hey everyone! how are you all doing? well i guess i will just tell you everything that has happened since lsat time i talked to you. a lot has happened actually. so i told you this week that we have been going to campinas about everyday this last week. well we didnt have any time to work. we worked about 15 hours in our own area and i thought that our week was pretty decent for such little work. i guess that they didnt think that it was that good though. elder lopez hasnt done his street contacts for a long time. and we didnt have time to do very many this last week. also elder lopez was asked to help in jundiai. so he was transfered to jundiai. i am with my new companion, elder rowley. he is from washington the state. i am excited to work with him but i am a little down at the same time because we didnt have any time to do anything and we didnt really get a chance too. elder rowley is a great missionary too. i think everything is going to be good. i didnt know what to think about the new zone. it is huge and i dont know anyone. i dont know any members and i dont know our investigators that well. this next month is going to be amazing. we got at least 8 baptisms for january. they are all just about ready already! pretty much all the members loved elder lopez alot. so now i am sure we are going to come in and the members wont like us as much. yesterday we had district meeting so i felt better about stuff after getting to know the missionaries. i think we gained their confidence from the meeting today. i am excited for the month and the work here. president tanner wants us to move hortolândia (thats the name of the zone) back as the example for the mission. he called me in for an interview and asked if i was up to it or if i need a break for a bit before another test. i just thought well now that i am in the area i always wanted to serve in he is asking if i want to leave. i just told him that i am so excited to work here. it is going to be great!!! i guess i will keep you informed on the progress in the zone.
this week we got a baptism. his name is joão. he is a great guy. he has a few problems with the word of wisdom but he wants to quit. he will be baptized if we just visit him everyday. i am excited. so remember him in your prayers!
well love you guys a lot! it was really nice to talk to you guys on the phone. i am glad that you are all doing well. it was suprising to hear jacoby and johnnys voices for the first time ha. i thought that was cool! well love you guys!
hey well i dont have that much time to talk today. iguess we can just write to tell you the number to call and everything. i was transfered. i am now in jardim amanda. there have been many other idahoans that have passed through this area. it is the best area in the whole mission! yup i am really lucky. elder hillam baptized over half of his baptisms here. so if you talk to him maybe you could tell him that i am here. my new companion is elder lopez. he is really funny. he is probably the only person in our whole mission that isnt from brazil or the united states. he is from gautamala. he has lived in centerville, utah for the last 7 years of his life though. he arrived in the mission three weeks after me. i never thought i would be his companion but i ended up here in the best area of the mission with perhaps the best missionary in the mission. we are getting along great so far. but this christmas is pday. so we will probably do that call at 4:30. that would make it 11:30 your time. i can talk for 40 minutes like last time and katie can go listen if she wants but i cant talk to her. thanks!!! you guys are the best!
this is the great botucatu zone!!! yeah!! Well hey everyone! how you all doing? i am hope you are all doing great! I guess my package has gotten here. i dont know why dad decided to send me another one but thanks! i will get it next week. well i guess i will tell you about my week now. So this week went pretty well. our zone is pretty great. i love everyone here. we have a small zone with just 6 areas, 2 of which are sisters. so we have four sisters in our zone. that is a large number of sisters for any zone. it usually isnt a problem but they have got plenty of mood swings. they are great sisters though. we had another zone activity last week. so this is the first pday i atutally can talk to you guys and maybe i will be able to take a nap. last week we just hung out at the church talking and playing games like uno. the brazillian rules are pretty fun. we also played a little bit of soccer. our zone has worked so hard this transfer. we were supposed to have at least 9 baptisms this last week and every single one fell through. our baptism didnt happen because of the word of wisdom problems. but this week we should be able to get her baptized! the great downfall of our zone is sacrament meeting. we cant get lost of people to sacrament meeting unfortunately! we need to figure out how to help the missionaries to get people to church. then we would baptize tons. i guess i cant complain though. we have had a couple mission meetings the last couple weeks and the leaders seem to like talking about our zone. so i guess i dont have anything to really complain about in our zone. we just need to finalize our baptisms. on saturday we were able to pull off a sweet exchange with the members and missionaries so that i could go to jau to do interviews without needing to close any areas of the zone for the day. we were able to pull that off. unfortunately the baptism didnt happen because there were some difficulties with some members. sunday was great though. there