Dear Family,
I am glad you guys had an awesome thankgiving. I miss the thanksgiving holiday, nobody here really knows what it is or celebrates it. It is during the thanksgiving/Christmas season that I miss the family more. Because you usually spend that time with you family. But at least I will be able to call home in about one month. So I miss thanksgiving first because of the family, and second because of the food. Food is good. On thanksgiving day I had rice and beans and beef milanesa, which is tasty, but not quite the same as the feast that mom makes.
First a little update on the work. This week on Saturday we had two baptisms, Luis and Andressa, who were both confirmed yesterday at church. Church was fun because somebody who was going to give a talk in sacrament meeting skipped out, so I got to fill in and give a 15 minute talk. The topic I chose was missionary work. Surprise. So there will be transfers this week on December 2. I am staying here in Navegantes but Elder Carrasco is getting transferred. I am excited to stay here because I already made friends with a lot of members, and the area is cool, and last but not least, I think we will be able to baptise frequently here as well. The chapel here is very pretty, it has two floors and an elevator and everything so it impresses the public, and the ward mission leader and ward missionaries are super excited to help out. So I am looking forward to this transfer. I am counting my blessings as well, trying to get into the thanksgiving spirit. I will be here until at least Jan 13, 2010, when we will have the next transfer.
I miss you guys.
Love,
Elder Todd
Thursday, December 3, 2009
November 23, 2009
Dear Family,
Navegantes is a scenic/turisty city as well. It is a big port city, so a lot of people work on the docks, unloading big shipping liners and stuff, or work as fishermen. And there are a couple beaches in the area as well. So no, it isn't out in the middle of nowhere.
Elder Souto is going home this transfer, which ends next week. So this was he last transfer before going home. And his is still one of the two assistants to the president, so I am not his zone leader. When we have zone conferences the assistants are there to help out and to train and practice and stuff.
Elder Carrasco is from São Paulo Sul, Estaca Jardim da Saúde. So I don't know if Whitney passed through his stake or ward or anything. He has one younger sister. He is the only member of his family. He was baptized in 2005, 4 years ago, when he was 15.
The three young men are all from different families, and they were the only ones from the families who were baptized. But they are all friends and they already have friends within the church. João, the young man who was baptized before them, is also their friend. João and Everton are not blood related. João's family chose Everton to be his godfather when he was baptized in the catholic church, even though Everton wasn't catholic. So they were good family friends, and now that João grew up Everton started bringing him to church and now he is baptized.
I hope everything is going well with you guys. Have a happy thanksgiving.
Bye everyone.
Love,
Elder Todd
Navegantes is a scenic/turisty city as well. It is a big port city, so a lot of people work on the docks, unloading big shipping liners and stuff, or work as fishermen. And there are a couple beaches in the area as well. So no, it isn't out in the middle of nowhere.
Elder Souto is going home this transfer, which ends next week. So this was he last transfer before going home. And his is still one of the two assistants to the president, so I am not his zone leader. When we have zone conferences the assistants are there to help out and to train and practice and stuff.
Elder Carrasco is from São Paulo Sul, Estaca Jardim da Saúde. So I don't know if Whitney passed through his stake or ward or anything. He has one younger sister. He is the only member of his family. He was baptized in 2005, 4 years ago, when he was 15.
The three young men are all from different families, and they were the only ones from the families who were baptized. But they are all friends and they already have friends within the church. João, the young man who was baptized before them, is also their friend. João and Everton are not blood related. João's family chose Everton to be his godfather when he was baptized in the catholic church, even though Everton wasn't catholic. So they were good family friends, and now that João grew up Everton started bringing him to church and now he is baptized.
I hope everything is going well with you guys. Have a happy thanksgiving.
Bye everyone.
Love,
Elder Todd
November 4, 2009
Hey Family,
Sorry I didn't send an email on monday, this week our pday was switched to wednesday instead. Next week I will send email on monday like normal. We switched it up because monday was Dia dos Finados here. It is a holiday like Day of the Dead, where everyone goes to the cemetery to visit relatives that have passed away. And we didn't want to waste the opportunity so we transferred our pday so that we could work in the cemetery, we went there with a little stand with free water and church materials and did contacts about the plan of salvation and eternal families and that kind of thing. It was a pretty cool experience, we met a couple of people that could have some potential as investigators. So that is why I haven't written email until now.
I have some exciting news for you all. It was a bit of surprise. Anyway, there were transfers last week like I told you guys. And I stayed in Pedra Branca with Elder Dunn. But, on thursday night after English class I got a phone call from the assistants. They said "Elder Toddy, pack up your bags, President needs you in Navegantes." And there isn't really much you can do at that point, so I packed up my bags and the next day I was emergency transferred, took a bus to Itajaí Zone, to an area called Navegantes. It all happened really fast. Basically what was going on was that the Elder that was here wasn't getting along very well the bishop and the ward, so the had to take him out and then they sent me over there smooth things over a little. So I left my son, Elder Dunn, with his new companion in Pedra Branca, and now I am with my new companion, Elder Carrasco, here in Navegantes. But I am actually liking it quite a bit over here. Elder Carrasco (carrasco means executioner in Portuguese) is a cool guy, from São Paulo. He has about 3 months in the mission. We had one baptism on Saturday, a young man that the elders here were already teaching, and we are going to have three more baptisms this week, people we found since I got here. So I am pretty excited. Elder Dunn will be fine too, he just got his first brasilian companion, and he is already speaking enough so that he can get along without me.
But anyway, I think that is about it for now. That is all the news. At least that comes to mind. See you guys later.
Love,
Elder Todd
Sorry I didn't send an email on monday, this week our pday was switched to wednesday instead. Next week I will send email on monday like normal. We switched it up because monday was Dia dos Finados here. It is a holiday like Day of the Dead, where everyone goes to the cemetery to visit relatives that have passed away. And we didn't want to waste the opportunity so we transferred our pday so that we could work in the cemetery, we went there with a little stand with free water and church materials and did contacts about the plan of salvation and eternal families and that kind of thing. It was a pretty cool experience, we met a couple of people that could have some potential as investigators. So that is why I haven't written email until now.
I have some exciting news for you all. It was a bit of surprise. Anyway, there were transfers last week like I told you guys. And I stayed in Pedra Branca with Elder Dunn. But, on thursday night after English class I got a phone call from the assistants. They said "Elder Toddy, pack up your bags, President needs you in Navegantes." And there isn't really much you can do at that point, so I packed up my bags and the next day I was emergency transferred, took a bus to Itajaí Zone, to an area called Navegantes. It all happened really fast. Basically what was going on was that the Elder that was here wasn't getting along very well the bishop and the ward, so the had to take him out and then they sent me over there smooth things over a little. So I left my son, Elder Dunn, with his new companion in Pedra Branca, and now I am with my new companion, Elder Carrasco, here in Navegantes. But I am actually liking it quite a bit over here. Elder Carrasco (carrasco means executioner in Portuguese) is a cool guy, from São Paulo. He has about 3 months in the mission. We had one baptism on Saturday, a young man that the elders here were already teaching, and we are going to have three more baptisms this week, people we found since I got here. So I am pretty excited. Elder Dunn will be fine too, he just got his first brasilian companion, and he is already speaking enough so that he can get along without me.
But anyway, I think that is about it for now. That is all the news. At least that comes to mind. See you guys later.
Love,
Elder Todd
October 26, 2009
Dear Family,
To answer dad's question Elder Dunn is doing well. He is progressing slowly but surely with Portuguese, he is still pretty dependent on me for now to translate some things for him, and a little bit shy to talk to people. But he can teach his part of the lesson and pretty soon he will gain more confidence. He has lots of blisters on his feet, because he wasn't really used to walking so much. And he complains that I walk to fast sometimes. But it is all part of the training. I am pretty sure he has broke the mission record for most pairs of shoes he has destroyed in one transfer. I still am using the same pair of shoes that I brought from the states. Of course I have gotten them re-soled one time and they are flopping open in the front, but it is still my first pair. Elder Dunn has already worn through four pairs of shoes. He came with two pairs, and members have already donated two pairs of shoes as well. And all of them are super beat up. It is inexplicable. But yeah. I think that is a sufficient update for now.
And Elder Souto is doing well, this is his last transfer in the mission! He will be going home in about 5 weeks. It is pretty crazy, I know. When I got here he only had about 10 months in the mission.
The week was pretty cool, we were able to bring 11 people to church on Sunday. A lot of them were little kids, but that is still cool. There was an awesome primary activity on Saturday, with a trampoline and a ballpit and food and water balloons and stuff, and we went out and invited kids from the street and some kids from English class and some kids that we were teaching and about 20 came to the party. And everyone had a blast. The members said that we, the missionaries, played around more than the kids did. And then after we invited some of them to come to church, and a couple did. And I think four or five are pretty good prospects for baptism, we will visit them this week. I am praying that we will mark quite a few baptisms this week.
I thought Emily's talk was awesome, I think she has a better attitude about missionary work that I did when I was in high school. Back in the day…..So all you guys keep up the good work. I think my time is up, until next week everyone.
Love,
Elder Todd
To answer dad's question Elder Dunn is doing well. He is progressing slowly but surely with Portuguese, he is still pretty dependent on me for now to translate some things for him, and a little bit shy to talk to people. But he can teach his part of the lesson and pretty soon he will gain more confidence. He has lots of blisters on his feet, because he wasn't really used to walking so much. And he complains that I walk to fast sometimes. But it is all part of the training. I am pretty sure he has broke the mission record for most pairs of shoes he has destroyed in one transfer. I still am using the same pair of shoes that I brought from the states. Of course I have gotten them re-soled one time and they are flopping open in the front, but it is still my first pair. Elder Dunn has already worn through four pairs of shoes. He came with two pairs, and members have already donated two pairs of shoes as well. And all of them are super beat up. It is inexplicable. But yeah. I think that is a sufficient update for now.
And Elder Souto is doing well, this is his last transfer in the mission! He will be going home in about 5 weeks. It is pretty crazy, I know. When I got here he only had about 10 months in the mission.
The week was pretty cool, we were able to bring 11 people to church on Sunday. A lot of them were little kids, but that is still cool. There was an awesome primary activity on Saturday, with a trampoline and a ballpit and food and water balloons and stuff, and we went out and invited kids from the street and some kids from English class and some kids that we were teaching and about 20 came to the party. And everyone had a blast. The members said that we, the missionaries, played around more than the kids did. And then after we invited some of them to come to church, and a couple did. And I think four or five are pretty good prospects for baptism, we will visit them this week. I am praying that we will mark quite a few baptisms this week.
I thought Emily's talk was awesome, I think she has a better attitude about missionary work that I did when I was in high school. Back in the day…..So all you guys keep up the good work. I think my time is up, until next week everyone.
Love,
Elder Todd
October 12, 2009
Dear Family,
This week was good, it would have been better, but our baptism fell through. It was very unfortunate, we will have to work a little more with Eluza and Augusto before they will be baptized. Everything was going as planned, we visited them on Friday night, and everything was perfect for the baptism on Saturday. But, on the day of, they went to visit some family members who just happened to be Jehovah's witnesses, and they family talked them out of getting baptized that day, told them that it was too soon and they weren't ready. It is actually a miracle that they didn't give up completely, they still want to get baptized but are just scared of going too fast, that they don't know enough. But we are preparing a special lesson, basically all the baptisms in the Bible and Book of Mormon are super fast. Everything will turn out all right in the end.
