What Can I Do with 64 Days?

August 25, 2014

BOM DIA.

Well I hope y'all have had a good week where you're at. My week was normal, a lot of missionary work and little time to do anything else. The phrase 

'lose yourself in the work" is as much spiritual as it is literal. You don't have time to think about anything outside of the work of the Lord so you literally almost forget who you are and what you liked to do and how you even used to think. Sometimes I feel like I've changed a ton, and other times I feel like I am the same exact person as I was when I left. I think y'all will be the judges haha. 64 days..... what can I do with 64 days?.... Like dad wrote to me, there really isn't anything to do but work. I don't even understand why dudes get super trunky at the end and just stop working.... How can you be satisfied with yourself at the end of the day?  My goal is to not be able to regret anything when I get back. That doesn't mean that I'll be perfect, but it does mean that I have to repent every day and make sure my conscience is clean going into the next lesson or treinamento so the Spirit can do his thing. Elder Bednar said that we need to get out of the Spirits way so that he can do his job. That means that we don't need to put in all of our speculations into a lesson to show how good we are or how much we know. You'd be surprised at how many missionaries do that! I'm guilty too, I think. The interior is where you need to just teach the basics and hope the person understands because it's hard to see if the people are understanding here. They just nod their head and say yes when you ask them if they understood and when you tell them to say something in their own words, that's when you know if they know what the heck you're talking about. I've learned that we have to teach fast and concise, because these people get tired of thinking, just like children. You lose their interest and the lesson suffers. All the missionaries I've taught with or done divisions with have said that I need to break down the principles for the people to be able to chew and digest. They need milk, not meat.

We invited so many people to church this week and so many people said they would go. Saturday night when we were planning we were getting excited to have so many people at church. Saturday we followed up on like 6 people and they all said that it was confirmed. Then Sunday morning we tried talking to them to see if they were going but they all had excuses and didn't go.

 BUT, We had a little miracle this week. We were knocking doors in the small alleyways talking with all the interesting people in the abyss and we found this kid named Jefferson.! 16 years old and just looks like a good kid. We taught the Restoration to him and we could tell he was understanding everything, which is rare. His dad entered when we were about to talk about Joseph Smith and the Restoration and he just went off on a tangent that had nothing to do with anything. It's normal. We cut him off and said all the necessary things to Jeffereson and invited him to church thinking that his Dad had ruined everything. But Sunday morning when we went to church we saw him there sitting by himself in the Young Men's room.... I think we had taught the simplest lesson I had ever taught in my life and it touched him enough to get him out of bed to walk like a mile to the church. It was great. We can't underestimate the power of the spirit to move the people who recognize to voice of the Lord. Jefferson belongs to the sisters' area so well pass him to them when we talk to them on the phone tonight.

Last night my comp, Elder Ramos and I gave a training(I don't know what the heck it is in English alright?) to the ward missionaries. Lídio, the ward mission leader wanted us to talk about their roles as ward missionaries while he pulled up a list of people on the computer(which took forever). And we completely winged the whole thing and it was incredible. I think that's something that I've learned on my mission. How to wing things. We get put in so many situations where we have to improvise that we have to be good at thinking on our toes. Ramos has been here for about the same time that I have so between us we have a lot of experience and a lot of missionary ideas in our brains just ready for us to grab when we need them. The best part was that right after we gave the whole training, one of the ladies asked me where I was from in Brasil..... Do you realize what this means??? It means I can be super pasty white and still trip people up with my Brazilian accent! Even after speaking non-stop for about an hour...That was my goal when I got my call and we gotter done. Heavenly Father helped me out a lot.

Well that's about it folks. I love you all and hope y'all have a great week!

Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll

Still Working Hard

August 24, 2014

Well family how was your week? Mine was great. We baptized again. Garanhuns is still a mystery to me but that's what makes it so wonderful. The mission is only an adventure when you're completely lost, following your companion through a city that you can't even navigate yourself through. But I've met some great people here. The members are great and really love the missionaries. We're like Gods here without speaking sac-religiously... this week was a little bit warmer. It would be as we know as "perfect fall weather" in Georgia. There are a lot of hills in our area so my legs feel like they're waking up from staying on flat ground for 7 months. My body is thanking me. I've also had to switch up my teaching style. I did an exchange with an elder in Bom Conhcelho(an area that's like an hour away from ours and is full of 18th generation Catholics.) and he used to be Zone Leader too. He said the people are so simple here that they barely understand anything we teach them. We just have to kind of hope they understand and go to church and feel the spirit, and THAT is how it's done (hot rod quote)... The Exchange was sweet. I made friends with a dude from Rio de Janeiro who likes the same types of music I like. Elder Conceição is super legit and knows how to talk with the people. I felt intimidated even as his leader. But we made a great team that day.

Oh and for Pday we played soccer with the district.. I realised how horribly out of shape I am. I ran for about 10 minutes and was dying. Also, here we are at high elevation so the air is pretty thin. Kind of like Utah. It was funny because it reminded me of church ball. There are usually a few kids who know how to play and a lot who don't. So even though everyone is Brasilian, there were a few who were just hacking at the ball the whole time. I wasn't terrible, but I wasn't that great either. We had fun and ended the day dead.

This week we did a service project at a small school. We helped to rebocar (put cement on) the brick walls and we leveled out the ground on the outside by putting hundreds of wheel-barrels of Georgia red clay on the ground around the school. It was a lot of work, but the result was great. The teachers of the school were making food for us the whole time without us even knowing. It was great. People here have to offer food or coffee to guests, if they don't they're being impolite. We worked with a member named Jorge who is from São Paulo, but served his mission here and married a girl he met here. He wasn't a fubeca, just to let y'all know. But he's like the missionaries' best friend. He said he's going to try to talk to all the teachers for us so that we can teach them all. For now we're preaching the Gospel by being charitable. It's great because we don't even have to open our mouths.

Our highlight this week was a girl named Fernanda. She's 16 and is the friend of a family that Elder Ramos just baptized in the area. The Elders already taught her family, but her mom doesn't want anything to do with us. But Fernanda got really excited about the gospel and received a real testimony right away. She had a rough past and the gospel brought hope to her for sure. She wanted to feel clean and pure and was looking for something true. We taught her about how we can literally be born again and God will forget all of our mistakes. It's amazing being a part of the introduction to the gospel in some one's life. We could see the light in her eyes every time we taught her about the truth. I could feel the gospel working to relieve her of all the heavy burdens she had in her life, weighing her down. This is the joy the gospel brings. We baptized her yesterday and her mom was there. The ward supported her and is ready to help her out. She has a strong desire to help people to know the truth too, so we think she will go on a mission.

So I'm in Recife right now.... again. I had a doctor's appointment. Dad knows why. But while we were in the mission office I got a package! Woo! Candy to share with the guys at home. Thanks mom, you're the best! Also, Elder Ramos and I were asked to talk with President about something important. He told us that he wanted us to go to a neighboring city by Garanhuns that doesn't have the church yet to see if we can start a group/branch there. There's an Area Seventy that lives there who will have us stay in his house for a few days to see if we can start something with the referrals he has for us, and see how the city reacts to the gospel in general. It will be an adventure for sure!

All in all, I can say this week that my faith in Christ has grown. Just like in all the weeks I've had on my mission. It's amazing to see where Christ can put you when you trust in him and give him your all. He's my Savior and helps me a lot with my imperfections and defects. This week I came to appreciate Moroni 7 more than I ever have. Anything that affects the work of the Lord negatively is not of God.

Now we will go to Garanhuns to take care of our little Peruvian missionary from the furthest away area who just got 4 wisdom teeth out.... Goodbye!

Love you all....
Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll

New Area, New Adventures

August 11, 2014

Alrighty well this week was...... interesting.

