December 5, 2011

December 5

Christmas is coming here but its odd because it is super hot and instead of more clothes people wear less haha It is hilarious to see what people think is ok.

That story about Catherine is funny. Tell her to write more ;) haha just kidding

Its odd that I miss things like that but they really don~t have a big place in my life right now because I am just so busy thinking about people and my role and I am absolutely loving the scriptures. I get home and read before dinner and before bed and whenever because during personal study I don~t have time to study what I want. haha

I miss wrestling.... but all is well.

This week I have some stories for you guys..

Story Number one
First have you ever put a pick up load or a truck load of propane cans or glass bottles together and then driven over a bumpy road? You know how they just kind of bounce back and forth together swaying and wobbling. It is kind of humorous no? Well remember that image in your head.

In Brazil lots of people use buses. And the buses here have 6 seats and then a turn style and then the rest of the seats. Old people don~t have to pay so they don~t go through the turn style. This usually isn~t a big deal. But this p-day we went to the mission office (about an hour on the bus) to get Books of Mormon for our District. Apparently this day was Bring a retired person to work day because about 15 older people got on the bus. Almost all women. They, not wanting to pay, did not go through the turnstyle. So on this bus the back 3/4 of the bus had no one standing and the front 1/4 had about 11 grandmas standing up. This was a hilarious situation for anyone who got on the bus, well at least it was hilarious for the one American sitting in the back, and an even more hilarious situation because roads in my area are anything but smooth. (Sometimes standing up on the bus feels like a roller coaster) so sitting in the back I watched a load of grandmothers bounce around like a pick up truck full of propane bottles. It was hard not to burst out laughing but somehow I managed.

Story number two

In Brazil you don~t have water heaters. Just a shower head that has a heated metal coil that the water runs through and gets semi hot. Well this last week our shower head died. So after 1 day of cold showers we bought a new coil. And my companion installed it. Long story short we were treated to a small fireworks display and now we have a new shower head.

Well a pretty good week. haha I~m relaxing more and having fun. I kind of came into the mission with an attitude that I would never have fun and that I would be Christ like in a serious manner. But I think I am learning who he really was and that he had fun too. That he was probably like Presidente Hinckley or President Monson and enjoyed life. I am learning to enjoy the mission.

This week I was walking ont he street after trackting and was on my way to an appointment. I was on an exchange with my companion from the MTC and I thought lets talk to that lady sitting on her porch. I stopped and that lady had been praying for help. For someone to stop and talk to her. But this prompting wasnt scary or stressful just a thought. A quiet lets try this. It was so relaxing to me that the spirit can speak in a calming manner as well as a powerful manner.

November 28, 2011

November 28
I miss my muscles too..... haha But I went running 3 times this week with my companion to an outdoor public gym thing that was pretty cool. Almost killed him I think. Haha but it was great.

This week took a pretty big turn on saturday. I have pretty much been coasting here. With Elder Pereira I was really excited to get promoted and that was my attitude be ready to be promoted after my first two transfers. But here With Elder Barros its like we don~t have a senior companion we just work together we plan together, we teach together and we cook together. And he as all the responsibility as the senior companion. It was great. So I was just kind of coasting. Not really worried about a whole lot just really enjoying the service of the Lord.

Saturday during lunch... President called and told my companion that he needs two Americans to train next transfer (2 weeks) and he was asking how I was doing. All I heard on my side was this (certantly President, he helps he is ready more or less this) When I learned what it was I got pretty stressed. I have been stressing out the past three days about this and if I am ready or if I can do this. I realized that I really don~t know what Im doing and that I really don´t speak all that well. I was stressing out about this saturday afternoon and sunday and was really really worried. Sunday we had the primary program in our ward. I was excited because that meant that I could read my scriptures during sacrament meeting. I did a little reading but found myself listening to the music that they sang more than reading. I read DC 6:36 and just listened to their voices sing songs like I´ll bring the world his truth and When I was baptized and I~m trying to be like Jesus. I remembered Ether 12:27 and the words that Mormom wrote their. He was so worried that the people would mock the words he wrote because he felt week in writing but the Lord responded with verse 27 and we can learn so much about what the Lord expects of us (humility and faith) and how much power we can receive when we are humble and faithful.

