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

Week 91- Section 59 ( 2 months/ 8 Sunday's left )

Hey everyone! This week was interesting enough. We had two divisions this week and it was a bit crazy because I left our area for both, so that was fun. The one day I was in my area we got stopped by some guy in a car and started asking for our address to stop by and give us some referrals. We both thought it was a bit weird so we told him we would meet at a near-by supermarket. We talked a bit more and found out he´s actually from another state... which is a bit weird here in Brazil. Turns out he gave us some awesome referrals while I was gone. I really don´t know any of them yet, but Elder Nielson got pretty excited about them all. 3 Came to church yesterday and seem really elect, we´re hoping they´ll be baptized this week. 

Um, I went on the splits and the Elders are doing good, but one when we were walking home at night turned to me and said ´Oh, just to say, a crazy guy jumped out here a few nights ago and chased us with a 2x4, so just be ready to run´. He said that while we were walking on the edge of the city, close to the ´forest´, so that kinda freaked me out but we got outta there fine. Thanks for that bro, ha ha. 

The other division went off without any sort of craziness, just a few baptismal interviews and a lot of walking as always. 

Some Elders from our house were really poorly mugged it looks like last night as well. I guess robbed is more of the word. A guy stopped them, they talked for like 10 mins and at the end of the conversation ordered them to give him their phone. Little did he know our phones are crap, ha ha. They gave over what maybe values 15 dollars and left. They dude didn´t even pull a knife or anything and seemed drugged they said. Kind of a funny way to get your phone stolen, ha ha. 

We´ve also had a bit of a card game tournament going on at night in the house, ha ha. Winner will get his pizza payed for at a buffet tonight by the rest of us. I got knocked out in the semi-finals and the thinnest kid in the house won! He´s only gonna eat like 3 pieces anyway! It was fun though, lots of bro-bonding.

For a spiritual thought I guess I could talk about Section 59 that I read today. I gotta go here quick so I would suggest give it a look see and think about the blessings we get from going to church simply. 

Hope you all have a good week! Tchau! 

-Um no exérctio de Deus

Elder Teela 

Week 90- Section 67

Hello again! 

So this week was good until about Thursday... but I´ll get there in a bit. 

First we made some awesome lunch last Monday using our fire-pit in the apartment which was sick. I also made a pie of course which was great it not huge. We didn´t have a pan to make it so I bought one but it was a little big you could say. Also we then made some ´doves´ out of origami and then tried to get the Levite in our house to offer them as a ´burnt offering´ but ended up just buring them ourselves, ha ha. What happens when missionaries get bored.... 

We also had interviews with president Wednesday so we also did district meeting that day. It was cool to see him one last time. He said that it would be our last interview together, but the secretaries called and asked if I wanted him to do my final one as well and I said yes. They didn´t make any promises but I might have it with him. We talked about goals and what not and in the end we man-hugged it out and were both a bit sad. 

The next few days we were tearing it up. We don´t really have very many investigators so we just kinda went crazy and hit a ton of doors with members and taught tons of lessons we also had the young men out with us so it was a pretty good blitz. Then.... it happened. We were both a bit hungry so we decided to go get some Shish-kabobs somewhere, so we got some from an old guy cookin´ em up on the street.... not our best idea. 

We spent the next two days in the house. I´ll just say that. Our poor toilet...... 

Our week was at least pretty good even with the sickness, we just did some interviews for some baptisms and then got our two ready for the week. We baptized these two: 

They are both super cool. The black guy was the one that stopped us on the street and the girl was a investigator that has a cousin in the church. Her friend baptized here to the left there. Blessings from Gob the two of them! The water was so cold I literally didn´t feel my feet after the 30 seconds I was in the water. The poor Haitian guy literally ran into the bathroom afterwards to change out. It was a good baptism though, both were super prepared. 

I then chatted with the family for the last time on the mission..... I´m so old in the mission! It was fun and the sister kept bringing us Brazilian doughnuts and stuff. We also had a little talk and I translated for everyone. A great time in all. 

So this week I learned a little about preparation. I was supposed to talk to my family on Saturday but the computer didn´t have a mic or enough power to really run Skype. It was really frustrating and we ended up wasting a good few hours that could have been used a lot better. I really should have made sure everything was good to go before, I would even call it a spiritual prompting I got to check that the laptop was good to go before we started but I ignored it and well... this happened. Just for the future, always follow the scout motto ´Be prepared´. The scriptures say ´ if ye are prepared ye shall not fear.´ and ´gird up your loins and be prepared´ in D&C 38. 

That´s all for now. Everyone have a great week and prepare for my glorious return!

-Um no exército de Deus

Elder Teela 

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