February 10, 2010

hey everyone how is it going? so did you all like the super bowl and everything? the saints won? that is surprising to me. who played well in the game? and why isnt the basketball team playing well? that is no good. what is their record now? they lost to hillcrest too?! that is pretty crappy! so they probably wont be going to state this year i guess. thats not good. well i guess i will let you know how my week was...
well it wasnt the best week that elder mendes and i have had. last week was alright. we are teaching some good investigators but we dont have many investigators. but thats alright. we will have a baptism this week. her name is adriana. we should have had 2 others but right now is the brazillian holliday called carnival when everyone goes partying and when nobody likes to wear much clothes. so during this time, the young men and the young women go on a campout and one of our baptisms is going on the campout. it is kinda strange that they go on sunday. but anyways, we are going to wait until next week to baptize her and her boyfriend (camilla and douglas). it should be a pretty good next couple of weeks. and for the 28th we have 3 baptisms planned. i think they will go through too. Conceição is an older lady that will be baptized for sure and then there is a younger couple, sergio and agenilda. we need to find more people though. our teaching pool is pretty small! but things will get better! yesterday, elder mendes and i got pretty sick. i have had a fever and a pretty bad headache and a caugh and elder mendes has had the same stuff. but we are getting better. but i dont really have much to say this week. and i gotta hurry cuz we have a lasson planned for 3 today. and thats in two and a half hours. oh ya i cut my hair this morning. it looks pretty good. but thats about all that happened this week.
so what have you guys been up to? have a good week everyone!
Love,
Elder Long

February 3, 2010

Elder Long's current apartment:



hey everyone howis it going? everything is going pretty good here. this week wasnt quite as good as the last couple. unfortunately we didnt have as much success. probably because we didnt start out very well. but this week will be better. but this week was pretty slow. unfortunately not very many people went to church this sunday. there were only three investigators there but it was the highest attendence rate in the history of the ward (211 people). sunday was the only day that was very exciting. on sunday we had the 4 confirmations of the baptisms last week. i preformed the confirmation of alex, samantha, and jackson. it was pretty cool but i would like to know how to speak a little bit better still haha. but after church we ate lunch with a family that i really like. they are really cool. we ate lasagna. then we went to a city call jacaré to help them out. they needed 10 new investigators to reach the best reward of the week in the mission. it is called My Offer to Christ. we have to have good numbers in everything to earn it. we earned it last week with our four baptisms and this week jacaré had the baptisms and everything to earn it just not the new investigators. so we went there and helped them out. we finally found people to teach and ended up staying there. ha it is pretty tough to sleep without a pillow but thats alright ha. this week has started out a little bit better than the last week though. elder mendes has a leadership meeting today so he went back to jacaré wioth our district leader and elder tippett came here to my area. we had a pretty good day yesterday. we found a man that should progress well. elder tippett isfrom georgia. he is cool but pday hasnt been quite as good as it was when elder schroeder came. i dont know howelder schroeder is doing. he was transfered to an area close to the hospital but he had started working again before the transfers. i think he willbe alright though! but this morning i made some weights out of cement. haha hopefully they turn out well. i think they should! but ya that was pretty much my week. unfortunately we wont have baptisms again this week but on the 14th we should have at least 2.so that will be pretty good! but how are you all doing?! hopefully great! but love you all!
Love,
Elder Long

January 27, 2010

Becca sent Thomas some little CTR rings to hand out to kids.

Pictured here: Alex, Samantha, Jackson and Gustavo(Lilian’s other son).

Thomas says, “Gustavo is the coolest little kid ever haha after my

nephews and neices of course ha. he is five years old and was a

little mad that he didn’t get to be baptized haha.”

Just White: Elder Thomas Long and Elder Mendes


Elders Long and Mendes with Lilian and her son, Jackson (the youngest), Samantha, and Alex
well hey everyone how are you all doing?! hopefully great! well this week was pretty good! today hasnt been the most fun cuz we cleaned all morning but its been good still haha. well i hope everyone is doing great. i got letters from everyone yesterday. sounds like you are all doing good and that you are all pretty busy. i heard a little bit about everyone in the fam including cuddles and cooper ha. i guess cooper likes to pull annies hair? haha you guys need to have him trained perfect by the time i get home haha. and cuddles lost like 6 lives on the way to rexburg and back in the engine of the truck haah. but sounds like olivia is pretty busy with cheer. thats good haha. as long as you are keeping up in school. basketball season is sweet ha. annie is liking school and friends and everything. Trey and eden are pretty funny with all the things they are saying ha. i am sorry about johnny! he hasnt had the best luck in his life but he will be fine! so did he get a concussion? are johnny and jacoby talking now? so missy and tyler moved to idaho falls. when is everyone moving away? well you all sound pretty good. i got your christmas cards so i guess i better tell you they looked good ha. but i guess i will tell you a little bit about my week.

