Frustrated - Mender Man on a Bad Day

Well.... I'm more frustrated then a mender man on a bad day! Freak sorry everyone i just typed up a huge long email and my computer froze and I lost it....  now I don’t have a lot of time so this letter wont be funny or have good stories like the other one but maybe if you imagine really hard you can imagine what it said! Good luck.
Well this week was amazing we worked so hard and the Lord has blessed us with some amazing investigators! I have never been so tired in my life as I was this week and it was such a good feeling.  When you can pray and tell Heavenly Father that you gave it your all and you tried your best and you can say it with an honest heart there is no better feeling. 

One night on the way home a girl stopped us and asked us if we were Mormons as we got to talking she had amazing questions and was just a golden contact.  At the end I felt like I should give her my first lesson pamphlet and ask to read it and bring it on Sunday to church.  She said she would and as we walked away my comp asked why I did that and told me I would never get it back.  (Our mission doesn’t have first lesson pamphlets so this is one I brought from the MTC) well he was right... NO I'm kidding.  That would be a crappy story. Well this Sunday I got called out of class and who was standing there? Her with my pamphlet! It was a miracle! She then stayed for sacrament meeting and after we got to give her the first lesson and now she is a golden investigator! She is wayyyy smart and speaks a little English so that is always fun.

Well we have another investigator named Sharles who is so humble and just an amazing guy. He lives with his parents because they need help around the house and he keeps every commitment we give him.  This Sunday he was ready and waiting for us to go to church. I love teaching him!  

I also went on divisions this week with the zone leaders and learned a ton I love learning new ideas about how to do the work!  But on my way home I lost my bag that had my shoes, BYU shorts and other clothes in it.  That night I had nightmares of some man walking down the street wearing my clothes or another guy trying to sell them or something well a miracle happened and that Monday after church when I finally had a chance to go look for them I found them in a store and a lady had kept them hoping I would return! How cool is that? I was so grateful the Lord was looking out for me in my moment of stupidness.  Well time is just about out but I love you all and hope you have a great week! Ate mais

Love,
Elder Mender

You Killed my Father, Prepare to Die!

Hello all!

Well we are in the middle of a huge zone churrasco so I don’t have a lot of time but I will share with you some stories and thoughts and I hope it will suffice for one week!  First there is this AMAZING soda that is only local to Petrolina called cajuina or something like that but you should try and order some and drink it because even if it is really expensive it is so worth it! Ha-ha just a thought.

So my socks have a lot of holes in them and this week I pulled out the old thread and needle and I'm not half bad at darning socks! Although I had to safe the black thread for my pants so my socks now have cute colors like blue, red, purple, and pink in the toes! I figured that was ok because I only take my shoes of in our house...

One fun story! Brazilian kids love to shout at you and use their English vocab.. Which sometimes is only swear words. Well one kid was being really obnoxious and yelling a pretty bad one at me so i called him over and asked him if he knew what that word meant and naturally he said no so i informed him because i think all small children need to know that when he says that word he is actually telling the whole world that he is gay.  He then asked if i was serious and i told him he probably shouldn’t tell people that unless he was!  He walked away shocked that he had said that.  As soon as he was out of sight my companion and I busted up laughing that it had actually worked!

This week I taught a lesson to a man with 12 fingers!! No joke the 11th and 12th had nails and everything it was crazy!  Although it wasn’t that good because the whole time I had the urge to say, "you killed my father prepare to die!"  If you don’t get that joke go watch Princess Bride....

I finished Jesus the Christ this week and if you haven’t read that go do it now.  Such an amazing book that really helped strengthen my testimony of Christ. I can’t wait to read it in Portuguese!

Do this week was a hard workweek. It seemed everyone we talked to either had already talked to the missionaries or gave us a false address so our district leader is having us double work his area so we had to learn his area and rebuild or pool of investigators but I'm excited for the next few weeks I have a feeling it will be good!

That’s all for this week, I hope all is well in the northern part of the American continent. Oh I sent out letters today responding to every letter I have received so if you get one good, and if not... sorry the mail service in brazil is pretty sketchy.... I also put stickers on them so I hope those arrive on the letters! Ha-ha they make me smile and I hope they’ll make you smile!   Have a great week.

Love,

Elder Mender
  

No More Mouse Problem

Hello everyone!

What a great week!  We are working hard and... I'm the only one sweating.  I guess it has been cold here this week because everyone keeps saying how cold it is but I don’t get it. IM STILL SWEATING!  Oh well things are amazing and we are very excited with our investigators.

