Monday, March 28, 2011
3.28.11 transfers
Dearest Family, I am still in Parnaíba for at least until the next transfer. Elder Donizeti is still my companion which is good. We do some good work together. It is getting a little difficult to find things to do. I know there is a LOT to do in this area, but being here for more than 4 months now, it doesn´t seem that way sometimes. I was kind of hoping for a transfer, but, there must be more for me to do here. Elder Passarin was transferred from Parnaíba. That was really good. I don´t know if you know much about him, but he was companions with Elder Smoot that gave him so many problems. It was getting hard to live with Elder Passarin. Elder Chiba filled his spot. He is from California, so we have 3 Americans living in our house with Elder Donizeti. I feel bad for him because sometimes we speak a lot of english. I try to speak portuguese as much as possible. I know how it is when you don´t understand what anyone is saying... Oh, and an elder got transferred from my district, and Elder Olson, (from Evanston) filled his spot. So now we are in the same district. I am exited to get to know him a little more. That is really exiting about Nathan and his misison call. I hope everything goes great for him in all of his preparations and things. And also, tell Brian congratulations about the engagement. That is great! Another little thing about mission calls... Why are so many people from Idaho Falls getting called to Tulsa? That is weird to me. And I don´t know if you have heard anything, but I have heard that the church isn´t calling Amercans to Brasil anymore because of visa problems. I heard that the CTM in são paulo is filled with Argentinians and bolivians and other latin american people. That will be cool if it is true. That would be cool to be companions with some one not from the States or Brasil. what else... I got a card from Grandma Flash but it was a Christmas card. I won´t get any cards until April. The zone leaders always go to Teresina the first tuesday of each month. So when they get back is usually when I get letters and packages. So maybe in 2 weeks I will have it. My shoes are not bad. Just the insoles in one pair had holes in them. I was mainly just wearing one pair of shoes, but I have to be careful or else I could get athletes foot so I like to switch shoes. The insoles fixed all of my problems. The weather here is the same every single day. That´s not true.. sometimes it will rain for like 5 minutes and flood everything then just get really humid. But it is usually always sunny and perfect weather every day. I hope you get summer soon in Idaho. I don´t miss Idaho winters at all. And Dad, that is really funny what you said to Mom about praying long enough and summer will come.. haha. Mom, I think I will be able to call home on Mother´s day. The handbook says I am allowed to call home 2 times a year (on Christmas, and another day specified by the president, usually mothers day) I will let you know more as I find out. That fish Brent caught is impressive. It is as big as Leslie haha. congrats!! haha Things here are going great and I am excited for this new transfer. We started it off well with the baptism of Prescila and it was a really spiritual meeting. I am sure she will stay in the church. We did really good work with her. She is enrolled in Seminary and all of the youth are her friends now. We even hooked her up with a boyfriend haha... kinda..We have a baptism for Saturday or maybe Sunday. And we found a really good family on Saturday that I am praying will be baptized. We have a goal to help prepare them by the 19th of April. I really really want to baptize a family. But, things are going great. I love you all so much. You are the best family in the world! I know that this is the true church. I don´t have one doubt about that. Jesus lives. We have a living prophet on the earth today, and I am so excited to hear him next week. And yes, we get the broadcasts here in Brazil. (in english and portuguese) I am excited. I love you!! Love Isaac
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
3.21.11
Hey family...
This week was pretty good. We took a trip to Teresina again to hear a general authority talk to us. Elder Godoy came and gave a fantastic talk. He is the man. He talked about our relationship with the mission president and then we took a short break and then he talked about why we are serving missions. He gave 3 reasons... 1. To save others. 2. To establish and build the church and 3. To save myself. It was really really good. He asked some really good questions that made me think. He asked, ´´Out of all the missions in the world, why were you called to Teresina Brasil? What is my purose here? What do I need to accomplish?´´ and things like that. He also talked about love and how I need to love everyone. I can´t teach them if I don´t love them. That is basically what I got out of that part. But it was really really good.
I also got the other package while I was there. THANK YOU!!! It was so good to get Ensigns (especially conference ensign...I read it in 2 days) We get Liahonas here, but they come like 6 months late. If you could, in every package you send, just put the recent ensigns in there if it isn´t too dificult. Also, thank you for the shoe insoles. My feet were just getting destroyed. My shoes ruined my arches. But, now I don´t have any pain and they are healing. Thank you for everything else in the package too... Everything was needed badly. You guys are the best.