was a family of three that went to church that we have never talked too. but they will be baptized very soon! we also were needing one more lesson with member to reach our goal and we had a miracle. some teenage girl called out "mormons." we usually wouldnt stop to talk to a girl though but this time we felt we should. we returned and there was a huge family in front of the house. they were just messing with us but then her dad got home and he asked us to leave a blessing in their house. he is a member that hasnt gone to church for a long time. his kids havent been baptized yet. i believe we will be able to help that whole family go back to church. we have had some pretty good experiences though. this week started out slow because of trips to campinas. but it will turn out great still! thanks for everything you guys do for me! you are the best. i hope you all have a great christmas! speaking of christmas...that will be the next time i talk to you. our pday was moved to the 25th. next week we will have transfers and on wednesday we will have our mission christmas conference. i will write you an email on thursday next week to tell you what time you need to call and which number. it will probably be in the morning though. i cant believe i am talking about the christmas call already! time flies to quick! love you guys a lot! love, elder long
hey everyone! i will have to tell you about my week really quick today. it was a great day and our zone is going great! i love this zone so much. just about everyone had baptisms this week and the area that didnt will have three baptisms this week! i am really happy with the work that they are doing. everyone is so happy to work and the union in the zone is great! in my area, everything is going well. we are working pretty hard and we are having success. we havent had enough time lately to find new investigators so we have only been getting investigators that arent really progressing that quickly. tomorrow is going to have to be a great day because we have gotten a really slow start this week. we had a meeting in campinas on monday. it was a great meeting. all the leaders said we need to be like the botucatu zone. man our missionaries rock! we had 9 baptisms in our zone with 6 areas and we met about all our other goals too! it was pretty great! this week we have even more baptisms too. it is nice we people think you are a good leader just cuz the missionaries in your zone are so good. we just got to get better at taking people to church. our zone has had a hard time with that!
this last week we had a baptism. we baptized patricia. she is celia's daughter. celia and mayara were baptized about a month ago. of all my baptisms, patricia has probably had the biggest change in her life. she has done a lot of bad stuff in her life and is overcoming a lot of stuff right now. it was nice to help her to enter the church as well. it was also nice to be able to help out the whole family. she wanted me to baptize her. when she was baptized she threw her self back and i hadnt even have time to get my arm under her ha. everyone was giving her a hard time that she had a lot of sins to be washed away so she had to stay under longer. but everything worked out. i have almost killed two baptisms in a row. i am the worst in the whole world.
i got to catch the bus though like right now. i will be back on in about 40 minutes probably. so i will try to talk to you more afterwards. love you guys!
hey everyone! how are you guys doing this week?! i hope you all had a great thanksgiving! Mine was good as well. i was doing missionary work! I guess i will tell you about my week!
OUR ZONE ROCKS! we just about met all of our goals in the whole zone!!! everyone achieved the mission standard. and this week is going to be even better! we already have 13 baptisms that are all ready. then we have 2 other that could work out still. that is amazing for a small zone like ours!!! I am so happy and i love your zone. i love my area and everything is great in the zone.
this week was a great week! we had a baptism this week it was miguel (michael). he is 87 years old and cant talk or take care of himself. his family wanted him to be baptized and he still understands everything. it took three of us to baptize him. he cant close his mouth by himself though. so guess who was in charge of covering his mouth and nose. and guess who was the one that let water into his mouth! i felt like crap! he choked a little bit but he was able to get over it quickly. it was a great experience. we also confirmed him right after the baptism and everyone was wet still. it was awesome!
this week was also district conference(stake conference). it was great. president tanner was here with his two counselors that both used to be 70s, President Cooper and President Barbour. It was so spiritual! it was a great expereience but unfortunately i got to get off becuase this internet place closes right now for lunch. i love you guys.
everything is going great!
love,
elder long
well hello my family! how are you guys all doing on this wonderful day before thanksgiving? I hope you are all doing great. It was nice to hear about your week and I was very happy to hear about tyson. I am sure he was a great missionary even though he didnt get to serve in the best mission in the world haha. did you tell him sorry that i didnt go to his farewell two years ago? i still feel bad about that. maybe he has forgotten about that by now. luckily, i am not the one that just got home though. i got lots of time to serve here!!!! i guess i will tell you about my week though.
