March 25, 2013

Hello America,

"Hows everything going there? Everything is just great here."  This is what I remember as being the beginning of all the letters Dad wrote to his family on his mission. Thought I would pay tribute haha.  Anyways... seriously everything is going well here.  There's always something new every week.  There's always a new learning experience with Portuguese, culture, and just the gospel in general.  I don't know if I talked about Dagina in the last letter but she was the so called impossible-to-baptize.  We set a date to baptize her this week!  It was truly a miracle.  We really didn't do that much except to give her an invitation and try to teach her without success.  Her sister told us at the end of the last pday that Dagina got in a fight with her "husband" and wants to be baptized now, but she doesn't want anyone to know/come to the baptism so she can surprise all her member friends on Sunday what she gets confirmed a member in front of the whole ward.  We marked her for Wednesday but it didn't work out so now we're going to baptize her this Wednesday instead of last.  Miracles.  Also this week something unfortunate happened to me and my companion's bowels because of something we ate so we had to stay home for a whole day.  We missed a lot of opportunities to teach but eventually got them back.  Also, I tried to send ya'll a crab in a bottle from the market in San Jose but apparently I'm not allowed to send stuff like that.  haha. You'll just have to wait a couple years.

Another good thing that happened this week was that we finally got a hold of Eduardo and his wife Adriane. They're always busy and we were about to boot them because we went to their house every single day.  We began to think that they didn't want to receive us. But yesterday we taught them the first lesson.  It was cool because we brought one of the young men with us.  We taught 2 first lessons yesterday. The other was a reference from the member we built the guarda ropa for, Davi.  The guy was awesome.  He talked about the gospel like he was ready for baptism.  My Portuguese was flawless during the lesson and I felt really good about it. He said I was intelligent for learning Portuguese in 3 months.  It was just an awesome lesson. The young man that was still with us and he testified and talked about the Book of Mormon.  At the end I felt strongly impressed to challenge him to be baptized so I used the "when you know these things are true through prayer will you be baptized?"  The dude said, "yes!"  It was my first official non-casual baptismal invite and it was super legit.  Batismo!!!! haha. I was so pumped after; the only thing that went wrong was during the First Vision lesson because the soccer team here won and everyone in the town started flipping out.  It was a little frustrating but we got through it.

This week were planning on baptizing 5 people; Dagina, Henrique, Alessandra, Andreza, and Cristiane.  I think our companionship is currently baptizing more than anyone in the whole mission so that definitely feels good. My companion is a boss and is fearless. He just throws out Baptismal invites like candy and the people accept, but really these people have been ready for a while and would've been baptized eventually. BUT 5 IN THE SAME WEEK? Ridiculous. I thought we would would have to settle for 4 for a second there because it was hard to get the permission from Cristianes mom but, we got it!

...Miscellaneous...

There's this place outside our window that plays 90s hits from the U.S.  It's hilarious because I always know all the words and sing along while I'm studying. They're mostly ballads from Brian Mcknight and Seal and guys like that. Oh, and another thing, MY COMPANION IS TRUNKY OUT OF HIS MIND. He has a cd of songs about being trunky on the mission and he plays it ever pday. He's getting in my head. Felipe and him always watch movies till midnight and sometimes they wake me up and I have to yell at them. And I can in Portuguese!  It's satisfying, haha.  Every week we have to fill up our huge water tank with water from the clean fountain down the road.  It's funny because everyone gets their water from the same fountain or they just buy it. Oh and every Sunday Kelly and Fabiana's kids walk into the Sacrament meeting with flowers in their hands and give them to me. It's hilarious. I was just sitting there with a handful of flowers for the whole meeting. Sunday we also helped bring a handicapped sister to church. She lives in an appartment on the second floor with cement stairs that don't have a railing.  It always feels good to serve. Another thing I've noticed about the people here is they keep the model pictures in the picture frames, they have picture frames with pictures of Jessica Alba and families that aren't theirs. It's funny. The members here are amazing. There's always someone with a reference for us and this Sunday we met a 13 year old kid who came to church a couple times who already wants to be baptized so we're going to teach him and his family this week and baptize everyone!

All the leaders I talked to this week said I will train.  We had interviews with the President and he asked me if I'm ready to train. I answered yes but was thinking kind of, haha. There are a lot of Americans coming so there's a good chance I will train one of them.  How the heck am I going do that?? -Napolean Dynamite voice.. Seriously. If I train an American it will be the hardest thing I've ever had to do. But come what may right? That's what missions are for, challenges and growth and conversion.  I'll find out about that next week and let ya'll know, of course.

Well, I hope all is well on the other side and that things aren't too stressful with the wedding. Remember to pray and read your scriptures every day. God wants to bless you and is just waiting for you to ask him! -that was my
message for the members this week.

Love ya'll, have a good week!

Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll