Week 98 (LAST ONE!)

Hey guys.... um well, it´s almost over. This is the last time I will send an email though and it sure feels weird..... I figured I´d leave most the details this week to have a few stories still when I get home but I´d like to throw a short list of things while I learned out here and some photos of some of my best memories. 

So starting with the list. 

1). Work. 

I think one of the things I learned better than another is how to work. This week isn't easy and more than one time I wanted to quit. I knew the church was true and everything, I just thought I wasn't a good enough missionary, or that I didn't work enough or that I just wasn't cut out for it. But in the end it was put my shoulder to the wheel and work. As God said to Adam, by the sweat of the brow we will live. We will work all our lives and enjoy all of it´s ´four-letter-glory´ as one man put it. 

2). The church is true.

I can´t tell you how many times I've said it or how many more times I will say it my life. I have seen miracles happen right in front of me and have no way to deny it, the church is simply true and no matter what anyone says, proves, debates or screams, I will never be able to truthfully deny it. 

3). Studying is important. 

Having spent the last two years pouring over the scriptures I can say that was probably one of the most important things I did on the mission. It´s what gave me a MUCH stronger testimony and will carry me into college. Daily study wasn't really part of my life before the mission but now it will be and I´m finally gonna get out of 3rd grade I think, ha ha. 

4). Relationships

I was always a bit of social person you could say but now I really get how to understand and care about people. As gay as it might sound I have learned a lot about who I´m looking for in a marriage now that I've spent 2 years, 24/7 with other people and my companions (you were right dad, you happy? Ha ha). I intend to be a lot better socially now. 

5). Judgement. 

You could say I've made some hard decisions on my mission and I've learned a lot that mommy and daddy won´t be able to do all the hard work for me, I have to choose sometimes for myself and it´s gonna be ugly either way. Just gotta man up and go for it. 

6). Toughness. 

It´s a bit weird that a guy that spent two years walking around in a suit and tie learned to be more tough but the toughness I am talking about is more mental. Those days that you don´t want to get up and 6:30, when it´s cold and taking off the covers seems like suicide. Those days when everything falls through and going home at 6 seems like a great idea that and that no one will find out, when you need to put on these stupid clothes even when it´s 100 degrees out and choke on a tie (Anyone who knows me knows I hate church dress, ha ha). Taking cold showers in the morning, it´s all part of the fun. 

7). Following the spirit

It´s hard to do sometimes and I am still a bit rough on hearing that little voice but I have learned there is no ignoring it. No matter how weird it is, or how strange I need to act, I am determined to follow it. I can´t tell you how many people I've chased down to do a contact with them and have them turn me down anyway, but the Lord ordered, so I followed. 

That´s just a bit, I have SO much more, but it would take all week to type and I still need to work this week, ha ha. Here´s some photos of some of my favorite adventures: 

The night I spent dressed all old-school preacher-like was pretty awesome.

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Eating weird fruit was fun too, ha ha

Just a few good memories, we don´t get enough space in these emails to send much more, but these are some good memories. Well..... have a good week and I´ll see some of you here in a week! TCHAU BRAZIL! 

-Um no exército de Deus

Elder Teela

Week 97 (Section 13 / Second to last email)

Boa tarde Tchês! Well, like the first line says, this will be my second to last email! It´s crazy that these two years have gone by so fast! I can hardly believe I´m at the home stretch here. I´ll be working hard for these next two weeks for sure. 

So this week was good pretty much. We went to a mall in the middle of the city and spent our P-day there which was cool. It was fairly small so it only took a few hours to look around and they Elders here picked up some stuff and looked into some Gaucho stuff for me to buy as souvenirs (butchered that word) And I got me some cool stuff. 

Tuesday it was back to business as usual. We had a kid show up to church last week that is a friend to a lot of the kids in the ward already and so we went over to his house and started visiting him and he was ready to be baptized this week! Here´s a cool pic of all of us: 

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Poor kids were in wet jumpsuits and it was pretty cold, ha ha. Good thing the font heater is working just fine and they had some nice warm water to do the baptism. 

We had a cool meeting with the new president (that´s right, I´m leaving, he´s coming) and I found an old friend there from my ward! Here´s a pic of him and me! 

Two handsome devils there. 

We also had ward baptism this week that was super fun. The little girl turned 8 last week and she did her party and baptism together which of course was themed after Frozen. She even came in dancing and singing ´Let it Go´ all in a costume and everything. It was pretty fun, we of course cleaned out the free food there was and cake, ha ha. A missionary is ALWAYS hungry. 

For a quick little thought here I was thinking about how we change ourselves. I was thinking about how we change our natures and break bad habits and then I thought about Alma 37:6 : ´behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass´. So there´s the answer, Work the small things, the devil in the detail. If we do all the small stuff right, the big stuff comes later. That´s the secret, that´s what makes these great things happen. 

I have a lot more to tell you guys but I´ll leave it for when I get home, ha ha. Hope you all have a good week! 

-Um no exército de Deus

Elder Teela

P.S. e-mail next week will be on Tuesday

Week 96 (section 20)

Hello people! This week was pretty good until I got a nasty flu.... Stupid winter season. We've spent the majority of the past two days at home but we managed to get our work done a bit early in the week so it wasn't too bad for us. Got some stories for you this week though, ha ha. 

So to start with we had 5 of our 6 baptisms fall through for this weekend but then a girl turned up from nowhere who has been going to church for a while and already had received all the lessons! So that was pretty great and she passed her interview with out a problem. She´s lived in the world for a while but she´s gonna be a lot better now I think. 

I had my last interview with president as well..... My gosh that was super special. I can´t even tell you how good it was but a trunky for sure. I was there with a bunch of elder´s that were going home with me too..... AAHHH! It was super cool though and I´m glad I did it with pres. Wright for sure. 

So we had this other kid we've been teaching for a while now that also got baptized this week. We went to go fill the font for his baptism and stuff and I was already feeling a bit sick but I went for it anyway. We got there and opened the church like normal but this time someone turned on the alarm..... It´s never been on before and I had no idea what the code was, so we sat there a bit after about one minute I called the bishop.... who was in the temple... So I figured I could try and figure out the code. My comp helpfully put in 1234 which was not the code. I then got to thinking, maybe it´s the same as another code, so I put in the one from Sapucaia but that wasn't it. I then thought about significant church dates and the first one I put in was right! It was pretty funny and I felt a little like 007. 

So we got the baptism going just fine but the water was cold and that only made me feel even worse.... but it was worth it, it´s been a while since we started teaching him and he´s a great kid, so we went for it

This week as well we went by a recent convert who has been baptized about a month or so. When we went there she said that her friend´s church was talking bad about ours and her dad was on a bit of a rant against us. She asked why he didn't like the church. He said that he didn't like how we ´bug´ everyone with our missionaries (not the first time I heard that one). She then told him that it is because they are trying to help, and in the end you are super happy you actually listened to them. I was SO proud of her! It made me smile and really appreciate the work we do here. 

Oh, here´s some pics of the baptisms we had this week: 

So yeah, not a lot more happened this week but it was a good week I´d say. It was the last one for President Wright, so we gave it our best. We´ll have a zone conference to welcome him this week and I´ll see Elder Ritter (friend from my home ward) as well which I´m pretty excited for. I´ll right you more about it next week! It´ll be my second-last email next week. Catch you all then! 

-Um no exéricto de Deus

Elder Teela

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Week 95 (Section 27)

Man, only one month left. It´s kinda crazy. I guess I should be really trunky at this point but I really am doing pretty good. Trying to get the best out of my morning workouts (you´re welcome ladies) and just trying to finish off strong. 

So this week was pretty good. We got a lot of lessons in and did a few splits. Starting off with Tuesday we went and visited a really cool referral we got from one of the young woman in the ward.

Her name is Dienifer (Jeniffer, di in Portuguese makes a J sound more or less) and she´s 13 and really cool. Her friend even went with us to her house and we gave them the first lesson with a Book of Mormon and they could be baptized this week! 

