August 31, 2010 - Letter Home

Wake me up when ... ends
  
Hey you all,
Came and gone another week! Me and Elder Simmons were still run run running this week, talking with everyone but still we have yet to find our awesome elect family. It's what we keep telling each other while we go tracting, "Elder, I think our awesome elect family is behind that door." 

They're there, we just need to find them! One awesome family would just make all of our work worth it this transfer. We're having fun, though. There's always stuff to learn and laugh about out here.

On Saturday we went out to Rogerio and Fernanda's house for a ward service project, where we spent the morning building a roof for an expansion on their house. I was one of the few people who climbed up to work on the very top in the rafters, and I got to put my Carpentry skills to the test hammering and sawing and drilling and all that. It was fun :). I just love stuff that we get to do which is out of the regular like that. It was also fun to learn how to do alot of that stuff and learn construction vocabulary from everyone. Do you know what they call a Crowbar? It's called a Goat's Foot here. :) It was fun also to chill on the roof with all the guys drinking chimarrao. I felt very gaucho.

Me and Feijao

Me and Juliano

After that yesterday we ran to an activity with the youth picking up trash in a little park, and after we had hotdogs and soda. It was just a really cool day where Elder Simmons and I got to wear normal clothes and relax and do normal things and at the same time be helping the branch and building friendships with members. I'm only in my 4th week here in Rio Pardo but I can already tell you I'm going to get emotional when I leave here. There's just a bunch of really awesome families here and they really let the missionaries into their homes and their lives. It's stuff like that that makes the mission really fun. Lots of good memories.

And after are huge day of service projects, I got called by President Rogerio to give a talk the next day at church, 10 minutes! I got to sleep a little late that night and I was dead tired, but I prepared my talk, about "Changing the World", and I talked about the scripture that says through small and simple things great things are done by God, and how important it is to control all of the things you do... I think it turned out pretty good.

Last District Meeting we had a surprise mail visit! I got a "Sweet!" package from Grandma which I loved. Thank you so much Grandma! Carmels were PERFECT! It's one thing I had completely forgot that I missed from home! They're making good presents for kids of investigators. The vitamins were needed as well. Love you Grandma! I also got a great package from the entire Christensen family! Man, you guys are so awesome! I loved all the messages and drawings from each and every one of you guys, especially my new little cousins! Bah, how I miss you guys! What a good family I got. I can't even begin to realize how much of a huge blessing you guys are in my life! Thank you!

New District - New Sisters

Anyway, I wish I had more cool news for you. There's always a lot of little things that happen in the week that are semi-interesting, but I don't feel like I am able to write more than a sentence about them. 

• Elder Simmons and I getting swamped by dogs and scaring em off,
• getting lost on dark streets while trying to make a shortcut to an appointment, 
• us trying to get every member to get liahona subscriptions, 
• me still trying to get a BoM loan program working, 
• me trying to make our map accurate so we can plan well, 
• me learning different new ways to make chimarrao, 
• me and Elder Simmons new yogurt addiction, 
• how funny it is that a new cosco-type store that opened recently here STILL has a huge line in the entrance after one week, 
• me and Elder Simmons just searching for office and SNL references to make eachother laugh in our long walks to appointments, 
• us being trapped in a house by talkative old people throwing photo albums in our laps and talking about family, 
• my sweet new Paul Cardall church piano solo albums, 
• pretty much everybody ALWAYS making comments about how beautiful my mom is after seeing pictures and wanting to know how she stays looking so young, 
• and also everyone always gawking at my photos of Lyns (blond hair is a huge deal here), 
• me noticing and marking dirtbiking trails and seeing huge dirtbike gangs heading off into the trees... :)....Just a bunch of stuff I remembered from this week.

Well, I love you guys lots! It's this until another week! We're in September! What the heck?!? If you wanted to start sending me my letters from one year ago, that would be interesting. Lyns and Kate, how is high school? Classes getting hard already? How is seminary going (especially for Kate)? Lots of friends and activities? Already into the zone? Lynsey, have you started on your Senior Project? Do it early! Have you started looking in the Career Center for scholarships? Start a habit and do it early! I want to hear my sister getting a million scholarships this year! Kaitlin, are you getting to know lots of people in your classes? Are you remembering to smile always? Are you praying every morning and night and during the day? Working a lot on homework? Got to live to the max! I love you guys alot, I miss ya!

Love love love for every one!

Elder Conly

August 24, 2010 - Letter Home

Million Dollar Man!

 Hey all you awesome people!

So it’s another week. This one went super quick because me and Elder Simmons worked our tails off! Which is a great thing. I had always felt that I could have been giving just a little bit more effort if I had been directing the work when I was Junior (a little prideful this idea, yes), and the Lord gave me my chance. So we’ve been getting home sweating every day, but it’s a good sweat. 
I also was super impressed by Brendon’s success last week, so as a playful competition I was trying to see what my best would be. 
That’s an okay type of motivation, right? Anything that gets you to work harder... 
So we marked 2 batism dates here, taught 26 lessons (more than the recommended 20 lessons which is the standard here), went with members to deliver 5 books of mormon to different family and friends, and found 13 new investigators this week. Awesome! 
I just wanted to throw some numbers to you guys to show you the difference between the work with the Gauchos and Cearenses. But it was good. 

Our last zone conference introduced a new focus on trying to receive revelation and follow the spirit in all steps of the work, and it’s really changed how I am trying to work as a missionary, and I’m really feeling a big difference in how to be guided by the Lord. It’s not something like you’re walking along and you KNOW that there’s an elect family behind a certain door, but in two different occasions this week I just had the idea pop into my head to knock on two different doors, and I went to knock, not thinking anything big, and there were the families waiting for us who needed to hear our message. Sweet! I am really focusing on learning how to do this with greater accuracy. If you let the Spirit guide you, you really don’t need to worry about if you’re saying or doing the right thing, you just do it. Very cool.

So, the down side of this week is that we were all feeling super inspired and like we gave our 100 percent in the work, but we got to church and no one that we had invited to church showed up. I could let myself get discouraged about that but I’m not going to because it’s just a test and I know that if we do our part, the Lord will do his. We just gotta keep going and working hard not because we are seeing results, but because we want to do our best. In the end, the only reward we are promised is our personal growth, peace, and happiness, because God can’t take free agency from people; they have to decide if they want to follow the things we teach or not. But there will be success here, for surely.

Anyway, that’s our week! Sorry that there’s no photos or videos this week. We were just running too fast this week to remember about that, but I will remember this next week, for sure.

I’m going to correspond with all of you guys individually now, so don’t think this is it!

I love you all lots lots lots! Have a good week everyone!

Elder Con

...Basically there is a good chance that I won't get any new mail for 3 months, and no, I haven't received anything yet. Did you guys want to make sure it got here before I made a year or something? That's really too bad that it didn't come yet... :( Believe me, I am crying about this.

Life at the Muddy River is going great. Elder Simmons and I are getting along, we are working hard, we've been getting out of our comfort zone and talking to everyone and hitting doors and trying to follow the spirit, and it's been making results. The ward really is a great one. Just immediately you can tell that there are some really great people here, and I am for sure going to have a bunch of friends and people to visit from here. How is my house? Well let me just say that Elder Carpenter is... movin' on up! To a 3rd story apartment in the sky-y-y. It's the best housing situation I've had in the mission right now. We have just a lot of space, it's got quality lighting and plumbing and flooring and walls, a little balcony area, TWO bathrooms! A separate laundry area, and a little corner just for my table which is well decorated with Liahona cutouts and a picture of my fambly. It's great.  

August 17, 2010 - Letter Home

Me and Bomberman!

The Man of the Mountain!

Hey Family!
So awesome to get to hear from all of you this week! I just love seeing my inbox full at the end of a hard week. So let’s get to the news…

Ends up that Sister missionaries are to blame in Elder Malheiros and I being transferred out of the area. The sisters were having problems in another area so they were moved closer to president. That’s okay. Our last two baptisms were young women, so I am hoping the Sisters will be able to make friendships quickly and get to know them and meet all of their friends to keep the work going in that area. I just feel a bit bad because Elder Malheiros and I absolutely had no time to clean up after ourselves because we both went crazy packing for transfers and so we left the Sisters to find a huge surprise when they entered the house. Hehehe, yep.
  (sorry girls!)

CTM Comps 4 Ever - Elder Feller and I

So I turned Senior. I am in a little city called Rio Pardo (Brown River), about 3 hours from Porto Alegre, right on the border of the mission. My companion, Elder Simmons, is obviously American, from St. George, Utah, and has 3 months in the field here. I’m his second companion, which in mission terms means I’m his stepdad, so I have a brand new step-child every body! Yay! He has slightly reddish hair so I call him my red-headed stepchild. I’m making sure to be really mean to him but it’s kind of like in a Football coach way where on the inside I just want him to be stronger. 
Hehe, just-kidding, we’re good friends already and it’s cool to have someone with you who understands The Office and Saturday Night Live references. 
It’s cool because I finally get to be the senior missionary that I always wanted to be. I am just trying to be super obedient and diligent and trying to teach Elder Simmons everything that I know. I just hope he doesn’t get discouraged or anything at it being hard or too much. His last companion was American and talked a lot of English with him, so I tried to arrive and speak only Portuguese, but I think that might be a little too much so I’m just going slow.

Meu Entediado! (My Stepson!)

I am loving the members here and actually the leaders here are awesome and are excited about the work. Cool!

Anyway, I had to write some letters to some of the people I baptized this week, so I hope this and some photos and some videos are good for this week. 


I super appreciate all of your letters, and even every single detail just helps me feel closer to you guys and knowing you guys are all alive. It’s super awesome that me and Brendon have passed the middle point of the mission, and while it’s still going to seem like a long time until the end starts being apparent, I hope we can all just be working hard on our own ends, stay firm, and achieve what we want out of this next year.

I love you guys so much, more words coming next week, I promise!

Love love love you guys até carûmba! (a lot!)

Elder C. Carpenter

August 9, 2010 - Letter Home

Blitzkrieg!

 Hello my family!

It's P-day one day early again, because of TRANSFERS!!!! Yeah! So the news is that, unbelievably, and with a lot of tears, Elder Malheiros and I both will be transferred from the Elizabete area and ward. What?!?! Malheiros and I are COMPLETELY confused and sad and lost as to what the heck is happening. We're really torn up. We had 2 baptisms last week after a lot of problems and a lot of miracles to make it all work, and the ward is stronger than ever, and the members love us and are helping in the work and... we got transferred. Horrible.

Anyway, I don't have time to write today because we are running around giving the people the news, getting contact information and pictures, and we have to pack, completely clean up the house and leave it all in working order (this will be ridiculously difficult...:)), and leave instructions and informations for the next missionaries to barge in and steal our awesome gig we had going.

So sorry for the limited time, but maybe tomorrow I'll be able to write a bit more in my allotted P-day time.

Love love love you guys, every one! You are with me in my prayers,

Elder Carperten

 

August 3, 2010 - Letter Home

Fancifully writing...

Hey all my fambly! I love to open up my inbox on P-day and see it full to the brim with communications from my dearest family members. Thanks guys for making it a good P-day. 
I’ll get a move on to write about my week and then, (taking a page from Brendon’s book), I wanna respond to you guys individually.
Pamela is super elect and will be baptized this Saturday! We’ve been spending a lot of time at her house because her mother Nadir refuses to stop serving us all kinds of cake and snacks and chocolates. Her mom has a lot of potential (as an investigator) but because of her responsibilities in another church she may need a bit more time (and a lot more cake!) But she is really proud of the changes her daughter is making. 
Man, Pamela is awesome. She fasted this last Sunday and already placed her tithing in an envelope to give the Bishop after she is baptized. Woah! 
Earlier this week her cat bit me on the hand and another separate visit her dog just went crazy and bit me on the SAME hand IN THE SAME EXACT PLACE as the cat! It’s not really that bad, my hands scabbed up and are already mostly healed, but I’m scared of what might bite me there next! We had a cool visit with Nadir and Pamela last night as the power went out and we taught a lesson by candlelight. Very cool.

Andressa is set to be baptized on the same day, and she is still elect as ever, but she’s had a couple difficulties. We had a huge problem when we figured out that the neighborhood they had moved into was outside the area, and Andressa’s mom says she won’t let her daughter be baptized in another ward because her relatives live in our ward, and we kind of had to really explain the situation to a lot of leaders in order to get them to let her be baptized in our ward. 

We saw a little tiny mouse run under our couch the other day after returning to our house for the night (a little bit late, unfortunately), and although I was completely beat and wanted to sleep, Elder Malheiros has a phobia of mice (which my friend Elder Anderson had informed me of in his last transfer with him) and insisted that we moved all the furniture and that I kept guard of our bedroom door as he stood aware with a broom shushing me as he listened for mouse noises. We had no luck (and didn’t even hear anything afterwards), so that lasted for an hour and I left him in the other room hunting the mouse as I went to sleep.

The great map of the "Kingdom of Elizabete" is taking form… It should be my biggest map yet because the member behind whose house we live in has a computer and a scanner so I went ahead and printed up a map that should be a full meter in length. It only lacks being laminated and later I’ll have to make an index to post next to it.

Um, I don’t really have any other novelties for all y’all. I’m eating very well (but don’t understand why I’m not gaining any weight!), staying warm (with my fanciful scarf that I learned to wear in a more masculine manner), having fun and doing the work. It’s so great to see so many happy people around me because of the gospel, and surely this should be enough of a testimony as anything, that Jesus Christ is guiding his kingdom here on earth in our days. Sometimes I don’t really understand why I’m blessed so much, sometimes it seems too much to take in. Surely one of my reasons for such happiness is all of you guys. I’m not trunky but I think my homesickness has strategized to come in really quick, strong strikes before I expel it. It’s manageable, and it’s well, well worth it to see the happiness of everyone around me and to feel that too for them.

I’ll write to everyone separately now. I love you guys! Have a good week! 


Right now we'll go to an recent convert's house where we watch church videos and drink soda and eat pinions (boiled seeds of giant pinecones, tastes like boiled peanuts actually) before ending our Pday.

Elder C. Carpenter