Week 30

Things are definitely getting better with my new companion. It´s still not super fun though. I´ve been praying a lot myself. I try to express my gratitude for my new companion in my prayers, and it´s helping a little. I think one thing I´m going to learn is to be really productive with our time. If we ever have down-time because of poor planning, it means I´m stuck trying to find something to do with him. If we can just work, work, work, then I can focus more on the work and the people than worrying about having an odd companion.

I got the package. The guy in the office told me it was a little wierd for him. Some random guy came up handed over the fence an opened box with my name scribbled on it. Since it was opened already he decided to look through it. Anyway, I freaked out when I finally had the guitar book. Whenever I have down time, I end up playing the 3 hymns I have memorized, but now I´ve been slowly learning other hymns. I´m a lot better than I was when I was first playing them at home. I don´t really have much time to play though. Today was about it. Then at night when we get home, IF we get home right at 9:00, I usually have about 15 minutes to play around. The Darth Vader box is a lot cooler than the chocolates tasted for sure. The crayons are helpful. I finally have something to mark scriptures with again while I study. Then there was one more thing I think.

As for the geneaology chart, I think what we have of the last 6 generations would be cool going back to my great-great-great grandparents.

Also, I have a few things to email Dallin, but I´m still not sure if I have his correct email or not.

Here´s a small thought really quick: So Elder Davis hates this cheese called catupiry, as well as the sound of babies crying. After he left, I noticed we were all of a sudden eating that cheese with our meals in the members´ homes, and the neighbors baby started crying a lot again (it had sort of stopped whining so much when he got there, but I figured it was just kind of stopped being such a baby, but I guess not). Anyway, the point is, he doesn´t realize that we ever had this cheese very often with members, or that the baby used to cry so much. I just wonder how many small little blessings each of us don´t ever really notice we´ve recieved.

That´s all. And some photos coming too. Nothing special.

One of our investigators has about 14 cats.

We fed them ground beef and they started going nuts.

That´s homemade lemonade. I made it with beets. It tastes like normal, really good lemonade, just with like this healthy ``dirt´´ flavor. I like it.

 This huge nasty spider that´s probably about the size of Rylee´s hand when it´s all stretched out.

Until next Monday.
--
-Elder Candland

Week 29

I guess that´s cool that Jordan and I will be getting home around the same time. For his sake, I still hope he can get back out to the field really soon.

Two requests really quick. I realized I´d like to have a family tree, as well as my priesthood lineage chart. If it´s possible, I´d like to get a priesthood chart in about 3x4 inches to fit in my little Missionary Handbook that I have with me always.

 Anyway, I stayed here. I´m training again. Elder Rocha is probably going to be my most difficult companion. He got here and pretty much started trying to train me. Not that he said I was doing anything wrong, but whenever I tried to help him learn a principle he doesn´t quite understand yet, he started trying to teach me something I had already learned in the MTC as well. He´s got a lot to learn about the work. He thinks he can pretty much kill anyone´s doubts with a scripture or logic. That´s not how it works. They need to be taught by the spirit to be convinced. We´re not here to convice; we´re here to invite.

Please pray a little extra for me. I´m going to hate the next 3 months of my mission if I can´t learn to like him.

Anyway, I got to see the two videos. Kortney looks a little older, and I really like Rylee´s breakdance splits. The pictures were fun too.

The zone and Elder Davis since he was the only leaving from the zone. Lame.

Elder Davis, Van, and I. Van was meditating I think.

That´s Van´s guitar too.

Some of the funniest grafitti art I´ve seen.

Some of the best I´ve seen.

Also, it this new elder looks like Andy Samberg.

That´s all for this week. It´s going to be a tough next week. I´ll talk to you guys next Monday.

--
-Elder Candland

Week 28

So real quick, there was something I learned during our Elders Quorum meeting this Sunday. Concerning Heavenly Father´s plans for us; I´ve obviously seen what He has been doing for me lately.