The transfer was sweet. I got sent to Garanhuns.... the furthest away zone on the mission. It's COLD here. Well it's not SUPER cold,,,, but it's pretty cold when you don't own a jacket... It basically was rainy and cold the whole week so it's safe to say that I will be buying a sweater today. The week was a rush with tons of things to do. The trip to here from Recife just drained me last week on pday and President had planned a leadership meeting for the Zone leaders on Thursday. That means that we had to follow up on the important investigators for a day and get the heck out of Garanhuns.

We followed up on a woman named Luciane who had been smoking for 16 years and was trying to quit because she and her son´s baptism was supposed to be Sunday. We gave her a pep-talk at her door because she was home alone. She had smoked 2 cigarettes that day and we told her she couldn't smoke anymore. I used the 1 Nephi scripture about when Nephi prayed for strength for him to be able to break the cords that his brothers tied him with. We talked about the atonement and the grace that we have the right to use as long as were doing something just. She got pumped and said she didn't know why something so small was controlling her life. We left her with the other elders for the time we were going to be gone(we share a ward with the elders we live with. The complete opposite of the area I just left. Weird)

We had to take the bus back to Recife and leave on Wednesday to be at the meeting in Recife on Thursday. It was terrible! haha. It was raining and cold the day we took the bus to Recife and we had to run to the bus station because my companion put us on the wrong bus haha. We had to get off and run in the rain to not miss the bus. We got there super wet and we got trapped in an air-conditioned bus for about 3 hours until we got to Recife. Thankfully we didn't catch a cold on the way and we stayed the night at some elders house in Recife. I think I went to bed at like 11:30.... way too late. We were DEAD. So we woke up after and had the meeting with President Bigelow. It was cool because there were less Zone Leaders there because there are less zones on the mission now! We got there and met with a few other dudes to rehearse a song to sing in the middle of the meeting. I forgot what the name of the hymn is but it was good. They wanted me to sing the alto part so I did my best in falsetto. It turned out good. The meeting was for us to establish a better way to follow up on the areas. Pres Lanius wanted us to get all the numbers from all the areas and it seemed like it was becoming a robotic thing with little use. It reached the point where it was writing anything down because there wasn't a reason for us to look back at the numbers. It was just to see if the areas were working and was making the leaders go to bed super late. We took 3 hours to figure out how the mission would be followed up on from here on out. We will just be seeing if the missionaries are hitting their daily goals and if they are having any problems with companions, area, people.... etc..... it's awesome. I get to bed earlier now! haha. President also talked about the change in the rules that he made. Needless to say we will be playing soccer today....woohoo!

Well my new area is good. I won't say that it's sweet yet because I've only worked about 3 days in my area. So we will have a better report next week. The members are legit and the ward seems to be strong.  I live with my companion from Chile, Elder Ramos and two more missionaries.  An American, Elder Johnson, and an Argentinian, Elder Resek. Resek is from Rosario dad! His dad was a mission president in Chile and they moved to Buenos Aires. I realized that I don't really like living with 2 more missionaries, but we'll deal with it. You have to be more careful not to offend people or use stuff for too long when you're with 4(washing machine... bathroom... etc.). It's just more complicated and annoying. My companion is awesome. Just a happy guy who always jokes around. It's easy to be happy with this dude. It's something I've noticed about the missionaries from Chile... they're always happy and joking around! He will go home when I do. He was supposed to go after this transfer but it didn't work out with the plane tickets and everything so he's going home with me. That means he'll probably be transferred out of here in 5 weeks and then someone will kill me.

Yesterday we baptized Luciana and her son, Eduardo! This week was great for them because she had the self control to stop smoking and that made it so Eduardo could be baptized tooo!(he's younger than 15) The members supported and it turned out really well. The water was super cold in the font but we got it done haha. Another proof that God's grace can help anyone leave an addiction!

Well family.... time to go. I love you all and hope this week it great! Christ loves us and is the way. Follow him! Love you!

Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll

GARANHUNS: CIDADE DAS FLORES‏

August 4, 2014

Hello family and friends.

