August 26, 2009

hey everyone! this week was pretty good and quite a few things happened this week. on thursday, elder stanley g ellis came to campinas and we had a meeting with him. it was really good. he talked about receiving revelation and faith. i liked it a lot. we taught quite a few lessons this week but still not at out goal of 25 per week. we need to do better with that! one family we taught is a family of all girls. a mom and 3 daughters. they were so amazed that i was an american. they asked me about 100 questions probably and i understood almost all of them surprisingly. one question she asked was pretty funny, "lá, tem intranet?" haha or there is internet there? haha who doesnt know that the US has internet. it was pretty funny. but ya that was pretty much my week. oh marcos and sandra liked church a lot. exceot how unreverant everyone was. which is true, it is terrible!

this week i found out that there is a bunch of stuff to do in itatiba. they have a really big zoo and i am sure that is awesome. and there is a planeteriam and a park with tenis and basketball and volleyball and a bunch of other stuff to do and i think it is like 1 real or 55 cents in american money ha. so pretty awesome.

dad and others have asked about workouts in the mornings. it is only 30 minutes but i just stretch pretty good first of all, do some push ups and then we have dumbells and i will do quite a bit with that. we can run around our block as well but i never have. dad asked about soccer too, it is against the rules to play soccer in our mission unfourtanately. we can play basketball and every other sport though. i might play one of these p days with some members.

i think winter has finally hit. it got all the way down to 60 earlier this week!!! can you believe that! a winter that is so cold it is almost in the 50s! but everyone complains about the cold and i just tell them they should experience neve(snow).

you guys have asked about the language a lot. it is coming. i dunno how fast it is coming. at the meeting with elder ellis i could finally understand almost everything. it is hard for me to speak and i am finding that there are a lot of words that i dont know. i am learning quicker now than before tho thats for sure! i feel like i cant quite teach people from my heart though because i dont know the language so it is somewhat memorized. i dont really like that. hopefully i can learn it quickly. i like it a lot better when i know what is going on

well that is about it. i hope you all have an awesome week and awesome birthdays missy and johnny! and i will talk to you guys next week. love ya!
Love,
Elder Long

August 19, 2009

hey everyone! how has the week gone? i will tell you a little about my week.
foi uma semana sem sucesso ou não muito. this week was pretty slow. it is the least amount of lessons that i have taught in a week. we also have the least amount of investigators like 0, and we didnt have a single person visit church. i have a hard time now thinking that it is because of me, and because i dont know how to plan. elder garcia doesnt know the area, so i was somewhat of a senior companion this week. i learned tons this week. probably more than any other week, but it was still a little difficult without many people to teach. this week will be better. we found a couple families to teach and they are doing pretty good. we also had noite familiar with a family last night and a friend of theirs. we taught the plano de salvação and it went really well! i think things will get better. i also went on a transfer with elder castleton of sandy, utah. he is best friends with elder barton, my companion in the ctm. it was pretty cool and i learned tons. he is my zone leader now. he helped teach me tons of ways to learn the language quicker and how to be a better missionary now even without the language. ha it was funny cuz during some of the lessons he would act like he was listening to the person and mumbling something to them but he was really telling me in english what to teach next. i almost started laughin right then cuz the person didnt even know haha. pretty cool. he was a pretty good example and he said we need leaders in the mission now and i need to be qualified to be a senior companion by the end of this transfer. i think i can probably do that. crazy huh?! haha i could train chad!!! haha jk they would put me with a brazillian a transfer behind me. once youre qualified doesnt automatically make you a senior companion either. luckily cuz i cant even teach half the lessons haah. but i think it is a pretty good goal. i will need to find some way to study more for that. but that was my week. oh i got some sweet pictures of monkeys that i will be able to send sometime ah. so that was cool as well. oh and we work a lot in an area called pedro costa(pedro, irasema, leandro, maria luiza, joão, rosamea, and christiani all live there). well i have a fan club there now haha. it is pretty annoying. there are always like 15 to 20 kids surrounding me asking me to say something. i cant even think of what to say in english haha. it is really weird to talk to them in english. none of them know what i am saying though and they think it is pretty cool. i dont like it that much. haha
oh and this week we are having a zone meeting with Elder Ellis. he is in the quorum of the 70 and is the first or second counselor over the area of brazil. that will be cool. well i think that was about it for my week. i hope you have an awesome week this week everyone. the church is true! love you!
love,
Elder Long

August 12, 2009

so this last sunday we had 3 baptisms!!! foi muito bom!! they were pedro, nita, and maria luiza. the son and daughter of maria luiza want to be baptized this next sunday too which is really good! unfourtanately we werent here to teach for two days because of transfers. it will most likely be hard to get joão rosamea and christiani baptized this next sunday. i really hope we will have some baptisms though!! it will be tough but we can do it!

