March 31, 2010

hey everyone! how are you all doing?! i hope everything is going great!!! this week was a pretty good week! and sorry, i am pretty tired today! so maybe i will have some mistakes in my english ha. but this week was pretty crazy! i think in the last week i have been in my area 3 days! that is pretty crappy. i really like to teach in my area ha. but oh well i guess. last pday was not the greatest preparation for the week ha. we worked most of the day ha. but i guess we will be blessed for our sacrifice! thursday was a pretty good day. we are teaching a lot of people that our progressing. we are teaching Moisés and lucas. they are two brothers about 17 and 16 years old. moisés looks quite a bit like marc too. it is pretty cool! they are progressing very well! moisés doesnt have any problems and is even asking if he can be a missionary someday! pretty cool! lucas has a little problem with coffee but it really is a question of testimony. he hasnt really gained a strong testimony about the book of mormon. he knows it is true and they will be baptized this week in between the two sessions of conference! on friday i worked in the center with elder tomaz. they had two baptismal interviews there. i am glad that i am in planalto and not in the center. they walk a lot and their teaching group is limited! i interviewed a 23 year old girl that went to church by herself and wanted to be baptized and also another lady...she is 88 years old! she lives with her two sisters too. one that is ninety something and another 85 year old. haha she likes to talk. she told me all about her life haha. but it was pretty cool. it is cool that she has been catholic her whole life and now she moved! then on saturday, we finished up that exchange and i went to jacaré for the interviews there! i interviewed two girls. they are 11 and 14 and have sisters that are members. they are very shy!!! the older one did not even talk!!! she said 8 words throughout the whole interview. she ended up not even being baptized on sunday because she was too embarrassed to be baptized in front of everyone and she didnt want to even enter the water with elder eduardo because she was so embarrassed haha. but it ended up being to late to finish the exchange so i stayed in jacaré. then on sunday we went to go pick up investigators. (i was still in jacaré) there is a van that picks up the investigators that the ward pays for. the van left us so we walked to church and got there in time for sacrament meetinghaha. elder eduardo had a talk to give and didnt even prepare anythin. he still gave a good talk tho! after sacrament, we had the crazy baptism! at this time yara was being baptized in my area...ya i didnt get to see and elder damásio didnt take a picture! i heard it was pretty funny too! but after lunch we went to planalto. we didnt want anyone in the district that didnt reach their goals. so elder eduardo was going to go to itupeva to help them out. but elder damasio and elder tippet were teaching so we couldnt end the exchange. so me and elder eduardo decided to teach. we went to a family and taught there real quick!!! there were 8 people in that house!!!!!!!!!!!! and there are 5 others that live there!!! so we met our goals with just that one family haha. then we decided to just go to itupeva. so we went there to help them out. we found a great couple! they just had a kid and were crying while we explained the plan of salvation!!! it was great! then i was able to teach in my area monday. another one of carlos's friends asked to be baptized!! so we went and marked his and his mom's baptism for the 11th! oh and we taught that huge family and marked their baptisms for the 18th! oh and just to show you how great moisés and lucas are: we were walkin in the street by their house and they asked if could fill out the baptism papers! (what do you call the baptism paper? in portuguese it is a "ficha." do you know dad?) and then yesterday we all went to itupeva! our whole district! i went with Elder de arujo and we marked 6 baptisms. i believe they will all be baptized too! but then i had to sleep there cuz it was to late to go home. and i had to sleep on the tile floor. i slept for about 4 hours maybe! but ya that was pretty much my week! pretty crazy huh?!!!

love you guys!

