Letter #95

Dear FFFFFAAAAAAm,

Yesterday I successfully fulfilled a two year mission.  awww YEAH!  And today, day 731 of the mish, we baptized Vera Lúcia Giovanini.  awww YEAH!

This past week has been pretty chill.  We got our new companion, Elder Menden, and he's been doing our visits with Elder Zolet while I stay in the office and try to organize some stuff.  There's been a bit of miscommunication from assistent to assistent, so I'm trying to organize stuff to maintain a standard.  Elder Zolet made fun of me yesterday because I got super excited when I learned how to work on Excel without using the mouse, only the keyboard.  I thought it was pretty awesome.

Speaking of rodents, I killed a rat the other day in the house of one of our investigators. I don't remember if I already told you the story.  Ask me when I get home.

Ummm, I'm not sure if I'll be able to send you a letter next week.  Next Saturday we're going to have a self-reliance course for the life after the mission.  We'll see what tips that have for me to save up money for college.

Life is good, I love you all a ton.  Can't wait to see you soon!

Much love,

Jack

Letter #94

"O fim dos tempos está chegando!  O fim dos tempos está próximo!"

There's some crazy guy that always yells this at us when he walks past us.  I guess he doesn't understand what it means that we're from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  But whatevs.

This week was good.  I used all of my creative juices last night writing in my journal, so I'm just gonna type it up for you.

"These last few days have been some great ones.  I only have things to be grateful for.  Let me describe some of the missionary marvels thtat we had these last couple days.

We went to Araraquara yesterday night.  It was super weird going back to my old area and house.  We got to the house before the ZLs, so we took the liberty of stopping by Evelin's house.  When we were walking up to the house Evelin's mom was outside talking to the neighbor.  She saw me, but, not realizing who I was, continued talking with the neighbor.  When she finished, she turned to talk and was surprised to see that I'd come back to Araraquara.  She couldn't help herself and attacked me with a hug.  Apostasy.

It was a good visit.  It was a friendly gesture and I'm sure they won't forget that I didn't forget about them.

We went to the house after that, bought the pizza that we always to buy, and then prepared the training for the zone.

This morning we started off bright and early.  The training was good; nothing out of the ordinary, and I ended up leaving a little bit unsatisfied.  I felt like we weren't every inspirational, but we prepared as much as we could, so watta-ya-gonna do.

So, we bumped into a few people today.  And it definitely wasn't a coincidence.  The first group of friends that 'accidentally' found out that I was in Araraquara was Assis, Carmelita, and Isabela
(two investigators and a recent convert that live in a neighboring city).  They called Elder Magalhães in the middle of the training asking if they could meet up with me for lunch.  When I asked them how they found out that I was in Araraquara, they said that one of Assis's coworkers saw me on the bus and told Assis.  A likely story.

I also ran into Inês and her two daughters downtown.  Not a coincidence, they said that they were planning on visiting the church these days.  Hopefully I was a good influence and they end up going.

When we went to catch the bus to go to Matão we saw Marcelo, an elderly man who goes to church there.  He was going to baptized; I did his interview and he didn't pass.  He's been chilling in Matão ever since and no one was able to baptize him.  We had a nice long conversation on the bus about how all languages need to be reformed to agree so that the orthography and phonetics agree.

I went on an exchange with Elder Borup, which was really great.  My dissatisfaction that I felt after the training went away  when I was able to sit and have a one-on-one with with Elder Borup.  we had a lot of fun and I made a new friend.

We visited Sandra today.  She's and investigator that's going to be baptized next week.  I taught her once when I was zone leader here and the lesson was so spiritual that she never forgot.  Today I committed her to never, ever miss church on Sunday.  These last couple of days were great."

Much love.  See ya in two (weeks).

Jack

Letter #93

Dear Family (scientific name: dirsus familius vaudrimus)

Things are going super well here in our area.  It's flip-tassting-ly ridiculous that I'm going to be home in three weeks.  AAAHHH!  I'm freaking out right now!  Super excited.  I got my flight plans today, I'll be arriving home at around 10:30 am on March 3rd.  What the flip?  Crazy-sauce!

