Week 69-- New Year!!

Hello everyone-- Happy New Year!!

So this week is transfers again, but I´m staying so I don´t care! I´m excited really, we´ve got 4 or 5 baptisms lined up for this next transfer and I love everyone here so that´s great. This will be tied for my longest area now when this transfer ends, and I´ll have spent almost half my time in Brazil here. Should be some good weeks to come! 

Um, this week was pretty uneventful with Christmas and all but it was still pretty great. Got to Skype the family for sure and that was AWESOME. We spoke for a good long time and caught up. It´s crazy that this is my last Christmas in the mission that just passed. Crazy how time flies. 

So our day went a bit like this. We had a `district meeting`/party business that morning for fun. Then after that we had 2 lunches it eat, and almost died too. We ate SSSOOO much! My stomach still really hasn´t recovered. All they eat here when it´s a holiday is Barbecue too, so it was just a tone of meat. I gained a kilo or two I´m pretty sure. It was pretty great :). After all that we went to a recent convert´s house and I helped/taught her how to make an American apple pie, which turned out pretty good but I didn´t use enough sugar, so they might think it´s pretty lame, ha ha. We also watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration with her which was pretty cool to see in Portuguese. Finally we called home and talked for a bit which was pretty great :). 

The days since have been pretty much dead. Nobody really wants to talk to us too much, ha ha. 

Um, since I´m kinda lacking on material to write here I guess I´ll leave a little advise for all you future missionaries out there. This is really the first time I´ve been feeling ´trunkie` on my mission after a phone call home. Trunkie is a slang word we use here to mean that you think about home a lot and don´t feel like working. You know how to fix that? JUST GET BACK TO WORK. Pull a Nike and Just Do It. Really there is no secret pill or trick to it, just do it. 

I guess it´s also the time of year we all make new goals and stuff so I want to throw my two cents in on this too. I´ll be plagiarizing some talks here, so get ready for a bit of citations. The first thing we need to do is stop looking back. Elder Holland has a cool talk about his called ´Remebmer Lot´s Wife` about Luke 11:35 (I think) where Christ reminds us of exactly that. If we are always looking back we will never leave the past, never improve, basically get stuck. We need to have faith, which is always pointed to the future. Faith, in God that he has a much better future planned for us than the present and faith in ourselves to keep pressing forward. 

Elder Ballard also gave an awesome discourse on goals that I´m always quoting called `Do Things that are important` (or something along those lines). He teaches that if we want to get anywhere in life, we need goals. On top of that we need to COMPLETE our goals. Pres. Weidman also taught me a lot about this. That really if we want to get anywhere in life there´s only one thing we really need to be good at: fulfilling our goals. The rest will come, all we need to do is be able to set our mind to something and get it done and then we can literally do and become anything we want. 

Look up them talks, you´ll learn something. 

Hope you all have a good New Years and always remember, God loves you and thing can only get better :). 

-Um on exército de Deus

Elder Teela 

Week 68-- #Heisthegift

HoHoHoHoHoHo! 

How´s everyone doing? Merry Christmas everyone! Hope it´s all great there and that at least some of you have a white Christmas because I sure as heck won´t be. It´s getting to the hottest part of the year here, about 90 everyday... So it might rain like crazy but it isn´t going to snow, ha ha. 

So this week has been pretty normal, well, not really, but it felt normal. So this guy showed up to church last week and told us that he just wanted to look into the church and well... HE WAS BAPTIZED SUNDAY! How cool is that?! Literally a week, two times to church and he was ready to be baptized! He was super prepared by God too, he said that he had been talking to his girlfriend about the church for a bit of time now but never really looked at it too much until now and he loves it. He did all the readings we asked him to and prayed and got his answers and knew that it was God. His name is Micom, he´s about 26 and pretty jacked. Such a cool miracle! 

Let´s see, we also had pretty major rain this week. I took a video but it´s too big to send. It rains pretty hardcore out here, ha ha. 

Oh, so a funny story real quick. It was about 9:45 I think, after hours on the mission. We were playing some cards and laughing about something or another and then Elder Kinney made a joke while Elder Jasperson was taking a big drink of his water. Normally this would only result in a bit of coughing and stuff but after coughing for about 45 seconds he ran into the bathroom, which made us all laugh harder. We thought he was just in the bathroom coughing but he came back in the room and said `Yeah, I just threw up there`. Which of course sounded another round of near-death by laughing. It was pretty funny. 

So, sorry but I´m gonna make this one short. Hope you all have a great Christmas and remember why we have it in the first place. Keep the CHRIST in CHRISTmas. #Heisthegift. 

-Um no exército de Deus

Elder Teela

Week 67-- we woke up, were a bit freaked out, laughed a bit and then fell back asleep

Boa tarde todo mundo!

(Good afternoon everybody) 

At least I think it´ll be afternoon when most of you get this... time zones make it hard to think of these things, ha ha (If you be in another country you know what I´m talking about). Anyway this week was better than worse you could say, we got some hammocks that are pretty legit but we can´t use them for now because we have no way to hang them.... but I will one day! It is a goal in my mission to sleep in one for at least a transfer (6 weeks). I think most people don´t have goals like that but ´tou nem ai (I don´t care), this is Brasil, ha ha. 

