Today, I was at work on my computer when Luke's email came through. I immediately sent the following to see if Luke was at the other end:
Dad: Are you still there, boy?
Luke: Yep. I am
Dad: Just saw your email... I’m in the office at my computer and thought I could catch you to say Hello. Hope that doesn’t violate any mission rules. Hope you are doing well. The day is bright, here, and has cooled considerably. I believe your mate Andy Magleby will be back in town, tonight. Love you, Dad
Luke: Ha ha, thanks Dad. Yeah, we were just checking our references. I've gotta head out now, but thanks for the message. Say hi to Andy for me when you see him. -Luke
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Red Hot Shower Heads
Good to here them Cougars are doing nice and ranked. Right now I´m working with Elder Madsen from the other ward. He´s from Ogden, and a Ute fan so he likes to tell me how ugly my “Y” pillow cases are that Mom sent me. We´ll see how ugly they are come December I guess...
Many ups and downs this week. As usual, it rained pretty hard this past week, and investigators made it to church with varying degrees of difficulty. Our Zone Leaders had a meeting with the Stake President yesterday, and apparently they´ll be dividing my area and putting another companionship here soon. That´ll be helpful, as on our area map on our wall in our house, we´ve divided the area into 7 chunks to help us remember to plan accordingly. (such as not marking one appointment in area 1 and another in area 7, which are about 1hr 30 min apart by foot...).
People who live far out sometimes have a hard time motivating themselves to get up and to church on time. We´re thinking on photocopying that article that they had in the Liahona a couple months back about that Brazilian guy who would walk 25 miles every week to get to church. Maybe that´ll give ém some motivation...
We held a screening of The Testaments for our investigators, and it helped them to realize more that the Book of Mormon was a real thing. Everybody had many questions, including how the Nephites knew about Jerusalem and had the book of Isaiah and stuff like that. We got to bust out 1st Nephi and explain, and now they´re gonna start reading the book from the beginning. Marribe, who has her baptism marked for next week, reads tons and might finish before the baptismal date.
As for misellaneous (I really can´t spell, and this Microsoft word program that I´m using doesn´t speak English, so it can´t help me) items, our shower head is broken, (again) but this time was the coolest. I was showering and the heating part wasn´t working, so I tapped it a few times and then it turned on. But, when I finished showering, the heating part refused to turn off. Then the top plastic part started turning bright red, (and I mean really red, like molten lava colored) something that I didn´t know plastic could do. Thinking quickly, (and maybe not too intelligently) I started whacking the shower head with my hand. (the bottom part that wasn´t red) Long story short, I avoided any burns and managed to save the shower head from exploding. On the bad side, I´m back to taking a nice icy shower every day.
Welp, sáll from me.
-Lukie
Many ups and downs this week. As usual, it rained pretty hard this past week, and investigators made it to church with varying degrees of difficulty. Our Zone Leaders had a meeting with the Stake President yesterday, and apparently they´ll be dividing my area and putting another companionship here soon. That´ll be helpful, as on our area map on our wall in our house, we´ve divided the area into 7 chunks to help us remember to plan accordingly. (such as not marking one appointment in area 1 and another in area 7, which are about 1hr 30 min apart by foot...).
People who live far out sometimes have a hard time motivating themselves to get up and to church on time. We´re thinking on photocopying that article that they had in the Liahona a couple months back about that Brazilian guy who would walk 25 miles every week to get to church. Maybe that´ll give ém some motivation...
We held a screening of The Testaments for our investigators, and it helped them to realize more that the Book of Mormon was a real thing. Everybody had many questions, including how the Nephites knew about Jerusalem and had the book of Isaiah and stuff like that. We got to bust out 1st Nephi and explain, and now they´re gonna start reading the book from the beginning. Marribe, who has her baptism marked for next week, reads tons and might finish before the baptismal date.
As for misellaneous (I really can´t spell, and this Microsoft word program that I´m using doesn´t speak English, so it can´t help me) items, our shower head is broken, (again) but this time was the coolest. I was showering and the heating part wasn´t working, so I tapped it a few times and then it turned on. But, when I finished showering, the heating part refused to turn off. Then the top plastic part started turning bright red, (and I mean really red, like molten lava colored) something that I didn´t know plastic could do. Thinking quickly, (and maybe not too intelligently) I started whacking the shower head with my hand. (the bottom part that wasn´t red) Long story short, I avoided any burns and managed to save the shower head from exploding. On the bad side, I´m back to taking a nice icy shower every day.
