moms update

because we we out of town the posts got mixed up. so read the March 19th post first and the post just previous second so that it will make sense....

So you guys are moving this week, and I might have to move next week. Haha. Just when you think that it is your last area... you start to realize that that may not be the case. But we'll see next p-day because I'll get the call letting me know on sunday.

In any case, I wanted to know if you have any preference with what I do with all my clothes? I was just going to give everything away being that it is all way old. I was thinking about coming home with just my suits and the clothes on my back... but let me know what you want me to do because I am open to suggestions.

I went to go try and buy shoes this week, but no luck (I am out in the middle of no where and they don't sell dress shoes in my area). So because of laziness I am going to put a ton of duct tape in the inside of my shoe and just ride out the last 6 weeks on frankestein boots. the last pair have officially bitten the dust.

So in other news, we had a cool week. Maria (super funny old lady) decided to get baptised. That was a good time. She was a super strong catholic and prayed and got a pretty direct response through the Holy Ghost that she needed to be baptized in our church. So, this week I was kind of thinking about why it is so important to the Lord for people to be in one specific church, because there are tons of good people in all churches who are really bettering their lives and who are sincerely growing close to the savior through study and prayer and application of doctrine. I figured out that at least one of the reasons is the fact that the callings that we receive in our church have a fundamental role in shaping us and providing us with the specific challenges that we need to develope new attributes in our quest for perfection (romans 12:1-8). If your calling isn't by God, it won't take you to perfection. So long story short it is a good idea to do what God tells you to do (including join his church and accept a calling).

Other than that Not much is going on. We had a meeting with Elder Godoy, who is a 70 that serves in the area presidency here. He is way cool. He isn't one of the general authorities that comes and tries to wow you by telling you he had a crazy revelation with Jesus Christ or something like that. He is just wayyyyyyy humble and fun and spiritual. He reminds me a lot of pres. jackson that already went home (my ex. pres.). If I want to be like some GA it is him.

But anyway, we are going to deep clean our house. It has been kind of windy and now I'm sneezing a lot because there is dust everywhere. Do you know how to clean a tile floor really good with just a broken squeegie, a tupperware, pinesol and a rag? Brasilians do. something that I'll never be able to apply again in my life because cleaning is a peice of cake in the US. Just like washing clothes by hand. meh. But at least it makes my life a bit more comfortable for now.

Wellllp

So I stayed in the same area. Phwew. we've got 5 people who are pretty ready to be baptized this month, and we are going to just look for people for the next missionaries to baptize for free to make them happy. Yay for selfless service

We had a 70 come through our mission (I am pretty sure I already talked about him) and he was like, "If you expect to have some amount of success or improvement in your life after the mission, then you need to finish accelerating. If you start going downhill right at the end, that trend will probably continue for months or even years."

So I decided to go crazy. It is better than getting tired, and it will help me hit the ground running when I get home rather than expect some kind of break from work. So far so good. I got put in as a leader again too so that gives me something to do. I'm still with my same companion too. The poor kid will go 3 transfers with his trainer. That would have driven me nuts. But he is doing good and says that it is all good with him, so whatever.

Luckily I am being blessed with a mental block that is helping me out. I can't really imagine what it would be like to be home, and when members try to get me to get on facebook and stuff I don't even have any desire to think about home or get letters or anything. There are some elders that go crazy at the end, but I honestly couldn't even care less about going home. At least for now...? So hopefully that continues untill the day before I go home so that I can work hard and then enjoy the ride home.

I weighed myself and I am 205 pounds, so that is only like 25 pounds less than I was when I left. So that isn't that bad, right?

But yeah....

welp we're in a hurry and there isn't that much to say.

LOVE YOU ALL!!!

See you in a few weeks.

blargh‏

Welp, things are going really well here. Like we've still got our
normal difficulties and such, but it is being reallllllly easy to get
everything done these last few days. Experience tells me that that
means that a ton of crap is about to hit some hidden fan. But until
that happens I'll just enjoy the ride. My comp was able to get his
second baptism in yesterday, so this saturday I'll give him a rest and
do it for him. This saturday will be the baptism of this lady called
maria. She is epic. She's like 65 years old and says some hilarious
stuff. But was also this roman catholic rock (I'm not sure that means
the same thing in english), and was always telling us she'd only be
baptized on the condition that God revealed to her that she should. I
was cool with that so we just kind of let her pray and fast and then
this last week she was like, "I got my answer yesterday morning. I
know. I am prepared to make a life-long covenant" and I jumped up from
the couch and did an air punch like an anime cartoon. Just that the
whole freeze frame thing didn't work so it looked wayyyy lame.

But one thing that made me feel good was that another missionary went
there on a split and tried to force her to be baptized with logic and
she was like "no way. not till I get an answer" and proceded to tell
him that she feels that the way that I teach makes her feel closer to
Christ. Clearly that isn't because of me, but at least that means I've
got the spirit of my captain with me. So I'm doing at least something
right. Yay for not being a total failure.

Another interesting thing thing was that I was reading the scriptures
and I came across Ether 12:37 and felt that if I just continue doing
what I am doing and repenting of my poopy parts than the whole purpose
of these two years will have been realized. And I am down with that,
so I imagine I'll get a pretty good feeling when I am done as long as
I don't randomly go crazy. We'll see.