We a looking everywhere and doing everything to get new people to teach. English class is going well, we have about 40 people going now, and we started another little weekly frisbee activity. I ended English class a little early and taught the kids how to play frisbee, everyone loved it of course (because who doesn't love frisbee) and we marked a fixed day for the kids from English class to invite friends to come play at the church. We planned a Halo 3 tournament with the ward for next week, and the youth are super pumped to play, even to bring a non-member or less-active to the activity (which they have to do to play). Halo 3 is super cool here, because the 360 is really rare, playstation 2 is the norm. We are lucky because we have 2 360s in the ward, and I don't think there are any others in the entire stake. We have to use everything we have to our advantage. We are also going to experiment with some other new things this week, if they work out I will write home about them, if they don't you will never know what they were.
And I did stay awake during all of the conference sessions, even though one of the sessions we had to watch in Spanish, because we were either getting the wrong channel or we couldn't figure out how to get the right audio on the channel. But it was still understandable, so that is good. Elder Dunn stayed awake through the whole thing even though he couldn't understand everything that was going on. I will try and send you guys some pics of us two.
I also appreciate how awesome our family is. Thanks for the weekly updates, I will send more news next week.
Love,
Elder Todd
This week was good, it would have been better, but our baptism fell through. It was very unfortunate, we will have to work a little more with Eluza and Augusto before they will be baptized. Everything was going as planned, we visited them on Friday night, and everything was perfect for the baptism on Saturday. But, on the day of, they went to visit some family members who just happened to be Jehovah's witnesses, and they family talked them out of getting baptized that day, told them that it was too soon and they weren't ready. It is actually a miracle that they didn't give up completely, they still want to get baptized but are just scared of going too fast, that they don't know enough. But we are preparing a special lesson, basically all the baptisms in the Bible and Book of Mormon are super fast. Everything will turn out all right in the end.
We a looking everywhere and doing everything to get new people to teach. English class is going well, we have about 40 people going now, and we started another little weekly frisbee activity. I ended English class a little early and taught the kids how to play frisbee, everyone loved it of course (because who doesn't love frisbee) and we marked a fixed day for the kids from English class to invite friends to come play at the church. We planned a Halo 3 tournament with the ward for next week, and the youth are super pumped to play, even to bring a non-member or less-active to the activity (which they have to do to play). Halo 3 is super cool here, because the 360 is really rare, playstation 2 is the norm. We are lucky because we have 2 360s in the ward, and I don't think there are any others in the entire stake. We have to use everything we have to our advantage. We are also going to experiment with some other new things this week, if they work out I will write home about them, if they don't you will never know what they were.
And I did stay awake during all of the conference sessions, even though one of the sessions we had to watch in Spanish, because we were either getting the wrong channel or we couldn't figure out how to get the right audio on the channel. But it was still understandable, so that is good. Elder Dunn stayed awake through the whole thing even though he couldn't understand everything that was going on. I will try and send you guys some pics of us two.
I also appreciate how awesome our family is. Thanks for the weekly updates, I will send more news next week.
Love,
Elder Todd
September 21, 2009
Hey Family,
This week was another good week. We have started a lot of new things in the area, we are experimenting to find out what is effective and what isn't. We started up an English class, and it seems to be going well. On sat, the first day of class, there were about 15 people there, including 6 non members. It is cool that we are getting lots of the people from the ward to participate as well. In Rio Tavares, nobody from the ward would go to English class, but here everyone is excited about doing it. But since we want lots more people to come, we have been doing some advertising at the local schools. There are about 3 schools within walking distance of the church, and all schools here teach English class from 5th to 8th grade. So we got time to go to all the classes and talk about our English class. So hopefully the attendance in our class will go up. And it also gives Elder Dunn a chance to speak English with people in his conversation class, because he misses English. And English class is just one of the many things we are doing. Not everything works out so well, but it is part of the learning process, and getting to know the area.
Presidente was playing with us last week, but on the other field. We had two games going on at the same time. And I have been blessed with lots of great companions. A disappointment this week was Sunday morning when we went to go pick up a family for church. This is a family that we have been teaching this last week, of 5 people. The Mom, Márcia, is an inactive member, and has been for about 15 years. She lives with a man who is not a member, and her three children haven't been baptized in the church yet. Her two daughters are old enough to be baptized but her youngest son isn't yet. I agreed with the family to get a ride for them to go to church on Sunday, but when we got there everybody was still being sleepy and lazy and wouldn't go. Even after I entered and turned on all the lights and greeted everyone quite cheerfully. The mom wants her kids to go to church but doesn't want to go herself (she says that she works a lot during the week and wants to rest on the weekend, but I also think that she is a little embarrassed to go back to church). Her daughter has a friend that she was going to bring to church as well. But it will have to wait until this Sunday, and then we will try and baptize everyone the Saturday after that.
Elder Dunn and I are also exercising, like Dad and Whitney are. We go running every morning for thirty minutes. It is a pretty good workout. Sounds like you guys have a lot of plans, hope that everything is a lot of fun. How is Ethan liking BYU? And I am sure that General Conference will be a special experience. Let me know how everything going. I will write you all again next week. Thanks for the support and the emails.
Love,
Elder Todd
This week was another good week. We have started a lot of new things in the area, we are experimenting to find out what is effective and what isn't. We started up an English class, and it seems to be going well. On sat, the first day of class, there were about 15 people there, including 6 non members. It is cool that we are getting lots of the people from the ward to participate as well. In Rio Tavares, nobody from the ward would go to English class, but here everyone is excited about doing it. But since we want lots more people to come, we have been doing some advertising at the local schools. There are about 3 schools within walking distance of the church, and all schools here teach English class from 5th to 8th grade. So we got time to go to all the classes and talk about our English class. So hopefully the attendance in our class will go up. And it also gives Elder Dunn a chance to speak English with people in his conversation class, because he misses English. And English class is just one of the many things we are doing. Not everything works out so well, but it is part of the learning process, and getting to know the area.
Presidente was playing with us last week, but on the other field. We had two games going on at the same time. And I have been blessed with lots of great companions. A disappointment this week was Sunday morning when we went to go pick up a family for church. This is a family that we have been teaching this last week, of 5 people. The Mom, Márcia, is an inactive member, and has been for about 15 years. She lives with a man who is not a member, and her three children haven't been baptized in the church yet. Her two daughters are old enough to be baptized but her youngest son isn't yet. I agreed with the family to get a ride for them to go to church on Sunday, but when we got there everybody was still being sleepy and lazy and wouldn't go. Even after I entered and turned on all the lights and greeted everyone quite cheerfully. The mom wants her kids to go to church but doesn't want to go herself (she says that she works a lot during the week and wants to rest on the weekend, but I also think that she is a little embarrassed to go back to church). Her daughter has a friend that she was going to bring to church as well. But it will have to wait until this Sunday, and then we will try and baptize everyone the Saturday after that.
Elder Dunn and I are also exercising, like Dad and Whitney are. We go running every morning for thirty minutes. It is a pretty good workout. Sounds like you guys have a lot of plans, hope that everything is a lot of fun. How is Ethan liking BYU? And I am sure that General Conference will be a special experience. Let me know how everything going. I will write you all again next week. Thanks for the support and the emails.
Love,
Elder Todd
September 14, 2009
Hey Family,
I will try and give you all a brief update on my new area and on my new companion! The name of the area is Pedra Branca. It is a lot smaller than my last area (I can actually walk across it). Even though it is a relatively small area there is still a pretty good number of members and we have a really nice and new chapel. It was constructed about 2 years ago. It isn't the biggest, but it is probably one of the nicest chapels in the mission. It should be a really big help in attracting lots of people to church. And that is what we plan on doing. The attendance on Sunday was under 100, but there seem to be a lot of really cool members. We are kind of starting from scratch here in the area, there wasn't that much left for us here to work with, but we (Elder Dunn and I) will work really hard and make the most of it. I am super excited to have my son, Elder Dunn, and he, being right out of the CTM, is excited and ready for anything. We hope and pray for lots of baptisms. I already got an English class organized that will start up this week and should be giving us a lot of new references and people to teach, made friends with the leadership of the ward and a couple members. It was weird being transferred after being in Rio Tavares for so long, but it is cool to be starting over in a new place, meeting new people and so forth.
Elder Dunn is American, from Indiana. Brasilians don't know where Indiana is. Sometimes they think he says India. They also don't know where India is. But anyway, he has 15 brothers and sisters (7 half siblings and 8 step siblings). He wrestled and played football in high school, and he also played a lot of ultimate frisbee. So we get along great, he is already speaking a little bit of Portuguese, he bore his testimony in sacrament meeting and everything. I am sure he will get accustomed to the mission quite easily, he is a pretty chill guy. He ate his first brasilian pizza (outside of the CTM) this week, just had his first p day today (we played futebol). I got to show off in soccer today to impress my son. We went and played on the turf field today, my team won 19-11 (I had about 15 goals and 3 assists). Go me! I think it worked, he was impressed, he didn't like it though because he was playing against us.
It will be a week or two of adjustment before we get used to our new area, but we already met some special people that have potential to be baptized within the next few weeks. Hope you all are doing well, I am having a blast, and I will talk to you all in next week's email.
Love,
Elder Todd
I will try and give you all a brief update on my new area and on my new companion! The name of the area is Pedra Branca. It is a lot smaller than my last area (I can actually walk across it). Even though it is a relatively small area there is still a pretty good number of members and we have a really nice and new chapel. It was constructed about 2 years ago. It isn't the biggest, but it is probably one of the nicest chapels in the mission. It should be a really big help in attracting lots of people to church. And that is what we plan on doing. The attendance on Sunday was under 100, but there seem to be a lot of really cool members. We are kind of starting from scratch here in the area, there wasn't that much left for us here to work with, but we (Elder Dunn and I) will work really hard and make the most of it. I am super excited to have my son, Elder Dunn, and he, being right out of the CTM, is excited and ready for anything. We hope and pray for lots of baptisms. I already got an English class organized that will start up this week and should be giving us a lot of new references and people to teach, made friends with the leadership of the ward and a couple members. It was weird being transferred after being in Rio Tavares for so long, but it is cool to be starting over in a new place, meeting new people and so forth.
Elder Dunn is American, from Indiana. Brasilians don't know where Indiana is. Sometimes they think he says India. They also don't know where India is. But anyway, he has 15 brothers and sisters (7 half siblings and 8 step siblings). He wrestled and played football in high school, and he also played a lot of ultimate frisbee. So we get along great, he is already speaking a little bit of Portuguese, he bore his testimony in sacrament meeting and everything. I am sure he will get accustomed to the mission quite easily, he is a pretty chill guy. He ate his first brasilian pizza (outside of the CTM) this week, just had his first p day today (we played futebol). I got to show off in soccer today to impress my son. We went and played on the turf field today, my team won 19-11 (I had about 15 goals and 3 assists). Go me! I think it worked, he was impressed, he didn't like it though because he was playing against us.
It will be a week or two of adjustment before we get used to our new area, but we already met some special people that have potential to be baptized within the next few weeks. Hope you all are doing well, I am having a blast, and I will talk to you all in next week's email.
