May 10, 2011 - Letter Home

Grand Finale


Hey Famly!

This week was awesome; Elder Persinger and I are getting more and more on fire as the transfer goes on. That's why it would be AWESOME if I got to stay here with him next transfer. He's getting to be my best friend on the mission. Heh, I think it's pretty awesome how now each of my new companions gets better than the last. I love my companions.

Elder Olsen

Unfortunately, it seems like we're still just getting started after the last couple weeks, we had to move on from a bunch of investigators that were really awesome and that we love a lot and who want to have the blessings of the gospel, but just don't seem to want to make the sacrifice to get to that point. Man, this part of missionary work has got to be the hardest: seeing people you love not ready to choose the right.

However, we've had victories this week and are finding new people every day. One cool thing this week was finding Sister Mara, who had studied with the missionaries a couple years ago but then they were emergency transferred and she got left behind. She had been going to another church here, but after our visit, she went to our church Sunday, was treated very well, and even though she was hesitant to pray and go to church and study with us and accept the invite to stop smoking and get ready to be baptized.... we asked her to do it. And that's when the Lord did his part. It's hard, and maybe not right to describe these experiences through text, but we had a very spiritual experience with her, and she decided to change everything in her life just to follow the feelings she had felt. It was awesome. So thats how we inherited like a million cigarretes and ashtrays and stuff, which are in our apartment right now til we get rid of them. Weird. We traded her for oranges (vitamin C helps against tobacco poisoning) anti-toxifying tea, and cinnamon gum. It's gonna work! We passed by today and she's saying it's still a bit hard but she's resisting the temptation. Yeah! I'm pretty excited about her and I'm excited for her family too, who were a bit less interested and doubtful that she could stop smoking, but they'll probably be inspired by her act of faith. All right!

We were dragging pretty seriously Saturday, because a lot of things fell through and we didn't know if anyone would come to church. We prayed and fired eachother up that God was going to make a miracle happen, and sure enough, we get to church and discover that an inactive guy, Joao, that we had invited to church really quicklast time we saw him, came to church with his wife and two daughters (not baptized), and said that we should come and talk to them to see how they could be baptized. Awesome! Miracles! They seem really cool, and have two other teenage sons we haven't talked to yet. Great!

Anyway, this Sunday was great and I loved the phone call, and while I did get a LITTLE trunky for about an hour or two after, just because of the realization that it was my last phone call, right now I'm right back on top. Like Brendon and Elder Clay, me and Persinger made a promise to eachother to keep running until the end of our missions (a little easier for me than him, the guy's got forever to go! :P) For sure, there's a lot of baptisms and success and suffering and sweating and getting tired and miracles in these next couple months for us. :) Awesome.

Well, I have to e-mail tomorrow for a college test I'm doing, and my camera ran out of battery just now, so I will wait till tomorrow to send photos.

I love you all, I am happy, and most of all, I am thankful. I have so many blessings! And not just that; so do my family, friends, and many people I know. We are all so blessed. I know that Jesus Christ lives, and that he'll cure us and save us. Going about life with the intent of following Him at whatever cost gives us the greatest rest and satisfaction. I love you all my families.

Have a good week! Keep fighting every day! Love love,

Elder Con

May 3, 2011 - Letter Home

Firin It Up!
Hey everyone! Another week, another P-day! Lots of great letters from my fam! Thanks guys!

Last P-day was awesome cause we ate out with a bunch of missionaries in the center of Porto Alegre, then went to the temple for an awesome session. I want so much to be able to go to the temple every week, if not more. I have gained such a different perspective of temple work having entered into that sacred place seeking revelation as to what I need to do with the work in my area, with certain investigators, with my studies, and with my life. Every single time I've been in the temple I have received some special experience or insight. I love it! I hope to have that powerful resource throughout my life. I'm so thankful that our mission has a temple! 

Temple Group

After the temple we went to a shopping mall which had the biggest bookstore I've seen in Brazil.

