June 30, 2010

well i guess i will tell you all about my week. i gotta be hurry today
because my email to president needs to be really good since we have
transfers this next week. i think this week was one of the worst weeks
of my mission...number wise. it was pretty crappy. but i still learned
tons and things are getting a lot better now! this week i almost didnt
even work with elder ribeiro. he was always calling me telling me to call and tell someone
something to do instead of just calling them ha. so we ran out of
minutes on both our phones now haha. but this weekend i went on a
roadtrip again ha. it was pretty cool. we went to bragança and socorro
on friday. i went with elder cavalcante this week. it was a pretty
good experience. there were two interviews in bragança and one in
socorro. we got to bragança and then caught a bus to the place where
their investigators live. we had to hurry or we would have missed the
bus to socorro. i cant believe how fast elder cavalcante did the first
interview. the sisters hadnt even talked to the girl's mom about the
baptism yet. this girl's aunt is a member and she has been going to
church for a while. her mom will be baptized in the next couple weeks
now. but anyways, i was talking to her mom about the baptism and elder
cavalcante went to do the interview as fast as he could. he finished
in less than two minutes!!!!! her mom and whole family went to church
and will be baptized now! then we went to the next interview. i
interviewed him. his name is luciano. he is a great guy! he knew all
about the commandment and everything. then i asked him if he was
excited about the baptism. he said he didnt want to be baptized now.
so i gave him a lesson of faith. then he still didnt want to be
baptized. so then i decided that he should pray to ask god if he
should be baptized. so we kneeled down and i asked him to say the
prayer..........he didnt say anything. then i asked him again. he
didnt want to say it without help. i explained how to pray and then i
helped him and he repeated. i said"heavenly father." he said "heavenly
father." i said "we thank thee for" and he said "we thank the for"
then i asked him "what would you like to thank god for" and he said
"what would you like to thank god for." that kinda took away from the
spirit. haha but then he asked if he should be baptized and finished
the prayer. he said, afterwards, that he wanted to be baptized. that
was pretty cool. it was a great experience. then we had to run to
catch the bus to the center of town or we would miss the bus to
socorro. the bus was already at the bus stop so we took off running. i
was just entering the bus and elder cavalcante was about 40 yards away
still and the sisters were about 60! haha. i made the bus driver wait
for them! but we got to the bus station in time. but then the bus
ended up being 45 minutes late anyways! so we got to socorro just in
time to sleep! so we had to do the interview the next morning. i
interviewed her. her name is amanda and she is a basketball player.
she plays almost as much as i used to. actually not really but she
plays quite a bit! that was cool. there arent very many basketball
players here!
but then i worked with elder cavalcante one more day in my area. it
was a good exchange.
on sunday, we had 8 people at church! but elder ribeiro didnt want to
do anything. i wanted to hurry and try to reach all our goals but he
just wanted to take the day easy and go home. that made me pretty
upset!
yesterday, we had our district meeting and the assistants went again.
they always go to my district meeting the last week of the transfer.
it was a great meeting and this week is going to be great!
well that was pretty much my week. sounds like you guys all had a good
week. i guess olivia is at girls camp. i hope they have a
good time. i also got some more of the letters from my friends. they
sound like they are doing pretty great! well love you all! tchau!
love,
elder long