Don't worry, I won't lose focus on the work.  We've got some great people that we're teaching that are planning to be baptized these coming weeks.  One of them is Valdir, who is super awesome.  We found Valdir after church two weeks ago.  He went to church for the first time this Sunday and has a baptismal date for February 14th.  Everyone's got dates for Valentine's Day, and guess what, I do too!  Baptismal date!  Yes!  Salvation!

What is Valdir like?  He is the perfect example of why we shouldn't judge a book by it's cover.  He's from Minas, and by the way he talks you would think that he was a redneck that didn't know how to read very well.  He reads like a champ.  He shares a room with a less active member, is a cement worker, and is super dedicated.  We brought him a white shirt and super wide tie that we found in our house for him to wear to church, and he loved it.  He's awesome.

We had a really awesome lesson with Valdir the other day.  We invited Brother Oswaldo to visit him with us, and it was the first time that Oswaldo had gone on splits with us.  Valdir has been a little bit hesitant about praying with us, so we were determined this time to help him pray.  When we got there, he explained super simply and powerfully about everything that he had ready in the Book of Mormon and loved it.  Up until now he's been asking us to share "the doctrine" with him, so he loved the doctrine of Christ in 2 Nephi 31.  The lesson was sweet, simple, and well understood.  He said the closing prayer.

Super awesome!  Much love to all of you!

Jack-O

Letter #92

Dear Family,

This has been a pretty fantastic week, funny to the point that you want to tear your hair out.  It seems like all of our investigators have one personality-trait in common: they talk soo much.  It can sometimes be a little bit frustrating, but when I think about it it's actually pretty funny.  Either God is messing with us or he knows what kind of people we need to teach, for us to grow and because the investigators need it too.

We have one investigator, Valdir, who is a little bit quieter, but some random guy name Marcos that lives in the same house decided that he wanted to participate in our lessons too.  I've included a dialogue to illustrate some of the things we hear when we visit them.

1st scenario

E. Vawdrey: "So, Valdir, what do you know about the Creation of the world?"

Valdir: "Well, God created the Earth and put Adam and Eve with the animals in the garden--" (abrupt interruption).

Marcos: "Yeah, God created the Earth with the four elements: water, fire, air, and...

E. Zolet: "And earth."

Marcos: (Ignoring Elder Zolet) "And life.  Yeah, that's what's up, life's the fourth element."

2nd scenario

E. Zolet: "So here in this scripture it says that we partake of the bread and wine, but nowadays we use water instead of wine."

Marcos: "Alright, that's chill, no problem.  God'll forgive you."

These are some of the people that we're teaching.  It's been an absolute treat.  We have a few baptismal dates set for these next few weeks, which should bring some great results.  Gotta finish off well!

Much Love,

Jack-O

Letter #91

Dear Fam,

This week has gone really well.  Our baptism went well last week and Valdenice is firm in the faith!

This week went by really fast because we were dealing with transfers and traveled for the rest of the week.  Transfers was nuts, super taxing on the body and spirit, but we were able to get everything worked out.  After we got everything worked out we went first to Catanduva and then afterwards to Birigui, two cities that I'd never visited on the mish.  We went on a short exchange in Catanduva and then went on to give a training in Birigui with the zone leaders.  Pretty cool.  We had to catch a bus to come back to Ribeirão Preto midnight, and we slept on our way back today.  Life of adventures. 

We're gonna be traveling to a few other cities in the next few weeks, which should be pretty eventful.  Exciting stuff!

Much love, hope things are well,

Jack

Letter #90

Hello!

My beloved people!

Things are going super well here in Ribeirão Preto.  Super weird and all over the place, but still super awesome.