Today for P-day we had a churrasco or BBQ with some of the elders in our city it was really fun and really good although missionaries and fire are a very interesting mix but no one was hurt and we are all very full (80 reais of food was purchased for the event)

Exciting news this week we had zone conference which it is always fun to see your friends on the mission and see how they are doing!  And understood most of it again! So that was exciting. ALSO after I could talk and understand the jokes and stories that were being told!  It is amazing how fast you can learn something when the spirit is helping you!

After zone conference some of the elders who live farther away got to spend the night at our house which is always exciting and we found a very large mouse in our house. I have decided I need to have a Brazilian living with me always because the thing was so cute and staring at me and it didn’t want to die and I couldn’t kill it but elder Arauja had no problem beating it with a broom.  So needless to say we no longer have a mouse problem.

I bought a hammock this week! It is very comfortable and good for a little reading before bed.  It also is good when it rains at and your bed gets soaked you can just go sleep in the hammock! :)

Well sad story of the week we went out contacting one night for three hours and made soooo many good contacts families and men. We had 10 appt for the next day and then we realized we had been so into tracting we had left our area and gone into another area... so we had to give our whole nights work over to other elder!  They were happy but I was pretty sad.  Moral of the story always remember your area ends at rua 18!

This week we had a lot of fun. I have realized that while we missionaries may mature I do not think we will ever grow up one day at lunch a boy brought out his box of hot wheels cars and immediately we four elders started playing and racing with the little cars.  I had to stop and laugh at the scene.

also my parents sent me a little sensor that goes in the toilet seat that when light hits it will scream well I don’t know if I have told you this but our house has the rumor of being a haunted house and missionaries hate spending the night at it so when our zone leader stayed the night he went to go use the bathroom and came out screaming like a little girl it was a very funny sight to see a pretty big Brazilian scared.

Last story of the week I had the most fun convincing people that my brother is Matt Damon the actor from the Bourne movies.  A lot of girls have asked if they could email him... until they found out it was him and a lot of members where really excited to find out that matt Damon was a Mormon! Ha-ha

Well I love you all I hope all is well. I have tried to attach some photos so I hope you get them. And.... tththhthats all folks!

Love,

Elder Mender

Come What May, and Love It

Hello tudo mundo!!!

How are things around the world?  Updates and pictures are always greatly appreciated.  :)

First off, life is amazing down here!!  I am so grateful for the chance I have to be here in Brazil sometimes I feel like I got called to a mission in the desert and not in Brazil. It can get pretty crazy down here and it is wonderful!  Stories of the week are pretty lame because well first transfer you’re still trying to figure out who your companion is, but we did get to watch conference on Sunday!  (Yes only Sunday) in the morning we watched priesthood but it was in Portuguese so i didn’t understand a whole lot.  But the speakers looked good!!  Then for the next two sessions we were able to watch them in a small really really really hot room with all the American missionaries in Petrolia, it was a great experience!  Oh i forgot to mention that the chapel was air conditioned... how lame is that?!  But it is ok because sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven and even though it was hot the spirit was strong and the messages beautiful! I hope you all had a chance to watch a few sessions. 

Sunday night we had an Easter egg hunt which was really me telling my district to close their eyes while i placed a chocolate egg in their hands.  Now this was no ordinary chocolate egg I also had a cute little princess box for it.  So Sunday night we each had a chocolate egg and a princess!! What more do missionaries need? I think nothing.

This week was also really sad because we had a baptism fall the day of when we went to go talk to him he told us that he didn’t want to be baptized and he wouldn’t tell us why so that was very sad day. His name is Tiago and he is really a neat boy, I was so excited to see him get baptized since I have been working with him for four weeks but we are still working with him and hopeful that in the future he will decide to be baptized!

Everyone always says that a mission prepares you for the rest of your life and I cannot figure out how walking in the sun and having cockroaches crawl on me will prepare me for life but last week I figured it out!!  So in order to have 1 baptism you have to make contacts with about 100 people then teach about 50 first lessons then get 25 return appointments and then have about 10 got to church and hopefully by then you will have 2 or 3 golden investigators who are ready for baptism but then do to some unknown cause 2 will always drop out and one will get baptized!  Well how does this apply to life? In order to find a wife, us returned missionaries, need to make about 100 contacts hopefully get 50 first dates then if we are lucky 25 second then have about 10 meet the parents then hopefully you will have 2 or 3 ready for marriage but two will always drop out and you will have you eternal companion left!!  Its brilliant I know.

Well I love you all and am so grateful for your support!  Just remember, "come what may and love It." it really helps when life gets a little difficult.  Have a great week and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do... ok maybe use a little bit more caution then that!

Love,

Elder Mender