man I fired that one out because I was about to pee my pants, but I have like 2 more minutes now.
I really appreciate everyone at home. Friends, family, etc. You guys are a good example to everyone and especially to me. Life is good when you know that your family is good.
man this lady behind me is speaking creol and it is crazy. WAKAKAKAKWWAKAWKWAKWAKAKAKA.
anyways, see you later for real now.
Sep 26, 2011
rrrrrrrrrrrrapido
this one has got to be fast because we are in a hurry today. I've got 10 minutes.
Congrats to brandon for running good.
congrats to kelsey for being good at college.
stories:
first: we were eating some barbeque at night on the street (so good) and this car went by running on 3 wheels and a drum and shooting sparks everywhere. It just kinda skidded to a stop and then the other wheel came rolling by. No idea what happened but it was hilarious. First and probably last time I will ever see that.
second: an investigator has a huge pinky fingernail and I thought he was doing crack, but turns out it was to itch his ear. redneck.
I love you all. Later
Congrats to brandon for running good.
congrats to kelsey for being good at college.
stories:
first: we were eating some barbeque at night on the street (so good) and this car went by running on 3 wheels and a drum and shooting sparks everywhere. It just kinda skidded to a stop and then the other wheel came rolling by. No idea what happened but it was hilarious. First and probably last time I will ever see that.
second: an investigator has a huge pinky fingernail and I thought he was doing crack, but turns out it was to itch his ear. redneck.
I love you all. Later
Sep 19, 2011
meowowowowow
welp, that elder with whom I was working a ton got emergency transfered because of some reorganization in the mish. I've got to stop saying that I enjoy working with people.
We also got DVD players from church headquarters. It is preeeeetty sweet. We are only allowed to watch missionary training videos that they also sent us, but sometimes that is a whole lot more interesting than just doing a ton of practices all day. So I am happy. We are allowed to watch "the district 1" and "the district 2" which is like 2 documentaries that the church did about a district of missionaries for a transfer that highlights the different techniques that they use to transmit our messages and how we can help be people be happier and blah blah blah. It is oddly interesting to me. Like I am pretty addicted to be honest to these DVD's already. Sometimes our lunches fall through and we literally run home to make lunch and be able to watch the DVD's while we eat and then have like 15 minutes to talk about how we can apply some principle that we learned or something. Pretty nerdy I know. And by that I meant: PRETTY. AWESOME.
In other news, we had 8 people's baptisms fall through this month. And all of the reasons were rediculous and so that was pretty tough. We explain to everyone from the very beginning that we are there to help them realize their desires and be happy in a way that lasts by following our fearless leader (Jesus Christ), but somewhere along the way it seems like people decide that they know a better way or that it is too hard. We had this dude just be like "I am giving up" because he said that he doesn't care if he is happy or not. Also lots of people have been telling us that they know that what we teach is 100% true because when they prayed/pray about it God confirms it's truth to them, but that they were raised in another environment where they became used to not having to follow anything, and so they would rather not make any decision to act or follow Christ in any real way. They would rather make themselves believe that they "have him in their hearts" and that is what matters as if God is some kind of psycologist that just wants to make everyone feel happy and isn't looking for progress of any kind on our part.
If anybody reads the bible they will see that that mindset probably won't lead them to any significant source of lasting happiness. In fact, the book of James says that that idea of "I have faith but I don't do anything about it" isn't even real. It is that whole "faith without works is dead" thing. Christ commanded us to follow commandments for a reason, and in the book of revelation he says that we are like a glass of water, and if we are lukewarm then he spits us out. Obviously he doesn't want perfection right away, and there is such thing as repentance, but he wants us to decide to follow what we feel. To know in your heart what church Christ organized and which he is guiding and then to just be like "well, that is cool, but i don't care enough to do anything because I am afraid of family members or I've been taught something else and I trust that more than these new feeling that are coming from God" is pretty lukewarm. Luckily everyone can always change. All they need to do is decide and change. Hopefully one day they will.
