June 22, 2010 - Letter Home

It's the turning point...

 Ola minha familia! Espero que tudo esteja bem... 
(translation: Ola my family!  I expect that everything is well.)

Oh, ahem! *cough* Yep, just got done writing Presidente in portuguese. Gotta make the switch. It was great to hear from Brendon again and see photos from him! Awesome. It's really weird for me to see him in different situations and climates and knowing different people and stuff. Like, I feel like I should be able to get together with Brendon after the mission and immediately assume that he knows everything about my companions and areas and the culture and mission events and everything. And it's weirder to think his experience is completely different than mine, and I'll have to ask him about it later on. Hmmm.

So this week was really great. Stuff is just finally coming together. For example, Vagner prayed about the Book of Mormon and got an answer about it. Woah! I mean, I get so accustomed to the answer, “Yeah, I read and prayed, it was alright...” And further questioning just provokes blank stares. I don't think there is sincerity in really desiring to know the truth.
Yes!Someone received an answer!  It's been a while. Anyway, that means that Vagner got marked up to be baptised this next Sunday; I'm super excited. It's been 2 months since my last baptism. Hope all goes well. He's a really awesome kid. It was cool to see him come to church all dressed up in a white shirt and tie, trying to pay attention and answer questions and figure stuff out. I have a really good feeling that if we started talking about serving a mission and stuff he'd pick it up and run with it. I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but... just an awesome situation with him.

Also really great is that our family from Casca, Tiago and Monica, who had been cut by us because of their lack of interest or them not wanting to go to church (I think the interactions they had with a couple members there was slightly less-than-perfect), showed up at church! They said they wanted to continue receiving our visits! Sweet! We went yesterday to Casca, talked and told stories and laughed and shot the breeze, then had an awesome lesson about the plan of salvation, and at the end got down on our knees all of us to pray one at a time for them to receive an answer (idea I got from Bro Sevy). The spirit was super strong as we heard Tiago and Monica pray for the first time, and I'm sure they felt something because as we got up to leave after the prayer, they told us to take the late bus home so that we could eat pizza with them. We stayed a bit longer, Tiago gave me a sweet golden sweater (because I was shivering in their house; should have brought my bigger jacket), and gave us a bag of shampoo and toothpaste and soap that Tiago had gotten as a present from a client of his (were they trying to send us a signal about our hygiene? Definitely not; although I haven't taken a shower in 3 days when I smell myself I only catch the scent of flowers... so...) But it was a really great visit, and Tiago made a couple cool comments while he drove us to the bus station about how he was going to have a long talk with Monica about what they were going to do about church. Cool. I am excited about them again.

Anyway, transfers next week. Hope I stay here because it looks like stuff is turning around.

Hmm, I'm sorry, but this might be all I can send this week. ... Man I have so little time to write... Um, maybe I'll write more later on, but don't expect anything. Okay!

Love love love you guys! Live up the summer! It's freezin here! By the time I write next week I'll have 10 months on the mission! It's still a ways off from the year mark but it's comin fast! Crazy!

Viva vivendo!

Elder Connor

--Connor was asked by one of his church leaders to write up a little bit about his mission so that it could be shared with young men at a Scout camp coming up in a few weeks....

 Hey everybody, this is Elder Connor Carpenter speaking to you from a quiet little internet café in Marãu, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. It's quiet here because everybody's out on the streets, dressed in yellow, waiting for the World Cup Brasil game to start in two hours! Brasilians really have a way of showing us Americans up on partying, I haven't ever seen even the Super Bowl cause as much ruckus  as is happening down here. Have you ever seen a huge yellow-painted trailer pass by with a raging fire going on in the back in which everybody is encouraged to throw stuffed-dolls dressed up as players of the opposing soccer team? I saw that the other night. It was crazy. 

I happen to be 9000 miles from all of you guys in Eldorado Hills, but I feel like I'm right down the street from you guys. Stuff is different but it's not super-different here. Before the mission I thought going to Brasil

I was asked to write about a special spiritual experience that helped me gain a testimony about the gospel. It's hard for me to choose what to say, firstly because those experiences are very personal, and also because those stories often used to seem to me as a youth in the church, “mormon legends” that might or might not be completely true, or could be discounted as stories of coincidence dressed up by their tellers as miracles. 

