I AM FREE!!!

I got transfered again. While it should be annoying, I feel good about it. I had 8 people firm to get baptised in january already and a kid we were going to baptise this week, but whatever. Me and my comp got transfered. That happened in 3 areas here close. BUT WHATEVS. I AM FREE!!!

I started thinking about it, and this transfer means a few things:

1) It is almost certainly my last time that I will get transfered.
2) I probably will only have 2 more companions
3) I am not a leader of other missionaries anymore, so if somebody doesn't know what they are doing or they need help, I have nothing that I can do about it. I can just relax and not worry about anything besides feeling and following the holy spirit. YES. THAT IS THE BEST PART!!! No more worrying about some kid who wasn't prepped or is super immature or who wants to kill their companion. It isn't my problem anymore.

I feel like I have been preparing for this part of my mission my whole life. I know what I am doing finally and I feel like my relationship with our father in heaven is as good as it has ever been, and I can just ask him to use me as a tool everyday and go hunt spiritual expereinces and get lost in the work with the people. No more wasting time with cat fights between missionaries or anything like that. I can just wake up and feast on simple cool little experiences every day until I go home now. WHAT A RELIEF. I was getting sooooooo tired. I just can't explain how happy I am to finally just be a normal missionary again.

And the cool part is, is this feeling of "job well done" that rests in my heart. I have been killing myself lately to get stuff done and not complain and just try to be as good as I could. I was totally ready and willing to just finish my mission working my booty off and waking up more and more exhausted every day, BUT I DON'T HAVE TO. WHAT A RELEIF!!! It is a good feeling. This is like the greatest christmas present ever.

The people in this ward are pretty sad that we are leaving. I am trying to just leave without saying good-bye to anyone because they are all going to cry. A few people found out and they are pretty mad. They said that we are the coolest missionary companionship that has ever passed in their ward, and the ward attendance has gone up like 80 people in these 3 months. I don't even know how because we've only baptized like 5 people. Oh well, they'll get over it. One missionary goes out, another one comes in. Life goes on.

Funny story from lunch. I tried to help and wash dishes, but the lady was just sitting there tapping her foot watching me and then out of no where she was like "GET OUT OF HERE! YOU ARE EMBARASSING ME! I HAVE NEVER SEEN SOMEONE WASH DISHES SO SLOW IN MY WHOOOOLE LIFEEEE!!!" and so I was like "whatevs" and just went to eat some dessert. So then she comes in and asked my to cut some dessert, and I did, and she lost it. She just went crazy laughing like mom does. No one really knows why, but she was getting hysterical and just saying, "I CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU TO GET MARRIED ELDER!!! IT WILL BE SOOOO FUNNNYYYY!!!"

long story short, I haven't changed that much as far as moving really slow goes. If anything I got worse apparently.

I might get a companion from moçambique (african country). That would be fun. but who knows what will happen. This transfer will be strange.

BUT, I will call sometime. I don't know when, because I still don't know where I am going or with whom. I know that I am opening up the area from scratch because I am getting transfered and my next comp will be a newbie. So I will try to make friends with a computer and a webcam until sunday. I am not really worried about it. The companion I get will decide when I call you guys. I will see if I can't send Rachael a message before sunday with the president's permission.

It is super hot here. So when you see me I will be skinnier, more sunburned and dirtier than you have probably ever seen me. That is... if I call with skype... dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnnn


Bye, I love you all

hey‏

So, we had a pretty decent week. We had a baptism DURING our ward Christmas party on saturday. It was way cool because the whole ward was there. Fun times and a lot of food. Plus there was this kid there that is 9 years old who is an active member of the church but his mom is inactive, and then after watching the baptism he convinced his mom to come back to church and also decided to get baptized. Being that he is 9 years old it ends up being technically someone that we have to teach in order for him to get baptized, so we are just going to teach his mom. She said she will for sure come back to church and is excited. It is always nice to see inactive people coming back to church.

Speaking of which, there is this family in our ward that was super inactive but loves missionary work and we were working with them to find people to teach, and they randomly decided to practice what they preach and came back to church and are doing temple preparation. That is a good feeling to see a family being united in that way.

