March 29, 2011- Letter Home

Moments
Hey Family!

I'm feelin pretty chipper today! How nice it is to see so many great photos of my attractive family! Thanks Dad (you sent the most)! 
So this week was awesome because I had the privilege of seeing one of my favorite families, Nilda, Yasim and Fadua be baptized this last Saturday. 

Awesome Family!

They are so elect! I'm so happy we found them. They've become real family here. It's also the first time I've seen a baptism of an entire family! Nilda got up and bore her testimony about how the Holy Ghost testified to her that the Book of Mormon was true, and Yasim said later that at the moment when he received the Gift of the Holy Ghost, he felt the Holy Ghost testify to him that he was doing the right thing. It's only been a couple of days since the baptism but we visited them yesterday and they already seem like different people! It's so great that the truth can come into a household and a family and completely change everything! I'm so happy for them and I hope that at some point I can return and visit them.
It's also very cool that Nilda has 3 other children that live in Esteio as well, who have their own respective families. With the change in their mother, they've become interested in hearing about the church too. We have already taught Fatima, Nilda's daughter, and we will teach the other's soon. I think the entire family was prepared to enter into the church! It's cool to see the beginning of that.

Mini Carpenter

Anyway, it is raining here but it's been a good thing. Much better than the sun and mugginess! The people are saying it's going to be one of the coldest winters yet because it's never cold and rainy like this in March. Bring it on! I need to find a scarf...
Sooo... I have to cut it a little short today because we're gonna go out and buy Elder Carroll some Gaucho clothes in the middle of the city.


But... I love you guys so much. I am so thankful for the e-mails and the upbeat words. I am thankful for your prayers for me and your efforts to do what is right. It's so important to me that you all are well, physically and spiritually! I know that the Lord will protect us and will guide us if we merely trust in Him, do what he commands, and seek for the blessings. I know more than ever that this Church IS true! The Holy Ghost is real and He testifies to everyone of the truth! It's a very real thing and I am so happy to be a part of it. I am so happy for Jesus Christ and the opportunity to follow Him now in my mission and to try to become more like Him. I am so thankful for the promise that we will be together as a family forever!

doisgatinhos

I love you all so much, have a good week!

Elder Carpenter

March 22, 2011 - Letter Home

Cakeweek!


Hey My Family! Seeing my inbox full this Pday was a huge Happy Birthday HURRAH! Thank you so much! The photos, the awesome video, letters from various relatives, videos, cake! So awesome! This really made my day!

My birthday week went very nicely! On the day of my birthday actually we had a million stuff going on at the same time, including a party at our district meeting with the rest of the missionaries, a special lunch with Bishop and family, and 4 cakes with parties from families Edson and Josie, Valeria, Yasim and family, and Josias and Andrieli. 

Elder Carroll and I were ready to explode at the thought of cake after the day was over, and our refrigerator is still stocked with chocolate cake 5 days after. Alright! The members and our investigators are so awesome! Man, I love ém.

BUT...! Dang! My package got here in the mission office, but they haven't been able to get it here still! So close! So honestly Mom you did everything right, it got here on time, it's just bad luck because we haven't had a zone conference or assistant division in a while now. I should get the package here in 2 days. It's just as well because now I'll actually have room to eat whatever goodies were sent! I'm excited! You guys are so awesome for sending so much! Thanks Mom!

The work is going well! Yasim and his family are firm for baptism! They'll be baptized Saturday and I am super happy because Nilda was a bit more hesitant than the rest of the family about baptism but now she's super excited about it. They are very well integrated with the ward and a lot of members have visited them. Yasim is already wanting to do divisions with us and Fadua is participating in alot of the music programs and Nilda is looking into genealogy. Cool! I'm happy for them.

Josias and Andrieli don't have a date to be married but have been going to church and participating in all the activities and are very involved with the ward already. They are so awesome. They live right in front of the church so Saturday we went with them and Andrieli's little brother Junior to have a lesson out on the grass in the shade of the chapel, and brought chimarrao and kicked around the soccerball a bit. Junior went to church and really liked it. We woke up one morning early and ran for our exersize time with Josias. Running with firefighters!

Friday we had a fun ward activity where people competed to open and eat wrapped mini candy bars using two spoons and with your hands stuffed in socks. It was fun and everybody got really into it.

Sunday after church Nadir and Pamela came from Elizabeth, my last area, and delivered a HUGE chocolate cake, complete with bags of candies, and we lit candles and ate the cake in the park they have here. It was so awesome!

Pamela is halfway through her personal progress and has read the whole Book of Mormon and is bringing her friends to church! She's awesome. I love that family. So nice of them.

We've found a couple other new people that I'm excited about, but nobody's been to church yet. We will see.

Anyway, here we're just takin care of business, finding and teaching people and bringing the spirit into the people's houses. Normal missionary stuff. :)

I love all y'all so muchly, thank you for the awesome birthday e-mails and the upcoming birthday presents! You are the best family. I am so thankful for all of you and all the effort that you spend to spread your love and do what is right. God is too! Let's all just keep at it, keep going, and keep living it up!

Have a good week all!

Elder Connor

March 15, 2011 - Letter Home

Sup ma family!

As you may see from a foto I sent, I'm soooper happy today cause I'm wearin my awesome flannelpijamapants!

It's cold out there!

Yes my friends, Brazil isn't all beach and jungle, in fact, here in the south in a couple months it'll get downright blizzardy. But I think it's alot better than the sweltering heat of the summer, because in the cold you can always put on more clothes, but in the summer heat you gotta get in the same church shirt and pants.

crammed in a car...

...with five other people

And so the work is moving. We found Andre in a street contact, who ended up living next to a member family, who seems to show some promise. He's 16 year old and is a complete video game addict. We spent some time just chatting about video games. Finally my knowledge proves useful in something! I am pretty excited to baptize him because it would be like baptizing a past brazilian version of myself!

