7-26-2010 Letter Home

I didn't look too closely at these pictures so some of them might be dorky, whatever. I got Elder Augosto to take pictures of me walking to the local supermarket today where we spent the afternoon. I wanted to take some pictures of me in the outdoors, ya know, because I have so few pictures of the streets of Ceara.

Let's see, we had a good week. Would ya know it, we had a miracle. Got a reference from a member for an inactive member that wants to return to the Church. Her name is Fatima and she is a local of Maranhão that moved back recently and after eight (more or less) years of inactivity she wants to start going to church again and she is really motivated. We befriended her and... whadya know, her two kids Erika (12) and Erik (10) want to be baptized next Saturday!! All this in just one week! She also has a daughter named Kelly (15) that has special needs, she just smiles and laughs and doesn't say too much. They went to ward activities and all of the meetings on Sunday and everything! What a miracle for us missionaries to behold! We are going to have a Family Home Evening there soon and we want to help them as much as we can to feel the power of the Gospel and help them befriend other members and not just us missionaries.

About our other investigators... we got a contact to Church, Arnoldo, who just heard part of the first lesson and said he wanted to make a visit there as soon as possible. Carol went to church as well, she's fifteen years old and she was taught by the missionaries three years ago, we found her by looking through the Area Book and she wants to give the Gospel another chance, but she has a lot of opposition from her family and has a boyfriend who doesn't like certain aspects of the Church, but she's a good soul and she is liking meeting with us and going to the Church meetings. We have a couple of families that are making progress as well...

So when we first arrived here in Mondubim, on the second night Elder Reis and I went to a Family Home Evening at a recent convert's house, an older woman who lives along in a big house. She said that she was hearing voices during the night and felt really scared. Right there in the Family Home Evening we decided to bless her house with the Priesthood. We all stood up, Elder Reis said the prayer, and we left it at that. When we went back the next week we saw a big difference in that older lady, she said that she stopped being scared of her house and that she was sleeping much better, that she no longer hears voices and sounds during the night! What a blessing for her and for us missionaries to see such a great proof of the power of the Priesthood! 

So whadya know, we made a contact with another family after all these events, and after the First Lesson we asked them if they had any questions and they asked us what we knew about houses being haunted, because they said that during the night there were sounds and things would break and stuff like that. Elder Reis and I knew exactly what we needed to do, so right then and there we stood up and blessed the house. We went back to teach this family last night and after a short lesson the mother made a sound as if she wanted to say something, Elder Reis asked "Do you have something you want to ask us?" She said "No, no, no, nothing." We felt there was something on her mind she didn't want to say and we pressed her again, "Are you sure about that Vilani?" "Well," she said, "This week the kids were at their cousin's house and I had to stay here alone for an entire week because I was studying for my test, and I was really frightened at nights, but I kept on remembering that prayer that you Elders gave and I trusted in it. And nothing happened, not one night! This house truly has been blessed and I believe we are being protected by that prayer." Then we bore our testimony about the Priesthood and about how the Gospel can protect more than just our homes, but our entire lives and eternal destinies and the Spirit was way strong. I think we are going to see a lot of success with Vilani and her family, which is a miracle because she said she used to be very hostile to the Church and used to believe the Book of Mormon was false (she has family members in the Church that she never got along with). What an awesome way to end this last week!

I could go on and on, we've seen a lot of little miracles here and there. I love being a missionary, this work is so great! Heavenly Father really helps us in return for us working in an oven every day. My parents sent me to Brazil skinny and white and I'll return home brown and chubby, hah. Just for weight comparison, I've put on two kilos since I've got here, which is very mild compared to some Elders (there are some in my group that have gained more than ten kilos... kilos are much more than pounds!)

Well, well, well, Chase is going to Paraguay! No way!  Do they have a CTM there or will he go to the one in Provo? We had a Paraguayan member in Veneza... he had a crazy accent in Portuguese I could not understand. I've heard good things about Paraguay from Brazilians, the Paulistas (of Sao Paulo) go there to vacation a lot.

I will continue this letter in another e-mail, I have only ten more minutes!

Woah!! That's crazy! My cousin has been married already that's nuts! The first of the grandchildren! Who is this Eric guy I don't even know him but I can't wait to get to know him! Where are they living?? How old is LoraLynn right now?  
 
Thanks for the kind words and council. I am praying for Kaitlin that she will enjoy high school! Tell her that I hope she loves it and tell her that her brothers are rooting for her! It's awesome that Lynsey is doing well in LA too, though its a bummer she's staying inside most of the time. Make it an experience Lyns, you're 17 years old!! I love you Mom, I love you Dad I hope things are going well. Connor, awesome that you are having the success you are having, I hope you are getting along with your companion, tell me a bit more about him! Send me pictures soooon! Love ya relatives and friends everybody!!

Couldja get me the recipe for brownies?

Until next week!
Your friend, son, relative, and brother,
- Elder Brendon Carpenter  

7-19-2010 Letter Home

tô trabalhando tão po aqui viu

This week really flew by, nossa. I've been writing a lot of letters today and man is it funny how my brain is changing! It's becoming more and more difficult to speak and write in English! I'm feeling retarded because my clever writing has all but disappeared. That's what I get for focusing exclusively on Portuguese for the last eleven months... my lack of media consumption has helped as well... I'm literally forgetting how we Americans converse and express ourselves. I'm going to have to make sure that doesn't happen with my Portuguese when I get back.