So had some funny little mis-haps this week. We were in district meeting and Elder Kinny wanted us to makes some lines for a game, but instead of saying lines (desfilas, which actually means parades) he was saying that he wanted ten daughters (dez filhas). I know that it looks different but really they almost sound the same. We spent about 5 mins trying to help him get it right and laughing and finally he got it right but then went right back to saying wrong. He gets it now.... I think.

Also we had some eventful nights. We were all sleeping Friday when one of our weak beds broke. We had a bunk bed on one side and a single on the other with me and Elder Kinney on the ground with mattresses in the middle. The single collapsed in the middle of the night and broke so he joined us on the ground. The other Elder sleeps on top of the bunk beds so on one really uses the one below. For some reason he wanted  to put the mattress from the lower bunk under his so that he and 2 mattresses. Not sure why, but he did. Anyway, we took it out and gave it to him and the other Elder ascended and got in bed, but the bunk started swaying a ton and creaking when he got up there, so we all thought it would fall, so you can guess the result. It fell around 4:30 in the morning. I woke up to here just this *creek creek creek.... CCCRRREEEEEEEEKKKK* andBOOM!  (yeah, this warrants change of text) That bed fell almost exactly in front of the other and shattered the one on bottom into pieces. We all then woke up and were a bit freaked out, laughed a bit and then fell back asleep. We were all fine, just the bed was busted. 

So on a bit more spiritual side both of the people who were baptized last week were confirmed which was awesome. We weren´t sure the 12-year-old would make it because he would be in another city with his dad but they both hopped on the train and surprised us at the front of the church just before classes started. His dad isn´t a member and we don´t really know if he is interested but this is the second week in a row he´s come to church for more than 1 hour, so we think he might have some potential there. He just lives in another city so we´ll have to pass him off. When we confirmed the 2 of them I got to confirm the son but I´m pretty sure that other than the required words it made little to no sense in Portuguese, ha ha. What can I say? It´s the second blessing I´ve given in the language, so there´s still a bit of a learning curve. 

We went on exchanges too which was pretty fun. I got to know an Elder Gomez a bit better. He´s pretty awesome, we have identical personalities, so we are pretty much bros. We went to the home of their baptismal dates that they had there, 3 kids in a family that wasn´t completely baptized yet, and I guess I was the first American they knew, ha ha. They were all a bit blown away and wanted to find me on Facebook, ha ha. People here just seem to love us, ha ha. 

We also gave an American history thing Friday night at an English school a member works at. It was pretty chill and the kids liked it. It was fun and we got a mountain of contacts, so that was pretty sweet. 

So to be spiritual this week I´ll talk a little about the refiner´s fire. We were teaching this woman who we sadly need to drop now. She swore earlier that she would be baptized but the road to repentance proved a little harder than she thought. A lot of people today look for a quick easy fix `easy salvation` you could say. But wanting that is overlooking the entire point of why we are here. To GROW. If salvation were easy and God just saved us with a snap of the his fingers then we wouldn´t change at all. Many people focus on the fact that the atonement is paid and forget that it was actually an investment. The garden, the cross and the tomb were just the start of everything, not the end. We still need to grow and change and USE the atonement that Christ gave us. That´s why we can´t just sit back and be saved, we need to be a part of the process. Yes, we can´t really save ourselves through our works, but by our works we can become more like God and more ready for the life to come. But like iron that doesn´t bend unless heated and beaten we must endure the pain to get any gain, so changing hurts. I mean it really hurts. I´ve gone through a few less-than-comfortable changes in my life and I look forward to more because I know that I am happier and stronger because of it, that God has big plans in store for me. 

That´s about it for this week, hope you all have a good one! 

-Um no exército de Deus

Elder Teela   

Week 66-- Y'all be good?

You all be good? I be good too me homies, but fo´ real I be doing good. 

Sorry, Cali was coming out in me a bit there, ha ha. SWLA changes you man... So this week was freaking crazy! We had our Christmas conference Wednesday (it´s not even close to Christmas people!) it was pretty good. Pres. and Sister Wright gave some pretty great talks and the spirit was strong. There was also a cool slide show that they made of all of us in the mission so we could all remember the year. Oh yeah, and we kinda baptized a steak this year... .1900 people! Isn´t that a crazy number!? That is what really makes my faith grow that the work of the Lord is really accelerating.

So also we had to work our butts off this week. We only really had 4 days to work this week because of meetings and what not. But we still managed to hit our standards of excellence here. It was crazy amount of planning and running (more or less literally) to finish our goals but we got it! 

Oh, and we kinda had 2 people baptized this week! I think I mentioned them last week but I´ll tell you about em´ a bit still I´ll fill you in again. Their names are Claudia and Pedro. They are a family we found clapping at people´s gates (knocking doors here) and she had already had tons of contact with the church and they were SO freaking ready! We´ve been working with them for about 6 week more or less. Claudia has 2 kids and is around 35 I´d guess. Pedro is the 1st of the kids and the other is Libby who is 4 and just the funniest little thing ever. Pedro and Claudia were baptized but Libby isn´t old enough yet (You have to be 8 to be baptized) so only they were baptized. I´ll attach some pics of them :). 