One ballin' example of someone who did that was Saul from the bible. That dude had been taught to do a bunch of bad stuff, but when he got something more from heaven the guy took it and ran with it. So yeah, I wish people could be a little more courageous and follow God.
It is tough though. Following something spiritual, be it real or not, is not easy. It is a pretty lonesome life sometimes, as it keeps you from following the common trend of constantly making the same mistakes over and over again and not caring because you think you were born that way. It makes you stretch and reach for divine potential and sadly you end up being super weird and having no friends because that is just not normal. So I can see why a normal person wouldn't want to accept the invitation to be happier through following Christ. It is happy, but uncomfortable sometimes. Luckily we have the promise that our captian of old will be on our right and our left with angles round about us to bear us up and the spirit of comfort in our hearts.
But on a funny note... my hair is getting pretty long. I am gonna just cut it all off today. I was just doing this crazy hard core nerd part to make it less noticeable and slicking it back to make it look shorter. It is straight up James E. Faust style, but red. So just look him up to see what I look like.
Did you guys ever get that DVD of pictures I sent in the mail? I sent it like 5 or 6 months ago...
someone on our street turned 18 and had a crazy party untill 5 in the morning and it was so loud that we couldn't sleep. Well actually, I slept no problem. But my comp didn't sleep and he is pretty tired, so same thing. One thing he said was at one point he heard the DJ they had say, "ALL THE WEMON GET IN A CIRCLE... ARE YOU READY FOR THE GO-GO BOYS?!?!?" and then a bunch of techno started and they were all screaming and stuff. I was asleep so it may be true or not, but the way he explained it was hilarious because it was all in portuguese except the name Go-Go Boys. "Faça um círculo com a mulherada... VOCÊS ESTÃO PRONTAS PARA VER OS GO-GO BOYS!??!" Maybe it was a you had to be there thing....
Welp, times up. I am going to go buy some more oatmeal for my breakfasts this week.
ICH LIEBE DICH.
alls yalls.
until next week my
We also got DVD players from church headquarters. It is preeeeetty sweet. We are only allowed to watch missionary training videos that they also sent us, but sometimes that is a whole lot more interesting than just doing a ton of practices all day. So I am happy. We are allowed to watch "the district 1" and "the district 2" which is like 2 documentaries that the church did about a district of missionaries for a transfer that highlights the different techniques that they use to transmit our messages and how we can help be people be happier and blah blah blah. It is oddly interesting to me. Like I am pretty addicted to be honest to these DVD's already. Sometimes our lunches fall through and we literally run home to make lunch and be able to watch the DVD's while we eat and then have like 15 minutes to talk about how we can apply some principle that we learned or something. Pretty nerdy I know. And by that I meant: PRETTY. AWESOME.
In other news, we had 8 people's baptisms fall through this month. And all of the reasons were rediculous and so that was pretty tough. We explain to everyone from the very beginning that we are there to help them realize their desires and be happy in a way that lasts by following our fearless leader (Jesus Christ), but somewhere along the way it seems like people decide that they know a better way or that it is too hard. We had this dude just be like "I am giving up" because he said that he doesn't care if he is happy or not. Also lots of people have been telling us that they know that what we teach is 100% true because when they prayed/pray about it God confirms it's truth to them, but that they were raised in another environment where they became used to not having to follow anything, and so they would rather not make any decision to act or follow Christ in any real way. They would rather make themselves believe that they "have him in their hearts" and that is what matters as if God is some kind of psycologist that just wants to make everyone feel happy and isn't looking for progress of any kind on our part.
