Week 79 Letter

Monday, August 27, 2012

I am great!  This week was awesome.  We worked hard and smart to finish the transfer well.  This last Sunday was transfers and just about everything will stay the same in my zone, other than two missionaries who are already going home.  This week we baptized Nara (20), Isabela's cousin, 

and we baptized another young woman who we have been teaching this week named Isis (15).

  We have been teaching Isis' dad too, but he is needing to stop smoking to get baptized, but he is on the way.  These last two days he has only smoked 4 in total and he was smoking about 20 a day.  So, we are happy with him, but we are also sharing with him our vision of him being able to make a dead stop now so that he can enter into the gate with his daughter and start their way to becoming an eternal family.  Also, Elder Ertel, one of the missionaries that is going home, and I went to go and pick up an investigator of his to watch the baptism.  He was ready to get baptized as far as living his life correctly, but Elder Ertel told me that for some reason he would not commit to a date.  On the way I was able to talk with him.  I really let him talk for a while.  I just asked him about his life, what he was learning with the missionaries, and what he was thinking of all of it.  He told me everything.  Before this young man met the missionaries (his name is Cesar and he is 15) he did not believe in God, but he has seen his faith grow that there is a god and that his son is Jesus Christ the savior of the world.  Then we started talking about the Book of Mormon.  I explained the line of logic of how the Book of Mormon is the key stone to our religion, and that if he knows that it is true, Joseph was a prophet, and therefore the church is true, and therefore he knows that he needs to get baptized.  He has been reading it with his mom for that entire week and just not recognizing his answer.  I helped him realize that he had already received an answer through his feelings and the fact that through the Book of Mormon a miracle had happened in his life.  He has built a faith in God and Jesus Christ.  That is proof that the Book of Mormon is true.  He understood and committed to be baptized the next day; that was yesterday.  He was baptized and the mom is on the way.  It was awesome.  He is a great kid.  So, that was my week.  Everything is well, the transfer is already off to a good start, and the ward has become excited.  All is well.  I love you all and I will send pics for you to see of the baptism.  Of Cesar’s baptism, I do not have the pics because they are on another card that is not with me, but when I get it I will send the pics too. 

Love you all!!!!

Week 78 Letter

Monday, August 20, 2012

Hello all of you!

So, not a lot of time, and really not a lot to write.  We did have some really cool people come to church.  We taught a family of a single dad and his daughter last night that committed to find out if the Book of Mormon is true so that they will know if Joseph Smith was a prophet and if they need to be baptized and be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ.  It was awesome.  Some other quick and funny stories...  I ate pig skin this week which was done up like chips with salt.  It was interesting.  Also, one of my investigators had a party at her house and she had a trampoline.  So, I tested it out for her and the rest of the kids.  Afterwards I did some magic acts for the 20 kids that were there and it was fun.  I think that the investigator was surprised that missionaries are more than they appear.  It was fun and she really liked it.  Sadly she needs to get married legally to get baptized and her husband is kind of a bum and therefore, the daughter, Jaiany who wants to get baptized is having to wait a little bit hoping that the dad will let her.  So, that is about my week in a quick email.  Sorry that this time was so short, but if I have a chance I will try to jump into a lan house around lunch time.  To make up for the lack of words, here are some pics for you all.  I love you all and wish you all a great week.  

Love you all!!!!

Week 77 Letter

Monday, August 13, 2012

Hey everybody!

Another week has flown by and I cannot believe how fast time is passing.  I do not even know what to write, it feels like I just wrote you all yesterday.  This week we worked a lot, but sadly this Sunday we were left disappointed.  Yesterday was father's day in Brazil so getting to people to church was hard.  We had a lot of people who committed to go Saturday, but when Sunday arrived they left us hanging.  We still have people that we are helping get ready for baptism though and they had some legit excuses to not go to church.  Almost all of our good investigators were traveling for father’s day to visit their dads who live in other places.  I am excited for this week though to get back to teaching them had helping them get ready for baptism.  This zone is having some difficulty because it is a lot of new missionaries but we are trying our best to help. I am still trying to figure out this zone leader thing.  It seems like we depend a lot on the district leaders and cannot really do everything and sadly my district leaders are a little unexcited.  One is going home in 2 weeks and is ready to go, the other has a year and 4 months on the mission and is tired.  We are going to do a division with him this week to up his vision and leave him excited.  So, that is my life right now.  I love the mission and as I am about to complete a year and 6 months, and am really feeling a sense of urgency in everything.  I really have a lot to do in this 6 months and I want to do more.  I did get the package and I loved everything in it.  The ties are all super awesome and super clean, I think that I am going to only were them on Sundays to go to church.  The socks were much needed, and the shorts are great.  Elder Marque loved the shorts, he is wearing them today for P day and he really liked the peanut butter to.  I forgot how good PB is.  It is heaven.  Also, American candy is incredible.  Here they eat cough drops for candy, so you can imagine the situation.  Now I see why we use halls for cough drops and not candy.  I think the man that opens an American candy store here in Brazil will be rich.  Anyways, it was great to get that package.  I loved it.  Thank you so much!!!!  Anyways, that is my week.  Just on an interesting note, this week I ate bull tail for the first time.  It was actually good, but it is really heavy in the stomach afterwards when you are walking in the sun.  It was good though.  I knew from the bones that it was something interesting.  They asked me to guess what it was and I said it was the spine because of the bone structure, but nope, it was tail of bull.  Cool, right?  I have already eaten cow tongue too.  Lots of good stuff here.  Fish head is a specialty, and I have already eaten a piranha, if that is how it is in English; that fish that has teeth and eats people, I ate one of those once and you eat it all, head to tail.  It is interesting, but I liked it.  Well, there you have it.  I love you all and wish a great rest of the summer!!!!!!!!!

Week 76 Letter

Monday, Aug 6, 2012

Hi mom and family!  So my package came but it is still in the mission office, but I will go and pick it up today with the rest of the zone's letters and packages.  Thanks a ton, I am really excited to get it.  As for the photos, I have not been able to get them up because of the new lan house that we have to use because they do not give you access to put in a thumb drive or any usb input, but I will try and send the pics of the baptism from the mission office today.  Also, I will send a pick of the baptism that we had yesterday.  It was awesome.  We baptized the rest of the kids in the family, Stephany who is the cousin who lives next door but basically lives there, almost the same house, and the little brother Ian.  It was great.  I love this family so much.  I had the privilege of baptizing Stephany.  It was awesome.  This week was good.  I am trying to excite my companion.  He does not like to work very hard and has become pretty lazy on the mission, but we are getting better.  He has a lot of potential, but sometimes he just wants to get through the day and the mission.  He is good though.  I love him.  The zone is doing well, although we are needing some changes.  In this zone we have a lot of new missionaries training newer missionaries so we lack experience, but what the zone lacks in experience we have in excitement.  This week I am going to try and direct their excitement so that we can have the results that we want.  It will be a good week.  Well, that is about all that have to say about the mission life right now.  We did have a bunch of investigators at church.  We had 4 people there outside of our baptisms.  It was awesome.  We are going to try and get these people ready for baptism this Sunday.  They are all great people, and they can all be ready for sure.  There is only one of the four that is a grandma of one of our investigators who is really catholic and she is saying that she does not want to switch, but we will see this week.  The blessings of the gospel can be very attractive.  Well, I love you all and wish you all a great week.  Thanks for all of your love and support. 

Love your Elder Lee