5-30-2011 Letter Home

An Amazing Week!

Well, Elder Pereira is an awesome companion so far. 

We have completely replanned our strategies in Caucaia. Instead of working in far-off areas we are working very close to the chapel and knocking all of the doors, talking to all of the families around it and spreading out from there. We still walk a lot in the sun but we were able to teach a lot more. We had another lightning week, 42 new investigators! All possible because last week we cut out visiting with all of our investigators that weren't progressing and all the ones that were, were baptized! The only problem is that our next week is already completely marked, and it's going to be hard to manage such a huge teaching group. But, we'll deal with the consequences later, right now we are just pumped that we were able to get the message of the restored gospel to so many people! We were able to find a bunch of great families as well!

The miracles this week were so many I can't even begin to give them all justice. I guess the biggest one though was our experience with Heden, Heverton's brother. Last transfer we taught him a lot but he had trouble progressing. He wanted to visit the church and learn more, but the biggest problem is that he sells roasted chicken on the weekends and 50% of his sales are on Sunday. That's not his profession though, he's looking for a job as a computer systems specialist, he's already graduated from a good college and everything and he doesn't like selling chicken, but it's all he can do until he finds a good job. He was involved in a motorcycle accident and his leg was severely injured, so he always walks with a limp, and he suspects that no one takes him in because they don't want to have to pay his medical bills (which is some kind of law here which actually works against those who are handicapped...) 
We've told him before that he just needs to go to church on Sunday and he'll see miracles, but for weeks he just wouldn't go. One day he called us up and told us to meet him in the chapel. We got to the chapel, opened it up and he arrived soon after and we had an awesome lesson with him. Heden started out immediately with "I want to be baptized in the church. I know it's true." He has been praying a lot and has seen the great example of his dad, Valdir, (who I baptized in Jangurussu) and how his dad is so much happier and he wants that same happiness in his own life. He looks like a changed person. 
God truly does prepare His Elect! 
He told us that next Sunday, he would save enough that it won't hurt his livelihood to go to church. Heden is going to need many more miracles though in order to follow the Gospel (keep the commandment - keeping the Sabbath Day Holy)... we're trying to help him out, talking to a bunch of members about his chicken and offering to make deliveries when we are in the neighborhood. Certainly Heavenly Father will do His part as well and Heden will get a good job where he can take Sunday off for church.

I actually got to see Valdir the other day as well at Heden's house and catch up with up and his family. It was great to see him, one of the best people I've taught and baptized, he is getting a calling next Sunday as a counselor in the Young Men's Presidency. Freak! So awesome to see these guys become valued, active members in the church!

We had an appointment cancelled at 8:00 one night and all we could do was knock doors, which is kind of a weird time to do so because people get all paranoid that someone is trying to break into their house. This is when we found Neida, Carini and Gabrielle, and at first they didn't even want to come to the door, and when they found out that we were missionaries Carini just yelled "No! We don't want anything we have our own religion already!" But then Neida, her mom, an older lady, came to the gate and asked us, "Do you know Augusto Maya?" And I said, "Yeah, he's our Ward Mission Leader he helps us out with missionary work like this all the time." And she said "He's my cousin! Come on in, I always wanted to know more about his church." So we got into the house and Carini was all embarassed that she had yelled at us, but it cooled over and we taught them about the Plan of Salvation. 
At first Neida said, "I can listen to your message, but I never want to leave the Catholic church. I'm never going to change my mind, alright?" We just agreed and continued on with the lesson and the Spirit was so strong, at the end Neida and Carini and Gabi each told us very quickly that they would pray to know if it was true and would be baptized, and Neida told us, "I never liked repeating things in my prayers like we do in my church, I've always prayed to God like you two do, just talking to him and thanking him." She had a really quiet spiritual look come over her... definitely an inspired lesson - it still gives me goosebumps how that little family changed from being sort-of hostile to being overcome with awe because of the lesson we left them.

Yep, this week was awesome. And this next week will only get better! Ending the mission strong! Only a little more time to preach the gospel to the Brazilian people for me, soon it'll be all over!

