A Macaw!

Hey there, guys!

 President lowered our email time from an hour and a half to just an hour, so my bemails are going to be fairly brief.  I´ll write more letters for you guys, though!  Writing letters is fun:)

   First order of business... HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LANDON!  Holy freeking cow, your 18 man!  That´s nuts! Man time flies, it´s pretty crazy!  What did you do for your birthdya, anything cool?  Don´t let too much time go by without doing something cool!  Go to the beach, watch a movie with the family, something simple but something to remember.  Happy Birthday, bro!

   Second, we had a baptism this week!  M, the miracle investigator that just fell out of the sky got

 baptized! He is so cool!  I´ll send you guys a picture with him.  He´s really excited about being

ordained a Priest and takes the gospel so seriously.  He´s great.  The other Elders are also teaching a 17 year old named J. P, but coincidentally I´m the only missionary who´s been at all of his lessons, we foudn him on a division and he always gets taught while we´re on divisions too.  He´s super cool, loves american football, and wants to learn english.  I really enjoy helping members here who want to learn english make a bit of progress, I´d really like to teach an english class here if it works out.  We´ll see how that goes!  

 

Third, I finally got a picture of a Macaw!  My companion and I were walking on the street last P-day

and a Macaw just landed in the tree in front of us!  We started snapping away because you rarely see them stopped, you usually only see them flying by.  It was pretty cool!

Elder H´s knee didn´t make much progress this past week. We worked a bit toward the beginning of the week, but his knee just got super swollen and put a stop to our work.  In the meantime we do what little we can and I go on divisions with the other Elders whenever possible.  Overall things are going well!

 

I´ve got to take off now, but have a great week, everyone!  I love you guys more than I can possibly express! 

Love,

Elder Sweet

Tudo Bem?

Hey all!  Tudo bem?

   This week was a pretty great one!  Let me tell you all about it!

   My companion still wasn´t able to walk this week, so I continued to take turns working with the other missionaries and staying at home with Elder Hamilton.  He´s to the point where he can walk without too much trouble now, and we bought an immobilizer for his knee.  We´re going to work today and see how it goes, and are planning on returning back to our normal working schedule!  

   We´ve got one really cool investigator right now that just kind of fell out of heaven and into our lap.  Elder T.  and I were walking through our area several days ago on a way to an appointment several days ago and a man called out to us.  We chatted with him and he told us that he had been working with the missionaries in the town where he used to live and really enjoyed it!  We marked an appointment to talk with him at the church that night, taught lesson 1, and marked a baptismal date with him for this Saturday!  He´s going super strong and loves absolutely everything about the church.  He´s going to be an awesome member!

   Last night he walked Elder He. and I to his new house so that we could write down his new address.  He told us that he had smelled drugs in the house behind his that morning, and just like that picked up and moved.  He has 6 months clean from drugs now and is terrified of having a relapse.  Here I´ve gotten to see the havoc that drugs cause in the lives of so many people.  There are so many other problems here in Brazil that stem from drugs, so say NO to drugs!

   I haven´t been taking a lot of pictures lately because I haven´t been taking my camera with me during the day, but I´ll put in a better effort this week to take some more pictures at our house or something to send you guys!  I love and miss all of you!  Keep true to the faith and keep your eyes fixed on the glory of God!  You´ll never go wrong with that.  I know that Christ lives and that through him we can have a peace and happiness in our lives that simply doesn´t exist elsewhere! 

Have an awesome week!

Elder Sweet

Marked his own Date

Hey all!  This week was pretty cool, let me give you the run down!

First, it started with a bit of a problem.  Elder H. twisted his knee while we were playing sports on P-day, and the doctor told him that he wouldn´t be able to walk for a while while his knee heals.  I and the other companionship of Elders here have been taking turns staying at home with him while his knee heals up.  Because of that, I´ve gotten the opportunity to work a lot with the other missionaries in my district, and that´s been pretty cool!  You learn something new with each new person that you work with.

We weren´t able to teach the English class for J. C., but hopefully when Elder H.  gets better we can reschedule with him.  The other Elders are working with our investigators right now, and because of the rotation I get to be there a good part of the time.  Right now we have an awesome investigator named R.  He´s 17 years old, and works basically every hour that he has awak but Sundays and Saturdays in the morning.  We send the pamphlets about the lessons to him thorugh friends that he has who are members, and are working to help him get baptized as soon as possible.  He really wants it!

