Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Last week of my mission



This week will be my last week on the mission, but as it comes to an end I think of all the cool things that have happened in these two years. A lot of cool experiences. This last week I did a division with the zone leaders, and we visited a lady who can´t walk up or down stairs because of a tumor in her leg.  She told us that on the day of  her baptism she decended into the font and left the font without any help. It was a very cool lesson and living proof that the church is true.  I told the zone leaders about the problems that have happened in our area, and then the zone leader asked me,  "when was the most important week of the Savior?" I thought and realized it was his last week - when he died and resurected to take away the bands of death for ever and ever. I realized then that my very last week will be somthing that I will always remeber.
On Sunday we had three investigators who went to church all by themselves and I had never seen that before in my life! It was a miracle. We taught one of them last night. He moved down here with his family from São Paulo. A very cool family - it was fun to teach them the first lesson. They liked it alot and we are going to return there this Wednesday. I know that the gospel blesses families and that with the gospel in our lives we can overcome all dificulties placed before us. I saw that when I had the oppurtunity to visit a family agian, a family that was struggling to pay the monthly rent and now they have their own pizza buisness and have received many blessing through the gospel. 



Wednesday, November 11, 2015

November 3, 2015

I´ll be home in like 3 weeks!! Yesteday was a holiday so like all the missionarys couldn´t use email in Brasil.  Im excited to get back it will be cool to see  everyone! Yesterday went to visit some of the families that I  came to know on my mission. I went and visited my very first area on the mission! It was fun talking to everyone people were excited to be able to talk to me because in that epic I wasn´t able to say anthing. But while I was there I was able to relive my glory days. Almost a year and 7 months ago Me and my second companion were walking on a dirt road literally on the edge of town and it was the edge of town becuase on one side of the road were houses and the other were mountains. We talked to many people but no one had alot of interest. We then talked with this boy with 14 years and we teached his family two times but unfortunatly we were both transfered out of the area and sisters were placed in the area. The months passed and when I had a year and 3 months on the mission found out that the whole family was baptized! Yesterday I went and did a surprise visit and the whole family was home we talked for awhile. They are going through alot of difficulties with money but they have stayed true to the gospel and now there oldest son the son with whom we talked to on the street so long ago will be serving a mission in just 2 years! I found out that through my mission I planted alot of seeds many of the people I would teach joined the church later on. Through the small and simple miracles that happened throughout my mission my testimony was strengthened to the limit where it will never be broken. 
Yesterday night with our ward mission leader and his wife we went to a pizza bbq where you eat as much pizza as you want I ate over 15 slices it was crazzy haha! This week were going to have a family night with food at a less active´s house with the youth to strengthen the ward because things are complicated here. But I only got 2 more weeks so it will go by fast. The beach looked cool! Hopefully I´ll be able to go there in the future on day. 
Hope all keeps going well have an aweosme week! Until soon! 

Monday, November 2, 2015

October 26, 2015

Sounds like you guys had a fun week, my week was kinda boring i'm getting ready to come home haha, not a lot to do here i'm excited to get
back. I got my flight emailed to me I´ll arive wednesday morning at 11:15 25th of November 
will be super awesome! Im super tired the end of the mission is the hardest part because it's 
the most dificult to keep working at the very end. Today we will meet up with the other missionary from the zone and do an activity together for pday I think we´ll play soccer or somthing but I'm not quite sure yet.
Yesterday we hung out after church with the ward mission leader and ate cake and watched church movies it was fun. 
Our ward mission leader is crazzy he´s super cool and helps us to 
stay animated because the area i'm in right now has alot of apostacy. Like no one speaks to each other almost everyone that´s been baptized in the last year is gone! No one stays active its super strange Ive never seen such bad retention since i've been on my mission. We tried to do an activity with the ward and the bishop and his wife didn´t support us at all. We called up a bunch of families and announced the activity on sunday but only like 20 people showed up. And one investigator that came as well but he doesn't want to obey the law of chastity. But were going to keep working with the people that have left the church and ask for references from them so we can teach there friends hopefully it all works out. 
I'm excited to get back because I can do normal stuff it will be cool to be normal again. I wonder if I´ll be able to drive? It will probally be weird to drive after not driving for so long. And eat a five guys cheese burger that will be pretty cool too. I miss cheeseburgers. Just 3 more weeks, you guys will only receive 3 more emails from me before I´m back pretty crazzy right? It's finally going to come to an end. I think this next pday im going to travel to an area called Sapiranga it was my very first area on the mission Im going to go there and spend the whole day with some of the members and a family that I taught that later was baptized. THis family sells pizza and have there own pizza business.  If I lived in Brazil I think I´d live here in the south cause i'd get pizza for free whenever I want.  It's one of the benefits of being a missionary haha
Also if I go to Sapiranga I´d go to the mountains again and maybe I´ll get to see another monkey or maybe this time if im lucky a toucan that would be pretty sweet. 
THis week we also found a girl that had left the church and so we went over there with our ward mission leader and her and her mom invited us to have a bbq its going to be awesome.  I'm going to end my mission good here with lots of bbq with the members before I leave. 
BUt hope all keeps going well, sounds like carter is doing alot better with Taekwando and stuff and sounds like mom had fun getting away for awhile. Blake sounds like he´s enjoying highschool, he´s doing wrestling now right? I bet everyone will be a little different when I return. I´ll bring back some Braziian candy as a souveneir.
Love you guys,
Austin  