I'VE BEEN TRANSFERRED.
I felt it coming so I was basically saying goodbye to everyone the whole week &7 months is a long time to be in an area and it was my time. I feel like I left a legacy there with the members and especially with our recent converts. But I liked my time with Elder Varela. He teaches well and doesn't like nonsense. That's good because I don't either. We did some good work there and became good friends. You know you have a good relationship with your companion when in the streets everyone looks at you weird. We laughed too much...

I don't have much time because we have to travel to my new area still. But this week we saw a great miracle. We had been teaching a lady named Ilza for 2 weeks and she had been smoking her pipe for 62 years. She's 69. So naturally we had a lot of doubt that she would be able to stop smoking, but she stopped!! In one week she stopped. It was a miracle because she said that all the missionaries from all the churches always passed in her house and tried to help her to stop smoking BUT THEY NEVER SUCCEEDED. She said that she always saw the missionaries pass by her house but they never talked to her(usually we don't like to talk to old people because they never understand the message.... But she understood and felt the spirit and authority that made her put the pipe down and become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ! Imagine that! 62 years is like three of my lives. It's crazy. So we took the pipe and Elder Varela is gonna take it home as a souvenir. She was desperate to change her life because she was in a rut, so when she went to church she loved it because the members received her really well. Her story testifies of the power and authority the missionaries of the church have to teach and call to repentance. We marked her to be baptized this Sunday. I will have to receive the pictures from Elder Varela through email.

Monara and Gloria didn't progress this week because they couldn't go to church, but we taught them just about everything there is to teach an investigator. They know the church is true, but they're afraid to jump in with both feet because they're "making a deal with God and it's not a joke".... I agree with this idea but when you know the truth there's no way to escape it. It's either the truth or nothing. They went to the temple with some members and loved it. They liked the prices of the DVD there. hahah. yeah... who wouldn't like those prices. Anyways, I'll get the pics of their baptisms too, when it happens. They're already good friends of ours so it'll be a huge victory.

ehhhhhh(uhhh in Portuguese)

So the area I'm going to is BOA VISTA, which is in GARANHUNS. All the missionaries say that it is the best zone and the best city in the whole mission. Ever since I got here I've always wanted to serve there and now I'm going! Cooler temperatures.... less noise..... 4 hour bus ride..... paradise. I'll take lots of pics. Oh and I'm Zone Leader still which is nice. Presidente made a lot of changes in the mission. There used to be 14 zones, and now there are 8. He made the zones huge and distributed all the good missionaries so that they could 1. Fix the fubecas (slackers), 2. Train the noobies that are arriving, and 3. to be Zone Leaders.... No more of this "let's make a fubeca a trainer so that his trainee fixes him"... doesn't really work out....  BTW, my trainer, Elder Ferreira went home today. I'm excited about the new President because we have a lot more freedom now. WE CAN PLAY FUTEBOL NOW! He was in a meeting with us last night and told us all about the transfer which is something that never happened with Lanius. It was cool.

Well family! Hope this next week is a good one. Remember that the Church is true. And when you forget.... remember again.

Love you all,
Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll

P.S. My new companion is Elder Ramos from Chile.. I've always wanted to be his companion because he's super legit. We're gonna kill it this transfer! He goes home in 6 weeks.

I found this photo on Facebook.....this is an old photo from Dallin's very first area.

One More Weekly Letter

July 28, 2014

One more weekly letter....
My feelings about the mission are mixed at this point. I'm in the final stretch and I think that this is my last week in this area. Mixed emotions.... As much as everyone says, "don't think about home", at the end, it almost seems impossible. I find myself trying to squeeze every last drop out of my mission. Regret at this point is my worst enemy and it's crunch time. At this point, I'm happy with my progress as a missionary and even as a child of God.... I've mastered the language and the culture too. I've reached a point in this area where I feel really comfortable with the members and even with the work. We have some really good investigators and a few are progressing really well. The Spirit is like an energy that appears to put words in my mouth and thoughts in my head. It's incredible how the Lord enables us when we are helping him in his work.