We also had another miracle this week!  At church one of the members introduced a friend of theirs to my companion and I.  She said "He´s already been to church four times, wants to be baptized, but the missionaries never taught him!"  The investigator then said "I want to get baptized.  Can we do it today?"  We explained to him the preparation that has to happen before baptism, and then he said "Okay.  Can I get baptized next Saturday?"  He marked his own baptismal date!  He has a crazy work schedule and it often takes a couple weeks for us to teach all of the lesosns to people who work like that, but he´s definitely got the desire so he´ll get there soon!

Time´s running out so I´ve got to go, but I love each and every one of you!  Thank you so much for your emails!  

Until next Monday,

Elder Sweet

Charity

Hey all!

   This week was awesome!  I´ve got to be fairly quick in the E-mail today, but I´ll share a cool experience or two with you guys!

First, we met a really neat man named J. C. a couple days ago!  We were knocking doors, and one man answered from his window.  We hardly got a word out of our mouths before he started to bible bash with us.  He went on and on and on, and after several minutes it gets kind of annoying.  Usually I just let my Seniors do the heavy lifting in those situations, but after a few minutes I decided I´d give it a try.  Instead of bible bashing with him, I asked if we was familiar with the scripture in Ephesians that says that the church of Christ is built upon the foundation of prophets of and apostles, and he said yes.  I then testified of the restoration of these things, that we have 12 apostles and a prophet on the earth today that guide the chruch.  His attitude changed at this point and he began to show some interest.  He left the window and came to the gate and told us that he was testing us to see if we were persistent.  He then expressed some interest in our message and invited me to teach an English class to his students (he´s a teacher at a school nearby).  His interest in our message still remains to be proven, but he is a very neat, personable guy!

This week I´ve been thinking a lot about the role of charity in my work as a missionary, and really in everything that we do.  That really has to be our motivation.  I feel that if our motive is not charity for our brothers and sisters, we will not be powerfully led by the spirit.  As with all of the gifts of the spirit, charity is something that we need to seek diligently in our actions and in our prayers.  As we do so, it will distil upon our souls as the dews from heaven, to steal a phrase from the scriptures.  It was through charity that the greatest act in mankind´s history, the atonement of Jesus Christ, was accomplished (1 Nephi 19:9 if I remember right).  His charity for us empowered him to suffer our sins and forgive us for them, and it is through charity that we can be truly incredible servants of God.

"Ask me, I will respond, because I am God."

Got to go, but I love you all!  Have an incredible week and keep me up to date!

Love,

Elder Sweet 

Calling Ourselves to Repentance

Transfers were this week, and nothing changed.  I´m staying here in Rio Verde Popular, and Elder H. will continue to be my companion.  I´m pretty excited, it´s going to be an awesome transfer!  

   So what´s going on on the home front?  I hear that Landon´s graduating soon, how cool!  Congrats!  I´m also sad to hear that Elder Perry passed away.  He is a truly incredible man.  I´m sure that he´s hard at work on the other side!

   

   This week we baptized the son of an investigator that hasn´t been able to get baptized yet.  Almost all of her children are active members, though.  I´ll send you guys a pic.  We did divisions a couple of days ago too, and I went to the house of G.  (the boy who got baptized) with Elder H. to teach about keeping the sabbath day holy.  We´ve struggled to teach him in the past becuase his attention span is

G.!  The sun was pretty bright so he had
trouble looking at the camera lol!

 sufficient only to watch us sit down on the sofa, and then he gets up and runs away.  So, I made a game for the lesson!  We hid some chocolates in various places in his house, and then wrote down instructions for him to find them.  He´d come to us to get one set of instructions, promise that he´d follow them, and then go get the chocolate.  We did this 3 times, just for good measure.  We then explained that the sacrament is when we promise God that we´re going to follow his instruction, church is where we get the instructions, and as we follow them we get blessings!  He enjoyed it, and the lesson was pretty fun!

   I also learned an interesting lesson this week.  I think that one of the greatest qualities that we can acquire in the gospel is a desire to see ourselves succeed.  This isn´t just worldly success, but much more importantly spiritual success.  We need to have the same drive to see ourselves succeed that Heavenly Father has to see us succeed.  This includes wanting to become like Christ badly enough to

Our new ward mission leader getting avocados for us! 
They make an avocado smoothie here that´s really good!

see our own faults and to call ourselves to repentance.  Calling ourselves to repentance, at least for me, is far more difficult than calling others to repent.  As we come before God humbly in prayer though, he can aid us in this process through the holy ghost.  We need his companionship!  

I´ve got to go now, but I love you guys!  Have an incredible week!

Best,

Elder Sweet