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

February 28, 2011 - Letter Home

Fourth Lap!


Hey Family!
  
Pday has come early because of transfers but, happy day, I'm not being transferred! I don't get no Trans-fer-ac-shuuun...
I'm excited to stay here in Esteio for another month and a half with my awesome companion, Elder Carroll. I'm psyched, because, well, I love Elder Carroll. We're like the same person honestly. 

Et-ing

He's a twin, I'm a twin, we both lived in California and North Carolina, we both are gonna do Computer Science, we both went to the same mission, we both like the same movies and shows and games and jokes. He's my best friend! I'm so happy to stay here because I got people to baptize! There's stuff to change! I'm not done yet! I'm psyched. Many more adventures to have yet!

Well the best news (other than the fact that I'm staying here in Esteio) of this week is our success in getting Josias and Andrielli and Yasim and Fadua in church. 
Dude, Yasim's family is GOLDEN. They are so awesome. They feel like family already. We found them after a long bout of door knocking, and if everything goes right they'll be the first family I baptize knocking doors. They've got baptism dates for march 19th, prayers! 
Josias and Andrieli are also AWESOME, but will need to be married and I hope that all goes smoothly. Can I baptize them this transfer? I will try. 
We have other investigators that have potential. Let's go!

Something fun we did Friday was go do our District Meeting on the top of Sapucaia Mountain, which I will send photos of. It was a cool climb, and we could see all the way to Porto Alegre from the top! So awesome. We listened to a conference talk by Uchtdorf titled, We are doing a great work and cannot come down, which is a great talk and tied into our duty as missionaries and the mountain theme. We gave our testimonies as we looked down on the areas which we were building up for the Lord. It is at these times that I like to remember that anciently the Lord used mountains as His temples. I can feel like it was somewhat like that. Very cool. I can't wait until general conference next month!!!!


VIDEO! When we hitchhiked away from sapucaia mountain!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivYg3TvPLxI 

Forest Road

The Hill 

Toppadawerld

Saturday Night we had an activity at church which we directed, an auction where members use points they earned over the last 6 months to buy American foods and gifts that Elder Andersen (the missionary who was here before me) left behind for them. It was really fun, because in the middle I mixed it up and did things like give extra points to members who bidded for packs of friendship cards to give to their friends, and give extra points to whoever did a funny dance in the front of everyone, who bared their testimony, who volunteered to closing prayer, ect. Was cool. It got a little heated when we brought out a pair of Nike shorts, but other than that it was a hit.


As always, I'm guuud. Don't need nuffin. I'm livin in the jungle out here. Need to be manly. But thanks for asking. Anything you guys send I will enjoy thoroughly, dontcha worry. :)

I will send photos and videos today! Sorry, I was getting lazy.

GauchoCon (See last week's letter for details)

Temple Trip (See last week's letter for details)

Anyways... I love you all so much. I love my mission so much and am happy to be here serving the Lord. I am so thankful that the Lord has been with me in all of my trials and difficulties, and that he has made me strong. I love Him and know we can truly be happy when we choose to believe, when we choose to do what the Lord wants from us. Everyone needs to look for the Lord until they find Him, so that they can do His will and receive His blessings. That's why we're here. 

I am so thankful I'm here on my mission right now. I love my mission so much!!! :D 

It's so awesome I get to do this. Some weeks it's hard to recognize that, I know, for me and for you guys from reading my e-mails. There's been a lot of times I've been passing through dark mists with just a couple of fingers keeping me on the rod, and I couldn't see the great wonderful Tree of Life that was before me. I am so thankful that I kept on holding on. I'm so thankful that I could pass through those things so that later on, when I'm in the mists again, I can remember that those things will pass as well. I'm so thankful for the strength I've found I've had, and I could only figure that out going through the difficulties I've gone through. Truly, the plan of God is great. It shows His great love for us, that he is willing to test us like this, to make us better. I love Heavenly Father, I love my Savior Jesus Christ. I am SO thankful to be able to realize this and to help others here realize this as well. It is such a big thing. I love you my sweet little family, and I will run this race and give it my best on the last lap so that I can come home to you guys as the missionary and person I always wanted to come home as. I love everyone and hope we can all keep doing this great work. Have a good week gente!

Just a little longer now...

Have a good week, keep livin it up! 

Love love love,

Amor amor amor,

Elder Con

February 22, 2011 - Letter Home

Goin Goin Goin...


Wassup everyone!