We've been working hard. We're going to teach a family tonight who we've taught one time before. The wife kind of bore her soul to us when we got into the lesson,  We'll talk to both of them tonight and see if there is further potential. Our purpose is to preach the Gospel to every creature, not just the ones we think will accept it. 
We are teaching another woman and her two daughters and they talk so much, haha! The last time we passed by she talked for two hours without a single word from us, she just went on and on explaining about her life... at least she trusts us a lot, and she has a lot of faith... she knew the Book of Mormon was true the moment we explained how it came to be and she's reading it as well. The problem is that she wants to wait to be baptized until her husband can as well, and he's a truck driver which means he's away from home a lot. Ah well, everyone's journey is different, it doesn't have to be rushed. Because Elder Reis is the district leader here we've spent a lot of time going to other parts of the city and doing interviews for other missionaries, if you understand how that works, so that's been fun.

We were walking to an appoitnment one day and we saw a man get hit by a car (kind of), it was going real slow and the guy was on a skateboard and was drunk, he didn't see it and when he went down he just stayed down. We carried him to the shade and sat him down but he just wouldn't wake up... he wasn't bleeding or anything, so we left him with some local homeowners. That was kinda interesting about our week.

We got bad news lately from Veneza... it looks like all our golden investigators we left behind have stalled in their progress... each for different reasons. There's still hope, the missionaries there will continue to work with them, but it's not what I wanted to hear... we were sure that at least a couple would have been baptized by this point. Some people don't take the transition of new missionaries very well, using it as an excuse to stop progressing... *sigh*

Glad to hear all of the good news from home! Lynsey is in Los Angeles, Dad's in Seattle, and Mom and Kaitlin are back at home enjoying summer. Connor is in Porto Alegre finally learning how to work in a big city (hehe). What's your comp like Connor? 

I had problems locating dry ice for the root beer... any ideas for substitutes?

Great stuff everybody! I love you all! Thank you so much for your prayers! I'll be here next week!


Really missing you guys, I think that because I'm getting to the one-year mark I am starting to think more and more about what's going to happen afterward, hah. 

I love ya a bunch, gotta go!!

- Elder Brendon Carpenter

7-12-2010 Letter Home

 Hello everybody!

This week went well, working hard, taught almost twenty new people again!

Mondubim is really receptive, I think that by the end of our transfer we could teach maybe two or three times as many people as we taught in Ala Veneza. One of our best investigators moved to another area, unfortunately, and she had her baptism marked for the first Saturday of August. We taught a professional soccer player and his family the first lesson! We’re talking, like, a millionaire bigtime soccer player. Leandro Lima. He just left his team in Portugal and so is staying in Fortaleza with his family until his agent works out a deal with another Brazilian team. Of course Elder Reis and the other Brazilian Elders we live with are totally psyched out that we are teaching him. A really cool guy, but I have the feeling he isn’t too interested in the Gospel. Still, he let us in his house and gave it a shot.
 
Feeling good, really feeling close to the Savior lately. We've had a few difficulties with reaping the fruits of our labors this week, actually, but we have to keep praying and hoping and putting in our all. Need to get out of the box more and give it our 110%, always.

Thanks a bunch Mom for the awesome letter!  I bought an mp3 for sixty reals (thirty five bucks?) and I'm going to sell my iPod Touch for about 300 reals which should give me a good money reserve for the next few months. More soon!

Thanks for everything Mom, tell everyone I love them! Sorry I'm a bit rushed this P-Day. I really liked all the kind counsel you gave. Until next week!
 
Your loving son,
Elder Carpenter

7-5-2010 Letter Home

No way, the news about Will really got me... who knew that something like that could happen! Man, he's got to come out of this okay. I'll definitely be praying for him. That must be tough for you guys and all... 

Nossa, that sounds so fun, your summer trips! Can you believe I completely forgot 4th of July was yesterday? I'm turning into a Brazilian and forgetting where I came from!

Today I was cleaning the house with the other Elders and one of them, Elder Pereira, was cleaning out the freezer. The freezer fills up with frost very easily and so every other week we have to chip away at the ice that forms. So he had this big bucket of ice and he threw half of it on me when I was in our backyard. Totally gave me this feeling that I was at the Sacramento River... just that cold water sensation was so vivid in my mind. The showers here only have cold water but its not freezing like it is in the California rivers. Man... I want to go swimming so badly.

I think this week I won't have time for a formal letter, just a few little things here and there and some pictures.

 Like I said, I don't have time for a big formal letter, guys. This ward is great, the house is big and roomy but the other missionaries left it kind of trashy, so we've done a lot of cleaning. There have been moments straight out of a nightmare when I've been cleaning out spiderwebs... There are so many spiders here and some of them are huge! You guys know how I am around spiders. 

The members here are energetic and dedicated to the Gospel. The ward is fantastic, its divided four times in the last three years because this area is so receptive. We've found twenty new people to teach in this week alone! Think of that in contrast with my last area. Being really blessed to be here. Elder Reis is still my best friend, I want to keep him as a companion until the rest of my mission. 

We had a wedding on Saturday, and afterward the bride and groom were baptized to celebrate! One more eternal family! 

I hope you are all doing well, as I am doing great.

So, some things I would like from you guys...

Instructions to make Root Beer. One of the Elders has a glass bottle of root beer extract.
How do I make waffle mix exactly? We have a waffle iron in the house.
How do I make horchata? I am having a craving for horchata.
How far does our family go back in the Church? Are we related to Joseph Smith? What generation am I, really?
What's the price of a Playstation 2 or original Xbox in the States? Some Brazilians want to know.

My iPod touch is freaking out a bit lately so I want to sell it to a Brazilian Elder and buy a mp3. I hate to see it go but I'm thinking it is a good idea, especially as I am working in an area that's a little more dangerous.

Love you guys!
- Brendon