I really hope I don´t get transferred on Wednesday because I like it here a lot. It is very easy to work with the ward leaders here. We also have gotten to know so many great people here- members, non-members, and investigators. The people here are super nice to us. For example, we have a dinner at someone´s house almost every night. We had a good number of investigators at church yesterday- 5. We have started to work with a part-member family with 6 kids, 2 of which aren´t baptized yet. The mom also isn't a member. One of the daughters is 9 and has only been to church a few times before. But she is excited about going now, and she went with a non-member friend to a primary activity and to church the next day. We will try to baptize her soon.
Our bishop is great and he always makes visits with us when we ask him to.

Last night we found out that Elder Harris is the new exec. secretary of the mission, so he left us this morning! Elder Wilson and I also went to Deybron´s shop this morning. I´m excited for this next transfer because we already have a couple of baptisms lined up.

We were thinking about going to the cashew tree today, but then elder Harris had to leave. A couple weeks ago we asked president if we could go to one of the old forts on the beach, but he said no. But I don´t mind spending most p-days at home because It´s nice to have a rest from walking around all week!

Well internet time is running out, so I´ll end the email for this week.

Love, Elder Church

Cidade do Sol: Week 11

Dear Mom,

I really love you and I miss you a lot. I wish I could give you a hug. I missed being at home this conference weekend. I was happy to read in your update from home that every one of the kids is doing well and is happy! I was really surprised too when Alyssa wrote me and told me that she is going to start on her mission papers. I am also really impressed with Grant and that he scored well on the ACT.

Yes, I do remember that promise in my setting apart blessing and I think about it quite often. But thanks for reminding me about it. I need to have more faith and work harder so that I can fulfill that promise. One of the hard parts is that I live with two Americans who are content with speaking english all the time. I can´t complain though because I love them and we have lots of fun, but I need to make sure I´m working hard on my goal.

Here´s a little update on my week and some answers to your questions:

Easter is a pretty major holiday here. The whole weekend is their holiday. They sell lots of chocolate eggs in the stores. They also had a live play in our neighborhood about the life of christ. My companion and I actually went to see part of it from a distance. They also have a tradition to eat fish instead of meat during the week. Before I found out I was wondering why everyone was buying fish in the market. I really enjoyed conference last weekend. To me, General Conferences are even better on the mission and I look forward to them more. I am anxious to read some of the talks again because it wasn´t possible to take everything in at once. 

I really liked Elder Bednar´s talk and I am always impressed by the way he organizes and delivers his messages. I´ve also noticed that he usually mentions that he prays the spirit can be with him while he talks, and it really works.  I also really liked Elder Ringwood´s talk.

We had an american room again to watch general conference. We had lots of fun being around each other. There are 9 americans in our zone. Conference is broadcast at the stake centers and I think some members watch it at home too.  Yes, Elder Soares is my president´s cousin. I wish I could have heard his talk in portuguese, but I was in the english room so I just heard the translation.

Most missionaries do keep good records in the area book. Ever since my 2nd transfer I´ve always strived to update ours as much as I can. I was happy to find out that some missionaries in one of my last areas have been using our records. But my current area doesn´t have a whole lot of records.

We do our best to never let arguments happen because we know that they never go anywhere. Most of the people we talk to are friendly though. Lost of times, when we do talk to a religious person though (usually from the Assembly of God, the biggest church here), they like talking lots about what they believe, and sometimes basically preach us a sermon, but they don´t let us talk much or show much interest in anything we have to say.

No, the number of missionaries has stayed about the same, and next transfer I heard it will decrease a little bit. We don´t have any senior couples.

The work has been going a little bit slowly here lately and I´ll admit that our companionship should be working harder. My companion has lots of time in this area and he seems to be a little tired of being here. If it were up to me, we would be working differently, but I have learned that the most important thing I need to do is be unified with him. But I do enjoy being his companion and we have a lot of fun together.

The weather seems to have heated back up here, so it´s back to the good old sunny days, haha. But everything´s going well out here.

Talk to you next week!

Elder Church

Cidade do Sol: Week 10

We had a baptism on Saturday! It was that same lady that I mentioned last week. Her son was able to baptize her.

Let me answer some of your questions. I like getting questions by the way.

How was your mission conference last week?

Really well! It was good seeing old companions or friends and talking to missionaries that were in one of my last areas. The president and his wife gave a lot of training, and at the end the missionaries who are leaving gave their last testimonies. I´ll send some pictures. 

Did it last for a whole day?  

We had to get up at about 4:30 am to be able to get there on time, and then we got home at about 5pm.

Do you have zone conferences every few weeks?