We can't really take any credit for that because we did literally nothing, but then again we can't really take credit for any of the work we do. The more time that passes the more I realize that a super effective missionary ends up doing very little other than just attempting to follow the spirit and rolling with the situations that come from your prayers. For instance, we made a goal of baptizing every week, and it was looking like this week we weren't going to have anyone to help despite our best efforts and trying pretty hard, but then we did a fast and then that 9 year old kid just walked up and asked us to baptize him this Saturday. And actually, pretty much everything we do ends up being like that. We always make up the master plans that we think are so cool and effective, and then nothing ends up coming from it because we are lame and the Lord just picks up our slack and makes things happen.

Things like that make me realize the true value of things like Duty to God and Personal Progress, because instead of focusing on a superficial knowledge of gospel topics, those church programs focus on helping you create a legit relationship with God and learn how to trust him in a real way and follow the spirit. I feel like that is the only really important part of preparation for a mission, or for life.

Before the mish, I thought I would study the scriptures and be able to prove stuff to myself or other people through logic, or somehow accomplish things in the mission field through my own talents... but sadly for me it doesn't work like that. You can be a total idiot that grew up in a cave and knows nothing about nothing, but if you really sincerely love God in a real heartfelt way and follow the spirit for reals you'll be ultra-successful in anything that is important (i.e. missionary work and/or real life), because in the end he does all the heavy lifting and you are just supposed to follow him. Like there is this missionary in our zone who is awkward and knows very little scripture wise and has no social skills and is super shy and he baptizes like crazy. And they are all simply people that do everything themselves and he doesn't even really work that hard. He just asks them to stop smoking and they do. And the difference comes from the fact that God prepared the people he teaches. He just asks God where he should go and what he should say when he gets there, and if he gets in a situation where he doesn't know what to do he seeks inspiration from prayer and everything he does works out perfectly.

So long story short, everyone really should consider doing Duty to God or Personal Progress, but not just to do them. Like really look for the spirit and try to learn to recognize it and build their trust in it, because I feel like my confidence in my own talents really hindered me for the first year and a half of my mission and those programs are designed to help people not do that. That is what I get for not listening to anyone and not doing my Duty to God. LESSON LEARNED. Now if only I had a time machine....

As this transfer winds down I notice two things.

1) the last 3 transfers went by really fast

2) I only have 3 transfers left. That is bad news.

I feel like I am just starting to learn. I wish so bad that I could just go back and restart. I wasted so much time on my mission because of my arrogance and my pride, and if I just would have followed the church programs and done what the prophets asked of me I would of been way more prepared. I feel like I have a heavy debt to pay off in the next 4 months. Luckily for me the Lord forgives us for our stupid mistakes when we really repent. We'll see how much I have repented when I get home and start being normal again, but however it ends up working out I am really grateful for my mission. The Lord basically took the time to sit me down and show me how useless it is to trust in yourself. Even if against other people you are comparatively successful, your satisfaction ends up being very little compared to what it could be if you would just accept your own nothingness.

Life's greatest satisfaction comes from fulfilling our divine purpose. Our divine purpose is to follow the example of our savior, qualifying for and learning how to follow the Holy Ghost and then consecrating everything that we have and are. Only through this will we receive a fullness of joy at judgement day, and I am 100% convinced that nothing else will give us peace on earth like following Him will. I have tried out both sides and I am convinced.

I love you all and I thank you all for supporting me enough to let me go and have this experience. I hope that I never am the same after this. I guess only time will let us see what happens. I'll probably just go back to being an idiot or something. We'll see.

later

send me what will be the best time to talk to you on skype.

blairs‏

So I thought the Christmas card that Rachael and Brandon made was pretty funny. I liked the subtle use of laser cats. Our family has really good taste. I haven't made my Christmas card yet, but we're trying to get it made sometime. Or at least we think about it time to time.

 

So this week I got the opportunity to help out at church on sunday with administering the sacrament. That was a pretty decent experience, but I couldn't really figure out why I felt so good/grateful to be something that I have done a million times and I have never really thought about that much. Then people were going up and bearing testimony of what they know/feel/believe during the meeting and that lady that came back to church last week went up and bore testimony for the first time in her life even though she was baptised 3 years ago. And it was simple/awesome. She was just like, "I, for the first time, feel like I can really say that I know the church is true and that God loves me" and then said some other stuff. But me and my companion were talking about it later, and really we didn't do anything other than feel some small feelings and walk to her house. We just basically did what the Lord asked us to do, and that was pretty much nothing. But even so, it had a pretty big influence in her life. That makes me see why service can be so rewarding. Not because you can take credit for pretty much anything, but because you can see the Lord starting to trust you with essential parts of important things. Like, it was and is obviously him that is changing this lady's life and making her feel happy and loved, but he trusted us enough to incorperate us into his plan for her. That is when I realized why I felt so grateful for being able to pass the sacrament. It is the same thing. Him letting us try to show our love for him through simple service.