first of all, i got to play football. and i am talking about american football. i played right after i talked to you guys last p day. it was so sweet to play. the other guys thought i had decent hands. we played a couple games of three on three two hand touch. then we called all the guys in the whole park to play with us. we were playing in the assistants area. there were about 30 kids playing with us and they all loved it. we split up into teams and each team had an american quarterback with another 5 little brazillians running all over the place. it was so fun. then we invited them to go to the church to play soccer that night with some of the members. a lot of them went too. it was a great way to do missionary work. everyone that passed by sat and watched for a little bit and then started playing. the assistants have got the best area i have ever seen too!!! we worked in their area last wednesday. their church is almost as pretty as the church i had in jundiai. and the members help so much. every night there are over 30 non members at the church for the english class or soccer on the church's court. it is so sweet. it really was a good exchange with the assistants. i would like to work with them a little more. i didnt have any kind of relationship with either of the assistants and got a little bit annoyed when they called me just ask about numbers and stuff but now i actually like talking to them. it was a great exchange on their part. we are helping our zone to put everything into practice that they taught us.
our week went pretty well even though we didnt have a full week. the zone was the best in the whole mission. we always have the best numbers in the whole mission! the missionaries here are so good! they are the best and we were blessed. we are so united too. it is way sweet! everyone is starting to baptize now too. it is so nice to have people think that i am good as a zone leader just cuz the missionaries in the zone rock ha! yup i am lucky!
in our area, the baptism didnt go through. we are still helping darci to get over smoking. but this week we have 4 possible baptisms. abel is a younger kid that has been going to seminary. he is great. he is prepared but thinks it is a little to soon. we are trying to help him to realize that baptism is the next step he needs to make. we have darci and rodrigo that could be baptized. it has been a while since i have been teaching them. they are probably the investigators that i have taught for the longest time without leaving because they were taking to long. i just have felt that they will get there. they really have moved alot this week and they are totally gonna get baptized. it is just a matter of time now. once darci stops smoking! our other investigator is going to baptized for sure. it was a referrel from a good active member family. it is a member's dad that has know the church for a long time. but now he is on his death bed and has asked to be baptized. his family really wants him to be baptized. he has two grandsons that are bishops in são paulo. he and one of his grandsons are the only ones in the family that arent members yet. he wont have any problems with any commandments because he cant talk or even walk by himself. he understands everything and gives thumbs up or thumbs down. he gets really emotional during the lessons and he is pretty happy about his baptism. he probably has a hard time understanding two gringos though!
things are going great though. i am pretty happy with the investigators that we have. they are all so great. the only thing we are lacking is time. we need more time to teach all of them. it would be so nice to have splits every night. maybe in these next weeks we can marks some more splits.
thanks for everything though! you guys are the best! i love you guys! i really was blessed to be part of this family. you guys really have helped me tons in my life and my mission. i am so happy that was born where i was and grew up in the good little town of Iona. that was the best place for me. i had lots of friends that helped me to get to where i am today. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! (i know i said that last week, but i guess this week it really will be thanksgiving). have a good thanksgiving week!
love,
elder long
p.s. i got those songs mom. thanks for sending them!
hello my family! how are you guys doing today? i hope you are all doing great. i am pretty tired again this week but i am alright! sounds like you are doing well. but i guess i will just jump right in to my week because we are planning on playing football today! it has been a while!!
this week was pretty good. just so you know, i am in campinas right now...again! and this is the second trip i have made here since i talked to you last week. i really love botucatu, but no missionary should have to travel over 17 hours per week! but i shouldnt complain because i really love my area and my zone! there was an emergency transfer last thursday, so i had to take a missionary to the office. that was crazy. we were in an exchange and i got a call that this missionary was transfered (it wasnt becuase of anything he did wrong, but something missionaries in another zone did. he was just involved in the transfer). i got the call at 3:30 and the last bus to campinas is 5 in the afternoon! i called him and we hurried to their house. they also work in the same city. we got there before them. they got there at about 4:20. he threw everything in his suitcase and i called our branch president for a ride. we hurried to the bus station but the bus was already leaving. we chased it down. on the last stop in the city, we jumped out of the car and gave the signal that we would catch the bus. it was amazing1 i decided i am really dumb though. i stayed the night at the offices and i stayed up talking with elder manwaring and elder guilherme for a long time! that always makes for a long trip back home. i havent worked in my area that much this week. i felt pretty bad about our week for some reason. i was so happy for the week and i just knew we were gonna have a great week with over 40 lessons. i havent ever done that in this area but i just knew it was going to happen. then i had to go to campinas and that ruined two days of work and i just felt a little bad when we didnt make our goals. we had a great week but i still felt bad at the end, like i didnt do everything i could. but i guess we got another week now. except, i had to come to campinas again so i dont know if we will teach 40 lessons this time either.