My last month! October 19, 2015

Well the time is definitely going by fast, I'm now with my last  companion on the mission. He´s from Fortaleza -the part of Brazil with the nicest beaches.  He has a year and 8 months on the mission. I´ll be ending my mission as a district leader which is pretty awesome.  I'm enjoying the area, and on p days I can go to a city nearby called Novo Hamburgo and there there is lots to do. 
This week we are going to focus in going to a different part of our area to see if we can find some new people to teach. 
Its crazzy that Nick already got engaded! It went by fast! 
Thats good that carter is doing better sounds like things are
returning back to normal. Hope all keeps going well. 
I'm going to keep working hard and I know that I´ll be able to find some
more investigators that have a desire to learn more. 
Hope all keeps going well, 
Love,
Austin 

50 days - Oct. 6, 2015

Taking the classes sounds cool because then I would get more credits right? Or if it would be possible for me to just take the test I can do that. Today Im going to the temple so I don´t have a lot of time. THe confernce talks were super cool and the new appostles will be great.
The end is coming soon, Im excited to see you guys! We had a baptism of a girl on sunday conference it was very special. Im going to keep working hard so that the days go by faster! 
Love, 
Austin

The Gospel Strengthens Families - September 28, 2015

Finally after 13 days of constant rain we were able to have some sun, my clothes have finally finished drying. Hear in Brasil there´s no dryers so we have to dry everything on clothes lines. 
We´ve been working on finding new investigators, we had a few families go to church last sunday but they don´t want to keep the comitments. But this week we found a super cool family that went to church this sunday!
We were walking down one rainy day and no one answered the door. Then this lady walks past us and ignoring us starts to enter her house! We asked her if we could share a message she was a little hesitant but agreed, we arrive inside and her husband shows us some religous book he´s reading. Then he asks us ``lets study the bible`` I think to myself great this guy is going to try and bible bash us or somthing he comes out of his room and puts a book of mormon on the table! The guy read the book of mormon until Mosias and had everypage noted with notations and questions. Basically it was one of the craziest things thats ever happened on my mission. He had been given a book of mormon by other missionaries a long time a go but had only started to read it recently,
He told us that he feels closer to god with the book of mormon that with the bible and than he went to church and loved it! He asked tons of awesome questions and for principles of the gospel it was about temple work we explained how this is the only church with the true authority of god he liked it alot. They want to get baptized as well but they have to get married first if I stay here one more transfer I´ll get to see them be baptized for sure. 
In DC 29:7 it talks about the elects those who are waiting to find the restored church it was cool to find some elects this past week. 

We are teaching another family, George and Daniela, they are super cool, they went to church not this week but the last week on the 20th they both liked church alot as well, they were seperated and Daniela was super sad that her husband and her had been seperated due to gossip but we shared with her the gospel and when she told her husband about all that we had taught and shared with her it made him want somthing as well, We met George on a Saturday shared with him a few verses with him from the Book of Mormon and felt inspired to invite him to church and he accepted, he had little knoledge but by his faith he was inspired to go, The whole family George, Daniela, Victoria, and Junior all went to church. 
I know that its through the gospel that chalenges are erased and familes are brought back together again. 
This weekend will be incredible, three knew appostles of God will be called to walk and testify that these things are true that this is the gospel of God.
Know that are doutbs, fears, and weaknesses, our strengthed by General Conference. Ether 12:27
Hope you guys have a great week!
Love,
Austin  