Welp, sáll from me.
-Lukie
Friday, August 29, 2008
A Visit to the Clinic.
Well, one highlight of the week was yesterday. We had interviews with Pres. Leal last week, and Sis. Leal informed us that we all had to go get a shot for some disease that I´m not sure what it is in English, but it sounds like Rubella (German measles, right?). Anyway, I thought that I had gotten that shot, but just to be safe we all headed over to the local clinic. And you know how much I love shots, (it ranks up there with my other two passions in life: Death metal and films based on Jane Austen novels. Whoopee!). Anyway, the nurse told me I didn´t need to tremble so much while the shot was happening. In any case, I´m now Rubella free.
This week was a week of cutting those investigators who weren´t progressing. We took a look at all those we were visiting and working with, only to find that we were very low in the department of progressing investigators. So it was back to some long hours in the streets and at the doors finding newbies. It was great, and now we´re currently teaching a couple of Catholics, some people from the Assembly of God Church, a girl from the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and a boyfriend-girlfriend couple from a church called Sara Our Earth. It´s an interesting crowd...
We held a musical fireside this last week. It was kind of a musical/kinda theatre type thing that was written by some convert to the church about his experience being converted. It´s called "The Pursuit of Happiness" (minus Will Smith). I was the Pianist for the thingy, and we managed to get most of all three wards that are here in Ponta Porâ to come, so there was a good crowd. We didn´t pick up many new investigators unfortunately, but those we did get as new references are good.
On a closing note, we had a really excellent mini-mission conference with Pres. Leal. Too much to go into detail right now, but I learned a lot about following the Spirit. I´m writing it in my journal, and we´ll see what you guys think in a year or so.
sáll for this week. Until next.
Excelcior!
-Luke
This week was a week of cutting those investigators who weren´t progressing. We took a look at all those we were visiting and working with, only to find that we were very low in the department of progressing investigators. So it was back to some long hours in the streets and at the doors finding newbies. It was great, and now we´re currently teaching a couple of Catholics, some people from the Assembly of God Church, a girl from the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and a boyfriend-girlfriend couple from a church called Sara Our Earth. It´s an interesting crowd...
We held a musical fireside this last week. It was kind of a musical/kinda theatre type thing that was written by some convert to the church about his experience being converted. It´s called "The Pursuit of Happiness" (minus Will Smith). I was the Pianist for the thingy, and we managed to get most of all three wards that are here in Ponta Porâ to come, so there was a good crowd. We didn´t pick up many new investigators unfortunately, but those we did get as new references are good.
On a closing note, we had a really excellent mini-mission conference with Pres. Leal. Too much to go into detail right now, but I learned a lot about following the Spirit. I´m writing it in my journal, and we´ll see what you guys think in a year or so.
sáll for this week. Until next.
Excelcior!
-Luke
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Rain and Goats
So your off to Heritage Hall (BYU Dorms), eh Levi? Sweet. I hope that your taking mission prep next semester and not this one, because I remember very little since I took it during fall semester. (One of the only things I do remember is that the teacher divided us up into companionships to have a more mission-like experience, but since there were an uneven number of guys and girls, I ended up with a girl companion for the semester. Kind of ironic, I think. The only thing I do remember about the mission prep class is that it's nothing like a mission.) Good luck with the dorm, although I´m pretty sure they have microwaves there for you already. I never had to bring one. A toaster might be a better option.
Oh yeah, and congrats to Mat6t on his mission call. I´d love to be at the farewell but I´ll be outta town. I´m sending Levi to represent me at your chapel.
So the buzz around the town is that USA and Brazil are gonna go at it in soccer at the Olympic's. As much as I like my area, I gotta lend support to me home country. USA!
This P-day looks to be a fairly boring one, as Pres. And Sis. Leal are coming to town tomorrow to do some interviews and house checks, so every things gotta be spick and span. We did some cleaning this morning already, and I managed to discover the biggest spider I´ve seen here in the country yet. It was hiding behind our outside sink where we wash clothes. Big and nasty with a tinge of electric blue. I took a picture so I´ll send it home in a bit.
Also this week, it rained about 5 days out of the week, which greatly hampered our street contacting work. On Thursday it rained incredibly hard for about 4 hours, (like monsoon, rain-forest style) and we wound up hiding in different stores seeing if we could find some people to talk to.
