FHE Adventure!

Hey guys!

 I hope everyone´s doing great in the states!  Brazil´s still going pretty great :)  Keep me up to date on what´s going on in your lives, I love getting E-mails!  I don´t always have time to respond to each one, but it´s always a pleasure to read letters from you all and see how everyone´s doing.

   There´s two main things that I want to talk about in this E-mail today: Transfers and an Adventure that we had!  First, transfers.

   So, there´s good news and good news.  Which do you want first?  Let´s start with the good news!  First, we´re part of Zone Uberlândia now!  Uberlândia is closer than Rio Verde (our old zone), so it makes more sense for us to go there for Zone meetings and such.  Second (this is the good part), drumroll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! dumdumdumdumdumdumdumdumdumdumdumdumdum... BOOM!!!!  No one in Itumbiara was transferred!  We´re all staying here, with our same comps.  I´m excited for the opportunity that I have to stay here, there are several investigators that we´re working with right now that I really want to see baptized.  So, that´s what happened!

 

 Next, the adventure.  We had a Family Home Evening last night that we needed to go to because they were going to bring some new investigators for us to teach.  This home is quite a ways away from us, it´s about a 45 or 50 minute walk if we take a shortcut through a field.  The sun had already set, and we were approaching this field.  First we have to cross a little bridge over a creek with a bunch of trees on either side of the bank, and then there´s a path through tall grass that takes us to the other end of the field.  There´s always several horses grazing in the field too, so that should help you guys with the image.  Anyhow, it was dark.  As we approached the entrance to the path, we saw 7 young men gathered around the entrance to the pass smoking something.  Generally speaking, when 7 young men go to a fairly remote part of town and hide in the cover of trees to smoke, they´re not smoking tobacco.  Elder Uboldi and I decided that a detour was better than risking a confrontation, so we continued down the road that runs along the field.  We thought that there was another road that cut through the field a bit further down, but there wasn´t.  To walk all the way around would have added a good 1.5 or 2 kilometers to our trip (I´ve given miles guys, sorry), so we decided to cut through the field.  We found a little trail, and followed it.  It took us into the trees, and then we ran into the creek.  At this point, the creek was probably 6 or 8 feet wide (haven´t given feet up yet, I still like ´em), with a thin branch spanning the width of it on the ground.  My comp put one foot on it, realized that it was very unstable, and then stepped off.  I was describing another method that we could use to cross when we heard "Neeeeeeee-eeee-awwww-eeeee-awww."  My comp said "Okay, let´s go!"  I told him "Elder, it´s just a donkey; we can do this!"  With a bit of persuading, we resumed our attempts to cross the river.  I crossed first, walking on the thin branch to cross the river while holding on the trees above to balance myself, and then Elder U. followed suit.  We arrived on the other side, and started crossing the field.  The tall grass made it so we couldn´t run because we couldn´t see the ground well, so we were left with doing our best to cross the field.  We eventually emerged from the field at a road on the other side, and then walked to the family´s house that we had the appointment with.  Anyhow, that´s the adventure of the week!  I hope you guys enjoyed it!

Now, the pics:

5297 - A pic we took after the FHE I talked about

5285 - A really awesome sunset I took a picture of!

Have a wonderful week, learn lots, and preach the gospel!  Until next Monday.

Love,

Elder Sweet

"Have You Prayed Yet?" March 9, 2015

Wooh!!!

    

Batizamos!  J, one of the two sisters that we started teaching a couple weeks ago, got baptized!  Her stepdad is reading the Book of Mormon too, so hopefully we´ll see something develop there soon.

   This week was pretty interesting!  First, let´s talk about J.  He went to church the week before last, and the teacher in Gospel Principles gave everyone something to put on their fridge that said ´´Você já orou?´´  That means "Have you prayed yet?"  Monday morning when J. was getting ready for work, he saw this and decided to pray.  He called is 8 year old son in and they prayed together.  J. said that the day in general went great, far better than it usually does.  In addition to this, he set goals to stop drinking coffee, beer, and smoking.  This is especially remarkable when you realize that we hadn´t even taught him the word of wisdom yet!  He just thought he needed to curb those habits to be a better father.  (Coffee was kind of interesting because it´s not the kind of thing that people generally try to quit.  When we asked J. about this, he said that he was drinking more than 2 liters of coffee a day.  He realized that in his case it had become a vice and that he needed to quit.)  (Note 2 - I had trouble translating that from Portuguese!!! I knew what I wanted to say in Portuguese, but I had to think about it for a bit to figure out how to say it in English.  Wooh!!!)  Anyhow, prayer is an incredibly powerful tool.