Love,
Elder Todd
September 7, 2009
Dad,
Thanks for the letter and the update on everyone. I do have some exciting news about transfers!!
I am glad the ward and missionaries there have investigators that are progessing, and that you guys are helping out with Manuel. I will try to include everyone that you mentioned in my prayers. It is cool that Stuart is serving in Virginia. Is Dalin going to Africa to give service? Because in your letter it said get service. What kind of service is it? Is it like a mini mission? If you ever talk to him tell him how great the mission is, that it was the best decision I've ever made. There are probably lots of other people telling him the same thing, but one more time wouldn't hurt.
We have transfers on this Wednesday, and there are several surprises! First of all, I'm getting transferred! I am finally leaving Rio Tavares, after about 7 months. And Elder Clark will stay there. I am being transferred to São José, the sister city right across the bridge on the continent. It will be the first time that I am leaving the island, so I am a little nervous to see what it is like out there. But I won't be too far away, I will still be able to take a bus and play futebol every p-day with the guys at President's house. The area is called Pedra Branca (White Rock). I am pretty excited, I have heard a little about it. I heard they have an awesome chapel there, so I am already planning ways to utilize it to attract more people. Oh, and the other big surprise. I am going to train! I am going to be a pai (dad). I am training Elder Dunn. I know nothing about him yet, not even where he is from. I hope he's cool. But I am sure we will get along great. I am going to spoil him, I still have some presents and candy left over from your visit. I am really excited for this next transfer, there will be a lot of changes, new experiences, I am sure I will grow as a missionary.
I will update you guys next week. I will tell you all about my new companion, fresh from the MTC. You guys have a great week.
Love,
Elder Todd
Thanks for the letter and the update on everyone. I do have some exciting news about transfers!!
I am glad the ward and missionaries there have investigators that are progessing, and that you guys are helping out with Manuel. I will try to include everyone that you mentioned in my prayers. It is cool that Stuart is serving in Virginia. Is Dalin going to Africa to give service? Because in your letter it said get service. What kind of service is it? Is it like a mini mission? If you ever talk to him tell him how great the mission is, that it was the best decision I've ever made. There are probably lots of other people telling him the same thing, but one more time wouldn't hurt.
We have transfers on this Wednesday, and there are several surprises! First of all, I'm getting transferred! I am finally leaving Rio Tavares, after about 7 months. And Elder Clark will stay there. I am being transferred to São José, the sister city right across the bridge on the continent. It will be the first time that I am leaving the island, so I am a little nervous to see what it is like out there. But I won't be too far away, I will still be able to take a bus and play futebol every p-day with the guys at President's house. The area is called Pedra Branca (White Rock). I am pretty excited, I have heard a little about it. I heard they have an awesome chapel there, so I am already planning ways to utilize it to attract more people. Oh, and the other big surprise. I am going to train! I am going to be a pai (dad). I am training Elder Dunn. I know nothing about him yet, not even where he is from. I hope he's cool. But I am sure we will get along great. I am going to spoil him, I still have some presents and candy left over from your visit. I am really excited for this next transfer, there will be a lot of changes, new experiences, I am sure I will grow as a missionary.
I will update you guys next week. I will tell you all about my new companion, fresh from the MTC. You guys have a great week.
Love,
Elder Todd
August 31, 2009
Dear Family,
I am glad that you guys liked the trip and had a good time here. And that all of you are home safely. This week was pretty good. The work is still going well here, we are coming up on another transfer next week, on the 9th. Elder Clark and I think that probably one of us will be transferred. We will see what happens though. I feel like I am part of the ward here, so it would be sad to leave. But I would be excited to start over again, get to know a new ward, new city, new people. My guess is that Elder Clark will get transferred and that I will stay here for one more transfer. But it is just a guess. Wish Ethan and April good luck for me. Ethan will have a great time at BYU. It was good to see all of you guys. I hope the calling is going well for Dad. I am sure Whitney will help and with the new enthusiasm you have for missionary work you will have lots of success. I will send you an update next week, by that I will know if I am getting transferred or not. Until then.
Love,
Elder Todd
I am glad that you guys liked the trip and had a good time here. And that all of you are home safely. This week was pretty good. The work is still going well here, we are coming up on another transfer next week, on the 9th. Elder Clark and I think that probably one of us will be transferred. We will see what happens though. I feel like I am part of the ward here, so it would be sad to leave. But I would be excited to start over again, get to know a new ward, new city, new people. My guess is that Elder Clark will get transferred and that I will stay here for one more transfer. But it is just a guess. Wish Ethan and April good luck for me. Ethan will have a great time at BYU. It was good to see all of you guys. I hope the calling is going well for Dad. I am sure Whitney will help and with the new enthusiasm you have for missionary work you will have lots of success. I will send you an update next week, by that I will know if I am getting transferred or not. Until then.
Love,
Elder Todd
July 27, 2009
Dear Family,
This past week was also really good. We had three baptisms on Saturday, so that was probably the highlight. Savele and Victória were baptized (Han's sisters). Savele is 20 years old and Vitória is 11 years old. And another 11 year old named Glauber was also baptized. Basically everyone in his family is already a member, but when they got baptized he wasn't even born yet, and then his family went inactive so he hadn't been baptized. We are reactivating his family at the same time. We actually met Glauber playing frisbee in the street. He fell down and hurt his knee so we walked him back to his house to clean his knee up, and we found out the some of his family had already been baptized and that he hadn't. After that it was pretty easy to teach him and get him excited for baptism. He is a really goofy but funny kid.
I am glad that you guys enjoyed the pictures of the monkeys. My monkey search finally came to an end. Speaking of transfers, I think President likes the work that Elder Clark and I are doing together because he left us here for one more transfer together! So this next transfer will be really cool, I am very excited about it. I will also be here close to show you all around when you fly in.
Happy birthday to April! I am glad she is getting treated for her medical problem. I also wanted to say congratulations to Emily! She did an excellent job. Plan an awesome family home evening and invited him over to participate, and plan an activity with the youth of the ward to get him integrated. It should be really good. I am excited for your trip out here too. I will talk to you next week. Oh, there is an Elder that is my friend that is going home this transfer, Elder Huber, and he lives in Maryland. He will get home on the 8th of August. I was thinking maybe he will go to the temple after he gets home and before you leave you could meet up with him there. I will give him our home phone number, and he will call you guys if it possible to work out the plans. It should be pretty cool, he can tell you all about me, the mission, and Floripa right before you guys come out here. Anyway, I think that is about it. I will talk to you next week. Tchau.
Love,
Elder Todd
This past week was also really good. We had three baptisms on Saturday, so that was probably the highlight. Savele and Victória were baptized (Han's sisters). Savele is 20 years old and Vitória is 11 years old. And another 11 year old named Glauber was also baptized. Basically everyone in his family is already a member, but when they got baptized he wasn't even born yet, and then his family went inactive so he hadn't been baptized. We are reactivating his family at the same time. We actually met Glauber playing frisbee in the street. He fell down and hurt his knee so we walked him back to his house to clean his knee up, and we found out the some of his family had already been baptized and that he hadn't. After that it was pretty easy to teach him and get him excited for baptism. He is a really goofy but funny kid.
I am glad that you guys enjoyed the pictures of the monkeys. My monkey search finally came to an end. Speaking of transfers, I think President likes the work that Elder Clark and I are doing together because he left us here for one more transfer together! So this next transfer will be really cool, I am very excited about it. I will also be here close to show you all around when you fly in.
Happy birthday to April! I am glad she is getting treated for her medical problem. I also wanted to say congratulations to Emily! She did an excellent job. Plan an awesome family home evening and invited him over to participate, and plan an activity with the youth of the ward to get him integrated. It should be really good. I am excited for your trip out here too. I will talk to you next week. Oh, there is an Elder that is my friend that is going home this transfer, Elder Huber, and he lives in Maryland. He will get home on the 8th of August. I was thinking maybe he will go to the temple after he gets home and before you leave you could meet up with him there. I will give him our home phone number, and he will call you guys if it possible to work out the plans. It should be pretty cool, he can tell you all about me, the mission, and Floripa right before you guys come out here. Anyway, I think that is about it. I will talk to you next week. Tchau.
Love,
Elder Todd
July 20, 2009
Hey Family!
The reason that I didn't send a letter last week was because I was working on my p-day. I did a special division authorized by the President to return back to Ingleses, my first area, to try and reactivate some of the people that we baptized there that have gone less active. I went with Elder Souto, and spent the day there just visiting the families, seeing how they are doing, saying a prayer and leaving a blessing with the family. It was good, even though it is sad to see people who were so active and firm in the church drift away. They all still have their testimonies, but just complications have happened in their lives.
Anyway, this week was awesome. I also did a division in two other areas, Saco dos Limões and Tapera, so I wasn't really in my area very much. But we had a baptism! Hans was baptized on Sat, and it was a really cool baptism. And this week his two sisters, Savele and Vitória will be baptized. They are a cool family, from Acre, in the north of Brasil, but have German heritage. We met them through English class, invited them to play frisbee, and then started visiting them in their house. And now they are getting baptized. Everyone in the ward loves the family, especially the youth and young adults. Hans is very cool, 18 years old, wants to be a video game designer, is thinking about serving a mission already. Things are just really going well here. We are going to try and have a really good week this week, baptize everyone we are teaching, because there will be transfers next week, and we don't know who will leave or who will stay. I have already been here for a while, so who knows.
And finally, I have more exciting news. I finally found and fed wild monkeys this week! Isn't that awesome!? They are tiny little monkeys that we saw out the window when we were eating at a member's house. There was a little family of them, so we got little pieces of banana and they ate out of our hands. I have been on the monkey hunt since Mother's Day and I finally found where they live. The are pretty cute, but you have to watch out when you are around them because they like to pee out of the trees, and they don't care if they hit innocent passers-by. I will send you some pictures. Of the monkeys and of the baptisms.
Hey dad, that is awesome that you have a new calling. You will see how difficult but gratifying missionary work is. Hope everything goes well, I know Whitney will help you out a lot. I think that is about it for this week. I love you guys.
Elder Todd
The reason that I didn't send a letter last week was because I was working on my p-day. I did a special division authorized by the President to return back to Ingleses, my first area, to try and reactivate some of the people that we baptized there that have gone less active. I went with Elder Souto, and spent the day there just visiting the families, seeing how they are doing, saying a prayer and leaving a blessing with the family. It was good, even though it is sad to see people who were so active and firm in the church drift away. They all still have their testimonies, but just complications have happened in their lives.
Anyway, this week was awesome. I also did a division in two other areas, Saco dos Limões and Tapera, so I wasn't really in my area very much. But we had a baptism! Hans was baptized on Sat, and it was a really cool baptism. And this week his two sisters, Savele and Vitória will be baptized. They are a cool family, from Acre, in the north of Brasil, but have German heritage. We met them through English class, invited them to play frisbee, and then started visiting them in their house. And now they are getting baptized. Everyone in the ward loves the family, especially the youth and young adults. Hans is very cool, 18 years old, wants to be a video game designer, is thinking about serving a mission already. Things are just really going well here. We are going to try and have a really good week this week, baptize everyone we are teaching, because there will be transfers next week, and we don't know who will leave or who will stay. I have already been here for a while, so who knows.