This zone conference was a conference with 5 zones- all of the missionaries in the capital. There´s also a conference with the 3 zones in the interior. These conferences happen about once every 3 or 4 months. But we also have zone meetings once a month with just our zone (22 missionaries).

You mentioned that you showed a Mormon Message video to the ward mission leader.  In English, or is that available with Portuguese subtitles? 

No, almost all of the mormon message videos are available in portuguese audio.

 Do you have a device that can show videos, or did you use his computer or something?  we do have a portable dvd player in our house that´s mainly used when a missionary is being trained and needs to watch the district or other videos. But we showed it on his tv.

Do most people have computers?  TVs?  What about cell phones?  Does your companionship have a cell phone?

Everyone has cellphones- most people have smartphones. But it´s rare to see the iphone here because it´s really expensive. They have all of the nice electronics available here, but they´re just all a lot more expensive than in the US. It´s not rare for people to have a tv as nice or nicer than ours though. Yes every companionship has a really basic cell phone. The only hard thing is that our minutes are limited and we often run out at the end of the month. Using cell phones is more complicated here because there are several different carriers and it´s more expensive to call to certain ones than to others. You have to check what carrier the other person has. It´s different than in the US where almost everything is unlimited.

So, Evan, how are you doing? Are you happy? Healthy?  Fluent?

I´m great because I really like this area and this ward and the missionaries I live with. I´m happy about the progress of our recent converts. Deybron and Nábila have been progressing very quickly. They are each doing a lot in their callings. 

The only times I´ve gotten sick on the mission have been with a cold, so no big deal. I´ve been blessed in that way. 

The language is going well. If you say fluent is saying and understanding everything I need to, then yes I am, but I am still working hard to speak more like a native.

and dad´s questions:

Have you found success sharing the progress form with Auxiliary leaders? 

Yes I´ve been happy to see that they are using them and that they ask about people on the lists that they don´t know.

Do you see non-members attend baptisms? Not very often. we should do a better job at inviting friends and family of the person and planning the baptismal service well. 

Is the Church well known in your area? Yes it is, most people have heard of it and lots of people know where it is. But it is very rare to find someone who actually knows something about the doctrine. People have just heard about the church of the mormons and lots of them have even heard rumors or half-truths. A lot of people think at first that we don´t use the bible or that our bible is different- the bible of the mormons.

Yep, 9 months is a lot of time! There is lots of work to be done. That´s really great to hear about the MLS missionaries. I have learned more about MLS on my mission and I wish I could work with it. That is exciting.

I´m amazed about the growth of the church in Brazil too. I´m enjoying working in this ward because the leadership is young and motivated. The new bishop is great and has been dedicating lots of his time to his calling and helping us. He is only 26 and he didn´t serve a mission so it´s not like he´s the most experienced either. I see our ward as being well organized and run, but it´s still quite a bit different from our ward. Even people from São Paulo that visit here say the church is more organized there. Yesterday I was able to confirm someone for the first time in my life. That was a good experience.

Well there´s a little weekly update and an answer to your questions. Have a great week!

Love you,

Elder Church

our baptism and the baptisms of the extremoz elders.

Romilda and her son

the rest are pictures from the ride home from the zone conference and pictures of us throwing around a football at the church.

Elder Dos Anjos and I - one of the missionaries that I look up to the most. He is going home in a couple weeks

Cidade do Sol: Week 9

Death isn´t such a bad thing

In the last update I sent I mentioned the death that happened in the ward. This week we passed by a few times in their house and left a message with their family on one of the days. We also showed the dad that mormon message video about the man whose family died in a drunk driver car accident and who forgave the driver. The video really touched him because it was a similar situation to his. He has already decided to go the house of the guy who hit his son and forgive him. Also, his wife who had been inactive from the church for several years went back to church on Sunday!

There is also a lady in the ward (she´s not a member but her son is) whose sister died a couple weeks ago. It was really hard on her and she went to be with her family (who are all members) in fortaleza for a week. But she came back and went to church on sunday. We went and visited her house last night and she told us that she really wants to be baptized! She said missionaries have worked with her in the past and even set a baptismal date, but things had come up or she had traveled so it didn´t happen yet. But now it will!

So death is a sad thing but it sure does a lot of good sometimes, haha.

Other than that it´s still been raining lots this week. I really have been liking our new bishop. He has been running the most effective ward council meetings that I´ve ever seen on my mission. He is also very willing to help all three of the sets of missionaries in our ward by making visits with us.

Oh yeah, this week there were also some pretty big protests in our area. On Tuesday there were people that burned buses and other crazy things right here in Natal. Some people were saying it was a big deal, but it was only a one-day thing and we weren´t affected by it.

We have a conference tomorrow with half of our mission so I´m excited for that! 