 

It is like Elder Uchtdorf's talk from last conference about how we are important to God. He just taught that when we love the savior and focus our hearts on him, we'll feel happy and loved in any circumstance. It is also like the translation of this chirldren's him in portuguese that goes more or less like this: "The love of the savior I feel in every part. I feel it's warmth wherever I go. He knows that I'll follow him, I'll give my life to him, because I love the savior and I know that he loves me."

 

Like, obviously we'll never be perfect at following him or giving him everything we've got, or even loving him sadly because we're all pretty lame sometimes, but when you have little moments where things just click and you do do those things it is a pretty good feeling. Significantly better and more fulfilling than anything else that I have ever felt.

 

But other than that not much is going on. The members here found out that I have been out on my mission for a while and they are trying to make me feel trunky by going on my facebook and looking at pictures of my friends and trying to print them off and make me look at them. The sad thing is that they really do get to me sometimes, so help me out and pray for me to have amnesia or something and not remember that one day I'll have a normal life again. Whenever I think about that I feel this terrible clenching feeling in my stomach and it makes it hard for me to focus on anything worthwhile.

 

But I love you all. I really don't have much to say anymore. It is all the same wonderful stuff. All I can say is that the best thing that can happen to anyone is for them to realize how lame they are and start asking God for help. It has been good for me the few times that I have started doing that and way good for the people we teach.

 

So on that note, later.

hey hey hey‏

So this week was awesome. When our new president first got here he shared this parable about how giant chinese bamboo grows for years and years underground making a powerful and sturdy root system without you ever noticing and then grows like 90 feet in 6 weeks or something like that. I think I am finally getting to the going upwards part.

Ever since the time that I realized that I have no time left on my mission, I have been really focusing on being a legit representative of God in authority and power to take the best advantage of it. I think it is really paying off. I am just having so much fun with everything. It is so hardcore.

There has been a bajillion good experiences that have come from this and I realize that every one of them comes from being humble enough to try to constantly keep myself in tune with the spirit and then always confirm what I do or say with God first. Apparently he wasn't joking when he said "Be thou humble and the Lord thy God shall lead the by the hand and give thee answer to thy prayers". Who knew, right? Like it is so crazy. I am getting more and more confident in it what he prompts me to do as time goes on, so the experiences just get better and better. It is one of the best feelings ever to know that because you are focusing on doing what is right and asking Him how to do it, He trusts you enough to let you play a part in helping his other children. And then you throw in a companion that is in tune with the spirit too and stuff just goes crazy. The best part is knowing that none of the success came directly from either of us, but as a result of just regularly asking the Lord what we should do. When the holy ghost is around it is like having the force or something. Whatever God wants you to do you can get done.

So that is cool.

But in other news, we are just working a lot. I regularly am just so thankful for the experiences that I have that I get emotional. I think I almost cried from gratitude like 2 times on saturday. We got to give a little girl that was having these crazy nightmares for months a blessing. That was way special. There was some other stuff too, but I feel like if I go to far into details that will take away from it a bit. Let's just say I love being a missionary.

Nothing that funny happened. Just lots of cool people.

I love you all. Family especially... an friends too. haha.



k

bye.

blah blah blah‏

I feel like I have written a millionthousandgagillion letters about nothing recently. Sometimes I try to just talk about gospel topics with the hopes that one of my friends who reads my blog will just randomly decide to follow Christ and be happy, but my desire to write letters is rapidly declining. You guys are lucky that email exists, because if it didn't I'd probably write you guys like 3 times in the next 6 months... BUT that does not mean that I don't love doing what I do. I just think that there isn't much that I haven't described yet. Brazil is still brazil and the mission is still the mission.