If anybody reads the bible they will see that that mindset probably won't lead them to any significant source of lasting happiness. In fact, the book of James says that that idea of "I have faith but I don't do anything about it" isn't even real. It is that whole "faith without works is dead" thing. Christ commanded us to follow commandments for a reason, and in the book of revelation he says that we are like a glass of water, and if we are lukewarm then he spits us out. Obviously he doesn't want perfection right away, and there is such thing as repentance, but he wants us to decide to follow what we feel. To know in your heart what church Christ organized and which he is guiding and then to just be like "well, that is cool, but i don't care enough to do anything because I am afraid of family members or I've been taught something else and I trust that more than these new feeling that are coming from God" is pretty lukewarm. Luckily everyone can always change. All they need to do is decide and change. Hopefully one day they will.
One ballin' example of someone who did that was Saul from the bible. That dude had been taught to do a bunch of bad stuff, but when he got something more from heaven the guy took it and ran with it. So yeah, I wish people could be a little more courageous and follow God.
It is tough though. Following something spiritual, be it real or not, is not easy. It is a pretty lonesome life sometimes, as it keeps you from following the common trend of constantly making the same mistakes over and over again and not caring because you think you were born that way. It makes you stretch and reach for divine potential and sadly you end up being super weird and having no friends because that is just not normal. So I can see why a normal person wouldn't want to accept the invitation to be happier through following Christ. It is happy, but uncomfortable sometimes. Luckily we have the promise that our captian of old will be on our right and our left with angles round about us to bear us up and the spirit of comfort in our hearts.
But on a funny note... my hair is getting pretty long. I am gonna just cut it all off today. I was just doing this crazy hard core nerd part to make it less noticeable and slicking it back to make it look shorter. It is straight up James E. Faust style, but red. So just look him up to see what I look like.
Did you guys ever get that DVD of pictures I sent in the mail? I sent it like 5 or 6 months ago...
someone on our street turned 18 and had a crazy party untill 5 in the morning and it was so loud that we couldn't sleep. Well actually, I slept no problem. But my comp didn't sleep and he is pretty tired, so same thing. One thing he said was at one point he heard the DJ they had say, "ALL THE WEMON GET IN A CIRCLE... ARE YOU READY FOR THE GO-GO BOYS?!?!?" and then a bunch of techno started and they were all screaming and stuff. I was asleep so it may be true or not, but the way he explained it was hilarious because it was all in portuguese except the name Go-Go Boys. "Faça um círculo com a mulherada... VOCÊS ESTÃO PRONTAS PARA VER OS GO-GO BOYS!??!" Maybe it was a you had to be there thing....
Welp, times up. I am going to go buy some more oatmeal for my breakfasts this week.
ICH LIEBE DICH.
alls yalls.
until next week my
Sep 12, 2011
Baaaawwwwwwllllllin'
So hey. This week flew by and I am pretty tired, but letttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt's crank out an email.
This week a bunch of cool stuff started happening. I just kinda realized that a lot of times I don't ask for some desires of my heart in my prayers, and there was no reason that I wasn't asking, so I started asking. For instance, I asked Heavenly Father to help us find people that really want commitments with Christ and just don't know where to find them, and then we went to go send email today and as we walked down the street we ran into a member of the church that was in the middle of asking his neighboor to hear our lessons right that instant and we marked a day with her. Then our phone rang immedeatly after and it was a member asking us to run over to her house because it was an emergency and it ended up being that she just got the feeling that she needed to talk to her cousin and needed a book of mormon and a pamphlet about the restoration of the gospel. And just a few days ago this lady called us and asked us to come over because she saw a card thingy from the church on the bus and felt something telling her that she needed to call that number. The list goes on, but the moral of the story is that prayers are cool. Sometimes that boggles my mind, and I don't really understand how he does it, but we see all the time that God hears our prayers. And the crazy part is that he answers them. Like, think of how busy he must be... my head just exploded.
Other than that we've just been working really hard. I have been working pretty closely with an Elder who is so funny. We talk on the phone everyday about life/work (not gay), and it is so refreshing to have someone that is not only funny, but is proactive in their work and does stuff without you asking them to do it. That reminds me of a time when dad asked me to mow the lawn and I mad up a lame excuse and put it off for a week because of laziness. And by "a time" i meant "a million times".
