Brasileiros are Obsessed with Fireworks, Happy 2015

With out a doubt. The fireworks start at sundown and stop around sunrise. (they do slow down around 12) Therefore I've been lacking a little sleep this week (and I imagine that it will be similar the week that comes).

So this week we got a stop light in our area. And it broke the next day. So we had a stop light.

Well this week was great, I got to work hard and do almost nothing at the same time. As in everyone is obsessed with the commercial part of Christmas that they completely forget the Christ part of it. We knocked doors, and didn't get into one. We made contacts, and I managed to get 5 addresses. Also we contacted some referrals, and we found one in their house who was leaving (as in we were walking up to the door and they were walking out of the door, so we simply set up an appointment for next week). 

And I'm pretty sure the members are trying to kill us. Every time we talked with a member this week they invited us in and gave us food. I think I gained like 10 pounds just this last week. 

So this week we went to talk with people we have contacted on the streets and met a man with whom we had a great discussion. I really enjoyed talking with him. As we gave the lesson he would bring up any points that were out of line with his faith, and we would talk some more about them, and we would turn to the scriptures to clarify anything that we didn't come to a mutual understanding on. He is probably the first investigator that I have taught that is constantly asking us questions to clarify, and who helps us understand his beliefs so we can have a greater understanding of each other and thereby more effectively teach.

I got to call home on Thursday, which was nice, I loved hearing from my family and being able to see their faces. (and my puppy) We went to the bishops house and called from there and my family got to meet the Bishops grand children. 

Saturday we ran into a lost American couple and we stopped and helped them. We discovered that he is a returned missionary returning to visit where he served! We told them how to get to their hotel, and they took us to dinner, then we took some pictures with them (if I can I will send them home, but its not looking like it)

Elder Conceção and Elder Dennis almost had a baptism this week, but their investigator asked them to change the date to next week.

Also next week is transfers, and  Elder Conceção and I will probably head to new areas.

yeah this was a good week.

I love you all

Have a prosperous New Year.

Feliz Natal! We got a White Christmas Too...With Fog :)

So the reason I am writing today is because we had Christmas conference ontem e (I just switched in to Portuguese didn't I...) We woke up at 5 so we could get ready and go to centro to leave by 8 then arrived in Juiz de Fora at about 10. The conference started at 11 and lasted till 5 (including photos and lunch), and then we headed home and arrived in Petropolis at 8 (not sure why it took 3 hours to return, there was more traffic on the way there) and basically ran home and arrived at 9(02). 

But hey it was awesome to see my group and all the missionaries I know and all those that I don't.

This last week we worked our tails off (including 3 service projects). 

So this week was interviews with president, which means that I do not understand. Somehow it fell through so we had to throw together alternative plans (seeing as how we thought that there was no way the interviews would be cancelled we didn't make alternative plans) 

So we scrambled together some plans, visited some people whose addresses didn't exist, and stopped at a members house to ask for referrals. 

 This week we started talking with the owner of the pastry shop in Independencia, and gave him the first lesson. We learned that his wife (we aren't completely sure if they are married) is less active and has been wanting to return, and he has been looking for more peace in his life. After we taught him he told us he knew it was true, but when we invited him to be baptized he said he wanted to read the Book of Mormon and go to church before he settled on a date. So this week we will probably return and give him the second lesson and again invite him to be baptized. 

This week we also had the opportunity to do some family history (one hour) so we went to the temporary stake center (the actual center was rededicated this week) and filled out the my family histories that unite us then went back to proselyting.

 This Sunday after church the president of the elders quorum called us in to talk to us about plans for Christmas and how we would spend most of the day visiting members, then he said the list (signup sheet) was downstairs and we went to go get it and as we walked into the relief society room. The entire ward started singing "Hark the Harold Angels Sing", and they had a table FULL of food that they gave us (which I think will last a full transfer or two (or three or four). See pictures.

 Then we all said a few words, and some how I broke into perfect Portuguese when I was thanking them and bearing my testimony. Afterwards I had so many people come up and complement me on my Portuguese. I testify of the gift of tongues, the Spirit really can put words, even words you don't know you know into your mouth. 

I know that Jesus is the Christ, that He is the Gift, the Perfect Lamb, I know that as He lives, we to may live, that we are made alive in Him. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints is the kingdom of God on earth

I love you all!!!


*****my prayers have been answered, it looks like we are going to have a white Christmas, it is currently exceedingly foggy

With the Relief Society

Food!!!!!!!!!!

New Companion Elder Duarte

Well this week was transfers, and Elder Cordiero left to go to Ubá i am still here.  My new comp. Elder Duarte is really good, he is constantly encouraging me to speak more Portuguese, and is always helping me when I say something wrong. He is also one of the larger missionaries in the mission, and I feel rather safe around him(I'm no longer the tallest in our house and Elder Dennis is no longer the largest in our house).

