Voice Recording from 7/1/2013

Hello Family!  It is the first of July, 2013. Wow!  We are already into July.  This will be the third July that I am here, in Brazil… WOOT!  Yes, so I hope everything is going well with you guys, I am doing well, doing good.  I am still doing exercises.  Even with all the time I have on the mission and stuff, so its helping me out, its blessing me to feel better.  I feel nice and good right now on P Day morning. 

This week was a really good week, let me think…  So, we were going to have interviews with my mission president, right?  We were going to have them on Tuesday.  But then, they ended up not happening.  And he ended up rescheduling them for Friday, cause he is really busy.  Its his last week on the mission.  But, on Friday, at 6:00 in the morning, he called me.  He was like, “hey, something came up.  I can’t come up and do interviews with your zone.  And, because of the time left, I won’t be able to reschedule, but, I am really busy and stuff, so I am sorry.”  And so, we were the only zone in the mission not to get interviewed by president at the very end.  I didn’t get to talk to him before the end of the mission.  Or, before he ended his mission.  The zone conference we had two weeks ago, I didn’t talk to him because it was really rushed.  And, he was like, ‘no we will just talk at interviews.’  He said that to everyone, he was like, ‘go to your bus, go home, keep working, and we will talk in interviews.’  So,  that’s what we did.  Do I never really got to talk to him again.  He left yesterday… he left today.  His last day was yesterday.  So, we officially have a new mission president.  I don’t know him, but we have a leaders council tomorrow, already.  So, today we are going to go to Londrina, and tomorrow we are going to get to know him.  Should be pretty cool.   President Tavarez was my mission president for 23 months.  So, I am going to miss him a lot.  And, I’m going to have this new one for 2 (months), so that should be pretty interesting, I guess.  So, that happened,… or didn’t happen, per se.

But, other than that, just a really good week.  Remember the other week I went to those four cities outside of Bauru and nothing really worked out, well, President Tavarez always said you don’t always see your fruits afterwards: not at the moment that you do things, right?  Well, that happened this week, I got to go back there and do lots of interviews in the towns and stuff.  So, that was really nice.

Our Zone is doing really well.   This month of June has ended, and we are pretty happy with our work and what we have done.  I had a really, really, spiritual interview on Saturday.  As of right now, it’s the most spiritual interview I have had on my mission.  It was a lady in a different ward.  The ward is called Independence, and her name is Eiada.  And, she had been going to church since 1989.  But, she never got baptized, she never wanted to get baptized, like, she knows the church is true, but she never wanted to get baptized.  She is, delaying it I guess, or whatever.  Her kids got baptized back in 1989, so they’re, like, 20 now.  Or, they are, like, 28 now.  They have been baptized for 20 years.  She just never got baptized.  And so, the Elders, they found her, at her house and everything, and they started teaching her.  Then, so, they started teaching her for a little bit, cause she was already going to church for a while, but they thought they would give it another try.  So they taught her this last week, and then, they earmarked an interview with her for Saturday.  They were like, ‘just talk with the missionary, we will see how you are feeling and everything.’ So, I got there, and I was talking with her, and she really didn’t want to do anything with it.  She was like, ‘yeah, I have been going to church since 1989.  But, I don’t want the responsibility of calling, or I don’t know if I am going to be able to ----- the commitments… we talked about a lot of stuff.  And, I tried reading scriptures and stuff, but it didn’t really help.  Its one of those classic stories where you learn you can’t really do anything by yourself.  So, I tried to share scriptures, and tried to explain a little bit, and then we started talking about prayer.  And so, for five minutes, it was just like, me asking her, ‘if you were going to open your heart to the Lord right now, would you do it to receive an answer about being baptized?’ And all this kind of stuff.  These were questions to set up the prayer, so she knew what kind of prayer she would be saying.  So, after five minutes, I asked her, “will you pray right now to know if you need to be baptized tomorrow?”  The Spirit was already really strong.  So, she was like, ‘yeah!’  And so, she prayed, and she asked.  And, after she asked, we just kind of sat there in silence, we just felt the Spirit.  We sat there in silence for about two minutes.  But, two minutes of silence, when you are doing interviews is a long time, right?  If feels longer.  And, I was feeling the spirit really well.  I didn’t even want to put my head up, cause I didn’t want to ruin anything.  But, she wasn’t saying anything, and after two minutes, she looked up at me.  She was crying and everything.  All I said was “Ta boung?”  In Portuguese it means, “All right?”  You okay?  And, she just put her head down again.  Looked around, kept quiet a little bit more, then she looked at me.  She was like, after a few minutes, she said, “what time is the baptism going to be tomorrow?”  And, when she said that, I was just like, Woa!  We both got really happy.  I testified to her that I knew it was the Spirit and everything, and she knew.  So, she ended up getting baptized yesterday.  And, that was one of the best interviews I ever had.  I am never going to forget that experience it was really cool.    And, I got to go to her baptism too, which is cool, so see her get baptized.  I didn’t teach her anything, but it was a good lesson how the Spirit is really the one that’s going to take over.