So what's been going down here. First of all, we've have running around trying to get one of our investigators ready for baptism this week.  Valdenice is an investigator that we contacted on the street, actually it was in a bakery.  Elder Zolet is a serious snacker, so we stop in the bakery on a regular basis, but about three weeks ago it really paid off.  We were about to leave when this investigator walked in and gave a friendly smile.  I wasn't sure if I was going to talk to her when all of a sudden Elder Zolet's credit card didn't work and it gave me a minute to talk with her.  She was super nice and accepted a visit for the next day.  Ever since then she's been preparing for baptism, went to church three times and is going to be get baptized today!  It's been a short road, but a pretty hectic one at the same time.  We had to learn how to adjust our teaching for someone that had a lot of health problems and treated us more like psychologists than missionaries, but after all was sad and done, it worked out.  Her interview is going to be today, and Elder Young is going to do it.

The two missionaries from my group, Elder Young and Elder Gardner, are going home on Monday.  They've been spending the last few days with us and it's been a blast.  Elder Young was my companion in the MTC, and even though it's sad that we won't be going home together, we've been catching up on old times.  It's funny because we both served the majority of our mission in Brazil, but we always talk a ton about Florida and the experiences that we had there.  It's just another testimony about how we were prepared to serve where the Lord needed us to.

I'm reading the Book of Mormon and am going to finish before I go home. It'll be the first time in Portuguese.  I wanted to mix things up a bit so I started in Mosiah, read to the end and am now about halfway through 1 Nephi.  Instead of hitting the Isaiah chapters in the second book, they'll be some of the last chapters that I'll be reading.

6 more weeks.  When I wrote it down I realized that it was one digit. But I'm not worried about if I'll be effective or not.  We are going to be travelling the mission to give specialized training to each zone.  The training that we've done so far has been super good, so I'm sure that it'll be a lot of fun.  I'm finally going to see the other side of the mission and get a taste of real Brazilian heat.

My friends, thanks so much for your letters and all the prayers.  I love you all so much!

Love,
Elder Jack Vawdrey

Letter #89

Fams and Friendily,

I hope that you are doing well!  Things are going really well here.  We have two investigators preparing to be baptized next week, Vera and Valdenice, which is going to be super great.  The members are helping us out well, so I don't doubt that it'll work out.

Mom, thanks much for the letter.  I'm going to cherish it forever and I'm excited for the next one.

I had a cool experience this week.  Actually, it was last night.  I was a little bit confused about what is the best way to act, because there are two great counsels that I've heard my entire life, but the other day it seemed like they contradicted each other.

1. Counsel number one:  Always be yourself.

2. Counsel number two:  Repent, change, stop doing stuff wrong, strip yourself of the natural man, become converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

So how can I be myself if I'm naturally prone to make mistakes? 

One one end of the spectrum we have the people that just want to be themselves. I think this argument is one of the biggest reasons why some people like to denounce personal responsibility and accountability to God and any other governing organization, in an extreme effort to be yourself.  Your own, worldly, decaying self.  But your firm in your conviction.

On the other end of the spectrum we have the changer, who is ridiculously flexible to the point that never develops or unleashes a true, lasting personality.  His personality belongs to other people; he analyzes every situation and acts accordingly.  He is not firm as a valley, nor does he run to righteousness.  He flows in whichever direction that he is tilted.

So where do we need to be?  Just like the majority of personality spectrums, we want to be in the middle.  From what I understand, we need to change to be ourselves.  Inside of us we already have a conscience, we already know what is right, it just needs to be searched for and then followed.  We're like a rock that starts at the top of a creek and as it rolls down, remains the same rock but is polished and smoothed to reveal it's true nature.  I made a goal to grab my patriarchal blessing and right down some attributes that I already have and then to live up to them.  

That's my schpiel for now.  Much love,

Jack

Letter #88

Dear Fam,

This week has been goood.  It's been super busy because President Brum asked us to prepare some trainings for specific zones in our mission and it turned out really well.  It was cool because we taught with the Zone Leaders specifically according to the needs of that zone and were able to have some super spiritual experiences.  I wanted to share one of them with you.