A call for transferres should be today... I kind of have a feeling I will be going. But I don´t have any idea really. Rumor has it that there will be 12 new missionaries arriving here on the 12th so if that is true, I think there will be a lot of changes today to get trainers and leaders in the right spot. I think it would b kinda fun to train... but I don´t think I would be very good at it. I still feel like my portuguese is horrible. haha. Its not really, but i have it in my head that I speak bad.
But anyway, that is about all that happened this week here...
Congrats Mindy on your play! It sounds like you did awesome! Also, that diet you guys were on doesn´t sound very good for a runner. Aren´t carbs really important for a runner? Oh, and yes I am so glad that Carnaval is over. That was such a boring couple of days.
Well, good luck in March Madness. Thank you Mom for taking Kansas all the way. I would have done the same thing. Sorry your bracket isn´t doin too well Dad. Are there a lot of upsets or what? I hope you all have a great spring break and that you have fun! I miss you all... Thank you for your prayers and support! You guys are the best!! I love you!!!
Love Isaac
This week was pretty good. We took a trip to Teresina again to hear a general authority talk to us. Elder Godoy came and gave a fantastic talk. He is the man. He talked about our relationship with the mission president and then we took a short break and then he talked about why we are serving missions. He gave 3 reasons... 1. To save others. 2. To establish and build the church and 3. To save myself. It was really really good. He asked some really good questions that made me think. He asked, ´´Out of all the missions in the world, why were you called to Teresina Brasil? What is my purose here? What do I need to accomplish?´´ and things like that. He also talked about love and how I need to love everyone. I can´t teach them if I don´t love them. That is basically what I got out of that part. But it was really really good.
I also got the other package while I was there. THANK YOU!!! It was so good to get Ensigns (especially conference ensign...I read it in 2 days) We get Liahonas here, but they come like 6 months late. If you could, in every package you send, just put the recent ensigns in there if it isn´t too dificult. Also, thank you for the shoe insoles. My feet were just getting destroyed. My shoes ruined my arches. But, now I don´t have any pain and they are healing. Thank you for everything else in the package too... Everything was needed badly. You guys are the best.
A call for transferres should be today... I kind of have a feeling I will be going. But I don´t have any idea really. Rumor has it that there will be 12 new missionaries arriving here on the 12th so if that is true, I think there will be a lot of changes today to get trainers and leaders in the right spot. I think it would b kinda fun to train... but I don´t think I would be very good at it. I still feel like my portuguese is horrible. haha. Its not really, but i have it in my head that I speak bad.
But anyway, that is about all that happened this week here...
Congrats Mindy on your play! It sounds like you did awesome! Also, that diet you guys were on doesn´t sound very good for a runner. Aren´t carbs really important for a runner? Oh, and yes I am so glad that Carnaval is over. That was such a boring couple of days.
Well, good luck in March Madness. Thank you Mom for taking Kansas all the way. I would have done the same thing. Sorry your bracket isn´t doin too well Dad. Are there a lot of upsets or what? I hope you all have a great spring break and that you have fun! I miss you all... Thank you for your prayers and support! You guys are the best!! I love you!!!
Love Isaac
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
3.14.11 Part 2
I got a package!! haha I forgot to tell ya. I got the one that had the silly bandz cereal, muffins, redvines, sour punch things, shirts, icecream... and i don´t remember what else....
But my companion says thank you for the shirt. He liked it. and also brazilians are lovin the silly bands. i am starting the fad down here. I have no idea why they are popular up there.... but, whatev. The kids love them here.
Thank you so much for the package. and I also got a card from Paige and Leslie. Thank you so much! The card was great and Leslie looks huge haha. can she walk yet? I got a birthday card from Kay grandma too! Please tell her thank you!. and tell her I love her and Grandpa..
I love you all!
Isaac
But my companion says thank you for the shirt. He liked it. and also brazilians are lovin the silly bands. i am starting the fad down here. I have no idea why they are popular up there.... but, whatev. The kids love them here.
Thank you so much for the package. and I also got a card from Paige and Leslie. Thank you so much! The card was great and Leslie looks huge haha. can she walk yet? I got a birthday card from Kay grandma too! Please tell her thank you!. and tell her I love her and Grandpa..
