Its Gonna Get Hot!!! 11-30-15

This week I have little time so I will try and get some good info and we'll see what happens.

First off thanks MOM FOR THE PACKAGE!!! I got a little bag in the mail with a few goodies from my dear mother and I wanted to to thank her publically for that. THANKS MOM!

 

Anyway, this week was Thanksgiving and may I say I am happy to be going home before the next one because milkshakes on Thanksgiving in 90 degree weather isnt exactly my thing. But, it was good nonetheless. I put up my Christmas lights and tree and that makes me happy inside to see the lights and remember home a bit. So that was a great thing this week.

 

We also went to see our family that is getting ready to be baptized this week and they are doing well. They also went to church yesterday and they undestood and asked lots of questions so that was awesome. They really are learning and feeling the Spirit which is amazing. They are set for the 19th of December and they will get married on the 12th. I find that in Brazil there is a problem with basically nobody wanting to get married. They just move in together and that's that. They have kids and live life without any "commitment" even though they have kids together. So that is a little frustrating... Just get married! It's a good thing! But I guess that's the culture for you.

 

So the title being the title I thought I would express how this area will probably be because of the heat. All the people say that it reaches 100 actual degrees but the sensation gets up to like 125. It will be strange to think that I'll come out of this area looking like a lobster probably. But that's life and I'm actually kinda excited to really feel some heat. At home we think that 90 is already super hot. So imagine 125....

 

Other than that we taught a man who is having some hard times right now and he is really interested in changing his life and joining the church. He said that he didn't do it already because he was just lazy to go to church. But now he is feeling ready and he will start. So we'll see how he does.

 

But as far as the exciting news that sums it up! I love you all and I am grateful for your support! Remember that this life is about happiness and that if we arent happy we need to LOOK for someway to be happy!

"LIVE AFTER THE MANNER OF HAPPINESS!"

(2 Nephi 5:27; see also https://www.lds.org/church/news/happiness-is-a-quest-elder-holland-tells-students?lang=eng) 

See you guys next week!

Elder George

New 11-23-15

BELOVED FRIENDS



Goodbye from the bus

 

Well after 11 hours on a bus last Monday I arrived at 7 AM. When we got to the apartment I started unpacking and come to find out our lunch for that day had fallen. So we went to a restaurant with the money the member gave us and it was the single best restaurant I have tried in Brazil yet. The buffet was absolutely fantastic and they had freshly made juice and meat grilled in front of you....  WIN!!! Later that day we went to contact a reference and come to find out it was a 16 year old girl that had been a foreign exchange student near my home!!!! So When we got there, I saw her and I just started speaking English with her! She is super chill and basically already knows it's all true just doesn't want to be baptized until she's 18. It was cool to see someone from close to home. She came back to Brazil in May and she said she knew a few people from my high school! So that was awesome really. 

Wednesday we had lunch with some investigators with dates for baptism and they are elect. It's a family that have already DECIDED that they WILL be baptized on the date. So it looks like I'll have 5 baptisms here! They are nice and they are getting married and then baptized the week after!

 

So Bob  sent me a referral of a friend of his that lives here! I looked at it and it's the area right next to us! So I called him up and we are gonna go and visit him this week! SO call our dear friend Bob and tell him I will start teaching S. He should be happy about that.

Thursday was hot. It got up to about 100-ish as the sensation and it was humid. So we walked about dying for a bit and then we went home because it started to rain.... Like pour.... Like more then I've seen in Brazil. I looked out at the road and the tire of the cars were like underwater. That wasn't very good to walk in so we couldn't leave again after.

 

Friday was the district meeting and the other Elders in our district seem chill but one is very serious. He tried to burn me that I hadn't baptized yet and I reminded him of Matthew 7. "Judge not..." He stayed quiet after  that. When we went to an appointment later that day a member saw us and stopped to talk to us. Then he asked me where I was from. Just to tease him I said I was from Germany. He said," Really? I thought you were Brazilian!" I started to laugh and I said I was American and he was like," No! You cant be American! You're lying to me!" Then he left and I couldn't stop laughing. First time that's happened. Then that night I found out that in this area there is a rule for the missionaries that when there is thunder we can't leave the house. I thought to myself that it was just someone who was lazy that said that; but apparently there are people that get struck by lightning here so I've heard... So that is interesting for this area.