And finally, I have more exciting news. I finally found and fed wild monkeys this week! Isn't that awesome!? They are tiny little monkeys that we saw out the window when we were eating at a member's house. There was a little family of them, so we got little pieces of banana and they ate out of our hands. I have been on the monkey hunt since Mother's Day and I finally found where they live. The are pretty cute, but you have to watch out when you are around them because they like to pee out of the trees, and they don't care if they hit innocent passers-by. I will send you some pictures. Of the monkeys and of the baptisms.
Hey dad, that is awesome that you have a new calling. You will see how difficult but gratifying missionary work is. Hope everything goes well, I know Whitney will help you out a lot. I think that is about it for this week. I love you guys.
Elder Todd
July 6, 2009
Dear Family,
I will keep this letter short because I will try and send some more pictures home to you guys. This week was a good week for the work. We baptized 4 people, and confirmed 6 on Sunday, because Vanessa and Maria Luiza were baptized on Sunday after church last week. It actually should have been 5 baptisms, but Jaime, the 16 year old, changed his mind at the last minute and decided that he wasn't completely ready to be baptized. So João, Janine, Lourenço, and Leomar were baptized. But I am confident that Jaime will be baptized this Saturday, along with some other people we are teaching. I will send you the pictures from the baptism. Anyway, I think that is about it. I don't have any other exciting news. I hope everyone is going well, and that the 4th of July was exciting.
Love,
Elder Todd
I will keep this letter short because I will try and send some more pictures home to you guys. This week was a good week for the work. We baptized 4 people, and confirmed 6 on Sunday, because Vanessa and Maria Luiza were baptized on Sunday after church last week. It actually should have been 5 baptisms, but Jaime, the 16 year old, changed his mind at the last minute and decided that he wasn't completely ready to be baptized. So João, Janine, Lourenço, and Leomar were baptized. But I am confident that Jaime will be baptized this Saturday, along with some other people we are teaching. I will send you the pictures from the baptism. Anyway, I think that is about it. I don't have any other exciting news. I hope everyone is going well, and that the 4th of July was exciting.
Love,
Elder Todd
June 29, 2009
Dear Family,
So leave the planning up to me, I'll take care of it. And I will get mom the brand name of the tie next week. Talking about presents, there are a few more things that you guys could bring me if you wanted. Because everybody here is a soccer fan, I got into soccer jerseys, and I was wondering if you guys could get me a D.C. United jersey. That would be cool. If I think of any more things I will be sure to mention them in the upcoming email.
Vanessa and her daughter were baptized yesterday. The baptism was awesome. About 50 people were there, the young women sang a special song and so did the primary, and the spirit was really good. So everything turned out perfectly. The only disappointment was that Vanessa's husband, Rodrigo, didn't go to the baptism. We will go back and visit with him and invite him to come again on Sunday to see the confirmation. We also are teaching a different family of 5: João, Janine, Jaime, Lorenço, e Leomar, who are going to be baptized on Saturday, along with a man named Miguel. And then there is that family that we were already teaching that we met because of the English class, and some of them might get baptized on the same day. So it should a really busy week, we have been working hard and are working hard and we are receiving the blessings. I guess I am wrapping up my letter for this week, I will talk to you all later. Congratulate Ethan on a talk well-done.
Love,
Elder Todd
So leave the planning up to me, I'll take care of it. And I will get mom the brand name of the tie next week. Talking about presents, there are a few more things that you guys could bring me if you wanted. Because everybody here is a soccer fan, I got into soccer jerseys, and I was wondering if you guys could get me a D.C. United jersey. That would be cool. If I think of any more things I will be sure to mention them in the upcoming email.
Vanessa and her daughter were baptized yesterday. The baptism was awesome. About 50 people were there, the young women sang a special song and so did the primary, and the spirit was really good. So everything turned out perfectly. The only disappointment was that Vanessa's husband, Rodrigo, didn't go to the baptism. We will go back and visit with him and invite him to come again on Sunday to see the confirmation. We also are teaching a different family of 5: João, Janine, Jaime, Lorenço, e Leomar, who are going to be baptized on Saturday, along with a man named Miguel. And then there is that family that we were already teaching that we met because of the English class, and some of them might get baptized on the same day. So it should a really busy week, we have been working hard and are working hard and we are receiving the blessings. I guess I am wrapping up my letter for this week, I will talk to you all later. Congratulate Ethan on a talk well-done.
Love,
Elder Todd
June 22, 2009
Dear Family,
Sounds like the week was pretty busy. But things will calm down soon. Our week was pretty full too. We had a festa junina on Saturday that was really fun. Festa junina is a party that they do in June that originated celebrating the birthdays of a few saints, but it is really more about celebrating the brazilian country folk, the brazilian hillbillies basically. So everybody dresses up, and the ward set up tents and tables for lots of food, music for dancing, games for the kids and stuff. We invited our English students and other investigators and some less active members, and everybody had a good time. I will try and send a couple pictures. So this week we started visiting a family that we met through English class. The two oldest children have been going to our English class, and we went to their house to teach the whole family, and all six of them went to church on Sunday. They liked church and said they want to continue learning more and going, and two accepted baptism dates. So I hope that all works out well. Vanessa is going to get baptized this week, finally. The work is good, I am happy in the ward here. I will see you guys later.
Love,
Elder Todd
Sounds like the week was pretty busy. But things will calm down soon. Our week was pretty full too. We had a festa junina on Saturday that was really fun. Festa junina is a party that they do in June that originated celebrating the birthdays of a few saints, but it is really more about celebrating the brazilian country folk, the brazilian hillbillies basically. So everybody dresses up, and the ward set up tents and tables for lots of food, music for dancing, games for the kids and stuff. We invited our English students and other investigators and some less active members, and everybody had a good time. I will try and send a couple pictures. So this week we started visiting a family that we met through English class. The two oldest children have been going to our English class, and we went to their house to teach the whole family, and all six of them went to church on Sunday. They liked church and said they want to continue learning more and going, and two accepted baptism dates. So I hope that all works out well. Vanessa is going to get baptized this week, finally. The work is good, I am happy in the ward here. I will see you guys later.
Love,
Elder Todd
June 15, 2009
Dear Family,
I have some exciting news! We are going to have transfers this week... and so I already know where I am going to be for the next six weeks! So, I am going to stay in Rio Tavares with Elder Clark! We get to spend at least one more transfer together, it should be pretty awesome. Since I have been here for some time now, we have earned the confidence of the members, and some have gotten pretty attached to us. I think that this next transfer will be really good.
To answer Dad's questions: Elder Clark's knee has not been getting any better, we have the MRI results, but are waiting on a doctor's appointment to read and interpret the results for us. So we are still in suspense on what might happen with Elder Clark. We have just had to change the way we work a little to make accommodations for his knee. Use our heads instead of our legs, work smarter.
We had a really great experience last week with Vanessa. She really wants to get baptized but has a difficulty with smoking. She tried to stop a few times and could only go for a few hours, or maybe half a day without smoking. So she was getting pretty upset, and we went to visit her last Tuesday. We gave her a priesthood blessing, and since then she has not smoked another cigarette (that is almost one week). She said it hasn't been easy, but that every day it gets a little easier. And she even brought her mother-in-law to church on Sunday, and invited a girl who works in her pizzaria to go next week. Her baptism is looking pretty good. When we told her that we might get transferred on Sunday at church, she told us that we have to baptize her before we leave. So that of course made Elder Clark and me feel special. What I learned from the experience is that sometimes you just have to trust in the Lord and leave everything in his hands. We had tried lots of ways to help Vanessa to stop smoking, but after doing what we could we left it up to Him. I feel kind of silly for not trying the priesthood blessing first. I was being prideful and thinking that I could missionary work on my own, when the truth is, I can't.
English is going well and frisbee too, it is a great way to meet new people and become friends with them. I really want some baptisms to come from both of the activities that we are doing. So pray for us and more baptisms.
So, happy birthday to Dad and to Ethan. And happy Father's day to Dad as well. Hope you all have fun celebrating this week.
And I agree with Dad, I am pretty sure I do have the coolest mission president in the world. I don't know how we should work out the plans, it shouldn't be that difficult. One cool result from this trip, seeing Whitney and me, will be that everyone will like the mission so much you all will want to serve missions of your own. Especially Ethan. My advice to Ethan is to enjoy summer but to not forget about his mission. I am also running out of time, so I will write more next week. Thanks for sending the photos!
Love,
Elder Todd
I have some exciting news! We are going to have transfers this week... and so I already know where I am going to be for the next six weeks! So, I am going to stay in Rio Tavares with Elder Clark! We get to spend at least one more transfer together, it should be pretty awesome. Since I have been here for some time now, we have earned the confidence of the members, and some have gotten pretty attached to us. I think that this next transfer will be really good.
To answer Dad's questions: Elder Clark's knee has not been getting any better, we have the MRI results, but are waiting on a doctor's appointment to read and interpret the results for us. So we are still in suspense on what might happen with Elder Clark. We have just had to change the way we work a little to make accommodations for his knee. Use our heads instead of our legs, work smarter.
We had a really great experience last week with Vanessa. She really wants to get baptized but has a difficulty with smoking. She tried to stop a few times and could only go for a few hours, or maybe half a day without smoking. So she was getting pretty upset, and we went to visit her last Tuesday. We gave her a priesthood blessing, and since then she has not smoked another cigarette (that is almost one week). She said it hasn't been easy, but that every day it gets a little easier. And she even brought her mother-in-law to church on Sunday, and invited a girl who works in her pizzaria to go next week. Her baptism is looking pretty good. When we told her that we might get transferred on Sunday at church, she told us that we have to baptize her before we leave. So that of course made Elder Clark and me feel special. What I learned from the experience is that sometimes you just have to trust in the Lord and leave everything in his hands. We had tried lots of ways to help Vanessa to stop smoking, but after doing what we could we left it up to Him. I feel kind of silly for not trying the priesthood blessing first. I was being prideful and thinking that I could missionary work on my own, when the truth is, I can't.
English is going well and frisbee too, it is a great way to meet new people and become friends with them. I really want some baptisms to come from both of the activities that we are doing. So pray for us and more baptisms.
So, happy birthday to Dad and to Ethan. And happy Father's day to Dad as well. Hope you all have fun celebrating this week.
And I agree with Dad, I am pretty sure I do have the coolest mission president in the world. I don't know how we should work out the plans, it shouldn't be that difficult. One cool result from this trip, seeing Whitney and me, will be that everyone will like the mission so much you all will want to serve missions of your own. Especially Ethan. My advice to Ethan is to enjoy summer but to not forget about his mission. I am also running out of time, so I will write more next week. Thanks for sending the photos!
Love,
Elder Todd
June 8, 2009
Dear Family,
I will try to put together my part of the family letter for next week. This week was pretty busy. We have been going to the doctor's appointments and stuff. Elder Clark got an MRI on his knee, we were supposed to get the result today, but we have to wait until tomorrow. I am still healthy and happy. We had several baptisms that had to be put off for another week because the investigators weren't fully prepared, but they will get there.
Whitney! First, congratulations on the baptisms, that is awesome. I have a question for you, does your mission have a mission hymn? What is it like? Are you still allowed to sing it? My mission president wanted to know.
Mom, you know that red tie with white stripes that you sent me for Christmas or my birthday? Pres. Queiroz liked it a lot so he wants to know if you can find two more of the exact same tie and send them to me. He wants one for himself and one for a man he baptized here. Do you think that is possible? If you don't remember I will send a picture home.
Also, Mom and Dad. I want you to take something into consideration when you are making your Brazil trip plans. You told Sis. Queiroz that you were planning on stopping by for about a day and spending a couple hours with me, but Sister Queiroz has other plans. She said at the minimum you need to spend 2 to 3 days here to get the full experience. She said if it was necessary she would trade my p-day to fit into your schedule or give me two p-days. She said she knows some really awesome trails/scenic places to go hiking, and that she wants to take the family out to dinner, and go shoe shopping with the girls. So, I don't know if you have time to stay here for longer with all the things you want to in Brazil, but I can promise that you will like it here, and there is tons of stuff to do with Sister or just with us. Anyway, that is just a heads up. You could probably even send another email to her is you had any questions or doubts.
I will be heading out know, I will write you all again next week.
Love,
Elder Todd
I will try to put together my part of the family letter for next week. This week was pretty busy. We have been going to the doctor's appointments and stuff. Elder Clark got an MRI on his knee, we were supposed to get the result today, but we have to wait until tomorrow. I am still healthy and happy. We had several baptisms that had to be put off for another week because the investigators weren't fully prepared, but they will get there.
Whitney! First, congratulations on the baptisms, that is awesome. I have a question for you, does your mission have a mission hymn? What is it like? Are you still allowed to sing it? My mission president wanted to know.
Mom, you know that red tie with white stripes that you sent me for Christmas or my birthday? Pres. Queiroz liked it a lot so he wants to know if you can find two more of the exact same tie and send them to me. He wants one for himself and one for a man he baptized here. Do you think that is possible? If you don't remember I will send a picture home.
Also, Mom and Dad. I want you to take something into consideration when you are making your Brazil trip plans. You told Sis. Queiroz that you were planning on stopping by for about a day and spending a couple hours with me, but Sister Queiroz has other plans. She said at the minimum you need to spend 2 to 3 days here to get the full experience. She said if it was necessary she would trade my p-day to fit into your schedule or give me two p-days. She said she knows some really awesome trails/scenic places to go hiking, and that she wants to take the family out to dinner, and go shoe shopping with the girls. So, I don't know if you have time to stay here for longer with all the things you want to in Brazil, but I can promise that you will like it here, and there is tons of stuff to do with Sister or just with us. Anyway, that is just a heads up. You could probably even send another email to her is you had any questions or doubts.
I will be heading out know, I will write you all again next week.
Love,
Elder Todd
June 1, 2009
Dear Family,
Let's see. Summing up this week... English class is going well, our attendance has grown to more than thirty, and we also had an activity with all the advanced english students. We all went to Evandro's house to do an immersion activity - no one could speak Portuguese the entire night. So we ordered pizza and played some games and just spoke English. We have become good friends with a lot of the students, and they have a greater interest in learning about the church, so we are going to start contacting and visiting some of the people this week.
Also, conference with Elder Didier was a very great experience. We were all nervous before he got here, because he has the appearance of being a very severe man, but we realized that that wasn't entirely the case. You don't need to be afraid of any general authority, because even if they look mean and have an extreme comb-over they are always loving and Christ-like. He taught us about união (unity) in the mission, and also more about what the message of the restauração (restoration) is all about, and did it using about a million scriptures.
I have to wrap up my letter soon. Tell Mitch hi for me. We have a baptism this sat. of a boy named Sandro, who is 13. He is friends with a part-member family and has been going to church, but we have to make sure that his mom with let him get baptised. I will let you know what happens. Until next week.
Love,
Elder Todd
Let's see. Summing up this week... English class is going well, our attendance has grown to more than thirty, and we also had an activity with all the advanced english students. We all went to Evandro's house to do an immersion activity - no one could speak Portuguese the entire night. So we ordered pizza and played some games and just spoke English. We have become good friends with a lot of the students, and they have a greater interest in learning about the church, so we are going to start contacting and visiting some of the people this week.
Also, conference with Elder Didier was a very great experience. We were all nervous before he got here, because he has the appearance of being a very severe man, but we realized that that wasn't entirely the case. You don't need to be afraid of any general authority, because even if they look mean and have an extreme comb-over they are always loving and Christ-like. He taught us about união (unity) in the mission, and also more about what the message of the restauração (restoration) is all about, and did it using about a million scriptures.
I have to wrap up my letter soon. Tell Mitch hi for me. We have a baptism this sat. of a boy named Sandro, who is 13. He is friends with a part-member family and has been going to church, but we have to make sure that his mom with let him get baptised. I will let you know what happens. Until next week.
Love,
Elder Todd
May 25, 2009
Dear Family,
Thanks for the letter Mom, I am glad that you got to do all of that fun stuff with Aunt Denise and with April too. So you guys ended up taking that picture that I wanted? How hard is it to get a visa to go to Brazil? What is involved in the process? Did you take a picture in front of the embassy like you told me you would? So wolf trap was pretty cool? Brasilians do not celebrate Memorial day. In fact, I had forgotten that Memorial Day was today. They do have lots of other brasilian holidays (feriados) but there are too many to keep track of. Yes, I do remember Erin Pastor, but tell Ethan to tell her that I don't. Speaking of Frisbee, I taught the youth in our ward how to play ultimate frisbee this week, and everyone loved it. They asked me to let them borrow the frisbee for their next activity this week. Nobody here knows that ultimate frisbee is a sport. One day when we were tired of knocking on doors we went to a park where lots of kids were playing around, and we started to throw the frisbee. So immediately we were surrounded by a crowd of children who wanted to play, and we played around a bit and made lots of contacts with the kids, etc. It was pretty fun. English class is doing pretty well, and Cláudio, our English student/friend, went to church for the second time yesterday, and liked it again. We had more than twenty people both days of our class this week. And no, President Didier will not be here until this Friday, when we will have our first zone conference. And it looks like he will not have time to come to our ward on Sunday. But there will be a stake meeting sat. night and he will speak there. That's right the shirt looked really cool. We will see if the next one turns out as good. Anyway. We are keeping pretty busy. Elder Clark has been trying to get some good knee treatment, but we are still working on that problem. Vanessa is progessing, we are still visiting her. We really need to motivate her husband to want to come back to church again with the family. Jairo and his family aren't really progressing, they still invited us to come in whenever we visit, but they just don't want to do very much. They are a pretty shy family, and kind of just like to stay in the house. We are working with some families to try and become better friends with them. It will probably be a challenge to get the whole family to come to church.
Well, I think that is about it for this week. I hope you all have an excellent week. Send me some of those pictures. Love you guys.
Elder Todd
Thanks for the letter Mom, I am glad that you got to do all of that fun stuff with Aunt Denise and with April too. So you guys ended up taking that picture that I wanted? How hard is it to get a visa to go to Brazil? What is involved in the process? Did you take a picture in front of the embassy like you told me you would? So wolf trap was pretty cool? Brasilians do not celebrate Memorial day. In fact, I had forgotten that Memorial Day was today. They do have lots of other brasilian holidays (feriados) but there are too many to keep track of. Yes, I do remember Erin Pastor, but tell Ethan to tell her that I don't. Speaking of Frisbee, I taught the youth in our ward how to play ultimate frisbee this week, and everyone loved it. They asked me to let them borrow the frisbee for their next activity this week. Nobody here knows that ultimate frisbee is a sport. One day when we were tired of knocking on doors we went to a park where lots of kids were playing around, and we started to throw the frisbee. So immediately we were surrounded by a crowd of children who wanted to play, and we played around a bit and made lots of contacts with the kids, etc. It was pretty fun. English class is doing pretty well, and Cláudio, our English student/friend, went to church for the second time yesterday, and liked it again. We had more than twenty people both days of our class this week. And no, President Didier will not be here until this Friday, when we will have our first zone conference. And it looks like he will not have time to come to our ward on Sunday. But there will be a stake meeting sat. night and he will speak there. That's right the shirt looked really cool. We will see if the next one turns out as good. Anyway. We are keeping pretty busy. Elder Clark has been trying to get some good knee treatment, but we are still working on that problem. Vanessa is progessing, we are still visiting her. We really need to motivate her husband to want to come back to church again with the family. Jairo and his family aren't really progressing, they still invited us to come in whenever we visit, but they just don't want to do very much. They are a pretty shy family, and kind of just like to stay in the house. We are working with some families to try and become better friends with them. It will probably be a challenge to get the whole family to come to church.
Well, I think that is about it for this week. I hope you all have an excellent week. Send me some of those pictures. Love you guys.
Elder Todd
May 11, 2009
Hi Mom,
I hope you had a great mother’s day. We went out to catch some monkeys today. We didn’t find them because the park people said that the feeding time for the monkeys is during the morning, and by the time we got there in the early afternoon the monkeys already had full tummies. But we did find and take pictures of a mommy jacaré (alligator) and its filhotes. So that was pretty exciting. I will send you the pictures later. So we will try again on another p day mais cedo. It was really great talking to everybody on the phone. By the next time we talk all you will already have visited Brasil and will know what it is like here. And Whitney will be with you guys. Whitney will probably disagree with me, but I think here is a lot cooler than São Paulo. But I have to have some mission pride. I only have two more phone calls left, isn’t that weird? Anyway. I think this email will be pretty short, but I will catch up with you all later. Keep on sending emails to keep me updated. Mom and Dad, tell the kids that unless they send some emails I won’t send more presents home.
Love you guys,
Elder Todd
I hope you had a great mother’s day. We went out to catch some monkeys today. We didn’t find them because the park people said that the feeding time for the monkeys is during the morning, and by the time we got there in the early afternoon the monkeys already had full tummies. But we did find and take pictures of a mommy jacaré (alligator) and its filhotes. So that was pretty exciting. I will send you the pictures later. So we will try again on another p day mais cedo. It was really great talking to everybody on the phone. By the next time we talk all you will already have visited Brasil and will know what it is like here. And Whitney will be with you guys. Whitney will probably disagree with me, but I think here is a lot cooler than São Paulo. But I have to have some mission pride. I only have two more phone calls left, isn’t that weird? Anyway. I think this email will be pretty short, but I will catch up with you all later. Keep on sending emails to keep me updated. Mom and Dad, tell the kids that unless they send some emails I won’t send more presents home.
Love you guys,
Elder Todd
May 4, 2009
Dear Family,
About Elder Clark, he hurt his knee here on the mission, helping a family move. He was carrying something and stepped wrong and hurt his knee. But I am not getting sick of the island yet, and am still happy to be here. I know my way around pretty well. I have worked in every area on the island, so that might come in handy if I ever come back and visit. It is winter time already, the winter has been pretty rough so far, I will send some pictures to show you how it is, that I took today when we went on a little hike. Being a senior is different, and really strange. But I think it will be good. We have been getting some good work done, we were able to bring Jairo and part of his family to church, and one of their neighbors too. Our english class is doing well, there were 12 people there on sat. And all the students are enjoying the class. It is a good well to get to know new people and get them to be less afraid of visiting the church on sundays. I have to go now, I will try and send some pics.
Love you all, will talk to everyone on Sunday!
Elder Todd
About Elder Clark, he hurt his knee here on the mission, helping a family move. He was carrying something and stepped wrong and hurt his knee. But I am not getting sick of the island yet, and am still happy to be here. I know my way around pretty well. I have worked in every area on the island, so that might come in handy if I ever come back and visit. It is winter time already, the winter has been pretty rough so far, I will send some pictures to show you how it is, that I took today when we went on a little hike. Being a senior is different, and really strange. But I think it will be good. We have been getting some good work done, we were able to bring Jairo and part of his family to church, and one of their neighbors too. Our english class is doing well, there were 12 people there on sat. And all the students are enjoying the class. It is a good well to get to know new people and get them to be less afraid of visiting the church on sundays. I have to go now, I will try and send some pics.
Love you all, will talk to everyone on Sunday!
Elder Todd
April 27, 2009
Dear Family,
Hey everyone. I am doing pretty good, and I will try and give a good weekly update. So... this week was pretty fun. English class is starting to go better. We only had 4 people that went to our class on saturday, but they were all people who had never been in the church before, and they all liked the class a lot. And teaching english isn't too hard. And I have gotten used to speaking english and portuguese together now. And we already have a poster in front of the church, but we are getting a banner done and we are going to put it in front of the bus station so more people will know about the class. We are still waiting on Vanessa's marriage papers to get back, but she is still excited for her baptism. We are teaching a new family now, Jairo and Maria, and their kids Henrique and Bruno, and they are nice people. One problem is that because they are really humble people they think that the church is really fancy, so they feel a little uncomfortable and out of place. Jairo drove to church on sunday, but didn't go in because he saw all the people entering with suits and nice cars and such. But I know that once he goes in he will how nice everyone is and feel more welcome. Yeah, two of the APs are americans, and one is brazilian, but basically I am the one that has been teaching the english class and stuff. Mostly because because the APs are always moving around, elder stephanou had to travel for a while, and then elder fletcher had to travel. So since the 15th I have been with my new companion, Elder Clark. He is from Rigby, Idaho, and has 5 months on the mission, 3 in the field. He is a cool guy, I have been with him about two weeks, and I will probably only be with him until the end of the transfer, which is next week. Because he has a knee problem, and unless he gets better treatment he might be transferred to a different area or even out of the mission. And it was cool because I got my first junior companion on my 6 month anniversary in the field. Because I got here in floripa on the 15th of october. Time has passed pretty quickly for me. But it was also not very cool because I was really sick on that day too, with some kind of fever and cold thing. But we are both doing well. If he doesn't get transferred you guys will get to talk to him on mother's day. Anyway, I think that is about it. Until next week.
Love,
Elder Todd
Hey everyone. I am doing pretty good, and I will try and give a good weekly update. So... this week was pretty fun. English class is starting to go better. We only had 4 people that went to our class on saturday, but they were all people who had never been in the church before, and they all liked the class a lot. And teaching english isn't too hard. And I have gotten used to speaking english and portuguese together now. And we already have a poster in front of the church, but we are getting a banner done and we are going to put it in front of the bus station so more people will know about the class. We are still waiting on Vanessa's marriage papers to get back, but she is still excited for her baptism. We are teaching a new family now, Jairo and Maria, and their kids Henrique and Bruno, and they are nice people. One problem is that because they are really humble people they think that the church is really fancy, so they feel a little uncomfortable and out of place. Jairo drove to church on sunday, but didn't go in because he saw all the people entering with suits and nice cars and such. But I know that once he goes in he will how nice everyone is and feel more welcome. Yeah, two of the APs are americans, and one is brazilian, but basically I am the one that has been teaching the english class and stuff. Mostly because because the APs are always moving around, elder stephanou had to travel for a while, and then elder fletcher had to travel. So since the 15th I have been with my new companion, Elder Clark. He is from Rigby, Idaho, and has 5 months on the mission, 3 in the field. He is a cool guy, I have been with him about two weeks, and I will probably only be with him until the end of the transfer, which is next week. Because he has a knee problem, and unless he gets better treatment he might be transferred to a different area or even out of the mission. And it was cool because I got my first junior companion on my 6 month anniversary in the field. Because I got here in floripa on the 15th of october. Time has passed pretty quickly for me. But it was also not very cool because I was really sick on that day too, with some kind of fever and cold thing. But we are both doing well. If he doesn't get transferred you guys will get to talk to him on mother's day. Anyway, I think that is about it. Until next week.
Love,
Elder Todd
April 20, 2009
Dear Family,
I think I will start out by explaining the little messages that you guys got from Evandro and from Daniela. So Evandro was baptized about 8 months ago, he is 23 years old, works in a bank, likes english, and likes all the missionaries. So he is one of our good friends, he likes to help out, give us references, drive us around sometimes when we need a lift. By glad couple he means a happy companionship, I think. And there is another recently baptized young man named Júlio in our ward who is also friends with Evandro, who is 18 or 19, but looks and acts about 5 or 7 years younger. So he is saying that I am the only one patient enough to deal with him. The Snow Ball Church is a church that I am pretty sure started in the states, but it is basically an extreme sports church that is pretty popular here in our area. The signs for the church all have snowboarders, surfers, skydivers, and that kind of stuff. There is a halfpipe in front of the church and everything. And we were actually teaching someone from the church, and so Evandro invited us to go check it out with him. I didn't learn much in the way of doctrine there, but the rock band was pretty cool, and I think our church could use a few pulpits made of surfboards and a couple paintings of christ surfing. And they do have chocolate and coconut pizza here! Pizza doce is pretty popular, so I have eaten chocolate with strawberry, or with sprinkles, with coconut, banana and cinnamon, even with vanilla ice cream on top. And to finish up, Evandro likes to ask all the missionaries that he meets if they have ever had to perform an exorcism, expel an evil spirit or anything like that, and gets disappointed with the ones who haven't.
Daniela and Hélio and super cool too, but their email was probably easier to understand, didn't have as many unusual references.
Working with the APs has been interesting. I have been trying to do regular work in my area, but it gets to be a little difficult with all the traveling to the office to do something, going to the zone conferences, and helping them put together their training session that they do. They don't do that much administrative work, but they do move around a lot. I actually spent one week with Elder Stephanou and another with Elder Fletcher, another AP, but it is all going good. I am learning new things. We started up an english class that I am teaching in our area, I hope that will attract a lot of people to the church. Because everyone wants to learn english here. So we just have to advertise it well, and then we will have the people coming to us in the church, instead of us going after them and trying to drag them into the church.
The family sounds good, life seems to be going pretty smoothly. The school year is almost over for april alreay? And Emily is driving, and soon Ethan will be out of high school. I guess time is passing pretty quickly. Anyway, I think that I will have to be going soon. But I am happy and the mission is awesome. I will try and coordinate a phone call home for after lunch, sometime during the afternoon, and I will get a phone number to you guys pretty soon. I will talk to you all next week.
Love,
Elder Todd
I think I will start out by explaining the little messages that you guys got from Evandro and from Daniela. So Evandro was baptized about 8 months ago, he is 23 years old, works in a bank, likes english, and likes all the missionaries. So he is one of our good friends, he likes to help out, give us references, drive us around sometimes when we need a lift. By glad couple he means a happy companionship, I think. And there is another recently baptized young man named Júlio in our ward who is also friends with Evandro, who is 18 or 19, but looks and acts about 5 or 7 years younger. So he is saying that I am the only one patient enough to deal with him. The Snow Ball Church is a church that I am pretty sure started in the states, but it is basically an extreme sports church that is pretty popular here in our area. The signs for the church all have snowboarders, surfers, skydivers, and that kind of stuff. There is a halfpipe in front of the church and everything. And we were actually teaching someone from the church, and so Evandro invited us to go check it out with him. I didn't learn much in the way of doctrine there, but the rock band was pretty cool, and I think our church could use a few pulpits made of surfboards and a couple paintings of christ surfing. And they do have chocolate and coconut pizza here! Pizza doce is pretty popular, so I have eaten chocolate with strawberry, or with sprinkles, with coconut, banana and cinnamon, even with vanilla ice cream on top. And to finish up, Evandro likes to ask all the missionaries that he meets if they have ever had to perform an exorcism, expel an evil spirit or anything like that, and gets disappointed with the ones who haven't.
Daniela and Hélio and super cool too, but their email was probably easier to understand, didn't have as many unusual references.
Working with the APs has been interesting. I have been trying to do regular work in my area, but it gets to be a little difficult with all the traveling to the office to do something, going to the zone conferences, and helping them put together their training session that they do. They don't do that much administrative work, but they do move around a lot. I actually spent one week with Elder Stephanou and another with Elder Fletcher, another AP, but it is all going good. I am learning new things. We started up an english class that I am teaching in our area, I hope that will attract a lot of people to the church. Because everyone wants to learn english here. So we just have to advertise it well, and then we will have the people coming to us in the church, instead of us going after them and trying to drag them into the church.
The family sounds good, life seems to be going pretty smoothly. The school year is almost over for april alreay? And Emily is driving, and soon Ethan will be out of high school. I guess time is passing pretty quickly. Anyway, I think that I will have to be going soon. But I am happy and the mission is awesome. I will try and coordinate a phone call home for after lunch, sometime during the afternoon, and I will get a phone number to you guys pretty soon. I will talk to you all next week.
Love,
Elder Todd
April 13, 2009
Dear Family,
Happy Easter! Feliz Páscoa! Sounds like the everyone in the family is doing a lot of fun stuff. I did a divisão with Ingleses, and ate back at Daniela and Helio's house. They said that they wrote to you and got a response through email. That both of you used internet translators, so It came out pretty bad, but hopefully you understood what they were trying to say. They were pretty excited to see me again. Did you guys see the comment that Evandro from Rio Tavares made on my blog? I haven't seen it but he said he visited my blog and left a message.
About the phone call on Mother's day, I go to church in the morning too, so it should not be a problem scheduling for the afternoon. But I still have to find a member or figure out where I am going to call from. And they do have Mother's Day here in Brasil too.
Anyway, this week was pretty good. Elder Stephanou, my companion, went traveling to go help out some elders in Joinville, so I was working this week with Elder Fletcher, one of the other assistants in the mission. He is a good guy too, so it was a really good week. Because right now the mission has an odd number of missionaries, so there might be some confusion. I don't really know who I will be working with for the next little while. Stephanou comes back, but then leaves again after a day or two. Whatever happens it will be an adventure. I will let you know what is going on next week or something. I doubt the package you guys send will get here before Stephanou gets home. This transfer for us is only five weeks long, so he goes home in about three and a half weeks.
Anyway, I have to go do some work. I am happy and doing well, loving being here. Tell Ethan he should be excited for when he gets to come on a mission. He will like Heritage and BYU too. He should play frisbee with the YounGuns when he gets there.
Love you guys,
Elder Todd
Happy Easter! Feliz Páscoa! Sounds like the everyone in the family is doing a lot of fun stuff. I did a divisão with Ingleses, and ate back at Daniela and Helio's house. They said that they wrote to you and got a response through email. That both of you used internet translators, so It came out pretty bad, but hopefully you understood what they were trying to say. They were pretty excited to see me again. Did you guys see the comment that Evandro from Rio Tavares made on my blog? I haven't seen it but he said he visited my blog and left a message.