September 14, 2015

We started working alot in an area that missionaries havn´t visited in over a year. We found a woman who told us that she is searching for the true church we taugh her the resoration, and on sunday she went to church and took her mom and her sister in law to church. They liked it alot and they all know that it´s the true church on the Earth pretty cool right, 
then we went and taught a couple Jenifer and Giliermi 
Giliermi is a member inactive but started going to church every week about 2 months ago, on Thursday we had a family night and ate hotdogs and watched a movie called the Resoration, about the story of Joseph Smith and strenghed there testemonies even more that Joseph Smith really was a profet of god.
On friday we had a conference with the president of the mission, President Campos, we learned how we can teach more about the book of mormon in our lessons and how to use the spirt more in our lessons. 
He gave us some cool satistics about the book of mormon
Joseph was 23 
3rd grade education
Prisoned 34 times
was able to publish everthing for free
wrote the whole book in 60 days
And in the end chose to die rather than deny the divinity of the book of mormon. 
THen we watched testimony of the book of mormon by Jefrey R. Holland
On Saturday morning we went to the house of recent converts,
Bruno, Stefeni, and Jenifer they are super active in the church and super cool we hung out with them for an hour and then went and ate lunch. 
We then found this street that had two investigators that are super cool. 
A daniela and a Tuani. A daniela had a lot of challenges in her life she is a single mom, with a daughter and a baby. She has gone to alot of churches but feels like none of them were right for her, we gave her a book of mormon and marked Mosias 23 for her to read which tells of having patience and faith to overcome the dificulties and be lifted up in the last day. She wants to go to church this coming sunday so that will be awesome! 
A tuani lost her brother six months ago and we shared the plan of salvation she liked it alot and how we believe that families can be together forever. 
We left 2 Nefi 2 for her which talks about chalenges and gods plan for us. 
SHe also wants to go to church this coming sunday as well and whats awoeme is that the Tuani and the Daniela are super good friends so hopefully they´ll both go to church together.
Saturday night we had a family night with Lucas and Victoria. They havn´t goten baptized yet becasue they have to get married. Lucas is 18 and Victoria is 15 crazzy right! But they´ve been together for two years already and we ate cheese bread which is amazing and a desert called Torta de bolacha it´s like a cooky cake things it was really good and we watched the resoration movie with them as well, the liked it alot and Lucas went to church with us. Victoria was sick but she usually always goes to church.
Sunday night a cool miracle happened we went and visted a family of menus actives, the mom likes the church but likes to smoke and drink coffe. When we arrived the dad was there as well, he seperated from the wife but happened to be home and told us that he wants to take his whole family to our church! He told us how his children were getting into bad stuff and wants to help them. When we left he walked us to the door and asked for our help in supporting him and helping him take his family to church. 
This week was pretty crazzy but alot of great things happened. 
Well hope you guys have a great week,
Love Austin! 




 Hanging out with recent converts

It's a  gaucho thing

Sunday, October 25, 2015

September 7 - 75 day countdown

this is my chapel it´s 3 stories! Its bigger than the temple! Im in an area called Primavera its pretty cool, I'm liking the area here a lot its way better than my other area and the members here are super cool!
Mom its going to take along time to put the reas in envelopes Im alreay coming come basically I only have 10 more weeks. Could you put 200 dollars in my account if you do Ill have like 800 reas to buy stuff
I used the 100 reas you gave me alreay on buses. Im poor I only have 35 reas and Im hungry. The dollar is 1 for 4 reas now in Brasil and the food here is super expensive so Im eating like super cheap like one small bottle of coke is 5 reas so like I can´t buy anything. I´ve definetly learned on my mission to survive off of nothing haha. But if you could just put in like 200 dollars on my account I´ll seriously love you forever! 
Today I was in a parade for the church it was pretty cool and then the president took us out to lunch. Everything here is closed so Im using a computer on the second level of this chapel. But im doing good, Im super happy to have left Sao Luis and I feel like a missionary again! Got lots of work to do here and we found some really cool people to teach this last week found a mom and daughter who told us that they are search for the true church a church that when they enter they feel somthing special. They loved the message we shared and were going to keep visiting them this week as well. Were going to try to baptise the daughter on the 20th and some other people as well. This area is super cool and Im going to enjoy the little bit of time that I have left! 
Love you guys glad you had a great summer and that Carter is doing better it will be fun to see you all soon! Please put some money in my account I´ll babysit alot when I get back for you guys :) 
Love, 
Elder Barrus 



Sunday, October 11, 2015

100 Day countdown! August 18, 2015

What's up!

So this week we found a family of atheists and they didn't want us to teach them about the gospel.  But they love hearing stories about America and they think it's cool that me and my companion are from the USA.  So they invited us over Saturday night and we ate a huge BBQ with them, it was sweet!  They BBQ'd a whole rack of ribs off a cow!!  So I got to eat lots of meat this week so that was pretty awesome.

Our main investigator with potential for baptism is named Roberta.  She is super cool.  We're teaching her  English which is something fun to do.  She is liking the messages as well. If everything goes well there is a sister that is returned from her mission so we are going to take her with us to teach Roberta this Thursday.

If everything goes well she will get baptized soon.

Today we get to go to the temple so it will be faun to go to Porto Alegre.  I'll be able to see my last companion so it's always fun seeing old acquaintances.

To fix up our house I bought a hot glue stick thing and melted it in the stove so that I could glue up the hole in the wall.  Hopefully no more rain water will enter our house!

But for now everything is going well we're going to have mission conference tomorrow so it will be cool to see the seventy and I know a lot of important things will be said.

Well things are going good .  Hope you guys enjoy summer vacation before it ends and I hope things get better with Carter.  Love you guys and until soon.

Austin

Semana de churrasco - August 10, 2015

This week was pretty cool.  We ate a bunch of BBQ and I built a house.  I wanted to send pictures but my computer won't let me send them.

We found an investigator that speaks English so it was fun to reach him and he is very interested in the message we had to offer.  His name is Tiago and he's pretty cool.  On the 20th of August we were going to give a discussion given by a seventy so that will be cool.  I'm excited to see what we'll be taught.

The same day that Elder Hintze returned home a sister returned and so I got to hear a homecoming talk as well.  I wonder what I'll have to talk about when I get back.  Should be interesting.

On Wednesday we had interviews with the president and then we went out to lunch together.   It was pretty awesome.  Then he started going to the houses of the missionaries to see if the houses were clean.  Not awesome.  Haha.  I lucked out.  He ended up not going to our house so that was good.  Our house is old and the walls should be white but are black, and there is a hole in the wall so when it rains our house fills up with water.  But I told Sister Campos and I think we're going to be moving soon.

We were teaching a girl named Roberta.  She likes going to church and she likes reading the Book of Mormon.  We're going to challenge her again for baptism this week.

Well that was my week. Hope everything keeps going well!


August 3, 2015

Seeing Nick was super funny and strange.  I got to kinda see what it's like to time travel a bit - haha.  Mike is huge, and Katie looks even a little different - more mature.  Nick had more of a spiritual presence to him.  I wonder if I'll look a little different to you guys as well?  It was cool to see the Hintzes.  It gave me a boost to keep staying strong on my mission.  I don't have much time left so I got to make the most of it.  Soon I'll be going off to college and have to do a lot of hard stuff, so I have to enjoy the time I have here on my mission now.

I slept over with the other missionaries last night and today we were going to do a BBQ but now there are going to be a bunch of annoying protests so now I have to stay inside all day!  BUt things are going well.  We're going to try and find some people to teach this week.  The area I'm in is one of the richest areas I've seen.  Nick said that my area is the nicest area he has ever seen in Brazil - haha.  Nick, I think, spent a lot of his mission in the middle of nowhere based on what he told me.  So we'll see what happens.  This area is one of the more difficult areas that I have passed by.

July 27, 2015

Sounds like you guys had a fun time at the beach.  That's cool you guys were able to do a surprise bday party for Grandpa.  I bet he liked that!  The beach looks cool, and the house as well!  Looks like you guys did a great job with it!

That's good Carter is doing better.  Hopefully the recovery process will be faster this time around.  Nick is trying to take me out to lunch tomorrow.  We'll see what happens.  Haha.  Murray probably wants to stay inside the house and hide from the sand!  Having a black lab at the beach is probably a lot of fun.  Does Finn love the water and digging in the sand?

Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun family bonding.

