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