Yesterday we had lunch with a dude who just got off his mission from Venezuela 3 weeks ago and he was telling us how weird it is when you get back. It makes me a little bit hesitant to go back. Here I feel like a different person. More elevated... more confident. We have a huge role in the lives of a lot of people. In the past 7 months, I've been able to help people to accept the true gospel and to get excited about it too!

Marcos and Yonara are on fire. This week they went out with us to teach people and they just got excited about the work. Yonara has been a member for 6 months and Marcos has been a member for 4 weeks, and both of them are daringly bearing testimony of the Gospel they love. They really enjoy going out with us and seeing how people are blessed by the gospel. Both of them want to go on missions, so a year from now they're going. How cool is that? Two recent converts who are just dying to get out there to preach what they believe in. Their testimonies are pure and without doubts, and really bring the spirit into the lesson. It's amazing because Yonara's family does not support her about the church and even ridicules her. She has a calling as an indexer in the ward and her mom doesn't let her do it at home, so she walks to the beach to do it on her phone. Marcos is just awesome, and all the members just got attached to him when he joined the church. He already has a ton of friends and we're teaching his mom. As soon as she stops smoking, she'll be baptized. 

In the Piedade ward everyone is pretty excited about the work because Bishop Gustavo just implemented an Family Home Evening program in the ward. There's a calendar where all the families that can, choose a night to receive the missionaries and investigators in their house to have a family night. It's something that's bringing a lot of success to the ward. We had two this week that were great and there were a lot of new people for us to teach. Graça, a lady in the ward did one in her house and we were the first ones to arrive. She said she had invited people but it took a while for people to show up. It turned out being a good deal. There were a lot of women there. One of them had just lost her husband and there was another who was asking about salvation. So what did what we do. We whipped out the Plan of Salvation and cleared up their doubts. We could tell there was some relief when we looked at the face of the woman who has lost her husband. 

A couple of nights after that, there was another FHE. We were in a lesson right before the FHE when the power went out in the whole city. Everyone screamed as usual and we began walking to the FHE in the dark. If Yonara and Marcos weren't there with their cellphone flashlights we wouldn't have been able to navigate our way through the muddy roads. Graças a Deus. The family we visited had invited their neighbors who had just moved in. Gloria and Nara. The dad, Manoel was afraid that it wouldn't be good because of the power outage so it almost didn't happen, but we insisted haha. It was great! Manoel had prepared a couple of activities that stretched our brains and were related to the scriptures too. Gloria and Nara liked it and went to church the next day.

Sunday was great, like always. We baptized an 11 year old girl named Efigenia who has been dying to be baptized for about 4 months now. It was hard to get her mom's permission, but we did it. She always goes to church with her neighbors who are members so she was set. I even think she's been to the Recife temple more times than I have! haha. She's from the Jardim Piedade ward which is great because it had been a long time since we baptized someone from there. There were a lot of people there to support and her parents were there too. Her step-dad surprised us with his excitement about the church. We taught her parents a long time ago but never again because they are super busy. But when we taught them, he didn't have a job and we prayed that he could find one. A week later he had a job and when we talked to him on Sunday he said, "the prayer worked! I have a job. Now every time I pray, I thank the Lord for the job he gave me..." Sometimes we underestimate the power of the prayers we say with the investigators, but they really help to strengthen their faith in Christ, even though they aren't members of the church.

Gloria and Nara went to church. Turns out they are aunt and niece. Gloria has a salon in her house and has two young kids. Nara is 18 and speaks English fluently because she was a foreign exchange student in New Zealand. They both loved church. When we visited them after church, we went with Marcos, Otavio, and Lucas and it was a party. These girls were prepared to hear the Gospel. They used to live in a city that doesn't have the church a month ago and then came here. Gloria said they left the Assembly of God because of the many apostasies that exist there. We usually try not to agree too much when this happens... we kind of just smile and nod, because there are really A LOT of apostasies in that church. The Book Of Mormon is super correct in saying that whatever church that isn't the church of Christ is the church of the devil. But the lesson was great there. The spirit was present because of the many testimonies we brought with us and we invited them to be baptized this weekend before I get transferred. They accepted but with one condition. They have to pray and be certain before they decide. Easy. Their hearts are super open so the spirit will just invade them with good vibes.

