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