Adam Candland: May 20: Last entry from Brasil.

[Note: Adam returns home at 10:30 on Thursday]

I´m pretty dang anxious to just get this over with. I´m excited and sad, and would love it if today were already Thursday because I don´t look forward to trying to sleep these next few nights, trying to do something all day as a missionary at home where I can´t do anything fun with my siblings, then stay awake long enough to be released. I´m stressed about college, about finding a job, about getting my baggage all taken care of, and a ton of other stuff I´ll have to worry about.

Anyway, this last week we´ve been working hard. We didn´t manage to baptize anyone this transfer, which is a huge bummer. Our entire zone of 7 areas baptized 1 person this transfer. That is absolutely ridiculous. Anyway, out of our zone, we have about 8 baptismal dates marked only too. 3 of those my companion and I marked.

I don´t really know what I want to eat. I´ll be starving around lunch time. If you guys want, I´d be glad to cook something my first day back. I don´t have any meals in mind that are SO good that I have to eat it that day. But some day I want some mexican food, and also some teriyaki.

I took a few more pictures to show. I´ll send those home now.Here in São Paulo, sometimes you´re looking for a house number, but you can´t find it. Sometimes you´re looking for a house, and where it should be, it isn´t.

Okay... this is pretty messed up. I almost feel like I did that day I got my dear john. Just a little calmer and not nauseous. Alright. Until Thursday. I´ll talk to you then.

--
-Elder Candland 

May 13

Alright, we´re short on time today. I´ll try and get those pictures sent to you guys.

For my guitar... I don´t know what to do. I don´t have a hard case. I scored a cheap cover for free and stuck with it. It may depend on how I can fit everything in my suitcases too. I´m looking good so far, but there is still that last bag in the mission office full of stuff that I can´t even remember. It´s all going to be decided on may 22nd.

Here´s my dictionary.

Here´s the tarantula from Sunday night.

Here´s a dog that followed us into our house and decided that my backpack was a bed.

10 days...

-Elder Candland 

May 6

Well let me get the complaints out of the way. I´m pretty disappointed with this area. We´re working hard, yet we can´t find anyone who is interested in hearing about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. I´m at the pique of my mission, using all of my experience, and I´m having the most difficult time I have ever had with finding people to listen to us. Saturdays are particularly frustrating. This last Saturday we had a ton of appointments marked with several people, and every - single - one fell through. It wasn´t even 4 o´clock and I already felt like throwing my name tag on the ground and start yelling in English. No one here understands commitment. They say that we can pass by at a specific hour of the day, and then when we show up, they´re not even home. I just don´t get it. We tell them that God has called a prophet, just as he always has done, and that we have proof that he was called of God, and we promise that they can have a happier family and that they can receive a witness from God himself that this is true. And they treat it as nothing.

Okay, I think I´m fine now. Anyway, as for Eastern: I don´t have a clue. I´m not really receiving much revelation on such topics at this moment. I just fasted that things will be prepared so that I can jump back into my life without many problems. That´s the best I have for now. I can try praying about Eastern this week.

I got my last package. We made the brownies today, but they were still cooling off when we left. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed reading letters from the rest of the kids. I don´t ever hear from them, an it was kind of a reminder that they´re still real people. To be honest, Kortney sounds like quite a handful these days from the way she wrote in her letter. Good luck with that one when she hits 16.

Anyway, it´s all good for Mother´s Day. Speaking of which, I was asked to give a talk on. 

Oh, and could you take a look at baggage stuff for me. I need to remember the maximum weight, and I need to know if a guitar constitutes a carry-on item. If not, I´m not sure how that´s getting home.

Alright, talk to you guys on Sunday.

--
-Elder Candland 

April 29

Well, things have improved. As for that brother who was upset about us messing up the lunch schedule (and even though it was just one more ridiculous excuse to not keep the covenants he´d made with the Lord), we wrote a letter apologizing for the problems we caused. Anyway, we ate lunch with him on Saturday and it was fine, though he told us that we didn´t need to leave a message because he already knew all of the messages as if there was a list of messages for the missionaries to memorize. We´re clean of that problem now. He can´t say that because of the missionaries he doesn´t attend church, though only health problems are an actual excuse to not go to church.

