Week #47 (Half way there!)

So here's the scuttlebutt.  We had a really good week this week.  A lot of good lessons learned.

We had interviews with President Brum earlier this week which turned out really well.  I was the very last to be interviewed by him, since we live relatively close to the chapel where he was giving interviews.  Gonna be honest, he intimidates me a little bit.  I think I already mentioned that he was a very high ranking official in the military, in while still be a very loving man, very dedicated to the gospel, he approaches things very much procedurally.  Which is good for me, I can always use more structure because my desires can me somewhat whimsical.  Oh, and by the way, I decided that I want to be an author now.  

Anyways, back to my account of the interview.  I was a little bit nervous going into it in the first place.  And it didn't help that when we were waiting for the bus to go to the chapel a bird decided to green-and-white diarrhea on my clothes.  Talk about nerve-racking.  I don't think President noticed, because he didn't say anything.

My interview was good, but I did get a bit of a lecture from Pres about numbers.  His vision is for every mission companionship to have roughly 30 lessons a week with 2 baptisms every month, which is definitely do-able, but Elder Rock and I have somewhat been falling short.  President gave me a really good talk about the importance of measuring our effectiveness by our numbers, and it actually really helped in our work this week.  Previously I had been somewhat skeptical about getting so caught up in numbers, because I felt like you seem to lose the people in the information.  But it's pretty much the opposite.  When you keep accurate information you don't lose people and you find more.

It's really interesting how quickly the numbers we set as goals turn into people.  It is a desire to increase your numbers when you ask to enter a home to share a message, but you end up leaving with a new friend that you shared the gospel with.  It sounds dumb, but I had a realization this week that we don't just do contacts for the sake of contacts.  We do contacts for lessons.  And we don't just have lessons just to hear ourselves talk.  You have to teach clearly and simply so that people understand.  We teach lessons to help people set baptismal dates.  A lot of questions seemed to come together today.

It's raining like the dickens outside right now, good heavens.  It's good, too, because it has been a while since we have had some good rain.

So I am going to hit my year mark this week.  Elder Rock and I are going to wake up a bit early on that day and make a huge American breakfast.  It's going to be delightful.  

We found some really good people this week that we are teaching.  One of them is named Chaieny, and I could totally see her getting baptized.  She is very active in the Catholic church, and at one time was actually training to become a nun, but felt very distinctly that she needed to leave the convent.  I think it was perfect inspiration that we found her this week after having had a training with President Brum, because everything that he taught was exactly the things that we needed to apply when teaching her.  Until this week I never realized how gratifying it is to really explain things clearly and simply for others.

The language is doing really well, I just need to work on comprehension and getting rid of my accent.

That's my beef for this week, fam.  Love you much!

Jacko

Week #46

Week #45

I was able to send you a ton of pictures this week, so I hope you like them.  These are all from my companions camera.  My camera works, but it's really picky with computers, so I don't have the time or patience to send you one's from mine.  But, I hope you enjoy these ones, especially the one of me imitating Dad's chicken-foot-in-the-mouth picture from his mission.

We had a really good week this week, probably the best that I have had here in Brazil.  We had a lot of contact with people, had some new investigators come to church this week, and some really good meetings with the leadership of the branch.  We are still having struggles getting everything worked out with Marcelo so that he can get baptized, but we're hoping that his schedule works out so that one, he can go to church and stay active, and two, actually get baptized.

I went on a trade-off this week up to Leporace with Elder Cardoso, one of our zone leaders this week, which was super fun.  Trade-offs are good because it gives you a chance to see the way other missionaries approach their work.  You can implement what you like and discard what you don't like and become a better person and missionary.

Sacrament meeting was really good this week, too.  The best part was that I think I have really, finally learned to do missionary work because I love the people.  It is one thing to go through the motions and fulfill all the steps because someone told you to, and it's totally another thing to preach with sincerity and love because the Gospel is something that you truly, purely appreciate and love.  I know that I have a long ways to go, but I feel like I am really making some progress with this.  I'm not perfect, but perfect love never faileth, so we can always hope for great success when you really love the people that you are working with.

That's what I've got for you this week.  I think about all of you during the week and how much I love you.  Thanks for all of your support, kind words, and pictures of that chunky Penny-girl.  Super cute.

Y'all are the best.

Sincerely,

Jack

Week #44

Dear Family,

We had a pretty darn eventful week this week.  Pretty nuts.  Here are some highlights.

Probably the most stressful part was our activity that Elder Rock and I planned.  It was all so perfect, sheer inspiration.  We really wanted to get the ward excited about things, so we put together a short skit based on Alma 46, the story of Captain Moroni making the title of liberty.  Elder Rock was Moroni and I was Amalickiah and it ended up going really well.  We got the other missionaries in our zone to come and help us with it, acting as the other nephites or the lamanites.  We even made some super sick armor out of some silvery, plastic platters, and helmets that put a peacock to shame.  I'll send you some pictures, hopefully today.  We had a lot of fun.