well surprisingly, i am still here in jundiaí planalto! i didnt get transfered and my comp this transfer will be..................ELDER MENDES!!!! i am super surprised that we both stayed!!! i guess you never can guess what the lord will do during transfers. but this last week was pretty good! we ended it pretty well on sunday too! we only had 7 people at church and our goal is always 10. then we found out that there is a family of 3 that has been going to church for the last few weeks and they arent even members! so we had ten this last week and the week before and 18 the week before that ha! 3 more people is a ton better! now we need to teach that family haha. but we ended up making all our goals!!! yup baptisms as well!!! four people were baptized this week!!! lilian, alex, samantha, and jackson!!! they are awesome!! i have told you guys about them already! but they were the perfect investigators. alex and samanthas mom is the best investigator that ever existed!! she isnt married though so couldnt be baptized! she is working on that. she gives us dinner almost every night now! we had family night at their house on monday!!! we watched "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration". my testimony grows about him everytime i watched that show!! we gave the kids all ctr rings and they liked them tons!!! thanks becca and lonnie!! but i was a little bummed as i left, thinking that i would maybe never see them again. then our assistant called to say who was transfered. and we werent!!! elder shroeder was and another elder. and one missionary died (finished his mission). so we got 3 other missionaries in our zone! speaking of elder shroeder, no one knows what is wrong with him. he goes to the hospital all the time and only worked one day last week! but he was transfered close to the hospital and is doing a little better! but ya this week was pretty good. the last two days were slow because of the transfer meeting! we wree able to eat at burger king though!!! i dunno if it really is better here or if i just havent eaten a hamburger for a while!!! it was really good!!! i bought those hand carts for my luggage too so i dunno if i have any money left in my account. i think i spent like 40-50 dollars this week though haha. but ya we are gonna need to work hard the rest of the week though. we might be able to have a baptism this week too though!! we will see!!! well that was pretty much my week! love you guys!! thanks for everything! talk to you soon!

love elder long

January 20, 2010

January 20, 2010

Hey everyone. So I don’t have much time today. I didn’t really have a pday today. I went to Campinas cuz Elder Mendes had a meeting. All I did was wait for the bus, ride there, and ride back! Really exciting haha. But this week has been pretty exciting! We taught a ton of people. We almost taught 40 lessons this last week! It was great. But Saturday killed us!! We had a companion exchange that we finished up on Saturday and that took up most of our day. So we weren’t able to go to everyone’s house to confirm that they would go to church on Saturday! So Sunday, there wasn’t many people there! Which is no good. we had 6, but our investigators with a marked baptism weren’t there! Which is no good. we will probably only have four this week now instead of 7! Which is no good! So do you guys remember elder Schroeder? I went on an exchange with him last time my comp had a meeting! Well he has been super sick!! He hasn’t been able to work for like 2 weeks! Yesterday, the assistant came for a division here in my area and I went to Elder Schroeder’s area with him and his companion and another elder. We all went with a member, except elder Schroeder. He stayed in a member’s house. But we taught quite a few people yesterday with three companionships! But I don’t know why the assistant came here. He has been assistant for about a year and his last transfer is coming up so I think he might leave to come here! I hope that doesn’t mean that I need to be comps with him!!! But everything is good!!! We are teaching lots of people and having spiritual experiences!! But I gotta go!! Love you guys!!!

Love, elder long

ps mom could you sometime make a sticker for me that says "volte com honra"? It means return with honor! But just 3" because I wanna put it on the back of my nametag!! Alright!? Oh and I don’t know if I can get cash here. Do you know? And dad said that Aichers have married off 3 in the last 5 months! Does that mean Charlie is married?! That can’t be right! And missy, where did Bowen serve on his mission? I got letters from some of you guys but from like December 20th. But gotta go. Love you guys!