I love you all!
Isaac
3.14.11
Family, meus queridos,
This week was perty good. So Pedro was baptized. (i think i told you about him last week). It was a really good meeting. Apparently Elder Donizeti and I are studs. Everyone that we told about the baptism were in unbelief. EVERYONE was like NO WAY?! How did you do it?! A counselor of the mission who lives in Parnaíba came up to us and said ´if we were to go home right now, our missions will be complete because we baptized Pedro´ haha. Another lady said that I will be a General Authority because we baptized him... haha. For me, we didn´t do anything. We just asked him if he wanted to be baptized and if we could help prepare him for the 12 of March. He accepted and he didn´t have one problem with any commandments or doctrine that we taught. In my eyes, Pedro was prepared out of his mind before we even talked to him. I am very greatful that I was able to be here to see him be baptized. (and it is kinda cool to be a little famous here in parnaíba now. haha just kiddin)
Other than that, not much else happened. We are trying to find new investigators because basically everyone is either getting baptized, or they aren´t quite ready yet. We only have like 2 that are progressing. Prescila is progressing well and accepted to be baptized on the 26th. She is pretty cool. All of the young men in the branch are thankful for us because they all think she is pretty cute. We are trying to hook up one of the boys with her haha. It is funny because he gets really nervous around her. We are going to take him to our next appoitment with her and see what we can do for him.
Thats about it for the week...
Dad, I am so sorry that I still haven´t answered you question about P-day. But here is the answer... We wake up and clean the house then study until 1030. We leave to go use the internet. There is a place around the block from where I live to use the computers. There are a couple of ´LAN houses´ that people run from their house as a business. It costs 1 buck to use for an hour. So it is pretty cheap. After internet we maybe will go get some lunch or just go buy our groceries for the week and make lunch in our house. It depends on what our plans are for the rest of the day. Usually we will go the downtown area and walk around and look at stuff. Today I think I will buy some souveniers from here because transferrs are next week. I don´t know if I will be transferred, but just in case....
Sometimes we will play basketball durning the day. But not usually. Usually we just go back to our house and either sleep or play uno or the brazilian version of risk.... I usually sleep. Pdays aren´t way exciting here, but I like them just to relax a little. We can´t really do anything way fun cause the only thing is to do is to go to the beach, and that is against mission rules. There is a place close to here (like 30 minutes) where it is just white sand dunes with water between them. There isn´t a rule against going there but we have to have permission from President Dias, and I guess it is hard to get...
I don´t really have much to say today... sorry. But I know without any doubt that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true chruch on the earth. I know that Joseph Smith really did see Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.I know that Joseph Smith restored the exact same gospel that was here from the beginning of the world. I know that through living the Gospel, families can be together forever. I know God has a plan for every one of us. I know that Christ lives. I know that He suffered for my sins and that I can repent to live with Him again. I am so thankful that I know these things. Life wouldn´t be very fun or happy if I didn´t know these things.
I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week!!! Thank you Mom and Dad for your weekly emails. I always look forward to them. You two are the best parents! I love you!
Love Isaac
This week was perty good. So Pedro was baptized. (i think i told you about him last week). It was a really good meeting. Apparently Elder Donizeti and I are studs. Everyone that we told about the baptism were in unbelief. EVERYONE was like NO WAY?! How did you do it?! A counselor of the mission who lives in Parnaíba came up to us and said ´if we were to go home right now, our missions will be complete because we baptized Pedro´ haha. Another lady said that I will be a General Authority because we baptized him... haha. For me, we didn´t do anything. We just asked him if he wanted to be baptized and if we could help prepare him for the 12 of March. He accepted and he didn´t have one problem with any commandments or doctrine that we taught. In my eyes, Pedro was prepared out of his mind before we even talked to him. I am very greatful that I was able to be here to see him be baptized. (and it is kinda cool to be a little famous here in parnaíba now. haha just kiddin)
Other than that, not much else happened. We are trying to find new investigators because basically everyone is either getting baptized, or they aren´t quite ready yet. We only have like 2 that are progressing. Prescila is progressing well and accepted to be baptized on the 26th. She is pretty cool. All of the young men in the branch are thankful for us because they all think she is pretty cute. We are trying to hook up one of the boys with her haha. It is funny because he gets really nervous around her. We are going to take him to our next appoitment with her and see what we can do for him.