It was incredible how much power a primary singing without a piano in a Chapel in Brazil could bring to me and how much peace they could bring to my Heart.

Had someone yell GO back to America from a Motorcycle this week. And had some girls yelling something about my hair. It was an interesting week.

We had about 18 appointments Friday Saturday and Sunday and we had 18 appointents fall through. Which meant a lot of walking in the sun not a fun thing and very discouraging but it was good for us. The work here is really odd. The people here are so Good. Lots of return missionaries and lots of people with great faith. I want to help.

November 21, 2011

November 21
This week was a pretty good week. We are teaching a ton of lessons and not baptizing anyone haha. It is difficult here to get people to the church and even more difficult to get them to want to go to church.

This week was a crazy week in our ward not really crazy for the members but for us behind the scenes it was a crazy week.

I got the christmas packages!! haha super excited. Thank you :) i~m saving them for Christmas so I hope that I stay in this area for Christmas because I don~t want to lug those things all the way to my new area. Haha (He was transferred the week before Christmas. HA)

This week I feel like I progressed a lot. In my relationship with the members and in our ability to make sacrifices to follow the mission rules. We had a division yesterday where I taught a family with a member about some doubts they had. They have a lot of doubts that I have had and still have. Primarily how is this whole mortal experience is fair at all and how we can even be judged when so many of our actions here are based on our ability to think which is greatly influenced on who our parents were. It is hard to explaining to someone in English (including me) and even harder in Portuguese.
Basically I had to just use simple questions to try help him see that Heavenly Father loves us and it will all work out. I hope he can understand.

It is odd teaching someone with the same questions that you have.

OH and something that happened three weeks ago, We were walking down the street when this cop on a motor cylce was chasing this other guy on a motor cycle, not a big deal, then the motor cycle comes flying down the road the other directions back at us and stops not 30 feet in front of us. At this point the cop has also stopped and is trying to pull the other guy of the bike. They guy gets away with his motor cycle and flies down a side street the cop turns around and chases him (naturaly)
By this time the entire street is looking and yelling and making a rucus. As we continue onward we see the cops bike tipped without the cop.... (this is where the fun starts)
We are kind of watching curiously when every young man on the street starts yelling and running down the street chasing the bad Guy. At that point we left hoping that the people were going to beat up the bad guy and not the cop.
Pretty crazy day haha

November 14, 2011

Sorry, a bit late getting things updated.

November 14

This week was a pretty good week (i~ll share two stories here that you need to share with dad)

1 - I hate it when people say - this is the ONLY true church on the face of the Earth.

I hate it for a lot of reasons. One I think it orients our thoughts toward the fact that our church is different and the away from the purpose of church in general. I also think it is a little prideful and can be a little combative as well. Also, my understanding of the attonement and the love of my Heavenly Father is that they are not going to send anyone away just because they weren~t memebers of this church. The church will not save anyone. (they love to say that here there are a ton of evangelicals)

I was doubting my testimony pretty hard. We ran into a lady whose church also had a prophet in the states and they follow the teachings of him. I started thinking why this church? Why should I be telling people to join this church othere churches have profets as well. I was praying about this while we were tracting and this one lady said we could talk to her. we were talking to her and her husband when she said, (Deus é um só) basically it means that there is just one God and your church doesn~t matter. I have always had a hard time responding to this phrase because I don~t know what to say. But this day it came clearly to my mind. If there is just one God then there is just one way to him. And if there is just one way to him only one church has that way. I testified to her that that way that path was in our church. After her we had the chance to teach the first discussion 3 or 4 times to people who just let us in to talk. It was such a good chance for me to strengthen my testimony.

Heavenly Father gave me a chance to share my testimony and thus help it Grow. It was a great day.

2 - I am scared of this lady in my ward.