Another week here in Esteio, Rio Grande do Sul. Right now I'm in Porto Alegre with a TON of other missionaries that I haven't seen for a long time, because we all planned to go to the temple on the same weekend. I'm excited! It'll be my fourth session in the Porto Alegre temple. It'll be a lot more meaningful with all my buddies here with me.

This week was pretty basic. The district war went off all right, and got me and Elder Carroll to go all out and just knock doors all week! It worked! Our district had the most new investigators in the battle with the other districts. We found some pretty cool people, with varying degrees of potencial. 
One very special family, Nilda, Yasim, and Fadua, accepted us in their house, listened attently, and we felt inspired to just go for it and invite them to be baptised, and they all accepted. That doesn't happen that much here. Very cool. They are actually descendants of Arabians that emigrated here, which is pretty interesting. The grandma reads Arabic and has a super old bible she reads in Sanskrit. 
Kaitlin might like that. :). 
Yasim has a pretty bad case of epilepsy and me and Carroll felt inspired to give him a blessing that turned out being... well... awesome. Hard to describe these kind of things. I'm completely convinced he won't have any more attacks. I'll let you know how that goes. I love being a missionary. :)

What interesting things happened? This old lady with diabetes named Julia keeps asking us to do service projects. And we don't know if she's taking advantage or what we should do. Like, service projects like waking up at 5:00 AM, running to her house, and walking with her to the hospital because she's afraid of having an attack in the middle of the night. So we've done that. That was different. Gotta serve and have a smile on the whole time, even when you're half asleep. :)

Members here are awesome. Some members ordered us cheeseburgers without us knowing in the middle of the night. I liked that :). Some other members also gave me and Elder Carroll like, sets of really expensive Gaucho clothes. Awesome! It's just missing a belt and a knife and I'll be totally gaucho. Awesome.

Not that much different here. All the same. :) Man, it's getting hard not to think about home. When I started my mission I thought my seniors were just being slackers and too focused on the world, but now that I'm in those shoes I'm realizing it's like a battle not to get trunky. Not a very easy thing. But I'm winning the battle for now. Let's see how it goes.

So cool thinking of Nick in the CTM now. Man, I love the CTM SO MUCH!!!! I hope he lives it up. I don't have time to write him this week but I will next week. So cool to think of the beginning of the mission: everything new and exciting and foreign, so much stuff to learn and to master. It's a good time.

So cool thinking of... you guys, in LA. Going to the awesome LA temple that looks like a castle in the clouds. So cool thinking of Mom having another birthday, Happy Fourty Third Mom! Last Birthday I'll have to miss. That Kiwi Cake looks tasty. I like seeing my artist sister Lyns too. I love you guys, love seeing you in photos. I have your 'blue' photo on my desk; helps me remember I got someone at home that cares. That's important. I hope you all have a good week, sorry for writing a little less.

Keep yo smiles on! Love love love,

Your Con

February 15, 2011 - Letter Home

Greater Growth


Hey Family!

This week has gone a lot better than last! It's been raining pretty constantly here, but today opened up with clear skies and a light breeze and it's definitely getting pretty autumny here. Good!

We finished with our house destruction project FINALLY last Pday after my last e-mail. 
Negative things first: 
1. Because of constant rain and lack of cover, the people who were going to buy all the wood we made out of an old house REFUSED to buy our wood, saying that we had lied that it was good enough to use in construction! It's their fault they waited 3 more days to come by to get the wood, leaving it all in the rain. Shoot! 
2. The lady we were helping had promised to go to church and even accepted the invite to be baptized in two weeks, but she didn't answer the door when we stopped by Sunday morning to go to church! Shoot! 


Positive things: 
1. The wood has a little bit of value to be sold as firewood. 
2. Solid hard work in the rain is good for you. We got something DONE! It's a manly well-being booster. 
3. We did our best to help someone, and that's all that matters. We'll see if she changes her mind. We did our part.

We had a division, me with Elder Diego, an awesome Elder from Manaus that's in MY district. It was raining but we managed to go out and knock doors in the rain because everything else had fallen through. We found some cool people! The harder it is, the greater the reward. It was his one year mark on the mission so we decided to do the tradition of burning an old shirt that was laying around the apartment. We didn't have any matches or a lighter. There's this thing here (might be illegal in the states, I never remember seeing one there) the warms up water called a Rabo Quente (hot tail) which is a wire that you plug into an outlet, but to complete the circuit the wire ends in a spring. You put the spring in the water. The electricity can completely the circuit faster by jumping through water molecules, so it pretty much shocks the water to make it heat up. Cool huh? So to make my shirt-burning fire, I dumped a bottle of alcohol into a pitcher, and put the rabo quente into to start it on fire. So I think I used too much alcohol, because when I went to plug in the rabo quente, it EXPLODED THE ENTIRE PITCHER IN MY HANDS! The alcohol splashed over my entire lower body giving me crazy burns!!!! Elder Diego tried to put it out but it was just too much alcohol!! It was horrible!!!!