Also we've been teaching a family that´s super cool that should be baptized this week as well. That and one more young man we've been seeing for like 2 months is now ready to be baptized as well. All in all, it could be 5 baptisms this week from our area alone. The other Elders in the ward have at least 2 more baptisms lined up as well..... I guess we´re spending Sunday in the water. A bit worse that it is winter so we might get sick, but it´s worth it! 

On Wednesday we had some splits with the assistants. I was with the older of the two in our area which was cool. The only problem was that we went by an area where they are paving the road and it started raining and well.... I got my pants soaked in tar/pitch or whatever they were putting down on the road. I am the lucky one though, I at last have 5 more pairs of pants to use but this poor Elder only has one more pair he says... Ha ha. We also went by and checked by a potential investigator we had and well... she was trippin´. She talked about how her daughters are all ´believers´ as they call them here (hard-core Christians like us, ha ha) and then showed us her ´Blest cloth for São Paulo´ or something like that.... It was a cloth with a dove and a scripture on it and we just kinda looked at each other and tried not to laugh. 

We also did a really cool FHE with that family we've been teaching and the Elders Quorum president and his family. It was a little crazy though because turned out that I was making a snack, so I made pancakes, ha ha. They all seemed to love them but it wasn't my best batch I´m willing to admit. It was cool though. I really hoped that that will help them on their way to this Sunday 

Well, I´m a bit out of time to write here. I´ll let you all go with this idea. I always liked a phrase that a person at some point said to me. He said misery is comfortable, any sort of growth and happiness will require pain. When we grow as kids, we experience pains. When we go to a gym and lift weights and get stronger we feel pain. For me that is kinda like the end of the mission here. I can finish out here comfortable and do nothing and just let the end come, or I can end better than I started. I would say that I would work harder than every worked before but that would mean I wasn't working too hard before, so I just wanna finish strong. So, I will not just stay here comfortable, I want the pain. 

Hope you all have a good week. Keep it real, and don´t steal

-Um no exército de Deus

Elder Teela

  

Week 94 (Section 34)

Wow, this really is winding down now isn't it? Just a little over a month left.... dang. 

Anyway this week was full of adventure rain and killer cold. We had transfers as you all know and I am now with who was Sister Jane here but President sealed us last week and said that he received revelation that we should be married...... KIDDING! I´m once again with an Elder that I lived with before. He calls himself Elder Ramirez and he´s a great guy from Peru. Here´s a pic form last transfer 

He´s the Peruvian looking one in the middle giving a thumbs up. 

So this week we went to the last leadership meeting with President Wright. It was pretty amazing. He gave us a great message and he left all of us with tears in our eyes. It really was pretty great to have served with him and he´ll be missed a lot here. He´s almost like a super star, really. It was nice to have at least that good point on the day, we then went home and only got there around 5:30 and then we went to go work it started raining and the temperature fell to about 45 or so so it was cold. And we didn't have umbrellas. so I guess it was all blessings for the future that night. 

The rest of the week went pretty well. We found some down-right legit families. We got a referral from a young woman in the ward and they are just golden! They came to stake conference this week. 

Speaking of which, stake conference was with a 70 named Elder Antunes! On top of that we got to go to the adult session. Usually we can´t but we got a call from Pres. Wright Saturday morning around 10 and asked if we were going to be in the meeting that night. I said that it looked like none of our investigators would be attending, so that means we couldn't go. He then cut me off and said ´no Elder, you two are going. The 70 asked that you two be there tonight´. I´m not one to argue with General Authorites so we went, ha ha. 

After I hung up the phone I told me-oldie comp about the news and then said ´I hope he doesn't call us up in front of everyone´. Little did I know that proved to be prophetic, ha ha. He did EXACTLY that and asked us a few questions about receiving referrals and working with members and what not and then we sat down. He really gave a great talk after that and really got everyone´s attention. He´s quite the jokester actually, a lot different than I imagined. The Sunday session was awesome as well. 

So for my spirituallities this week I was think a bit. I was a bit down in Friday thinking about how we didn't have any hope for a baptism this week and feeling really down for not having one. I then realized just because this is my last transfer doesn't mean it´s gonna go perfect. I just need to keep in working and do my best, like I've been doing. If I give %100 no one can really say that the results were my fault. I just need to keep on keepin´ on. 