She is crazy. I love her and she is hilarious but she is crazy. haha and she gave me a reference 2 weeks ago and I did nothing with it. I didn~t have confidence in the reference and didn~t want to waste the time going to talk to her so I didn~t. (pretty bad of me) We had lunch at this ladies house yesterday and I was scared. I was scared for my life to be honest with you haha.

I was thinking about this the last three days before this lunch and had a revelation. The spirit helped me come up with a plan about how I could use this family to teach her so that it wouldn~t be just the missionaries but rather the family teaching.(I told her that before my mission giving references to the missionaries was like lighting a firework. You drop it and run away and that I didn~t want that to happen here) At one point during the plan she shook my hand because she was so excited that a missionary understood this relationship.

It was such a blessing to me that insteading of losing the confidence of the member we gained it. I am really excited to work with this family.

My companion is Elder Barros. He is from Campinas, São Paulo. He is a lot different than my other companion and drives me nuts a lot at home but on the street he is amazing. He loves to teach and follows and knows Preach My Gosple. It is a good relationship.

The food is good. A lot of rice and beans. And stroganoff (made that today) the stroganoff is just tomato sauce and cream with corn and chicken or beef. The lasagna here is with lunch meat and white sauce its a lot different but really good. They eat spaghetti but spaghetti is always with the sauce never separate. The food at the bakery is really cheap like 30 cents for a cinamon roll thing but in general food is more expensive. Milk is 2 reals for one liter but vegetables and fruits are really cheap.

I am learning to cook brazilian food so that I can share it when I get back :)

We eat with members everyday except p-day which is hard because It takes a lot of time and sometimes is more stressful to me and less efficente but its ok.

I know that we are procted because we walk in some pretty crazy areas in the dark with people doing crack right next to us and nothing happens :) love you !!!!

Nov. 2, 2011
Dad,

Wow Elder Oaks! I~m jealous haha. Good luck getting a seat anywhere in the city of bellevue haha.

So this week was great. I have a new companion which means new things that bug me but he is amazing. My first lesson with him he sat down and just taught from his heart. He didn~t use the flip chart thing we have here which I hate and he didn~t just recite his speech he really taught people. ( I came to learn later that his speech is a little less rehearsed but he still has a set plan and that set plan killed a lesson) He likes to work. And more importantly he likes to follow Preach My Gospel. So many missionaries don~t read it. Or don~t use it because its the manual and the manual isn~t in touch with reality. It really bothers me because this tool is amazing. It is half for the lessons and half to convert us to the Gospel. If you really study it you can learn so much.

I am having a hard time with my zone leader and the leadership in general. This is a ladder mission. Which means that everyone is trying to get to the top. With Elder Pereira I had that attitude as well. But my new companion is relaxed and just likes to help people which means that he should be a leader but he isn~t because he is kind of immature and doesn’t]t have that leader attitude. The thing that drives me nuts is numbers. My trainer told me to stop by eternal investigators if you are having a bad week because the numbers will show president that you are working. And my zone leader told me president only cares about numbers. That drives me crazy. I hate that. Because if I am worried about numbers I can~t worry about people and if I am not worried about people I can~t be a successful missionary. I am praying for understanding and sent a letter to My President about this dilemma.

We made 100 contacts this week. haha It was really cool. We were focused on contacts but we had lessons too. People let us in and we tracted into some non members that needed our help. My companion just said lets tract this city so we did. we are about half way through and have some promising new investigators.

Right now I am trying to tell the sisters in the ward that we can~t eat with them alone. They don~t follow that rule here. I have had lunches with a lot of sisters alone because their husbands work during the day and they want to feed the missionaries. I am talking with the relief society president about this and I will address the sisters next Sunday. Pray for me!!

Love you Dad,

Wright

I have been studying humility this week because it is one of my weaknesses and this is my thought about Christ,

Christ died on calvary but he lost his life in Gethsemene. So must we be willling to lose our lives if we want to be truly humble. Also dc 67:10 showed me a lot about

So my truck is runny well? It sounds like a glow plug problem. Be careful with ethenol You can ruin a diesel engine with that spray. Any offers yet?