This week I introduced Elder Duarte to our area (Elder Duarte meet area, area meet Elder Duarte) and to all of our investigators.Literally all of them (so we had a lot of lessons this week) 

This week it rained. If you didn't know rain makes things hard for missionaries because not many people are on the street, so it's hard to do contacts, and no one wants to come out to open the door (the majority of houses here have a wall around them so they have to go outside to open the door to the street) so its also hard to find new people. Also even water  proof shoes get wet in a Brazilian rainstorm. This week we (our house) bought four umbrellas Elder Dennis had to buy two and the other elders one, due to the excessive rains and winds (mine has yet to break). 

In case you have never been in 25 degree weather (about 70) and had thick fog covering everything its really really weird, but such is Petropolis. 

Anyway we got 3 new investigators this week, one was a reference from an investigator, one was from knocking doors, and the third just showed up to church. we have been having problems with all of our current investigators (only one of them is always at church and she needs to be married before she can get baptized) 

We have a young man with whom we have been working with for a while whose parents again refused to let us baptize him, and told us that their son would not be baptized until he is an adult.

So we can only work with his parents and pray that their hearts will soften or that our investigator will continue to go to church until he is old enough to decide for himself that he wants to be baptized.

well I don't have much more to say except that we learned that our ward is pretty close to a split (we only need 2 more Melchizedek Priesthood holders and this month we have a recent convert who should be receiving the priesthood) and we have been working with two of the central people from the Old Quitandinha branch who when they fell inactive many others also fell inactive, and I hope that as we help them they will help us and others in strengthening the church here. so before I go home we should have a Quitandinha Ward.

Transfers but I'm not leaving!

Well my pai is going to oba, and we are getting a new sister in our district, but otherwise our district is sticking around.

So this week has been averaging around 25C (thats around 75) it's also been cloudy and rainy...

So one day we are soaking wet because we are sweating buckets (I drank about 4 liters of water one day) then at the end of the day we are soaking because the sky was clear when we left the house but now it is pouring (but its still hot enough that fires are common somehow).

This week our numbers were pretty bad, all but one of our appointments fell through, but hey we might have another confirmation this week.

The young man who we have been working with for a while is back in his house, and his mother has agreed to let us baptize him after she has gone to church and taken the lessons (she also said we should give her son the lessons again so he knows exactly what he is getting in to). We should have at least one if not more confirmations coming from his family. (pray also that we can touch the heart of his father)

Besides that we don't really have any changes, or big happenings. I am seriously close to just giving up on some of our wards here (there is one we haven't had any lessons in, two we have had one in, and one we haven't had any lessons in for one transfer) maybe we just need to spend more time in them...

Miracle of the week: this week I had a headache, but it only ever hit me as we were climbing the servidão to our house, and always faded as we were descending.

This entire week our lunches fell trough (except sunday). At least in part, they all gave us money, but being with the member 1) takes less time 2) lets us get to know the members better 3) helps us get references from the members 4) gives us an opportunity to help the members with spiritual and physical needs 5) help less active, and non member family members. 6) I'm pretty sure the members get more blessings for feeding us than for giving us money (example we ate lunch with a poor member who when seeing we were to eat with her she realized she hadn't enough money, and at the store she found 50 r$ in her purse, so she used it all for us (best meal I've ever eaten here and probably #3 in my life) and I know that God will bless her more for doing so)

One thing i don't like about Brazilian computers is that the vast majority of them don't like my camera. (I feel sorry for Elder Cordeiro he just got some photos of his girlfriend and is now a little trunky) 

I love you all

Elder Lindsey

 This is a gospel of progression the ultimate end is progression, how do we get there? Daily progression here on this earth. How much have you progressed this week? (i know i could do better so don't take it too hard)

So much Rain! And crazy dogs!