I think I lost like 10 pounds when I was sick. Not that I had a lot of
weight to lose, but whatever, right?

SHOUT OUT TO GMA JOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! happy birthday. Here in like 2
months I'll give you a kiss for my present, so hang in there.

I've been learning tongue twisters in portuguese with my comp...?

Somebody please look up when I need to register for classes so that I
don't miss out on that just to make sure that I can do it after I get
home.

I love you all, not much else to say.

Stay classy

Welp. Time flies. And apparently accelerates expodentially.

Lets see. I got pretty sick these last couple days. But that is pretty normal. It is actually so normal that when people here say "stomach ache" they actually mean "diarrhea". I know it is gross to say, but I can't let this one go: I had eaten, among other things, a ton of eggplant that is like florescent purple, and that resulted in seeing every color of the rainbow (except for blue) in the toilet over the course of 48 hours. Fun times. But I am mostly better now. My intestines are just tired.

uhhh, yesterday I saw something pretty cool. It was a blind couple that was on a date and trying to get on a city bus. They were having a blast even though they were having tons of difficulties and what not. It just made me realize that life is what you make it. They were having way more fun than me at the moment when I saw them and I technically have more reasons to smile than they do, but I was choosing not to smile and think about my "stomach ache" and they were choosing to smile. So they win. LESSON LEARNED.

what else... I really appreciate everyone who writes me. Especially grandma velma. She is a boss. I was thinking the other day how I want to be a grandparent like her when I get older. I think I have like 100 million letters from her in my suitcase, and they are all way personal and come with cool stickers and 5 dollar bills. It makes me feel really special. so I just thought I should give her a thank-you. THANK-YOU GRANDMA!!! YOU ARE THE COOLEST!!! I LOVE YOU!!! hopefully I yelled that loud enough for her to hear. (joke: I am using email, I don't have to yell)

yep. Everyone (including my belt) keeps telling me I am getting way skinny. That tells me it is time to take some anti-worm medication. I'll see what I can do...

We had a baptism yesterday. It was that lady that I was talking about that turned her whole life around. Way special. I was happy and a half. Plus it was the first time ever that my companion got to actually baptize somebody. So that is cool. Hopefully we'll have one this week too. for now it seems like everything is all set and ready to go, but you never know. We are getting way blessed here so thanks for all of your prayers.

less than 2 months now. I hope I don't waste one second. Getting sick was super frustrating because I had to go home and try to sleep it off last night. Luckily that worked and now I can crank out a super good week. A member of the church sent us a text this morning at 6:35 saying that she met a person who wants our visits. So hopefully that works out.

But that is it. I love you all and I'll see you all soon.

meowmeowmeow

Well, once again I've hit an interesting landmark time wise on the mission: I have been with my current companion for more time than I have left. Weird. Somehow going home seems like it is getting farther and farther away now. Hopefully that is a good thing...?

In this area we have had the opportunity to teach some pretty cool people. I think the changes that these people are making in their lives is a bit bigger than a lot of the people that I have already taught. We are finishing up the teaching of this lady that is probably one of the people that is most dedicated to really learn what we teach that I have ever taught. When we found her her life was sucking pretty hard core, and by developing and applying faith to the things that she does it is all changing. 3 weeks ago she had no job, had just been evicted from her home, had a 12 year old kid, was studying in college, was living off of food that her friends were giving her, and had been thinking suicide for a while. Now the only thing she doesn't really have is time. Like things are still tough for her but it is definitely all looking up a lot. She's got 2 jobs now and for the first time invited us to eat dinner with her which was food she bought with her own money. She just needs to finish quitting the whole coffee thing and we'll finish up with her. It is crazy how fast God can change every aspect of someone's life when they let him.

So things like that are cool. You can't really take any credit for what happens in people's lives, so you just end up feeling pretty thankful.

I have also been seeing that very few people want to hear the truth about things. There is this member that has had pretty much every calling in the church you can imagine, and we were inviting him to come back to church and start doing what he already knows he should be doing as far as covenants go, and he was like, "no way broseph. I'm not going to go to church." So whatever talked with him a bit more, and when we were about to leave he was like, "oh, and I want you to cure my vision" because he is kind of blind. And I was like, "okay, well, you need to understand that if you don't trust Christ enough to even try and follow his commandments then your faith probably isn't enough to be healed, but if you want we'll do our part and you can give it your best shot." and the dude got super mad. He refused the blessing and we just kind of left. It was way awkward. But so I read this part of the old testament today that explains that pretty much everybody is like that about at least somethings. It said that we treat god and his servants like our favortite bands. We listen to them for fun and love to see them and we might even memorize what they say, but then we never apply anything to our lives. So i realized that that is totally true for me a lot of the time and that I am in the same boat as that dude. Lameeeeeee

I eat like 4 or 5 times a night now because everyone thinks we starve all the time. Every house we go to of people we are already teaching has a ton of food. TRANSLATION: I will go home chubby.

We are teaching this awesome cat lady who is super cool. She is like a little grandma that says the coolest stuff. here are some good quotes so far:

Us: "well the book of mormon is kind of like a cake. If you wanna know whether or not it is tasty you just need to eat a peice or two."

Her: "And when you eat the whole thing then you get diarrhea, right?"

crap, I ran out of time. I'll send more of her quotes next time.

LOVE YOU ALLSASKJHF

ELDER CHRISTENSEN