Hey, congratulations Lynsey for graduating! Oh my gosh! I hope it was superfun. Send more pictures please I know you guys took more than that!!

Have a great week everybody!
Love love love,
Brendon

5-23-2011 Letter Home

A False Alarm
Family,
Yeah so this week was pretty great... unlike many transfers, Elder Clay and I didn't slow down on the last week because we thought we'd still stay together!
President called me and told me on Saturday night that he still hadn't decided what would happen to Elder Clay and I. He told me though that I would probably leave. So Sunday I already started telling everyone I was going to leave and I got a lot of pictures... I still haven't told anyone I will be staying here. 

Elder Clay and I

 We had some great appointments with references we've received. On P-Day a member came to the chapel to show a friend the property and we happened to be there, I was able to take the friend ( Raimundo) on a short tour. He was impressed especially when we explained how tithing was paid and how no one takes tithing money for their own uses, but that it is used only to maintain and expand the Kingdom of God. He explained where his house was so that we could visit him during the week and explain more. 
So Tuesday rolls around and we decide to knock some doors, and I had the idea of tracting near Raimundo's house so we could create a small teaching group if some people in the area were interested. We went looking for his house early. Caucaia is huge, its the largest area on the mission so we walked for a long time, asking directions many times, and after a long time, we finally got to a small hospital and asked them where a certain neighborhood was and the functionary there explained that we were in the completely wrong area and that the area we were looking for was way far away. We left the hospital and decided to give up our search.

We were walking to another appointment when I suddenly felt the spirit to stop at one house. It wasn't powerful at all, like, just a vague notion and I thought, maybe it's the spirit, but maybe it isn't, but I'll do it anyway. I went and knocked on the door, we entered in and taught a great lesson to an older woman and her grandson and right when we were inviting them to be baptized... Raimundo enters in the gate! We had taught his wife and grandson! I was struck completely dumb for a second but continued the lesson, they all accepted and they told us that in their church the pastor just bought a new expensive car and brought it to the meetings last Sunday and they really want to go to a church where their tithing is spent correctly. Very spiritual experience for Elder Clay and I... after searching for so long, just one random door later we had found this family who really needed the gospel.

We've also been leaving our house super early at 7:00 to go to the chapel in order to give a spiritual message to open up the meetings of the city government. The members here in the ward are really involved in politics and the city government, a small handful are leaders in the city gov of Caucaia and because the city gov and all the departments don't have any good area to do seminars and have other meetings, they've decided to let them use the chapel on weekday mornings. I know, I know, Elder Clay freaked out about it more than I... (it is not customary for the church building  to be “loaned” to other groups of any kind for safety and other obvious reasons) I'm pretty sure it's against the rules, I've never heard of anyone else doing this, I asked and was assured that this favor they are doing for the city gov will help us a lot in introducing us to the community and showing people what the chapel is like. Demystifying the Mormons. So even though it is not customary, while it's happening, I've decided to do my part and give the missionary effort a presence in the meetings. When everybody enters and leaves, I'm there at the resource table waiting to explain about the church and in some of the meetings I give a short spiritual thought before they begin. 
Man... at one of the meetings there were probably 200 people in the sacrament room and cultural hall, the mayor was there as well as the city council and they had flags everywhere and a student band even played! It was very "show" as the Brazilians say - very extravagant. I've had the chance to talk with college professors and politicians about the church and have given out quite a few Books of Mormon with pamphlets and the challenge to read and pray. These people are so hard to get to usually, they have busy lives, are always in their cars or in big houses behind walls or in big apartment complexes... no way for us missionaries to contact them on the road or in their homes! But, when they come to our chapel, there is a great way to start gospel conversations, so I'm sure there is something inspired in all this. It's true some of these "bigwigs" seem kind of prideful and know-it-alls like we like to imagine, but I've also met some really great open-minded people as well... very cool!

The Missionary Table during the City Meetings at the Chapel

 I am now a Brazilian!