About the phone call on Mother's day, I go to church in the morning too, so it should not be a problem scheduling for the afternoon. But I still have to find a member or figure out where I am going to call from. And they do have Mother's Day here in Brasil too.
Anyway, this week was pretty good. Elder Stephanou, my companion, went traveling to go help out some elders in Joinville, so I was working this week with Elder Fletcher, one of the other assistants in the mission. He is a good guy too, so it was a really good week. Because right now the mission has an odd number of missionaries, so there might be some confusion. I don't really know who I will be working with for the next little while. Stephanou comes back, but then leaves again after a day or two. Whatever happens it will be an adventure. I will let you know what is going on next week or something. I doubt the package you guys send will get here before Stephanou gets home. This transfer for us is only five weeks long, so he goes home in about three and a half weeks.
Anyway, I have to go do some work. I am happy and doing well, loving being here. Tell Ethan he should be excited for when he gets to come on a mission. He will like Heritage and BYU too. He should play frisbee with the YounGuns when he gets there.
Love you guys,
Elder Todd
April 6, 2009
Dear Family,
Conference was definitely one of the highlights of the week for me. I watched the Saturday sessions in Portuguese and the Sunday sessions in English. I watched all of the session in the stake center, which is in the middle of the centro of Florianópolis. It was pretty cool, I got to hear Elder Scott and Elder Cristofferson dub their own talks in Portuguese. They both have pretty heavy Spanish accents. But I learned that I like watching it better in English, because the voices of the apostles are a lot more emotional and expressive than the translator.
By the first marriage I mean my first set of investigators that is getting married while I am teaching them. Because a lot of people here have the problem of living together before getting married, and this obviously prevents them from being baptized. But when getting married, there usually is not even a ceremony, the couple just has to fill out some forms, send them to the government, wait a few weeks, and then sign them when they get back. And if they did have a ceremony the bishop would usually do it.
I will probably stay in the area after Stephanou leaves, so that I can show the next elder that comes the area. That is usually how it works, so that two new elders don't have to figure everything out on their own. So I will probably be here for a little while. If I were to leave, it probably wouldn't be to the jungle. There are plenty of other big cities in the state, Floripa isn't even the biggest city, Joinville is. There are a couple areas far out in the western part of the state that are more rural, but it isn't really a jungle. The living conditions are relatively good throughout the state.
Anyway, what day is good for Whitney? I have not asked anybody in the ward yet if I can call from their house. I will work it out in the next week or two. Happy birthday mom! I am writing it now to make sure that I don't forget later. I have to go now, I will talk to you guys next week.
Love,
Elder Todd
Conference was definitely one of the highlights of the week for me. I watched the Saturday sessions in Portuguese and the Sunday sessions in English. I watched all of the session in the stake center, which is in the middle of the centro of Florianópolis. It was pretty cool, I got to hear Elder Scott and Elder Cristofferson dub their own talks in Portuguese. They both have pretty heavy Spanish accents. But I learned that I like watching it better in English, because the voices of the apostles are a lot more emotional and expressive than the translator.
By the first marriage I mean my first set of investigators that is getting married while I am teaching them. Because a lot of people here have the problem of living together before getting married, and this obviously prevents them from being baptized. But when getting married, there usually is not even a ceremony, the couple just has to fill out some forms, send them to the government, wait a few weeks, and then sign them when they get back. And if they did have a ceremony the bishop would usually do it.
I will probably stay in the area after Stephanou leaves, so that I can show the next elder that comes the area. That is usually how it works, so that two new elders don't have to figure everything out on their own. So I will probably be here for a little while. If I were to leave, it probably wouldn't be to the jungle. There are plenty of other big cities in the state, Floripa isn't even the biggest city, Joinville is. There are a couple areas far out in the western part of the state that are more rural, but it isn't really a jungle. The living conditions are relatively good throughout the state.
Anyway, what day is good for Whitney? I have not asked anybody in the ward yet if I can call from their house. I will work it out in the next week or two. Happy birthday mom! I am writing it now to make sure that I don't forget later. I have to go now, I will talk to you guys next week.
Love,
Elder Todd
March 30, 2009
Dear Family,
Mom didn't need to worry, the email got here in time for me to read it. That is really too bad about the basement flooding again. That is one thing that I don't miss very much about home. I'm glad the damage was't too big this time. And I thought that the story about the notebook was pretty cool, how everything worked out in the end. Anyway, I have exciting news from the mission field. We are going to have transfers this Wednesday... Will I finally get sent off of the island? Will I get another companion after only one transfer with Elder Helamã? Is everyone excited? The answer is no, I won't be leaving, I will be staying here in Rio Tavares. But, I will be getting a new companion, because Elder Helamã is going to Itajai. And my new companion is... Elder Stephanou! It will be his last transfer in the mission, only 5 more weeks and he is going home. He is the traveling assistant to the President. (There are 3 assistants in the mission right now, one companionship and one traveling assistant.) So this transfer should be a good learning experience, I am sure I can learn a lot from Elder Stephanou. Elder Lima, one of the other missionaries who was living in our house, is leaving too. In his place a Brasilian elder with a couple months in the field will be arriving. So I am looking forward to this next transfer, and I will keep you all updated on what's happening. So you can still send the M&Ms for Elder Helamã, and I can leave them in the mission office for him. I have to think of a good going-away present to give him.
For the past couple of weeks we have been trying to contact a inactive partmember family that owns a pizzaria called Aloha. We passed by 4 or 5 times and never could catch the family at home. A family of 3, the father is a member, but the wife isn't and neither is the daughter. But this past Sunday we saw the wife, Vanessa, in church, talked to her, visited her the same day, and basically she has been wanting to get baptised for some time now. The problem was that they weren't married, but they have already put the papers in and in two or three weeks the will be officially married after 9 years of living together, and the mom and daughter will be baptized. So this will be my first marriage in the mission, even though I didn't really do anything to help. But they are really good people, and we are going to go visit their pizzaria again to try out the pizza buffet that they have there Mondays and Thursdays. Anyway, I think that is about it for this week. The mission is great, I am happy to stay here in the area and on the island. It is pretty cool because there are elders here in the Mission Brazil Florianópolis that never get to serve in Floripa, so I feel pretty lucky. So, love you guys, have a good week.
Elder Todd
Mom didn't need to worry, the email got here in time for me to read it. That is really too bad about the basement flooding again. That is one thing that I don't miss very much about home. I'm glad the damage was't too big this time. And I thought that the story about the notebook was pretty cool, how everything worked out in the end. Anyway, I have exciting news from the mission field. We are going to have transfers this Wednesday... Will I finally get sent off of the island? Will I get another companion after only one transfer with Elder Helamã? Is everyone excited? The answer is no, I won't be leaving, I will be staying here in Rio Tavares. But, I will be getting a new companion, because Elder Helamã is going to Itajai. And my new companion is... Elder Stephanou! It will be his last transfer in the mission, only 5 more weeks and he is going home. He is the traveling assistant to the President. (There are 3 assistants in the mission right now, one companionship and one traveling assistant.) So this transfer should be a good learning experience, I am sure I can learn a lot from Elder Stephanou. Elder Lima, one of the other missionaries who was living in our house, is leaving too. In his place a Brasilian elder with a couple months in the field will be arriving. So I am looking forward to this next transfer, and I will keep you all updated on what's happening. So you can still send the M&Ms for Elder Helamã, and I can leave them in the mission office for him. I have to think of a good going-away present to give him.
For the past couple of weeks we have been trying to contact a inactive partmember family that owns a pizzaria called Aloha. We passed by 4 or 5 times and never could catch the family at home. A family of 3, the father is a member, but the wife isn't and neither is the daughter. But this past Sunday we saw the wife, Vanessa, in church, talked to her, visited her the same day, and basically she has been wanting to get baptised for some time now. The problem was that they weren't married, but they have already put the papers in and in two or three weeks the will be officially married after 9 years of living together, and the mom and daughter will be baptized. So this will be my first marriage in the mission, even though I didn't really do anything to help. But they are really good people, and we are going to go visit their pizzaria again to try out the pizza buffet that they have there Mondays and Thursdays. Anyway, I think that is about it for this week. The mission is great, I am happy to stay here in the area and on the island. It is pretty cool because there are elders here in the Mission Brazil Florianópolis that never get to serve in Floripa, so I feel pretty lucky. So, love you guys, have a good week.
Elder Todd
March 23, 2009
Dear Family,
It would be cool to maintain that level of success. Obviously that is the goal, or to continually do even better. I think that after almost 100 years here in Santa Catarina we have 5 stakes, and 3 districts. I think the church is about 90 something years old, the church started here in Brazil in Ipoméia, the first people to be baptized were there, and the first chapel in Brazil is in Joinville.
D day is like the D day of World War II, because we brought all of the missionaries in the zone, six companionships, or 12 missionaries, not counting the assistants. And there are a couple people/families that have potential, but we are still trying to contact all lot of the people from the activity.
That reminds me, we baptized a couple on sat. Cesar and Roberta. We didn't actually teach them anything, because they were being taught by Pres. Queiroz. He met them here, I don't know the story very well, he taught them for a quite a while and now they got baptized. They are both dentists, and it was an awesome baptism, because Sister Queiroz decorated and brought food and invited a whole bunch of people and had 4 or 5 special musical numbers planned.
Mom, Sister Queiroz wanted to thank you for the email that you sent thanking for the newsletter. She said it was really sweet, because it is rare for parents to send emails just to say thank you and my son is loving the mission. So anyway. I think that is about it. The next transfer is already arriving, and soon after that mothers day too. That is pretty exciting.
There is also a really cool guy in our ward, named Evandro, who besides for giving us rides to all the references that he has and whenever else we need it, has already bought two pizzas this week for us missionaries, and when we had a family home evening he prepared the message and a barbeque and everything. And the impressive part is that he was only baptized 8 months ago. He lives alone, is about 24, and is just a cool guy. We have a couple of baptisms marked for April 4th, we got permission to baptize people in between sessions of conference. So that might be pretty interesting as well. I am still doing well, I am looking tanner but it just a wicked farmer's tan. Anyway, I am glad everyone is doing well.
Love,
Elder Todd
It would be cool to maintain that level of success. Obviously that is the goal, or to continually do even better. I think that after almost 100 years here in Santa Catarina we have 5 stakes, and 3 districts. I think the church is about 90 something years old, the church started here in Brazil in Ipoméia, the first people to be baptized were there, and the first chapel in Brazil is in Joinville.
D day is like the D day of World War II, because we brought all of the missionaries in the zone, six companionships, or 12 missionaries, not counting the assistants. And there are a couple people/families that have potential, but we are still trying to contact all lot of the people from the activity.
That reminds me, we baptized a couple on sat. Cesar and Roberta. We didn't actually teach them anything, because they were being taught by Pres. Queiroz. He met them here, I don't know the story very well, he taught them for a quite a while and now they got baptized. They are both dentists, and it was an awesome baptism, because Sister Queiroz decorated and brought food and invited a whole bunch of people and had 4 or 5 special musical numbers planned.
Mom, Sister Queiroz wanted to thank you for the email that you sent thanking for the newsletter. She said it was really sweet, because it is rare for parents to send emails just to say thank you and my son is loving the mission. So anyway. I think that is about it. The next transfer is already arriving, and soon after that mothers day too. That is pretty exciting.