Oh, so something freaking hilarious happened this week. So we got home after emails and whatnot last week and Elder Fullmer (ZL and room mate) looked on his bed and found a little present on his bed from a bird. So we went on the hunt in our apartment and found us the little rascal. He was hiding up in our loft and Elder Jasperson (Other ZL and room mate) thought it´d bee good to throw a fork at it. The beast was awakened and it attacked me! More or less.... Really it thought it´d be smart to try and land on my back but got scared and flew away. After that we took to trying to catch it and finally got a hold of him and let him go, but the little ye beasty had his vengeance... When Elder Fullmer went to study the next morning guess what he found on his desk? A little present from his feathered friend. We all about died laughing about that. 

Well, to be all spiritually and stuff for a bit, I´ll tell you about this little realization I had. There was a talk given in general conference about living up to our blessings. I was a bit bored in the Christmas conference and started flipping through my notes and found the ones from general conference and read about that talk a little bit. After that the next day I read my Patriarical blessing and came to a bit of a hard realization, that I needed to be a way better person than I am now. Not that I´m horrible but the person that is described in my Patriarcal blessing is on a whole other level than I am and so I have some repenting and work to do. We need to be our best selves, we really do. Being a disciple of Christ means that one day we will have to face down exactly our worst attributes and over come them, that our weaknesses need to be hunted and taken out, that not only should we fix our problems when we find them, but that we should actively be seeking them out and facing them down. 

That´s about it for this week. Need time to write family still :). Hope you all have a good one! 

-Um no exército de Deus

Elder Teela

Pictures from Brazil

Week 65-- It's freakin' hot here

Hello one and all, the week has been pretty short this time because we traded our P-day last week to go to the temple, so it was a 5-day week more or less :). It was all pretty good up until recently but I´ll get into that later. So it´s still pretty freaking hot here and I can only imagine how bad it is for those poor missionaries up in the north where it has to be more like an oven than a mission. They must be dying up there so close to the equator!

So Tuesday was temple day like I said which was amazing! We went and did a session there and enjoyed it a lot and spent most of the day traveling. We got home and got some more of those monster fries which always are good to eat but make you feel horrible the next day. Always a good time! With us 4 hugery Americans we pounded them down in 12 minutes or so, ha ha. SO good! 

The next day it was back to work as normal and I really am forgetting most of what happened that day, something like working out in the sun just like amost every day, ha ha.

Turkey day was good,  you´ll never guess how we celebrated... we went and got our favorite french fry mess again, ha ha. It really is our little go-to eat and celebrate. We also vistied our good friends/ baptismal dates or Claudia and Pedro and had cevada with them. I forgot if I explained what that stuff is so I´ll tell you again. It´s this coffee stuff that isn't really coffee. Tastes the same, smells the same and even looks the same, after you add the water. It´s also not against the word of wisdom, so we use it to help people get over their coffee addictions. I still think it tastes horrible but whatever helps people get baptized :). 

Friday we had zone conference which was pretty good. We just talked about area books and stuff, nothing really mind blowing, just the normal. We had to carry some boxes full of Book of Mormon's though and so I took it for most of the way which was a bit of a pain but all turned out well. I think I won some brownie points with the ZL´s, ha ha. 

Saturday was pretty good, we had brazillian bbq for lunch which is always awesome. We had it with this awesome family, Kinnis and his wife, whose name escapes me. We watched the `He is the Gift` video for the first time which I´ll tell you all about later. It´s pretty cool. 

Okay, so the reason this week was good until recently. We had lunch with our RC, Zelia, which was some more brazilian bbq! Great right!? It tasted pretty great and we chowed down, and about 30 mins later we regeted that. Turns out the meat wasn´t so good... We both just bolted for home and died on our beds, ha ha. I´m still feeling pretty nasty but not too bad really. It´s only like the 50th time I´ve had food poisoning on the mission, so it´s nothing by now, ha ha. I´m alive and will live on so all will be well :). 

So, for this `He is the Present´ buisness. It´s a new campaign launched by the church to spread the message of Christmas, about how Christ is the present of Chistmas really. It´s a very short video, only about 2:25. Watch it, share it, and use the hashtag #sharethepresent (I think that´s it in english, haha). We want this video EVERYWHERE. The church has bought up space on Youtube and Times Square and tons of other places to try and make this a success, so let´s all help out! 

He Is The Gift

http://www.mormon.org/christmas?cid=HPFR112814529

Have a good week everyone! God Bless, 

-Um no exército de Deus 

Elder Teela

Week 64-- Stay Strong and The Lord Blesses Us

Hey hey hey people! It´s lil´ ole me again. Sorry, but these emails are gonna be getting a whole lot shorter. I´ve getting lots of love from everyone here and it´s hard to respond but I promise an email to you at least every two weeks. So I´ll give you a quick funny and then I´ll do something or another spiritual. 