Thats about it for the week...
Dad, I am so sorry that I still haven´t answered you question about P-day. But here is the answer... We wake up and clean the house then study until 1030. We leave to go use the internet. There is a place around the block from where I live to use the computers. There are a couple of ´LAN houses´ that people run from their house as a business. It costs 1 buck to use for an hour. So it is pretty cheap. After internet we maybe will go get some lunch or just go buy our groceries for the week and make lunch in our house. It depends on what our plans are for the rest of the day. Usually we will go the downtown area and walk around and look at stuff. Today I think I will buy some souveniers from here because transferrs are next week. I don´t know if I will be transferred, but just in case....
Sometimes we will play basketball durning the day. But not usually. Usually we just go back to our house and either sleep or play uno or the brazilian version of risk.... I usually sleep. Pdays aren´t way exciting here, but I like them just to relax a little. We can´t really do anything way fun cause the only thing is to do is to go to the beach, and that is against mission rules. There is a place close to here (like 30 minutes) where it is just white sand dunes with water between them. There isn´t a rule against going there but we have to have permission from President Dias, and I guess it is hard to get...
I don´t really have much to say today... sorry. But I know without any doubt that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true chruch on the earth. I know that Joseph Smith really did see Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.I know that Joseph Smith restored the exact same gospel that was here from the beginning of the world. I know that through living the Gospel, families can be together forever. I know God has a plan for every one of us. I know that Christ lives. I know that He suffered for my sins and that I can repent to live with Him again. I am so thankful that I know these things. Life wouldn´t be very fun or happy if I didn´t know these things.
I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week!!! Thank you Mom and Dad for your weekly emails. I always look forward to them. You two are the best parents! I love you!
Love Isaac
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Birthday Pictures and more
My Birthday pictures
the entrance to the church (in case you are wondering what it looks like)
a cool bridge in the downtown area of parnaíba.
Ward activity, it was church/scripture trivia and i made it all the way to the finals. the question was who was the oldest son of Lehi. I switched the words ´oldest´ and ´youngest´ in my head and so I said Joseph instead of Laman. I got a pie in the face for it. but, at least i got second place.
More from the ward party. (i beat elder cameron in a head to head battle. Then i got to pie him in the face)
baptism of Mateus. ( i dont remember if i sent it already)
Muffins that I finally made. They were SOOOO good.
a cool picture of me in a creepy part of town.3.7.11
hey, i was going to send some more pictures, but the computer wont let me do it... so I will type the letter and try again at the end.
Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes! It was a pretty good day yesterday. My companion gave me a tie that I like. We went to lunch at a members house and it was good food. Then we went around town trying to find someone to get to church. The whole town was completely dead. (due to carnaval) I think everyone was at the beach. or drunk. So we weren´t able to find any of our investigators at home. Then we went to church and had a good testimony meeting. After church Elder Cameron and Elder Passarin surprised me with a huge cake. A sister in their branch made it for me. It is a huge cake. we will have cake in the fridge for a long time. It was really good though. I feel so old now that I am 20. I don´t like it. haha.
The week was Ok. still no packages. The zone leaders didn´t go to teresina for some reason but they are going this week. My comp. will be going with them for leadership training. Maybe there is somethin there that he can bring back to me. i don´t like when there is leadership training because the other district leader in Parnaíba has to go too and so I will be companions with his companion. We will have to work 2 areas for a couple of days, and it isn´t very fun. But, oh well.
So for investigator news... Andre and silas still arent baptized. we found the root of the problem, they aren´t reading the book of mormon. I am still trying to figure out why they wanted to be baptized if they didn´t know it was true... haha. But we are trying to get them to read the book of mormon to get an answer. The good news is that our efforts resulted in another investigator and hopefully baptism. Silas´s little sister had been sittin in the other room while we teach Silas and I had noticed that she was kind of ´ease-dropping´. So I said something to my comp that we should try to teach her too. Well the next time we went there she just started asking us questions and so we started teaching her. She had been reading the little pamphlets that we gave to silas. We gave her a book of mormon and she read what we marked and prayed about it and joseph smith. She got an answer that night that this is the true chruch. We are going to mark a date to be baptized on the 19th just because we need to teach some more stuff and she needs to go to church one more time before. We told her to help Silas read and we also told her to share her testimony with him and how she got it. I think it will help him and her.