In Elders Quorum, they were teaching the Elders about home teaching and it´s importance. They talked a lot about the missionaries and how they are like the missionaries for the Ward. I got the feeling lots of the Elders didn´t really feel like they could do a whole lot without a calling with special blessings or keys or being called to a specific area where the Lord has a plan for them. That´s when I realized it doesn´t have to be that the Lord sends you anywhere specific all the time. His plans are always changing depending on how we or others use our agency. It may not be that you were sent there, but I know that no matter where you are, the Lord will make some plans for you there, and he´ll get something prepared for you to do. For the Elders in the Ward, they may not have been placed in the ward just so they can home teach someone, but because they´re there, there have been other plans created for them to fulfill. That could very well mean Jordan too. Pass this on to him for me.

Alright, one last good missionary thing before I just talk about the fun stuff. So our two baptismal dates have been moved to a week later. We prayed several times about their date, and we felt like they needed more time. When we talked to them, we found out they definitely weren´t ready yet. It wasn´t that they weren´t understanding doctrine or had doubts, but that they just need more time. One more week is perfect. The daughter came to church and the girls her age were all over it. They sat next to her in Sacrament, invited her to church activities, and one is coming with us to teach them tomorrow night. The ward is so important when there are new people there. I don´t know how many members realize that.

 This week has been the hottest week of my life I think. We wake up and our house is about 85 degrees.   Meaning it cooled off 2 degrees during the night. It´s dropped off today though, but because the house is just brick and metal, it retains the heat a while, and we´ll need a few days to have a nice cool house. It hasn´t even been THAT hot out either. It´s been only about 95 during the day, but I´ve never been in slacks, black shoes, and a tie, walking around all day when it´s that hot out.

 One afternoon while we were sitting in some shade, an older guy walked past us and started talking to us. I´m not suere what his thought process was, but the conversation went about like this:

Him: Hi

Us: Hi
Him: Which church are you from?
Us: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Him: I go to a church just over there
Us: Oh ya
(He started to walk off)
Us: Good night
(He comes back)
Him: I´m a war veteran
Us: Sorry, what was that
Him: Feel this lump in my arm
(He pinches a lump in his back arm and we touch it)
Us: Woa, is that bone or something?
(He starts to walk off, but turns back around)
Him: Bullet
Us: What? Serious?
(He waves and leaves)

 Anyway, we looked at eachother and kind of laughed not knowing how his mind was working at the moment and then I said ``I think we just touched an old Brasilian´s arm bullet.´´

 Another day we passed by a drunk hobo laying on the ground singing to himself pretty loudly as he undid his fly and started peeing while laying on his side.

 Keep working on the scripture reading as a family. I tell lots of people to read as a family because I see  the blessings they´ll get as they read together. It´s pretty important for our investigators, so I would assume that it´s even more important for a member family. It´s a commandment to read the scriptures daily. The scriptures are the words of the prophets, therefore they´re the words of God. I know that every word in The Book of Mormon is there for a specific reason. Not a single word is there just because. With that said, I can´t imagine that God would have placed the scriptures down here just for us to read lightly, as a family or personally. They´re to guide us, so we should do our best to treasure them up constantly.

We have a transfer this Wednesday. We find out tonight what´s happening, but I´m really hoping we stay on more transfer. We´ve got two baptisms as well as several other promising appointments after Wednesday. 

 Anyway, the last thing. Mostly for Dallin and Dad. I had a sweet dream the other day. I was being trained to be a ninja. There was this ancient ancestor spirit guy training me because something big was happing between this realm and another, and only warriors with special abilities could be of use. I had a partner. He was a mummy basically. He´d been reincarnated to help fight this battle. He was pretty sweet since he´d been like the Prince of Persia in his past life. He was still a mummy, but had several magic abilities and was really good at running on walls, climbing stuff, and fighting with his two egyptian scythes. Anyway, he had to leave to go find some sort of artifact or something, and said I couldn´t come because I wasn´t ready yet. While I was still training, I was attacked by bad ninjas. I was able to take out two of them silently by using my stealth training, but one caught me and I used my newly attained swords skills to take him out as well. Then, the city was attacked by a couple collosi like from Shadow of the Collossus. I used my ninja grapling hook to climb up them and hit their week points. Anyway, the mummy guy returned and I was like ``Am I ready yet?´´ Then we set out on our secret mission, but I woke up.

 That ends this week. I´ll let you guys know if I stay or not next week. Also, how the work goes with our golden investigators. 