So for funny I´ll tell you about something that actually happened a while ago. Here, the TV show `Duck Dynasty` is called `Reis dos Patos` or `The kings of the Ducks` as I can translate it. Me and my family LOVE this show, ha ha. And so I was trying to tell my buds here that we do, but the problem is I said I watched ´Os Reis dos peitos` which pretty much almost sounds the same but this phrase means `The kings of the breasts`...... You can see where that went down hill really fast, ha ha. They all about died laughing and I did too after I knew what I said.

 To be a little spiritual I´ll talk about obedience again a little. California I think has a problem with lots of missionaries who don´t get why we have rules. Here in Brazil the culture is very against the rules. The members here pretty much just want to stay in their houses and chill all day. People here don´t have lives like in the states, a good chunk of time in their day is unstructured and they like to sit and talk with their friends, which we are. They want us to watch TV and sit and play video games and stuff like that. It´s hard sometimes but we need to stay in the lines if we want to play the game if you know what I mean. Stay strong and the Lord blesses us, that's how it is. Pres. Monson just said in conference last year `Courage, not compromise that brings the smile of God´s approval`. 

Hope you all have a good week and that God blesses you all. 

-Um no exército de Deus 

Elder Teela  

Week 63-- It's only getting better here!

Hello again one and all. It´s only getting better here truthfully. My brain is in some strange middle ground between Portuguese and English, so sorry if things don´t make too much sense. It´s like I´m thinking in English with Portuguese spelling and grammar with random words mixed in, ha ha. 

So the biggest news from last week I guess is that we had a baptism and a confirmation (see what I mean?). It was pretty pretty great but some funny stuff we going on. First of all the woman we baptized was 69 years old and has lots of problems with her back, so we actually joint-baptized her. I said the prayer and Elder Kinney helped support her back while I baptized her. And as for the confirmation no one told us we wouldn´t be in the circle to give the blessing so we walked up there to do it but then the bishop looked at us like we were crazy so we just sat on the stand while they did the confirmation. I guess we lost touch somewhere in the middle there somehow. Either way, two more souls to the celestial kingdom! 

Some other awesome stuff that happened was at a zone conference Friday. We traveled for 5 hours or so total and ended up in a place called ´Monte Negro´ which, being interpreted, means black hill. We got there and I met up with some familiar faces, Sister Green, from my other mission, and Sister Gamez, from my MTC group in Provo! It was pretty cool and we caught up on the old ´ol days, ha ha. It was funny because Sister Green´s comp said I speak better Portuguese than her even though she´s been here longer (totally didn´t effect my pride, ha ha). 

On the way home a lady also wanted to practice some English with us. We asked her how good she thought her English was and she responded `I´m a chicken`. A little confused we asked what she meant in Portuguese and she said she meant to say Ì´m a child` ha ha. It´s funny, everyone here wants to speak English. They seem to think it´s better for some reason. They learn it in school like we learn Spanish in grade school. A few phrases here and there but nothing really substantial.  

Um, the other day it rained like freaking crazy. I thought I saw enough rain in Missouri but there was literally rivers of mud-water running in the streets. All the little kids were out in the mess and playing and having fun it was pretty awesome. We were soaked to the bone and only had one small umbrella between the two of us, so we started home. About 15 mins into the 30 min walk the rain let up so we thought it was all good but 5 mins later it picked back up and started really getting nuts. Hail started falling that was about as big as golf balls but we didn´t get hit. The wind picked up and the rain was almost coming in sideways, so we just closed the stupid umbrella and ran for the last 3/4 miles or so. It was nuts. As we watched it almost looked like footage from a hurricane. 

Running out of time here so I´ll sum up a few things: 

--We moved like 1000 bricks

--Went to the Porto Alegre North temple which was awesome. They asked us to do some sealings too so we did that for an extra 45 mins. SO cool!

--We ate these things called torpedo fries. Feeds 4 people and has fries, cheese enough to kill you, pulled pork, chicken heart and some other mystery meat...

--Elder Kinney kinda dislocated his shoulder

--Church is great here!

--We meet elect people everyday.

This is the true church. Stay strong and carry on. It´s like Paul said: 

37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

 38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels,nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Have a good week everyone! 

-Um no exército de Deus

Elder Teela

Week 62-- I'm doing pretty freakin' awesome!

Oi todo mudo! How you guys doing? I´m doing pretty freakin´ awesome. I can´t even describe how good it is to be here in Brazil. It´s great :)

So some things that I´ve learned about the culture here really quick: 

1.) Everyone here walks. I know that I already said that and I was aware of the fact but really it´s true. EVERYONE WALKS. We walk like crazy too but it´s good. That combined with the heat is gonna make me look like a model by the end of my time here, haha. 

2.) Everyone here is what they call a gaucho (Ga-oo-show). It´s kind of like southerners in the US. Everyone here is stereotyped as speaking bad Pôrtugues and not being very bright. I´d say it´s pretty true but you can´t be general about something like that, alot of people are still smart and some actually speak the lanuage right. The thing is though this is the Texas of Brazil. Literally. People have more state pride than national pride, they brag about Rio Grande do Sul (the state), heck, they even celebrate the day they rebeled from the rest of the country to try and make their own, which they lost of course (I have on idea why they celebrate it.... guess that´s way every thinks they´re dumb...) 