Bookstore

We went wild looking through language learning tools but then realized that we were short on money and the books were super expensive, so I had to pass up on a Gaucho dictionary and some sweet Italian textbooks and I got a short but sweet Italian grammar book that'll help me decipher the Italian Book of Mormon. I really want to try and crack that language... :)

Friday was super awesome as we got together as a mission to hear from Elder Christofferson. We saw Elders from the Porto Alegre South mission, which included some people I had stayed in the CTM with and also a certain Colby Hansen which I had gone to EFY with after Senior Year! Dude, that was so cool that he remembered me. Small world! I loved seeing all my old companions. The conference itself was sweet. We were planning to be singing "I Love to Read the Scriptures" (Hope I translated that hymn name right) when he entered into the chapel, so the assistants told us to stand up and start singing, and we waited for him to come in, but he didnt, and we ended the song, and we got the sign to sing again, and so we continued from the beginning. We reached the 4th verse, still no one entered! The anticipation raised and raised and we sang again, again, again, 4 times. Each time everybody sang louder and louder both because we were trying not to laugh and because we were sure that Elder Christofferson would enter any minute! On the 6th repitition of the song he entered and it was so awesome! A new energy came into the room as he stood up at the pulpit and smiled and just looked at all of us and we finished and he said, "I'm so happy you all love the scriptures so much!" It was fun. 
The topics of the conference were very special and specific to our mission, and he really pumped us up. I loved the vision that he gave us all. It's a bit hard to describe. He spoke a little Portuguese at the beginning but switched to English with a translator later because he said he was getting confused with Spanish. I thought he spoke very well! We learned he speaks 8 languages. But man, I love him so much. I know that he is an Ordained Apostle of the Lord.

What was cool is that just 2 days afterwards, we went to Stake Conference where we had the special, unannounced treat of seeing and hearing (through a satellite transmission) from the Prophet and Elder Holland in a transmission JUST to Rio Grande do Sul. It was so awesome, they talked about churrasco and chimarrao and their experiences with this people and everyone was in wonder that they had come to talk just to all of us. So cool!

So, just so you guys can understand some of the photos I sent, some cool stuff is that there was a cool car show we went to, you can see my sweet ride there.

Car Show

 Oh, and we got some investigators, Glaucia and Jennifer, who'll be baptized next month, and we made No-Smoking signs to help Glaucia overcome her cravings. I'm praying so hard for her to stop, she's so awesome! 

Glaucia and Jennifer

Uhhh, so also we invited these kids next door to have a bonfire in our yard and it was a pretty fun PNight. It was cool cause their parents came over later, and we ate roasted bananas and started a conversation about the gospel and the mom told us they didn't drink or smoke and had wanted to find a church to go to. Jackpot! Our next door neighboors! So cool. 

Anyway, later they ordered us Cheeseburgers to thank us for the fire (best Cheeseburger I've ever eaten) and so we made cookies for them, and tonight they said to come over and eat some cake, and we'll watch a movie about the church. Cool! The mom's name is Janine and they have 3 sons: Matteus, Andre, and Gabriel. We'll see what happens... :)

All is well here, I love my companion, I love being on a mission :)

And I love my family! So glad to know y'all are surviving over there. Love you so much it hurts. Have a good week!

Elder Carpenter

April 26, 2011 - Letter Home

A Real Nice Week

My desktop wallpaper after the mish – it’s my mission in a photo

Hey Famly!

We had an awesome week! It's so nice to read your e-mails and be able to talk with you just this little bit today! Ahh, I love it.

Today I'm writing from Porto Alegre because we're gonna go to the temple here in a couple hours. I'm so psyched! Sorry Brendon, it's got to be hard not having a temple. For me it's hard to wait 3 months before going again. We're also going to get together with a bunch of other zones here and go to a huge shopping mall here and eat Burger King and pretend we're in America. :)

So anyway, this week we've continued to just be beasts and try to talk with everybody we meet about the gospel and invite everyone to baptism. It's going very well and we managed to contact more new people than the rest of the people in our zone! One of the greatest things I've learned how to do in my mission is just be friendly and make conversation with random people and then lead it into the gospel. I love it so much. It's so cool to meet new people and hear about their lives and then see them hear the gospel for the first time. I think I might even like finding more than just the pure teaching.

Horse Thieves

Horse Tails

Elder Persigner is a champ and we're already best friends and we want to stay 2 transfers here. He's really awesome, another Halo junkie, and again, we know the same movies. That's important. He's learning a lot really quickly too. One weird side note: we were talking about our mission calls and I said that I had mine on youtube, and Persinger remembers seein it! Woah! So weird.

I forgot last e-mail to say that Elder Christofferson is visiting our mission this Friday! The entire mission will get together. We're flippin out! I'm so excited. Usually missionaries only see 1 apostle in their mission, but it looks like I've got luck!

We couldn't take pictures, but we were WAY far from our area ready to go to another far visit when it started raining, HARD! We got caught in a thunderstorm without our umbrellas! Knowing that we just had to get to that visit, we buckled down a ran straight through it, about 30 minutes in pouring rain! When we got to our visit, they let us in by the fire, and we had an awesome lesson with this cool new family, Sonia, Jejilson and Daniel. Jejilson, the dad, said the last prayer and thanked God that we had come running in the rain and that he believed our message was true just because that's the ONLY reason we would want to risk running in the middle of such a huge thunderstorm. That was cool.

I didn't end up getting sick. But Elder Persinger did, poor guy. We stayed in a day while I listed to Persinger throwing up. I think it was something he ate. And the power went out. That's the worst thing: having to spend a day in the dark, throwin your guts up. Poor guy. Man I'm lucky I never got super sick like that.

Lunch Appointment - Not my proudest moment

We went to a member wedding this week which was really cool. We passed out pamphelets about the importance of the family and the Plan of Salvation. I ended up talking to this Catholic Priest for 2 hours and learned a bunch of cool stuff about what they do. It was a cool night but it was weird to finally see the actual wedding part: the guy getting married is like 6 months home from his mission... Made me think that might be something coming up for me. Who knows!

daweddin

We made a sweet bonfire in our front yard last night and I got convinced we should have a party at our house and invite the whole neighborhood to sit around an awesome fire and eat smores and watch a movie about the Restoration after. That was fun.

Firebugs

We got invited to a Jehova's Witness's meeting and we went the other night. It was pretty cool. But I prefer feeling the Holy Ghost in our church.

Oh yeah, Easter was AWESOME! We were all down in church and feeling bad cause nobody gave us any candy, but then we went to lunch with Gerson and Adriana, recent converts, who had a HUGE Easter churrasco and gave us personalized Easter baskets filled with candy! The family who had put on the wedding also gave us all the desert and cake left over and so we got more sweets than we could manage after all that!

Gleeeee!

Gerson and Adriana

We helped with a move last week of Jonni and Brenda, members who I had known and loved in Esteio! They followed me here! I'm super excited because Jonni helped alot with the work in Esteio and he's gonna be a great addition to the ward. They're followin me!

Anyway, it was just a real nice week. :)
The work is going well and I'm happy. Time just keeps flyin...

Meet my little friend - the BookaMormon!
(toy gun)

I love you guys! Have an awesome rest of the week! I think of you all more than I should, I confess! Can't wait to see you! Okay, no more trunkiness,

Your son, brotha, friend,

Elder Connor

April 19, 2011 - Letter Home

Profecy
How you doin? Real quick update: I was transferred to Neopolis, a big neighboorhood outside Gravatai, which is a neighbor city of Porto Alegre. So far I love the area and the members! My companion is ANOTHER gringo, so far he's been awesome. He's Elder Persinger, from Ohio, he's got 3 months on the mish and I'm his 2nd companion.

Hello families! Elder Carpenter coming to you from Neopolis, Rio Grande do Sul!

This week turned out to be really awesome. It was hard to leave Esteio and Elder Carroll but I left in peace and it was great to see Elder Diego, another Elder in my district, go to take over the area. There's a lot of great investigators there and I hope to see them have a lot of success.

Going to the bus station for the transfer was pretty cool to see a lot of my friends again, Elder Feller (who's our new assistant to the Pres.), Elder Bowerman, Elder Anderson, Elder Gibby, Elder Bullough, Elder F. Ribeiro. It's weird seeing a bunch of the missionaries I've loved and known for my ENTIRE mission be going home. Like Elder Willden and Elder Damewood, who are only a couple months older than me in the mission. So weird to be old in the mission. I still feel like I just got here. :/  :)