One cool thing that happened this week was to see all of our recent converts and soon to be converts being loved by the old members. This ward is really good about that. The lady we baptised like 2 weeks ago looks like she has been going to church for a million years and is visibly happier all the time. Also last week these random people just showed up at church and then decided to get baptised this saturday after praying and thinking about it. So yeah. We'll have helped 5 people get baptised in one month's time and all of them were just friends of members of the church who liked the church a lot after they made a visit. Like with these two that will happen this weekend we just kind of went over to their house afte church and they asked us how they could be baptised and after we explained it they decided to. We really did pretty much nothing, but that is how it should work anyways. It is too bad that it can't always happen like that becuase it helps you relax a bit and not stress about what you can do to help them that much.

But other than that we (me and my comp) might make a christmas card today. It should be pretty cool. I don't know what it will look like yet, but we'll send you one.

I am happy.

It is getting hot again.

OH, something important. I don't know if you guys will send me a Christmas package, but if you do send me a nettipot. My allergies are going crazy, and I am needing some sinus rinseage. And maybe some generic allergy medicine. They were going crazy because of my blankets that I sleep with. They are these horrible dirty itchy wool blankets, but I washed them today and they are drying on the line outside of our house so hopefully that will help... I can't wait to use a dryer again one day.

We have a family of 4 that we are teaching that went to church together this week, and to get baptised they need to get married so they can keep the commandments and what not, and the dad was all about it. He was like "we should have gotten married a million years ago, but we didn't, so let's do it RIGHT NOW!!!" and the wife got all freaked out. It seems like she is afraid of marrying him. They have been living together for about 18 years without any marital problems. I don't get that at all, but I am assuming that it has something to do with the brasilian wives tales that say crazy stuff about being a pagan and being married and pregnant women. They believe that if you aren't baptised then a hairy monster comes and eats you. That helps us out sometimes to be honest. But they also believe that if you get married your whole life will go bad. That is frustrating. They also believe that if a pregnant woman asks you for something and you don't give it to her your eye will swell up (I call that pink eye). That is hilarious.

BUT ANYWAYS

I love you all. I made the back cover of my planner a picture of mom and dad and dad is saying "call your mom" in portuguese. Ima call yalls in skype here in about a month.

SAID (translation of a slang term for "see you later" here)

WELP, one more transfer gone, only 4 to go.

To respond to your visa question, I don't know if it would be a super good idea for you guys to pick me up, but I think it would be sweet to vacation in brasil a week or 2 after I get home. The problem is that my mission area isn't the most touristy place. It is basically a bunch of drug and prostitute infested ghettos. There are apparently some cool stuff to do here in São Paulo, but I don't know what it is because the people who live where I have served can't afford any of it really and none of it is in our mission. So I think the best thing to do would be plan on going to one of the northern beaches. Cities like Fortaleza, João Pessoa, etc. (or even the cool parts of São Paulo) are a bit more tourist friendly. There are cruise lines that run through the bigger tourist cities. You could also probably ask David Scott who spent some time down here. Just however you plan anything, think of me as a translator and not a super good guide or anything. Just plan it as you would a trip to any city that we've never been, and I will be the one who can figure out how to get where we need to go and ask directions.

Unless you wanna chill with a bunch of thuggin' brasilians who shoot people and life in dirt floor houses and stuff. Then I can hook you up. You decide.

But me and my comp Elder Taggart stayed together. We had a baptism of a single mom and her kid this last week and that was cool but then we weren't going to have a lot of people who were super excited to follow Christ that we could help out anymore. That is when we went to church and a bajillion people showed up that we have never seen before. It was a busy day and now we have a lot to do in the next few weeks which is good. Totally lucky too because we were just going to knock a bunch of doors. NOT ANYMORE (but actually yeah we'll still do that because we always do...).

I am way tireder.

I was just looking at these smiley face things and I think these ones are pretty gay.

But this one is freaking awesome.

as is this one .

It is bug bite season. As a result I have a bunch of bug bites.

Hey, I saw an elder that I haven't seen for over a year and he said that I look way different and about 5 years older. Hopefully that is true cause that would be legit. My beard/stache grows in in like 12 hours no problem, so maybe it is true. WHO KNOWS.

I was thinking the other day that I probably will need kelsey to get me and my friends an apartment when she gets one towards the end of next semester. But I am not sure so maybe you guys can inform me on that one.

Bluuuuuuuurghhh.

there isn't really anything new. I am just trying to work so hard that I can't think about anything else. I have to make myself think about what we can do more to help the people we are helping in the shower and before I go to bed and when I wake up so I don't end up just wasting time thinking about school or dating or something. But it is all good because there is a ton to do here.