   Another really interesting thing happened this week.  I was on splits with Elder M, and we were going to do J's baptismal interview.  We were walking down the street and saw a bit of a commotion on the other side.  We stopped to see what was going on.  Several police had stopped a woman on a motorbike, and were apparently not very happy with her.  They had surrounded her and were speaking to her rather angrily.  One of the police kicked a water bottle out of her hand, pointed at her and started yelling.  She got off of the bike, and then the police officer that had been yelling at her kicked it down.  The seat broke off, and then he took his knife and popped both of the tires on the bike.  I´m not sure what she did that ticked them off so much, but whatever it was it was petty enough for them to let her just walk away afterwards.  I was really surprised to see that.  We really are lucky to live where we do.  A lot of times we make a big fuss about how aweful we think our government is, and how much we don´t like this or that about our country.  All things considered though, we have one of the least corrupt governments on the planet (the twelfth least corrupt government if I remember the statistic right), and police that generally speaking work for public peace, not personal gain.  Remember that we´ve got it good, and we need to be grateful and give thanks to God for what we have!

   We´ll actually hear about transfers next week, so I´ll keep you guys up to date.  We´ll also go to Uberlândia this week for a conference with President Kuceki.  I´m pretty excited about that!

I love you guys so much!  Have a wonderful week and I look forward to reading your E-mails next monday!

Elder Sweet

Complete and Total Devotion

Iaí, Família!  Como voces estão?

   This week was pretty awesome and pretty hard at the same time, let me explain!  Elder Uboldi and I worked harder this week than we´ve ever worked before.  We worked and worked and worked and marked appointment after appointment after appointment!  On the other end of things, our lunches where on the other side of the world basically every day.  One lady lived somewhere in the Sahara Desert, I think.  We had to traverse the Amazon, go through Panama, up through central america into Mexico, and then cross the great plains of the United States.  After that we went up through Canada to Alaska, prayed and fasted for fourty days to part the Bering sea, crossed the Bering strait on dry land, marched across Siberia, traversed the Urals and descended in Israel, then Egypt, and then we arrived in the Sahara.  We then wandered in the desert for fourty years, living off of nothing but manna and the dew that collected on beatle shells each morning before finding the lady who had signed up to feed us.  Going back was easier because they´d bridged the Bering strait by that time.  Anyhow, we still haven´t recovered from that journey but we´re planning to nap some today.  That will help, I think!

   We marked a lot of appointments this week, but almost all of them fell through.  We have several new investigators, and I´ll keep you up to date on them as time goes on.  One is a family that we talked to on the street.  They´re very well educated and understood the scriptures we had them read.  It was awesome!  Another is a 17 year old girl and her sister.  They told us that just based on our explanation of the restoration they knew it was true.  That was cool!  During that lesson something really funny happened too.  We always begin our lessons with prayer, and we usually ask whomever we are teaching if there is anything that they would like us to ask for for them in our prayer.  Now here´s where things get tricky.  The portuguese verb that means ´´to ask for´´ is pedir.  It´s irregular, and I´m still working on the irregular verbs.  The actual conjugation of pedir for ´´I ask for´´ is ´´peço,´´ but if you follow the regular conjugation it comes out as ´´pedo.´´  Funny enough, the portuguese verb ´´to fart´´ is pedar.  When we were opening the lesson, I couldn´t remember how to conjugate pedir so I gave it my best shot.  What came out was ´´Is there anything that I can fart for your in this prayer?´´  Yup.  That happened.  I struggled the whole rest of the lesson to hold back my laughter, at times I just had to bury my face in my hands and try to beat that memory out of my mind while my companion taught!  It was pretty awesome!

   Finally, this morning I read some words and talks from our prophets.  I read ´´O Cristo Vivo (The Living Christ),´´ which is one of the most incredible testimonies of Christ that there are to be found.  How grateful we should be to have living prophets on the earth today to guide us.  What an incredible gift!  As I read their words I cannot help but feel a deep respect and love for these men.  We need to make feasting on their words a priority in our lives and in our studies.  There are incredible messages, vital advice, and powerful testimonies to be found therein, and we take advantage of a marvelous opportunity for spiritual growth each time we read the words of living prophets.  I especially love the words of President Boyd K. Packer in his talk ´´The Witness.´´  In this talk he said the following:

  After all the years that I have lived and taught and served, after the millions of miles I have traveled around the world, with all that I have experienced, there is one great truth that I would share. That is my witness of the Savior Jesus Christ.

Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon recorded the following after a sacred experience:

“And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!

“For we saw him” (D&C 76:22–23).

Their words are my words.

I believe and I am sure that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that He lives. He is the Only Begotten of the Father, and “by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God” (D&C 76:24).

I bear my witness that the Savior lives. I know the Lord. I am His witness. I know of His great sacrifice and eternal love for all of Heavenly Father’s children. I bear my special witness in all humility but with absolute certainty, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

It doesn´t get much better than that.  How blessed we are to have living apostles, even prophets, to guide us, and to testify of Jesus Christ.  Let´s make truly being a disciple of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, priority number one in our lives.  There is no greater happiness to be found than that which lies in complete and total devotion to Jesus Christ.

I love you all!  I feel your prayers everyday and treasure every one of your words.  I love you, miss you, and pray for.  Until next monday!

Love,
Elder Sweet

P.S. - Transfer calls are this coming sunday!  Our ward mission leader had a dream that I had a new companion who didn´t speak protuguese.  Maybe it´s a sign lol!  I´ll keep you guys up to date :)

"I need this!"

First, we got a new Elder here!  He´s Elder M, he was my comp in Arizona!!!  Just kidding, but he is Elder M.  He's from the United States, which means he speaks English.  We still basically never speak English, but it´s nice to have someone here who speaks my language finally.  Elder M. is continuing the training of Elder P, and Elder U, and I are comps again.

Rain!

   

 Second, we got two really cool new investigators this week.  Our Branch president is awesome.    He´s really young, I don´t think he even has 2 full years off of his mission yet.  He´s married and has a child though, and is full of energy and super missionary oriented (like you, Dad!).  Anyhow, he gave us a referral that we went to visit several days ago.  We knocked the door, and the girl that he´d referred us to wasn´t there but her sister was.  It was raining really hard, so she invited us in and we sat down and started talking to her.  It turned out she had absolutely no idea who we were, what we were doing, or what church we were from.  That´s pretty trusting, maybe it was our accents that got us in the door.  Anyhow, we talked with her a bit and she was super cool.  We left a pamphlet about the restoration with her (because she said that she likes to read), and planned to return the following day to hopefully find her and her sister there together.  When we showed up the next day, they were both there.  We talked for them for a while just to get to know them, and then after that we taught lesson 1.  It wasn´t the most technically perfect lesson that we´ve ever taught, but the spirit was there without a doubt.  The older sister, the one who we left the pamphlet with, had read the whole thing too!  She remembered things from it and already knew more or less what we were going to say.  It was pretty cool.  They both wanted to be baptized!  We´re still working with them, I´ll keep you up to date on how that goes.

   Third!  At the beginning of the last transfer, Elder A. and I had an investigator that we had taught the first lesson too.  He accepted a baptismal date, but then the emergency transfer happened.  My new companion and I weren´t able to visit him for awhile, and when we did he either wasn´t there or didn´t want to talk to us (I´m not sure which).  After several tries, we moved on.  Yesterday Elder U. and I were on our way to knock some doors near where he lives, and the thought ocurred to me that we could stop by him again.  It was the first time I´d thought about him in awhile, but nothing spectacular.  We caught him right as we was arriving at his house, and he invited us in.  We talked with him a bit, and found that a lot has happened to him in the past several weeks.  A series of events had occurred that culminated in his wife leaving two weeks ago, and he was in a really low spot.  We just talked to him for a while, and then shared a message with him.  We talked about how through the covenant of baptism we can have the Holy Spirit with us continuously, and how the bible teaches us that the fruits of the spirit are peace, love, patience, etc.  After we shared this message with him he told us how much better he felt as a result of our words, that they were exactly what he needed to hear then.  He said that he was happier than he´d been in a long time.  We asked him if he´d like to prepare himself to be baptized, and he said  ´´Would I like too?  It doesn´t matter if I´d like to or not, I need this!´´  We closed with a prayer, wiped the tears out of our eyes quickly, and headed out.  He told us as we were leaving that we came at the perfect moment for him, the moment when he needed us the most.  

