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

Another Week 10-19-15

S'mores

 One more week gone by and may I say that this one actually FLEW by. The week before crawled by and then time flew! So that made us happy. We are having quite a bit of success with one family. They are G, M,and M. They are super cool and they already believe that the church is true. They have to get married however... So I ask that you guys could pray for them to be able to get that put together to have a baptismal date on the 7th of November. We really do think it will work out. PLEASE HELP!

Anyway I was asked this week about the zone meeting that was supposed to happen. Well it was actually canceled because of lack of  time. We'll see when that happens because we have interviews once again with president this week! It'll be good to talk to him a bit.

So! This week the 2nd ward here had a ward party that we were invited to participate. So we went and it turned out to be a macho cake contest! All of the men made cakes and I GOT TO JUDGE THEM!!!! It was super cool. They weren't too bad really. They played music and stuff when they were presenting and it was super funny! I tried to be fair and just about all of the cakes were actually really good. I was rather surprised actually. 

Something that is different about Brazil: Most of the people here don't have school like we do there. The people here have various times to go. morning, afternoon and night. The kids have different times based on grades. So for example, the high school kids go in the morning, the elementary in the afternoon, and the middle school at night. It all depends on the city as well. But for the most part its like that here.

The houses here are made of bricks... Or wood... Really nobody uses sheetrock here. It's really expensive to do. so they use cement and bricks and wood. Basically anything the can find for cheap really.

 

Everyone shops at least once a week if not more. There really isn't a lot of storage of food here.. So everyone goes to the store a lot. Well, really close to our house is a store called Celeiro. Its basically a grocery store. We go shopping based on the food that we don't have. So if we're out of food we go buy food! no cars and no bikes though. Yay for carrying groceries!

So when the transfer happened we lost two sisters from our district... We now have the four Elders from last transfer and two of the sisters from last transfer so 6 in total. They are all super nice and we all get along great. The sisters are from São Paulo and the other from Argentina. They have very unique personalities. They certainly give the meetings a little more attitude if you know what I mean.

So today I was reading the Doctrine and Covenants and I was in the 108th section* and it is great. it talks about the forgiving of Lyman Sherman I think. But I put my name in and thought about when everyone does something wrong or is having a rough time. It says that if we try to be better we will be strengthened and blessed. I felt really good after reading that. Made my day :)

Well, we haven't been terribly busy lately but we are much busier then my first transfer here. We are finding and trying to help others everyday and that really makes the difference. 

But I guess that's it today! I love you all and I hope you all have a spiritual experience today!

Beijo!

Elder George

A sister in the ward who is leaving for her mission.

*https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/108?lang=eng

"Verily thus saith the Lord unto you, my servant Lyman: Your sins are forgiven you, because you have obeyed my voice in coming up hither this morning to receive counsel of him whom I have appointed.Therefore, let your soul be at rest concerning your spiritual standing, and resist no more my voice. And arise up and be more careful henceforth in observing your vows, which you have made and do make, and you shall be blessed with exceeding great blessings. Wait patiently until the solemn assembly shall be called of my servants, then you shall be remembered with the first of mine elders, and receive right by ordination with the rest of mine elders whom I have chosen. Behold, this is the promise of the Father unto you if you continue faithful. And it shall be fulfilled upon you in that day that you shall have right to preach my gospel wheresoever I shall send you, from henceforth from that time. Therefore, strengthen your brethren in all your conversation, in all your prayers, in all your exhortations, and in all your doings. And behold, and lo, I am with you to bless you and deliver you forever. Amen."

And the rain, rain, rain came down, down down.....10-13-15

 

 

Friends And Family,

This week was the week of rain and as I started to write this letter, it started again... So we sthould get a little wet on the way home. BUT MISSIONARY LIFE!

So first things first. Our investigator M. is doing well... We think... we didnt get a chance to meet with her this week becasue she was visiting her sister to help her with a new baby. So we will go there today to see whats happening. Please pray for her though. She could really need it.

 

So Maybe you guys saw some of the pics that I took. Some of them were of buildings. One of them was an electronic store called Moroni! Another was the shoppin mall that there is here. I took a picture becasue we cant actually go in becasue its against the rules. So thats why I tried to take a pic of the whole thing. Others were in the rain in our area that I thought were cool little views. I thought that you would like to see a little more then me in Brazil and maybe just a bit of brazil. Let me know what you guys would like to know or see!

Well, Mom asked if I have given many priesthood blessings and on a mission and what that could be like. It really is quite a different thing, because you think about the person and about WHO they are to GOD. More often then not you don't know the person very well, and you have to give them a blessing that will mean something for them. You really have to be in tune with the Spirit, more than I was at home. You really have to pay attention to the promptings you receive. Also, I have blessed a house and other things that I will save to mention until later on. Its a great experience using the Savior's authority and acting as Christ's hands.

 

Well a little while ago we had our zone meeting and its getting time to do another one. We are gonna plan to talk about the role of the leadership of the church in missionary work. (chapter 13 Preach My Gospel- Link to material is https://www.lds.org/manual/preach-my-gospel-a-guide-to-missionary-service/how-do-i-work-with-stake-and-ward-leaders?lang=eng) And being zone leader makes it a little more interesting actually doing the training. I really do enjoy trying to help others be better, because in doing so I have the devotion and incentive to be better myself. It really changes you.