Aside from him, we´re just doing our best to treat the members as best as we can, calling every day beforehand to confirm our lunch appointments, accommodating their schedules, etc. The ward is treating us better, but I still don´t really like the ward. It´s really ``dry´´ you might say. It lacks some strong/normal members to carry it. I´m hoping to baptize some good converts to help this ward out.

To answer mom´s question from last week, I was using the exercise bar quite a bit, but these last few weeks I´ve kind of stopped. I need to go these last 3 weeks nonstop. I´ve kind of lost hope in coming home as skinny as I left, but it´s pretty tough. We walk for hours in the Brazilian heat, and I still put on weight. 

Well, until now, the work here is going a little too slow for me. I´m really trying to pick it up, but we´re having a hard time finding people who are looking for the truth and are willing to do what it takes to follow it. We´ve taught a lot of first lessons this week, but few people really wanted to hear more at another time. We just need to throw in our nets and pull in as many people as we can find until one or two prepared people show up.

I like the goal for the kids. It´s something Dallin will use on his mission. Keeping the house clean really helps keep God´s presence  , which helps to plan, receive inspiration, etc.

Anyway, that´s it for this week.

-Elder Candland

April 15

Sorry for the late email. We were in the LANhouse writing President Martins when the Internet dropped. We didn´t have time to go find another place to finish our email.

Anyway, at least you´ll get to know about my last transfer before next Monday. Elder Nascimento and I were transferred to the same area together. Our new area is called Julio de Mesquita. The Elders there are coming here to our area. It´s a really strange transfer, and I don´t have a clue as to why yet, but the other Elders called last night to try and coordinate the switch. They mentioned that President called them that afternoon and said that he had a dream the night before that they needed to be transferred to another area together. So I can say that my first and last transfers were decided because of dreams. I just took a look at my first blog entry to see if I mentioned anything about my first transfer. Let me tell that story now too:

The morning of our first transfer, President Martins showed up and started talking to us new missionaries, and he asked us if any of us had received some sort of revelation about where we would be assigned for our first areas. No one said anything, so he asked if we´d had any dreams or anything. Obviously he was just kidding, but I decided to go along with it. I said that I hadn´t had any dreams about my new area, but the night before I had dreamt that I was Batman in a space station fighting some villain. Then President started to think a little, repeating the name `batman,´ then said, ``Ah, Perdizes. I think you´ll go to Perdizes.´´ And that´s where I went; to start my mission in Perdizes with Elder Santiago in the neighboring area of Tanner Paxman.

I´m pretty disappointed to be leaving this area though. We´ve left it in pretty good condition. Lots of new investigators, several people who will be baptized, and a couple of investigators who just need a little help to decide to be baptized. I´m really hoping that the Lord has lots of plans for us in this next area.

Good to hear that Grandpa is doing better. And I don´t really think it´s weird that you were telling Grandpa´s family that they couldn´t have him yet. Something I´ve learned here on the mission is that when we plan for the next day, there are angels present planning with us to go and prepare the people who we plan to visit the next day (D&C 84:88). Sometimes before planning I clean up my desk because I´m a little embarrassed to have them there planning with us and my desk is messy.

To add to Stuart´s comment about fast and testimony meeting, it´s true. Most times the Bishop has to get up and say that only the people on the stand will be able to bear their testimonies because the meeting is about to end. Almost always. This last Sunday was an exception. It was just a constant stream of testimonies until the very last minute. When the last person on the stand bore his testimony, it was time to end the meeting, ending it smoothly.

Well that´s it. We have to go to lunch now. We also have a TON of work to do before leaving the area since both of us are leaving, we have to leave everything perfect for the other Elders. 

Until next Monday.

--
-Elder Candland

April 8

That´s not so good to hear grandpa isn´t doing so well. I´ll remember him in my prayers.

It was my last General Conference on the mission. It was kind of lame to be honest. During the first session, our building had problems with English, so all we got was some lame subtitles underneath. The second session was great, with English working perfectly. Then, on Sunday, we went to my old ward´s building to watch there because it was closer. They had English too, but no one else there was watching it in English, and I couldn´t stay alone, so I had to watch it in Português. Oh well, it was probably the first and last time I´ll have to watch a dubbed session of conference. I won´t lie, it was not so great. The translator is kind of slow, and doesn´t even try to capture the emotion of the speaker. 