   Elder Bednar spoke at the MTC about recognizing the spirit.  He said that if we are being ´´a good boy´´ or ´´a good girl,´´ keeping our covenants and living the gospel, then our ´´steps will be guided, your words will be directed.´´  It´s so neat to see this principle at work here in our area in Brazil.  The spirit didn´t come down, smack us with a 2x4, and tell us that we needed to visit José.  Instead, it came as a casual thought, nothing extraordinary.  When we are worthy, we are entitled to such guidance and will receive such guidance whether or not we realize it. 

   I´ve also been thinking a lot about love lately, and how charity should be my motive for working as a missionary.  I´ve read 2 Nephi 33 over and over again in my free time this week, and am praying for help and striving to apply those principles in my work.  We´re not just called to preach, but to minister.  I know of few greater pictures of what it means to minister than that given in 2 Nephi 33.  If you have the time, give it a read!

   Well, I´ve got to go now!  I love you guys, have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Sweet 

Cut to the Good Stuff!

Okay, I´m a bit short on time today so I´ll cut to the good stuff!

 

 We´ve been teaching a man named M. for the past week or two.  He´s super awesome!  He´s 19 years old and is a 4th division professional soccer player for the team Coríntios in São Paulo.  He´s in Itumbiara right now studying at a school here, and his teams paying for it all.  It´s a pretty sweet gig!  Anyhow, he´s super golden.  He´s so eager to live by every principle that we teach him, and God plays a major role in his life.  Hopefully he´ll be getting baptized in a couple of weeks.  I can definitely see him serving a mission in a year or two.  That would be so cool!  

   This week has been quite a roller coaster ride.  Elder O. was emergency transferred.  Enough about that, though!  The missionary that he was training, Elder P, is now in a threesome with Elder U. and I.  Elder U. is training 2 missionaries at once now, and apparently this is the first time that this has happened in this mission for a long time.  It´s going pretty well, they´re pretty awesome.  We´ve got some pretty high goals to reach and we´re working hard to do so.  I´ve been working on talking to more people during the last week, and it´s going well!  I´m trying to take 6 adresses each day.  

   Mom, a couple of weeks ago you asked about the culture in Brazil and if there´s anything that´s different or difficult to get used to. For the most part no.  The culture is actually somewhat similar to the US.  One thing that is different is that in Brazil it´s not rude to use commands.  In english it´s kind of rude to say ´´give me that,´´ or ´´get me this,´´ but in Portuguese that´s perfectly fine.  Other than that, people here shake hands differently.  That´s not too rough to deal with though :)

   It´s also been raining a lot lately.  We use clothelines here, so that means that our clothes never really dry.  That´s a problem!  Our washing machine broke too, so our white shirts haven´t been so white for the past couple of days.  Hopefully we´ll get that fixed today though.  I´ll let you know how that goes!

Brazilian Sweets

My birthday was awesome too.  The other missionaries here threw a surprise party for me at thechapel.  We´re all dirt poor, but they bought me some brazilian sweets and blew up a couple balloons.  It was fun!  I also read Amy and Trevor´s letter today.  Thank you so much for sending that!  You guys rock!  I´ve got to check out now, but know that I love and miss you all!

Keep being awesome!

Elder Sweet

"Chased Down..."

Hey there Family!!!

 How´s life treating you guys?  Congrats to Landon for getting accepted to BYU-Idaho!  I love that school, I´m sure he´ll have a blast there if that´s what he settles on doing.  Also, there´s no need to send the sheet music back with Landon, Mom.  Those ones I had to pay for, so I get to keep!  

I´ll start by answering the questions that Dad sent.  First, my new companion rocks!  He´s from Bahia Blanca, Argentina.  He´s toward the end of his mission, and still going strong.  He´s super goal oriented and likes to plan strategies to achieve those goals, so he and I get a long great.  He doesn´t speak much English, but my Portuguese is improving a lot.  This last week I made a lot of jumps in my language skills, and I´m pretty thrilled about that.  I´m also working hard to increase my vocabularly quickly.  Verb tenses that I´d had trouble with in the past are starting to click, and I´m understanding what other people are saying more than not.  The work is progressing very well.  We hit a bit of a low point this past week.  When the assistants were here, we were entirely focused on meeting the goals for January that President Kuceki had set for us.  Now that January´s gone, we have to start over again.  We´re doing a lot of contacting and have set ourselves up to do a lot of teaching this week.  Working with the AP´s and the mission Executive secretary was awesome!  They helped me learn how to contact differently, how to help investigators overcome their problems in order to get baptized, and how to work more effectively with other missionaries and the branch members as well.  The people here are loving the new chapel.  We´ve had a lot of activities there already, and a number of new investigators as a result!  It´s perked a lot of curiosity, it´s definitely the prettiest building in Itumbiara.  A lot of people have seen it and are curious about it.  