yesterday, we had our interviews with president tanner in our zone. it was a pretty good experience. even though it was really short. a little before i was planning on telling him a whole list of things i want to happen in my mission like that i want to train, work with elder stucki at some point in my mission, and also work with elder nothum. but i felt i shouldnt during the interview. i dont think it is right to ask for callings and stuff like that. the Lord knows what is best. president tanner said that our zone and the rio claro zone are the examples of how the work should be done and he said he liked how elder bavender and i are leading the zone. i felt good about that. i talked to president about my cousin though. he said that he has underestimated elder stucki. our mission's second counselor lives in chad's new area. he has been mission president and he has gone on visits with the missionaries once a week for many many years. when president tanner asked how he like the new missionary, brother barbo said "he is the best teacher i have ever seen." i thought that was a pretty good compliment. that made me proud and i threw in a little hint at that point and said, "i really would like to work with him at some point in my mission." haha hopefully it works out!
after the interview, we went on an exchange with the assistants. i thought that i would be companions with elder hansen a couple transfers ago but he ended up being called as an assistant. i worked with him yesterday though. he is from roy, utah. he lives close to maddox, that restaraunt. he is a lot like me. he loves sports and he has got the same sense of humor. he played college basketball though so he is probably a little better than me haha. but the exchange went great. we found this great guy named juliano. he accepted baptism. he lives alone and looks like he is 35 but he is our age. we didnt have much time to work. i did like giving him a hard time about being an assistant. i told him that he would have to teach everything because he is the assistant so the people will feel the spirit more. i was just joking with him and i dont think he really liked it haha. then i remembered that i am really dumb and we stayed up talking about everything all night. we had to wake up at 4:30 too to catch the bus! it was a good conversation though. he is a great guy. and we got a lot in common. a short night didnt have as bad of an effect on me as it did on him. i think i am used to waking up early to catch the bus. he is not! he made the whole 4 hour trip to campinas inside the bathroom. i am not kidding! he threw up for 3 or 4 hours straight! i felt pretty bad for him!
well that was our week. rodrigo and darci could be baptized this week but we will see. we wont be home tonight and so it will be a little more difficult. we need a really spiritual experience with them this week!!! we got some people that are really good but we also got some that are really lazy. there was a man that the elders before us stopped teaching for some reason (they didnt put him in the area book either by the way). i knew where he lived kind of but never had talked to him. we went there and he said that his family of 5 was just about baptized but the missionaries stopped coming by. he works 2 sundays per month so that is his difficulty. he accepted baptism for next week though!!! miracles!!! but ya that was my week! love you guys, you are the best!
love,
elder long
p.s. mom, my companion is elder bavender now from colorado. this is our second transfer together here in botucatu. and i only received 3 of the songs you sent. thanks though!
p.p.s. is thanksgiving tomorrow? if it is, happy thanksgiving and thanks for everything. you are all the best!
hey everyone. how are you guys today? i hope you are all great. Sounds like you are all pretty busy now a days! but i guess i will tell you about my week real quick. i dont think i have got very much time today! this week was pretty good though. unfortunately, we werent able to work in our area that much this week. we had to go to campinas twice this week and another day to são manuel. i only worked in my area saturday and sunday. it seemed like it had been forever since the last time i had seen our investigators. we are really being blessed though!!!! we have got a great teaching pool now! unfortunately it is so big that sometimes we have to decide who to visit at nights because we dont have members to visit with us. this week has been a littele bit better though. we have lots of people to go on visits. so we have found time to teach everyone. i went to campinas again yesterday. it was transfers but i wasnt to worried about being transfered. i knew i would stay. that was nice to not have to worry about that! elder bavender is still my comp. i hope that everything goes well this transfer with him. elder nothum was transfered. he is a zone leader now. i knew he would be. so i took him to campinas yesterday and got the new district leader. i still think that is a rough trip. i have ridden the bus for a little over 27 hours in the last week!! that is a lot! this week is sweet though. we are going to teach so much. our goal is to have at least 40 lessons this week.
