May 26, 2010

hello my family! well this week was pretty exciting. i learned quite a bit with the assistant last week. it was a pretty good experience and he was pretty surprised with my teaching and how i work. so i guess that is a good thing. unfortunately, once again there was no baptism in jundiaí. but things will get better now. on sunday, there were some ladies from salt lake that were at church. they work for beehive and don’t talk any portuguese. so guess who had to be the translator?! i have never done something so hard haha. but i felt pretty good about it until i asked how my english is and if they understood. they said they didn’t really understand haha. but i guess that’s alright. who needs english anyways haha. i can just learn it again when i return haha. well the jundiaí zone was pretty crappy this last week. this whole month has been a disapointment! i thought there would be a lot better results. but it will keep getting better. last week, we had a leadership conference over the phone. we were comanded to destroy all the qualification papers and the lesson models. that was quite a surprise. they really helped me to learn and i was surprised to receive the new rule saying that we cant study these things anymore. but oh well i guess. i have got everything in my head and heart already hah. i feel bad for the others, like elder nothum, that finished the qualification the week before haha. but president said that it was like a burnt sacrifice of something that has helped us so much. but on monday, i was transferred. i am now in atibaia. it is right next to itatiba, my first area. so i am close by some of my first memories of the mission. my first exchange was in this area.so it is cool to be working here now. there are tons more baptisms in this area too!! so i was blessed greatly! we will have at least two baptisms this week and could be up to 5. haha so i won some baptisms cuz ididnt have to do anything. i actually was able to interview my own baptisms. to interview a person to be baptized, you cant teach them before. so that was pretty neat haha. her name is liliane and she is very elect!! i have never interviewed someone so elect. she asked if she was ever gonna be interviewed so we said ya i will do it today haha. i also havent ever felt the spirit so strong during an interview. it was pretty good. but my new companion is Elder Ribeiro from Belem. he is a smaller guy and really funny. he reminds me alot of blake! it is pretty fun! my zone is full of crazies!! and for the first time, i am living with another companionship. Elder nothum is living with me and so is elder cavalcante, a brazillian that arrived at the ctm the same day as me. so it is pretty fun. i am liking it so far. i will also be able to pass in my first area. that will be great. my first family is getting close to entering the temple! i will get to go to the sealing! i am way excited!!! but this zone is great. it will be a little harder because i now have two companionships of sisters in my zone. so i will have to be a different kind of leader i guess haha.

ya but that was pretty much my week. it was a pretty good week! and i am really liking my new area. my comp is different from elder mendes but i really like him. it is also nice to have someone else to talk to at night when we get home. i am pretty excited and there are going to be lots of miracles in ATIBAIA!!!!

love,

Elder Long

May 19, 2010

Hello my family!!! how are you guys doing this week? i hope everything is going great for you guys! it sounds like your week has been pretty fun. and that would be really cool to see the bees play at state. tell them good luck for me, olivia! this week for me has been pretty good. i will tell you guys really quick about how it has been going. i wont be able to stay on for very long because i am on exchange with the Assistant, Elder Gabriel, and he will need to use the computer after me because he doesnt have an account here at the LanHouse(computer place).

this week went pretty well. except once again we didnt have any baptisms! that is pretty ruff! it seems like it has been a while now! but i am still proud of the work we did in this area where nobody has baptized more than four in a transfer in the history of the mission. we baptized 6. so i guess we are working well. it should have been better though! but we will prepare everything for the next transfer. there is an eternal investigator in our area. her family is a family of members. she wants to be baptized but the family is always telling her that she need s to prepare more and think about it before she decides. i am going to take Elder Gabriel there to talk to her in an interview format so that the family wont be there putting these thoughts in her mind. she has been to church for about 5 months!!! so maybe we could end up with a baptism this week. who knows! but last week was alright. we had a bunch of exchanges with the elders. i really like my zone and i am trying to help them the best way that i can. i think i learned more in this exchange with Elder Gabriel about being a leader than the rest of the transfer. I need to learn how to be firm at times with the elders. can you imagine that he said that i am soft spoken. i dont know why the heck he thinks that! i think he is crazy hahaha. but ya i am learning quite a bit this exchange. but i guess this exchange was to see if i really know how to be a zone leader. so it was pretty important haha. i felt pretty good about the day yesterday. he is going to stay here tonight too and we will finish the exchange tomorrow morning haha. i learned tons but dont ever want to do a 2 day exchange ha. just one day is great for me ha. but everything is going pretty great here. how about there in idaho? how is uncle scott? and helen? i hope they are doing a lot better! well i have got to get going. Elder Gabriel would like to sleep today since it is the first pday he has had in about 5 months. well love you guys and hópe eveything is going awesome! love you! Tchau!

love,

Elder Long

May 12, 2010

Qualifying Elder Nothum

An exchange with Elder Farias

Church in Jundiaí/Brasil

Manoel, normaci, vanderlei, vanderlan, thais. Cerqueira is the name of the family

well hello everyone! how is everyone doing since last sunday!? i hope everything is going great! everything is going pretty good here in Jundiaí! it was nice to talk to everyone on sunday. sounds like everyone is doing pretty well! thanks for everything! and happy mothers day again ha. well i guess i will tell you more about my week. because as you guys could tell, i am not very good at doing that over the phone in english nowadays ha.

Well this last week was full of miracles. it was probably the best week of my mission (number wise). we met all of our goals and we had the baptism of an entire family. dad, mom, two sons and a daughter. that wasthe biggest family that i have baptized until now! it was a pretty awesome experience! they are elect. the biggest problem was that they didnt want us to take them to church ha. the member that lives in front of their house tried to give them a ride to church but they just complained because they wanted to walk to church!!! which is no problem at all haha. so it was pretty great. the members helped a lot in the integration of the family. every single member stopped to talk with them inbetween the meetings! everyone went to the baptism too!!! the room was completely full and i didnt even have a place to sit!!! it was crazy!!! but it was great at the same time! it was a pretty good week!

so you know how we have that qualification thing here? and there is a bunch of stuff you have to do to become a senior? well last week I qualified a missionary! his name is elder nothum. he is from missouri. it was pretty cool! i have been on a lot of exchanges with him! so it was pretty cool to see him qualify! he is definitely ready to be a senior. he is elder murri's companion. on monday i also went on an exchange, with elder phillips. he is from good old ammon, idaho and this is his last transfer. he isnt as trunky as i thought he would be. he actually is working pretty hard! i was thinking that maybe he would make me a little homesick for idaho falls but he didnt. and if he did, that was all over after the exchange i went on yesterday! the elders name is elder farias. he is from bahia. this is his first transfer and he is really ready to WORK. he is just about hyperactive haha. it is pretty cool. he has the best mindset i have ever seen in a missionary! he used to be a punk too! ha he has a bunch of tattoos but he said a prayer to ask god which was the right path and he talked with the missionaries the next day! he also is the first person i have ever heard of that is from the tribe of juda. that is pretty cool haha. but ya it was a pretty good week! everything is going good and we didnt have a meeting today so i actually have a pday haha. that is nice too. but thanks for everything!

love,

elder long

April 28, 2010

hey guys! how are you guys doing? everything here is going great! we are starting to have tons of success in this area that everyone thought was crappy! we have at least 10 people that will be baptized in the next few weeks! that is pretty good since there were only 3 baptisms in 2009! we are seeing tons of miracles though. every single day! this week we had a baptism! his name is jose rubens. he was very elect! he went to church by himself and asked how he could be baptized. that is basically every missionary's dream! we really are being blessed. i decided that God likes me for some reason haha. on last thursday we had a multi-zone conference and guess which elder had to conduct the meeting! that was pretty tough ahah. i didnt even know what to say! ha it was pretty tough. but the meeting was pretty trunky. president only talked about marriage and living with a spouse forever. and how we need to learn how to live with someone right now while we are in the mission. he said that most of us wont be able to have a meeting with him right before going home so he wanted to give it to us now. he just talked about how we have to share everything with our comps and that we always need to look for our faults and not in others. so that was pretty trunky. oh well though. i got a bunch of letters. thanks! oh by the way Missy, thanks for that card that you sent for my bday. it probably wasnt very easy to get all my friends to write and to make the card. this week was pretty tough once again. we didnt teach as much as we would like. we are teaching great people that are progressing and everything but didnt quite reach our goal of 25 lessons. at least we met all our other goals! This week we will probably have two baptisms. a member has been taking is niece and nephew to church for the last 2 months. i dont know why they havent been baptized yet! we went there yesterday and taught their family. their parents were so surprised at how much they have learned at church. we gave the baptismal invite for their parents and then they said "i accept" without even being invited yet. even the 5 year old accepted haha. so this week we will probably have two baptisms and the next week will be about 8 or 9!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we are teaching a very special family!!! Manoel, Norma, Vanderlei, vanderlan and taiz. they are keeping all the commandments that we have taugth until now and the will for sure be baptized on the ninth!!! that will be a great day!! i am looking forward to that day!

yesterday we had our first district meeting of the transfer! it was very effective but i didnt really do very much! elder mendes gave the message. next week is my turn and i have no idea what to do haha. so if anyone has any ideas of scriptures that i can use to get the other missionaries excited about the work, i will gratefully accept ha. but i think they will start working harder. this next month is going to be great! it will probably be the best month the mission has had. and our zone will probably have the most baptisms! i am pretty excited! unfortunately i am still learning tons and dont know how to help the other elders very much! but hopefully i grow from this!

well sorry i dont have much time to write this week! i had to go to campinas! but i hope everything is going well back in idaho! i hope dad and trey had good birthdays! tell them happy birthday for me! sorry that it was late! oh and maybe someone could tell colby happy birthday too haha. and grandpa will have a birthday tomorrow so happy birthday grandpa!

well i hope everything is going great! oh also thanks for the letters from my friends mom! sounds like they are all doing great and having lots of success and spiritual experiences in their missions too!!!

Love,

Elder Long

April 21, 2010

hey everyone. so i dont have very much time to write this week. it is a holiday here so all the places to use internet are closed. we had to leave our area for another to use internet. but i guess i will tell you all about my week really quick...

so i left the best area in the zone (planalto) for the worst area in the zone. i am in the center of the city and there are just huge buildings and nobody to teach. so the first few days were tough! this last week we have visited all the last elder´s investigators and dropped them all! we are starting all over again! we had no one! so we have just been going to all the different parts of our area looking for a place to set up our focus area. we still haven't found out where for sure. but we have seen tons of miracles already. there has been a problem with obedience in this area even though it has been the zone leader's area. the elders have been eating lunch at the home of the missionaries with just women at home. so we changed that and now we are being blessed! we thought for sure our Sunday would be terrible but turns out, 8 people went to church. none of our investigators. but two men asked to be baptized! one will be baptized this next sunday! he entered the church cuz he felt he should! we have taught him everything. the lord really made this happen. i think he will even serve a mission. he is 24 years old. but he is elect! we also have been praying for a family of 5 to baptize ever since i got here in this area. on monday we found them! turns out they live on a member's property. i am really excited to teach them. we have had lots of hard trials and stuff but the blessings and miracles are far greater! i still have no idea how to be a zone leader but i am with the best zone leader that has ever been here in this mission. the president said that! so i have been blessed! but there is also another great blessing! we live on the other side of the road from the church. And we have a basketball court. we have been waking up at 5:50 to play in the morning. i bet becca is complaining at this moment about how i never woke up early to go running. haha. but ya things are going pretty good! i am still learning tons! so everything is going alright. i hope everything is going good with Scott and Helen! i will keep praying for them. love you all and talk to you all later. sorry i couldn't write more today!
love,
elder long

April 14, 2010

Thomas got made zone leader.

Baptism of Marcia (Samanta and Alex's mom).

hello my family! this week was another quick, spiritual, exciting and crazy week! i will start from last week. last week i was able to preform two baptismal interviews in jacaré. i was there on friday(my bday). and because we got there late, we werent able to buy any food that night. it is kinda of different when nobody knows it is your birthday ha. but i wanted to just focus on the work. on saturday we had a crazy baptism. do you guys remember marcia? she is alex and samanta's mom. she was able to be baptized now because she got everything figured out with her divorce. that was one baptism i have been waiting for for quite a while! so it was nice to be able to see! but i was in jacaré on friday and the baptism was at 3. i didnt know that until about 12 on saturday! so after lunch we got a ride to planalto. we filled up the font which finally filled up at 3:30. meanwhile, marcia was just waitin. she said that the water better be hot! it still hadnt heated up by that time. so we decided to wait longer. we needed one more witness anyways. so we were just waiting and then the gas ran out!!!! so the water was really really cold!!!! so we decided to just start. we went to go get baptismal clothes for her....but we didnt have any! the bishop had taken the bigger ones to be washed after the baptism of lucas and moisés. so we didnt have baptismal clothes. we had to get a ride with marcia's boyfriend, who is not a member but helped a ton, to get some clothes. when we were returning, the brother that was on his way to the baptism to be the other witness was waiting for the bus still. we picked him up and went for the baptism! we had a quick meeting and then we entered into the cold water. i didnt think it was to bad. it couldnt be colder than the canal water at missy's baptism. it was a pretty special moment. she started crying. then we went to work!!!!! we had to visit everyone so they would go to church the next day. it was amazing how many people we were able to teach in about 3-4 hours of work. we taught 7 lessons!!! that was awesome! Sunday was probably the best group of meetings in my mission...if not in my whole life! the first class was so good about the holy ghost! the teacher did a great job! he really helped with some of our investigators! the second class was a great compliment for the first! our investigators were asking how they would be able to get the priesthood. then sacrament was great!!! the best part was one of the testimonies. it was the first time that i have seen one of my baptisms baring testimony at church. Lilian bore an awesome testimony about how she was prayin for help from god and a sign that He loved her. the next day, i messed up on a number and ended up at her house. it was great! that night we had a family night at Benedito's house. it is an awesome family in the ward! then after passing the numbers for the week, elder mendes called to tell me that i was transfered. i thought i would stay in Jundiaí! on monday i needed to be at the bus station in jundiaí with elder mendes and the other zone leader, elder tomaz. we headed to campinas with a brother in the stake! his name is marcelo. he is probably the best ward mission leader in the mission! we then had a meeting with president. that was really awesome! he talked about the importance of light and truth in our lives and that we need it to have protection from the temptations. he taught a lot about creating a higher standard now so we can in our homes with our future families. (like everyone talked about in the last conference.) i really think this is important and that there may come the day when we wont even be able to go to church because of persecution. so it is important to have this higher standard so that our future families can have this light and truth. Then we found out the transfers!!! I WAS TRANSFERED ALL THE WAY TO JUNDIAÍ! MY COMP IS ELDER MENDES...AGAIN haha. so after taking all my luggage to campinas, i loaded back into the same car and headed back to jundiaí. i only moved from one area to the area next door haha. elder mendes also did that haha. it is a great zone! there is 18 missionaries in our zone. oh and to answer dad's question, elder murri is in my zone now. and chad went to Americana (a city a little north of Campinas). the only problem is that elder mendes rolled his ankle really bad and isnt allowed to work. so i havent even taught this week and i feel like the worst missionary haha. on tuesday, we had transfers. i went with all the missionaries that were transfered to campinas again and brought all the new missionaries of the zone back to jundiaí. then yesterday we just sat at home trying to figure out where we will work this transfer. our area is a pretty tough place to work. it is the center of the city so there are tons of huge building and everything. since this area was dedicated, there hasnt ever been a focus area in this area. so that is our goal for the transfer. president also said that the purpose of this area is to helpthe other areas. so i dont know if the baptisms will be quite as frenquent here....we will see :) but ya it was a pretty exciting week. and pretty crazy that i was only transfered to another part of the zone and that i am with elder mendes again. that is awesome though. there is tons that i can learn with him still! one thing i am studying right now is the atonement! like how it worked and why it had to be how it was. so i was wondering if all of you could try to find a talk that talks about the atonement. i would prefer it to be more profound doctorine if possible. i was reading a liahona(ensign) from 1980. there was a talk by Bruce R mconkie that talks about knowing Christ. there is a difference between knowing Christ and knowing things about Him. and the best way to know Him is through studying the atonement. and maybe it will help bring more light and truth into our home like all the general authorities talked about in the last conference. so could you guys send a bunch of this kind of talk for me?! :) well that was pretty much my week! pretty exciting huh!? well love you guys!!!

love,

Elder Long

oh and i did see elder murri and chad. elder murri is in parque da represa, jundiaí and chad is in americana. i talked with both of them quite a bit. there is also another missionary from IF in my zone. his name is elder phillips. this is his last transfer and he is in jundiaí mirim. the weather here is getting a little colder. it is about 15-20 degrees celsius here. i am not sure how much that is. oh and i returned to be the junior in the companionship but that is alright. it will be good to work here!

April 7, 2010

My zone

hey how are you guys doing? how did easter go? and conference weekend? i hope everything has been going great! it sounds like there are some really crazy experiences happening with my friends in their missions. lots that i dont ever want to experience...like heart surgery or swalling a pop can tab! zach is back to work already though? that is pretty cool! but i guess i will tell you all about my week. It was another crazy, jam packed week! it was almost perfect until sunday!!

well we have been teaching tons of people!!! it is going great! this week we found 22 new investigators and almost all of them will progress! what a blessing! we are having difficulties teaching everyone! but hopefully we can get some splits planned out with the members to double our forces or at least maybe we can give the priesthood to moisés early because he is already wanting to go with us the whole day! well we are still teaching that huge family. they live on a property with three houses. we taught in one of the other houses too and there are 5 people that live there. and then yesterday a missionary from our zone gave us an address of one of his contacts that is the other person that lives on the property. i am almost certain that there is someone needing this message there, if not about 20!! there are at least 20 people that live on this property. not to mention all the referals they have given us of friends!! that is great. we have been teaching tons though. we also taught a family of 5. they are really strong in the catholic church but they are acepting all the invites so far! the mom's brother works in the temple. i think he is a sealer! we also are teaching another couple that will finally get married on the 25th! they are progressing well and really like our visits and might be baptized on the 26th if everything goes right! well on sunday, it got a little crapier. we found a huge SUV to take everyone to church. we got to the house where the huge family lives and one of the kids was sick and so the mom didnt want to go and no one else wanted to go without her. nobody else could go either. the only people that went were moisés and lucas and two kids that i have never seen before. ha we just asked if they wanted to go and they came with jonatan haha. conference was pretty good. i watched in portuguese. they had it in english there but i decided that i will be able to watch it in english the rest of my life ha. and there is only two years in portuguese. (even though i will probably watch in portuguese on the internet afterwards too ha). i was dissapointed that i wasnt able to see a talk by Eyring, uchtdorf, holland or bednar. none of them talked on sunday! the sunday afternoon session was just about family and family search and i think they were trying to make missionaries everywhere a little trunky haha. i liked one thing that robert d hales said about family dinner. "it's not the food, but the family interaction that nourishes the soul." i am glad that we always ate dinner together! after the first session though we had 9 baptisms! the two from our area and 7 from the others in the stake. it was pretty great! i have taught or interviewed every single one of the 9 baptisms. it was nice to see all of them finally being baptized ha. i baptized lucas. ha i had to do it twice because i guess his forehead came out of the water ha. ha and it did, after going 6 inches into the water ha. almost all of the baptisms were preformed twice haha. i think the testimony was jsut trying to be safe haha. but it was pretty special. but ya that was pretty much my week. we met all our goals easily except investigators at church. we will have to get better with that!

it was good to read all your emails! i am glad to hear that the jazz are at number two!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! when will the regular season end? before next pday? i am anxious to hear! will it be whoever wins in the west will win it? sounds pretty close! ha well i guess that is about it ha. love you guys!

love,

elder long