so i will tell you all about transfers now! after the leadership meeting i went home with elder hillam(IF), elder Greener(burley) and elder griffen (california). it was different being with americans ha. so you guys thought it was crazy that i will do contacts to the entire bus? wait till you hear this haha. us three idaho boys sang hymns the whole way home!!! ha bet you didnt expect that! but it was pretty good. oh ya sidenote: i was doing a contact on the bus and my voice squeaked. i just hurried and sat down haha. it was funny cuz earlier that day i was thinking, i am a man now, i have to shave every single day! turns out i am just a child haha. but back to transfers...all these american missionaries were very good examples for me! especially e.hillam and e. greener! they love the work so much and are so animado! i dont know the word in english ha. so excited i guess. but they are always so excited about everything they do. the time with them just flew because i was trying to have fun like them hah it was awesome! they work pretty hard too. i went with elder griffen to teach (we didnt teach anyone just contacts cuz no one was home) and the other two went together. they ran home after they finished the lesson. how the crap do they do that!? i am pooped at the end of the day! but that night i didnt have a pillow! it was hard to sleep! but wouldnt you know that right when i woke up and went into the other room, there were 3 pillows not being used haha. that was dissapointing! but transfers were good. my new companion is named elder gomez. he is a native as well. native to Bagio, the same state as elder miranda. but he speaks english really well!!! what a blessing! he never speaks it except when we study the language in the morning or to help me. he is probably better at english than i am at portuguese! i am excited for this transfer. i am going to learn so much from him! he is the new district leader but only has 7 months in the mission. i have done like all the plannin so far and am kinda like the senior comp. it is kinda cool. but there are two, not really experienced 19-year-olds in itatiba teaching the gospel. pretty awesome. he is just a little guy ha. when we had lunch yesterday he couldnt finish one plate. i HAD to eat it all so i had 3 plates. i am not ever going to complain about that!! i am excited though. my goal is to be more animado like e hillam and e greener! luckily E. Gomez is like that as well. oh ya in case you were wondering, we missed the bus back from campinas yesterday by about 3 minutes again!! o we had to wait for 2 hours extra again. i swear they just wait til they see us coming then take off! but ya that was my week. did i tell you the son and daughter of maria luiza want to be baptized? i hope they will be!

well this week has been pretty good. we are gonna go to mcdonalds soon. i am excited for a hamburger. and really excited for my package haha. thanks for everything. love you guys! the church is true! families can be forever! Amo vocês!
Com amor,
Elder Long

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I don't know who ever looks at this blog anyway. But if anyone does, maybe you could help. Thomas wants a few of his friends' addresses.
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August 5, 2009

so the other day we were teaching a lesson, the 2nd lesson, and afterwards, elder miranda told me i did it without sotaque or accent ha. that was awesome. it is just with the words i dont really know and when i have to put sentences together. so hopefully that is a good sign haha. hopefully i just have to learn the words and i will sound like a brazillian haha i wish!! so have i told you guys that i have seen toucans and monkeys here? i dont think so. but the other day i saw a toucan on the steeple of the church. it was awesome. i didnt have my camera though. and i didnt have my camera for the monkeys either but there were like 10 of them playing in a tree. did you know that toucans eat other birds?!! that is so crazy but they eat fruit and small birds!!

we have been teaching this guy a little bit named raimundo. he is really lazy and wont read or go to church but he sounds exactly like the bad guy on italian job. it is kinda wierd haha. i think that every time i talk to him.

so there is this stuff called cevada. it is a substitute for coffee and we give it tto people to help them quit. the investigators always offer it to us now. it is disgusting!! i dont know how anyone could drink coffee. luckily they always give us somethin else like a piece of cake or something to get rid of the taste!! i gave a talk not thsi last sunday but the sunday before. i dont think it was gramatically correct. i didnt have my comp read it cuz he doesnt help me with the language anyways. but i dont think it was to bad. it was on amor e caridade (love and charity). i also bore my testimony last sunday. it was like 5 seconds long cuz we were already over on time.

i didnt tell you about irasema being baptized last week but she was baptized and it was really good. this week we have 3 marked baptisms and then most likely joão, rosamea and christiani too. so it would be awesome to have 6! we havent been able to teach joão and his family cuz they have been gone. but they still are excited about the church! the three that are ready are pedro, nita, and maria louisa. i have to give the spiritual thought so anyone have good ideas about a thought real quick about baptism?

well my week has been going well. i had a tough day on sunday but every other day has been good! i already have one transfer in the field done! thats crazy huh!? but i better get going i dont have much time left. love you guys!! well thanks for the support. the church is true!! have a good week! love you
love
elder long