There is also a really cool guy in our ward, named Evandro, who besides for giving us rides to all the references that he has and whenever else we need it, has already bought two pizzas this week for us missionaries, and when we had a family home evening he prepared the message and a barbeque and everything. And the impressive part is that he was only baptized 8 months ago. He lives alone, is about 24, and is just a cool guy. We have a couple of baptisms marked for April 4th, we got permission to baptize people in between sessions of conference. So that might be pretty interesting as well. I am still doing well, I am looking tanner but it just a wicked farmer's tan. Anyway, I am glad everyone is doing well.
Love,
Elder Todd
March 16, 2009
Hey Family,
This week was pretty cool, I am still doing well. I actually just got back from pizza hut. Almost all the missionaries in the zone went to pizza hut to celebrate today, because this week the mission broke it´s record for the number of baptisms in a single week. 46, I think. So Presidente was really happy and bought pizza for everyone. And the weather has been good, it is still really hot, but it should start cooling down soon. About the photos, it was Elder Souto´s foot that had the blisters. I got a few blisters too, but none of them were big enough that it would be worth taking a picture of them. I wasn´t that lucky.
I am glad the family is doing well. That Ethan is liking going on splits with the missionaries. I probably feel the same way that Ethan does, that it is easier to speak about the gospel in a different language. But maybe it is because I only practice teaching about gospel stuff in portuguese. It is easier to say prayers in portuguese because my gospel vocabulary is bigger and comes to mind faster in portuguese than in english. I am glad Ethan is also perfecting the one pillow technique. It would extremely shameful to go to college or on a mission sleeping like a girl, using multiple pillows. He will have to practice sleeping without any sheets now, because that is what you have to do when you are in a mission in a hot place. I have a fan that I put on the bed at my feet that blows on me all night long. Tell April congrats on the study abroad thing, it sounds really cool. Sorry that she missed out on getting a new t shirt because she wasn´t at home. Sounds like Emily is having fun with lacrosse and will have fun with sarah and lauren. Good luck Mom and Dad with work.
This week was pretty fun, we had a "D Day" where all of the missionaries in the zone came to work in our area saturday morning. It was pretty cool because we had a bunch of members go on splits with the missionaries, so they got involved and excited doing missionary work, and now we have like a million people to go back and visit. We have to organize and get back quickly to the people who had a lot of potential. I am still getting along with the three brasilian elders in my house so its all good. I think that is about it for now. I will talk to you guys next week.
Love,
Elder Todd
This week was pretty cool, I am still doing well. I actually just got back from pizza hut. Almost all the missionaries in the zone went to pizza hut to celebrate today, because this week the mission broke it´s record for the number of baptisms in a single week. 46, I think. So Presidente was really happy and bought pizza for everyone. And the weather has been good, it is still really hot, but it should start cooling down soon. About the photos, it was Elder Souto´s foot that had the blisters. I got a few blisters too, but none of them were big enough that it would be worth taking a picture of them. I wasn´t that lucky.
I am glad the family is doing well. That Ethan is liking going on splits with the missionaries. I probably feel the same way that Ethan does, that it is easier to speak about the gospel in a different language. But maybe it is because I only practice teaching about gospel stuff in portuguese. It is easier to say prayers in portuguese because my gospel vocabulary is bigger and comes to mind faster in portuguese than in english. I am glad Ethan is also perfecting the one pillow technique. It would extremely shameful to go to college or on a mission sleeping like a girl, using multiple pillows. He will have to practice sleeping without any sheets now, because that is what you have to do when you are in a mission in a hot place. I have a fan that I put on the bed at my feet that blows on me all night long. Tell April congrats on the study abroad thing, it sounds really cool. Sorry that she missed out on getting a new t shirt because she wasn´t at home. Sounds like Emily is having fun with lacrosse and will have fun with sarah and lauren. Good luck Mom and Dad with work.
This week was pretty fun, we had a "D Day" where all of the missionaries in the zone came to work in our area saturday morning. It was pretty cool because we had a bunch of members go on splits with the missionaries, so they got involved and excited doing missionary work, and now we have like a million people to go back and visit. We have to organize and get back quickly to the people who had a lot of potential. I am still getting along with the three brasilian elders in my house so its all good. I think that is about it for now. I will talk to you guys next week.
Love,
Elder Todd
March 9, 2009
Dear Family,
I am glad the family is doing well and is super excited about doing missionary work. Keep looking for missionary opportunities. One of the things that I learned about contacting people and talking about the church is how to identify if it is the spirit or not telling you what to do. Presidente Queiroz talked about this during a conference a little while back. For example, you are in the street, or wherever, and have decided to tell someone about the church, but then for whatever reason you become afraid and invent an excuse, and don't make the contact, it was exactly that person that you should have talked to. Presidente told a story about how he walked in to a pizza place, announced to everyone that as a representative of Jesus Christ he was giving out free DVDs (passalong cards), and he talked to almost everyone in the place, conversing and complimenting and such. Except when he came to one man, he felt reservation, and he thought that he wouldn't talk to this man because he had already talked to everyone else in the place and was tired. A couple minutes later he was thinking about why he didn't make the contact, and resolved again to talk to the man. So he talked to him, and it was exactly this man, and no one else that day, that was baptized after that. Because the spirit won't make you afraid, it will be the spirit telling you to open your mouth, not to shut it. So basically we have been trying to do the same thing, and using this high-tech technique we have met in the last week our two most promising investigators as of yet.
Tell Grandma and and Aunt Jan that we are thinking of them and praying for them. Wish Emily good luck for me. And good luck dad on preparing your talk for sunday. I am glad everyone liked the shirts. You should send me a picture with all of you wearing the shirts, I think that would be cool. I tried to pick out ones that I thought each person would like. I am sure Elder Helamã will like the peanut m&ms. And I am sure I would like the next package that you guys send as well. Anyway.
Things are going well here. I will celebrate 7 months on the mission this week. So that is exciting. Time is passing quickly. Right now I have about the same time left as Whitney had when she started her mission. Only a year and a half left. I am sure it will pass quickly too. I will talk to you guys next week.
Love,
Elder Todd
I am glad the family is doing well and is super excited about doing missionary work. Keep looking for missionary opportunities. One of the things that I learned about contacting people and talking about the church is how to identify if it is the spirit or not telling you what to do. Presidente Queiroz talked about this during a conference a little while back. For example, you are in the street, or wherever, and have decided to tell someone about the church, but then for whatever reason you become afraid and invent an excuse, and don't make the contact, it was exactly that person that you should have talked to. Presidente told a story about how he walked in to a pizza place, announced to everyone that as a representative of Jesus Christ he was giving out free DVDs (passalong cards), and he talked to almost everyone in the place, conversing and complimenting and such. Except when he came to one man, he felt reservation, and he thought that he wouldn't talk to this man because he had already talked to everyone else in the place and was tired. A couple minutes later he was thinking about why he didn't make the contact, and resolved again to talk to the man. So he talked to him, and it was exactly this man, and no one else that day, that was baptized after that. Because the spirit won't make you afraid, it will be the spirit telling you to open your mouth, not to shut it. So basically we have been trying to do the same thing, and using this high-tech technique we have met in the last week our two most promising investigators as of yet.
Tell Grandma and and Aunt Jan that we are thinking of them and praying for them. Wish Emily good luck for me. And good luck dad on preparing your talk for sunday. I am glad everyone liked the shirts. You should send me a picture with all of you wearing the shirts, I think that would be cool. I tried to pick out ones that I thought each person would like. I am sure Elder Helamã will like the peanut m&ms. And I am sure I would like the next package that you guys send as well. Anyway.
Things are going well here. I will celebrate 7 months on the mission this week. So that is exciting. Time is passing quickly. Right now I have about the same time left as Whitney had when she started her mission. Only a year and a half left. I am sure it will pass quickly too. I will talk to you guys next week.
Love,
Elder Todd
March 2, 2009
Dear Family,
Don't worry Mom, your letter got here on time. It is good that you guys have to have an investigator at dinner. Let me know how the dinner goes. It is quite a coincidence that this past sunday's fast in our ward, Rio Tavares, was devoted to missionary work. And after church we had a meeting for all the priesthood and auxiliary leaders, and a couple of other people too, about missionary work. So we, the missionaries and our ward mission leader, gave a message and proposed a ward mission plan along with setting goals for the ward including goals for how many baptisms per month, other things like that. Our ward mission leader is a really cool guy, Jullyan, recently returned from a mission in Recife, and we have already got some good plans. We left a message about "small and simple things" that the ward can do to make a big difference in the progress of the missionary work. We used a video from the San Jose California Mission (I think) called small and simple things... that you guys can probably look up on the internet. Then we all broke our fast and ate lunch in the church that one of the members prepared, so everone was happy.
And to answer your question, Mom, I haven't heard any news about Mexico here. So I have no idea about what's going on here. A little more about my companion, he is from Belo Horizonte, which is in Minas, he has one year and one month in the mission, he has two brothers, one of which served a mission already, and he likes to play soccer and draw. I am helping or teaching him to draw a couple things. He also likes to play with the Rubik's cube, it is surprising how popular the cube is with the missionaries. His record is 52 seconds. So far my record is 2 minutes and 48 seconds. But I just learned how a little while ago. I shared some of my candies with Elder Helamã, he likes fruit by the foot and beef jerky, and says he likes peanut m&ms a lot, like dad. So anyway, life is good. We have a zone conference tomorrow with Presidente Queiroz, so that should be good. I think that is about it. Thanks for the letter, I will talk to you guys later.
Love,
Elder Todd
Don't worry Mom, your letter got here on time. It is good that you guys have to have an investigator at dinner. Let me know how the dinner goes. It is quite a coincidence that this past sunday's fast in our ward, Rio Tavares, was devoted to missionary work. And after church we had a meeting for all the priesthood and auxiliary leaders, and a couple of other people too, about missionary work. So we, the missionaries and our ward mission leader, gave a message and proposed a ward mission plan along with setting goals for the ward including goals for how many baptisms per month, other things like that. Our ward mission leader is a really cool guy, Jullyan, recently returned from a mission in Recife, and we have already got some good plans. We left a message about "small and simple things" that the ward can do to make a big difference in the progress of the missionary work. We used a video from the San Jose California Mission (I think) called small and simple things... that you guys can probably look up on the internet. Then we all broke our fast and ate lunch in the church that one of the members prepared, so everone was happy.
And to answer your question, Mom, I haven't heard any news about Mexico here. So I have no idea about what's going on here. A little more about my companion, he is from Belo Horizonte, which is in Minas, he has one year and one month in the mission, he has two brothers, one of which served a mission already, and he likes to play soccer and draw. I am helping or teaching him to draw a couple things. He also likes to play with the Rubik's cube, it is surprising how popular the cube is with the missionaries. His record is 52 seconds. So far my record is 2 minutes and 48 seconds. But I just learned how a little while ago. I shared some of my candies with Elder Helamã, he likes fruit by the foot and beef jerky, and says he likes peanut m&ms a lot, like dad. So anyway, life is good. We have a zone conference tomorrow with Presidente Queiroz, so that should be good. I think that is about it. Thanks for the letter, I will talk to you guys later.
Love,
Elder Todd
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