love,

elder long

Questions

March 24, 2010

1. What is it like in Brazil?
Brazil is pretty hot. right now it is just a little bit hotter than i would like. ithas gotten up to about 104 degrees but it is humid too. not like in good old dry Idaho. right now it is about 80. is a great place to work! i really like the people here! they are humble and willing to listen. there arent very many people here that wont accept a visit so that is great! also brazil is a very good looking place! there are tons of trees and it is really green!! it isnt like i was expecting though. i have only seen monkeys one or two times ha.
2. How do you feel about Brazil?
I really love brazil! It hasnt quite taken over idaho as my favorite place to be. but i cant imagine myself in another place right now! i am so glad that i was called to this mission. i cant imagine being with a different president or in another place! (especially some place that is hotter than here! any hotter and i wouldnt be able to handle it!!! haha)
3. What are the people there like?
they are really receptive. they are willing to listen to what we have to say. there is also A LOT of people! for the last 4 months, i have worked on one single street. i have talked to at least 3000 people and i havent even made it half way down the street yet!!! it is great though!!! tons of people that we can teach!!
4. What are your feelings about the work?
i am really greatful for the chance i have to be one of Christ's representatives. i really do fell His presence everywhere we go! especially during the times when we are teaching.
5. Bear your testimony.
well i guess i would just like to say that i know that Jesus is our savior! that he is our only hope and that he can bring happiness for everyone! i know that he already felt all of our hardships and because of this, he will help us tons! God always will do His part when we do ours! I know that Jesus lives and that He loves us! I also know that He leads this work and this church! i have no doubt that the church is perfect! i know that Joseph Smith was the prophet of the restoration and that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet now! we are so blessed to have the gospel in our lives! we were chosen to be born in families that have the gospel so that we could help our brothers and sisters find the way as well! i am so grateful for the gospel. I am also grateful for the miracles that God gives us. i know he will bless us with many miracles every single day as long as we ask! Look for a BIG miracle per day and GOD will give it to you! not just in the mission but for the rest of our lives! Eu sei que isto é verdade. Em nome de Jesus Cristo. Amém.
6. Wish your friends well.
well i hope everyone else is having as much fun as i am! i really am having sacred experiences every day! it is great and i know that we can do great things if we work our hardest. I believe Heavenly Father really likes us Idaho boys haha and he is willing to bless us tons!! i hope you all look for a HUGE miracle every day! Pray for miracles! thanks for everything you guys have done for me. i am very grateful for the examples you guys always were for me! i am glad that i had good friends that helped me to get out here in the mission! i really wouldnt be able to have a better 2 years anywhere at this point in my life! Thanks!!! "Os Garotos do Idaho estão batizando todo mundo!!!"

March 24, 2010

every tuesday, our whole district goes to one area to help out there. so that the missionaries there can have more people to teach and also to help them reach their goals. i really like our district. we arent in three seperate areas (planalto, jacaré and itupeva). we are all one area ha. its great. we were in Jacaré

there was a thunderstorm earlier in the day and it

was a different sunset ha. and ya that (street) is

varjão. i have worked on just that one street the

last 4 months haha

we baptized carlos's sons and another 12 year old

(left to right: renato, carlos, and jonatan).

it was pretty special.i hope it was the baptism

of 3 future missionaries haha.

well hello there everyone!! so this week was a pretty successful week! we almost reached all our goals for the week! we only had 9 at church this week and our goal was 10 and then we had four baptisms marked at the end of the week and our goal was 5. so it wasnt to bad. we almost made it ha. but i guess i will tell you about my week! well first of all i will tell you about one of the biggest miracles that have happened in my mission until now. so you remember nina? she is that older lady that had a dream that 2 people dressed in white would visit her to bring the light. well we passed there about a week and a half ago and she had been talking to her family about the churhc. so she told us that she doesnt need to change churches but she is the one that needs to change. she kept saying that the catholic church was perfect and christs church. so we had pretty much left her. then on saturday, we passed in front of her house and she told us that she thought we had abondoned her. so we decided to teach her real quick. all we did was go in and say a prayer and then we sang a song. i dont even remember what song it was but she felt the spirit so strong! then she told us that she has missed our visits! and that she was really wanting to go to church. so she went to church on sunday and on monday when we visited her we witnessed a miracle. she cant read so we read a part in the book of mormon for her. we told her that it was a proof that the church is true. she said she didnt even need to pray about the book because she already knew it was true. then she told us about how she was talking about the church with her son. she told her son that next time we visited her, she would ask to be baptized. well we didnt even invite her yet and she ASKED to be baptized!!!! it was amazing!!! but the rest of that day was pretty crappy and i didnt even notice until the end of the day ha. i was just so surprised the whole day haha. but there were other good things that happened this week too haha. for example...we had 3 more baptisms!!!! that was pretty awesome. we baptized carlos's sons and another 12 year old. his parents are working on getting married. it was pretty special. but sunday is always stressful and this sunday was more stressful than ever!!! we went the church in the morning and waited for the brothers that were going to help us pick up investigators. the patriarch ended up picking up someone else and couldnt help. then the other brother called and said his car had broken down. well we had one car and like 15 people to go to church!!!! well elder demásio went in that car and picked up three people. then i got another brother to help us at about 9:10 haah. there was like 8 people waiting in front of the house to go!!! this car is about big enough to fit 4 normal sized people!!! so we crammed everyone in the back and then there was just me and moisés (portuguese for moses). there was the front seat left is all. well moses....he is about 300 pounds!!!!! haha we didnt even try it ha. we ended up making two trips. but then when we got to the church, it was already 10:30 haha. we turned the water on in the font for the baptism. then we headed to sacrament. then i tried my best to forget everything except christ during the sacrament. i reached this goal (forgetting all about the water as well!!!!). haha well i went running out of the sacrament meeting and the bishop and like 3 others were trying to get everything cleaned up!! i am going to have to put the blame on elder demasio for this one because he said it wasnt full enough even though it was up to at least my waiste haha. but then we had the baptism after we got everything cleaned up haha. i hope it was the baptism of 3 future missionaries haha. tuesday was another pretty good day. we were told to be in the center of town at 8 for our zone meeting. we did our personal and companionship studies there. then we walked out of the room and president was there for interviews. it was a surprise haha. finally it was my turn. i walked in and sat down. then he asked if i was worthy to enter the temple. i said yes. then he asked if there was anything i needed to talk to him about and i said no. and then he said i trust you a hundred percent. and so does the lord. he told me that my interviews would never be long because he needs to help others.(everyone else was there for about 10 minutes). he said that he felt 100% confident with me here in a zone leaders area. then it was over and i left. it was about 45 seconds long haah. but it was still a great experience! then afterwards i got to eat at burger king!!!! that was really great!!!! and our whole district headed to a city called jacaré. we all went there to help out that companionshíp. we all split up with the members. so there was 6 sets of companions. it was a pretty awesome night. except that we werent able to visit anyone in our area! but pretty much it was a great week!! i got the three packages from you guys!! thanks a ton!! i especially liked the pics of jacoby. i cant believe how big he is. and i would like to see him shooting haha. but i guess i will here in a year or so ha. well i hope you guys had a great week and that everything is going well! love you guys!!
love,
elder long
ps i got tons of letters this last week too. oh i forgot to tell you that we had a multi zone conference too. that was pretty awesome!! but it sounds like everyone is good!! i really liked all the letters from my friends! jay dee, tyson,jon and james sound like they are loving the mission. colby and chad are doing great too. i really liked the letter from eric. he is a lot different haha but still really funny! it was good to hear from him and to see how much he is loving argentina!