 

Saturday was a day of temptation and sin. Apparently there was a bunch of parties going on and so EVERYONE was using the buses to go to parties and such. As we were waiting for our bus 30 some girls got off a bus in front of us and they weren't wearing much of anything at all. I looked at my companion and said," How? How does this only happen to the missionaries?" So that was Saturday really.

As far as the area we have about 20 miles of area that we take care of. So we use buses a lot and walk even more. There is a member that lives like an hour and a half from us so we take a bus and then he picks us up afterword. Huge ward boundaries! The food here is mostly the same and the people in town are pretty nice and accepting it seems. But time will tell. My companion is Elder C. and is from Argentina! He is cool and I'll send pics later of us doing cool stuff. We live with another set of missionaries and they are Elder F. and Elder C. Elder C. our housemate is American! SO I won't have to go through the holidays alone! There was another set in our apartment too, but they were transferred because one of them decided to break some fundamental rules. So he went home and the other was transferred. So now there is us four. YAY!

 

Well that is about it for today. Let me know if you have questions! Love you all!

Elder George

 

 



Its a transfer---11-16-15

This has been a big weekend. I have been transferred once again; Me and Elder S from my apartment were transferred. And so this last week was kinda super sad for everyone. I can say that this change will be VERY bitter. This area was the best yet. The ward here is like family to me now. One of the young men here really likes us and when we got done speaking on Sunday he came up to the stands in tears and said he would REALLY miss us. That was SUPER hard for us both. So that's hard this time around. I will leave tonight at 8:30 PM and arrive in my new area at 7 AM... Long time on a bus. So I will try and sleep as best as I can. We'll see how it goes.

As far as I know, my new area is coastal and my comp is someone I've already met so it should be okay. He was here last transfer. I already did a division with him and he seems cool. I am leaving here tonight at 8:30 and I'll get there at 7 AM tomorrow. Long time on a bus. So I will try and sleep as best as I can.

I will be zone leader in my new area, which is in the north part of the mission.

This weekend we went around saying our goodbyes. We went visiting various members and taking pics and laughing and today we went to lunch with one of my good friends here. So that was the weekend really. We had to spend some time in another city because they had a baptismal interview and so we had to be gone for friday and saturday's lunch.

Well, I dont have time to write a big email this week. I still have to do my suitcases.

Love-

Elder George

 

Getting ready for transfers----AGAIN 11-9-15

Friends and Family,

Once again I sit at this computer wondering what I should say to such a broad (or maybe not so broad) audience. HOW ARE YOU!!!? I am fine as we once again approach transfers. We are pretty sure that I and Elder S are gonna leave. I'm sad but also happy but I dont even know yet.... soo we'll see!

It has been raining quite a bit these past few days but everyone is okay and not getting sick thankfully... I dont really want to get sick again...

On sundays we have our meetings like normal in the morning and the rest of the day we do visits and try to find people. We only do one meeting a month with the leaders so that's nice. They don't really talk about anything in relation to Missionary Work... So its nice that it's once a month. 

 

People have been asking about if I see miracles happening in the mission. I have seen a few but they arent the miracles that we see in the scriptures. They are smaller and really almost unnotable. But this week a sister from Utah asked me to give her a blessing and of course I said that I would. She speaks Portuguese well but I had the feeling that I should ask her if she would like it in English. She said she would after some thought and I started in. First of all I found it a little hard to speak in english after all this time not speaking in english! But when I started to struggle a bit something happened. My mind was clear and I felt as if something was coming out of me. I felt as if I wasnt giving the blessing but watching it be given. When I closed the blessing she stood right up, rubbed her eye quickly, and turned to look at me. When she turned around she was rather emotional. I dont know exactly what she felt but I was hit by the spirit when I knew that I didnt really say anything to her. Her Heavenly Father spoke to her in that moment and She knew it. That was one thing so small but hit us both so hard. That was the bestthing that happened this week.

Well for those of you little ones preparing to reicieve the Priesthood Authority of God, you need to go back and read the talks by President Eyering about the Aaronic priesthood. I will attach them to this below. 

