September 30, 2009

well this week has been pretty awesome!! Elder Lima is awesome! he is more like me than any of my other comps by a long ways! its is pretty good and he is one of the only brazillians i have met that are sarcastic haha. and as you know our family is pretty sarcastic ha. we get along pretty well. so thats pretty good! we are also teaching so things are a lot better with just this. we have already taught half the lessons elder garcia and i taught all last transfer ha. that rocks!! but ya we are teaching more people now but none of them are really progressing really fast except for adenilson. we taught him the word of wisdom on saturday i think maybe it was tuesday. he doesnt have any problem with that. and he really liked church on sunday and is going to watch conference this week! pretty awesome1 so he will be baptized on the 10th if things go well. thats awesome! i hope things are good with him still. we had a multi-zone conference this week. i didnt see chad though. i got my package! thanks a lot! i liked it a lot! so it adds up to 100 things!? what will you guys do when i reach day 600 or something ha. that will be a huge package haha. just kidding. but ya at this conference we heard about the importance of the book of mormon and the importance of getting references. so president told a story about a missionary in chile that started a program there. in this program they entered into houses and kneeled down and blessed the house and then they knew who was ready for the gospel by who felt the spirit. haha sound familiar to anyone?!! pretty cool that i am in south america and people are talking about my dad haha. and dads always complaining about how he is always introduced as the dad or the brother of someone. haha people in brazil know stuff about him and he hasnt ever even been here. well that was about all this week. thanks for the packages. nobody is getting letters in brazil. i dunno all of whats going on but i am sure you guys are still sending them! thanks for the support! mom i was thinking that maybe you could send me a couple of shirts. a jazz shirt like for elder lima and either another jazz shirt or a byui shirt for elder garcia. they are having stuff sent here for me too i guess ha. but i would appreciate that a lot. probably like a large for elder lima and medium for elder garcia. thanks! oh and another missionary that i really like, he is awesome, wants peanut butter and i said that i would ask for some haha. thanks alot! love you!!
Love,
Elder Long

September 23, 2009

well i will quickly tell you about my week. we didnt teach to many lessons this last week! it was a pretty long week. we saw marcos and he said that he didnt know if he wanted visits anymore but i think he will still visit church and still progress. he is just a little confused. we had a couple people lie to us haha. it was pretty crappy and i am ready to have some success haha. we are teaching an awesome family! they are really cool and said they are looking for a religion that will bloess their family haha. that is our church!!! so that was good. they said they will go to church this week but i just remembered that this week is conference right? and i dont know what time the sessions are so they might not be able to! i am really excited for conference though! so this week was transfers so i will tell you about the meeting and what happened....oh wait i cant tell you about the meeting cuz i wasnt there!!!! we missed the bus. we finally got there about 2!!! well there were other missionaries there. the new ones, chads group. my comps name is elder lima and we are in itatiba still. he has a really different accent. that might be tough. he doesnt speak any english either haha. what a blessing! haah he arrived in the ctm the day after i did. ha crazy huh?! but ya we had a bus at 4 so i just ate and sat in on the meeting for the new trainers. that was pretty good. i wasnt able to talk to chad because he was in a meeting and then when he finished president started talking. i dont know what area he is in or who his comp is because i missed the meeting. so once president finished talking i had to run for the bus. which of course we missed!! we had to wait until 615 haha. it was pretty crappy missing the bus like 4 times!! but i feel bad that i didnt talk to chad. maybe you could tell debbie to tell him i am sorry and good luck! well i dunno how much i will like this comp compared to my others. he is pretty cool i guess. i dunno if i like how he works. we havent gone out proselyting really though so i dunno really. he loves to talk tho and doesnt stop much haha. that is good becuase i will probably talk more since he is always talking to me! his main goal is like to get me qualified so thats pretty cool. you guys i am sure want a better description of him but i dont know how really haha. maybe after i know him better. i got my letters this week. there was like 7 from dad ha. i didnt know about the mail strike until you guys told me. i wonder if kate and my friends have gotten my letters ha. i guess i will have time to write some of my friends this week. thanks for all the addresses and letters. i didnt get my package becuase for some reason the zone leaders have them. so i will get it next tuesday or at conference. oh so as i was walking here there was a flash flood. it was not raining and then all the sudden it was pouring!!! the wind was blowing really hard and the rain was movin more sideways than downwards. my umbrella broke and i had to run here. ha i am pretty cold now ha. well let me know about your week. thats is terrible that byu lost and that hillcrest is good again... pretty dissapointing! is byu ranked still? well let me know about everything! love you!
Love,
Elder Long

September 16, 2009

Missy thought you guys might like to see this pic of Thomas with Karlee Hill in the CTM.


He said he was being Joseph Smith (sorry, too lazy to rotate the pic--I'll try to change it later).

Love this dorky pic of Tom. I think it's the "I just crapped my pants" face. You can sure tell he's super sad that he doesn't have to wear his hair in a part anymore.