So one thing that I think a lot of people don't know about me is that I have bouts of depression that I have to deal with sometimes.  I think a lot of people imagine that I'm always the super happy Jack with a smile on my face, which the majority of the time I am.  Smiling always makes the day better, and I'm always sincere with myself, others, and God when it comes to my emotions.  But these last few weeks I've learned some new stuff about depression that I never had realized before.

First of all, it's a lot easier to deal with if we're willing to admit that we are going through it.  There are times when we literally feel a weight of guilty, deep sorrow, and stress that seems to be triggered by something small that doesn't really even matter.  We don't need to feel guilty for being sad, especially if it is depression.

Second of all, there's a difference between being discouraged and being depressed.  A person that's discouraged might be lax about the work or sad because things didn't work out the way planned.  A person that is discouraged is normally discouraged because there's something that he did or didn't do that he or she needs to repent of.  Discouragement could be godly sorrow that is put off too long, not repented of, and can turn into worldly sorrow.  In essence, discouragement can be controlled by our agency.  So then what is depression?  Depression is a feeling of deep sorrow that comes upon us independent of our agency.  We can be born with a tendency towards it, or develop it because of a traumatic experience.  For those who have it may end up becoming sad even at the best of times, just because of our fallen nature.  

So if depression comes upon us independent of our agency, is there no hope of prevent it?

Perhaps depression isn't necessarily something to be prevented, but avoided by healthy living and good habits.  We need to promote good homeostasis to return to a normal state when we are hit by the depression bus.  But from what I have studied and personal experience, the best way to deal with true depression is following the way that our Savior Jesus Christ did.  Christ became extremely sorrowful, even unto death, and what did he do?  If you want to know the answer, I would invite you to grab your Bible and read in Lucas 22:39-46.

Much love,

Elder Jack Vawdrey

Letter #87

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

It was super cool to talk with you all on Christmas, and it looks like everything is going well!  Thanks for the pictures of Sinter Klaas and the new journal.  Of the two Christmases that I've had on the mission, this one was the best.

I feel kind of sick, because I ate a lot of chocolate.  But I could have worse health problems than that.  Here I am complaining about a tummy ache because I ate too much chocolate when as we speak there are probably a kajillion people having a double-triple heart-to-lung tri-pass, which is almost certainly fatal.

Love you much,

Jack

Letter #86

This week has been a good one.  Today has been especially good, because it's P-day and I've been reading stories of my ancestors on FamilySearch.  It's literally incredible some of the stuff that happened with them.  Some of the people that had the best stories were Jannigje De With, Jonathon Collins Crapo, and Peter Crapo.  This stuff is so good that you could make a movie out of it.  I translated to Portuguese one story from the life of Jannigje De With and I'm going to use it with one of our investigators.  I think i'm going to do the same thing with a few other stories as well.  There's one story with Jonathon Collins Crapo where he decides not to drink coffee and it makes all the difference.

This week was pretty stressful, we had to get everything ready for the Christmas Conferences and it was the first time we had ever done a conference of this size.  A lot of stuff went wrong, but in the end everything worked out and it ended up being a good experience.  Christmas is awesome!  I'm super excited to open up that little green package that Mom sent me.

We are getting used to our area, and the last missionaries that served in it didn't leave too much for us, so we're starting from scratch.  We had some great experiences where we were able to find some people, we just need to find the time to visit and help these people progress.  The other day we prayed to find somebody to teach and the very first door accepted us and said we could come back.  God's preparing his children!

We got a huge gift basket from one of our recent converts the other day and I've probably eaten my weight in chocolate already.  Maybe it's good that I extended the mish so that I can work off the kilos that I'm gonna gain during the Christmas season.  On Christmas we're going to make a huge American breakfast.

In closing, I'm going to include a quote from my great grandmother, Jannigje

“Loved ones, in this Church we can learn where we came from, the goal of living on the earth, and where we are going when we shall leave this earth, and also many other problems will become clear to us, which we could learn from the bible but did not understand, because we did not have an explanation for it.