So, other than that, this is the last week of my companion on the mission, this transfers.  So, certainly I am going to get another companion on my mission for this transfer.  Yea, we are getting along fine.  There are not problems in how we are getting along.  But, its going to be exciting.  I am excited to see my friends at the leadership council.  I am excited to see you guys here in 7 weeks, although I won’t be trunky, but….just stating fact. 

Mom, I was actually going to ask you for some favors in regards to college.  I don’t want to be lost when I go back to college.  What President has always told me is that you are going to have to deal with some things at the end of your mission.  There’s no getting around it.  And, I need to know my class schedule.  Like, what class I have on what days, and what times.   Just so I can get mentally prepared, you know.  I am going to plan really well, like I have been planning on my mission.  I am going to plan when I am going to do stuff, so I need to know the schedule.  Also, I am pretty sure there’s a way to find a list of textbooks that you need, and I was going to ask if maybe you could get a little head-start on that.   Cause I know that on the internet and stuff, with some of the textbooks, there’s ways to get them really, really cheaply.  I won’t have the time to search on the internet, to try to find cheap books to buy on the internet cause I will only have ten days before school starts.  Which would already be shipping.  So, I was just going to ask you to see what books I needed, and see if you could find any really cheap books.  There’s a missionary who is living with me, his name is Elder Porter, and he is going to end his mission the same time as me, and he is going to BYU.  And, he said his sister is helping him out, I think its his sister, and I think he said he found some books for really cheap.  And, that would probably be a good thing, just cause, I don’t want to get lost, I don’t want to feel like I am behind when I get home, I want to feel like its already good to go, you know?  So, please send me a schedule, look into those textbooks if you can. 

Other than that, everything is basically good, in regards to things after the mission.  I don’t really need to buy any new clothes.  I don’t really need to buy any new garments either, cause I have, like, 8 new pairs waiting for me that I haven’t opened yet.  I will just need some socks.  Some normal people socks.  Maybe a pair of jeans, but I think I have two in the house.  I don’t think I need to buy anything, except for, like, school supplies.  I’m going to try to go as cheap as possible.  I am not really sure how I’m going to live, in regards to what I am going to eat and stuff, but we can go over that too.  The message I want to get across is, even though I don’t think about it outside of PDay, we need to start thinking about it: especially on PDay.  Because, we need to make preparations and everything.  So, If you could just help me out with that, that would be great.  I just need the help right now, without access to anything. 

We watched that leadership transmission last night, that happened a week ago, and I really liked it a lot.  I am already as excited as I have ever been to do missionary work, there is no doubting that.  But the transmission, what it did for me, is, it prepared me to be a member missionary after I get home. I am really learning a lot, through experiences good and bad, and I liked that training how I am really going to need to have my family really dedicated to missionary work.  So, it really helped me to have a good vision of what I have to be, or what I have to do when I get home.  What I have to help my kids become and stuff, and be able to really help the missionary work grow. 

Yeah, that’s basically it.  Just want to tell you guys that I miss you guys, hope things are going well.  I hope Joseph and Alayna are doing great.  Desmond, my boy!  Not my boy, but you know what I mean… figuratively .

Its winter here right now, but that means its, like, 70 degrees.  So, yes, that’s mildly interesting.  My friend, Elder Porter says, “Hi!” He’s from Fargo, North Dakota.  Yea, so cool.  That’s about it, I will talk to you guys next week, bye!