far that statement góes in another month.
Grêmios won Grenal! It’s my football team and they won a super important game! Parties and fireworks in the streets! People on the top of cars without lots of clothes in the middle of the city! Streets packed full of jumping excited, painted bodies! It was crazy. It was really hard to work that day. And I left my câmera! I was super disappointed about that. But it’s pretty funny how this little Catholic worker town just completely góes outright bonkers over a football game. Cool.
I finally got to finish watching Lynsey and Kaitlin’s vídeos. So cool to see you guys! In one way our phone call might seem a little bit of a downgrade, because I won’t get to see you. Love you guys so much! It will be so great to get to talk to you in real time. Way to go Lyns on the SAT! Hope it all góes well.
Hey Mom! Loved the details about the Family Preparedness Activities! Wow, it sounds so extensive! I think it’s awesome that you have a lot of the ward doing this. I think it would be fun to be thinking and preparing all these things there. Way to go Mom! This will for surely make a difference later on.
Hey Dad! I’ll be fasting with you guys. Follow whatever it is that you find. I know it’ll lead to where we need to go. Can’t wait to talk to you tôo! Hope we can get some one on one time.
My whole family! Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents! We have a loving Heavenly Father who can help us! Okay, love you guys! Have a good week!
Love shouted from the mountaintops!
Connor Hehe, okay! I'm going to make everything just perfect! Food, water ready just in case so I don't have to run to the kitchen. In fact, I'll just talk to you guys from our bathroom, so as to not have any sort of interruption. Man, it'll be perfect.... :)

What's goin on there?

Here, it's raining, my companion's done and telling me that I'm writing too much... We have a dinner with a less active family set up in an hour... Oh yeah. This is the life. :)