The stressful part about the activity was getting people there.  In Brazil, when you say that an activity starts and 7, every shows up at 8, and if you don't give someone a specific assignment, there's only a 50% chance that they'll come.  We had to learn that the hard way this time, but we learned our lesson and our next activity is going to be even better.

Another good highlight of this week was teaching an English class.  Some of the other missionaries in our zone started an English class in their area, but after transfers the only American missionary there was moved, and the class started to suffer.  So Elder Rock and I are now the English professors and we'll be going there every week.  It turned out to be super fun.  My favorite part is helping Brazilians with words that sound like swear words, like beach or bit.  We're working on putting together some more activities to teach.

Doing street contacts is hard.  I'm not sure if I'll ever get used to them, but we're getting better.

We rescued an abandoned kitten in the middle of a huge avenue yesterday.  We named him Mr. Cat.

After spraying poison last night on our patio, we awoke to find 105 dead cockroaches.  We burned them with alcohol and hand sanitizer so they would stop twitching.  Cockroach genocide.

We are also helping to organize a choir, since Elder Rock has some experience in that.

Marcelo still hasn't baptized because of smoking, but he's getting closer and I'm super excited for him.

Sorry to just throw a bunch of highlights at ya, but I wanted to get it all in there.  I love you all so much and want to thank you for being the best!

Sincerely,

Jack

Week #43

Dear Family,

I hope my letter last week didn't sound like I was super depressed, because I wasn't.  I'm being patient with myself because it can be pretty hard jumping into a new culture without having some misunderstanding, but things are getting a lot better already.

We had some good fun this week, even though it was raining quite a bit.  There was one day that we went and did some service at Willy's house in the rain which was super legit.  It was raining a good bit, but that doesn't stop us.  We didn't want to get our shoes wet and muddy, so we decided to work out in the yard barefoot.  Oh man, it was so refreshing, just like old times, never wearing shoes.  The best.  What made it even better was that we spent half the time pruning and cutting down trees with a facão, which literally means "really big knife".  Afterwards we showered at his house and ate some fubá cake, which is the Brazilian equivalent to corn bread.

Marcelo's baptism was supposed to be this week, but because of his really hectic work schedule it didn't work out, but it's alright, we are going to catch him at home and get it all worked out.  I'll keep you updated.

Sorry, but I don't have too much to update you on about this week.  It was a pretty standard week, finding a few new people to work with and following up with some current investigators.  The language is coming along and I feel really good about my ability to talk with people, considering I only have two months here.  It's super crazy though that I have already been here for two months.  And today is my eleven month mark; I've almost been out a full year.  Madness!  

Elder Rock keeps telling me that he wants me to go to BYU, but I told him that I'm not going to break.  We have a lot of fun, he's probably my favorite companion that I've had so far.  Two Americans trying to figure things out in the heart of Brazil.

I love y'all so much and hope that things are going well.  Thanks for always being good examples!

Sincerely,

Jack

Week #42

Family!

This has been a solid week.  Tons of good experiences and a lot of growth.  We are growing every day in the way we do our work.  We found out about transfers this week, and thankfully Elder Rock and I get to stay together for at least one more transfer.  He has already been here in Franca for a super long time, so it was somewhat of a surprise that he was able to stay.  But things are really getting figured out, moving forward, and we are going to rock this transfer!

Some of the difficulties that we have had here came to the forefront this week and we are working out how we want to approach them.  I would have to say the hardest thing about Brazil is trying to keep your white shirts white, but that's trivial.  

The challenge that is going to be hardest to face is our relationship with the members, especially the youth.  I think as a result of the culture and the past missionaries here a lot of the youth expect the missionaries to act like their best friends rather than missionaries, which can be somewhat detrimental to the work.  There were a couple experiences this week that kind of brought that out.  The first was with Ytalo, a recent-convert that Elder Rock baptized before I got here.  He's twelve years old and was really into the church just a few weeks ago, but hasn't been going for a while.  We thought it was because his twin brother had been traveling with his godmother, but when we finally found him at home he said that it was for a different reason.  We had to coax the reason out of him, but finally he mustered up the courage to write on a piece of paper why he hadn't been going to church.  It was directed to Elder Rock, this is what it said, more or less:

"This is how it is, Elder Rock.  I don't want to go to church because I hate Elder Vawdrey.  He's really annoying and I don't like that you changed the way you acted when he came.  It's just because he's an American."

