First of all how was Christmas for everyone this year, everyone busy with all the holiday cheer and all the Christmas activitys? This was one of the best and craziest weeks of the whole mission so far so I´ll just start form the beggining

First of all on Tuesday as we were doing our weekly planning where you plan for the whole week and who you´re going to teach how are you going to help them and all your goals we were trying to figure out who we could have be baptized for this week, and for a Christmas baptizem. During this time we had a really good referal to check out saying he´s going to church for a while and want´s to learn more, so of course that was our first priority was him this week. After the first lesson it was easy to tell he was really prepared for us, he read all the way to second Nephi before we even taught him anything and is just amazing for us. After teaching him the first lesson we asked him to be baptized for this friday the day before Christmas eve (because he already had the two weeks in church) and he said yes!!! It was amazing, we spent the rest of the week making sure to prepare him, even though he was just a huge blessing in our lifes. 

For lunches we alwasys have to give a message and normally it´s just a simple sweet message from the scriptues bear your testimony and that´s about it, but it being Natal this week we decided to change things up, so each day we would bring a Santa hats and our hymm books and sing a Christmas hymm and as soon as we would finish the hymm we would pull out the bible and read in luke 2:10-11 talking about the birth of Jesus and the true meaning of Christmas, and that was amazing to be able to do, it was such a big hit that when it came time for Saturday we had a huge chance to do it again because the Saturdays for us are one of the most crazy days, it´s the day to prepare everything for Sunday, so you go to every house you teach and share a message. But we Did the same thing as we did as the lunches and just made everyone laugh when we pulled out our hats and started to sing. It was a really cool experiance just to be able to talk about the true meaning of Christmas and the opportunity I had to share this messasage with everyone this time of year. 

Now it´s time for mor of the highlights of the week, after we finished all of our singing we hard to go to a house of a member for Christmas eve, this is a rule and also the one time you get home late because the presdient tells you to. We went to the house of Vagner who is just way funny and we always have a blast at their house when we eat lunch there. But we had some of the best BBQ of my life that i still dream about because it was so dang good, we spent the whole night there and just laughed and ate, I still feel a little full from it right now because they made us eat so much meat. 

Christmas day was the best day of the mission, we started off the day with presents from the house and it almost felt like a normal Christmas with our little mission family, then we went to church and had a special program, just one hour and it was mostly singing and the bishop from our ward and the ward we combined with for the day gave a little talk, Our Bishop talked about how it´s important to find Christ each week and find Christ in our lifes each day and was just amazing. For lunch we went to a members house and had a secret santa there and it was just amazing. 

Now it´s time for the best part with talking to the family. It was amazing being able to talk to you guys with skype and amazing to see your faces, you all look great. As far as the new boyfriend Arrie i don´t know if I´m more dissipointed in him or you for not knowing a Giants player when I asked that question. But the Portugues is sounding great from you two and can´t wait to talk more with you guys in the amazing language. 

Last but not least we had a transfer today and i got a new comp!! His name is Elder Menezes a Brazilian, he´s a really cool guy though, I´ve known him my whole mission because he´s been in my zone this whole time and he´s a really hard worker, so this will be a great transfer with him and a great chance to learn a lot form him! 

I hope you all had a great Natal this year!!!

Wow this week a lot happend and nothing happened at the same time. As far as teaching this week it was one of our hardest weeks for us. Whenever we had a plan the people would leave before we got there or just tell us to come back a different time and then not be there. It was one of the hardest weeks we had out here because of it. But right when things started to look really bad for us the lord started working his miricules for us. For this entire week we´ve been trying to find this one family to teach that we found in our area book from the past missionaries.A perfect family that has had all the lessons but just needed to be married. After about 5 days of trying we finally stumbled upon their house to find out they broke up and now live in different houses. (I know really sad) and sadly the girl didn´t live there anymore and she was the one really interested in the lessons and nobody knew where she lived. So of course we thought the bad luck would just continue on us for the week. But no, the next day we were working in a area we don´t normally work in and just had three or four people not show up so we weren´t door to door again. our first house we knocked on we found the mystery lady that we´ve been looking for!!! After talking to her for a little big we found out all the details on what´s been going on and how she´s been wanting to missionaries to vist her again so it was just a huge miricule for us after one of the hardest weeks we´ve had here. If she goes to church next week she will be able to be baptized so hopefully everything goes right for her this week.