So Sunday we'll find out if I'm transferred or not. I've been here for almost 7 months and if I stay one more, then that means I will have to stay 2 more because Varela is going home on the next one. If I stay, he´ll go home and I'll have to show another guy the area before I go home. I HAVE 2 TRANSFERS LEFT. The recent converts and members are sad that I'll probably leave on this one,,,, it'll be hard to leave this area because I feel like I'm a member of the ward! It's getting weird, but my work ethic is not going to change. Gotta end it puking! (See the end of the letter for explanation)

On that note, I'd like to wish you all a good week. Remember who you are and what you stand for. You stand for CHRIST. And nobody else.

Love you all,
Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll

When Dallin was in high school he ran on the Cross Country team.  If a runner performs his absolute best during a race and puts every last ounce of energy he has into his run, sometimes he will end the race and puke as he crosses the finish line.  "Puking" was an indicator that the runner had ended his race, putting forth the best he had to offer and didn't hold back.  So "gotta end it puking" is a good thing for Dallin.  It means he's going to work hard and diligently until the very end of his mission, putting forth his best effort.

Some old pictures that popped up on Facebook!  Gotta love it when that happens!

One More Week in the Book of Life

July 21, 2014

This week was interesting.

Pday was interesting because we went to the mission office so I could do my BYU interview with the President to get my ecclesiastical endorsement. He asked me two questions.... are you worthy to use a temple recommend and do you know and understand the honor code at BYU.... I said yes to both and he said, "Good, now I want you to teach me some things about the mission...." He started asking me about the things he should be worried about as mission President and what he should do to make his work effective in the mission. It was interesting talking to him because he is so different from President Lanius. President Lanius' interviews were short and sweet and kind of blunt and now we have a President who likes to know the ins and outs and likes to hear both sides of the story. I told him about the trouble spots in the mission and what to look out for. The man is spiritually charged and got here just ready to get stuff done. He sees the areas which need improvement and is willing to experiment and include the missionaries in the process to get it fixed. He said he always wanted a mentor in his life and decided to adopt one. He read EVERYTHING that President Packer has ever written and has a book of quotes which define him. I'm excited about the direction the mission is going in.

The work this week was relatively slow as we are recuperating after the world cup and chasing down investigators whose progress was delayed. It's a little bit annoying because we have two wards to keep track of and one is way stronger than the other one. The leaders from Jardim Piedade, the weaker one always ask us if we're working in their ward. We just tell them yes and they shrug their shoulders and walk away. We don't receive much help from the people in Jardim piedade, whereas in Piedade, the youth and the leaders are excited and always willing to help out with missionary work. We have to find a way to animate this ward, but I'm thinking I only have 2 weeks left in this area.

Remember Manoela, the lady with the 4 month old baby... Well we visited her and her husband this week and we found out they're from Ciará, another state and the husband, Jorge is just here to work. We taught them the Restoration and they both accepted baptism. Seemed like they were excited to hear the message and everything made sense to them. It was nice to teach 2 people who were really humble. They're from the interior of Ciará and are just open, humble people. What the scriptures say about the humble is true. That they are more teachable and more receptive to the whispers of the Spirit. After the lesson we were talking and they said that Manoela is going back to Ciará until December so there's no way to baptize her here. Jorge is staying so we'll see if we can pull something off with him. They traveled this week so neither of them went to church. We believe that she just came here to discover the gospel because she's only been here for a couple of years. Then when she found out about it she has to go away.....