I love you all and I will see you guys soon!

 

Elder George

 

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/the-priesthood-man?lang=eng

 

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/the-preparatory-priesthood?lang=eng

13 Months Down! 11-3-15

Hello everyone!

This week was good and well bad... But mostly good! 

First of all we think M. isnt going to continue recieving the lessons. We think someone said something bad about the Church and now she doesnt want to recieve us anymore. But G, M and M are doing reasonablly well! They are progressing and doing the things they should! We are super excited for them! Hope fully they can get baptized before I get transferred. They are feeling the Spirit and actually changing. It's the first time that I really saw somebody changing. Its interesting to see the change in someone affect them so much.

So in our area we dont use the bus too much. We walk a lot. It's also interesting that when we walk down the road people are very civil with us. They greet us when we greet them and they are generally friendly. So that is a nice thing when the people dont cuss you out all day for no reason.

This week we had our ward council and it was very frustrating really. They spent 2 hours talking about one member that had SERIOUS problems and has been through 17 different wards in two years. He has been into some trouble with law and the church various times. Not much was said about missionary work... SO it was 2 hours we didn't get to talk about missionary work on Sunday, which was disappointing.

BUT, We had our zone meeting, that went very well, on Friday! We were very happy how it turned out and it went under the time limit which was good for everyone. We talked about Chapter 13 of Preach my Gospel and everyone seemed to enjoy it. 

https://www.lds.org/manual/preach-my-gospel-a-guide-to-missionary-service/how-do-i-work-with-stake-and-ward-leaders?lang=eng

Well everyone, next week we'll find out about transfers and we'll find out where everyone will be for Christmas!!! Everyone is excited to see what happens.

Thats all for this week everyone! I love you all and remember who you are! (see video below) Do the little things! 

Love Elder George

 

 

After The Storm 10-26-15

This week was a good week and some interesting things happened. Lets get to it.

Tuesday was really hot... It was 34-36 Celsius (93-96 F) all day and we were dying.... humid and hot and well yeah. We also found out that our interviews with president would be on Thursday so we had to get that all planned and make the ticket schedule for the travelers. We got that all sent and the secretaries called us and said that they were basically gonna change everything because president didn't like it. Well okay then. I was curious about that because I sent the same itinerary to them that we did for the last interviews. But apparently that wouldnt work again. We did that and that was Tuesday.

Wednesday we reicieved the Elders at our apartment and talked about doctrine and things. We had our ward activity that night and we talked about the commandments and made some hand signs to remember them all. We also played hot potato which was fun. There was also a HAIL STORM that night when it was hailing the size of a golf ball!!! CRAZY!!! The power went out and it was really noisy becasue of the hail and thunder... Kinda scary and we found out later that some of the houses got holes in the roof! Scary stuff.

Thursday were interviews and they went smoothly and in my interview president told me to be ready for new responibilities. Sounds like I'm probably gonna be transferred.

And the weekend was normal after that. We had a broadcast from Sao Paulo from the area presidency and that was really cool. They talked a lot about missionary work and they broadcast from the MTC! I saw some of the people that I knew from there and it made me miss them a bit. But the messages were good and funny and made a difference for those who heard it.

Dad asked for some info about the food. Some of the foods that I will miss here are the tropical fruits, pastels, and the style of pizza. The fruits here are a lot better then Idaho. They are a lot cheaper as well. We have pinapple, mango, starfruit, limes, and bananas that are out of this world. And they're super cheap relative to Idaho. Pastels are like little calzones that you put meat, cheese, ham, onion, and even chocolate in and they are dep fried. Apparently there is a memeber here who wants to start a pastel business in the northwest US someday! That would be cool if in a few years there were pastel places in the US!!! But if not I will miss them becasue theryre super cheap and depending on where you go theyre huge!!  The pizza as well is different. Its more flat crust with more toppings. The flavors are different as well more or less. There are 4 cheeses which I will miss a lot!!! It is super cheesy and there are some liquid cheeses that they use to make it amazing.  They also have that dessert pizza that I sent pics of and that is.... Well... to die for.

Well family sorry I don't have more but I have some other stuff to get done. Love you guys! Take care!

Elder George