This week I got a new companion named Elder Raposa.  He's from Salt Lake.  He's a really cool guy.  We worked hard here this week.  We were able to find some more cool people to teach, and this week we're going to try to visit some families where not everyone is a member.  This Thursday I'm going to have to go to Porto Alegre to a meeting from 9 in the morning until 4 so should be interesting.  We tried going through the area book and visiting some old investigators but it didn't work out too well, a lot of them didn't accept or didn't live in the designated address anymore.

We found Julieta again.  We ran into her Saturday night and she told us we could come over.  So we are going to return and see if she will want to go to church.  On Thursday I gave a training about the importance of using scriptures in lessons and we did some practices and it went well.  This transfer will be my last as District Leader.  It will be interesting to see where I'll go after this area.  I've definitely learned a lot being a leader of different districts on the mission.

Well hope all keeps going well, and I hope that I'll be able to report something interesting this next week!

July 20, 2015

Today are transfers.  I should be getting an email soon to know if I will be staying here or if I'll be going to another area.

That's good Carter is doing better, probably in a few weeks he'll get out of ICU.  That's good he's able to talk now.

These past two weeks there has been a lot of rain and I got soaked  a few times.  My umbrella broke.  I've never had good luck with umbrellas on my mission.  Hope you guys have fun at the beach.  Things are going good down here too.  Not a lot has been going on.  You need to use my Facebook to see more pictures.  There should be some good pictures on there.  You just need to accept all the friend requests for me since I can't get on there.  But you'll see some pictures members post.   This week I ate fried fish.  I had to eat the head and the eyes and everything but it was good.  During the weekend we had a bunch of BBQ's so that was a bunch of fun.  Things are going good here.  I'll be staying here in this area I think until the 1st of September.  Then I'l be going to my very last area of my mission!

New Mission President - July 6, 2015

This week my new mission president arrived.  His name is President Campos and he's going to be awesome.  We received a training from him and his wife and they let us ask questions to help us get to know him.  He's super friendly and has a vast knowledge of the scriptures.  I know I'm going to learn a lot with my new mission president.

I received my packages!  It was perfect timing!  You guys sent me a ton of Pringles - hahaha.  My companion freaked out when he saw all the Pringles!  I also got the package from Grandpa and Grandma, with the big packages of Starburst and Skittles.  I also received the blankets and a bunch of candy.  I left Porto Alegre with 5 boxes so that was a fun surprise.

This week was pretty bad.  We were kind of hoping we would be able to find a person that would be willing to at least go to church or something but it was a long week.  We found a family last week, and they all accepted to be baptized and go to church  We went over there this week and during the 3rd visit  the wife said they wanted to end the visits.  It was crazy.  I've never had  a family super interested to be completely against the message.  It was super weird.

And almost all our investigators don't want to be taught anymore so it was definitely a strange week  Then last night we tried to go over to visit a guy named Mateus.  We went over and his mom yells he's not home and then slammed the door.  I felt like I was in America this week.  This area is very strange. In my other areas people are friendly but here the people are more reserved and don't wasn't us to enter.

But this week we're going to visit some addresses that we obtained from people on the road and hopefully we'll be able to teach a few more lessons.

June 29, 2015

So this week was pretty awesome, we were able to baptize a guy named Roberto 
on Wednesday, and we found a family that is super cool. They all liked the message a lot and all acepted to be baptized! It's a family of four and the last time a family was baptized in this area hasn´t been in years so its super awesome to have the opurtunity to help amazing people. 
Saturday night we went and invited a girl named Roberta to go to church and she went with a member named Gabriel, she said she liked the church a lot and we went over Sunday night and she also accepted to get baptized it was awesome!
During the week I was walking along the road and we found this wooden hut kinda close to where we live so we went over and found a lady named Nair. She said she already went to our church before but was never baptized. We're going to go over there some more to see if we can help her go again to church this Sunday. 
Also we made a bbq inside of our house we used my sword to grill this big piece of pork it was sweet. 

Well hope you guys have an awesome week! 



My zone here in North Canoas


 We went with a recent convert to show her the temple.  She liked it a lot and she said that she wants to serve a temple mission in a year.  It was her first time at the temple and she has about one month as a member.  Her name is Rosy and she is super awesome!


My house  



June 25, 2015

We had a BBQ on Monday because our P Day got cancelled because I'm going to the temple today.  We didn't have lunch so we bought some meat and went over to our neighbor's house.  It was awesome!