3.) Everyone drinks this nasty-grass-tea (see what I did there) stuff called Chimarrão (Shi-ma-how-oo). It is literally grass and hot water. It´s not just any grass but it is a type of grass that they just call herb. In all honesty it is super nasty but for some reason I find myslef drinking it more and more.... 

4.) Speaking of the heat you have 2 choices here. You are either soaked in your sweat or you are soaked in rain. Nowhere in between. For real, it rains like crazy here and is hot and humid at all other times. 

5.) Don´t ever open a door for yourself at some else´s house. If you are arriving it means you are welcoming yourself in and if you are leaving it means you are never coming back, haha. 

That´s just a few things really and there are so many more but I can´t even begin to explain everything.

So my week went a little something like this: 

We got up at 4am to fly here to Porto Alegre Norte (PAN) and arrived around 10am in the mission. President Wright and his wife met us at the air port with the AP´s and such and we took our stuff to the mission home for a while. We then had lunch with all the people who were part of the emergancy transfer we caused and my old travel compainion to LA became my companion here in Brazil! Not sure if you all remember me talking about Elder Kinney but we both served in LA, he just got his visa a year before I did, so he´s been here a lot longer. So we had some interviews and such and took off to our area, Sapulcia. 

In the past week we´ve been walking and working like crazy. We had a baptism this week and should have one every week until the end of the transfer too. So 4 or 5 people will be baptized in my first area in my first few weeks.... Welcome to Brazil people. It´s different here. There are prepared people EVERYWHERE! Everyday we find at least 3 or 4 people who are looking for the gosple. Just they other week we ´knocked´ by a woman (I say that because people here don´t really knock doors, we stand outside the gate and clap because here knocking a door would be tresspassing) who said she was just praying for God to show her the true church to join and then we ´knocked´ by later that day. Miracles! 

Oh, the language by the way. I don´t mean to sound prideful but I was not one of those misisonaries who stepped off the plane and realized that I didn´t speak the language. Pretty much I get most everything people say here and they can understand me pretty well. Most people don´t believe I´ve only been here for a week or so. They can tell I´m not native but they are all shocked I can speak already haha. It´s language study people, that and actually speaking your langauge in the MTC (so you better do it Elder Welch!). It´s really cool though honestly, the Lord has blessed me with the gift of tounges for sure. 

Which brings me to my funny story of the week. My companion actually made the language mistake! We were going over the plan of salvation with the kid we were teaching who just got baptized. His name is Rafiel and he is SO prepared. His dad is... no was less active who is now fully active and wanted his son to have the gospel and Rafiel accepted and loved all of it. Anyways, we were teaching the plan of salvation and my companion got some words mixed up. Instead of saying that God had a body of flesh and bones he said God has a body of flesh and bears! Rafiel was really confused at first but got it later on and we all thought it was pretty funny. 

Oh, a little heads up. If you send me a letter I might not see it for 2 or 3 weeks. It takes a week to get here to Brazil, the ZL pick it up next time they are at the mission office and then the next time they see us they give it to us. I´m not saying don´t write, but email will be a whole lot easier :). 

I really wish I could tell you all more but there is SO much happening. I´ll mark it in my journal for sure and you guys can ask me about it later, haha. I´ll try and do a little each week till it all makes sense. Hope you all have an awesome week and I´ll do another email then. 

-Um no exercito de Deus 

Elder Teela

Week 61-- The most important thing? Pizza Night!

Querida famila e amigos,

THAT´S RIGHT I´M FINALLY IN BRASIL GUYS! Sorry I haven´t sent an email for a while but P-day here is a bit off so this is the first real email we´re sending home. Sorry if some stuff looks funny, the keyboard here is different. Anyway the CTM is pretty cool here. A whole lot more relaxed than our last visit the to CTM in Provo. Not sure if it´s just the culture here or that we´ve already been out so they don´t try to shove all the info down our throats again but it´s a nice break for sure.

The flight here wasn´t all that bad except for the fact that it too about 16 hours in the air and around 18 total... that´s okay but I won´t be looking forward for the ride home too now, that´s for sure. I got up around 4am last Tuesday to make the flight and I was solo for about 5 hours and then at the airport in Detroit I met up with 5 other missionaries, one of which was actaully from my last MTC district! You all might not remeber me talking about Elder Collet but he´s my comp now and I about died when we saw eachother. I was on a moving side walk but grabbed him a hug anyway and we almost both fell over laughing. There´s also an Elder here from one of my EFY groups too! How crazy is that! He thought I was crazy when I ran up and hugged him at first haha, but then he seemed to catch on pretty quick. What are the chances?!

I can´t really get around to all the things I want to tell you all about so I´ll just try and do a quick summery of the rest.

First and most important thing is that this is the only CTM in the world to sport it´s very own brick-fire pizza oven, so every Wednesday is pizza night. Yes, that is the most important thing, no matter what you think :).