P-day with elder pereira we hung out with the youth in the ward which I didn~t really like because I wanted to write letters or study ( its odd I don~t really like to sleep on p-day so many other things I could be doing) but anyway I wanted to just relax and cook or draw. My new companion is the opposite he wants to use his p-day to rest so I think now we will just stay in house the rest of day haha. Next week we will to the chapel because I want to practice piano. I want to play here because no one plays ( i know you told me so) so I am learning haha.

We teach about 20 lessons a week. ON a good week. The work here is slow. The church was born here in Brazil. About 80 years here and the entire state only has 5 stakes. The state above and the state below have temples but we don~t. There are a lot of people here who just don~t want to change. They are happy in their religion and think that religion isn~t important just that we are baptized and have faith. They don~t have logic. One woman told us that heaven doesn~t have a plack of a chuch. Just the plack of the church of Jesus Christ. I wanted to say oh you mean like this one on my name tag? haha

Satan has a strong grip on the people. In his half truths they think they are saved, and many of them are becasue they really have faith, but their lives could be so much better. I have been thinking a lot about my purpose as a missionary because I don~t believe that God will damn someone for not listening to two boys in white shirts. It doesn~t fit with my conception of God. So I think the purpose of the Gosple is to bless our lives and we get more blessings through the ordinances of Salvation but everyone will have the opportunity to have these ordinances. I don~t know if that makes sense but thats what is going through my head. That my job is just to help people have more peace through the Gosple of Jesus Christ,

Well enough introspection, Thanks for the spices!!! I used them a lot this week.

Love you Mom,

Elder Noel

Oct. 31, 2011
I~m glad to hear that you~re excited for wrestling. I really really want to wrestle someone here. Especially because here they all do jujitsu so I want to see how I would do. I think I would do pretty well. :)

Hamilton has recruiters after him huh? That is cool :) Are they offering money or just a spot on the team?

This week was pretty good. Got to work alone twice (see moms email for more) and learned a lot about working as a senior companion. I am not in such a hurry to be a senior now. haha But it was really good.

You are exactly right about the pride. I am studying humility right now in Preach My Gospel (you should take a look if you have time) and trying to learn how to have more confidence in the Lord and less confidence in me. Because I think that fear really is an indication of pride. We are afraid of what people will think or do or say and we don~t trust the Lord because we are worried about ourselves. Really it is a lack of faith in him or an indication of pride in Us.

I~m learning a lot about myselft. I spent the first 11 weeks trying to keep my mind 100 percent on the work. Never thinking about home or about my truck (how is that by the way) or about marriage or anything other than missionary work. And it was good. But now i~m just exhausted mentally. I don~t know what you did to keep your mind on the work without killing yourself but I would appreciate your advice on the subject.

I am relaxing a lot more. It is good. I can feel the spirit more when I am less worried about rules. Its hard to explain but I think I am learning a balance between life and rules. And when life is different than the rules and when we need to sacrifice our lives to obey the rules. It is a tricky balance and one that I will hopefully have figured out by the end of two years. haha

This week we talked to a Jehovah Witness couple. It is interesting to see how missionaries deal with people who want to fight. I find it really immature when people say something and then say the reference right after and I hate it when people do that and hate it more when missionaries do that because it makes us look like we are just trying to flex muscles (biblical muscles). And I would rather pretend to be stupid and let them talk and then present a simple message about love than bible bash. I really think that we can avoid bible bashing if we focus our messages on love. And compliment people on the faith they have and show them how this love can be more present in their lives. It’s what I want to do as senior companion.

There is a lot of people out there who don~t understand the bible and who have great faith but don~t know where to put it. It is really sad. I hope I can help a few of them. but really they just want to teach us. Pray that I can find people who really love to learn and who are really looking for truth.

Love you Dad,

Elder Noel
OH thanks for teaching me to work. One day you said to me that your goal was to make me work until I loved work. I love work. I love learning and I love being active. I’m less interested in naps or in general recreation because its time lost for learning. I think that is a gift from you.