Me and Elder Ferreira






 This is Gabriel.  He's a guy that does lessons with us.  He's pretty crazy!


Baptism of Roberto.  I'm not in the pics because I was on a division.   He was baptized yesterday!






June 22, 2015

My new area is called São Luis this is my second to last area on the mission. I´ll stay here one more transfer and then go to my very last area before leaving for home. There are alot of cool members here. I ate breakfast with our neighboors so its a fun area I like it a lot here. It's difficult to find people because there's not as many people walking on the streets so we do lots of contacts at the train station.   

These are some cool people we are teaching: 


Monday, June 15, 2015

One year and a half

This week we had transfers and I arrived in my new area called São Luis. Its right next to my other area which was Mathias Velho. My companion is Elder Ferreira and I´m teaching him english. He has about 3 months on the mission and he already knows how to teach and plan very well I feel like im here just to kind of back him up, he´s an awesome worker and I´m excited for this transfer. 
Today we went to a chinese food place it was awesome I felt like I was in America again they even had seseame chicken it was awesome. 
When I arrived here in the area we went and visited some members and my companion showed me our potential investigators. We went to this guy named Mateus and he´s awesome we started talking to him when his beautiful neighbor came down and started to talk to us she was very shy but I found out that she knows english so I started talking to her in English and she said that we could come by again some time. If she gets baptized were going to stay in touch. 
Here in São Luis is one of the more difficult areas to baptize because its more of a richer area so we started talking to people at the train station and if anyone stops to speak to us its because they really want to hear a message. 

On Thursday I made a contact with a man and I asked him if he accepted to be baptized on the 21 of June he said yes. We went over to teach him  and to our surprise he said that he is legally maried, already been to our church 2 times at least and knows thats it´s true! He accepted to follow all the commandments and was interviewed for the baptism but on sunday when we went to get him he wasn´t home we´ll try again this week to see if we can baptize him this thursday. But it was really cool to see that god really knows each and every one of us and is preparing people so that they can be baptized. 

Yesterday night we went and visited a lady named Rosy that my companion baptized before I got here. She is super nice and wants to cook a huge barbeque for us tonight should be fun. 

Well I´m super greatful for the gospel in my life and I know that there are many wonderful people here willing to follow these things. 
Love you guys and have an aweosome week! 

transfers - June 8

Yesterday for lunch we were in the church and so I asked one of the other missionarys who we have will we eat lunch with? He´s like I dunno, so we find the sister who were supposed to have lunch with and she´s like I didn´t know you guys would come over today so Im going to need your help to make food. So we went over and we ended up making a bunch of pastels its was pretty awesome, we made chicken, beef, and ham and cheese. And for desert we fried bananas inside of the pastels and I think we made about 50 so she had us take the leftovers to our house so now we´ll have pastels for this week.
We ended up trying to visit alot of our investigators  but unfortunatly we weren't able to get anyone to church. But we were definetly able to find a lot of people and know that in the future we´ll be able to help more people know that the gospel is true. 
Friday we tried to teach some people but it started to rain like crazzy so we ran into a shoe store and bought some new shoes for like 15 bucks. Then we went to a supermarket and explored for a little bit and ended up buying some pizza for 3 reals it was good. 
This week not a lot happened but it was good. I only have four more transfers on the mission before my mission ends, my guess is that I´ll have 4 new companions and 2 new areas to go to and then I´ll be back home. The time is definitely going fast. 
Love you guys and have a good weekk! 

June 1


This week went by fast, a lot of work to be done, went through and found some more cool people to teach. We were teaching a guy named Andereson and he was interviewed and deemed worthy to be baptized on sunday but saturday night he made some wrong choices and didn´t follow our invites or our comitments that we had left with him, it was deffiently an intersting situation. 

This week were going to accompany some people who were already at church and see if they accept to get baptized this week, its going to be a busy week here. 

We started burning orange peels to kill misquitos, its smells terrible and the smell still hasn' left the house! Also while we were in lunch the members dog came up and peed on the elders bag it was pretty great.
Also for the baptismal interview on the way back to lunch I was dumb and took the wrong bus, we ended up in the area of the zone leaders and had to find a way to get back to our area we didn't get back to our area until like 1 in the afternoon!

We´ve been reorganizing the area book like crazy.  It's been cool to really open an area and just do all you can to keep finding people.

