Week 68

Hey family,

Well this week was an interesting week. It was super tired by the end.  But i guess that means time will go by faster.  My new companion is a greenie.  He is brasilian.  Its a little annoying to have to train.  He is always asking how to do this and that.  He said that he manly stayed in house at home.  I can see that because he was asking how to use the washing machine.  Thank you for teaching me common sense and how to do stuff.  I guess I took it for granite but there are a lot of people that have troubles here because they don´t know how to do anything.  I´m just trying to remember that he wants to learn and that is a good part.  I´m just hoping he learns faster than later because I don´t have patience to train I don´t think.  Too many things that try a persons patience on a mission.  

Oh the Nielsons the parents of David in the ward sent me a card.  If you see them can you thank them.  It was really good to see and read about their family.  

This week we are going to be doing a house cleaning with our investigators.  We don´t really have anyone progressing.  We´re going to get rid of them and find new ones that want to progress and will.  Hopefully this week it will be successful.  We did have the oportunity to teach a lot of of different people this week.  It is so interesting how there are literally bits and pieces of truth in all religions but there is always something missing and a lot of the time the people have questions about these details.  The only problem is getting them to follow.  We had one investigator that received an answer about the Book of Mormon and the church.  She new it was all true but can´t change the stuff in her life to actually follow what she knows is true. I think this is the sadess part of a mission...getting to the point that you can´t help people anymore.  Oh well we can only do so much.  

Well I hope all is going well there and that you´re not too cold.  Its still hot here.  But i think that i´m getting a little used to it.  It almost is uncomfortable in the air conditioning.  Well good luck.

I love and miss you all,

love,

Garrett

Week 67

Hey,

That is crazy that Moscow got hammered with so much snow that it made news in Utah.  But it sounds like it was crappy snow.  Well its as hot as ever here.  95-100 everyday.  I´m getting backed thats for sure...i´m using sun screen so don´t worry.

 

So I´m getting a new companion which is a blessing because i can´t stand my companion any more.  He is so annoying.  Its just a thing of most of the missionaries from São Paulo.   They think they are better than everyone else.  Its annoying.  I have no clue who my new comp is so i´m hoping he´s cool.

 

The new program that we learned is about using the book of mormon to answers question of the soul.  Its not really new its always been in the book of mormon it just hasn´t been used on this scale.  But its really cool and does work.  Just imagine receiving an answer to a question you´ve had your whole life.  Thats proof right there.  

 

I´m hoping the area will get better but i´m pretty sure it will only get worse.  Carnival is in 2 weeks.  Everyone says it is just hell here during carnival.  It seems like that now.  They have like no standards here at all and it suppose to get worse.  I guess i need to get prepared.  Hopefully its not too bad.

Well I hope that the roads are better there and that all is well. I miss and love you all.

 

Love,

Garrett

Week 66

Hey Family,

Wow so this week was a interesting.  I was involved in my first emergency transfer.  We got a call wednesday at noon and they were like Elder Pusey my old comp you´re leaving in an hour and Elder Miranda will be there.  It was a huge surprise.  We were just starting to get used to each other and things were wokring out better.  Oh well.  Elder Miranda is a great missionary he is just a bit annoying sometimes really annoying as a person.  Oh well...it could be a very short time that we are together.  Transfer are this next week.  But I´m learning a lot from him that i´ll be using in the future to teach and baptise people. 
Zone conference was this week.  It was really good.  I learned a lot of good stuff that will help in out.  There is a new program that the mission is using to teach.  It is so cool and really does help people gain a stronger testimony.  I wish i´d know about this earlier in my mission.  But at least I know now about it.  We are starting to implement it and we should have a baptism this week and the next and its our goal to just keep it going like this.  But we will have to keep working hard to make it all work out in the end.
There is a new Elder here from Spokane.  It was cool to talk to someone that new Moscow and that area.  I´ve been gone forever.  It is so weird that everyone is almost home.  I don´t have that much time left either.  The members are saying that now which makes things harder.  Don´t remind me so that I don´t get too trunky....haaha.
The spanish book of morman i got from a member in the ward.  I was saying that I wanted to learn spanish and he just gave me a book of mormon in spanish one day.  I didn´t complain. Its so much different than portuguese.  I´m not reading it to much anymore because I think it was ruining my Portugues.  But now that I have a Brazilian comp I might start again. 
Today was a pretty good day.  We went to an area close to where we are at that Elder Miranda used to work in. There are some really cool members there.  There is a family that returned missionaries married...so they live in the USA but were here for the christmas break.  They were really cool.  And were talking about the states and the snow and I started to get all excited.  Haha...i miss the snow.  Then we went Bowling with a couple other elders.  Its was fun except the bowling alley was a peice of garbage.  At least we had fun. 