Lately, it seems like we've been teaching a lot of people with addictions. I guess that's what happens when you're teaching group becomes more mature. We're teaching some parents of some youth that we baptized and with these new, adult investigators, we're meeting some challenges with addictions. It's either coffee or cigarettes and we have to analyze closely the problem of each person even though there are many people with the same addiction. It's interesting. Everyone has a unique personality and a unique way of dealing with the addiction. Some say it's super hard and isn't possible to quit and others have tons of faith that Christ can take the addiction away. If they don't have that faith, we have to find a way to help them to develop it. It's a great lesson for all of us. Addiction could signify our position or progress in life. If we don't have faith that Christ can help us to change our circumstances, then become stagnant. If we include him in our decisions and in our ambitions, his grace will reward our faith and we will be successful in anything we want to accomplish.

This week we also did an exchange with some elders in our district. It was marked for us to have a missionary activity in the chapel and it was the young men's responsibility to get it all organized, so we would just have to show up and participate. Turns out that the young men's president had to go to the hospital because one of his relatives was sick. So we had to improvise, something that missionaries are really good at. So we thought of some games we had played before and the ward mission leader improvised a spiritual thought. And guess what... it all turned out! One of the games was called "sou bobo", or,  "I'm silly´´ in English. It's a game of perception. Everyone gets in a circle and there is a broom that everyone has to sweep on the ground saying, "sou bobo".... then they wait for everyone else to tell them if they really are bobo or not. Then they pass the broom to the next person. The catch is that there are only 3 people who know when a person is bobo. The three people who know will clear their throats before sweeping and saying sou bobo, and then the people who know the secret say, ´´não é bobo´´ or,´´isnt silly´´.. hahaha so the people have to discover how to not be bobo. When people started to discover who it was, there were a ton of people clearing their throats loudly to help the people out who were bobos.... haha it was funny. We just died laughing because everyone was changing their voices and sweeping the broom in different ways to try to not be bobo.. You don't really have to do much to make people laugh here.. people just like to laugh!

Marcos blessed the Sacrament on Sunday. He repeated about 4 times but he was real happy about the opportunity he had to use his priesthood. He told us he was super nervous and just got lost in his words haha.  He's a good guy.

This week we also did an interview for a lady named Varela who was baptized on Sunday. I did the interview and I found out that her niece was the first baptism ever on my mission! Turns out that her family lives in Águas Compridas and me and the other Elder Ferreira helped her niece to get baptized about 1.5 years ago. It was a funny conversation. It's a small world when you're a member of the church.

Last night, we went out with a couple of the young men, Otavio and Lucas. They just kept telling us how great they thought the mission was and how excited they were to be getting ready to leave. They're both 18 and are getting their stuff together to leave. I think the only thing keeping them from sending their papers is the military release. All the missionaries from Brasil have to do this because it's kind of required for guys to enter into the army. Anyways we were walking in the street after we taught about the priesthood at Flávio/edinetes house, and as we passed an alleyway, we heard a guy yelling, ´´irmão,,,, irmão!!´´ We looked back and didn't think much of it because there are always a bunch of drunk dudes yelling at us Sunday night, but we looked back and saw a guy who was bleeding pretty bad. So we went to him and he had a bunch of gashes on his head and said he had just been hit... He had a lot of blood on his shirt and on his face. I called the ambulance and it was ridiculous. They put me on hold, then after like 5 minutes someone started asking me what his symptoms were and hung up. Didn't even tell me if they were coming or anything. We sat the dude on the sidewalk and called Otavios dad to come pick him up and drive him to the hospital. CRAZY. We think the dude was involved in some conflict because he didn't really tell us in details what had happened, other than the dude that hit him hit him with a plank.. Then again, he was shaking pretty bad and was almost going crazy. It seemed like the Lord put us in his path to help him out.

That really happens a lot on the mission. Whether the person is in need of spiritual, or physical help, the Lord puts us in their path so that we can rescue them. It's quite the privilege and is very gratifying when the person says thank you with a smile. Something about being in the right place at the right time is just satisfying. I know that we are representatives of Jesus Christ and I want the make the best of my mission while I have time left. IT'S A ONCE IN AN ETERNITY EXPERIENCE.