We also got approached by Rosane, who is doing a school project on our church and wanted a bunch of info about everything, and we were just like, YEAH! You asked the right people! So we're visiting her and teaching her; I hope she is inviting us over now because she's interested and not just for the project.

Yasim and his family are doing awesome, going to church and look so nice in their church clothes. We invited them to a family night with the bishop and ate "American Pancakes" with the syrup mom sent (thanks mom!) and played Signs and Telephone Pictionary. It was fun and they all liked it! They are getting very well integrated with the ward now. I love that family!

our church building

Josias and Andrieli are awesome and doing good. Wish I could see their baptism! Too bad that getting all of the paperwork and preparation to be married takes way too long!

Josias, Andriele, and Junior

Just makin trouble!

I'm done with the New Testament in Portuguese and am now gonna try to read the Book of Mormon one more time through before goin home. Easy!

Anyway, my birthday is soon and I'm going to eat 4 cakes that people promised to make for me! I'm excited! They like me, they really like me! Other than waiting for my birthday everything is pretty whitebread here; business as usual.

Brazilian ducks!

I like the ducks

Everyone has duck feeva!

I love to hear from all of you and I'm glad everything's going well!
Have a good week ma families! I'm prayin for all of you!
Elder Carpenter

March 8, 2011 - Letter Home

Experiences


Wassup everyone! Another week here in Esteio.

So after the transfer a couple of friends got transferred into the zone, including Elder Simmons! my first junior! It's very strange seeing him as a district leader and being a champ in the language and in the work. My little stepchild has grown up!

I had one of the coolest experiences to date the day I sent you guys e-mail last week. I really can't explain it fully. In words it'll probably fall flat. Josias, the fireman who miraculously was healed after a rough fall from a tree, and his girlfriend, Andrieli were awesome investigators for being young, smart, excited, and obviously fresh from their first awesome spiritual experience of his miraculous recovery. But they always kept telling us that their habits of partying with friends and their unfamiliarity with religion made it hard for them to keep focused and do the things we told them after our visits. We were teaching them about the Plan of Salvation, and the best thing I can say to describe what happened was that the Holy Ghost entered into the room and at the end us four just sat laughing and crying in silence looking to one another to see if they were feeling the same thing. It wasn't anything special that we said, just the same old lesson, but Heavenly Father blessed them with testimonies in that very moment. It's something that I'll remember the rest of my life. Way awesome.

Nilda

Nilda and Fatima

We are also having success with Yasim's family, and they continue to be excited to learn about the gospel and accept our invites to follow Christ, often, strangely, without any argument or doubts or questions. Elect family!

Yasim and Fadua

Although alot of the ward was traveling this Sunday for Carnaval and left the chapel a bit empty, it was a joy to see Yasim and his daughter, sister, and mother in church, everyone all dressed up. With them and Josias and Andrieli and another non-member from another ward, our class for non-members turned out being one of the most packed. :) We are blessed here. I am happy.

Stole My Tie

And My Name Tag!

Man, yesterday we ran through a grocery store and to my great surprise I found Pure Leaf Chimarrao! I was looking for the brand for about a month after hearing about it from Josias: apparently it's the strongest type of Chimarrao on the market and is actually pretty much like an energy drink in Chimarrao form. I woke up early and made a cuia to wake myself and see if it really did have those affects, and while it did wake me up, it ended up tasting HORRIBLE (like Chimarrao mixed with shredded cigarettes, BLAH!) and left me with one of the biggest headaches I've had on the mission. So gross I have the taste in my mouth still. Bah! Too bad that I bought a whole kilo and it wasn't cheap! So lame! That's what you get for messing with mother nature.

Yesterday as an emergency we ran Julia, (the mother of an inactive family we reactivated), to the hospital in Porto Alegre with a member. She's having problems with her kidneys and the doctors said it was pretty bad. I'm worried for her. Praying that it works out all right.

I need to show you guys pictures of my old shoes which were full of holes! I'm excited for my NEW BROWN SHOES which an awesome member gave me. I hadn't realized that my feet were actually really hurting when I walked until I put on the new brown shoes. It's like walking on clouds! I'm so happy I have them.

Moto Elder

Dude, last night Elder ------- played a prank on me that got me SO MAD! He called saying that because of political problems between the US and Brasil, all the American missionaries were being pulled from the field and that we'd have 10 days to pack everything up to go back to the states. I was incredulous until I call the Zone Leaders, which played along too and said it was real. I told my companion and we were so shocked and I was getting super sad. After sitting in shock for an hour, I called another missionary to talk about it and he didn't know anything and then I called the Zone Leaders again asking for more information and they cracked and said it was just a joke. I told them it wasn't funny and that I'd been crying (which I hadn't  - just torn up inside) and that I was gonna call President and tell him what his leaders were doing, and then I turned off the cell phone before they could say anything. I let them stew on that information, heh heh, but I didn't actually call President. Then after an hour I fessed up. They were totally worried - but we ended up laughing in the end. But seriously, you shouldn't make jokes like that!

Anyway, so awesome to hear that people from the Folsom Wards are getting call to Brazil! Especially to my mission! It will be cool to see if they pass through any of my areas.

I want to get forwarded Nick and Chases e-mails from now on! They're family so it's okay! It's great to hear what's going on there.

Anyway, I'm runnin runnin runnin here and doin my work and gettin things done. 5 month mark comin up... Birthday comin up! I'm excited!!!

Crazy Dog on Lap

This dog's crazy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXvU8dDlXo0 

I love you guys so very much, good week to all! Let us all keep running until the end!
Love love love,

Elder Carpenter