Everyone continues to love us. My birthday week was nuts because we ate so much. Soooooooo Muuuuuuch CAKKKKKEEEEE.
Also I keep having crazy dreams. Either I don't dream and it seems like I just shut my eyes and then pretty much immedeatly open them two seconds later and 8 hours has passed, or I have these crazy dreams that are all mixed up. I might start writing them down and send a "top 5 best dreams" list to you guys in a couple of weeks.
We had a pretty interesting lesson at church about the law of chastity, where the men here decided that a good way to teach your kids to avoid homosexual behavior is to point out gay people to them and say "son, that there, that is... weird." I can't wait to see the results of their super effective teaching efforts here in 10 years.
SOREN IS CRAWLING. sorry my caps lock got stuck on. soren is crawling. now just get him a pilot's liscence and a stephen hawking wheelchair and he'll be ready to go. I don't know what he'll be ready to go do, but it'll be... meh I am tired.
ANYWHO
I love you all and I hope you have a good week.
BYE
This week a bunch of cool stuff started happening. I just kinda realized that a lot of times I don't ask for some desires of my heart in my prayers, and there was no reason that I wasn't asking, so I started asking. For instance, I asked Heavenly Father to help us find people that really want commitments with Christ and just don't know where to find them, and then we went to go send email today and as we walked down the street we ran into a member of the church that was in the middle of asking his neighboor to hear our lessons right that instant and we marked a day with her. Then our phone rang immedeatly after and it was a member asking us to run over to her house because it was an emergency and it ended up being that she just got the feeling that she needed to talk to her cousin and needed a book of mormon and a pamphlet about the restoration of the gospel. And just a few days ago this lady called us and asked us to come over because she saw a card thingy from the church on the bus and felt something telling her that she needed to call that number. The list goes on, but the moral of the story is that prayers are cool. Sometimes that boggles my mind, and I don't really understand how he does it, but we see all the time that God hears our prayers. And the crazy part is that he answers them. Like, think of how busy he must be... my head just exploded.
Other than that we've just been working really hard. I have been working pretty closely with an Elder who is so funny. We talk on the phone everyday about life/work (not gay), and it is so refreshing to have someone that is not only funny, but is proactive in their work and does stuff without you asking them to do it. That reminds me of a time when dad asked me to mow the lawn and I mad up a lame excuse and put it off for a week because of laziness. And by "a time" i meant "a million times".
Everyone continues to love us. My birthday week was nuts because we ate so much. Soooooooo Muuuuuuch CAKKKKKEEEEE.
Also I keep having crazy dreams. Either I don't dream and it seems like I just shut my eyes and then pretty much immedeatly open them two seconds later and 8 hours has passed, or I have these crazy dreams that are all mixed up. I might start writing them down and send a "top 5 best dreams" list to you guys in a couple of weeks.
We had a pretty interesting lesson at church about the law of chastity, where the men here decided that a good way to teach your kids to avoid homosexual behavior is to point out gay people to them and say "son, that there, that is... weird." I can't wait to see the results of their super effective teaching efforts here in 10 years.
SOREN IS CRAWLING. sorry my caps lock got stuck on. soren is crawling. now just get him a pilot's liscence and a stephen hawking wheelchair and he'll be ready to go. I don't know what he'll be ready to go do, but it'll be... meh I am tired.
ANYWHO
I love you all and I hope you have a good week.
BYE
Sep 5, 2011
cheyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
This week was a bit weird.
here is a breif summary of the weirder parts.
Friday night - we were walking along and a car with this like nasty 15 year old girl and her old mom stopped and asked us to get in and go to a dance with them. They were members, but also they were being serious. My companion said, "DUDE. THAT WAS TEMPTING." gross.