“Many mistakes have I made in these five years since I became a member of the Church, but this I know, if we sincerely regret the ill we have done to God and men and we confess our guilt not only to God but also to those we have hurt through word or deed, it certainly will be forgiven. May we always remember more the warning of our Savior given in the garden of Gethsemane: watch and pray so that you may not be tempted, then we will make less mistakes, and go through life happier.”

Much love, 

Jack

Letter #85

I'm sorry if I scared you with my last letter.  I want you to know that we are absolutely safe, nothing happened and nothing is going to happen.  I was transferred to a new area, which I included a picture of.  I can assure you that nothing will happen in this new area because it's probably the richest area that I've ever seen in Brazil.

It was pretty funny our first day in our new area.  It was the exact opposite of our last one.  Our old area was Ala Ipiranga and our new one is Ala Irajá.  I would like to denote a few differences between the two.

1.  In our new area, the parks have ponds with fish instead of puddles with diapers.

2.  In our new area, people participate in running teams instead of drinking circles

3.  In our new area, there are fancy condominiums instead of unfinished brick houses

4.  In our new area, people have money and teeth instead of empty pockets and gummy mouths

5.  In our new area, people have shitzus with ribbons instead of wild jackals that eat trash

6.  In our new area, people have garages to fit five cars instead of deformed garage doors to fit the cars.

7.  In our new area, we talk with intercoms instead of talking with people.

8.  In our new area, people eat dry leafy greens instead of perfect, dripping barbecue.

9.  In our new area, thirst is drowned instead of quenched

10. In our new area, people try to sell us into pyramid schemes instead of saying that they lost their job.

11. In our new area, people have jobs instead of twelve laughing kids.

12. In our new area, the gospel is needed just like it was in the last one.

I loved my last area, the people we absolutely greaty, but I really am excited to try out a new environment to teach.  Our ward is super great, I am really excited to be there.  There are a lot of people that speak English, we're even going to teach in English tonight.  It will be good practice for Elder Zolet.

This week was super busy.  We had to supervise transfers as well as the reception of all the new missionaries.  It was a lot of fun to see the new missionaries showing up so excited about the work, straight out from the MTC.  Some of them were saying, "Wow, I can't wait to knock on some doors, when are we going to go tracting?"  It was pretty funny.

Today we're going to go to a sushi buffet.  We'll see how it goes.

I love you all so much!

Jack-O

Elder Vawdrey's Birthday

Letter #84

Dearest ones,

We just got back from a Brazilian barbecue restaurant and it was super good.  We weighed ourselves before and after and I gained a solid 3.5 pounds.  Lots of meat, it was great.  But you just need to be careful, apparently when Brazilians want to be cool they mix weird foods with strawberries.  I went and tried a certain dish, which I thought would be dessert, because it had strawberries, but it was strawberries with lobster sauce.  It reminded me of the time we went to that Dutch Christmas at Noah's and all the foods looked like desserts but everything had fish or eggs in it.  Dirty Dutchmen.

Thanks so much for all of your letters.  It's always great to hear from you and everything that's going on.  It's weird to think that I'm going to turn 21 next week.  I'm getting old, just like Dad always says.  Dad doesn't even look old, he looks the same as he did ten years ago.  Mom hasn't really changed too much, either.

Thanks for sending my pictures of Penny.  I'm ready to meet her.  But all in due time.

I've been having a great time with my companion.  He's from Curitiba and he keeps telling me that I need to go visit him after the mission.  We'll just have to wait and see.  I would like to come back to Brazil at the end of July to see 4 couples that I taught get sealed in the temple, but we'll see how things go.

This week was good.  We are working in the office, but not too much.  We do our studies here in the morning, eat lunch at the mall or a local restaurant, and then making our way to our area.  When President Brum needs something, we do it, but other than that, it's pretty chill here.  Little by little me and Elder Zolet are figuring it out.

Last week we had a meeting with all of the zone leaders in the mission and me and Elder Zolet gave a training that I think President Brum really liked.  It was a lot of fun, I like to give trainings because it's like an adrenaline rush of the Spirit.

Yesterday night I was coming from our area and Elder Zolet and I started talking about what marriage is gonna be like.  Weird stuff.  I told him about my plans to have 12 kids.  It's gonna be awesome.