As far as the rest of the week nothing big really happened, This next week will be really busy will the the activitys for our ward and the missionaries.

Dang time is flying by here, I can´t believe it´s almost december here. While you guys have the cold and the snow we have the nice heat with the warm rain. The rain always makes for a fun day with a lot of weird looks from people.

This weeks as always the time flys by, and there isn´t enough time is a day to do all that you need to do. First of all though this week we had a great training for our zone about planning for the week. When you do the little things like planning and making goals the lord blesses you to make this plans, first you just have to put in the work for it. 

Right now we are teaching a way cool family that is way fun to teach and just prepared for the goesple. The mom and dad aren´t ready for baptizem yet but are working and have a date for the 10th of december, and the two younger daugethers we baptiazed our second week or something like that. Every time we go to that house we feel the spirt. We had the chance to give them a blessing this week to help them out and the spirt was so strong during these blessing. 

As far as the rest of the week goes i don´t really know what happened, it all just blends together into what feels like one really quick day.

Wow this week was a crazy one like always. First of all everyone here trys to talk to me about how trump one and my feelings on this subject. I just have a simple reply back that when I return we will have a new president so I don´t have to worry about it to much.

This week was the week of transfers, don´t worry though, me and elder castro are still going strong in our area, we are getting a new missionary from the CTM this week though and so that´s going to be amazing! All the elders in the house are way cool right now and we have a ton of fun every day, so that helps a ton with all the stress of the mission.

As far as teaching goes we work our hardest every day, and we have our good days and we have our harder days. This week I had a really cool expericance. We had some people bail on taking the lessons so we went out looking for someone new to teach. After a couple of houses we knocked on this house and it was my turn to talk, so we my american acent I tried talking to this man. When I finished he just looked at me and started speaking english. I was in shock at this moment. We had a amazing converstion at first just talking about everything because it was all in english. Then he started to open up to me and was talking about all these questions he had and how his boss is a member of the church and just about everything. So we answered all of his questions to the best we could and bore our testimonys in the middle of the street to this guy. Sadly we haven´t had the chance to teach him again because of his work but hopefully this week we will be able to.

BAPTIZEMS

This week was crazy with just about everything.

First we had a week to prepare for three Baptizems. Me an Elder Castro had two (Victoria and Agatha) and the Other elders in our house had one as well for the same day and time. Trying to teach all the commandants in one week is rough, it took up pretty much our whole day for the week so we didn´t spend much time trying to find new investagators. But it payed off. The day of the Baptizem we had a service project in the moring and right after had to go teach and as soon as we got done with the lessons we had to run to the church to set up everything and that took us another 3 hours to get eveything cleaned up. But during it was one of the best parts of my mission so far. The spirt was so strong the whole time is was amazing. 

Some other quick highlights have to be when it was pouring rain one day. People looked at us like we were crazy all day trying to work in this rain. Me and Elder Castro and I were just trying to talk to everyone and have a good time. 

When things seem hard just remember you get what you make of it. We are all going to have those hard times in our lifes but when we choose to see the good in things it makes life a little easier.

Happy Halloween!!!!!

It´s crazy that it´s already Halloween, time is flying by right now, I still feel like last week just started. Here´s what´s going on right now.

First we work with the AP´s here like everyday, we are trying to open up a new ward here so we have splits or go in a trio all the time. They are crazy good at teaching and such a great example for me. When I was working with Elder Allan this week we had one of our investagtors not show up so we had to move on to our next house, and of course they didn´t answer so we went door to door knocking. After about 5 houses we knocked on a members house that we didn´t know was a member so it was awkard at first and we had to play it off like we just needed a drink. After talking with her for a second she told us to go visit this house across the street for us so of course we did. This was the craziest lesson I´ve ever been a part of. We covered tithing, word of wisdom, and baptizem in 1 hour and after being so confused Elder Allan asked two people to be Baptized this Saturday. After they said yes we had to make some phone calls to make sure we are clear and prepare for it, and had to go back to the house and teach one more lesson. This one was so much different though, It was way calm and the sprit was so strong. After the lesson we found out that the youngest daugter was having really bad health problems so we ended up giving a blessing, and I had to give my first blessing in Portauges, before I was so scared to do it and couldn´t think straight. But druing the it, it was the best I´ve felt and didn´t feel nervous. 

I´m running out of time here so i´ll make this next part quick, if everything goes right we should have two baptizems for this saturday, and two more next week. I love you all, be safe out there are have a great Halloween.

2 Months

It was two months yesterday! It´s crazy how fast time flys out here when you´re serving the lord. This week was honeslty my favorite week so far and so much happened!

First of all we had our first Splits with the AP´s! On Tuesday I went out with a American named Elder Allen who has just over a year and couple of months out in the field and is a amazing teaching and I was able to learn so much in just one day. 

We went into the day with pretty much no plan because the plan was just to get new people to teach, our first lesson when he started teaching he starting comparing it to stuff i would have never thought to, after that lesson we had a good talk just about everything and just letting all the stress go because I was finally able to communicate with someone. I swear after that day I was able to understand more because I didn´t have any stress on my mind. We ended up have 5 people say yes to baptizem in just a couple of hours, after going all these weeks without anyone saying yes was hard. But he´s a hard working and it showed how hard work pays off when you´re in the field. 

Just a couple of days later we got another call saying we had splits one more time which is weird because you normally just go once, this time though I didn´t go with Elder Allen I went with his comp Elder Carvollio, who only has one more transfer after this one, He helped me in so many different ways I can´t even explain. Thoughtout the day he made me talk nonstop and when I said something the wrong way he would correct me, which is hard to have, but right now I just have to be humble and except that I need help with just about everything when i try to talk, which is hard to do. Just as we had nothing to do he turned to me and said I need you to pray right now for a family for us to teach, at first I didn´t think he was serious but he said it again and kept moving. So I said a prayer in my heart and after about 20 minutes of walking around we still had nothing, and it was getting late so we started to head back to the house, just as we were about to leave the area a little girl asked him what was in his hand, so he said it´s a book of mormon, are your parents here so we can talk to them?  Just as we said that a guy yelled out the window for us to come teach them, and the lord didn´t just give us one family to teach but 3!!! It just goes to show that when you work hard and trust in the lord he will help you with all things!

Week 2

This week flew by, it feels like i was just emailing.

First of all we had a member of the 70 come talk to us on a mission tour thing this week with us and another zone, and I got to see my CTM comp Elder Marrow there. It´s weird still not seeing my old distic but also nice to be out of the CTM. Before he started to give his talk we started with our zone giving a musical  preformace, not the whole zone though just me two other Elders and 5 Sisters.. Talk about nerve racking trying to sing to everyone in portagues, It went good though. After the member of the 70 gave his talk in Portagues so it was hard to understand but i was able to pick up part and piece and try to make some since of it. 

Things are going good here,The langue is different but it´s coming a long. As my comp Elder Castro and the rest of the Elders in my house try to teach me Portagues i try to help them learn English. It´s funny to hear them speak in English and then I realize that´s how i sound to them at the Moment.

We have some new investagotrs at the moment,The first one was crazy How we found them,we were trying to find the house for the longest time finally after about a hour of trying to find it and talking to people we saw his neighbor watering his plants and went and talked to them. They let us share a message of the Plan of Salvation and it went so well! Mid way though the lesson their daugeter walked in and we started teaching her the lesson, She kept bringing up all these things in the bible and we did our best to answer and not bible bash so finally we bore our testomonys and gave them a book of mormon to read! we have another lesson set up later this week so hopefully we can commit them to baptizem this week! 

I don´t have time to share the rest so hopefully next week I´ll be able to share more!