March 17, 2010

danilo was baptized

Danilo and his girlfriend (her name is Katia)

hey everyone! this internet isnt even working so who knows when i will be able to send this too you. i am writing this in word and will send it to you once the internet decides to work i guess! how is everyone doing? good i hope! so when is cheer state olivia? and bonneville baseball has been going pretty well i guess? sounds like they should do pretty good this year. you will have to keep me posted! well i guess i will let you know about my week here in Jundiaí!
it was a pretty good week. not the greatest week of my mission. i guess i will learn a lot this transfer. elder demásio isnt the type to say "lets go do this." and as you guys probably know, i am not very proactive either. but i am getting better because i am forced to talk more now. before i didnt even talk with the person before we started the lesson. so it is a lot better now! it was a pretty good week. i just gotta to say lets go and elder demásio will go but he wont even get ready to go until i say so. but its all good. i just got to rememver that we cant stop at our house during the day or we probably wont be leaving for a little while. but this last week we have been teaching an awesome family! there is ricardo, maria, jonaton, and a bunch of others. they have a problem with drinking. jonaton is 11 years old. he is pretty cool. he was the only one that went to church because the others were drunk or drinking ha. actually his uncle went too but we had to take him home shortly after because it turns out he was pretty drunk too haha. but jonaton will be baptized this next sunday. his parents are doing a lot better with their drinking problem and they are going to start on the papers to get married. so it will be a while until they will be baptized. there was 8 investigators at church this last sunday so that was pretty good! especially since a bunch didnt go that said they would! this sunday we will have 3 more baptisms. and this last saturday we had one! danilo was baptized and i will send you the pic with this email. but that was pretty awesome. he has a broken leg so we had to put some plastic bags on it. his leg came out of the water on the first try but we got it right on the second try. unfortunately a little bit of water got onto the cast. on sunday he was confirmed and so was carlos. that was good as well! but everything is going well here. unfortunately, nina doesnt want anything to do with the church. she knows it is true but she wont leave the catholic church. that drives me nuts!!! but ya it was a pretty good week! and this week has been going even better than the last one! so i am excited for the baptisms and everything this weekend. tomorrow we have our multi-zone conference. so i will finally receive my packages! thanks a lot by the way!!! but ya that was about all that happened this week. nothing to exciting haha. but love you guys!
love,
elder long

March 10, 2010

Church in Jundiai

hey everyone! how are you guys doing?! everything is going pretty good here in the mission! so i guess to start off, i will tell you all that i wasnt transfered to my surprise!! BUT...Elder Mendes was. i was pretty nervous to see who my next companion would be since my area is the area of the zone leaders! but they decided to put the two zones in jundiaí together, so elder mendes was transfered all the way to the center of Jundiaí, which is the closest area to my area. i am senior now and my companion is named elder demásio. he is my brother...we were both trained by Elder J. Miranda (and in the mission, your trainer is called your dad). but as you know i sent elder miranda home. so that means elder demásio is my OLDER brother ha. he has about 16 months in the mission. so hopefully he is alright with having a senior that is younger and learning the language still. he still hasnt been a senior comp in the mission though. he baptized tons in his last area! he worked hard yesterday. unfortunately, we dont have many people to teach, but the people we are teaching are really good.
i guess i will tell you all about the week we had. It was the first week in about 4 weeks that we havent had a baptism. this week we will have another. i think it will only be one this time. elder mendes told the assistants that we have 4 that could be baptized but two havent even been to church so i wont baptize them yet! and then the older lady that we are teaching is going on a trip this weekend so she wont be baptized until next week! but danilo will be baptized on saturday! so that will be pretty good! but on sunday at about midnight, the assistants called and told elder mendes that he was transfered. i was so tired. the phone was next to my bed, and i didnt even hear it or wake up. so i was really surprised when he said that he was transfered! especially since we thought that i would be transfered! so on monday, we went to the leadership meeting and i was invited. i was scared that i would be called as district leader but i wasnt!!! luckily ha. i wanted to be just senior! but it was an awesome meeting! president talked about the worth of souls. it was really good! the worth is huge! because every soul has the potential of becoming a god and creating worlds without number and souls to inhabit that world. not to mention all the dissendents and ancestors of that person that they will be able to help. but i stayed the night in elder mendes´s new house and then on tuesday we got our new comps. there isnt a transfer meeting anymore. the zone leaders go to campinas and pick up our companions and bring them back to the zone. yesterday was a pretty good first day as senior. i introduced elder demásio to marcia and lilian and their families. marcia was bawling because elder mendes wasnt there! she was about ready to tell elder demásio to go back to where he came from!! ha she also kept saying how much she loves elder mendes and me and that she loves us like her sons. that was nice to hear. but pretty much was a pretty good week. i cut my hair this morning! it was needing it! but ya that was pretty much my week!
so did dad kill olivia because of the $140 ticket!!!!!!!!!!!! i only got one ticket and i wasnt even going over the speed limit! he said 40 was to fast on the road that is 40 mph. haha but oh well.
did the jazz win the game that you guys went to? did they play against the celtics or was dad saying that he bought tickets to that game too? that sounds pretty fun! did you guys buy some green jerseys?

i also am really surprised the hillcrest did so well!!! they got third at state and beat skyview!! wow!
well i guess thats all that happened this week! love you guys! tchau
love,
elder long

March 3, 2010

hey how are you guys doing? hopefully everything is great! i guess i will just tell you all about my week this week. we have a lesson that we got to teach in just a litlle bit so i will have to be quicker today! i am glad to hear that all the missionaries are good in chile. i was wondering how kyler was doing. but i didnt feel anything here in são paulo so that is good. how is everything there though? i guess it is pretty torn up. that would be pretty intense. but ya anyways i will tell you about my week.
well we found a bunch of new investigators thjat will progress! this last week we continued having tons of exchanges. that is good though cuz i am learning. the assistant also came to do an exchange with us. but this last sunday we had two baptisms! Carlos and Conceição were baptized! it was pretty awesome. we didnt know if carlos would be baptized until about 2 hours before. but everything worked out. elder mendes baptized carlos and then i baptized conceição (who is over 70 years old). she didnt want to go under haha. but we finally got her to sit down to make it easier and we preformed thje baptism real quik ha. carlos also did a strange maneuver in the water ha. so they were interesting baptisms. i was praying that i would drown an old lady haha. luckily she is alright haha. but yesterday was also pretty exciting. we had our district meeting and then our whole zone went to jundiai mirim. it is a closed area(without missionaries) we all wokred there for the whole day. elder mendes and i taught 5 lessons, found 8 new investigators and marked one baptism in about two or three hours. so it was pretty good! the other elders did pretty good too. we are going to start doing this in one area every week. but i will probably be transfered this next week so i guess it wont really matter. the assistant already basically told me that i will be transfered. so this has been a pretty good area and i have learned tons these last two transfers here with elder mendes. it is pretty easy being a junior with an awesome comp haha. so that kinda makes me not to excited to be transfered hah. but we will see whyat happens this next week.
well thanks for everything! mom can you make sure to send my emails to my friends too. jay dee said it has been a while since he has heard from me. it sounds like all my friends are doing good though! james and tyson are zone leaders and baptizing everyone and jay dee is having a lot of success and working tons in the mission offices. and jon is doing good too. but that was good to get an update on everyone! but love you!
love,
elder long