Saturday night - this lady we are teaching was drunk and throwing herself at us and asked us to come into her house and I politely was like, "no way lady." So then she was like "COME TO THIS PARTY WITH ME IN THE CENTER OF SÂO PAULO. IT'LL BLOW YOUR MINDS" No thanks. gross.
Sunday afternoon - the old lady that was giving us lunch got me alone in her kitchen when my comp went to use the bathroom and whispered, "you are my princccceeeeee. MY ENCHANTING PRINCCCCCEEEEEE...! I LOOOVVEEE YOU!!!!" And kept trying to get close to me as I was like "WHAT THE FREAK LADY?!?!?!" in my head and running away from her. she's like a million years old. When my companion came back there wasn't really time to tell him what happened so I just had to avoid her. When we left, she was like, "elder... come sit on the couch with me..." and I was like, "no way. see you later. you are creepy." And she just laughed.
So yeah, that is the point we've gotten to. pretty frustrating.
Other than that we are just making people happy in HEALTHY AND HOLY ways. Everyone loves us, even if it is to an unreasonable extent sometimes. I think that everyone should talk to the missionaries. We make people happy and our message is cool. Even people that don't really want to learn about the church should talk to the missionaries, because we don't even teach about our church in comparison with others. We just teach about Jesus Christ, in a unique and interactive way that makes EVERYONE happy.
"But Elderrrrrrrrr, I already learn about Jesus Christttt..." Shutttttt upppppp. That is a lame excuseeeeeee. If you really learn about Christ it is because you enjoy it, and so you can spend 5 or 10 minutes with missionaries and learn a little bit more and you will continue to enjoy it.
"But Elderrrrrrrrrr, my beleifs are different and I don't want to mix themmmm..." Also a lame excuse. The last thing that we ever do is force our beliefs down someone else's throat. One universal christian belief is that God responds to our prayers. And so we always teach what we teach and invite people to pray about it in order to know that it is true. It is literally impossible for you to be forced into a new set of beleifs by missionaries from our church. We invite, you pray, and then you do whatever you want.
"But Elderrrrr, I heard your church is super weirdddd..." Lame excuse number 3. One of the things that we hear most is, "oh man, I thought your church was like a weird cult, but you guys are just normal. I am really happy I let you guys in my house. I was totally misinformed."
"But Elderrrr, I feel weird just calling them up and inviting them overrrrr...." Alright then, there are a few things you can do:
1)If you feel wierd because you think they might be busy, just call them. They will probably cry from being so happy.
2)If you feel wierd because you don't know them, you probably already know a member of the church. Call up the member of the church and talk to them with that member. It can be in your house, in the church, at the members house, at a park, in a plane, on the street, in a boat, in a cardboard box etc.
3)Go to church on sunday with your bros and talk to them there for the first time.
So yeah to all of you that don't regularly talk with missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints you should look up the church online at mormon.org and ask for a visit because it is FREE and it is AWESOME and you will enjoy it. trust meeeeeeeeee pleassssssssssssssssssssssseeeeeeee.
In other news I heard indirectly about a hurricane bigger than the whole world that made everyone evacuate new york. I want to hear what really happened though so, someone send me an email about that. I really doubt I heard the whole truth.
21 YEARS OLD THIS WEEK. THURSDAY IMA GONNA OPEN THAT CAP'N CRUNCH BOX I GOT IN THE MAIL AND EAT A BOWL. THAT COUNT DOWN IS ON.
it is fun that kelsey is getting obsessed about dating. BYU...
I didn't shave yet today and I look like a red headed paul bunion that went to prison camp.
we're gonna play basketball. There is a college basketball player in my zone. Should be fun... not.
LOVE YOU ALL remember to smile because life is ballin. we can actually be forgiven for stupid stuff we have done/do. that blows my mind pretty much daily.
BYE.
here is a breif summary of the weirder parts.
Friday night - we were walking along and a car with this like nasty 15 year old girl and her old mom stopped and asked us to get in and go to a dance with them. They were members, but also they were being serious. My companion said, "DUDE. THAT WAS TEMPTING." gross.