Have a great week. Love you all,

Elder Church

Cidade do Sol: Week 8

We had a couple of obstacles to the work this week, but it still ended up being a good one. I started feeling sick with a cold and headache earlier in the week, but luckily I was able to work just fine, and it passed quickly anyway. But then my companion got sick and it was worse so we had to stay home for a day. There was also a death of someone in the ward this week which was really sad. It was the ward mission leader´s 25-year-old son. The son was inactive, and in fact the dad was the only active one in the family, but we had talked to him several times when we were over at their house. He died in a motorcycle accident.

But one of the awesome things that happened this week was our house full of americans. Elder Gomes dos Santos did a division with another set of missionaries, sending another american here for a few days. It was a blast! Two of them are from utah- Beaver and Brigham city, and Elder Wilson is from florida like i´ve said before. Elder Wilson had gotten a huge package from his mom with lots of american treats, and so we even made mac and cheese that night, something that doesn´t exist here, haha.

Sometimes I get a little discouraged feeling like no one here wants to listen because they already have ´their religion´. One of the big churches here is called the Assembly of God and everyone that church has a pretty hard head and are convinced that their church is right. Some religions are at least more humble and willing to listen. And of course there are lots of people who don´t have a religion or who don´t practice. But this week I was excited to meet two families who accepted the restoration message. The only thing is, they live in the area of the other two elders. But that made me happy to realize that there are lots of people out here who are looking for the truth but just don´t know where to find it (and are humble enough to accept it).

Well that´s a little about my week! Our ward is continuing to do really well and have high attendance. It is awesome to see the recent converts in the ward progressing so quickly. We just need to start working harder to be able to find baptisms.

Have a great week,

Elder Church

Cidade do Sol: Week 7

Glad to hear that everyone´s doing well! This week the weather has been nice for a change. It´s rained almost every day this week and has been pretty cloudy. My companion stayed for another transfer and no one in our house of 4 was moved. He was really surprised when he stayed because our mission president almost never leaves people in one area for more than 4 transfers. Our house is a lot of fun though. We play chess sometimes and other games. We have also been making lots of brownies lately because we found boxes of brownie mix in one of the supermarkets.


I like being in this ward a lot because the leadership is young, motivated, and energetic. Elder Wilson and I tried to find a lot of new people to teach this week. Most of the contacting we do is just with people walking on the streets, but this week we decided to knock on a couple of doors. The first two that we tried ended up going really well, so we might start doing that some more! We had a good lesson of the restoration with one of the families that we found, but then they ended up not wanting to go to church, so I don´t know if they have much potential. But I´m excited to keep working hard in these next few weeks and finding lots of new people.


To answer your questions, Dad:
I haven´t yet heard a returned missionary in sacrament meeting. Once I did go to one homecoming party during the week, but I was transferred before sunday. In this ward there are currently 4 missionaries serving in the field- 2 in Brazil and 2 in south american countries. I have met very few members here that have been to the US. I think most people that have the means to travel there just go there to live. I´ve met several people that have friends or family that live in Ogden/Layton utah area. I´ve heard a ward choir sing but only at a stake conference. It´s rare to see special musical numbers in sacrament meeting. There was a primary christmas program in my last area though.


In this area I have really liked attending ward council. We have a brief ward council meeting every sunday shortly after sacrament meeting. This week I had an idea come to me to work with the ward council that felt like a prompting from the spirit. Recently, the mission president gave us a form to follow up with all of our recent converts. We are instructed to carry it around with us and to fill it out for recent converts within the last year. I had the idea to fill out a form for every organization with a list of the converts in their group. Sometimes it happens that someone is baptized and the leader of their organization doesn´t even know about it, and then the person stops going to church. It ended up fitting in well with the ward council meeting and with the new bishop´s vision. We gave out a filled-out sheet to every organization leader and I think it will help them out in their callings. I´ll send you a copy of the form that we use.


Wow, general conference is coming up soon and so is the next Skype call. That´s pretty exciting for me.


Have a great week!


Evan

Cidade do Sol: week 6

açai

The four missionaries in our house, and one of the youth from the ward

Well i´m finishing up this first transfer here in Cidade do Sol and I hope that I can stay for another! This week we had 2 birthdays in our house: Mine and Elder Harris´. He was actually born on february 29th so we celebrated on the 28th! Not that we actually celebrated for either of them though. They were just normal days. We did go out for açaí one night though which was fun. 

Yesterday was exciting because Deybron and Nabila got callings in the ward! They had an interview with the bishop earlier in the week and I was impressed that he already had callings for them. Nabila was called to be one of the relief society instructers and Deybron to be the young men´s secretary. All 6 elders also had lunch at their house yesterday. 

I´ll send pictures!

Love you,

Elder Church