We´re teaching this boy who knows the church is true. He says that he knows that the Book of Mormon is true and gets mildly irritated when his friends from other churches tell him he´s wrong. The only problem is that he was reading in 2 Nephi 31:14 that says: But, behold, my beloved brethren, thus came the voice of the Son unto me, saying: After ye have repented of your sins, and witnessed unto the Father that ye are willing to keep my commandments, by the baptism of water, and have received the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, (...) and after this should deny me, it would have been better for you that ye had not known me. He´s worried that he´ll fall short afterward. We´ve done everything we can think of to help him; even several members have tried speaking with him, but he´s fixed on this idea.

This last Tuesday President Martins called all of the missionaries together for a special meeting. He showed us a a video of him on a show here in São Paulo where he was invited, with 3 other church leaders from other churches, to speak about a religious topic. It was about what the appearance of Christ should be like since he was born of Judaic decent. It was interesting, but since he knew he´d be on television in about 50,000 homes here in São Paulo, he made the best of it and taught several principles of the restored gospel and of the church. Basically mentioning eternal families, faith, repentance, baptism, the holy ghost, authority, and the Book of Mormon. In the end, he knocked on about 50,000 doors in about 40 minutes. Know we just need to find people who watched this program and help them learn more.

Well, I pretty much have only one transfer left. The next transfer starts on April 17th, but it´s only 5 weeks long, so a normal 6-week transfer starts this Wednesday.

Anyway, I hope everything works out up there between grandpa, mom being out of town, crunch week, and the rest of the kids. I´ll talk to you next week, and I´ll try and get a quick letter typed up now for UVU.

--
-Elder Candland 

April 1

We went to the city center today. It´s not quite as intense as São Paulo´s center, but I found some cool stuff to bring home.

This weekend was pretty good for us. At the cake party last Saturday, we had an investigator there, and our ward missionary started talking to her and scheduled FHE with her family on Friday night. So Friday night we arrive, and this lady also invited her grandchildren and some nieces and nephews. She also recently adopted 3 little kids. FHE was basically just a primary lesson with about 10 kids between ages 5 and 11, a young man who is close to baptism, and his mom. Saturday we had a baptism, and on Sunday, we managed to have 11 investigators at church. Of that family we taught Friday night, we brought 7 of them to church, but since 2 of them aren´t old enough to baptize, we actually had 13 people at church. All of the little kids wanted to sit with us during Sacrament meeting, so my companion and I sat with what looked like half of the primary. We were running around the church all day helping out with gospel principles, speaking to the primary, finding people to sit with the investigators, taming little kids during sacrament meeting, finding rides home for a bunch of people, going up to the stand to confirm Douglas, etc. We felt pretty cool.

Easter here is different, and to be honest, kind of lame. During this time of year, the stores start selling a bunch of chocolate eggs about the size of a football. Most ar hollow with more chocolate inside. The kids eggs are just like big Kinder eggs (actually Kinder also makes this big eggs here for easter) with small toys inside. Last year I scored a Ben 10 Omnitrix. This year I just got some chocolates from a few members.

Transfers are April 17th. Then my last transfer ends May 22nd. It´s another trasnfer of only 5 weeks. It sounds like this year we have two 5-week transfers because the transfer was going to fall on the day of Christmas, and the area presidency wasn´t going to be cruel to thousands of families waiting to hear from their children that morning.

I remembered something else I really want to eat. I haven´t eaten crab or shrimp since before the mission. I really want some good seafood. It´s really rare here. Every now and then someone fries up some trout or cod. I think I could count the times I´ve eaten fish on 3 hands. I only have 2 though.

Anyway, President let us now a few weeks ago that there is a rule on how much time we can spend for email. He said no more than one hour. With writing to president, sending our numbers to the First Presidency, reading your emails, then replying, I don´t have much time. At least today I won´t be able to send a letter to UVU or Eastern. Maybe this week I can write a draft on paper, then next P-Day I just copy it quickly.

Anyway, I have to go. We have an appointment at 6:00 sharp on the other side of our area. We gotta fly now, and this sun isn´t forgiving. 

This is Douglas. We met him just over a week ago. 

Until next week.
--
-Elder Candland