I´ve learned that through diligence, and having a strong desire to do all that is possible miracles will happen. Being on the mission until now I´ve really learned that everyone of us has a purpose to fufill. 

well I love you guys and have an aweome week! 

Only 25 more weeks!

This week went by well, we were able to have a baptism of a guy named Lucas he´s 14 and he is super cool. His mom came to church as well and saw his baptism, it was a very neat experience. This week we have some other investigators that we are working with so that they can get baptized as well. Hopefully it all goes well. Being a district leader, and opening an area and teaching an ameican portuguese was one of the most difficult things that I have ever done while on my mission but
 I´ve deffinetly learned alot and how to really help the missionary teach and use techniques to teach more effectivly. 

Today we area going to the temple so thats why I didn´t write yesterday, to get to the temple I walk to the bus station from our house which is like a 30 minute walk and then we grab a train to the air port in porto alegre and then take a 20 minute bus ride close to a mall where we eat and then go over to the temple so its a good little adventure. 

During the week we mostly just stayed within two parts of our tiny neighboorhood. My area half of one big neighboorhood and so its a very small area. We found some cool people to teach. Our main investigators that we´re working with is a guy named Anderson who was at church and were trying to get him baptized this weekend. 
Also another guy named Lucas who was already at church and he likes hearing the messages alot he´s pretty cool. 
Were also teaching a family, the husband is the only one who goes to church but were trying to have there son and daughter go to church so that they can get baptized.

So were going to have alot of work ahead of us this week so its going to be neat to see what the outcome of this week will be! 

Well I love you guys and have a good week! 

May 18, 2015

We decided to group out our area into six groups and every week we started focusing on a different area. We went to the very back of our area and started knocking alot of doors to find alot of different people. 

We found a cool family, the mom is named Isabel, and her son calls him self Uri. They liked the messages alot and they want to go to church alot. Its cool to see the progress different people make as they are taught different principles that will enrich there lives.

This week right now is going to be very busy have to follow up alot of people and many others so that they can go to church. Its deffienty been interesting being a trainer and a district leader at the same time I´ve deffienty learned alot in this short amount of time. 

I have exactly one year and five months since I entered the MTC! Time is deffinetly going by so thats good! Tonight Im going to a family night with the same family that I was at when I used skype so thats going to be alot of fun! 

Sorry this email is kinda short not alot happened this week, we mostly just walked a ton and I think to day Im going to sleep good. 

Love you guys have a good week! 

May 11

This week was awesome we taught a bunch of lessons and lots of walking and the members here helped us out a lot it was awesome.  We´ve been working alot with one family, the mom and dad have problems with alchool but the kids have a lot of interest to get baptized. The dad went to church this past sunday and liked it a lot. I hope that he will now let his son to get baptized that would be awesome. 
Also we´ve teaching this guy named Anderson for awhile he´s liked the messages alot and knows that the book of mormon is true, he also went to church this past Sunday and it was awesome, he liked it a lot and so we're going to go and visit him this week so that he can progress. He´s an awesome guy I see him with alot of potential to get baptized soon. 
We also divided our area in sections so we can really visit as much people with potential as possible, I just hope that this will work so that we can cut down time and visit with more people, its gonna be awesome.
Today for pday its raining a lot so were problaly going to just go and explore some shops and maybe go to the mall to look around so that will be cool. But all in all its been a pretty simple fun week, this next week will be busy as usual I think. 

Well I love you guys, and have an awesome week!


May 4

This week was pretty sweet 
Monday- played board games and then went to a family night and ate sauseges with cheese. 

Tuesday- we went and tracked and visted some streets that we havn´t gone to yet but we didn´t really find any people with alot of potential. 

Wednesday- I went on a division with the other elder and went and visted some cool families that they have in there area so that was cool. I left my companion elder Ritter with Elder Ayerdis and they were able to find some cool people. 

Thursday we went to porto alegre to go buy my box. I had to pay 55 reas to buy my box I though I´d have some candy from america but It only had one box of cake mix. 

Friday- We did an awesome service project and then we went to an activy at the church and ate a ton of pastels. 

Saturday- We did a division with the members and visted all the people that we wanted to go to church. Found some really cool people that have potential to get baptized.

Sunday- We had a cool baptism of a guy named Erlei, It was an awesome experience because he was so happy to know that this is the church of Jesus Christ.