I don´t know if I have told you about Pedro yet... He is 25 and he is dating the district presidents daughter. He always goes to church and even pays tithing already... He has been going to church the whole time I have been here and I always thought he was a member already. It turns out he isn´t. And what is weird is that NOT ONE set of missionaries have tried to teach this guy. So we asked his girlfriend if we can teach him and she just smiled really big and said thank you a lot. The district presidents wife started to cry when we told her that we marked a date for baptism with him. He is excited to be baptized this coming satrurday (12th). It is easy to teach him because he has been going to church for so long and he basically knows everything. It is ridiculous that no one else has tried to teach him... haha. He is golden.
Anyway, this week was pretty good. It is boring lately cause of carnaval. We have to come in at 5 pm and just do nothing. We play uno and we built a fort on saturday. It is pretty boring.... haha. i hope you all have a great week this week!
Mirdanda, congrats on getting a 97 on your thesis! that is awesome! Dad, way to go on the running 19 miles. I think that is so sweet. Somethin I could never do... (or want to do haha). Thanks for everything you all do for me. And thanks for praying for our investigators. I am sure it is helping. I love you all!!!!
até logo
Isaac
Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes! It was a pretty good day yesterday. My companion gave me a tie that I like. We went to lunch at a members house and it was good food. Then we went around town trying to find someone to get to church. The whole town was completely dead. (due to carnaval) I think everyone was at the beach. or drunk. So we weren´t able to find any of our investigators at home. Then we went to church and had a good testimony meeting. After church Elder Cameron and Elder Passarin surprised me with a huge cake. A sister in their branch made it for me. It is a huge cake. we will have cake in the fridge for a long time. It was really good though. I feel so old now that I am 20. I don´t like it. haha.
The week was Ok. still no packages. The zone leaders didn´t go to teresina for some reason but they are going this week. My comp. will be going with them for leadership training. Maybe there is somethin there that he can bring back to me. i don´t like when there is leadership training because the other district leader in Parnaíba has to go too and so I will be companions with his companion. We will have to work 2 areas for a couple of days, and it isn´t very fun. But, oh well.
So for investigator news... Andre and silas still arent baptized. we found the root of the problem, they aren´t reading the book of mormon. I am still trying to figure out why they wanted to be baptized if they didn´t know it was true... haha. But we are trying to get them to read the book of mormon to get an answer. The good news is that our efforts resulted in another investigator and hopefully baptism. Silas´s little sister had been sittin in the other room while we teach Silas and I had noticed that she was kind of ´ease-dropping´. So I said something to my comp that we should try to teach her too. Well the next time we went there she just started asking us questions and so we started teaching her. She had been reading the little pamphlets that we gave to silas. We gave her a book of mormon and she read what we marked and prayed about it and joseph smith. She got an answer that night that this is the true chruch. We are going to mark a date to be baptized on the 19th just because we need to teach some more stuff and she needs to go to church one more time before. We told her to help Silas read and we also told her to share her testimony with him and how she got it. I think it will help him and her.
I don´t know if I have told you about Pedro yet... He is 25 and he is dating the district presidents daughter. He always goes to church and even pays tithing already... He has been going to church the whole time I have been here and I always thought he was a member already. It turns out he isn´t. And what is weird is that NOT ONE set of missionaries have tried to teach this guy. So we asked his girlfriend if we can teach him and she just smiled really big and said thank you a lot. The district presidents wife started to cry when we told her that we marked a date for baptism with him. He is excited to be baptized this coming satrurday (12th). It is easy to teach him because he has been going to church for so long and he basically knows everything. It is ridiculous that no one else has tried to teach him... haha. He is golden.
Anyway, this week was pretty good. It is boring lately cause of carnaval. We have to come in at 5 pm and just do nothing. We play uno and we built a fort on saturday. It is pretty boring.... haha. i hope you all have a great week this week!
Mirdanda, congrats on getting a 97 on your thesis! that is awesome! Dad, way to go on the running 19 miles. I think that is so sweet. Somethin I could never do... (or want to do haha). Thanks for everything you all do for me. And thanks for praying for our investigators. I am sure it is helping. I love you all!!!!
até logo
Isaac
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