Love you all much,

Jack

Letter #83

Dear Family,

Things are going well here.  It's kind of ridiculous how fast time is passing.  Ya gotta be alert.  I kind of feel like my life is a game of Fruit Ninja, and the fruit is the minutes of the day.  I feel like every minute is being thrown my way and I need to slice it like a sword with great accuracy.  If I don't it falls to the ground and becomes useless.  And with every minute the fruit starts flying faster and faster.  

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go play some Fruit Ninja.

We had a good week.  Elder Madri and Elder Baker, the other two assistents, went on exchanges in Araraquara, so I chilled here with my companion, Elder Zolet.  It was pretty chill, I was teaching him how to use Excel.  I went nuts on Excel this week, grabbing a bunch of numbers and analyzing and comparing and doing averages and percentages.  It's funny how doing math helps to clear up the mind a bit.  Rarely have I had to use the math side of my brain on the mish, so it was nice.

Today is P-day, but we still taught a short English class.  English is hard.  I'm forgetting a few things, but little by little I'll remember stuff.

We're gonna have a baptism today.  It was pretty cool, we showed up in the area and there was already a girl ready to be baptized.  Her name is Kenia and she's going to get baptized today.

I've learned a new principle.  It changed my life.  I learned that the way that you start a project or activity with greatly influence the way that you end it.  If you start off playing well, you're more likely to end well.  If you wake up and are already laughing and smiling, it's more likely that you'll be laughing and smiling throughout the day.  If you pray in the morning, you'll have the Spirit sooner.  If you start off unorganized, you'll probably end unorganized.

So if you have a hard time with life, wake up in the morning and smile at yourself in the mirror for a minute straight.  You'll feel more optimistic about the day.  Elder Zolet is super happy and optimistic, that's how I learned this new lesson.

It's been a while since I've sent pictures.  Sorry.  Here's a free sample.  

I'm gonna be 21 soon.  Whoa.

Love,

Jack

Letter #82

Dear Family,

This week has been good.  We had some solids lessons, marked a baptismal date, and made a few people cry.  In a good way.  

Working in the office here is making me remember a bit about how it was in the office in Tallahassee.  A lot of the principles that I learned there are going to be applicable here.  We need to be organized and focused with the time that we have here in the office so that we can finish all of our necessary tasks.  Afterwards, it's time to do the best work of all: TEACH!  Being a missionary has really fortified my desire to be a college professor, because I absolutely love studying, writing, and teaching.  But not just teaching for the sake of teaching.  Teaching to reach an end.  To make people better.  It is a way that I can fulfill one of the counsels in my patriarchal blessing that says that I will be able to influence and bless the lives of others witht the knowledge God has given me.  I'm gonna do my best to learn as much as I can so that I can help others.  Learning is my passion.

Elder Zolet is my new companion, but I unfortunately didn't get to work with him this week.  There are four assistents here in the office, so we did an exchange for the entire week.  I stayed here in the office withe Elder Baker while Elder Zolet went with Elder Madri to help some desperate missionaries in Franca.  Kind of a bummer that I wasn't able to go, but I'm sure that Elder Zolet was able to help out the missionaries in the way that they needed it.

We had a great lesson yesterday.  Like I said, we made a few people cry.  We went to teach one of Elder Baker's investigators named Flávio, who was desirous to learn more but was having a hard to understanding what the missionaries were teaching.  But he was moving forward with faith with the hope that he would soon understand God's plan for him.  We were able to teach him about the Plan of Salvation yesterday and it finally clicked.  After reading Alma 16:16-17, it was amazing to see how well he understood when he said, "My very next prayer, I'm gonna ask God this question: 'Am I the lost sheep?'"  He showed a lot of humility as he understood that perhaps he was lost in need of finding, and that Christ had a plan to bring him back into the fold.  When his wife came back from dropping off the daughters the two prayed with us, both cried, and Flávio stood up and starting reciting back to his wife all that he had learned that day with us and how much it had helped him.  It was great.