What's weird is that my last night in Esteio we had dinner and popcorn and chimarrao with an awesome young couple Jonni and Brenda, who I've become really good friends with, I didn't want everyone to get so sad at my leaving, so I told them that I'd probably end up going to Brenda's parents ward, (who I had met and had always been saying they wished I was transferred to their ward), and that we'd get to see eachother later on. 
The next morning, I receive the transfer news and see the word "Neopolis" !!! That's the ward that Brenda's parents live in- the one I had just talked about the night before ! Out of 60 different areas in the mission, I guessed which area I would go to. I was also super psyched because I knew Brenda's parents and I really liked them and was excited to surprise them at their own home! 
The day I got to the area we go to her parents house, the Dulliuses, and we go into the house but I just didn't say anything and hid out of sight behind my companion, and everybody was laughing and asking who it was, and then I jumped out from behind him and saw their whole family and everybody just got super shocked that it was I that had been transferred to their area (Sister Dullius literally got way scared... Whoops :P)

Anyway, my companion is awesome. Elder Persinger is another new American missionary which means he's super excited and animated, but needs help in learning the language and other missionary things. I'm really happy to be with him.

This area has awesome members, but for the last 6 months, even though there were great missionaries here, there hasn't been any baptisms (which is fairly odd for this mission), and no firm converts from the last 3 years. A lot of missionaries seemed discouraged about the area but my and Elder Persinger are determined and excited to turn it around. In fact, we have even received revelation that we are the ones to turn it all around. We started the week off running, visiting all investigators and inviting them to baptism, and talking with everyone we meet about the gospel, and getting all the members out of their houses and into the streets to work with us, and we've got a great start with 3 people with baptismal dates for next month and 17 new people we've found to start teaching. I'm making it my goal to turn this area around and give it my best as a present to the Lord for all the great experiences He's given me in this time in Brasil. I am so grateful that I have this time to dedicate to Him. I know we'll have success.

Our house is pretty lame here because there's been a lot of rain here and more than a couple leaks in the roof, and President told us to find a new house. After looking around we couldn't find anything, and so we talked with Brother Dullius who was already building a house to rent out on his property, he said that he would let us live there. The only thing is, is that he's a month away from completion on the house and we needed to get into this house at the end of the week! So we're going to try to help with the construction to get the house done SOON. We've been over there 2 days already and we're going to try to finish the house soon. Lifting tile does good for morning exercise!


You saw the movie "Rio"? It is really big here! Everybody is saying that is shows that the world loves Brasil. 
:)


The ZLs told me I got a package! I don't know who it's from, I'll probably get it Thursday.


I did want to tell you that I loved the photos. I love looking at all you guys but if I look too much I'll get so homesick it hurts! Man! I just gotta stay patient cause the time is already just flying by and I know 4 months'll pass so quick, but it's really getting hard not to think every day that soon I'll be home. The only solution is for me to try to completely forget about you guys and make myself think I've still got a long time left and just think all about the people I'm serving here. I'm sorry but that's what I'm gonna try to do until the end. :)

I hope all of you guys don't get too trunky and homesick for us while you wait! I'll only permit you guys to feel anxious the week before our homecoming!
But it's gonna be awesome. :)
  
I loved seeing Wyatt's mission call opening! So awesome! Wyatt (**friend from Folsom, 1 of 4 called to Brazil from Folsom just recently!)  is going to LOVE serving in Rio! One of the coolest missions!

I love you guys and hope you have a great week! I'm loving life and loving the mission and loving the Lord! Through Him we find ALL of life's solutions and victories.

Keep loving!
Elder Connor

P.S. Attached photos are us and Brother Dullius messing around in the middle of our service project. 

April 11, 2011 - Letter Home

Zone Party

On the Road Again!
Hello my families,

Elder Carpenter here again with some familiar news:

I'm leaving Esteio. Today will be a flurry of activity as I pack my bags and visit friends here in Esteio. Tomorrow I'm off to the bus station in Porto Alegre and who knows where I will go! This next area will probably be my last here in the mission! This next area is the one where I will have my grande finale! I'm excited to see where I end up! I'm pretty torn up to leave some people here, and also have to leave Elder Carroll. We are best friends! I hope I can see him later in on the mission or back in the states. It's gonna be hard to see Yasim and his family for the last time, and Josias and Andriele, and a bunch of awesome members who I've really come to love! I feel really good leaving here and knowing that I've left the area stronger. I'm also leaving the area with a bunch of people for Elder Carroll and his new companion to work with, and I'm excited to see what happens with some of the investigators we're teaching.

Last Pday after my e-mail we had a fun outing with Yasim and his family, where we ordered Arabian burritos and watched the Testaments. 