I could tell about the time when my brother and I as youngsters wandered out to play in deep water while not knowing how to swim amid a crowd of strangers outside the view of our parents, and we both panicked and started gulping water and I prayed and suddenly my aunt appeared next to us to pull us out. 

I could tell about the time I hid myself from my parents, fell asleep, and woke up six hours later in a completely different place than I had fallen asleep, amid armies of policemen searching for a lost boy and a crying panicked family. 

I could tell about my brother and I's experience of suddenly feeling like we needed to leave college early only to later find that the rest of our roommates soon got tied up with drugs and other moral problems that could have interfered with our mission preparation process had we stayed there. 

Those stories are cool to hear, but are they useful? Does it mean that you need to see a miracle or see something supernatural happen to have a testimony? I have a bit of fear that it might seem like that to all of you guys.

Do you guys want a useful spiritual experience? How about when I was younger and I heard from a seminary teacher that if I wanted a spiritual experience I just needed to read 2 Nephi 9 over and over again until something cool happened? I sat there one night at my desk without anything to do and I remembered that and I read 2 Nephi 9 three times and I wasn't feeling anything and was even feeling a bit disappointed and disillusioned but then I decided I would just keep reading it until something happened so I must have read those 54 verses 10 or 15 times over and suddenly I looked down and thought, “Why are tears coming out of my eyes? Why are my fingers trembling as I hold the page? Why do I have the feeling that the room is shaking and about to fall down? How is it that I did NOT know with certainty that these things were true just a couple minutes ago?” It was a sensation of opening my eyes for the first time in a life where I previously lived squinting. That's something available to all of you there.

I want to tell all of you how amazing it felt to get ready to serve a mission. I felt unsure and nervous and unfocused before I put my papers in, but as soon as I took that step I started to feel just like everything was RIGHT, that I was exactly where I needed to be, that for the first time in life I wasn't vulnerable to accidentally making the wrong decision about what to do or who to be, but doing exactly what the Lord expected me to do at that moment. I felt the Lord preparing me in those four months before my mission for what I would encounter out here. As I thought more and more about the reality of going on the mission, I started actually really really wanting to open the scriptures, really wanting to pray and find some sort of guidance for how to prepare, and especially when I went to the temple for the first time it all just culminated into a spiritual high that left me feeling like an over-expanded balloon ready to pop with all the Light that God was letting into my life. 
I know we talk about having the light of Christ in our lives a lot, and I want everyone to know that that “light” is a real thing. It's not just a metaphor. It's a real sensation. You'll find yourself walking around your same old neighborhood, same old school, same old boring history class, with the same parents and siblings and friends, but as you look and ask for the gift of this light in your life, those same old things will suddenly just look better, brighter, more defined or exciting. You will start to notice all the blessings you have around you with greater clarity. The love you will begin to feel for these same old people will change them from just your mom or brother or friend or stranger into interesting, amazing spiritual brothers and sisters that the Lord loves infinitely, that are here on their own amazing journeys and experiences. You will stop looking to movies or games or books or all of these imaginary worlds to provide an escape from what seems like a dull, ordinary, meaningless world and start seeing what is really there, LIFE, an unimaginably amazing and delicious gift from God. That is what you get from trying to do your best here and following Jesus Christ. You'll feel more light, live more of your life, be engulfed with more love if you do these things. It can seem really difficult at times, but you will find help if you look for it. And what's cool is that here on the mission you can play a part in helping others find that light also. It's really hard some times, but the blessings always follow if you keep at it. Amidst all the problems and worries that I have out here in Brasil, I am so thankful to be here on the mission of the Lord. I am so surprised that Heavenly Father continues to pull through just when we have given it all and it seems like nothing will work out.

Every single one of you here right now have the opportunity to be such a great great help to our Heavenly Father, and a great great help to so many people who the Lord has prepared you to meet and teach. No one is perfect, no one is completely prepared to do what it takes to do this great work. But God will take whatever you have to give and make it great. Don't count yourself out of this work. It's for you. There is always a path to come to Christ, do everything right, and get into the mission field. Get onto that path, stay on it, and try to go further. You will all have the privilege of saying that you had a part to play in this adventure we call life, in the kingdom of God here on earth. I know that these things are true. I know that this Gospel is true and is restored on the earth in these days. I know that Jesus Christ lives and is ready and overly capable to help everyone of you in whatever it is that you need. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.