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Hey how is everyone doing this week? hopefully well! so this week was more successful! we taught a lot more lessons this week and found a lot more people to teach. i will tell you about the people we are teaching right now. first of all there is Nilton, aline, and cristine. it is always hard to teach them because nilton is drunk 24/7. he is the uncle of the other two. he never makes sense when he is talking haha. the two girls are really good though. they need to go to church though. we taught a guy named zepadrosa this week too. he talked for about 40 minutes by himself! and then we left a message in about 10. it was pretty long! he was just rambling on. we taught this other guy and his wife. he is the son of a pastor and is helping to orgnize a church here haha. we invited him to pray but he decided that it is better to find answers from the scriptures so he went to the bible. his bible is made for bible bashin with mormons haha. it has footnotes for references in the BOM that dont agree with the bible. except everything he said was wrong or had a reason that makes perfect sense. the church doesnt even have a bible with footnotes in portuguese yet. ha he also asked us to read scriptures in the doctrine and covenants that his bible said were wrong. we didnt argue or anything and just let him talk. we are going to go back there sometime and answer all the questions haha. we also taught a guy named marcos. it is so hard to teach him. we will say one sentence and he will go off for two minutes. then we will say one sentence and he will go again. it is frustrating! i dont have patience for that haha. so we are teaching except the people we are teaching dont make it easy haha. well that was my week ha.

well thats all i got this week so i guess i will talk to you all later. i havent got my package yet. i will either get it this week at transfers or our next meeting with the president. oh this week is transfers so next week i will let you know if i moved. we have transfers every 6 weeks. and that just reminded me of the questions that mom asked in her email.

that food was pastels not pizza ha. and i made them haha. i rock! maybe i will just buy a basketball. probably not today cuz maybe i will be moving anyways.

and as for treats...i like fastbreaks and mini reeses and snickers. and huckleberry cordials and lots of other stuff haha. well love you all. have a good week!
Love,
Elder Long

September 9, 2009

the baptism of pedro nita and maria luiza

Click HERE to see more pics of Thomas

well i wanna write this letter really quick today so i will try to tell you all the important stuff this week ha. there isnt that much ha. this week went by really fast i cant believe it is already quarta(wed)! i dont even know why time went by so fast this week because it was a pretty crappy week haha. ok so i had the least amount of lessons taught in one week this last week. it was terrible. all we did was walk around all day and nobody was even home!! i was about to go crazy! and not to mention that it was raining the whole time. ha that didnt really bother me. except that i didnt want my ties getting ruined. the silk ones get all messed up in the rain. so that was unfortunate. anyways if you could maybe for christmas or something you could send some polyester ties because it rains alot during the summer here. at church this last sunday we had a lesson on home teaching and so i was just wondering how home teaching is coming dad? are you able to find things to talk about without me there? probably not. oh and who plans the lessons now? haha but how is that going? do you have a new companion? i went on another division on monday. the thing is though i got to vinhedo and elder castleton left me. he didnt tell me anything except that there was kid from the ward that i was going with. so i was pretty much alone. it was pretty hard teaching haha. i taught the ten commandments and probably didnt explain it very well. then she asked about baptisms for the dead and i had to try and explain that too haha. it was pretty difficult. i think she understood though haha. but that was pretty much my week this week.

but i got some big news haha. so i weighed myself about 6 weeks ago and then i weighed myself this last week....I HAVE GAINED 30 POUNDS IN THE MISSION!! haha and i am still really skinny. my goal is another 30 or so haah. isnt that awesome!? mom you will have to send this letter to my friends like jay dee and jon. i know they wont believe it haha. but that was pretty much my week haha. not very exciting.

love you guys. the church is true! but it is a lie that olivia did that good on her driving test! and BYU is #9
Love,
Elder Long

September 2, 2009

ok well i will quickly tell you about my week this week. it is pretty lame again! well for you guys. i thought it was pretty crazy. well first of all we had a division with elder swenson and elder lins. elder lins came here with me. he was my roommate in the ctm and is a brazillian obviously. we went and ate at this older ladys house. she lives forever away. she thinks that she has to feed us so much. she is a little crazy too haah with the food i mean. she makes tons. then she serves us! she will give me more food before i finish my first plate. i ate 4 plates!! next time i wont sit in the chair next to her haha.

on saturday we had an activity at the church. we were on the other side of the city in a place called pedro costa and the church is downtown. the ward missionaries called us and asked where we were. they decided to wait for us cuz there were only 15 people there. we RAN there!!!! it was like 5 miles and this city is only hills. it doesnt have a straight road in it. i was pretty sweaty when i got there. i thought i was playing basketball. it was crazy!! then we played a game there where someone says a name then the next person has to say the names previous and adds on a new name and then so on and so on. that is pretty difficult with portuguese names!! i got like 5th tho surprisingly! i got a few people out with american names. haha.

we had a family night on monday with irmã terezinha. it was pretty fun. we just had a quick message and then ate pizza. she made like 3 pizzas and they were pretty good for a brazillian pizza. not papa murphys tho haha.

so we got a new assistant to the president. which is crazy! the assistant thats been assistant for 11 months was moved to zone leader in our zone! crazy! Elder hillam was an assistant but is a zone leader now too. that was 2 months ago though. he and our now new assistant had 21 baptisms in the month of august! that is so much!! but our zone leader, elder nunes, will help our zone a lot i think!! i really hope so! i really miss have people to teach! it has been a while!

oh i passed off a whole bunch on my qualification to be a senior comp. i am not very close though. i probably wont make it. oh well. i think i learned more about the language this week than any other week. which is awesome!! it is coming way quick now!! i have started reading pregar meu evangelho(preach my gospel) from start to finish. i like it alot because i can understand it more than the scriptures. and i learn a ton! i should finish in the next 2 weeks or so.

well thats about it for my week! hows everything going there?? Happy Birthday Devan this week. hope you have a good one. see ya later
Love,
elder long

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