Week 89-- Section 79

This first week was pretty awesome I think you could say. It was  a bit of a surprise from the start. We got to transfers this week and I went and found the guy who has been my ZL for about 4 transfers or so while I was in São Leo, Elder Nielson and I saw that he was in the same transfer group as me. I looked at him and said, ´Do you think we´ll be comps?´ We then both thought that would be impossible and laughed a bit until I got the envelope with my zone on it. He was on it.... And well, you can guess what happened, we´re companions now! After this we´ll be staying in the same complex at BYU as well..... yeah I guess that we were just long lost brothers or something, ha ha. He´s really cool and we are tearing it up in the area. We are the ZL´s of one of the high baptizing zones, so President and the AP`s are expecting a lot of us. 

The area is pretty good but we mostly just work in the ghettos. It´s not dangerous, just really dirty, smelly and a bit hard sometimes to see all the poverty but it´s going well. Just from the last week we had 6 baptisms just in our house. Oh, yeah, we also live with not one but two other companionship's in our house, ha ha. It´s way bigger than the other houses in the mission but still very small for american standards but it has two bathrooms at least and two bedrooms. Here´s the whole gang: 

​So we got Elder Barnes on the far left, then his comp in front of him, Elder Sacramento, then our two beloved Cariocas (people from Rio) Elder Dos Anjos and Elder Vicente then me and Elder Nielson. Elder Nielson and Barnes go home this transfer and I go home the next one..... We are  ´house of the dead ones´ to translate, ha ha. 

So this week we went to leadership meeting this week, which was cool. President had some fun comments like ´I´ve made it. I´m a zone leader, how cool´ and talked about fishing for men and stuff like that. He sure is one great man. Everyone here loves him and he always leaves us inspired. He made a interesting point about how soon we are going home. He said `you are all going home tomorrow. You don´t realize it, but you are. This time is short´ he made some points about how after all the time he had lived the time on the mission seemed way shorter after it was done and how we should leave it all here if we can. Very inspiring. 

We had a cool investigator this week that showed up. His name is Jean and he is from Haiti (I say that because I have no idea how to spell Hai-shun.... don´t judge me) and he almost scared me to death. He called out to us from behind a tree at about 7:30 at night and being a big black man how´s worked construction all his life, he´s pretty formidable. I thought we were gonna get mugged but he just invited us to teach him because he had been studying with missionaries about a year ago in São Paulo. He´s so cool but speaks very littler Portuguese but is fluent in french and we were lucky to have a French BoM in your house to give him. We think he´ll be baptized next week :). 

Speaking of baptisms, we baptized a fairly portly man name João this week. He´s at least 270 and we had to get some special pants for him, but they turned out to be way too big for even him. We put this Karate style belt on him but that didn´t help, so we ended up baptizing him together for me to help Elder Nielson bring him back up and to hold his pants up with he went down..... one of the most interesting baptisms I´ve had to date, ha ha. 

Well, that was my week, hope you all have a good one! If you missed the spiritual stuff look just below the photo a bit, about President. 

-Um no exército de Deus

Elder Teela 

Week 88-- Section 80

Hey everyone! This week was a bit slow because my comp was a bit sick but I've still got a few stories to tell, ha ha. 

So this week we found some cool people that are really prepared. One is evidently the grand-father-in-law of the bishop and is pretty cool. We also found a cool woman who evidently already checked out the church but wasn't baptized for a unknown reason but she is super cool and ready. 

Another thing we did is that we went to a pizza place to celebrate the transfer ending. We got the buffet going and had a competition of who could eat more pizza. Elder Lago ended up champion with 31 pieces, Elder Ramirez with 29, Me then with 23 and finally Elder Sanchez with 18 (he said he got 22 but still had 4 halves of pizza left on the plate so I didn't count them). The best part I guess was after we started heading home and Elder Lago was bet over and almost died on the way home along with Elder Ramirez. The two sat there and every time the other asked for a piece the other was like "one for me too!!!" It was super funny. 

After that we had a bit of a funny moment at church. The man I wrote about a bit last week told everyone in the elder's quorum that "the pig is a cursed beast".... We both about died laughing at that but managed to stay quiet. It was sure strange.... he's always doing something like that, ha ha. 

We've also passing all of our favorite families and stuff, so I have some good pics of them. One of them gave us a fruit called a Conge Fruit. It's like this weird mix of a banana and a pineapple that is super sweet and stuff like that. It's pretty much a dessert really.  

So just to finish up I forgot to say that I am being transferred and that I was called as a zone leader. It's pretty exciting, another area and another companion and yet more responsibility in the mission. I thought I would end district leader but looks like the Lord has other plans for me. Just gotta keep on working and see what happens here. Should be good. 

So you all have a good week, until next time! 

-um no exército de Deus

Elder Teela

Week 86

Yo! How´s everyone doing?! 

So this week I almost died, and by that I mean I was just sick for about 3 days and hung out with the cool members here and stayed in the house. It wasn´t very fun, just sitting around doing nothing. It was a bit better here because the members here like to post stuff on Facebook so a few of you might have seen me a bit this week. The good news was I finally ate some pancakes! I was sick so I almost threw them back up but it was SO worth it. One of the coolest members    I´ve ever known here knows how to make them, so it was great. 

​Said pancakes ^

Um, so yea, so we did just about nothing for a few days. After that we had a division with some Elders here in the district for an interview and it went pretty smoothly. It was a young woman who was super nervous it seemed, ha ha. I guess ´The Lord´s servant´ as we call the interviewers here scared her a bit. She knew everything and didn´t have any problems so she passed just fine. I took the chance to talk with them a bit more and find out some problems that they were having. Hoping to see some more of them this week! 

Also had two more interviews with some other Elders and the first was a cool kid of 11 years who is super excited to be baptized. He SUPER elect. He told me on the way to the interview that he wanted to be baptized and go on a mission like us. He knew everything as well (which is a bit rare for kids, usually we need to help them remember a bit) and was super cool. 

The last interview was a bit fun. We talked but he was nearly deaf and not understanding me hardly at all. We finally got through it all and I asked him if he was excited for him baptism. He was like `I´m being baptized tomorrow? But I´m not ready!` I was a little taken aback and almost laughed a bit. I talked to him a bit more and in the end he felt ready to be baptized, it was just super funny that he was like, ´What?´. 

Um, other than that we just worked like crazy and didn´t have anyone come to church which wasn´t fun but what can you do? 

Oh, a crazy guy asked me to give him my watch this week. He´s a relative of the stake president and comes to church more or less frequently. He sells the stuff he gets from people to buy drugs...... sad case. But after that we left to go grab some BoM´s for a class and when we got back we found out that he was debating that the Catholic church was the one that was restored, not the church we have today. He kept asking when Peter kept his keys and stuff like that. We shut him down pretty quick after that and then he left and came back dressed in street clothes like normal and spent 20 mins or so going back and forth and around and through the building. He then spoke with bishop and left. I asked him on the way out what happened to his church clothes and he said ´man you know, I went to the bathroom and then they were just on me like nothing.... it was weird´. Sure was weird alright.... ha ha.

Sunday was basically nothing. It was the equivalent of the super bowl this weekend. Something called Gren-al. It´s when the two rival teams here play. It´s also the state semi-final, so no one was in the streets or accepting visits, so we kicked with our buds and recent converts that day. Pretty good in all.

This week I was reading a bit in D&C for my little count down and I learned really that modern-day prophets are really legit. Joseph really restored a lot of lost knowledge that there is no way he would have just made up or picked up from the Bible. Everyone should really study up on the prophets, they really are inspired men and they help us understand all of the deepest questions we have (like whether or not Adam had a belly button, the answer is yes, he did). 

The church is true, the book is blue (for now, it was red for a bit and then had a picture of Moroni on it)! Have a good week! 

-Um no exército de Deus

Elder Teela 

Week 85

Hey everbodys! 

So this week I have decided to try and write this email first to leave enough time to actually go through the week like I should. 

So last Monday we worked like normal because we traded our P-day for the temple. We would have worked that is but I had some business with my foot..... It was hurting pretty good so we called Sister Wright and she told me to take it easy, so we spent most the day just going from place to place and not walking very much. While we were resting like that at a part member family´s house Elder Lago started philosophizing (that´s a word right?). He said ´the wind that blows there, blows here´ (o vento que venta lá, venta cá) From there on out they debated out the topic and then started changing the words to songs to sing about wind..... it was all a bit weird but we were all dying laughing in the moment, ha ha

. 

The next day we went to the temple and that was an adventure in it of itself, ha ha. Let´s just say none of us really knew where we were going but we managed to get to the mission office to pick up a package for Elder Lago and then we went to the temple by taxi which should have taken 15 mins but took half an hour because the dude had no idea where the ´giant Mormon temple on top of the hill on the road Salvador Pineiro geral´ was. He agreed to just have a us pay for the 15 mins that it should have been though, so that was good, ha ha. 

Then at the temple I met up with my homies from the MTC Elder Francom and Elder Collett. Heres a pic we took: 

How´s that for a pic? Ha ha

Anyway something that never happened before that I know of.... well happened. The temple lost power half way through the session! It was really weird, leaving half way through but we sat in the dark for half an hour and they couldn´t get the generator working so we had no choice but to end the session. So we just had to leave after that :(. 