We found some more people to teach this week. We were knocking doors for about an hour or so, (an activity which is probably the hardest that I know of on the mission. I can tell that Elder D. doesn´t like it too much, so I try to act cheerful as we get various forms of rejection.) and found a whole street that was disinterested in the message. One older guy told us that he was born Catholic, will die Catholic, and will be resurrected Catholic, and that he had no time for us. But we did find a brother and a sister, (about 17 and 15 years old I would guess) who we taught the first lesson two. It was a good lesson, and the girl was eager to give the prayer at the end of the lesson. (A rare thing in my experience. Most people the first time around are too shy to pray in public.) We got to teach a good part at the end of the lesson as to the true nature of the Godhead, (they´re from a church that teaches the three-beings-in-one thing) We also got to teach them the importance of saying prayers to God.
Another guy we found, named Daniel, about 38 yrs. Old or so, was sitting on a bench outside his house. We were in the poorer part of my area, (dirt roads, houses of wood or just brick, etc.) and we started a conversation with him and his friend. Turns out that Daniel´s house just burned down about a week ago, and he´s living in a borrowed house with his family. We´re going by on Saturday to help him as he rebuilds his new house. And although we don´t know much about housebuilding, I take confidence in the fact that:
#1: The Lord will help us serve him, and
#2: This type of house you just stack the bricks and put the cement on with a trowel.
So how hard can it be, right? Hmmm… Maybe I better think more about #1…
On a final note, this week a saw a bunch of kids messing with a herd of goats this week, only to have the goats turn and chase the kids all the way to a bar that borders a church (very common here. I guess you get the opportunity to sin then worship or vice versa.) While not a very interesting story on paper, it was my favorite memory for the week to see a kid mortally afraid of a goat, yelling “If you kill me, I´ll kill you goat!”
Welp, I believe that´s all I have time for, so thanks again people.
Excelcior-Me
P.S.-I´d still like to receive a copy of the Magleby blog, if that´s still possible. [I forgot to cut and paste a copy of this into his last email. Sorry!]
Oh yeah, and congrats to Mat6t on his mission call. I´d love to be at the farewell but I´ll be outta town. I´m sending Levi to represent me at your chapel.
So the buzz around the town is that USA and Brazil are gonna go at it in soccer at the Olympic's. As much as I like my area, I gotta lend support to me home country. USA!
This P-day looks to be a fairly boring one, as Pres. And Sis. Leal are coming to town tomorrow to do some interviews and house checks, so every things gotta be spick and span. We did some cleaning this morning already, and I managed to discover the biggest spider I´ve seen here in the country yet. It was hiding behind our outside sink where we wash clothes. Big and nasty with a tinge of electric blue. I took a picture so I´ll send it home in a bit.
Also this week, it rained about 5 days out of the week, which greatly hampered our street contacting work. On Thursday it rained incredibly hard for about 4 hours, (like monsoon, rain-forest style) and we wound up hiding in different stores seeing if we could find some people to talk to.
We found some more people to teach this week. We were knocking doors for about an hour or so, (an activity which is probably the hardest that I know of on the mission. I can tell that Elder D. doesn´t like it too much, so I try to act cheerful as we get various forms of rejection.) and found a whole street that was disinterested in the message. One older guy told us that he was born Catholic, will die Catholic, and will be resurrected Catholic, and that he had no time for us. But we did find a brother and a sister, (about 17 and 15 years old I would guess) who we taught the first lesson two. It was a good lesson, and the girl was eager to give the prayer at the end of the lesson. (A rare thing in my experience. Most people the first time around are too shy to pray in public.) We got to teach a good part at the end of the lesson as to the true nature of the Godhead, (they´re from a church that teaches the three-beings-in-one thing) We also got to teach them the importance of saying prayers to God.
Another guy we found, named Daniel, about 38 yrs. Old or so, was sitting on a bench outside his house. We were in the poorer part of my area, (dirt roads, houses of wood or just brick, etc.) and we started a conversation with him and his friend. Turns out that Daniel´s house just burned down about a week ago, and he´s living in a borrowed house with his family. We´re going by on Saturday to help him as he rebuilds his new house. And although we don´t know much about housebuilding, I take confidence in the fact that:
#1: The Lord will help us serve him, and
#2: This type of house you just stack the bricks and put the cement on with a trowel.
