well I've been in Brasil for 4 months now, and also completed 4 of sixteen transfers on the mission, so that's a thing

Mon, Feb 27

 lots of awesome experiences and successes here in my new area of Ouro verde!

In case my mom didn't tell you,Ii didn't send an email because of time constraints and busyness because I got an emergency transferred to ouro verde, and i did write a big email for everyone but I only sent it to my mom, sorry.

moving on ive been here in ouro verde two weeks now, and therefore we have reached the end of this transfer, and interesting news i'm getting transferred again! after only 2 weeks here so that's weird. and disappointing,

it sounds fun to describe the companionship situations i've experienced so i will!

First comp was elder bryan i was only with him for 6 weeks and he was a district leader

second comp was elder Romero, i was only with him for 5 weeks, and he was a district leader,

the third companionship was a trio with elder fish, and an elder Poyfair who was a district leader!

the 4th companion was Elder Haacke! I was with him for only 2 weeks and he is a district leader!

so if we go by pattern my next comp will be a district leader and im probably only gonna be his comp for 5 weeks at the most

packing sucks, 

This week was full of cool experiences...

we put an awesome man who is 21 years old on date he's gonna get baptized on the 4th of march! he's an awesome guy who larson and understands everything we teach him, it just takes him a long time to understand, after we teach him something, he then takes 25 minutes telling us a crazy 100% disconnected metaphor or story showing us he understands, and he does understand, i just don't understand how he understands,

for example we told him about the commandment of tithing he then told us the story about a man in a beautiful field, who then walks to an uglier field and drinks water with his dog and horse... and how in the ugly field you can only drink water if you are going to drink it with your dog and horse, but in the beautiful field, you have to sell your dog and horse, because that place is a metaphor for hell but the ugly field is a metaphor of heaven. and you have to trust and keep your friends, and that's why he understands paying tithing, we check and ask questions to make sure he understands and he truly does i just don't know how he always connects a weird metaphoric story too it and i helps him get it, 

we taught him about the commandment to honor the law of the land, and he explained why he gets it by telling us the law of the ants

We taught him the commandment of keeping the sabbath day holy, and he told us a story about a king who stayed up all night because he thought his friends were going to kill him but in reality they were his friends and didn't.

he told us about his insane dreams, how he has a voice in his head and its satan, and how he talks to satan, 

After we taught the ten commandments and the word of wisdom, we asked if he would struggle or need any help, with any of them, he said he was good but he struggles with thou shalt not kill.. which was concerning but he's never killed anyone nor does he want to.

 Despite the craziness he really understands the things we teach him on a deep spiritual level. and he really remembers and retains a knowledge of the things we taught, even though he connects things in a really slow, strange way. but he truly is ready to be baptized, and has an understanding that's as good as most members

This ward isn't amazing at giving lunches to the missionaries yet, so after two weeks here I only had 2 in person lunches.

One of them was a real rollercoaster though... The day before, the member comes up to us at an activity and tells us that they really want to give us Churrasco ( BBQ) for lunch but they don't like to cook it so we have to cook lunch. well we accepted and came to their house the next day an hour early because we knew we were cooking, so we show up and we get up on their deck and start trying to light the charcoal in this grill, I have lit a million fires but never lit charcoal, and it is was harder than i thought. it took us an hour to light this charcoal, we had newspaper olive oil, and matches to try and get this charcoal going, and the wind was pretty strong, it was a real struggle  but after an hour and catholic grandma coming over to show us how its done, we got it going, we did indeed cool the stake chicken and sausage, and we made a delicious lunch, i loved it. and for dessert, she gave us the ingredients to make Copos de felicidade, or cups of happiness, so we made dessert too! and it was also really good, and the members also liked the lunch we made, and i'm starting to think that they just didn't wanna make lunch that day

we had an awesome lesson with a part member family, it's the dad who isn't a member but goes to church every single week and has had the missionaries over for months, missionaries like elder bryan and elder romero, and his wife and kids who are members, the dad is an amazing guy, he doesn't have any problems with any commandments, or anything stopping him from baptism if he feels ready to be baptized, me and my comp had a fairly heated argument about how to go into this family night, because we both wanted to get douglas a baptism date, because he is basically a member but we had different thoughts about going about it, anyways we went into the family night and did a scripture hunt, and taught them about faith repentance baptism, receiving the holy ghost and enduring to the end! elder haacke did his way of teaching him, and invited him to be baptized, and the dad declined saying that he doesn't know he just doesn't feel ready yet, then i tried my way and i think it helped, but when I asked again if he would prepare to be baptized he then declined saying the same thing again, we decided to explain about the testimony of the book of mormon, we read the last part of the introduction together, that basically says, if you believe the book of mormon is true than you believe that jesus is the christ who atoned for our sins, that joseph smith was called a prophet who restored the church back to the earth, and that the church of jesus christ of latter day saints is the kingdom of god here on the earth. after we read that we invited every person in the room to all kneel down and we would all pray individually on our knees about the book of mormon, after we all prayed, we then asked his wife his two kids to share their testimonies about the book of Mormon then we shared our testimonies about the book of Mormon, then we asked the dad to share his experience with the prayer. he said it was good he felt good, we asked if he felt inspired to do anything he said he felt like he needed to read the book of Mormon, so we invited him to do so, he also said he wants to be baptized but he want to be prepared, so we explained that we have baptism dates to we can be accountable with our goals, if i have the goal to pay my tithing but I don't set a date to pay it I'll never be accountable for paying my tithing, he ended up agreeing that that was true, then said that he wanted to set a date, we asked what day does he want, and he said that we know what day is better, which is a little funny, because his wife then said well if you let Haacke choose your getting baptized tomorrow morning! he chose the date 25th of march. it was an awesome super spirit filled experience im just sad i wont get to be there for his baptism

I had a comp exchange and I stayed in my area for it. me and elder acuna tried visiting just a person that was taught by the missionaries before that we had on our map, but her dad answered the door and said she wasn't home. but the next day we received an online reference, asking for a book of Mormon and it was her, we sent her a message asking when we could bring her a book of Mormon, in which she responded with, she already has the PDF, and that the missionaries tried to visit her the day before and she wanted to get in contact with them, later that night we sent some more messages and asked if we could come over and bring her a book of Mormon for her, and  share a message with her, she responded with you guys can't come over because I haven't finished the book of Mormon yet! well we asked how far into the book she was and she said page 724, the interesting thing is that the Portuguese book of Mormon has 620 pages, and that means she's reading the index, she said we couldn't come over until she was finished because she still needs to read the index first! that is super dope, and i'm super sad i wont get to have the opportunity to teach her.

We were far away from our house when my comp haacke said oh lets go visit the peruans! So we went and knocked on their door. And the woman from Peru answered. She's an awesome member who basically only speaks Spanish. We ended up teaching her husband who isn't a member,and he is super elect, he's been watching the book of Mormon vídeos of his own free will, and he gets and truly understands all the awesome spiritual lesiona that many members don't know or understand yet, and he's only seen the vídeos not even read the book of Mormon! It was an awesome first lesson with him.

It was an awesome 2 week vacation to ouro verde and I'm sad to leave! i'll talk to you guys next week!

We talked with a parrot in Portuguese! 

People just make chariots here and ride horses and chariots. The chariot in the photo is Def a high-tech high end homemade chariot