Let's see, so we had a division with some other Elders and I was able to take several cool pictures... 

Division With Elder A. Santos

I started a conversation and I took some pictures with some Jehovah Witness missionaries that passed by. There's a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses here, and they do a lot of tracting. We always see them tracting in the neighborhoods here, and they usually travel in large groups all with umbrellas and colored shirts. 

My Jehovah Witness Friends!

A picture of the giant pigs that roam their area, (look closely)

The Giant Pig Sighting... he ran away too quickly... also: Neon Bike Tire Lights are popular here!

of the marketplace near their house, 

Picking Out Tomatoes at the Fieras

of the parrot their neighbor has.

Next-door Neighbor's Parrot

We baptized Jessica! The water ran out in the church so we could only fill up the font several inches I had to baptize her laying down. It took us four times to get her under the water completely but she just laughed it off. I had to say the words and literally lay her completely flat on the tiles underneath the water we were able to pour into the font, hahaha. Jessica is awesome! 

Jessica was Baptized!

Add caption

I love this family! I hope they stay superfirm in the gospel - they are going to receive a lot of blessings. 

What an Awesome Family!

We had lunch that day out in the middle of Icarai, in the middle of nowhere and I took some pictures of the nature there. 

Lunch on Sunday

Out in the Mato!

Not too much of this in Fortaleza!

My companion will be Elder Pereira, he has as much time as me on the mission and will be leaving with me in August. 

My New Companion: Elder Pereira from Sao Paulo

He's already a great friend, we lived together in Mondubim months and months ago. It's awesome to be here with him, we're going to tear it up!!!

That's all for now guys, gotta get going, but I love all of ya and can't wait to see everyone in three months! Yahoooo!!! Keeping it strong til the end!!

The epic missionary,
Elder Brendon Carpenter

Kids Playing at Church Soccer Court

My Friend from Guinea-Bissau, Bonifacio!

Another Picture with Elder Da Hora

5-16-2011 Letter Home

Our neighbor fixes fans and irons and other common home electric items (which does not include toasters here) They are really cool!



Hey guys!

This week was good... Elder Clay still seems sick but all in all we're much better than last week. We had some difficulties with the work lately, there were a couple of days where it didn't seem like we got anything done. Haven't been able to talk to Rene since last Sunday, he wasn't home for our appointment, and he didn't come this Sunday. We did talk to Bonifacio again and we taught some more of his friends, but for some reason they couldn't go to church. They're really busy people it looks like, really invested in their studies in the local university. But heck, I love teaching Africans, I want to teach the entire Guinea-Bissauense community here they are great people. Every time I ask them to pray they do it looking straight into my eyes as if they are asking me or thanking me, it's different, it must be a traditional thing... I gotta explain a little better about prayer, I think. 


For some reason we haven't been able to have have fun in the lessons lately though... it's strange, my companion gets disanimated or something, kinda leaves me hanging sometimes to provide all the charm and friendship and spirit... We're both getting really tired and trunky on the mission but I try to turn it off when we get into the lessons, you know. We have such a happy message to share. Worst part is I don't know how to help my companion. How can I help him when I am needing so much help, you know? I think that some of the times. That's not a Christ-like thing for me to think though, we've got to put others first... hmmmm....


Yeah, there are plenty of other Elders who are going through college stuff at this stage, it's a perfectly normal thing to do. Did Connor get through all of this stuff as well?
Everything I had to do with college stuff this week wasn't TOO distracting. It was kind of nice to relax in an airconditioned LANhouse during the hottest part of the day and look at college orientation videos, not gonna lie. I've actually had a couple of college-related dreams this week just because of that, I think. The weird thing is that in my dreams most of the other students are ten-feet tall and I can only speak in Portuguese, I imagine it's pretty evident that I have some subconscious nervousness along with the excitement of getting back to university life. 


