"If Those are the blessing I can recieve in the Temple, then I want them!"

Hey all!

How's life nos Estados Unidos?  Tudo Bem?  Life here in Brazil is going pretty well.  We had another baptism this past Saturday, his name is S.  He is such an amazing guy, I've thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him.  My companion wanted me to perform the baptism too!  That was pretty cool.  He's so eager to live the gospel, its truly incredible.  The last lesson that we taught him was about the temple, and he really wants to go to the temple.  He didn't even ask ´´how on earth am I going to get to Campinas?´´ but basically said ´´if those are the blessings that I can receive in the temple, then I want them!´´  We also have three new investigators.  It was kind of funny, they seemed pretty disinterested when we first contacted them.  Its a family of a grandma, her daughter, and the daughters son.  We met the grandma because we were walking by on the street and she was sitting on the sidewalk in a lawn chair.  Elder A. just started talking to her, and she let us into her home.  There we met her daughter and grandson.  They gave us some water, and we asked if we could come back the next day and share our message with them.  They said yes, but didn't seem to excited about it.  Initially, we weren't even going to go back.  When people are that uninterested, you usually just move on.  Elder A.  felt that we should though, and so the next day we stopped by and shared the first lesson, the restoration with them.  It was so cool seeing how drastically their attitudes changed as we told them about the first vision and the restoration of the fullness of the gospel.  Its a pretty interesting message!  We've got angels, visions, prophets, the whole 9 yards!  We then invited them to do what Joseph Smith did, and pray to God and ask him if what we had taught was true.  We are going to meet with them again tomorrow, I'll let you know how it goes.

The language is coming along very well!  It's still pretty difficult to understand what people are saying, and sometimes people get really frustrated because I cant understand what they're saying.  I just have to keep working at it though, and the language will come.  I think we are probably teaching somewhere between 5 and 10 investigator lessons each week, but I don't know the exact number.  We are working hard to talk to more people too. 

Its getting so much easier!  At the beginning of my mission I was a little afraid to talk to people, but now the fear is almost gone.  There's still a little, but its wearing off pretty quick. 

I've attached a couple of pictures from the baptism too.  I hope you enjoy those!  I love you all so much, talk to you in a week!

Love,

Elder Sweet

Christmas Skipe with Elder Sweet

Part of our Christmas Day conversation with Elder Sweet over skype.  Trevor, Amy and the rest of us.

A letter

 

Dear Sweet Family,

It is with great pleasure that we receive your son in our mission. Elder S. arrived here with good health, enthusiasm, and desire to preach the gospel to the people of the Brazil Goiânia Mission. He is prepared and has a strong testimony of the restored gospel. I feel honored to be his Mission President and I know that there are many people already prepared to hear his message of the restored gospel.

Your son will be expecting letters of love and support. E-mail is a good, fast, and safe way to communicate with him. If you want to send handwritten letters and packages in the mail, you can send them to the mission office and we will deliver them frequently.

Thank you for everything you have done to prepare your son for this great work.

Sincerely, President                                

Itumbiara Brazil, the best area in the Mission!

Here's the sign outside of the old church building. 

 I'll send a picture of the new one soon!  I love you guys!

Hey there, Minha Família!  Tudo Bem?  Okay, the first order of business is explaining why I didnt call you while I was in São Paulo.  The pay phones there were wierd, they werent accepting my calling cards (Btw, theres no apostrophe button on this keyboard.  Sorry about that!).  So, I tried paying for it with my debit card, but I forgot to tell Wells Fargo that I was going to Brazil so they cancelled the transaction.  I didnt have any Brazilian currency with me, and there wasnt a place in the terminal where I could go to exchange what I did have.  I tried calling collect to Moms phone, the house phone, Dads phone, and Sheelas to give you the number that I was at and call you back, but all of your phones are blocked to collect calls.  Im so sorry about that, I was really looking forward to talking to you all!  I still get to talk to you all on Christmas though, and Im pretty excited for that!  Dad, whats your skype name?  Send it to me in an Email, and Ill check it right before I get on to skype.  Ive told the member that is letting us use their computer for skype that 4:00pm (everyone uses a 24 hour clock hear, so 16:00) is good, so thats 11:00am for you guys I think.  Let me know if that works.  If any changes need to be made, let me know as soon as possible so that we can make the necessary changes.  Letting me know through Email will be fine, just make sure to send it the night before so that I can see it when we first get to the members house.  

Okay, about my trip.  Overall it was pretty uneventful, except for one totally incredibly crazy awesome thing that happened!  When I sat down in my seat for my flight from Atlanta to São Paulo, a young looking guy from Brazil sat down next to me.  He was probably in his late 20s or early 30s.  I talked to him in Portuguese, and got to know a little about him.  I found out that I had the honor of sitting next to someone who had recently completed his Ph.D. in Number Theory!  I thought ´´Okay!  I dont have to worry about entertainment for this flight anymore!´´  I picked his brain for a good 3, maybe 4 hours, and he was so cool about answering all of my questions!  Man, it was so much stinkin fun!  His name was Marco.  Our conversation was all over the place, mathematics to science to philosophy to logic and then back to mathematics!  We talked for quite a while about infinites and infinitesimals, the different kinds of operations that you can do with them, and their application in probability.  He told me that he was on his way back from a Mathematics conference that he had in Montreal where he met with another Mathematician who was working on the same problem that he was, but who was attacking it with number theory whereas Marco was coming at it with Probability.  He briefly explained to me the problem that hes working on, and I understood absolutely none of it lol!  That was so cool though!  How on earth do I get so lucky? :)

Okay, about Brazil!  So the first thing that I did after President Kuçeki picked me up from the airport was try some fresh coconut water and cane juice.  President stopped at a stand on the side of the road and bought me one of each.  The lady selling them pulled a coconut out of a big metal cooler, chopped the top off with a Machete, and handed it to me.  It was so good!  Then she took some sugar cane and put it through this machine that pressed it and shredded it, kind of like a juicer but for sugar cane.  She collected the juice in a bottle, and gave the bottle to President Kuçeki.  He poured me several cups, it was really good!  There was a really faint taste of fresh cut grass, but overall the juice was delicioius.  We had Brazilian Pizza from Pizza hut for dinner that night at Presidents house, and a Christmas party the next day with the whole mission!  I got to see Elder S., my MTC companion, there too!  It was so cool seeing him again.