Its been raining here!!!!! We were in a bit of a drought, and yesterday we received too much! Yesterday we went to lunch, and the sky was clear so we didn't bring our umbrellas. Then we waited for about 4 hours for the rain to slow down enough that we could run to the ward missionary meeting, then afterwards we had a member give us a ride home so we didn't have to walk through the rivers (streets).  We were completely soaked by the time we ran up the stairs to our house. Today while walking to centro we saw dozens of people cleaning the dirt that had been washed into the streets (like with bulldozers and dump trucks) yeah crazy amounts of rain!!!!!!!!This week we had some fun experiences with dogs, one followed us for almost two kilometers, and one said hi almost as enthusiastically as blaze!  I had a puppy almost pee on my shoe, and we got chased by a massive dog, like the kind whose shoulders stand higher than the head of blaze. (big dog)
We have started teaching someone who has been taking lessons from the Jehovah's witnesses, but they are really good investigators, and they even said that the Spirit had been with us as the lesson went on, so we have great hope for them!!  Elder Cordeiro has been a little sick again, please pray for him! This constant fluctuation between the thirties and the teens has been hard on his body.
Our system for asking referrals from members has really been great! We have several less actives we have started to work with and some new investigators. We have also been handing out papers to families that are guides as to how to do activities with non members and how to introduce them to the missionaries, so we should start seeing results from that these next few weeks. Also we are starting a PMG Sunday school class taught by none other than the MISSIONARIES!!! It's to help the members bring friends to the knowledge of the gospel.
This week we worked a lot with members trying to get them more involved in the missionary work, so hopefully we will get a lot more help from members (up to now almost everyone who has been doing good has been a referral.)
The food is good here, and I get fed plenty, so don't worry about me.
Well time is short here, I love you all.
Elder Lindsey
P.S. I don't remember who it was but one of the presidents of the church said that we should all try to bring one person into the church each year, think of how many souls we as a whole could bring unto Christ in a year if we all brought at least one person into the church.

Transfers!!

Well this week was transfers!
 Elder Cordeiro, Elder Conceçao and ! are staying here. Elder da Luz foi embora,e his replacement is Elder Dennis from New Zealand.
So Tuesday we went to the Rodoviaria (bus station) to drop off Elder da Luz and since me and Elder Cordeiro were the only companionship in the zone without a transfer we stayed there all day to be temporary comps with those who were waiting, and due to the fact that Elder Dennis came from the farthest part of the mission, we had to return Wednesday morning to pick him up.
This week was okay. All of our baptisms fell through, but we've rescheduled for next week, so hopefully we will have two (or more) next week. Almost all of our investigators (except for 3) are referrals from the members.
 Help the missionaries! In truth we have referrals from only 3 members, but lots of investigators from those. So this week we started something new. We have a stack of referral cards that we gave to members at church, and they filled them out and gave them back, so this week we will set about visiting the many people we were referred to.
The gospel is really awesome! Our investigators almost always ask questions that are answered in other lessons, so sometimes we just have to say, "we will answer this question next time, and here is the pamphlet of the next lesson if you want to study a little before next time."
Pray for our investigators to come to church, they need to come to church to know its true, and we don't always have investigators coming to church.
This week we were walking down R. Rio de Janeiro when a man came up and started talking to us (almost always a good sign) as with almost everyone we talk with the topic quickly turned to religion, and missions. The man has been interested in finding the right church, and often goes to several different churches a week. He was amazed by the missionary work, and asked if he could go along to our next lesson, which sadly fell through, and afterwords our paths divided, he was heading to another city for the week, but we invited him to come to church so hopefully he comes this next week.
It's really interesting that I can't speak Portuguese very well except during a lesson. I can say almost anything I want to say with little difficulty.
It has been extremely hot this week (it gets up to the mid thirties by the time we leave our house) I carry two water bottles with me, and they are empty by the time the sun goes down. Last night we had an impressive rainstorm, which should help cool things down. It was raining so hard that often times we could barely hear the thunder of the lightning due to the drumming of the rain on our roof. and there was plenty of lightning.
Well that's all that I have for now, so signing off!!
I love you all
Elder Lindsey

Transfers plus a Flooded House!

  Well, this was a great week. Absolutely awesome!    It is transfers this week, and we are losing Elder da Luz, but the rest of our district will stay here.
So Tuesday I got to go on a division with Elder da Luz, and it was great (even if I didn't really know the investigators or area). Our friend Wesley (aka the skunk) temporarily returned (he didn't make too much noise, and hasn't returned again). Elder Conceção broke my bed again (it is now being held together with duct tape and string) and our house flooded (-ish---we walked in to a large puddle)
     Our bathroom sink sprung a leak while we were at church on Sunday, and when we returned, water was leaking out from under our door (which is right next to the bathroom). We quickly turned off the water, randomly found a spare of the part that was leaking (coincidence, I think NOT) fixed it, mopped up the water, and that's it.
     On Friday we were teaching a less active with a member, and the lesson ran over a little bit (a lot) and at about  9:20 we headed out the door.  Thankfully they both have motorcycles! So Elder Cordeiro on the back of one and I on the back of the other (as long as they stayed side by side we weren't breaking any rules) zipped home and sprinted up the stairs to our house to arrive at 9:30).
     Our investigators are doing well, and we had 4 at church :)
     We have two new investigators, who have great potential!  Sebastião, and Eva who like to talk a lot so it takes at least an hour to share a message with them! We often have to bring them back on topic, but they are doing great.
     The Lord blesses his missionaries a LOT. I see blessings in my life every day, many times a day.
Well I love you all, and pray for you oft (I think its Moroni 8:11)
Remember, the Lord loves you, and blesses you often
Elder Lindsey