-Elder Candland

Week 27

So this week has been pretty good. We´ve got 3 progressing investigators now. Two of them have baptismal dates now. One of those dates is the lady who came to church on her own last Sunday. She lives with her daughter who is also very interested in the church. We´re about 99% certain that both of them will be baptized. It´s kind of funny that my only other people I´ve seen accept the Gospel and be baptized were another single mom and her daughter. They came to church one day on their own as well. With the new mom and daughter here, we´ve been able to teach them with a member present each lesson, and it´s been incredibly helpful to have someone there who they know from church already and can relate to. It really makes a more comfortable atmosphere. It´s pretty tough for anyone to relate to two boys who only wear church clothes and don´t do anything fun. 

It´s very apparent that when someone comes to church on their own, they usually have interest in the church, and a potential desire to join. I also have a very strong belief that the majority of people who are interested in the church need to go to church before they´ll really know it´s true. We can teach them all we want about the Gospel, and they can know the Book of Mormon is true as well, but going to church is pretty important. Especially here. There are SO MANY churches here. There are about 5 other big ones that find most people a part of, but there are still a ton of other random churches that people start up to make a profit. Random thought: Almost all other churches here require some form of ``tithing´´ in order to be a member or to receive blessings from God, but you can still say they´re all non-prophet organizations. Anyway, when the people see that the church is run differently than all others here, it really helps.

There´s this other family we have been visiting. If you remember about 2 months ago, we went to a family´s home on fast Sunday while fasting, and they invited us to their churrasco, but we had to say no since we were still fasting. We´ve been going back during this last month, but it´s been hard to teach much there. The dad shows a lot of interest, but he can´t help but talk about all sorts of other things he knows about the Bible and how he understands religion and the gospel. We love this family though. They´re all really close, they always are together on the weekends, and there are 5 kids, which is a lot here in São Paulo. They all call us their American friends. They sometimes have a hard time remembering our names (mostly mine) so they´ve taken to calling me Pedro and Elder Davis Tiago (that´s Peter and James (don´t ask why James´ name was changed to Tiago). Anyway, they had a huge family reunion/churrasco at their house on Saturday and they made us stay. The food was so good. They had the usual meat-on-swords deal, salad, rice, normal stuff, but they also had pealed ginger to eat with the meat. That was a really good idea. There was also cheese on a stick that they grilled up. The mom made this really good garlic sauce and I asked for the recipe. She said she just puts a big garlic clove and a cup of milk in the blender and slowly adds oil as it´s blending. I´m gonna have to figure out the oil-to-milk ratio. 

I get excited when I think about being able to use Português back in the US, but I can´t really think of many opportunities other than a few different jobs. We don´t have a whole lot of Brasileiros in Washington either. 

There were a few other recipes I was hoping you guys could send me (on paper in a letter preferably). Our brownie recipe from scratch, the Kosorok cookie recipe, our lasagna, and ... that´s it for now I forgot the other if there was one. 

Alright, I need to reply to Kortney now. 

--
-Elder Candland

Week 26

Caranval has started up now and it´s really difficult to find people home, or not partying at home. We try to make lots of contacts, but right now it´s very difficult. We just keep trying though. Carnaval is pretty chill here in São Domingos though. It´s pretty empty, but not so empty that we can´t even find people to talk to. It´s kind of helped seperate some tares and wheat; for carnaval, everyone goes to the beach to party, so that means anyone who stayed home is lazy, poor, OR people who aren´t interested in getting drunk, half-naked/all-naked people, etc. We hope to find some solid people during this time.