June 23, 2010

hey everyone how are you guys doing? unfortunately today will be
short. this week went by really quick and i cant even believe it is
already pday! this last week was a lot different than any other week
in my life haha. well last week, i was just traveling all over the
place! we had a split with the elders from vinhedo. elder ramos(one of
our district leaders) came to atibaia. it was a good day. we walked a
ton and just made a lot of contacts to try and find people to teach!
so it was an effective day. but then we decided to stay in the split.
so elder ramos and i went to interview the baptisms in the sisters'
areas. first we went to bragança. i interviewed two there. then we
caught a bus to Socorro. we had three interviews there. we ended up
sleeping in socorro. there is a member there that has guest house. we
stayed there. they made us a big dinner and breakfast too. it was
awesome! then we made our way back home. but we tried to interview
another person in bragança but they werent there. so we headed to
itatiba(my hometown). i ate lunch with my old ward mission leader. he
is married now which was a huge surprise to me! i thought he wouldnt
ever get married but i am happy for him. then we had another interview
there. then i finally got to go back to my area. i should say my city
though, beacause when i got back i went with elder nothum. and elder
cavalcante went to interview our baptisms. i helped elder nothum get
everthing ready for their baptism. but everything went pretty well in
our zone! bragança was the only area that didnt have a baptism. last
week every area had a baptism. on sunday, edivaldo and lera were
baptized. they are also from the perdões branch! things are pretty hot
in the branch haha. then yesterday, we had our mission conference. it
was really good. we talked a lot about journals and the example we are
leaving behind. if you dont write in your journal, it shows that you
arent really converted or "born of god." because you wont write
something that you did if it wasnt something you want your future
children to read. luckily i have been writing in my journal everyday.
i was also very happy! i was scared that this last meeting with
president would be a lot of tears coming from president which is very
different from normal because he is always really strict and firm on
the rules and always calling us unto repentance and that is the best
part of the mission. i dont know where i would be right now if i was
in a mission where you can slack off and where you dont have to follow
all the rules in the missionary handbook. but he still called us unto
repentance like i asked for in my prayers this whole week! i learned
tons this week and i am super excited.
there was some bad news though. well my package arrived but i didnt
receive it. so you know how you said that the ankle braces are cheap
there now? well they are really expensive here. they put a R$80 import
tax on it and because i didnt have cash to pay, it will be sent back
home...i tried to pick it up but there was no way to do so because i
still cant get money out of the atm. so i dont
have a package yet. i might go to campinas on friday but if not, you
guys will be receiving the package in return. so i guess you can send
it again without putting the anklebraces on there or you can just keep
the box and eat all the candy haha. i even stayed in campinas last
night to pick it up today but it didnt work out. can you beleive that
after about 1 year in the mission i finally stayed the night in
campinas! crazy huh! i was happy to receive a bunch of letters. you
guys dont write as much as you used to but that is fine because i just
receive letters once a month or so. it was good to hear from my
friends too. jay dee sounds pretty excited to finally be out of the
offices and i think eric is ready to leave the offices too! they have
probably learned tons of patience there! they are good men! well thanks for everything! hope
everything is good back at home....and in reno. i hope you are
enjoying your new house bec! have a great week everyone!!
love,
elder long

June 16, 2010

Pamela's baptism

Part of the zone

hey fam! how are you guys doing? hopefully you had a good trip to sun
valley and everything. have becca and lonnie moved to reno already? or
are they heading out this week? my week was pretty good. i guess i
will let you know all about it real quick. well this last week was a
little bit rough. we werent able to do everything that we wanted to.
we wanted to find a bunch of new people but the only people we found
were those that dont really progress because they dont want to. so
that wasnt the greatest. we should have had two baptisms this last
sunday but it turned out to be just one. we have been teaching
fernendo. he lives with his aunt and his sister. his aunt has
costudy(i spelt that wrong) of him. his aunt needs to get married
before being baptized but she said signed everything so he could be
baptized. but then he decided to talk to his mom which he usually
never does ha. and she said he cant be baptized. we still havent been
able to go there to talk to her about the baptism. we need to find
time to go there though! but on sunday we had the baptism of pamela at
the branch in Perdões. it is pretty cool in a branch. and the members
are working pretty hard too. they took about 7 investigators to
church. it is nice because we just work with referrells there so
everyone has a friend in the church that helps them to hold strong.
that is great! this is the problem with most wards in brazil. the
members dont ever do there home/visiting teaching. and that is why the
recent converts become less active. but i think that maybe, perdões
will have missionaries next transfer. but i hope the members dont
decide to work less once they have missionaries there! but the baptism
went well. pamela's dad received the priesthood right before the
meeting so he was able to perform the baptism. that was pretty neat.
that was probably the best part of the week. that always is the best
part of the week.
i feel a little bad. i
havent felt so great about myself this transfer but i think things
will get better now. actually, ever since i was called as a zone
leader i feel different. i moved my focus to learning how to help the
missionaries (which i still havent learned haha). but because of this,
i feel like my teaching has gotten worse. i guess i kinda forgot that
i was here to help people to come unto christ. of course i can do that
by helping missionaries have a change of heart, but i feel that when i
am teaching, i am just teaching lessons and not PEOPLE anymore. so i
will have to move that.
Oh ya. so as you guys probably know, the world cup started this last
week. it is pretty different than any sporting event that happens in
the united states. nobody works on game day. everyone is watching the
game. everything is closed and everyone is crazy!! i am in a smaller
city too ha. but during the brazil games, we have to study. there is
no use in working during the game because nobody accepts a message. so
it is nice to be able to study a little bit more but makes it harder
to teach everyone we need to during the day. but i think from now on
we are going to be able to split with the members so we can teach more
people. that will be great!
well, that was pretty much my week. we have been doing quite a bit of
exchanges with the other elders in the zone. i like to do exchanges
but don't like to at the same time. i feel that the missionaries help
me more than i help them. so i like to learn but as a leader i am
supposed to help them too and i dunno if i am doing that very well ha.
but things will get better ha. but anyways, love you guys and thanks
for everything!
love,
elder long
p.s. did you guys get the dvd of pictures yet?!

June 9, 2010

hey how are you guys doing? everything here is going alright. it could
be better though. i guess i will tell you guys about my week. well
last week was kind of a disapointment. we weren't able to do
everything that we wanted to and we haven't been able to get members to
help us so we can split up at night. so it has been a little bit
harder. it is harder to teach in our area during the afternoon and at
night, we don't have time to visit everyone so it hurts us. this last
week our baptism fell through again. her name is pamela and she is a
members daughter. he was sick though so they didn't go to church. this
week we had a stake conference but it was a broadcast from salt lake.
so the general authorities talked in portuguese. that was cool. sister
beck talked and then elder d todd christopherson. unfortunately, the
sound wasn't working to great and cut out for most of elder
christopherson's talk. but there is a couple from perdões that went to
the broadcast. perdões is a city next to atibaia. there is a branch
there and it is our area too. pamela is from perdoes too. but we
taught this couple and they accepted baptism on the 20th. they were
pretty sure about things when they accepted it too. it wasn't like well
if god tells me to, i will. so they are pretty good investigators. we
are going to teach them the plan of salvation today. but yesterday we
had a district meeting. it was a lot better than the last one. so that
is good. that is our goal to just keep getting better every time.
our zone had a pretty good week. our only difficulty is investigators
at sacrament meeting. which wasn't all that bad considering that most
of the areas had to travel a long ways for conference. but we haven't
been having the results (baptisms). all of our numbers are great. the
best zone in the mission when you talk about numbers. but we aren't
having baptisms. all of the areas can baptize this week though so we
will see how it turns out. it is about time we baptize again ha.
elder ribeiro asked the assistant how he can help me to be a better
zone leader. elder gabriel said that i need more experience. so elder
ribeiro has basically given me control of everything. ha i think he
has given me everything actually. i don't think i need ALL of the
responsibility to gain experience. but i am now in charge of all of
the problems in the zone and also deciding where to go in our area. ha
alright i guess. whatever. but other than that, everything is good
haha.
sounds like you all had a good week too though. that is good!
well love you guys!
love,
elder long

June 2, 2010

hey everyone how are you guys doing? i hope you are all doin great! i am doing pretty good. the first week in the new area wasnt as good as i was hoping but it was still pretty good! we had two baptism so that is always great! it should have been three though! but anyways i will tell you about my week. so elder ribeiro doesnt really know our area yet. his old comp was the planner so we have lots of investigators that i dont even know yet and we are teaching very little. but it will get better as i learn the area a little better ha. that was our difficulty this week. elder ribeiro also didnt have very much trust in me so he didnt let me talk that much. i felt like i just got in the mission and didnt know how to talk or something. i just bore testimonyin a lot of the lessons. i talked to him though and have been talking more now. so that will keep getting better. our saturday was terrible. saturday is pretty much the most important day of the week. it is the day that you have to visit every single investigator to see if they go to church the next day. we are responsible for a branch too so we went to perdôes(the other city/branch) on saturday to interview a girl that would be baptized. they werent even home and all the members went to atibaia for an activity. we just teach refferells in perdões. so there was nothing to do. we returned and prepared everything for the baptisms in atibaia. liliane and tiara were baptized. liliane finally got everything figured out with her marriage and is very elect. she bore a strong testimony at her own baptism! that was pretty cool. tiara is a member's cousin. and really wanted to be baptized. now we need to work with the rest of her family! on sunday we were supposed to have the baptism of pamela in perdões. the meetings there start at 1:30. so it is up to the ward mission leader to fill up the font. it is actually a little pool there. so we told him to fill it up. then we got there a little late after our lunch and there was about 1 inch of really really dirty water there. so we asked him why he didnt fill it up. he said, "well, i just dont think it is her day today." she was all excited to be baptized and everything. her dad was baptized the week before and she thought it was her turn this last sunday. but our ward mission leader decided that it wasnt her turn. so that was disappointing! but it was a pretty good month of may for me. i had the opportunity of baptizing 7 this last month! monday was terrible!!!!!!!!!! all we did was paper work for the zone. it has been a long long time since i have used a computer for so long!!!! we finally started working at 6. but turns out we were missing something so we had to go talk to liliane to find out the information!!! it was really crappy!!! yesterday was our district meeting, which also ruins our day. it was a good meeting though. i think i have completely forgotten how to talk with girls haha. i wasnt to excited to have a zone with 4 sisters! but we had a few interviews with them. they are having a few problems and i feel like i knew what to say ha. haha they actually pprobably think that i did help at all but oh well haha. but i like our meeting. i feel like this zone has a little more confidencein me that helps me feel better about myself as a leader. it was pretty fun but i think we passed the limit a little bit having to much fun. so we will get better with that. but it was pretty much a good week. i hope you guys are all doing great. i am doing awesome haha. i am really liking my comp and the other missionaries in the zone. especially the ones that are living with me. it is pretty fun! well have a great week! oh and a good summer break haha. i guess it is the time of the year when olivia and annie just sit on their rears watching tv and using the computer haha jk!
love,

Elder Long

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