lately we have taught and found great people, elect people! but yesterday elder adam (the new district leader in Jau) and i taught one of the most elect. so we returned from campinas with the 4 sisters in our zone. they really wanted to be able to sleep in the same house together. they were begging and if they caught the bus to their areas last night they would only get there in time to sleep. so i said they could stay if they each did 60 contacts. they really had like 250 contacts in about 3 hours! but i called them a little later and they told me about a really elect lady named kelly. so i asked for the address and we went and taught her. she lives with her son and her brother. we taught her and her son. elder adam explained the apostasy very well. then when i gave the baptismal invite, she said of course! then in her prayer to end the lesson, she thank god for the chance her and her son will have to baptized into this new family!! i was so happy afterwards! they also did a lot of other contacts that were good. so it helped us out quite a bit since there were 8 missionaries in our area for about 3 or 4 hours! to bad it isnt always like that! well that was my week.
it sounds like the sporting world is pretty exciting these days! i was happy to here that millsap is playing so well! GO JAZZ! i also hope one of the little schools can bust the bcs too! GO HORNED FROGS haha
hey family! how are you guys doing today? sounds like you had a good
halloween everyone. time is flying so quick huh? sounds like dad
finally took a halloween off and didnt take annie trick or treatin.
this week was a pretty good week. today i am in são manuel and we had
a churrasco (brazillian bbq). it was really good. we are hurrying so
we can get showed up at soccer. i am pretty excited about it. but this
last week passed by really quick. it was a great week. we had two
baptisms. celia and her daughter mayara were baptized. they were
various times in the last ten years but now it was just their time.
the ward is pretty excited about the recent baptisms. they are
actually visiting them and helping them to feel welcome. they are a
great family that is passing through some difficulties. celia's other
daughter gives her some problems. mayara is elect as well. she has
lots of friends at church already.
sunday was amazing! we had the two baptisms and then we were able to
find a whole bunch of new people that will progress very well i
believe! i am pretty happy. we are starting to get a new teaching pool
that is better and bigger. so things will continue to move along. we
have other investigators that are progressing well. Rodrigo is the
most promissing of all of them. he is an 18 year old that likes church
a lot. he just is really busy all the time! we are also teaching a
lady named claudinha. she is about 75 years old and talks a A TON! but
she went to church and said she think that our church might be the
place she has been looking for for a long time! everything is going
well. thanks for everything! you guys are the best. love you guys!
love,
elder long
hey my family! how are you all doing today. it sounds like you all had a great week with becca and her family even though you werent all feeling the best. i hope you are all feeling better now.
my week went pretty well. it wasnt the best week number wise but it was still great! Maria Jose was baptized on saturday. she was so happy about that. it was some work though. she was elect though. the reason it was tough work was because we went to fill up the baptismal font at 4. it takes forever to fill up, so we went to teach while it filled up. we taught a lesson and then at 7 we went back to turn the water off. it was about two inches deep by that point and the baptism was supposed to start at 7:30!!! we use a hose to fill it up and it takes about three hours. i guess the water had been leaking out a little bit, so we found something to plug the drain and then we had to find a way to help fill it up quicker. for one hour we were taking buckets full of water to the font until it was finally full. there was no stopping either. there was one time when i was the only one there with 3 buckets being filled while elder bavender was preparing the other things for the baptism. i was pretty much running to keep the buckets from overflowing ha. but that was an experience. Maria Jose is a great person. she understood the need of baptism and didnt even complain about cold water or anything. she just went in. It was pretty cold too. but it was a good experience. everytime we get there she has sandwhiches, pop, and ice cream waiting for us! needless to say, we like visiting here. we have to sit in the front of her house because there isnt any man that lives with her but that is no problem at all.