I love you all and hope this week is just dandy.
Love,
Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll

World Cup is Over

 This is a picture of the wedding that happened a few weeks ago that Dallin was so excited about!

July 14, 2014

Hello folks.

Glad to be able to write to you all one more time on this glorious day. I'm pleased to inform you all that this keyboard does not have a question mark, so forgive me in advance.

This week was a normal world cup week. Complicated.

We started out the week with a leadership meeting with President. The man is awesome. He's brushing up on his Portuguese so he takes a while to get his ideas out, but the ideas that he expresses are brilliant.  He's changing our point of view.  He really wants our baptisms to be converts.  We talked about the way the mission marks baptisms.  Before he got here when we passed our weekly numbers from the week, we used to only pass marked people for the people we were going to baptize that week.  He said our vision would be very limited if we did that and said that we have to pass the number of marked people we have for the next 3 weeks.  He says it will let us be able to have a better vision of our investigators.  It's a little more relaxing that way without the assistants breathing down our necks, but that doesn't mean that we can relax.  We feel that he has a great love for the gospel and a strong desire to please the Lord. He also talks a lot about how our missions will benefit us after our missions.  He suggested that we speak English in our houses so that the Americans don't return speaking like children and so the other missionaries will be able to get good jobs when they get back. It's hard to speak English.  Luckily Elder Varela speaks a little bit of English, so he understands a lot of what I say.  It helps us a lot when we don't want people to know what were talking about...hehe.

We booted Osiane. We talked a lot about the Book Of Mormon and even taught the plan of salvation just using scriptures from the Book Of Mormon.  It was one of those lessons where the investigator asks tons of questions and you have to explain everything in excruciating detail.  By the end of the lesson, we were practically sweating and we felt good about it.  She said she believed in EVERYTHING we said.  She also said that she doesn't agree with the idea that there exists only one true church of Jesus Christ..... You've got to be kidding me.  She believes in Joseph Smith, the Book Of Mormon, and everything else we taught, but does not believe there is one true church. This is truly an idea from Satan himself.  It was sad, but we can say that we did our best,... she just didn't accept.

This week was interesting with the world cup. Brasil got destroyed by Germany and everyone was fuming mad. It's all people talk about, and everyone blames the government and Felipão, the coach. We went to Flavio/Edinetes house the day after and the kids were all home when they were supposed to be at school.  They said they went to school and nobody was there because everyone was so embarrassed that Brasil lost so bad. People didn't go to work and everyone was just revolted. Marcos was happy because he's so cynical, but the majority of the people we talked to were just disturbed. Katiuce told us that during the game Edinete and Flavio were yelling at the screen saying stuff like "Ahhhh I don't even wanna live here anymore!  I'm going to move to Elder Carroll's country"... and "these monkeys don't know how to do anything!!" .... Katiuce said that nobody could talk to Flavio because he was so angry.  People literally cried while watching the game.... In our apartment complex everyone was just yelling no over and over and over again.  Futebol is everything here. And in spite of the whoop'n Brasil took, people still rooted for Germany in the final because they can't stand Argentina.  That's what we call a real rivalry.  I bought today's newspaper as a souvenir.

As far as work went, this week was a bust. We had some success with one woman named Manoela though. We taught her in front of her house with her 4 month old baby. She was REALLY receptive to our message and said that she felt the presence of God.  She agreed to be baptized and she agreed to going to church but didn't go because it rained a ton and all the roads were super flooded.  Few people went that we invited because of the rain, so it was kinda sad on Sunday, but we're going to have loads of people in the church this week. We also are going to work with Raynas' mom this week to see if we can't throw her in the water.

Well loved ones. This is the true gospel. No doubt in my mind. Life wouldn't make sense if it were false. Christ is the center of EVERYTHING, and our lives need to revolve around Him.

Love you all...
Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll