Week 47

Hey Family!

 

Sounds like things have been really hecktic this week.  But thanks for finding a way to get the emails to me.  Its alwasy a huge boost to read whats going on at home.  I only hear and see bits and pieces when we are at members or investigators homes.  I guess DC or that side of the States is hurting a little with the earthquake and sunami.  Hopefully it didn´t do too much damage.

I really miss the thunderstorms in Moscow.  They don´t have them here.  It just rains hard at times.  This week the weather has been really crazy.  Hot and cold.  I wish it would just be cool.  Here its usually in the mid 80´s low 90´s but the sun goes does around 5:30 or 6 so around 7 its cool most days.  Some days its still pretty warm at night.  But that is a blessing here it gets cool at night where as in Salvador its always hot.

 

This week was pretty hard. We didn´t have much success.  It was really frustrating.  I´m hoping that things pick up.  I think it will be better next transfer.  My comp is a cool kid but he is pretty much dead.  He says it everyday and he like i´m sorry i just have little desire to continue doing this.  I know where he´s coming from...i´m hoping that i´m not that dead when at the end of my mission.  I wont let myself be that dead if I can do anything about it.  But he was a super good missionary so I guess it happens to the best of them.  I still learn a lot from him when we teach so that is good.

I found a milkshake shop this week.  Oh and they are so good!  That is a huge plus for me.  So that made the end of the week better...haha.  But man its ridiculous how much they like their alcohol here.  They have milkshakes with alcohol! I´ve never heard of that...its crazy.  We saw some fights last night because this woman and man were drunk.  Alcohol never does anything good. 

  No we actualy had a really good experience this week.  The other elders had a baptism and one of our old investigators was there.  She is friends with the person that was baptised.  We dropped her because she wasn´t keeping her commitments and said she didn´t want the Book of Mormon anymore.  The first person thats given it back to me while i´ve been on the mission.  But during the baptism she felt the spirit really strong.  After she was like i felt this peace that i´ve never felt before in my life you have to come back and teach me again!  That is awesome so i´m praying she will progress this time.  I think she will. 
Well it was another week.  I hope that everything is well with you all.  It sounds like you all are busy thats for sure.  Well i love and miss you all.

Love,

Garrett

Week 46-more pictures

Week 46

Hey Family,

 

It was a quick week for me here.  The weather has been bad....in that its been really hot here.  My body just doesn´t like the heat.  But i´m surviving better than my companion.  He got really ill and went to the hospital yesterday morning.  He is fine now.  He got a few shots and told him to stay out of the sun.  I guess this happened once before and he had to stay in the hospital for a few days.  I hope that my system holds up the hospitals scare me here.

I miss the temple so much.  I´d do practically anything to go to the temple right now.  Its crazy how many blessings we receive by going and the peace and spirit there just make it worth every effort to get there. 

I played soccer for the first time here.  It was really fun.  They said for an American I play really well.  Haha.  I´m really sore now from it.  I´m so out of shape.  But we will be playing again this week so hopefully i´ll be able to get back into shape a little.  There is this family in the ward that is difficult.  I thought they were just difficult about church stuff.  But during the game the man was mad the whole time.  There was this 9 year old playing and when he made mistakes he would yell at him.  Everyone was like calm down geez...we are just here for fun.  Wow its sad how serious some people take these things.  I´m serious about hockey but not like that.  Thats just stupid.  I don´t know how you could live your life and be mad the whole time.  Its not my type of life thats for sure.

One of the missionaries in the other dupla is from Argentina...Mendosa.  He was talking about how hard it is to learn spanish.  He was like good luck for the Americans that go to Argentina.  The language is hard.  So you learned it dad....parbèns.  And he is really cool!  But his companion is just annoying.  We´ve been doing a lot with them lately especially on P-day.  The argentino is a good cook.  We all split the cost and he cooks.  I like that.  I actually like to cook here but he knows recepies from memory and I don´t so it just doesn´t work well.

That is so true Dad.  I need to remember that more.  Patience is something that I lack.  I´m always looking to the future instead of living in the moment.  I need to enjoy the little things more.  It is so true they live on with a lot less here..i´m not so sure about the rich...the rich here have really nice stuff.  But the poor.  Thats the thing here there is no middle class there is only rich or poor.  And the difference is night and day. 

Well it was a pretty good week all in all.  I´m excited for this week. We have 2 referals that should be really solid! 

Well Í hope all is well there and that you continue to have fun in the hot weather.

 

love,

Garrett

Week 45

Hey family!

 

  Looking back now I miss the state side mission.  There are a lot of things that I miss/took for granite when I was there.  I feel that this is one of the reason that I was called to serve here in Brasil.  We just don´t realize or I didn´t what we have in America.  Also I didn´t take the important things in life for how important they really are...like family.  Now that i´m 5000 miles away I realize how much family means to me...what a blessing the gospel is to us to be able to live with our families forever! 

Yesterday was fathers day here. 

We´ve been having some dificulties getting people to church for a while now.  I´m hoping things will turn around.  But we do seem to have some solid people that we are teaching until it comes to the church part.  Its probably because everyone is catholic here and going to church means diferent things to catholics than to us.

 The weather here has been weird at the start of the week in was super hot in the mid 90´s and then the end it was in the 70 and 80´s.  We have an investigator that lives super far away.  It´s a 30 minute plus bike ride.  But he stopped us near our house and asked for a book of mormon.  He is solid. Hopefully things will progress with him.  Well thats all for me.  I hope that things go well.

 

I love you all,

Garrett

Week 44

Hey Family,

This week was full of crazy stuff.  This morning there was someone that tried to break into the apartment next to ours.  They climbed up through a window on the bottom floor and were in this empty space that has air conditionars for the company on the first floor.  They climbed up and luckily knocked one of the air condiontionar units off and ran away through the window.  It was crazy how close they were to our apartment and we didn´t even know it until they knocked the unit of.  We will have to be a lot more careful to close all of our windows.  The building is always locked up so we didn´t really see a need but I guess during the day some people have the nerve or stupidity to try and rob.  I don´t understand people.  Also Saturday we had a freaky experience.  We were walking to a investigators house when in front of us a cop car stopped and 2 cops got out with their pistols in hand.  They confronted this guy and I thought I was going to see someone die right in front of me.  It was messed up.  I´m not going to lie I was so scared I just stood in one spot not moving.  Luckily the cops just reholstered their pistols and we went around.  I don´t like that kind of stuff.  Its doesn´t matter where you are here...it seems like you can always find crime or danger.  I´m just thankful the Lord is watching out over us.  I know he is because things always seem to work out, when you wouldn´t think they could.
Today was transfers...the zone leaders got transfered to another area.  We only have one of the ZL in our zone the other got transfered to another zone.  It was very strange.  I feel that it will be better.  The zone seems a lot nicer now.  Hopefully things will be good.  We will see.  I´m excited for tomorrow though.  We got 2 referals from a member and one of the referals already commited to go to church.  Hopefully everything will pan out right. 
Well thats all from me.  I hope that things go well for you all there.  This last week was really hot here....is the weather still hot there or did it get cold again?  Also when you went to Helana was all of montana on fire like it usually is?
Love and miss you all,
Garrett

Week 43

Hey Family,

 It is hot today here.  I´m not a huge fan of the heat.  I just die in it.  But its because its so humid.  It makes it a lot worse thats for sure.  The week here went quick.  The lady we gave a ride is still our investigator but i´m not sure for how much longer.  Her boyfriend and her are thinking about spliting up which means she will leave for another state.  We are going to meet with them tomorrow and show families can be together forever and try to help out.  Its just minor things that need to change.  But we did have a special experiece with her.  We went to her house at the begining of the week and followed up about church and stuff.  She really like it and started crying...she was like i know that God sent you two to teach me these things.  It was a very special experiece.  Half of the time it doesn´t feel like you´re making any difference at all when the whole world is shutting you down or being rude.  These experiences are the little bits of sunshine that help me go one more day.  I try to just take it a day at a time.

 My body is better here because there are less hills and stairs but in Salvador my knees were giving out on me.  It was terrible!  I hated it.  Oh well.  It´s better now not perfect.  Its hard because the mission does terrible things to your body.  I´ve never been this fat in my life and after the mission I hope its a long time before I ever get this fat again.  Oh well.

  I´ve started jump roping every p-day.  I´m always to tired to do it the other days.  But maybe i´ll start trying to be better about that.   

I love and miss you all.

Garrett