Celia and her family are progressing very well. She was worried that her daughter, mayara, wouldnt like church. she is about 14 years old and doesnt have the greatest of friends right now. celia was hoping and praying that she would make friends at church. Mayara loved church and went to mutual yesterday and she will go to another activity tomorrow and the dance on saturday. Yesterday, we had a spiritual lesson about the plan of salvation. i felt so good talking about the atonement. the spirit was so strong and when i asked her what she needs to do to accept christs sacrifice, celia said "first, i need to be baptized and then keep following this path that God showed to me." I thought that was an alright answer. but they are progressing well and their baptism is marked for this sunday. so keep praying for them. her other daughter, patricia, is always pretty drugged up on medications. she is pretty out of it all the time. she sits there staring at me or into space with the biggest smile on her face. i dont think she even listens. thats what drugs can do to you i guess. today we will teach the word of wisdom. we will see how patricia accepts that though and if we can help her. the others dont have any problems though.
we have other investigators but it was hard to teach them this last week because of meetings. we had a meeting in Campinas on monday. it was a great meeting and i learned a lot about agency. is there a talk somewhere that talks about agency and how it isnt free? that is something i remember ever since i was little but everyone says "free" agency. it was a great meeting except for when the assistant tried to argue with me becuase we said we needed money to catch the bus when president asked who needed money. its not like i am using my money on stupid stuff but if they dont give us money, we would have R$10 for two weeks. but he doesnt know because he hasnt ever been to botucatu so it isnt his fault. we were able to get money though and everything is good. our district meeting went well too. it is so nice that i dont have to be the one to teach everything at the district meetings now! yeah!! president said that the district leaders need to do everything now since it is a DISTRICT meeting.
but that was pretty much my week. it was a pretty good one where i learned a lot! i love you guys! you are the best!
love,
Elder Long
p.s. to answer your questions dad, yes we do clap hands when we arrive at someones house. i think that is pretty cool. i can clap super loud now haha. and then the people usually come out and talk to us or if it is a door that makes it so that cant see who it is they will ask who is there. there are also quite a few houses that have doorbells and intercoms. those are usually richer people though. oh and a street contact here is starting up a short message with someone with the intent to mark their address. it doesnt count to just say "go to church sunday" like lots of missionaries do here ha. but we still consider it a contact even if we werent able to mark their address. oh and it is to bad about that other mike long. i have heard that there is another mike long when i used to go to the dentist and other places. but i am glad that it wasnt you that passed away in the car wreck.
p.p.s mom, you asked me about my christmas package. i dont think i need a new backpack. i will just sew that one part shut. i dont even use that pocket. and then you can just buy me a sweet Dakine backpack when i get back ha! deal? oh and by the way, i have another little backpack from the mission. and about the other stuff...i dont really want that much. i really do want you to just put the money towards a laptop or something, but i would like a journal, silly putty for the kids here(i think you already sent that),and those things that the sisters asked for, and for candy...i like fast breaks a lot!!! and 3 muskateers, blow pops, licorice, and i think that is good! thanks a lot! Maybe you could send a scotty's burger too haha and some of dads french fries and a jamba.
well hello there my family! how are you all doing this great day? i am doing very well.i am pretty happy! we have a great teaching pool and i am learning a bunch. i guess i will just start telling you about my week.
This week was pretty exciting. on thursday we had a meeting with elder soares. he is the area president. it was a pretty good meeting and he helped us all remember why we are here and how we can have success on our missions. there was also a zone leader meeting and he talked to us about what our purpose as zone leaders is. it was a great meeting. i learned a bunch with him and president tanner this week. they talked a lot about street contacts. our zone has always been one of the best but there were lots of missionaries that didnt ever do their contacts. but now there are only like 5 or 6 areas that didnt do over 140. so that is pretty good. it is the only number we can really have 100% control over. so that is one thing the mission is focalizing on. but we had a long ride to campinas and then we returned very soon after. it was a quick meeting (3 hours) and a lot of traveling(7-8hours). when we got back to botucatu we just caught the bus to são manuel and i interviewed a great guy for his baptism the next day. our week wasnt so good though until sunday. it was a tough week with meetings but on sunday, we had lots of success. except their werent many people at sacrament because of daylights saving time and they hadnt woken up yet. we also talked at church on sunday. i talked about union and following the prophet. but on sunday we were able to have a split with some members. orozino(a 24 year old member) and i found lots of great investigators while elder bavender taught the people we have been teaching. it would be so great to have splits all the time. we would be able to baptize every week with two members every night. but we will keep working on that!