I love you all. Sorry that was a lame letter. Nothing new for now.

till next week...?

Tacos and Guacamole

So we had a fiesta mexicana. Everyone was pretty grossed out by the whole "avacado with salt" idea (we had guacamole). I thought it was amazing. But they just eat avacado with sugar and milk like a milk shake here so it was something new to them.

thanks for the information. They will buy my tickets home soon.

I am super duper tired. I feel wayyyyy skinny too. I look like I am 12 years old. But people tell me I look like I am 25 or 30 so whatever.

uhhhhhh... we have a couple more baptisms of some people planned for this saturday. Yayayyyyy. They are way excited too.



One thing that came to my head right now is that there are a bunch of people that read this, members of the church or not, might not understand what baptisms is or why we do it, so I will give a brief explination while I think of other stuff to say.

Baptism is way simple to explain:

In any country the people have certain rights. For example here in Brazil they have public school and even public colleges that are way nicer than they private ones and anyone who is brasilian can go there. That is a right of being part of the brasilian people.

In a similar way, the scriptures say that when you get baptised, it is the only way to take the name of Christ upon you and become a part of his people. It is as if you become a citizen God's country or something like that. So with that you get some benefits, and in my opinion the two biggest ones are the "gift of the Holy Ghost" and a "remission of your sins". Those two things are way boss, and the only cost for them is being baptised with Christ's authority that only his worthy representatives have, keeping his commandments, and remembering him. So that is pretty doable for anyone, and it has some big time benefits.

The holy ghost is cool because it shows you pretty much anything you'll need to know or that you need to do and helps you be happy. It is like a buddy to hang out with, and also serves as a personal guide. So just imagine, you want to know if it is a good idea to take a job offer or not, but you can't see the future. With the gift of the Holy Ghost, you have a way of knowing if it is a good idea or not, and you can trust him because God sees the future (it is like star wars pretty much).

Then there is the remission of sins part. That means all of the sucky feelings that people get from doing retarded stuff in their past goes away. You just feel at peace for everything you have ever done wrong in the past knowing that God forgave you and that it isn't a part of your life anymore. Also Christ says that all who have been baptised will recieve forgiveness again after doing something stupid in the future basically as many times as they are willing to go after it and repent. Long story short, you get to feel peace of conscience forever. Pretty killer stuff.

So the people that I am going to baptise with my comp have learned a bunch about who Christ is and what he does, and they are down with making a life long promise to follow him and make that a part of their lives. And best of all they are excited because they are going to recieve forgiveness for their sins and they will recieve the Holy Ghost. And it is real. TOOOOOooo LEGITTTTTtttt TOOOooo QUITTTTTttt.

Lots of people get confused and think that we just go around making people a member of our church. But what I explained is really all we do. Being a member of a church is but a small part of following Christ and though it is an essential part, it is very far from the focus of your life. Really we help people go for discipleship and the church just helps them with that.

So yeah, if your life sucks (and even if it doesn't suck that bad but you get sad sometimes), it is almost certain that this comes from a lack of focus on Christ and how he can help you be clean from sin. That goes for members of our church as well as non members. Pretty much 99% of problems that lead to legit sadness stem from that. So just let the missionaries help you learn about it because they are willing to teach you just about this for free and they are literally the most qualified to do this out of anyone that you'll find. And I can tell you from experience that we get in a mindset where really the only thing that is important to us is the happiness of those we teach. So it is just an all around good experience.



Well I didn't really even think of any new stories. I peed my pants randomly this week. Again. I guess that was funny.

I really don't care about that much besides doing this work anymore. It is as if the closer I get to coming home the farther I get to wanting to even think about that. I feel like I will just stay out here forever.

One of my friends that I made out here (Elder Redford) is going home in one week. He is probably one of the elders that I have met that best understands his purpose. He is in my district right now and we are having to do at least one or two companion exchanges a week just to get everyone who wants to be baptised interviewed and ready to go. It has really been a blast. We have been getting a good number of people who are interested in following Christ. it isn't just people who like the church, these people are really converted to Christ. Like I feel so greatful to have been a part of this here because we have been able to help quite a few people change their lives here.

BUT, I have nothing else to say. I'll try harder to find something funny for next week

I love you all and I hope you are putting tools in my room from time to time.