We saw some crazy stuff this week. One morning, we got a call from a member that wanted us to come over and help him out with a problem he had. He´d gotten into one of those spam emails from some guy in Kasakstahn that´s like ``I am a reliable person who has information on your dead cousin that is rich. His money is locked away in a bank in China and we need your information and some money to get it out for you. Can we split it 50/50?´´ Anyway, the guy doesn´t speak English, but all his emails were in English from Google Translate. This member had a little bit of doubt, but since he speaks no English, he could´t really pick out the really obvious grammar problems and weird words and such. At on part of the an email this guys was like ``I promise I am good person and trustworthy. I cross my heart with you.´´ Woah, it´s cool your an honest person, but it´s kinda weird you crossed your heart with me. Anyway, we told him it was totally a scam and he was thanked us for confirming his doubt, and we left. Okay, that´s not so crazy, but one afternoon as we  were walking down the street like missionaries, we saw this car go driving past us pretty fast, then he slammed on his brakes, then reversed as fast as he could. In just a few seconds I saw him heading right for another car and said in my mind ``Woah! He´s gonna hit that lady driving behind him!´´ but then I noticed he had this really angry look on his face and my thought immediately changed to ``WOAH! He´s trying to hit that lady!´´ Then, as I predicted, he hit her pretty good on the front, and then sped off. The lady chased after him and I caught a glimpse of her 14-year-old daughter crying in the passenger seat. I had no idea what the motive was, but I was like ``Did that just happen...?´´

Thanks for the maple syrup recipe. I also can´t think of any other things I might need in a package any time soon.

Anyway, one last thing. If there´s anything good that´s happened this week, it´s this this: we met a lady in the supermarket and she asked us where the nearest church is. We gave her directions and the time of the meetings, then thought nothing of it. People ask us where our church is all the time, but no one ever goes to church. Anwyay, you guessed it: she went to church on her own accord. She just showed up and attend all 3 hours. We had a class on the Holy Ghost, talking about who He is, when Christ left Him with the Apostles, and how he helps us today. She ended up bearing her testimony in class that it was the Holy Ghost that told her to go to the store to buy something even though she didn´t need anything. She said she knows she was guided there to talk to us. We marked to teach her tomorrow. We´re excited out of our minds. It´s been almost 3 weeks since we´ve been able to enter anyone´s house an teach an actual lesson.

That´s all for now. Hope the holiday weekend is pretty enjoyable. This week looks pretty good for us, so I´ll let you know how it goes on Monday. It´s still really really hot though. I shower twice a day. I´ve never showered at night, then woken up sweaty and gross the next morning. I don´t use a blanket at night. Just a fan. I stay plenty warm. Anyway, until Monday.
--
-Elder Candland



Elder Davis thinking pensively before going to sleep.

We made some pastels for lunch one day. They´re like the normal thing to buy on the street here in São Paulo.

 They´re unhealthy.

We know they´re unhealthy.

Week 25

So I don´t have a lot of time today on my email. We´re pretty much out of money until Wednesday, so I have only 20 minutes to type this up right now.

It´s hot. We made riceasaurus for lunch today. A drunk hobo slid down a muddy hill laughing and sticking his tongue out at us. There are bananas here the size of my forearm. But being a missionary is way good.

A few things I need are another crayon from Rylee so I can mark my scriptures. I need yellow. I´ve been using the one she gave me back in May, but It´s practically unusable now since I used it so much. Also, I need a nice oil capsule. I haven´t been able to find mine for a long time now. The ones they sell here at the temple store are really really cheap.

We had coconut bread for sacrament yesterday.

A crazy lady that we met back in December got paid this last week, and she was so excited that she called out to us from her church, then took us to a bakery and bought us some soda and cake. The funniest part is we were just heading to the bishop´s birthday party to get some cake.

There´s an Elder in my district who has been getting a lot of references from this guy in their ward. It turns out he used to be a drug dealer and is sending them to all of his old buyers. He said when they get there, the guy opens the door, asks who sent them, and when they say who, the guy gets all scared, throws on a shirt and is like ``Hey man, look, I swear I payed him back, things should be good now. I don´t need any more trouble.´´

No more success this week. It´s been really tough to get a hold of anyone and then actually meet with them. We haven´t taught a solid lesson in weeks now. The best we´ve done is just teach random people on the street that we contact. It´s usually a quick lesson on the Restoration, and then they say `thanks.´

I was reading in D&C 135 and found this in verse 6: ``... and that if the fire can scathe a green tree for the glory of God, how easy it will burn up the dry trees to purify the vinyard of corruption.´´ So it talks about the tares and the wheat basically, but I like to look at is as us needing to be burned a little in order to improve our ``vinyard´´ and such.