Saturday night - this lady we are teaching was drunk and throwing herself at us and asked us to come into her house and I politely was like, "no way lady." So then she was like "COME TO THIS PARTY WITH ME IN THE CENTER OF SÂO PAULO. IT'LL BLOW YOUR MINDS" No thanks. gross.
Sunday afternoon - the old lady that was giving us lunch got me alone in her kitchen when my comp went to use the bathroom and whispered, "you are my princccceeeeee. MY ENCHANTING PRINCCCCCEEEEEE...! I LOOOVVEEE YOU!!!!" And kept trying to get close to me as I was like "WHAT THE FREAK LADY?!?!?!" in my head and running away from her. she's like a million years old. When my companion came back there wasn't really time to tell him what happened so I just had to avoid her. When we left, she was like, "elder... come sit on the couch with me..." and I was like, "no way. see you later. you are creepy." And she just laughed.
So yeah, that is the point we've gotten to. pretty frustrating.
Other than that we are just making people happy in HEALTHY AND HOLY ways. Everyone loves us, even if it is to an unreasonable extent sometimes. I think that everyone should talk to the missionaries. We make people happy and our message is cool. Even people that don't really want to learn about the church should talk to the missionaries, because we don't even teach about our church in comparison with others. We just teach about Jesus Christ, in a unique and interactive way that makes EVERYONE happy.
"But Elderrrrrrrrr, I already learn about Jesus Christttt..." Shutttttt upppppp. That is a lame excuseeeeeee. If you really learn about Christ it is because you enjoy it, and so you can spend 5 or 10 minutes with missionaries and learn a little bit more and you will continue to enjoy it.
"But Elderrrrrrrrrr, my beleifs are different and I don't want to mix themmmm..." Also a lame excuse. The last thing that we ever do is force our beliefs down someone else's throat. One universal christian belief is that God responds to our prayers. And so we always teach what we teach and invite people to pray about it in order to know that it is true. It is literally impossible for you to be forced into a new set of beleifs by missionaries from our church. We invite, you pray, and then you do whatever you want.
"But Elderrrrr, I heard your church is super weirdddd..." Lame excuse number 3. One of the things that we hear most is, "oh man, I thought your church was like a weird cult, but you guys are just normal. I am really happy I let you guys in my house. I was totally misinformed."
"But Elderrrr, I feel weird just calling them up and inviting them overrrrr...." Alright then, there are a few things you can do:
1)If you feel wierd because you think they might be busy, just call them. They will probably cry from being so happy.
2)If you feel wierd because you don't know them, you probably already know a member of the church. Call up the member of the church and talk to them with that member. It can be in your house, in the church, at the members house, at a park, in a plane, on the street, in a boat, in a cardboard box etc.
3)Go to church on sunday with your bros and talk to them there for the first time.
So yeah to all of you that don't regularly talk with missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints you should look up the church online at mormon.org and ask for a visit because it is FREE and it is AWESOME and you will enjoy it. trust meeeeeeeeee pleassssssssssssssssssssssseeeeeeee.
In other news I heard indirectly about a hurricane bigger than the whole world that made everyone evacuate new york. I want to hear what really happened though so, someone send me an email about that. I really doubt I heard the whole truth.
21 YEARS OLD THIS WEEK. THURSDAY IMA GONNA OPEN THAT CAP'N CRUNCH BOX I GOT IN THE MAIL AND EAT A BOWL. THAT COUNT DOWN IS ON.
it is fun that kelsey is getting obsessed about dating. BYU...
I didn't shave yet today and I look like a red headed paul bunion that went to prison camp.
we're gonna play basketball. There is a college basketball player in my zone. Should be fun... not.
LOVE YOU ALL remember to smile because life is ballin. we can actually be forgiven for stupid stuff we have done/do. that blows my mind pretty much daily.
BYE.
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