So how hard can it be, right? Hmmm… Maybe I better think more about #1…
On a final note, this week a saw a bunch of kids messing with a herd of goats this week, only to have the goats turn and chase the kids all the way to a bar that borders a church (very common here. I guess you get the opportunity to sin then worship or vice versa.) While not a very interesting story on paper, it was my favorite memory for the week to see a kid mortally afraid of a goat, yelling “If you kill me, I´ll kill you goat!”
Welp, I believe that´s all I have time for, so thanks again people.
Excelcior-Me
P.S.-I´d still like to receive a copy of the Magleby blog, if that´s still possible. [I forgot to cut and paste a copy of this into his last email. Sorry!]
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Word of Wisdom at 10:15pm
So with the Olympics going on and such, I get to hear here and there about what´s going on. Heard all about Michael Phelps and his record breaking, and apparently New Zealand got slaughtered in soccer, which I heard about from a member in my ward who heard that Dad hails from that country.
This week, more snags as far as the word of wisdom goes. It´s funny, but basically everybody that we teach accepts everything until you get the coffee. I´d say with the vast majority of our investigators, the problems are the coffee, and getting up on time to go to church.
So yesterday we had a visit from the Zone Leaders, (Thanks grandma and grandpa for the letter! The Zone Leaders deliver them when they visit.) so I got to work with Elder F. Santos from the other area. He´s from Salvador, and a good guy, the only problem is that his accent and the way he speaks is a little hard for me to understand. I seriously haven´t had such a problem understanding someone since my first transfer with my trainer. But it went well and we managed to give a good lesson on the word of wisdom to Marribe and Nurian. Marribe is the one that already received an answer from her reading, but Nurian had some trouble accepting the part about the coffee. The cool part was that Marribe told Nurian how she got her own response/confirmation, which I thinked helped her a lot. I think that with her already having gotten a response, her testimony that she just barely received will help Nurian.
The only bad part of the night was that we missed our bus back to our house, and had to wait for the next one to pass. Arriving back in the house at 10:15 pm when the ZL´s come to town? Not the best thing to do…ha ha.
Well, that´s what I got time for this week. I gotta go mail some letters.
As always, hasta la vista until next time.
Excelcior!
-Me
Video of Luke and Elder J. (fmr. companion in Bauru)
Click on Play Button, below
This week, more snags as far as the word of wisdom goes. It´s funny, but basically everybody that we teach accepts everything until you get the coffee. I´d say with the vast majority of our investigators, the problems are the coffee, and getting up on time to go to church.
So yesterday we had a visit from the Zone Leaders, (Thanks grandma and grandpa for the letter! The Zone Leaders deliver them when they visit.) so I got to work with Elder F. Santos from the other area. He´s from Salvador, and a good guy, the only problem is that his accent and the way he speaks is a little hard for me to understand. I seriously haven´t had such a problem understanding someone since my first transfer with my trainer. But it went well and we managed to give a good lesson on the word of wisdom to Marribe and Nurian. Marribe is the one that already received an answer from her reading, but Nurian had some trouble accepting the part about the coffee. The cool part was that Marribe told Nurian how she got her own response/confirmation, which I thinked helped her a lot. I think that with her already having gotten a response, her testimony that she just barely received will help Nurian.
The only bad part of the night was that we missed our bus back to our house, and had to wait for the next one to pass. Arriving back in the house at 10:15 pm when the ZL´s come to town? Not the best thing to do…ha ha.
Well, that´s what I got time for this week. I gotta go mail some letters.
As always, hasta la vista until next time.
Excelcior!
-Me
Video of Luke and Elder J. (fmr. companion in Bauru)
Click on Play Button, below
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
I Like Alma
Great to here that Batman is awesome, Levi. As for me, I resisted the temptation to buy it bootlegged here (only 1 Brazilian Real!), as everything at the border on the Brazilian/Paruguayan side is dirt cheap or illegal or both. Instead, I picked up a nice pair of gloves and a beanie to sleep in. These days, it´s really freezing at night, and boiling hot during the day, so I sleep in my sweats and beanie during the night, and walk in the roads wishing that our mission let us use shorts and sandals. Such is the mission, I guess.
So Rob´s gonna be training Griffin Taylor? Is that what he was saying in his last blog? Há, that´s funny. Time flies. Man, congrats to him and good luck to them comrades. I wish we got to know about such things (transfers, etc...) so far ahead in the future.
