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