i was happy to not have to go to campinas this week but then i got a call that put me down. i have to go to campinas tomorrow. i have to go renew my visa already! that is crazy! so i hope we have time to do everything we need to.
we are going to have a baptism this week. maria jose will be baptized. she is the greatest investigator ever. she loves us too! she tells us that our coming into her life is the best thing that has ever happened to her! she will be baptized on saturday so i will send you pictures next week! after church she said that she liked it so much and that she found her place. then she said that she will never leave this path. i feel that if just baptized her in my mission it owuld be worth it!
we are also teaching a bunch of other great people. celia is a single mom that has to take care of her 24 year old daughter and her 2 grandkids because her daughter is adicted to drugs. it is pretty sad! she really likes us too though! she will be baptized on the 31st with one of her daughters and grandkids.
so ya things are going pretty well. one bad thing happened this week though. when i was washing my backpack today, it got all torn up. thereis a pocket in the back for a wet suit. it is water proof and used to come in handy on the rainy days. well that part got torn up in the washing machine. so i cant even shut that one pocket. i was pretty upset about that. it was in perfect condition too, it was pretty mucch new! our washing machine is terible. it has already stained like all of elder bavenders white shirts too. i just about want to throw it off a cliff. but other than that, everything is going well!
well love you guys! i hope you guys have a great week!
hey everyone! how are you all doing this fine week! i hope you are all doing well after your long trips and everything! it was probably pretty fun to see the others this week and to see new places. i am excited to go on a roadtrip to arizona sometime! (i probably wont ever go to reno because you guys will be done by school by then). That will be fun. i hope you all had a great time though! everything is going pretty well here. we actually have people that are progressing now so i am pretty excited about that! that has been a problem this last transfer. but now we just got to get them to progress a little bit quicker! life is so much easier with a teaching pool! when there are people progressing, you always have someone to teach (and baptize), members are more excited to go on visits with you, and you get way more referrels and referrels are tons better than people we talk to in the street. so we are getting there now! the zone is also going very well. we have got the best missionaries here. they are so good! our zone has half as many missionaries than the other zones but we have more baptisms! isnt that sweet! i am pretty happy with their work. there is just one area that is having hard times. that is just because they dont have a cell phone. so we cant talk to them to see if they are working and neither can their district leader. that is pretty annoying but hopefully will change tomorrow! Tomorrow will be our multi- zone conference! Elder Soares is going to be there! He is a 70! I am excited. he is going to interview a lot of missionaries he said. he has like 3 hours set aside to interview missionaries tomorrow. i hope he doesnt tell me that i am the worst missionary ever and that i need to learn how to work ha. i dont think i will! have i told you guys that there will be an apostle here in january? the mission doesnt know yet though! we dont know which will come yet! i am excited! what a blessing! this week went alright in our area. we only had 4 people at church though. we have some elect people now i think. first of all we are teaching maria jose. she is a member's fiance. her fiance, marcos, asked us to go teach her. we ate lunch and they gave us shoe polish and even before teaching they said that we need to baptize her so they can get married in the temple in a year from now. i think we can do that ha. she is an older lady, like dad's age...(haha dad is an older person now jk). she would be baptized this sunday but she went on a trip this last week so we havent been able to teach her. we also were walking to teach another person and a lady named celia called out elder. elder bavender talked to her and she said lots of missionaries have passed by her house. she was just about baptized like 10 years ago. we taught her and she lives with her grandkids and adopted daughter. she has a hard life now. she has a daughter that uses drugs(the mother of these kids). and cuz celia helps her daughter to live still, the rest of her family left her. we just left a quick message about how the church will bless her grandkids so they dont enter that same path that their mom did. she started crying and said it was true. she is elect too! but that is pretty much what is going on here in brazil. i am learning tons. thanks for everything! you guys are the best! love you! love, elder long
hey family! how are you guys doing? this week is going pretty well. i am pretty happy with everything. we had our district meeting yesterday and everyone is really happy and motivated and i really was surprised by the missionaries that "arent supposed to be the greatest missionaries here." they really are working well and our zone had the most baptisms of all the zones and we will baptize at least 8 more this week too! things are going great. that one missionary was transfered, that one that left his shirt untucked when we got here. so we got a new missionary and one less difficulty. i really am doing good now. i was a little bit frustrated with everything but now it is all good! the missionaries really trust in me now and we have a lot of union. now we just got to keep the excitement and the desire to work with us the whole day!