So what a week it was. We´ve gotten new goals from the mission and now we´re trying to mark baptisms like crazy. We´re trying to move out of the phase where we have to visit with investigators for two transfers, and instead see if we can get them along faster. As always, the hardest part is getting people to come to church. With some of our investigators living about 45 minutes on foot from the chapel and Church starting at 8 am, many of our investigators are in sore need of rides. Unfortunately, the bishop this week gave the axé to our suggestion of organizing a system to have the members help out, so unfortunately we´re having to find other alternatives. We´re praying to find some way to help people get to the church...
On a better note, I had one of the better, if not best, experiences of my mission last night. We´re teaching two girls (named Marribe and Nuria. Two names I´ve never heard of in my life.) who are a reference from one of the girl ward missionaries. They´re progressing really well, and the only hold back that we have is that they travel a lot to do something (exactly what, I don´t know) most Sundays, and so are never around to come to church. But I guess that´s ending now, and Marribe can start coming to church. Nuria is her friend, and sometimes can´t be at the appointments because she works. So, most of the time we teach Marribe with one of the ward missionaries. Anyway, she accepted of invites to read and pray. The first time she was a little wary of what we were teaching, having been born Catholic and moved religions a couple of times. She´s been reading and praying, but hasn´t felt that she´s been getting a response. So the last visit, we emphasised the importance of the Book of Mórmon, and I marked the passage in Alma 32 where he talk about faith. So we got to our appointment last night, (a bit late because we had to find shelter from a Brazilian Rainstorm. It was a Monsoon in my book...) and she was way excited. She told us that she had received an answer, and that she felt like that chapter was speaking right at here. She said that it helped her understand that maybe her answer won´t come all at once, but will grow like the seed that Alma is talking about. We also marked her baptism for about two weeks in the future. (as she still needs to attend church twice) It was probably the highlight of the whole week, and me and Elder De Ângelo left pretty happy about that. It helped me realize more about the importance of morning study, as I never would have thought, (or rather, have had the opportunity to have the Spirit help me remember) that I had studied about that during this transfer.
Well, that´s it for me.
Thanks again kids.
-Me
So Rob´s gonna be training Griffin Taylor? Is that what he was saying in his last blog? Há, that´s funny. Time flies. Man, congrats to him and good luck to them comrades. I wish we got to know about such things (transfers, etc...) so far ahead in the future.
So what a week it was. We´ve gotten new goals from the mission and now we´re trying to mark baptisms like crazy. We´re trying to move out of the phase where we have to visit with investigators for two transfers, and instead see if we can get them along faster. As always, the hardest part is getting people to come to church. With some of our investigators living about 45 minutes on foot from the chapel and Church starting at 8 am, many of our investigators are in sore need of rides. Unfortunately, the bishop this week gave the axé to our suggestion of organizing a system to have the members help out, so unfortunately we´re having to find other alternatives. We´re praying to find some way to help people get to the church...
On a better note, I had one of the better, if not best, experiences of my mission last night. We´re teaching two girls (named Marribe and Nuria. Two names I´ve never heard of in my life.) who are a reference from one of the girl ward missionaries. They´re progressing really well, and the only hold back that we have is that they travel a lot to do something (exactly what, I don´t know) most Sundays, and so are never around to come to church. But I guess that´s ending now, and Marribe can start coming to church. Nuria is her friend, and sometimes can´t be at the appointments because she works. So, most of the time we teach Marribe with one of the ward missionaries. Anyway, she accepted of invites to read and pray. The first time she was a little wary of what we were teaching, having been born Catholic and moved religions a couple of times. She´s been reading and praying, but hasn´t felt that she´s been getting a response. So the last visit, we emphasised the importance of the Book of Mórmon, and I marked the passage in Alma 32 where he talk about faith. So we got to our appointment last night, (a bit late because we had to find shelter from a Brazilian Rainstorm. It was a Monsoon in my book...) and she was way excited. She told us that she had received an answer, and that she felt like that chapter was speaking right at here. She said that it helped her understand that maybe her answer won´t come all at once, but will grow like the seed that Alma is talking about. We also marked her baptism for about two weeks in the future. (as she still needs to attend church twice) It was probably the highlight of the whole week, and me and Elder De Ângelo left pretty happy about that. It helped me realize more about the importance of morning study, as I never would have thought, (or rather, have had the opportunity to have the Spirit help me remember) that I had studied about that during this transfer.
Well, that´s it for me.
Thanks again kids.
-Me
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