I´m in a district with 7 Elders and 1 Sister. Elder Espadas (swords in Port.), Elder Mortenson (close to the word death in Port), Elder Wilder (DL), Elder Jenson, Elder Ormsby, Elder Collett (Like the word for sports jersey. My comp) and Sister Phillips. We´re the ZL´s but it´s pretty much useless because we don´t really do anything execpt make jokes at Elder Wilder because our distirct is the only one in our zone. So we´re zone leaders over a district for 6 days doing nothing..... haha

There is no peanut butter, only nutella

I´m doing pretty great on the language, we speak pretty much only Portuguese here but most of the district slacks off a lot, but that´s why they don´t speak as well yet :P.

The teachers are pretty chill, we have 3: Irmã Alcalde, Irmã Mendes and Irmão Rodrigo, all brazilian, all from the city here.

We´ve been out doing some contacting around here 2 times now for a few hours both times. It´s pretty great, a whole lot better than it was in Cali, haha. I can´t paragraph down now... wierd. Anyway, we just get back for the temple. We went and did it in Portuegse which was pretty awesome. I got some pics but we can´t send them here so it´ll have to wait till next week or so. Well, that's all for this week! Um no exercito de Deus -Elder Teela

Week 60 1/2-- I made it to Brazil

I made it to Brazil alive Momma! It was about 18 hours of travel but the plane didn't craah and I didn't bug Elder Collett too bad so we made it through just fine. We're actually compaionions now! It's pretty awesome. There is about a 5 hour time difference from Cali and I think I'm only and hour or two ahead of you guys back home.

Um, this MTC is a bit more.... como se dice... ghetto, haha. I thought it'd be nicer like the one in Provo but this one only is one building and the area around reminds me of when I was in downtown LA. It's still really exciting though, speaking Portugeuse and stuff again. I was funny when we were getting off the plane everyone seemed to catch the vibe and started speaking Portugeuse around us. It was super weird to actually not have people understand us when we spoke english. My Portugeuse seems to have lasted a bit better than I thought though, so that's good. Me and Elder Collett are going to try and speak only Portugeuse while we are here so really get us more ready.

I have a ton more to tell you but I'll have to save it fro Monday. Love ya and I'll email you soon. Let everyone know I'm safe and pumped!

-Um no exercito de Deus

Elder Teela

Week 60-- Bound For The Promised Land

Well, this is it finally everyone! I go to Brazil tomorrow morning! I'm SO EXCITED I'M GONNA DIE!!! But for real though I am very ready for this. It's been a long year waiting around but it's been great. I've learned so much from this mission and I am going to miss it for sure. There are some great missionaries and great members here and it's been an experience like nothing else. That being said though, it didn't keep me from singing along to the song "The promised land" which goes like this: 

"I am bound for the promised land, 

I'm bound for the promised land! 

Oh, who will come and go with me? 

I am bound for the promised land!" 

Haha, pretty much tells all the story there. I think on the plane I'll be singing "Oh Babylon, oh Babylon we bid thee farewell!" This really is an amazing place, so many good people but also so much... sin and temptation. It really is modern-day Babylon I'd say, but we'll see if Brazil really is "The Promised land", haha. 

So fun stories this week? Well, I became a man for one. Me and Elder Shamo had to go up to the temple Saturday for me to get some new clothes (since most of whites got stained last week). We missed our exit and somehow ended up in Malibu... It was really pretty, don't get me wrong but it was not the place we needed to go by about 20 mins. So we went back, got there and ended up in the car for about 3 1/2 hours. But what made me a man out of all of this? We had lunch on the way there at a place called Fatburger where the food is just that. Fattening but super delicious! They have what they call the XXXL challenge. It's 1.5 lbs of meat on the burger, and you stuff your face with that. IF you finish it they take your picture and you get a certificate and all that. It's a staple of man-hood I'd say :). 

The rest of the week we pretty much made our normal rounds but I was saying my goodbyes as well. It's really a speacial place here in the South-West LA (SWLA) branch. I really am going to miss the people here and all around LA for that matter, but I'll be back in a year or so I'd hope :). 

So I guess for my final thought here I want to talk about trials. When I was thinking on this this morning I was for some reason drawn to D&C 121 where it says: "Many are called but few are chosen". Many of us thinks this has to do with callings and I think it does too, but it might also be talking about trials. I know that our trials are calculated to improve and strengthen us.  I think that many people are called to go through similar trials, but few are chosen specifically for us. I think that this was one of my "chosen" trials. It has taught me much and I will always remember all the great people and lessons learned here. I trust my Heavenly Father that this, will be something I will know was for my better. We just need to keep that faith and say as Nephi did "Never the less I [will] go forth" when we don't know what exactly God has in plan for us, because it's better than anything we can plan out. 

Well, catch you all in a week, in Brazil :)

-Um no exercito de Deus

Elder Teela 

Week 59-- Last Week In LA

Well, this is my last week here in LA. I'll be traveling to Brazil Tuesday morning (super early by my estimation) and I'll be having an interview with President and staying the night there with probably the assistants as well. It's gonna be awesome! It'll be great to finally have all this language study pay off. 