Haha, just kidding. Nothing exploded. Hehe. Good thing huh? Apparently alcohol can burn but doesnt conduct electricity, so the rabo quente didn't have any affect. Were you worried? Aren't you glad that didn't happen? ;D ;D ;D :P :] :/  Heh heh.


(Kay Lea here ---- remind me to beat him -after I hug him - when he gets home!)

We went and asked our neighbors for a match and we were able to light the shirt on fire. We were going to let it burn in the air, avoiding contact with anything that might get burnt, but the flames got too big and we let it drop on the floor. Not wanting to clean it up, we decided we wanted to scare Elder Carroll when he came back from the division, we left it their and put some candles around it to make him think something weird happened.

But what happens next morning!!!! PRESIDENT comes and gives us a surprise visit, and there in the middle of the floor is a burnt mess in the middle of our living room! Well, in the end, we were burnt after all by President, who after some scolding about how we could have burnt the house down, patted us on the back and said he knew what it was like to be 19. (But I'm 20 so I don't have that big of an excuse)

He also sat down with me and gave me a lot of encouraging words that I was needing. It was awesome. A lot of what he said were direct answers to prayers and questions which I have had in the last couple weeks, where I thought that if I prayed hard enough or excersized enough faith, those answers and feelings would HAVE to enter into my mind at that moment. But at the moment, I felt a quiet, peaceful silence, which left me a bit frustrated. But President was inspired to show up a couple weeks later and say exactly what I had asked for. Isn't that cool? God responded my prayers in a way that ended up being better and wiser than how I had wanted it to be. This is God's Church, and he does answer our prayers. He has a very effective system of answering our prayers and giving us not what we want, but what we truly need. This system is one that usually doesn't spoon-feed you all you ask for, but in the end that's all for our greater growth. Very cool.

So with a boost of motivation. I started a little game in our zone. It's pretty much like the movie "You Got Served", but instead of handsome street hoodlums it's even more handsome missionaries and instead of beatin out grooves it's teaching lessons. 
Our gang name is the Sharks, and we got up all in everybodies face to challenge the other districts to beat us in our numbers. We are going up against the Tiger Giants, the Tsunamis, and the American Bald Eagles, and it's not gonna be easy but I'm pretty sure we're gonna get out on top and win against the other districts and beat 'em down. Obviously it wouldn't be a good game if everybody took it too seriously, and I hope everybody can play it in good spirits, but it's motivating to get someone calling you from another district saying "You Sharks are going down, we just entered into a daycare and taught 30 new investigators that are excited to see our next Book of Mormon sing along game. CAN YOU DEAL WITH THAT?!?!" 
And then here I call up the rest of our peeps and tell 'em to stop in their tracks and find a daycare or retirement home to bust into. That's what it's all about.


hahaha

I'm a bit scared that I might come home just completely crazy. But maybe that's just me.

We had a crazy lesson last night - could I say Bible bash? - that lasted like 3 hours from these Evangelical ladies. One of them was a missionary for her church and at first just came out with these ridiculous questions and kept interrupting when we would try to answer. But we managed to answer all of their questions and explain the message to them, and in the end they all just stood there quietly as we testified to them of the 1st vision, and as we asked to say a prayer and leave, I gave the missionary lady the Book of Mormon. After the prayer she said really quickly, "Thank you for the visit. I'm not going to sleep tonight. I'll call you when I finish reading your book." And then someone sheepishly let us go. I really feel like the Spirit testified to her even though she was resisting it alot. I'm waiting for that call! But the Spirit definitely helped us proclaim the gospel to them. We did it!

Some investigator's are progressing and maybe we'll have a baptism here in a couple weeks. Your prayers are definitely helping alot. Thank you all so much. :)

Have a good week everyone, sorry I can't go into details about more little funny stuff, but be sure that I'm having fun and living it up and loving the gospel and making it fun by making a lot of Will Ferrell movie references in the middle of contacts just to see if Elder Carroll will keep his bacon and not blank out in the middle of his conversations. Contacting skills aren't real until they are tried. I just do it to help.
;)

Love love love forever! Thinking of all of you a lot still! You are with us here in Brazil,

See you later,

Elder Con