January 13, 2010

January 13, 2010

Hey everyone! How are you all doing!?? Hopefully you are all feeling better now! How was your week and everything? How did Blake’s talk go? Anything else cool happen? And how’s Bonneville doing? Who is playing? How’s the district? Do you think they will make it to state? Well I guess I will let you guys know about the week. It was pretty amazing! Ha pretty cool! Have I told you all about how we asked for a miracle per day in our "plan with the lord?" well he always fulfills his part and we have problems decided which miracle was the biggest in the day! It is super awesome ha. but we are teaching so much!!! I have never taught so much in my mission! this week(just Monday and Tuesday) we have taught 17 messages! That is so many! The level our president gave everyone or how many lessons we need to teach per week is 25 and we are like almost there! We taught 31 last week. But the best part is that we had 15 investigators at church on Sunday and two baptisms! The bad news is that our ward mission leader is crappy! He doesn’t like anything we do! We baptize a man and he complains, we baptize a member's two kids and he complains. We cant do anything right. And he was complaining cuz he didn’t know that there would be baptisms on Sunday after church. So he was making us hurry and I went to get hymn books for the baptism and he took the picture of the kids (without me) and started the meeting. So I don’t have a picture of two of my baptisms now. And also he gave a crappy message where he talked a little bad about their dad because he wasn’t at church because his horses got loose! Then afterwards he got mad at us cuz we baptized two kids and he was saying this with them there too. The little 9 year old girl was looking a little sad. But other than that the week was amazing and the best week of my mission. we have 5 baptisms ready for this next Sunday. but we might wait because the mother of two of the kids cant be there on Sunday. so maybe we will just hold it off for a week so we can teach a little bit more and so the mom can be there and then we will have like 9 or 10 baptisms next Sunday!!!! I hope nobody has a huge problem with the word of wisdom!! But I think I told you guys about this family already. During an exchange I messed up on a number and ended up at this lady´s house that had been praying for help from god. Well turns out they are perfect investigators and we always have spiritual experiences there. Her sister lives in the house behind and we are teaching them all together. Lilian has two sons (one with age for baptism) and Marcia (the sister) has two kids. So they will be baptized. Marcia unfortunately isn’t married yet so it will be a little longer for her! But there is also another woman that lives in front of Lilian’s house that will be baptized on the 24th and she is really special too. The lessons are always awesome! They liked church tons and the kids are fighting over the Book of Mormon that we left and said they will go to church every Sunday from now on. One even said as he entered the church, "I have already been here before. I know it!" he never has been there his mom said. I guess it just feels like home for him. but we are also teaching a very special guy on the other side of town that will be baptized. he smokes two packs a day though so we will see if he can be baptized this week or next. also there is a family of 4 that is really liking everything about the church. and their baptism is also marked for the 24th. The woman´s parents live next door and their baptism is marked for the same day. So the next couple weeks will be full of baptisms!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hopefully everyone will continue like they are and no one will have any major problems!! We have tons of other investigators too so we are pretty busy every day. We almost marked lessons during pday cuz we are so busy. But everything is good! I got bad news though. I have to talk in church again on Sunday!!!!!! i dont really like that! I definitely am not comfortable talking in Portuguese by myself for 10 minutes about something other than our lessons. so it is probably a good thing to do! If you are comfortable, you aren’t progressing. So hopefully it helps me out a little bit. I also got a letter from the president this week saying that he has a lot of confidence in me. I was wondering if he even knew who I was haha. But that was nice to hear. He said he is proud of our work too. So this week was pretty great! Well love you all! Talk to you all later!

Love,

Elder Long

January 6, 2010

Well hey everyone!!! How are you guys doing?! I am doing pretty good!! My week was pretty good too! We had a bunch of miracles! So we made a plan of action with the lord. So you guys know how everything written on earth is written in heaven? Well every month we make a goal of baptisms and then write our part and then the part of the lord. And if we do our part heavenly father always will do his part. So in our plan this month we asked for a miracle per day. And we have been having some. Oh I also made a plan and goal for this year. But anyways this week was all right. Everything in Brazil stops for like 5 days here during new years. Ha everyone is either drunk or on vacation during this time. We had a pretty good week last week anyways. Sunday was rough. Not many people went to church. But on Monday, it was really good. So I don’t know if I have told you guys but we have been working on just ONE street for the entire day!! It is pretty cool. It is a 5 mile long dirt road. Well a lot of people there haven’t been keeping their word so we decided to try another area. we went to the other side of town where missionaries have never been. We didn't plan a single thing? we went there, marked 5 baptisms and found 13 investigators! it was crazy!! it was the best Monday in my mission!! Haha pretty cool! On Tuesday, elder Mendes found out that he had a leadership meeting today. So after our district meeting, he went to our district leaders area and Elder Schroeder stayed in our area with me. He got her with Chad. He is from Ogden. It was really fun!! He played football a lot and we talked about football a lot. Haha we stayed up ‘til like 2 or 3 talking about stuff last night. That was stupid!! Luckily I am not very tired!! Ha he doesn’t know how to cook food. And I don't really either. I made spaghetti though haha. I made enough for the rest of the week too. Haha he said he could eat a lot but we didn’t eat a third of what I made haha. But that’s all right. It was a pretty good week. we found another lady when i messed up the number of a house. Turns out she has been praying for messengers from god. Ha pretty exciting. she has cried a bunch during our lessons. we are also teaching a woman whose husband died two weeks ago. and we found a family of four on Monday. We were walking down the street and this dog ran up to us. After a minute it's 8 year old owner ran up to. She asked who we were. We said missionaries and then she left ha. About 5 minutes later, she showed up on her bike and said her mom wanted us to visit. We went there and marked their baptisms too. Also the first person we talked to in this new area he awesome and accepted baptism too. We are teaching a member's 3 kids, and another member's cousin. So we have quite a few people to teach right now. Pretty exciting!! But ya that was pretty much my week!! Love you guys!