Tuesday  was pretty great. We went to all our normal visits and when we showed up everyone seemed to want to bring their friends who were not members. We had a lesson set up with a recent convert and his friend just so happened to be there. Apparently he got suspended from school because someone was bashing on Christ and he went and floored the kid, haha. I respect his fire but maybe he went about it the wrong way.... We also had a lesson with an elderly man in our branch and his non-member daughter was just there for the day so we got to teach her as well. She wasn't too interested but a seed was planted I guess. 

So this week has been pretty great we've been getting ready for me to get ready to go. The main thing was me trying to get my Hep. A shot. Friday it took o\us pretty much forever to make it to the place we needed to go. We went to the wrong place first, then we got directions, ended up getting a bit lost and then finally got the right place for the 30 seconds and tons of money it took to get the shot. It took us 3 or 4 hours just to go get one shot, haha. And days of searching for a place that actually had it. 

Sunday went off the hook pretty quick too. Right after conference we had an appointment that fell through and we were just walking away when a man called out to us and told us to come into his place. He told us that it was a christian shelter but that didn't seem to raise any red flags to me. As we sat down though the director asked who we were and I felt a little weird. After that we had man named "Preacher" come sit down and decide to listen in on our lesson. At that point I asked if this was a church run place and our new friend said yes.... At that point it was clear we needed to leave but my comp seemed to think it was a good idea to start debating doctrine but I wasn't having none of that. We got out of there real quick to make sure we didn't offend anyone too bad. It wasn't too great really, not my smoothest moment, but we continue on. 

Oh, and we found some people that want 40 bibles from us.... not sure what to do there... 

Well for my spiritual thought I would like to site all of conference, haha. It was pretty great. I was really excited that some people were giving some talks in their native languages. Especially like the one in Portuguese for sure :). I'll have to listen to that one again for sure. I also liked the one that was by Elder "Jorg K." It was about taking responsibility for our sins and all that. I also like one that was also along those lines earlier in the session but I forget who did that one. Elder Bednar's was fun too, with the story about his two kids :).  Pretty much, if you missed it, make sure you go back and watch it. It was a nice pick-me-up from the world out here. 

Well, that's all for this week. Everyone have a good week! 

-Um no exercito de Deus

Elder Teela  

Week 58-- I love the people here

Hello again everyone! 

This week has been pretty good I'd say. The people here seem to love our message, they just don't want to come to church. We try but it seems everyone is always doing one thing or another. Thus is missionary life I guess :).

So, it seems that here in the ghetto there are plenty of strange, weird  and down-right funny things to go around. For example, me and the DL were on exchanges and he needed to get his flu shot so we took off to CVS. As we were in line some man, who was very obviously drunk, and asked us what we were. We were pretty happy to tell him but he cut us off and said "Wait, you can't get caught up in that religion stuff. You see, I am God!" things only made less sense from there on out and then all the sudden he leans in close to us and says "You see here? I've got a "G" ( $1,000 in LA lingo)  on me. If I ain't got a G on me then there's a problem. Just don't tell my girl, cause I've got more than her." His girl then proceeded to call out to him and he looked like a scared little puppy, haha. He then went over and "blessed" a little boy by responding to every outburst of non-sense the baby was saying with "BLESS YOU CHILD!"..... This defiantly isn't the LA they show you on TV, haha. 

We got to see a movie that's coming out as well from the church called "Meet the Mormons". Not sure if they've been announcing it around there like they have out here but it's a big deal apparently. It was pretty great, just over an hour and very inspiring. They follow some notable members around and it does a real good job of making us not look weird, which was the goal I guess. It's super good! Go see it, then take your non-member friends to see it and then call the missionaries and watch the miracles happen :). 

One more fun thing was that I fulfilled a man's dream this week apparently. We have some members here that have recently moved in from Guatemala and they feed us dinner every Thursday. They really like me because I speak enough Spanish to help them learn English and Elder Shamo just kind of sits there all awkward like, haha. To say thank you I figured I'd make them an apple pie. When I gave it to them he told me in his broken English "Elder, this pie... when I come to this country, I always want to try some house-made apple pie. You are fulfill my dream!" Ha ha, I love the people here :).

Well, In being spiritual this week I guess the topic is gonna be General Conference. Go to all your sessions people! You never know what you are going to miss if you don't go. It'll inspire you because these really are men of God. I've been lucky enough to shake a few of their hands and be in conferences with them and the spirit around them is tangible. Pray to God and prepare a question you need to have answered and I swear by my ties that God will answer it through one of His anointed servants. The power of God is upon these men. 

I hope you all have a good week. Love you all and hope the Lord can help you all this week.

-Um no exercito de Deus 

Elder Teela 

Week 57-- If you want to be everyone's favorite missionary...

Hello again! Sssoooo it's been a good week I guess. The heat broke at least so pretty much the weather is staying in the "still sweating a bit" zone, not the "I might just drown" area, so that is good. We've had a bit of a slow week but we are still doing our best. It's hard here in  the rougher parts of town, no one has phones! And if they do it's because they buy one for a month, don't pay the bill and then they get a new one the next month.  