Love, 

Jack

Letter #81

So this will probably be the last time that you will hear from me...on Mondays that is.  My new P-day is Saturday.  I'm going to be serving my last two transfers in the mission office.  I'll keep you updated.  I'm going to stop drinking soda so that I don't get fat sitting at the computer.

My new companion is Elder Zolet.  From what I can tell he is super cool.  He's from Curitiba, super mellow.  He loves skateboarding, which is super sick.  I'm using all the skate lingo that I learned with Jake to make him think I'm cool, too.  I'm not quite sure exactly what we're gonna do, but whatever it is, we're gonna do it well.

My last week with Elder Souza in Araraquara was pretty boss.  I learned a lot with Elder Souza, but it was a good time for a change.  We lined up some good families right before I left and super soon they're gonna have some baptisms in our area.  I'm going to keep writing the people there so that they can know that I remember them.  Simple acts of kindness make a big difference.

Sunday was a lot better than Saturday.  I found out that I was going to be coming to the office on Wednesday of last week, so the days leading up to Saturday were kind of slow, because I was anxious about coming to office as well as sad to leave behind some super good investigators.  On Saturday night when we were finishing up our visits I was feeling super down and had to sit for a sec.  I said a prayer with Elder Souza and ended up crying.  I hope I don't sound like a wimp, but it was way hard to leave behind such great people.

But on Sunday everything went super well.  My tears seemed to wash away my sadness and the next day we were able to visit our investigators and say some goodbyes.  We had four investigators at church that are doing really well.  Elder Souza and I discussed a little bit more how things can get better in respects to our work with the members, because it seems to be lacking a bit, and I know for sure that it's gonna get better.  

I was also able to stop and say goodbye to Milanese, even though he's not investigating the Church anymore.  It was really nice to see him again and talk as friends.  I plan to keep in touch with him as well.

I hope that you guys are well and that are getting ready for an amazing Halloween.  I'm jealous because Halloween and Thanksgiving don't exist here.  When I get home in January I think we'll have to do a holiday recap.

Love,

Jacko

Letter #80

This week was a good week.  We were finally able to get one of our investigators to go to church this week, and another one we were able to get to pray for the first time.

The thing about missionary work is that you need to be creative and follow the Spirit.  We are teaching a family, José Mauro, Rosângela, and their three kids, and are seeing some great progress. Rosângela has been going to church quite a bit, but we're trying to help José get a little bit more involved and committed.  He started to read in the Book of Mormon and was understanding well, but we were having a hard time getting him to pray.

Yesterday night we went to visit them and we had a really good lesson to help José understand why we always invited him to pray.  He ended up giving all the same excuses and thought that he could get us to pray if he just resisted enough.  He thought he had us when I said to him, "Well, José, me, Elder Souza, and Rosângela have already said a lot of prayers here, and it's your turn.  I guess if you don't want to say the prayer, we're just gonna have to leave without saying one with you guys tonight." Elder Souza caught my drift and started to put his things in his bag.  We grabbed our bags, shook their hands and started making our way out the door.  He said to us, "Wait, you can't do that, we have to end with a prayer."  He had gotten so used to having a prayers that it seemed unnatural if we didn't say one.  We were just stepping out of the front door when he said, "Alright all say the prayer."  Gotcha!  He said a great prayer and in the future I'm sure he'll say many more.

We've been having to deal with some troubles with some of the companionships in our zone.  It's been a little bit rough.  I had to call out a missionary that lives in our house for being disobedient and since then he has been doing everything possible to avoid me.  I think it's the first time in my life that I've been the victim of a shun.  It's kind of weird, because some days it's funny the lengths that he'll go to to avoid me and other days I just feel bad because he's ended up isolating himself from everyone else.  I can tell that he's not happy, but I'm not really sure if I can do anything since he doesn't want anything to do with me or my companion.  Only time will tell.

It's super hot here and I think it's only going to get worse.  This week was 110 degrees, and we're just starting up Spring.  I may come home looking like one of Dad's dehydrated peppers.  But some chilly Utah weather will do me some good.