Well I love and miss you all.  I hope that all goes well.
love,
Garrett

Week 65

Hey Family,

Well this week was a lot better for the help of the members.  The ward mission leader had a temporary job and it ended so we have been leaving with him a lot this week.  He is also preparing to serve a mission so its a good preparation for him as well.  It makes it so much nicer to leave with a member.  The environment is better because there is someone else there to help out.  Being around the same person everyday for practically every minute does wear some people down like me.  It was kind of funny when I came back to Salvador on the bus I was alone and everyone was like that must have been really weird.  I was just like actually it was extremely nice.  OH well.

So there was some good experiences this week.  The other day it was about time to go home and we didn´t know what to do.  So I was like oh lets just pass this house and see if this member can go to a lesson some day with us.  When we got there she was super sick and we were able to give her a blessing.  She was like I know this wasn´t a conincidence....i´m not sure if it was divine or not but it was a good experience none the less.

This Sunday a member left lunch in the church fridge for us.  We were all stoked because there was tons.  But we found out later that night that we had taken half of the food of another person.  I felt bad but it did taste good.  I guess the sister giving us lunch wasn´t as generous as we thought.

We had been teaching a really good investigator this week.  He was on the internet and read a lot of the anti-mormon stuff and still wanted to learn more and was eating it up.  But he told us the other day that we was leaving to go back to college he studyings in Campinas, São Paulo.  So we will be giving a reference.  I hate how that works out.  But oh well it will be a good investigator for them.

It is so crazy how much different Salvador is to the interior.  The people are so much more closed and unfriendly here.  I think its just a big city thing.  I´m more of a fan of the interior where people are nice.  But we don´t get to choose where we go to.

 

Love and miss you all,Garrett

Week 64

Hey family,

 

It  is so crazy that it is already 2012!  I can´t believe it.  I´ll be home this year!    

 

The new year here wasn´t all that great.  It wasn´t super loud because everyone left for the beach to watch the fireworks.  But there were some people that shot of fireworks and we watched those from our house.  But it would have been cooler if we could have seen the fireworks from the beach.   We tried to buy meat to have a BBQ but everything was closed at 8 pm.  They really do like there parties here so much that they  close everything.  So we had the new year with little food. Oh well. 

I think with it being the year i´ll get home i´m starting to miss everything more.  It would be nicer if I could forget what America or where we live offers.  But i think it was also it was because this week was tough.  We just met a  lot of jerks.  I don´t think i´m prepared for  Salvador.  The people are just so much nicer in the interior and its just nicer there.  Maybe President will send me back one of these days.  I hope so at least. 

  

This week we tried to get the help of the members.  But we would show up to leave with them and they would just give a lame excuse why they couldn´t go.  It looks like they are more talk than action here.  Hopefully thats not true and we can get some help this week. 

 

 Reading the Book of Mormon is an awesome goal.  I finished it in Portugues like 2 weeks ago.  Now i´m starting to read it in spanish.  I´ll see if i keep that up.  Spanish is a lot different.  I want to learn spanish but i might just wait until after the mission...we will see. 

 

Well i hope that you all have a good week there.

love and miss you all,

Garrett