December 30, 2009

Well this week was pretty awesome!! it was probably one of the best and probably most memorable week in my mission so far!! I had a lot of cool experiences!! But first of all, sorry I don’t know how to talk in English anymore. But it was good to talk to you all! Hopefully you all had a good Christmas. Oh and I opened up a present on Sunday so I guess that probably means I won the game and opened up the last Christmas present of the year huh? Haha well I guess I will tell you guys all about my week since Christmas. Well Christmas was weird. It was just like another day except I talked to you guys on the phone or at least tried to talk to you guys ha. But then we had a division that night and I went to a city called Itupeva. Nothing good happened there to celebrate Christmas or anything. When I first got there we went to go take my stuff to their house(clothes and stuff). Then it started to rain. I didn’t have an umbrella. I have never seen rain come down so hard!!! It was terrible haah. It was only terrible because my scriptures got all wet again!!! And I really don’t like that at all!!!!! They still haven’t dried up ha-ha. But then I just waited as the elder I was with called his family. Then we went to the grocery store. That wasn’t too great. There were a lot of cross dressed people in that grocery store!!! Like 15 men dressed as women. Haha so pretty much it was a different Christmas than the Christmas in Idaho haha. But then on Saturday we baptized Alsino and Marlene. Their son already was baptized. Marlene has a broken leg and can’t bend it at all. She has to use a walker. She is also a bigger woman. Well elder Mendes preformed Alsino's baptism and the were three of us that helped with the other baptism. I did the ordination though. Also, there was only the ward mission leader and the bishop there at the baptism. So it was really small. But it was pretty cool. She was so scared to go in the water. (she is also scared of drowning). But afterwards she liked it a ton!!

We had a few miracles happen on Sunday!! First off we needed 4 more people to go to church to earn the mission’s goal for the week. We were praying and then at the end of the second class, 4 people walked in!!! Then in sacrament I preformed my first confirmation!! I was really nervous but I said everything right haha. Then we had another really sacred experience.

About 2 weeks ago, Elder Mendes was walking and he passed a man and woman and then after walking about 30 feet he felt like he should go back and talk to them. He gave them a pamphlet that talks about the restoration. Then he forgot about it. Then this week we were walking by their house and decided to go there. She came to the door and said her husband had been murdered 8 days earlier. We taught her the plan of salvation and she liked it a lot and is preparing to be baptized on the 16th. She also said that her husband read the pamphlet and was saying how much he liked it and that he wanted to go visit this church. I definitely feel like he already accepted the gospel on the other side and is praying for her help now. It is pretty sad. But we are definitely helping out a family!! But it was an awesome experience that I wont ever forget.

Also I am learning a ton with Elder Mendes. He teaches really good!! One of the best in the mission. I am glad I am with him now. But I think I might be here by mistake haha. because they always put the missionaries with him and the other zone leaders that aren’t qualified yet... well on Monday the assistants called to ask how our zone is doing. Elder Mendes said that there are some missionaries getting close to finishing up their qualifications. So the assistant asked how I am doing with my qualification!!! Elder Castleton never gave them the paper saying that I qualified!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I think that because of this I am here as a junior and was a junior with elder Paillo and not even co-senior with him. I never understood why I wasn’t co-senior with him. And I didn’t know why they put me with a zone leader. haha but now, president probably thinks I am really lazy cuz I still haven’t qualified in my fifth transfer when really I qualified really quick for an American learning the language!!!! Kind of frustrating!!! But oh well I guess haha.

Well this week was pretty good. It rains every single day without stop but that is all right ha. It is still good haha. Well I will talk to you later!! Hope you all have a good new years!!! Love you! Tchau!

Love,

Elder Long