February 24, 2010

Thomas, Douglas, Camilla, ?, and Elder Mendes

hey everyone how are you guys doing? i am doing pretty good. i am not the happiest right now but thats alright. the week was pretty good. right now i am in an exchange with elder tippett. we stayed in my area and our comps had a meeting in campinas. well, elder tippett's comp called at like 6:40 to tell us that he marked an appointment at 11 in the other area that is an hour and a half away. so we caught a bus to this area. walked about 20 minutes and guess what?! he wasnt even home. so we have nothing to do. luckily they have free internet cuz we are 5 cents short of the money we need to catch a bus to jundiai again. so after this i will probably have to start searching for money on the ground so we can go home. i am not to happy with the district leader but alright oh well.
so the girls lost by two? that is no good! second is terrible!!!!!!!!!!! haha i didnt like getting second. but at least you guys got to go to boise this week. so time is going pretty quick and i cant even believe that it is time to write again. pretty crazy!!!
i guess i will tell you all about my week real quick. well this week was pretty good. we had more success this last week than the rest of the weeks in this transfer. thursday was a pretty good day. we found a bunch of new investigators and at least two the will be baptized a week from this sunday! really we have been teaching their dad and grandma and these two kids finally stopped to listen a little bit ha. it is funny cuz they both have the name carlos and their dad's name is carlos too. at least i dont ever call anyone by the wrong name. their dad is excited about his baptism this week. conseição will be baptized this week too. but this week i was given our area. we are in exchanges almost everyday!!!! i have been on 4 in the last 5 days. so i am learning a lot about being a senior comp. so thats cool i guess. and it is good thing that i didnt completely ruin everything haha. on friday, i was able to interview a girl for her baptism this last sunday. it was a good spiritual experience and she was excited. she is 14 years old and her name is genilda. but that was pretty cool. on sunday, we had two baptisms and a confirmation. Douglas and Camilla were baptized this last sunday. on saturday i told elder mendes that they were the easiest two baptism in my mission, because every lesson was at the church so they came to us to be taught. they keep all the commandments without any problems. so i was thinking it was pretty lucky and not very stressful. but on sunday she got sick!!! they didnt show up until about 11. we were praying just about the whole meeting. she had a baked potato and got sick. so of course she blamed it on me because i am from idaho. i dunno why but everyone said it was my fault haha. but then after lunch, we had to make some contacts. we are supposed to do 140 and we had 74 hah. so on sunday elder mendes and i each made 30+ contacts haha. it would be good if we didnt procrastinate haha. but on monday i was in exchange with elder nothum. he has been in brazil for two weeks now. it wsa pretty good. we found one ELECT lady!!! she is an older lady, probably about 65-70. she started crying before i even started the first vision!! she cried during the invite to be baptized and said, "i cant refuse an invite from christ. yes, i will be baptized!! i havent ever felt the spirit so strong during any lesson. it is cool because everything i planned, fell through!! so i found a man that lived kind of close. we went there to this house but he ddidnt really live there. but nina did. she already talked to missionaries ten years ago but didnt know how to get into contact with them again. BUT, i havent got to the best part!!!........... she had a dream the night before that two men in white would came to her house to help her find the truth!!! that is probably the coolest and most memorable thing that has happened in my mission huh?! it was pretty cool. but last night i was in exchange with elder tippett. we taught carlos and conseição about the word of wisdom. they will obey. then we used an awesome finalizor. i marked the baptismal interview with them and then called for our district leader that will interview them so he could tell them how excited he is to visit them! it worked great and they are super excited. they are studying the gospel principles book alread and are in chapter 10 already haha! and carlos asked if he could go with us to do visits after his baptism!! prtetty awesome!! we also had another man that would have been baptized but probbly not now. his fiance is a member and a returned missionary. they dont live together or anything. he actually lives in campinas but is driving here like here every weekend. but he was working on the roof of his fiance's house and fell and broke his leg. and since he has no one to help him there in campinas, he is staying there in his fiance's house. they arent breaking the law of chastity but he cant be baptized until he isnt staying there. so probably wont happen this sunday unfortunately! but he will be baptized eventually!! but ya it was a pretty good week except this trip i made to this city called jacaré for no reason today. haha but everything is good! hope everything is good with you guys!!!
love,
elder long