I am dead sure that there are tons of things here on the mission in Ceara that I am going to miss a bunch when I get back that I haven't even realized. We missionaries are poor but we get an allowance every 15 days and we often buy soda and smoothies to celebrate miracles or just end the day, that's something I'm going to miss. Is it possible that I'm going to miss being the Great White Gringo in a crowded bus, that I'm going to miss the way young people get so enchanted to talk to me and how they ask so many funny questions about the USA like if rice and beans exist there or if the sun ever comes out. The people here are awesome, they seem to have so much respect for us, I'm going to miss being invited into houses by random strangers to eat something or the way people give directions to you out of the blue even when they don't know where you are going just because you look lost. Man, I love this place, and I only have three more months here. Three more months to get my fill and leave part of my heart behind. 
Three more months to change the eternal destinies of people looking for truth. It's so hard, this stage of the mission, it's difficult in so many more ways than I thought possible. On one hand I miss my family and home and country more than ever and yet I'm already feeling like this new family and new home and new country is flitting away... I've been privileged to see and experience it all, a place I would have never come to know if the Lord hadn't sent me here, but that privilege is coming to an end. 
Freak... I get too torn up by these kinds of things, you know how I am guys, I am way too sensitive about change in my life and the passage of time, I always was. That's just who I am...

Took some pictures on a bridge above the highway that connects Fortaleza with Caucaia. I wonder if any plucky "show-em-where-youve-been" Brazilians have ever taken pictures of the littered backwaters that US50 passes through...

Man, I'm not too sure what more to write about, I've been emotionally drained lately. Yesterday we spent almost four hours at one appointment without realizing it, Elder Clay and I just wanted to stick around with the people we were teaching and swap tales and jokes and riddles and stuff we talked up a storm and then they gave us dinner and everything, it was really fun but I feel really lazy that I wasn't more proactive. P-Day should start right after church in my opinion, hehehehe... 
We had several little miracles at church by the way, 2 old investigators turned up at church without us even having to invite them. They asked us to come by their houses this week, they missed us and wanted to learn more. One of them, a 16-year old kid, said he wanted to get baptized next Sunday!
Okay! It's so funny when you struggle so much to help someone get baptized and it seems everything is against you, and then someone else comes around that wants to get baptized as soon as possible, it's like "Why weren't we working with you the whole week?" 
I can't tell if the Lord just likes throwing me random curveball miracles and that's His style or if maybe we're out of tune with the Spirit and not working where we should, so the Lord has to re-orient us by force. 
The more and more I study the Gospel and try to get my hands around these kinds of things the more I realize it is completely mysterious and I don't know anything. I always though that my understanding was a download window with those little papers flying from one file to another and a big percentage sign at one end and a slowly-extending green bar... 
but 100% Complete always seems farther away. Hmph.

I need to take some better pictures of or with Elder Clay. But this one suffices for now.

Elder Clay took a picture of me during lunch one day... the most normal Cearense lunch I've ever had. Everything there is extremely average. Three Cearense food groups: noodles, beans, rice... here I mixed banana in it all, some Amazonian thing I learned from Elder Andrade. Yep yep.

I'm hoping for great things this week to finish up the transfer! I wonder if I'll really stay here or not, anything is possible!


That's all for now!

I love and adore you guys too!
Love ya a bunch,
Many hugs and kisses,
Brendon

5-9-2011 Letter Home

A Slow Sick Week

Yeah, the title explains it all, doesn't it?

We started the week out sick, we both had tropical pink-eye as I explained earlier. Tuesday we took it really easy and Wednesday we did very little as well, I started coming down with a terrible fever after last P-Day and the eyes didn't get any better. Wednesday and Thursday most of our productivity was spent in Cipo (I wrote it incorrectly last time as Sipot, looks like it has a different spelling than I thought...), the little town in the middle of nowhere.

Picture from our apartment of the nearby lake and far-off mountains where the indians made some huge smoky bonfire.