conference was great! i wasnt in botucatu the whole weekend. that was tough because i wasnt able to help take our investigators to watch conference. that is really crappy. but because i was in Jaú, i was able to watch via satelite instead of through the internet which is way better. haha alright i really did end up watching most of it through the internet because they were watching in portuguese of course and elder nothum wanted to watch in english. so we ended up watchin on the computer. it was really good. they talked a lot about following the prophet and about gratitude. i thought that for sure the prophet would say something extraordinary for us to do. and i was ready to do whatever he said. but turns out he didnt say anything new. he looked really sad though. that was too bad. i felt like we need to be better people cuz we are making the prophet sad. i really liked that first declaration president monson made about missionary work. haha we actually used that as a lunch message in Jaú. there is a girl there that is dating a guy from my branch. he is at the age to go on a mission but this girl doesnt let him go because she says, if you go i wont wait for you. so we played this part for her and her family and she said, " do you think he heard this too?" hopefully that makes him think about going on a mish! but conference was pretty great. elder holland was pretty powerful as he thanked us for everything. i have got conference to listen o now. so i am really excited. i already put it on my ipod!
monday, we had a meeting at president tanner's house. it was great as always. we learned tons. and it was decided that we need to give a little bit more responsibility to the district leaders. there were some zone leaders that were trying to do everything. i always gave responsibility to my district leaders. that is what has made all of the zone leaders now too. i have been blessed with some great district leaders in our zones. but the only difference now is that i dont have to teach anything in the district meetings. i just talk about the president's message. it is so great! that took off a lot of stress and now i can study other stuff during the week. monday was tough because we caught the bus at 6 to campinas and then we caught the bus returning to botucatu at 6 that night. that is an 8 hour ride (not quite the distance as IF to Arizona) but it was still pretty rough. then the assistant who has never talked to me in his life called me to ask me how the week was going and to demand results and to ask why i was tired. ha that made me a little upset because we werent able to do any work in our area. but i will just remember to not do something like that with our zone. but overall, things are going well. we found lots of incomplete families that we are teaching right now. it is going to be awesome to reactivate all these families and baptize the rest of the family in the process. we are still trying to get a real good teaching pool together though. that will come though!
well i love you all! thanks for everything you do! love, elder long
Mustache night :)
the botucatu waterfalls
hey my family!! how are you guys doing!? its sounds like everything is
going great back in idaho. everything is going well here as well! i
will jump right into details:
as you know, transfers were this week and i was... not transfered!
yeah! but i did get a new companion. His name is Elder Bavender. he is
from colorado. his mom said that the men from his ward went to the
same baseball game that dad went to. thats a coincidence. i am really
excited to work with him!! i am not excited to try to explain him like
you always askwhen i get a new companion. you know i am not good at
that. but he is a great missionary and i will learn tons with him. he
is humble. i am training him as a zone leader. i dont know how much
training i will have to do though. he will probably teach me just as
much as i can teach him though. he got here one transfer before me. so
i still havent had a companion that arrived in the mission after me.
that is pretty wierd!but it isnt a problem.
i am definitely going to be tested this transfer. we are blessed to
have some of the mission's most difficult missionaries in our zone!
there was even one elder that untucked his shirt as we got off the bus
and left it out just becuase i told him to tuck it back in. he is
going to try and test my patience! we will see how things go! we didnt
baptize anyone this week once again :( but that will change now! the
zone is going to change tons now! elder nothum is training now and his
"son" is going to be a great missionary i can already tell! we went to
campinas yesterday. i have never really been used to long trips until
i got here. i was on the bus for over 8 hours yesterday. i woke up at
4 too. at least i dont have to drive though so i can sleep on the way.
but it is normal to ride the bus for a long time now! the mission is
moving a little slow right now and needs to move. there are a lot of
missionaries that will leave the mission at the end of the transfer
that,unfortunately, dont really trust in what president tanner is
doing. that will move things a lot i think! but that is pretty much
all that is going on here in botucatu.
sounds like you all had a good week. way to go in the powederpuff game
olivia. and it sounds like you had a good time at the dance. i got to
run home right now though so i will probably gt back on in like. love
you guys!
love,
elder long