I did get the packages. Infact I am wearing the tie right now:) It was really funny my companion got the package before me so everyone in our district saw a package from my family to him but not to me. Thank you so much for the picture!!! I love it:) I put it in my book of Mormon. And peanut butter on pancakes was such a treat!!! haha I have pancakes everyday. (almost blew up the house this week making cake..... hahaha) Thanks for the packages. They really are great. It is crazy how much a little love from home can do for your moral.

This week I got to work 2 days back to back alone with Elder Christensen (new elder here from utah but he served for 4 months in Alabama) so that means 2 days not having a Brazilian to have my back. It was really good for me. Good for me to know that I can make decisions and good for me to know that I can speak that language in a manner that people can understand me.

The bad thing is he wants to speak English at home. That isn~t terrible but it is harder for me to maintain my image as a missionary in English because I have patterns of speech in English that are less than formal. And its easier for me to talk bad about my companion in English which is really bad. haha so I~m learning two things. 1 be more patient with Brazilians because they don~t have the opportunity to re structure their language and 2 learn to control the things I talk about. It is good. I am also translating. Which is good for my confidence.

Our lesson to new investigators was rough..... haha but we taught them and I think we demonstrated our church well. We will see how well when we return next week.

I spent a lot of time worrying that people wouldn~t talk to me after my companion left (he leaves tomorrow) because he has been here for 6 months. But yesterday at church the relief society president was already talking to me and not him because she knew he would leave. That was really cool. It is really good for my confidence. Usually I am worried about what people think of me. Especially because I can~t speak and express myself in the manner I can in English.

Well I love you mom. This was a good week. I can~t believe its already been 5 months since I left! Crazy huh?!

I love you mom!!
interested in naps or in general recreation because its time lost for learning. I think that is a gift from you.

Oct. 24th 2011

Ok so this week I wrote a letter to you both and to you both individually. Feel free to share:)

I am learning here that missionaries are just boys. If you want your son to be a good missionary teach him how to be a good husband and teach him how to work. Missionaries here are pretty much the same as they were before. Sometimes that is really good and sometimes that is really bad. haha

I really hope that Hamilton can help unify the Youth program. Unity is so important. I see mission leaders here use the word (I) a lot. And while it is good to show missionaries a good example it is really bad for unity when a leader tries to show people why he is a good leader. And unity is so important. We remember that in Moses we read that the people of Zion are of one heart and one mind. Or unified. And that in unity we can find strength

Well This week I taught alone. :)

Literally Alone haha.

We had a new Elder arrive in the area next to us (they are opening the area that hasn~t been opened for a year, which means the house hasn~t been lived in a year and is unlivable right now so they are living with us) My companion and I went with them to show them the new area and a few investigators. One of the investigators needed to have the 3 lesson because her baptism is this thursday but my companion had to introduce the other Brazil to a new family. So Elder Christensen (3 days in Brazil) and I showed up at the lesson with lots of enthusiasm and little Portuguese.

It was wonderful. We prayed before we entered. Talked a little and then left. It was fast, efficient, and the spirit was strong. Also I felt for the first time like I really can teach. It was really good for my confidence and I thank the Lord for a companion that let me teach alone. The funny thing about teaching in another language is that you really get to experience the gift of tongues. But the gift of tongues doesn’t mean that you can say words you don’t know only that you can see ways to say what you want to say. It basically is like faith.

I think about faith like standing on the edge of a cliff looking into the darkness below. And when you take the step off the cliff the bridge appears. But you have to be willing to take that step into the abyss. You have to be willing to take the fall before you can make the walk.

This week was a good week. Hard and lots and lots of walking but really good. My study schedule is all out of whack because of the other elders living here and it bugs me but I’m more relaxed now than I was before so things are ok.

We sacrifice perfection to teach responsibility. It is a phrase that I want to use as a trainer and something that I miss from my parents. Generally people don~t understand this. I was blessed to have two parents who understood this concept and helped me learn responsibility.

Elder Noel.