We've had some great success there! Rene is a 19-year-old that recently moved there from Sao Paulo, he's a great guy, very educated and responsible, has a job and prospects and everything. His family are all evangelicals which means it's a little tough for him to tell everyone he wants to visit the Mormon Church and read the Book of Mormon, but heck, he went and did it all the same, we had him at the Church on Sunday and it looks like he really liked it. I have a hunch he is interested in one of the girls there, which might be motivating him a little more than the Spirit, but whatever brings us to Christ is a good thing, right? Good guy. We also had a girl from Cipo bring her cousin to church all of the sudden, which is great.

After doing a few more missionary tasks on Friday, visiting Teresa's family in Genipabu and everything, Saturday snuck up on us and Elder Clay got the stomach flu, started vomiting every hour, so we got grounded again, stayed in the house practically the whole day, just left to buy groceries nearby. 

On Sunday, of course, we were able to call our families for Mother's Day! The last call! No more calls left on the mission how crazy is that? It was wonderful to speak to Mom, Dad, Lynsey, Kaitlin, and Aunt Karen and Jody and Monty and Grandma. I feel like I'm already home, it's all just sneaking up so fast on me. So many plans and everything about what's going to happen when we get back to California... it's really crazy. 

I felt last night like my mission was already over, which kind of made me sad at the same time I was happy to speak with everyone. Elder Clay had a long talk last night how we need to use well this time we have left, how we really need to give it our all. We kind felt really lame after spending so much time this week indoors sick, you know... we have made a lot of plans of what we're going to do for the rest of the transfer and next transfer as well. It's going to be great. Let's find the elect! I know they are out there! The Kingdom of God must grow and we are His warrior champions, His personal representatives here in Caucaia! Let's go go go!

Yeah, we're really excited. On a side note, I finally got an adaptor for my memory card so the pictures are going to start up again. 

I Got Gold Ship....

Yes. The end of our problems

Hope you like!

I saw an ostrich (avestruz) at a little kids free petting zoo!

I can't remember if I showed you the pictures of Allyson's and Rita's baptism. Here they are:

I also included pictures from Adriana's baptism:

Some pictures of old friends at Burger King, including Elder Foust my old comp from the CTM who is now Assistant.

Our apartment complex has been having water problems lately, which means any day of the week we come home wanting to take a shower and there might not be water in the pipes. Which means we gotta go get it by hand at the well down below, just this little hole in the ground with fresh, clean water (well, not entirely clean but good enough to wash dishes or take showers). 

Then we haul it up a flight of stairs. Did I mention we have only one bucket in our house so we've gotta come down in a towel sometimes to get more water, all soaped up? 


No, that last part is a lie, hahaha.

Lately I've been wearing sunglasses because of pink-eye. Take the glasses off, no one wants to even look at me, they go running off in all directions. 

But when they're on, I become Elder Cool... hehehehe... I'M A GANGSTA! Just kidding, that's no way for a disciple of Christ to be acting...


Another side note: Elder Clay finally beat me in chess!! Curses! I still have a great record, but it's not a 100% and it never will be again...

That's all I guess. I love you guys!!

See ya next week!

Brendon

5-2-2011 Letter Home

Blinded
Lately we have been going to a little town called Sipot ("se-poh") that is far away from Caucaia, a good 20/30 minute bus ride. The dirt roads there make for a fun bumpy ride. We always go there at night and there's a part of the voyage where you can literally see nothing in all directions, just blackness. Just alot of scrubland. We are teaching two families there, each one has its own recent-convert, two girls by the name of Alini and Jesselani. They were baptized by previous missionaries a couple of transfers ago and now we are following up on their fams. There have been a couple of successes, but the last time we went we got to one of the houses and the parents were fighting and all of the kids were sitting outside on the road crying... tough situation, the adversary likes thwarting our plans at the last moment. But we did our best to joke around with the kids and try to livin up the mood, and I got to eat three fried fish and beans and rice at the end of it, the mother was so nice and prepared it for us despite the fact that at first she didn't want to see or talk to us because I think she was embarassed. Hmmm... we'll see what happens there.