That was a bit of a dagger in the heart.  But it didn't help that when he said the closing prayer he decided that it was prudent to also let God know why he wasn't going to church.  "Sorry I'm not going to your house, God, but I really hate Elder Vawdrey."  I didn't really have anything to say, and I probably won't be going back there during my time here in Franca unless he has a change of heart.

We have another situation with another young man who spends a lot of time with us on splits.  Our situation with him isn't nearly as strong, but the principle is the same: misunderstanding of what missionaries are here to do.  This young man sometimes gets frustrated with us, especially me.  I was talking with him yesterday and he said that sometimes I can be annoying, and after he asked me about himself, I told him that I get frustrated with him sometimes as well.  He said that we could talk about things later as friends, instead of as missionaries, but that's the whole issue.  I was called to be a missionary, which entails some professionality and diligence.  If I was just called to be his friend, we wouldn't have a problem, because I really like him and he's a good guy, well-founded in the gospel.  I hope that I don't sound arrogant or like a black hole to anything fun, but I don't think he understands the importance of our calling.

Outside of that the work has been really good.  We had an amazingly spiritual experience yesterday with Marcelo.  He recently began working again, so it has been hard finding him at home, but we finally caught him at home yesterday.  He is preparing to be baptized this week, and we were talking with him about his preparation.  He still had some doubts about whether he was ready or not, so what did we do?  Took it to the Lord!  Right then we all kneeled down, me, Elder Rock, Marcelo, Willy, and Wedsom, and had Marcelo offer the prayer.  He asked God specifically if he was ready for baptism.  Then afterwards we just sat in silence for a bit and let the Spirit work.  It worked.  He feels ready.  The Spirit was the strongest that I have ever felt up to this point, and I almost didn't want to leave.  I would have rather just sat there and soaked it up some more.  We left in really good spirits, because we know with a surety that he is ready.  Isn't that the best?  We did all that we could and afterwards the Spirit just engulfed the room, and in that instant eating up all uncertainty.  Revelation through prayer is real!

Elder Rock and I get along really well, and I'm going to be said when we have to leave each other.  We have similar interests and work well together.  We're learning from each other and also have a lot of fun.  We have an awesome idea for a missionary activity that we are going to have next week, so I'll update you in a couple weeks.

Thanks for all your love, you are the best!

Sincerely,

Jack

Week #41

Dear Family,

Happy New Year!  You are probably freezing to death up there, but it is nice down here.  We have had a really good week this week.

I did get a little sick earlier this week, and thought maybe that I had got the flu or something because I had a bit of a fever, but Elder Rock gave me a blessing and after a couple of days I was fine.  I haven't contracted any gastric vermin yet, but we'll see what happens, I'm sure I will before my time is up in Brazil.

Probably one of my favorite things about Brazil is just picking fruit off of trees on the side of the road.  In a little while the mangos will be ready, but for now there's plenty of acerola to eat, which tastes just like cherries.  Super good.

New Year's Eve here was nuts!  That was one of the days that I was feeling a little bit sick, but not too sick to eat delicious Brazilian barbecue.  We went over to Sister Renata's that night and she made us chicken heart, which was super good.  Brazilians really do know how to cook their meat.

Because I wasn't feeling very good on New Year's Eve, I didn't really feel like staying up until midnight.  But when midnight hit, there was no way that I would have been able to sleep anyways.  Elder Rock woke me up just a little bit beforehand before the mayhem was going to start.  Let me paint this picture for you, because it's quintessential Brazilian culture.  We walked out of our apartment and there were several groups of men going to town with their fireworks.  I don't know if these were homemade fireworks or not, but I wouldn't be surprised.  The fireworks that they were letting off were the kinds that you would only expect to see set off by professionals, except these only went up about half as high and thus were twice as loud.  I don't think anyone even waited until midnight.  As soon as they hit about 5 minutes before, somebody got a little antsy and started releasing all of their fireworks, and then everyone else just followed suit.  Elder Rock and I just sat there and drank some Guaraná to celebrate.

The work has been a little bit slower since everyone is traveling, but other than that it has been a really good week.  Marcelo is doing really well; we visited him with a member yesterday and he is really making some big changes.  He has been investigating the church for roughly six months, and it's looking like he's finally going to be baptized.  I'm super excited for him, and it's a blessing for me to see him make this big step after working for so long.

I don't know if I already told you, but I'm reading the New Testament and Doctrine & Covenants all the way through.  I never have and really want to, and it' going to be especially helpful because I need to know the New Testament better.  The Portuguese version of the Bible that the Church uses doesn't have footnotes, so I've been doing a lot of cross-referencing.  My focus during personal study is always the Book of Mormon, but I've been trying to get ready a little bit quicker every day so that I can have some extra study time.  I love it, I feel thirsty for more scripture.

That's the beef for this week.  Hope y'all are having a good new year!

Sincerely,

Jack