But that wasn´t the end of the weirdness, our chapel then lost power! Someone ripped out some wires or something (apparently they sell the copper within) and we had to go help the bishop set it all right the next day. It was raining and we didn´t have any appointments that night so we went there to help out. We got it all right and they we had a short meeting to get all our stuffs ready for the baptism this week (SPOILER). 

Yeah, the next crazy thing that happened is that the people for the wedding place started making up some rules for us. They called the couple that was to marry and then told them that they had to ´register their witnesses´. This sent him into a bit of panic and he called us up. We quickly called on the couple we had lunch with and they agreed to help out and brought their very energetic daughter, who is about the sweetest little thing ever. The witnesses had to be Brazilian so I couldn´t do it but when they handed over their BRAZILIAN ID´s the woman asked 5 or 6 times if they were Brazilians. I swear, some people are just straight up dumb. They don´t even have accents or anything for heaven´s sake! 

The next days this happened! 

Wedding!

​

Spiritual baths! 

It was super cool! Them and the boy we baptized last week were all confirmed Sunday! It was a great week really. We were super blessed with these two families. 

So that was basically our week summed up, hope you all love it :). I kinda forgot to think on a little spiritual though so I´ll just end with a shout out to my little bro who just opened his mission call going to Cabo Verde Praia mission speaking Portuguese as well! WHOA! Yeah, now we have an official bro language and we´ll have someone to practice with for the rest of our lives! It´s pretty cool! Excited for ya bro, see here in a few months and we´ll see if we can´t learn you a bit son! 

Have a great week everyone! 

-Um no exército de Deus

Elder Teela

Week 84

Hey! 

So this we rocked my socks off. We Had a baptism, ate some cake and some guy walked into sacrament meeting and shouted ´Is Clarice here?!´ in the middle of a sister´s testimony. But let me start over with this and put that all in order. 

So to start off we had a really cool FHE with a family Monday night. They are pretty much our best friends here and we actually had another FHE with most of the same crowed last night as well. It was really fun and every had a good time. I´m throwing a photo in here really quick so you can see them all:

So this week we pretty much spent teaching a kid we found in a part-member family that the last elders baptized his brother (that sentence makes sense in Portuguese).  He is super cool and when his mom joked with him that he couldn´t be baptized he almost cried. We also get a lot of food at their house so they are pretty much doomed to be passed by elders the rest of their lives, ha ha. His mom asked if we would stop passing by because he as baptized now, we asked if we´d still be welcome and she said yes and so we then made our point about the food. We basically went to his house everyday to make sure this wouldn´t fall through. And well, Just look at this pic: 

​

Not sure why he was making that face but the kid is great :). I played the piano at his baptism and it was the first one here in 2 months. It was great. 

So we have a ton of great member-missionaries here. One guy invited us to teach a friend of his in his house and then brought 2 more to church Sunday! Also we get referrals almost every lunch we have. It´s pretty awesome because this is really what moves the work forward. EVERYBODY GIVE YOUR MISSIONARIES REFERRALS. You always have at least one friend who is interested, I know that. Think and pray on it and it´ll come it you. 

So for some spirituality I will steal from a cool talk I listened to called ´Give us this day our daily bread´ by Elder Christofferson. He said ´Many times we conquer big tasks in small parts´. If our life seems to hard or too crazy we need to just break it down. Some times I find myself just thinking ´I just need to get up this hill´ or ´Just 3 more contacts´. These smaller steps help us feel more capable and makes these big tasks seem more manageable. I remember when I was getting ready to leave on my mission I was in the couch talking to my mom and I said ´but it´s TWO YEARS´ but after 20 months of that two years I feel as if it´s not even been 2 weeks. I just took it day by day and week by week. I found joy in every day and every baptism and lesson and now it´s almost over already. It really has been great. 

Well, I´ll leave you all with that for this week. I hope you all have a good week! 

-Um no exército de Deus

Elder Teela 

Week 83

Hey whole world (as they say here)! It been a pretty good week in Monte Negro here and I´m still alive so I guess things couldn´t be better. 

So some cool stuff that went down this week.... I guess we could start with Thursday because I had my first district meeting then! We had to get up bright and early at 5 to get to São Leopoldo by 8:30 and start up because we were also having interviews that day. We got there just in the nick of time and started up just fine. We have 6 in our district plus one ZL is always there at least and it went well enough I suppose. It´s the first time I´ve given one of these things in Portuguese so it was a bit tough but I got the point across still I think. At the end we did a little get to know you stuff and I told everyone they had to pick a spirit animal, so if my district were a pack we would be (including one ZL): 

A lion

A wolf

an eagle

a falcon

a (flaming) horse

a cockroach 

a Honeybadger (yours truely) 

It´s quite a bunch, ha ha. I think it would make for some sick zone/district shirts though, ha ha. 