We also figured out where were being assigned and who with at that meeting.  I dont mean to brag or anything, but I got the best area in the mission.  Ive been assigned to work in Itumbiara.  Its a town with about 100,000 people in it, and one branch.  A brand new church building will be dedicated there next month, and in preparation for that President Kuçeki has decided to hasten the work in Itumbiara.  The entire city is one area.  As most of you know, there are usually 2 missionaries per area.  In order to ´´hasten the work´´ here though, President has assinged 8 missionaries to work here.  We have one Sister missionary companionship, the 3 assistants to the President, my trainer and I, and another Elder named Elder M.  Im so excited!  Its going to be really unconventional, well be going on splits with the assistants basically everyday this transfer.  The people here in Brazil are so amazing!  When we talk to them on the street and ask them if they want to hear our message, most of them say something along the lines of ´´ Yeah!  I love Jesus, you can share your message!´´  Its actually really rare for someone to turn us down, its pretty different from Arizona in that sense.  The people here live in far more humble circumstances than we do in the US too, its helping me to realize just how much we have! 

Well, I've got to go.  I'll send some pictures really quick, and talk to you all on Christmas!  I havent taken too many pictures so far because Ive seen enough of Brazil to know that carrying my camera around at night is a bad idea, but when I can I'll take some more to send you.  I love you all so much, vai com Deus!

Here's the view outside of our house!
Its a bit different from Arizona,
that's for sure!  I'm learning to love it though :)

Love, Elder Logan Sweet

Text Messages from Atlanta!

Text: "Sister Sweet,
I'm enjoying dinner with your son before he jumps on the plane to Brazil.  He sounds great and I'm sure he's going to be a great missionary.  Have a great evening.
Jason T. from Bountiful, Utah."

Text: "Just had a nice visit with your son. 
He will be a great missionary!"

Text: "Here is Hna. T. in Honduras." 




The T. Family saw Elder Sweet in the Atlanta Georgia Airport and invited him to their table, they were on their way home with their daughter who had served in the Tegucigalpa Honduras mission.  Logan mentioned his cousin Jonah B. had recently returned from serving in that mission and Hna. T. said she knew him!  So we asked for a picture we could forward to Jonah.  We're grateful to the T. family who loaned Logan their cell phone and allowed us to have a conversation with him for about 20 min.  It was the last we heard from Logan until the next day when we called the Mission office in Brazil and learned he arrived safely and was actually sitting in the chair across from the Elder we were talking to!  

We Thank the T. family who reached out to Logan and made his long trip to Brazil a lot more interesting.  We felt like Heavenly Father knew where Logan was and put this family in his path.  It's a tender Mercy we are grateful for! 

I'm Thankful for you!

Hey Mom!

I’ve wanted to write Thanksgiving letters to everyone in the family.  My days have been so busy that I haven’t been able to get around to it until now.  Being busy is a healthy problem, though!

We’ll I hope that you’re Thanksgiving went really well!  What did you do?  How’s your family doing?  I know that Amy & Trevor came down for “pre-Thanksgiving” too, how was that?  I wish I could have been there but Tucson, Arizona’s nice this time of year too : ) .  The ward members are super nice & we got invited to more Thanksgiving dinners that I care to count.  We ended up just going to two, but it was still fun. 

This Thanksgiving, Mom I’m thankful for …..You!  Mom, where do I even start?  You’ve been there for me literally longer than I can remember.  I’m so thankful for all that you’ve done since before I was born to help me along & provide the necessities of life.  In addition to that, you’ve done so many things just to put a smile on my face, to go the extra mile.  I remember you making cookies for us every Tuesday for “Child appreciation day.”  You made me Halloween costumes & a “rocket cake” for my birthday when we lived in Georgetown.  You’ve also been an outstanding example of Christ Like service & love to me & the rest of the family for as long as I can remember.  You drove me up the hill to seminary, school, concerts, & other activities countless times.  You helped teach me to be a safe driver, & you also taught me how to sincerely care for other people. 

I could fill volumes with all of the wonderful things that you’ve profoundly impacted my life for good.  This single page is hardly volumes, but I hope that the same message came across; I miss you & love you Mom!  Happy Holidays : )

Love,  Elder Logan Sweet

Brazil Goiania Mission Address

Brazil Goiania Mission
Rua 18, 110, Salas 1105 a 1107
Ed Business Center, Setor Oeste
74120-080 Goiania - GO
Brazil             

Atten: Elder Logan Sweet

Mailing Tips:
When you write or send packages use the United States Postal Service, it has a greater chance of getting to him in the shortest amount of time because the Mission can forward USPS mail and cannot forward other types of mail.  Also address Elder Sweet as Elder Logan Sweet because there may be another missionary with the same last name.  Smaller packages under 4 lbs are best with no more than 7 items with a total value of less than $15.00 and he won't be charged again for customs.  
Thank you!  : )