We went to Rita and Adriana and Allison's house, the family we baptized here, and Allison had pink-eye. We knew it was contagious but we wanted to help him out as much as we could so we gave him a blessing. I thought just touching his head would be safe but here I am with a raging case of pink-eye. Funny how Heavenly Father chooses Preparation Day to be the day it rains or to be your sick day. I woke up yesterday with it in one eye and I woke up today with it in both eyes. Elder Clay had it as well but he's gotten better much faster than I. A friend of ours passed by our house after he heard of our troubles and gave us about 6 bottles of contact lense solution which apparently cleanses the eyes, makes them feel much better, and had also bought us a bunch of food and kleenex and everything. He told us we should avoid going outside at all until we get better... Brazilians again being superworried about sicknesses. Awww, maybe he's right, I mean, this is the worse pink-eye I've gotten. I couldn't even open my eyes this morning, they were sealed shut and when I did get them open it felt like I had glass in my pupils, yikes. I can't tell if its my eye lids that have swollen up or my eyeballs or both but there is some definite puffiness. For a while there was no white left in my eyes, just completely red bloodshot, but it's already gotten better.

Last night I was in bed trying to go to sleep despite the constant itch in my tear ducts and I just got into deep thinking mode and I realized... man, Heavenly Father can really do anything He desires. We human beings are completely subject to the plans of our Heavenly Father. There is just no escaping it. It doesn't matter how much we complain or plead, how intelligent or beautiful or strong we are, each one of us has such a fragile existence that can be completely destroyed at the whim of our Heavenly Father. It may seem like a depressing, dark thought but I think it's marvelously humbling. I am very proud of my achievements, I have so many dreams and goals and desires to achieve even more in my life, what talents and good qualities I have I am very proud of... but, it just takes one encounter with someone in pink-eye to completely screw up your day and to begin a healthy dose of physical suffering. When I couldn't open my eyes this morning, I had this thought that, hey, if God wanted to, I could lose my sight completely. What would I do then? I have no plans of being blind for the rest of my life. How would that affect things? That's small fish though, if God wanted to really punish me for something or give me a test of faith, we could have my legs taken, or my arms, or I could be kidnapped and brought to another country with no hope of getting back. Freak, there is no amount of planning or intelligence or ability that could prevent anything that God desires. We are completely subject to His plans.

Like I said, it may seem real dark but I don't think so, I think it is marvelously humbling. In Alma 32 we read that if we are humbled by God, we will repent and find mercy. If we humble ourselves before our trials, we will find even greater mercy and glory with God. If we do everything we can to follow God, Doctrine and Covenants tells us that He will bring our righteous desires to pass. If we lose our lives, we will find them. This is His ballgame, He loves us infinitely and has a perfect plan and knows everything there is in the universe, we have every reason to trust our Heavenly Father. What reason is there to kick against the pricks? What reason is there to rebel against God when He only desires our eternal life and happiness? Every day and every happiness is a glorious gift from our Heavenly Father. We depend so much on Him. Our obedience to His commandments are so essential to safety and joy in this life.

Yep, these are the kinds of things that I think about when I get sick. I'm sure Heavenly Father thinks its funny that I over-react so much and get so philosophical just because of a single common two-day illness. "On second thought, let's skip giving that kid dengue fever. I'm sure just a stubbed toe will get the message across."

Another family from Genipabu went to church! Looks like one of them, Jessica, will probably get baptized next week, she's pretty anxious. She's heard so much about the Gospel from us and after finally going on Sunday her reaction was all like: "Oh my gosh, that was so incredible, I can't believe it took me so long to come here I could have been baptized already it was exactly how you said it would be!!" Trust me people, you'll love going to church! It's so worth the bus fare and bumpy ride, just believe me. You can even pray to God and HE'LL tell you it's worth going!

Hey, Happy Birthday Dad, that cake looks delicious. I hope it was a good one. I love you guys a bunch, I'm super excited to talk to you guys on Sunday for Mother's Day... Don't worry about me in the slightest about the sickness you know how I like to exaggerate a good story ;)

Have a great week!!!

- Brendon