Also I brought some apple pie and spread the love a bit to the zone and to Pres. and Sister Wright. One other Elder also brought some ´ little rolled Cinnamon breads´ as we translated it, ha ha. Sister Wright was so shocked and excited that she gave us both a good strong arm-hug thing and started laughing, ha ha. It was pretty great. I think Pres. just might move me up to the office now just to make some more pies for them, ha ha. 

After all that happened some pastor-man showed up out of nowhere in the church. he had this big bock-hat thing on his head and was dressed in black and purple. At first glace I thought he was some sort of pagan priest of Baal or something but then he introduced himself as Brother Paul. He wanted a hymnal a Book of Mormon and to pass out some planphlets of his. He´s some kind of reformed catholic I think judging by the pamphlet. Anyway Sister Wright went and talked to him and gave him all that he asked and a gospel principals manual. She bore a simple and powerful testimony to him and thanked him for his pamphlet and he went on his way. 

It was interesting to feel how the spirit changed when she talked to him. I at first was a bit put-off by his boldness, entering to the house of another faith and giving pamphlets and stuff. But the way Sister Wright treated him with nothing but simple kindness and testimony. Sister Wright doesn´t speak excellent Portuguese but that seemed to even help her case. Her simple language and pure intent to help seemed to disarm the man and when he left the spirit was palpable. I was stunned by her example. There was never really a debate or anything hostile but it area seemed much calmer as she started talking. It went from a situation I wanted no part of to a rich spiritual experience. These two little old Americans in Brazil really are called of God, I say that calling in action. 

I bet you were all betting on hearing a bunch about general conference which was great and very uplifting. I just was very impressed by that one experience this week. It was a bit funny but I really left there edified. 

Well, I guess we can called that good this week. Just one more thing, I want to give a shout-out to my little brother Kyle who got his papers all sent in this week! I´m sure you´re gonna love where ever you go bro. I served both in the states and outside and I can promise you that it´s the same. Don´t feel bad if you don´t leave the country and don´t even those who do. The work is the same and there are plenty of crazy stories in the world to go round. You´ll have the time of your life and some of the hardest moments but you will come to know God as you preach his gospel. 

Have a good week everyone! Keep calm and drink açai juice :) 

-Um no exécito de Deus

Elder Teela

Week 82

So this week has proved to be a bit more than I was expecting. I was transferred within the zone to a place called Monte Negro (Black Mount) where we go to our Zone training meetings usually. Basically I´m a hop and a skip from my old area and still have the same ZL´s, I´m just in the other district, ha ha. It´s all good though, I think I´ll ask to do a division with them sometime this transfer and go back to visit Sapucaia, ha ha. 

My new companion is Elder Lago (Lake/Pond) and he is from the north so he has a bit of an accent from there.... actually it´s a lot of an accent and he is bent on helping me kill mine, so if I come back talking back like a ´nordestinho´ for all my Portuguese speakers, it´s his fault, ha ha. He´s been out about 6 months and is new here too. Yeah, we´re kind of whitewashing this place. It´s been fun this week walking around without a comp that knows the area and having no idea where the people they were teaching live..... So it´s been a lot of street contacting and knocking doors. We´re lucky becuase the members here seem to like us a lot and we´ve already done a division but still it´s a bit different than having a missionary in the area before. 

So one kinda weird and funny thing that happened is that when we got on the train to go to transfers an old evangelical man decided he would preach to his captive audience. He started going on and on about churchy stuff and then when he got to us he saw our name tags and started saying stuff like ´Christ is not in the plaque of the church´ and ´we need to fight for Christ, not the plaque´ we all started laughing a bit on the train and the man seemed a bit offended because of that and went back to the other end of the train. All to be expected in the life of a missionary. 

The when we got here we went to straight to work and got lost, ha ha. It was kinda hard at first to find our way around but now we´re getting the hang of it. We live with two other Elders, Rameires and  J. Sanches. They´re pretty cool and both from Peru and work in the other ward near-by. We don´t really see much of them though because the other area is a bit far.

So a little spiritually thought for the day I had was shared on Sunday in our combined class for the 5th Sunday. The Bishop showed us a video that I have seen a few times but always love to watch called ´Only a Stonecutter´. It´s the story of a great Latter-day saint named John Rowe Moyle who always ´acted instead of being acted upon´. I like that view of life, living and overcoming your circumstances in place of letting them dominate you. We are made to create and over come. We are not as the animals in the fields that we dominate and determine what they will do, we have power over ourselves and our destinies. As another quote states ´a wise man creates more opportunities than he finds´. Let that littler adage sink in a bit and marinade, it´s one of my favorites. 

Well that´s it for now. Miss you all and hope you all and hope you have a good week! 

-Um no exéricto de Deus

Elder Teela