Burrito Feast

Later in the week Yasim took us to a visit with some family friends where a couple members of the family had been baptized a long time ago. It was a really great visit and this Sunday two of them, Cristiano and Bruna, went to church. Bruna said yesterday that she wanted to be baptized, and so we're really excited and hoping that we can reactivate the entire family through that.

Yesterday we decided to walk to a somewhat far away house of a family, and we took a wrong turn and got WAY out in the middle of nowhere before figuring out we had taken the wrong turn. The problem is it started to get dark and we were on the side of a busy road and some of the roads didn't have streetlights. It was pretty lame because we were out in the middle of NOWHERE and we saw a guy walking along and we stopped and asked him to talk with us for a second to get directions, but he just said he was busy and refused to talk to us! Dude! We were pretty mad at that but we found another nice old man that gave us directions of how to get back to Esteio, and he told us we were in a neighbooring city and that was pretty funny for us. We were also on this dark, dirt road on our way back and we saw a light and got closer and found a bunch of candles around a dead chicken! People are weird. That was creepy! But we made it back and had a good visit with that family.

Hmmm... What else? 
I want to buy a bunch of Gaucho stuff to bring back home. I found a REALLY nice chimarrao set with a carrying case, and I guess in my next area I'll have to complete my gaucho clothing set. I also had someone show me how to do a gaucho dance and I want to practice that to be able to show you guys later on (the dance is called the Chula and is like a manly tapdance :) ).

I love you guys and I am excited to continue working in my next area! It's exciting! I hope you guys have a great week! Thank you for everything that you've done for me! Now I gotta keep movin'...

Love love love!

Elder Carpenter

April 6, 2011 - Letter Home

It's an Entmoot
Hello Family!

It's been a great week and a better weekend! 
I love General Conference! We were given the privelige of watching all 5 sessions this time around (before it was only 2), and because the stake center is a bit far from our area, we ended up camping out at the stake center with a bunch of other missionaries for two days straight.

We watched conference in this room of the stake center because we wanted to watch it all in English. Very fun just to watch with fellow missionaries.

Woah! Party! I think I'm pretty much like everybody else in liking especially the talk be Elder Oaks, Elder Christopherson, President Uchtdorf especially. But I especially enjoyed the Priesthood session talks. ALL of them were great! Especially Elder Anderson and Elder Uchtdorf and President Monson. 
Bah, I liked them all. There was too much good stuff.

Nick talked about how it seemed to be talking alot about marriage. I feel like he was sitting next to me because Elder Carroll kept elbowing me too whenever anything was said about marriage. Watch out world, Elder Carpenter has a profetic mandate to follow when he comes back to the States! Hehe, well, those talks certainly made me step back and realize how fast time is going and how the next couple years are going to continue being pretty busy for me. :)

I got my AWESOME BIRTHDAY PACKAGE!!! Finally! I got it April 2 so it seems it took about 2 months to get here. It was so great! Cake will be made. Peanut Butter will/has been devoured. 

PB Addict - Give me nother hit of that peanut buttery toastness!

Man, great choice in filling up the whole package with peanut butter! I'm good with that. Thank you so much!

So this last week was interesting. Rochelle is Andrielli (a girl we baptized in January) 's sister and she recently came back from living with her grandmother, we're teaching her and she seems to have a lot of potential! With how strong Andrieli is, it's pretty much a sure deal that she'll end up being baptized, sooner or later. We got a reference from another mission that lead us to Joao and Raquel, really interesting folks that had investigated the church 5 years back but lost contact after a move. Joao is especially awesome because he's said that in the meantime he's read the whole Book of Mormon and is really interested to learn more! He's a pretty big history/religion buff who doesn't seem to be practicing any religion, so I thanked the heavens a lot for raining down a high quality reference on our heads! Yasim and Nilda went to a session of conference which was awesome, and later this week we're going to go to the house of some of their friends that are interested in the church after Yasim and Family's baptism. The work is goin!

I love you all so much and am so thankful for every word, thought, and prayer you've given! Thank you all for all that you are! Man, I am so thankful to be part of such a great family and have such great friends.

Dog Attack!  Elder Carroll catapulted Lilah, the crazy labrador, into my hammock when I was taking a hard earned nap! Sabotage!

Looooove you all! Have a good week and keep smiling!

Elder Con

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