Well, I love you all a bunch,

Elder Jack Vawdrey

Letter #79

So we had a pretty solid week this week.  We had six people at church this Sunday, which was super exciting to see.  By the end of the day we were pretty tired out, so it's nice to have a P-day now.

The other night we did a church tour with a couple that we are teaching that was really spiritual.  There names are Victor and Carol.  Victor is the the brother of a recent-convert named Evelim, and she was super excited when we started teaching her brother.  Victor and Carol talk a lot about getting married, but we're not quite sure yet if that just means move out and live together or actually get married.  I think we're gonna have to clarify things a bit for them.

But the tour of the church with them was super great, the Spirit was super strong.  I've always liked giving tours of the church because everything seems to come together well.  You show the people the cabinet with all the white jumpsuits, let them try one on, and then sneakily open up the baptismal font.  And then you push them in!  Just kidding, baptism is a sacred ordinance.

One the great challenges of the mission is teaching the lesson about the Restoration with crazy old ladies.  The other day we taught a mother, daughter and future son-in-law the first lesson and Cleide, this 75-year-old lady commented on every single point that we said.  She came to church this Sunday and was super funny.  During Sunday School she did the same thing, making comments about everything we said.  The Sunday School teacher had a baby recently, so we've been teaching Sunday School to the investigators, recent converts and returning members.

I feel a little bit bolder every day.  Yesterday we found a man sitting in front of his house on a little bench.  I'm not sure if it's because we had a long day and I want to keep things simple, or if it was the Spirit, but I went up to him and said, "Hey, we're representatives of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ told us to come talk with you, sir."  He laughed and let us go in his house to teach.  That was pretty cool.  

We had a zone conference with President Brum this week.  He came here to Araraquara to talk with us about what defines a successful missionary.  It helped me a lot, because I am sometimes somewhat of a perfectionist and get stressed out.  Perfeccionism is not a virtue, it just makes you stress.

I'm getting everything worked out for college, Mom.  Wrote my essays and I'm going to request the transcript.  Thanks for all your help!

Love,

Jack

Letter #78

So I kind of weirded out today when we were coming to send email.  My companion told me that in my last interview with President Brum that he's gonna ask me what my goals are for when I get home, which made me freak out a bit.  I have less that four months left before I get home, and it's going by ridiculously fast.  Thankfully I have Mom that's on top of things and getting everything ready for school and such.  

So I have a favor to ask, probably more specifically towards Dad, Mom, Addie, and Ellie.  Since I'll be coming home in January, I'll have a good deal of time at home to work to save up for college, but to earn money, I will probably need a job.  If you guys to keep your ears open for something pretty steady that I could do full-time, that would be sick.  It would be pretty awesome too if you looked into jobs where I could use Portuguese, either in Utah or California, becuase I would probably make more money that way.  

We had some super cool experiences this week, that I have duely registered in my journal and recordings on the cell phone, so this week I'll have to update you later on.  Mom, I'll have those essays ready and in next week.  I looked at the BYU application, and all that is left is a high school counselor thing, my essays, and the transcripts from USC.  If you need anything really quickly, you can give the mission a call.

Much love,

Jack-o

Letter #77

Dear Family,

This week was super good, we got a lot of good work done.  Taught a ton of people and are developing our relationships with our investigators.

I know that my e-mails aren't too poetic; I think I'll have better perspective about my mission after having finished, so for now I'm doing the very best that I can to fill every moment and keep everything recorded.  Unfortunately the journal that Ellie tried to send never showed up, some mailman somewhere in Porto Alegre probably got me mixed up with some German guy named Johann Heinrich Von Drake, or something like that.  There are actually quite a few Germans in Southern Brazil, so if you make a visit down there, you'll see a bunch of blondies.

One day y'all will have to come to Brazil with me.  And we can visit a small city call Holambra, which is a mixture between the words "Holland and Brazil".  It's a little Dutch town not too far from here.  Who would have known?

Love you all so much,

Jack