After this time in Brazil, here are my impressions.  It rocks!  I know it´s super cliché, but the people here are the best.  There really kind, open to new ideas, outgoing and eager to learn about the gospel.  The people in America are wonderful too, but a lot of times it takes a while before you get to know them enough that their comfortable around you.  Landon said it really well when he said ´´South American´s think like ´You´re my friend until you become my enemy,´ but in the US we think like ´You´re my enemy until you become my friend.´´´  I think that´s my favorite thing about Brazil is just how cool the people are.  

My schedule from last transfer and my new one!

The people here are super ready for the gospel too.  Yesterday we literally had someone chase us down, tell us that they want to hear our message (he´d been working with some Elders here a few months earlier), and then walk halfway across town with us!  That was pretty cool.

Also, I got two Dearelder letters today, both of them were Kaydon´s mission E-mails.  I´ve got to go now, but I love you guys!  Keep being awesome and have an excellent week!

Best,

Elder Sweet

Conversion Is Consistently Being True

Hey all!

Well, my first transfer in Brazil is officially over!  I´m getting a new companion, but I haven´t met him yet.  He´ll arrive sometime this week.  His name is Elder Uboldi.  He´s from Argentina.  I actually met a friend of his while I was serving in Arizona!  The further I get into my mission the smaller the world seems.  Anyhow, about this week!

The octet has officially ended.  Elder Creer is going home to California (did I mention that he knows Burke, Mom´s cousin?  He´s in the same ward that they are), Elder Sales (my trainer) is going back to the mission office, and Elder Loreiro is going on another assignment from President Kuceki to help prep an area that is also getting a new chapel.  Elder Manrique is being transferred, which leaves me and Elder Oliveira here.  Elder Oliveira will be training a new missionary this transfer, and like I said I´ll be receiving my new companion in a couple of days.

Also, do you remember the family that I talked about a couple of weeks ago that was super prepared?  They got baptized!  I´ll attach a picture to this E-mail.  We have a couple other investigators that we´re working with right now, but we do have some more finding to do.  One of our investigators took us to his ´´hauncho´´ for lunch a couple of days ago too.  It´s a nice house that he has right outside of town next to the river here.  It was super cool!  Elder S. said that I might see a Toucan, but no luck this time.  I´ve seen one toucan so far, but it just flew over so I didn´t get a picture.  Maybe next time!  I also saw a tortoise yesterday.  I took a picture with it, so I´ll attach that to the E-mail too.  

That´s about all that happened this week, it wasn´t too crazy.  In any case, I´ll share a quick thought of the day!  

Elder Bednar rocks.  That´s all.

Okay, I´m joking.  There´s more!  So, like I said, Elder Bednar rocks.  What I love is how he sums complex principles up in just a few words.  It´s simple enough that you can think about it and discover more about those principles on your own.  In a talk he gave at the MTC about hearing the voice of the Lord, he gave the following definitions:

A testimony is knowledge that is revealed to us through the Holy Spirit

Conversion is consistently being true to what you know.  

As I was thinking about those a couple weeks ago, I noticed something that needed to change in my own life.  I realized that my testimony far outweighed my action.  In other words, I know far more than I am consistently true to.  When we´re in this situation, when our testimonies outweigh our actions, according to Elder Bednar's definitions what we lack is conversion.  This, obviously, is a problem!  So how do can we combat this?  One way that I´m finding to be effective is this:  I pray to heavenly father and ask him to bless me with a deepening conversion.  After that, I tell him that today I am going to do all that I can to act in accordance with my testimony, and in return I ask that he blesses me with a conversion equal to the action that I give.  That way, I´m putting my foot forward and showing God my faith in my testimony and in his ability to bless me with the conversion that I seek.  

Well, that´s all folks!  I miss you all like crazy, but I truly am loving my mission.  Have a wonderful week and keep in touch!

Love,

Elder Sweet