That and I was listening to a talk today where they read this poem which I thought you all might enjoy: 

Jake, the rancher, went one day to fix a distant fence.
The wind was cold and gusty and the clouds rolled gray and dense.

As he pounded the last staples in and gathered tools to go,
The temperature had fallen and the snow began to blow.

When he finally reached his pickup, he felt a heavy heart.
From the sound of that ignition, he knew it wouldn’t start.

So Jake did what most of us do if we would have been there.
He humbly bowed his balding head and sent aloft a prayer.

As he turned the key for the last time, he softly cursed his luck.
They found him three days later, frozen stiff in that old truck.

Now Jake had been around in life and done his share of roamin’,
But when he saw Heaven, he was shocked—It looked just like Wyomin’!

Oh, there were some differences, of course, but just some minor things.
One place had simply disappeared—the town they called Rock Springs.

The BLM had been shut down, and there weren’t no grazin’ fees,
And the wind in Rawlins and Cheyenne was now a gentle breeze.

The Park and Forest Service folks—they didn’t fare so well.
They’d all been sent to fight some fire in a wilderness called Hell.

Though Heaven was a real nice place, Jake had a wondering mind,
So he saddled up and lit a shuck, not knowin’ what he’d find.

Then one day up in Cody, on a cold fall afternoon,
He saw St. Peter coming, and he knew he’d be there soon.

Of all the saints in Heaven, his favorite was St. Peter.
Now, this line, it ain’t needed, but it helps with rhyme and meter.

So they set and talked a minute or two, or maybe it was three.
Nobody was keepin’ score—in Heaven time is free.

“I’ve always heard,” Jake said to Peter, “that God will answer prayers,
But one time I asked for help, well, He just plain wasn’t there.

“Does God answer prayers of some, and ignore the prayers of others?
That don’t seem exactly square—I know all men are brothers.

“Or does He randomly reply, without good rhyme or reason?
Maybe it’s the time of day, the weather, or the season.

“Now I ain’t tryin’ to act smart; it’s just the way I feel,
And I was wonderin’, could you tell, What the heck’s the deal?”

Peter listened very patiently, and when ol’ Jake was done,
There was a smile of recognition, and he said, “So, you’re the one!

“That day your truck, it wouldn’t start, and you sent your prayer a-flying,
You gave us all a real bad time, with hundreds of us a-trying.

“A thousand angels rushed to check the status of your file,But, you know, Jake, we hadn’t heard from you in quite a while.

“And though all prayers are answered, and God ain’t got no quota—
He didn’t recognize your voice, and started a truck in North Dakota.”

A bit of humor to end the week :). Hope you all have a good one! Tchau! 

-Um no exército de deus

Elder Teelad with before. He calls himself Elder 

Week 93 (Section 41)

Hello everyone! 

The keen observer might notice that my countdown of the D&C Jumped a bit, but that is because I was actually a bit behind I found out. No one judge me, I´m not even trunky anyway :). 

So this week sure was fun.... well interesting and weird would be better words for it. Monday we actually almost worked normal because we had the temple on Tuesday, we just did our email because we wouldn't have time to do it Tuesday trading the p-day. We did a few visits to our normal people here and went and got some Xis to finish the night. It was a pretty uneventful day really.

Tuesday is where things started to get a little wacky. We went to Porto Algere early to try and get some stuff done before and eat lunch there, so we took off at around 9am to get there. We were there till about 11 heading out to lunch when we got a ´phone call from the assistants.... Turns out the temple lost it´s power that day. Some construction project or protest or something happened they said. So that kinda threw a sour note on our day, but we went to a pizza buffet and ate away at our sadness a bit, ha ha. 

We then went to the airport to get the train there but Elder Nielson and Barnes had a secret combination made I think and just down and watched airplanes go by for about 20 mins. Trunk-faces. We then went and took some cool pics at what they call the ´lasso-er´. Here´s one: 

I really don´t know why this statue is here or what it represents, but it´s pretty cool, haha. 