Something interesting I´ve learned from Português is that in Português, to magnify (magnificar) is to make something magnificent. That´s what the Latin root means. In English, we use it for making something bigger. But magnifying our callings is actually not going beyond the limits of the calling. That actually kind of doesn´t make sense, especially for people who receive certain keys for their calling. They can´t go outside their bounds. We should make our callings magnificent. I jsut read a quote from President Thomas S. Monson´s book today that talked about how to magnify our calling. Just as usual, his answer wasn´t anything extraordinary. He said to do just what is required of us, as Christ would.

One other thing. We had some cooking lessons at lunch on Saturday. I´ve already written a letter with some of the stuff I learned since it would take a long time to write in an email. Which reminds me, can you guys find a recipe for maple syrup for imitation maple? I´m pretty sure I need corn syrup, but I don´t think they have that here. 

Anyway, that´s all for now. I hope next week you guys can find those pdf files for me. Talk to you on Monday.

-- 

-Elder Candland

Week 24

So we went to the temple today. It´s pretty cool to go through in another language. I also wish we could go to the temple more often here on the mission. I don´t think it´ll be too difficult to be motivated to go a lot after the mission. Maybe that´s what they´re doing, just teasing us with very little temple time to make us want to go after the mission. Anyway, that´s why I didn´t email on Monday.

Today I have exactly 8 months in the mission. It kind of seems like a lot, but not really. I´m gonna try and convince myself that´s good and that I still have 16 months left of the best two years. I love the mission, but these last few weeks, even though I´m with the best companion I´ve had on the mission, have been a little disappointing. No one we contact on the street shows any interest in the same church that Jesus Christ himself taught. That just doesn´t seem to interest anyone. Neither does having a prophet called by God to recieve revelation for us. I don´t get it. Also, none of our investigators have really progressed since like 3 weeks ago. There was one night that we were both pretty disappointed, so we just went and knocked on a bunch of doors. We found no one, but we really tried our best to share what we have with the people on that street. By the end of the night, we felt better. That´s probably because we scheduled an appointment to go make American pancakes at an investigators house, then teach them. That ended the night well.

Oh, but Jordan did right me and I just got his letter this week. I´ve got a ton of letters I´m waiting to send off until I have enough money again. We´re running pretty tight in this area because a lot of lunches had fallen through in January. This month should be better.

Aside from not finding much success with our investigators, our week was full of little cool things that don´t really relate to missionary work. One, we were tired and sat down on the sidewalk for a few minutes. While we were sitting, a little older lady came running out of her house across the street and gave us a little bag with some soda, crackers, and two pieces of homemade breakfast casserole. She dropped it in Elder Davis´ hands and ran before we could even say thanks, so we´re trying to get back there, say thanks, and maybe sneak in a lesson. On sunday, we got a ride from a member to lunch from church, and his car just so happens to be an old Volkswagon bus, but it´s missing all of the seats in the back. It also doesn´t have windows, and there´s not pretty carpeting on the floor or walls. We basically rode around in on top of the engine in this completely barren bus. It looked like a moive, and we both agreed that we needed to have assault rifles. That night we went and made the pancakes with a family we´re teaching. That was pretty funny because they were always saying how much it looked just like all the cartoons do with a huge stack of pancakes and maple syrup. 

Oh ya, and that Syfy movie they´re making in Carnation. I hope it´s just as bad as all the rest. I´d like to be home and watch what they do. From their movies, I´m not sure I´d want to pay too close attention to what they do, but it´s a somewhat professional crew actually filming right there. It´d be nice to see what they do. I hope Andrew´s at least taking some notes.

Well, that´s about it. I know I forgot a few things, but I need to go now. I´ll just right anything I forgot in my email 5 days from now. Talk to you then.

--
-Elder Candland

 Some cool soda I found here. The lid is a normal soda can, but the rest was plastic. The soda itself was pretty good too. carbonated lemon juice with mint. Which reminds me, I forgot to mention that an Elder gave me root beer extract, so we´ve made our own root beer since they don´t have it here in Brasil. Just Guaraná, Cocacola, Pepsi, Itubaína, Sprite, Fanta, and any kind of cheap rip-off of them.

How most of my study times are. It´s SUPER hot right now. We wake up and our house is already 85 degrees. It´s so awful. There is no relief.

Elder Davis and I at the São Paulo Temple.

Elder Larsen was there too.