So we've been on exchanges a lot the past week and I actually ended up in the "crazy" area. It's where the zone leaders work and they live 8 miles outside of their area because it's not really safe for them to live in it. So I got to go there with one of them for a day. We got there and things almost immediately started to get weird. I wasn't even there for 30 mins and we had a homeless man telling us we needed to give him a dollar for food. The Elder I was with kept just responding "I've got a Book of Mormon for ya" and he kept saying "Well I need a dolla." That went on for, I swear, at least a full minuet until we finally relented and went to Taco bell and got him some stuff. When we went in he said "You go in, I gotch'yo' back, I'm (insert swearing about just how "bad" he was)". After we got him his food he hugged us (didn't smell so great) started crying and said he had our backs if anything went down. It was a strange/funny/amazing experience I won't soon forget. 

Um, we had interviews with Pres. Weidman Friday and that was great. I'm not sure if he'll want to do an exit one with me but I assumed it'd be the last one I will have with him. It was really good and I sure learned a lot from him. I wish he could come with me almost but I'm sure I'll come to love Pres. Wright just as well. If he's still mission pres down there.... He could have finished by now I guess. 

We also had some exchanges with an Elder here that is from Brazil and that was fun! He speaks a different accent then I learned so it was a bit hard to understand hims sometimes but we sure packed in a lot for those 24 hours. Also I didn't eat for 10 hours and at 9 O'clock at night I finished a whole pizza (a large one, not a personal one) and 1/6 a cake..... never try that at home. I've felt SO nasty the past few days. Just for bragging rights though it was pretty worth it :). 

Saturday we had our branch picnic and that was a blast. I made a new record of 4 pies and there were none left so I was pretty happy. Everyone wants me to make more now, haha. I tell you what, if you want to be everyone's favorite missionary, learn to make pie! We did a watermelon eating contest too and that was fun. I'll have to get the pictures from my companion to send you all, it's pretty great. And we got a free watermelon out of it too :).

So to be all spiritual I think the best thing to talk about is trying to keep the spirit. I don't know really much more to say than it is the single most important thing we can do as members of the church. It well make you better in almost any imaginable way. Write down when you have an spiritual experience is Henry B Eyring's advice. Even if that is all that is in your journal. You'll find yourself having more and feeling them stronger. I've recently just started doing it and I can tell you it's true! 

Well, that's all for this week! Have a good one! 

-Um no exercito de Deus 

Elder Teela 

Week 56-God is great

Well, here's to another week come and gone. I have just a month left here state side so I'm gonna be making the most of it. We've had some pretty cool experiences this week.

So I guess the first notable thing I guess was last week. I didn't really explain what happened too well I think. Me and Elder Shamo had to go get a car we had dropped off to get repairs done. The problem was is that we got the place wrong. Elder Shamo said "Oh, we'll be back in 20 mins or so." So I got some pies going in the oven and we then proceeded to get super lost. After about 55 mins of driving around I started freaking out just a little. I figured I could burn the place down if we left em' in there too long, or at least get the fire alarm to go off and have a nice hefty fine from the fire trucks that showed up. That and my pretty little pies would be dead. Luckily we called the mission home and got our manager's phone number and they shut off the oven, because we were still driving around 3 hours later. That would have been quite a last impression to leave just before heading to Brazil, right? It was a little bit stressful to say in the least. 

Well, another cool thing was that me and Elder MacDonald are in the same zone! For those who don't know me and Elder MacDonald are from the same home ward! We only met with 4 week for me left so we didn't know each other too well but it is still super cool! We both showed up to Zone Training Meeting and had a good spiritual boost there. And we had stake conference together the next day. 

So I don't have much more time to type this all out so I'll have to keep the rest with me till after the mission but I have an important question to answer. Someone has asked what one of my favorite experiences has been on my mission so far. I'd say one of the best has just recently happened actually yesterday. I was feeling a bit down and we had just finished lunch with some members but I was still pretty hungry. We sent in our weekly numbers which were pretty awful honestly and I started getting into a bit of pity party. 

I felt impressed to go drop by some people that had a strong baptismal date but had recently cut us off. They said they needed some time to think, and as a missionary those words are never good. I grumbled to myself a bit and tried to push it away but the thought came back, so we went and got in the car and started driving there. When we got there we actually saw that their car was in parked out front, so I felt my heart lift a little, but sunk right back down, thinking they would just tell us off in person. 

When we knocked on the door we were answered by someone I didn't know but they soon came into the front room with big smiles on their faces.  As we sat down and started talking the wife told us that she had really felt like she wanted God out of her life for a while while we weren't talking. She then went on to explain one of the most powerful spiritual experiences I have ever heard of in my life. It was incredible, they told us they would be the first ones to church every week! They are now going to be baptized for on the 28th for sure! They completely cut us off, we prayed for a miracle and it happened all within 4 days! We came out of that lesson on fire, feeling on top of the world. God is great :). 

Well, that's all for this week. I've got to get back to work. Hope you all have a good one! 

-Um no exercito de Deus 

Elder Teela