Wednesday was more of the same, just a lot of work and knocking doors. We went out with a pretty cool young man named Helaman who helped us knock out our portions of lessons with members a lot. It was a good day in all. 

I really don´t remember all that much of Thursday. I guess it was a bit of a ho-hum day. Oh actually, I remember now. It was a thing they called the mini-MTC for the youth in our stake. It was basically us showing up for lunch and giving a training on contacts (me and Elder Nielson) and then heading out with the kids to do contacts in the street. It was kinda funny to see them all come back and think they were already the greatest missionaries on earth, ha ha. It was pretty funny but I liked the thing over all. 

Friday was the day we actually went to the temple which was cool. We ate lunch with a cool sister and then took off to Porto and had a good session there. It started raining and then the power was coming and going. I was thinking the power would go out again but at least this time I was through with the session, ha ha. We then went to a near-by mall for some milk shakes and wandering around a bit and then went home and got soaked because we were running the last half mile or so to home, ha ha. It was a fun and memorable day. 

Saturday we found some really cool people to teach and knocked out a ton of lessons. The only problem here seems to be that people are too lazy to come to church...... They all love our visits and the messages but don´t ever make it there..... gggrrrrr. 

Sunday we worked for a while and then made a quick trip home so I could make some cookies for a going away party for Barnes and Nielson. We then went to said party/FHE thing and had fun there. Speaking of which this is transfers this week. I´m staying here as ZL but I have no idea who is coming but it´s my last transfer so I hope they´re ready to work and party, ha ha. I´m gonna kill it. It´s just so surreal that it´s all gonna be over so fast now....... I can hardly believe it. 

That´s gonna be my message this week. It´s really not worth running a race just to stop 10 feet before the finish line. I will not be one of those missionaries that doesn't nothing his last transfer. This is a ´finishers wanted´ gospel. I like what Christ said ´And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.´ That and ´Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.´ it´s like that. I can rest when I get home, for now, I´m still a missionary. 

Well, there´s your weekly rant. Have a good one everyone! 

-Um no exército de Deus

Elder Teela 

Week 92 (section 53)

So this week wasn't too fun, but it had it´s ups as well. To start off we went to one of them great pizza buffets for dinner on last Monday. We got to this SUPER fancy place and payed way more than we should have, but we had already gotten there and walking back didn't seem too fun without eating, so we did. I managed to get down 30 slices of pizza! Yeah, how´s that for manhood, haha. But the real winner of the night was my companion. He pounded down 40 slices of pizza! Can you even imagine that?! The crust is thinner here and all but man, I think I would die. 

Then it rained for 3 days straight. I´m pretty sure I´ve already explained this but when it rains here literally everything stops. No one goes shopping, no one is on the street, no one wants to have visits or let you in..... it´s real fun. But we got some good work in still this week. We pretty much did all our work for the week in 3 or 4 days which was pretty busy but it still worked out pretty well I think. The only annoying bit was that we had a record of 5 baptisms fall through in the ward this week. 4 of which were ours, so that was no fun :(. I think we´ll get em´ on this week though. 

I really can´t think of all that many funny/crazy stuff that happened this week..... We did go to a birthday party for one of the sisters in the ward last night. It was pretty fun, I made a pie for sure and we ate tacos like crazy. It was fun until a woman decided to feed her 2 year old son..... breast feed that is.... in front of everyone.... and she´s at least 300 pounds.... Yeah that was a fun sight. It´s fairly normal here in Brazil for woman to breast feed their children like without a blanket or anything covering but a 2 year old with a fat woman..... The freak was that!? I pretty much lost my hunger after that, ha ha. 

So for a spiritual thought I was a bit inspired by the John Rowe Moyle story again this week. It´s a story about a man who lost his leg as a stone cutter while the Salt Lake temple was being built. I would check into the church film "Only a Stone Cutter" if you get a chance. I´m sure most of you have already seen it but it´s a really cool story if you haven´t. 

I hope you all have a good week! 

-Um no exército de Deus

Elder Teela