My companion is doing well. It is a bit different because organization is super important to him. He really is bothered when things arent organized and details aren't planned out, So that is a bit different then me. I find that a little planning and a little bit of "on the spot" really brings things to life instead of doing the same thing over and over again. So I am trying to help him see the benefit in that. He is 24 which is different and he is native Brazilian. He is nice and chill and enjoys the work. It really is a good time. He has been out 10 months right now and will make a year in December. We are getting along well! In our house everything stayed the same which was awesome. We were super excited to stay all together for a while more. I had been praying that we would all stay. I really like the guys here. It keeps things fun.

So yesterday we had Children's Day!!! Apparently its a national holiday and EVERYTHING closes. This is why the letters are being sent on Tuesday this week. There was a few little parties but we just stayed home. :)

Well the rain was a hard deal this week. We were wet one way or the other: when we stayed out of the rain we would sweat and when we would leave our rain jackets home to stay cooler it would rain and we would get wet. So we were just wet this week. We also had an investigator that has been going to church for the past few weeks that gained a testimony of the church in Gospel Principles on Sunday and wants to be baptized! That was cool. We marked a date and are gonna visit him tomorrow. He could be the first baptism for me! We'll see!

Well to leave a thought with you guys, I was listening to Elder Russell M. Nelson's talk from General conference (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/a-plea-to-my-sisters?lang=eng) and it really does touch those who have trouble keeping up with trials in life. His wife told him after a recent heart operation failure that he needed to "stop crying and get up, go back to work, and get learning." If we quit, others will have to learn painfully what we already know. I really liked that and I thought about that in the mission. With the time I have another missionary would have to suffer through similair things to know what I know. That is why I can't give up. 1 Nephi 2:15 Talks about the struggles of Lehi. (https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/2?lang=eng)  Its simple yet direct. Through our trials we can thank God or be bitter. It's our choice. We can rise or we call fall. There is no middle ground. 

I love you all and I hope that this large piece of memory helps someone learn something that they needed to. I really know that Christ lives and loves us. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. 

Take care everyone,

Elder Deven George

A PS from Elder George's mom:

This past week I received a letter in snail mail. Deven said that he has been trying to play piano again. As a very young child, he took piano lessons, but hasn't played in about 8-9 years. When I questioned him about it he said,

 "Yes mom... I am still playing. In fact I printed some stuff today! I am gonna try and learn some hymns and things to play :) Sharps and flats are a hard deal... They make playing a little slower.. BUT I am liking it :)"

New Transfer 10-5-15

Watching General Conference in English


Well this week was awesome. We had a great time with our ONE YEAR PARTY!!!! On Thursday me and Elder S made one year in the mission and we went around all day shouting HUMP DAY!!!! And singing "Livin' on a Prayer." It was super fun. That night we weren't having to much success so we called it just a bit early and decided to start the party! So we got the pizza ordered, got our Axe spray, lighter, shirts, ties and Coke and we went nuts! When you make a year you burn a shirt and tie. I had some DI ties and we found some shirts that the other elders left and we went off. We poured on hand sanitizer and got the light and did the "blow torch" deal and we had an awesome time burning the past to get ready for the new "year" Certainly was an awesome night. We got two pizzas and coke and we were stuffed that night.

 

So that was Thursday. We also received the transfer call and all of us are staying again! We are excited and ready for one more together. On a plus side Elder J from my first Field District got transferred here and Elder F form my second area also got transferred here! So that should be fun to see them again!

CONFERENCE!!!! General Conference was OUTSTANDING. Me and Elder S got to watch it in English! So we felt more American. I know you should always go with questions to conference so I went with the question," What should I do now to strengthen a future wife and family?" Let me tell ya... Just a FEW answers to that one. I was taking notes like a mad man and managed 20 PAGES of notes. It was good to hear all the messages of the inspired men that lead us. I also was very happy with the new apostles. I knew instantly when they were announced that they were called of God. It was a very good conference. I was really rather sad to see it end. But now I can say only one more General conference until I get home! WHOOT! 

Anyway, We have one girl that has a date for baptism on the 30th of this month that we would really like it is she was prayed for a little more. She is a little afraid of what the answer will be if she asks. So if you guys could pray for her to be calmed and comforted about this I would be grateful. 

You little ones! I want all of you to send an email about your favorite talk from conference so that I can know that you at least paid attention to one talk! Tell me about it, who gave it, and why you liked it. I loved Elder Holland's. Surprise surprise. I thought of Mom and said to myself..."All missionaries in the world are gonna email their moms and apologize for everything they have done wrong now." Mom, sorry for being a rotten child. Should have done better but you can count on that I'll never be that person to you again. <3 So now for all those who read this it's your turn to think about your beloved mothers. Give them a call, write a note, send a message, make a cake etc. Do something to show your appreciation for them. I promise that if you do they will rejoice more then you can realize. 

I love you all and I wish an absolutely fantastic week for you all!

"Remember who you are and where you come from." (Elder Neil L. Anderson)

Elder George

*Here is a link if you are interested in watching any of the messages from General Conference:
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2015/10?lang=eng