Happy Mother's Day!!!

Sunday May, 12, 2013

We had a great time talking to Dallin on Mother's Day.  He was able to Skype with us from the computer at his church building in Brasil.  It was great to see him laugh and share stories about the amazing things he is doing as a missionary.  I even got him to sing a song to me in Portuguese.  When I figure out how to download it off my phone I will post it!  Ashton and Brandon were able to get us doing a three-way conversation with them in Texas, our family in Georgia and Dallin in Brasil.  Technology is amazing!  At one point we had twelve people on at the same time including Janelle's family in Arizona, and Grandma and Grandpa in Utah.  The response time was a little slow with that many people, so eventually we ended up just talking with Dallin one on one.  He looks great and as his Mother, I couldn't be prouder of him!

Busy, busy, busy

May 6, 2013

Hello people of the non-mission world,

 

Hope everything is just going great!  I like that 'm still getting emails about the wedding.  It seems like it was kind of a big deal.  Glad to know that Ashton is happy with her eternal companion and every one's lives can get back to normal.  Huge family gatherings are the best. I can't really thing of anything better.  God really does love families and wants them to be strong, happy and loving.

 

I've got some news for this week. I'M GOING TO TRAIN! Not gonna lie... I'm getting pretty nervous. Partially because I don't know who my companion is going to be but that's normal and partially because I don't have any crutches to lean on.  I'll probably have to do everything by myself.  It's going to be tough so pray for me!  Right now I'm with another elder who is about train someone too, a temporary companion just until the noobies show up.  I'll be staying in his area until we leave to get our companions in Recife in the morning.  He's already trained.  He says that when you train you learn your identity as a missionary, and your way of teaching.  I feel like these past few months I've just been learning everything from other people and not really having my own way of doing this.  This will be my opportunity to establish myself and really grow.  I have a feeling that it's gonna be the second hardest thing I will have to do besides being super green and not knowing how to speak but, everything will be alright.  I always have the Lord on my side to help me and I know that he won't let me fail.  I'm really hoping the new guy will will be Brazilian so I can get even better at Portuguese. I still don't feel fluent mesmo, but I'm solid and can really say whatever I want.  I don't feel fluent but people tell me I am.  It's weird.  I don't know what to believe.  So my prediction for this transfer is that the Portuguese will come fast but the baptisms will come slower.

 

Another mission mile stone was that Elder Moore went home.  Here on the mission they call it killing someone when you have a companion that goes home.  Everyone jokes with me and calls me a killer cause I sent Barbosa home and now Moore.  Moore was a big help.  I learned a lot of technicalities of the mission from him because he was the Secretary.  I learned a lot of teaching techniques and mind games, I guess. Don't know if it's good to call it that but that's how it feels.  I hope he reads this when he gets home, haha. We had some good times and some bad times and we were really good friends. Still are!  I was really impressed with the way he handles dying though. Some missionaries literally lay over and die when they're about to leave but I felt like we kept working to the end.

 

This week we baptised two more girls. Patricia, 8 years old and Natalia, 20 years old. I don't know if I wrote about Patricia last week but I'm just gonna say that she was was super hard to baptize. Not because she didn't want to but because she was always just running around and being 8!  Her mom just lets her run around town so we were always trying to find her, teach her and bring her to church.  It took 2 weeks for us to get her into the water.  Who would have thought that baptizing an 8 year old girl would be so hard!  Her mom heard some things about the missionaries that were kind of bad... That we go after little girls and I don't even know what was happening but, she was hesitant on letting us baptize her.  But Elder Moore, being a boss smoothed the whole thing over and we got it. BUT,Only because of Natalha, our other baptism.  I'm going to tell her story and maybe these two stories will meet back up at this point. We'll try it.

Monday of this week we passed by Bishop's house to talk to him like we always do. He said he had a reference for us and that it would be a sure baptism.  And it was.  We taught her and she was just perfect. She had already been to tons of churches and this past Sunday she went to our church for the first time. She said she felt something that she couldn't explain. Just something true. We went to her door and she answered it practically saying that she wanted to be baptized, so that was cool!  We taught her and it was awesome.  The spirit was strong.  Mainha, the Relief Society Pres. was there one day while we were teaching her without even telling us.  I'm telling you the members in this ward are all about missionary work.  But it was great. She was a great testimony for the lesson. Natalia has 3 little boys already and shes 20. Crazy.  She's super nice and just loved us right off the bat.  She's going to be super firm in the church. She's one of those people that refuses to pray about the Book of Mormon because she already knows it's a true kind of thing.  She was super ready and we never had to worry about her.

 

I guess this is where the stories come together.  Sunday we were running around with our heads cut off again and just trying to get stuff set up for the baptism. Up until the last minute we were trying to find Patricia to bring her to the church and baptize her. She went to another town that day and we were worried she wouldn't get back in time but to our surprise she was in front of this house with her parents watching this huge Pernambuco soccer game with a ton of people.  We were there with Natalia on the way to the baptism. Patricia's parents couldn't care less about her, so they weren't even trying to get her to go or to stay but Patricia just didn't want to move. She's the shyest little girl I've ever met and she just wouldn't talk to us weird white men. But Natalia was there and she has 3 kids so she's super good with kids. She was super mom like and got Patricia to come with us. She was saying that she was getting baptized too and all this mom technique stuff. THIS IS WHY WE NEED SISTER MISSIONARIES.  We had the baptism and it was really nice. There was a lot of the ward there and the Bishop did a great job of making the new members feel welcome. After all, the 2 baptisms were his references, haha.

 

Man.. I can't really think of anything else to say. I bought mom a nativity.  I found a really cool one. It took a while to find but I got it.  It is made of clay and has this metallic lead looking finish.  That task is over, haha.

 

Love everyone. Good luck with the next week. They seriously just fly by.  I've already been out for 6 months!  A 4th of the way done. Carazy.  And Sunday is Mother's Day!  I get to talk to my Mommy for the first time in 6 months.  It'll be over Skype. We'll go to Mariana's house to do it or to the church.  We'll see. But keep your computers ready and send me your skype stuff!

 

Love from Brasil...

Elder Carroll

My Sister's Married!

 

 

April 29, 2013

 

So I guess my sister is married now... weird.

haha!  Awesome. It was fun just to open my email and find tons of pictures of my family all dressed nice. Everyone looks very happy. I was thinking about the wedding all week but don't worry, I was focusing on the work!  I thought Landon's quote was funny. haha Brandon she's all yours... you for real you can have her. Jk. But seriously. But wow. My sister is MARRIED? Hard to believe. Thought it would never happen. But then again when I was home, it felt like I was never going to get on the mission. It always just felt super far away. Funny how time works like that. Everyone's just going through the steps of life. The pictures are awesome. Ashton looks beautiful and happy.  I'm glad she made the decision to get married in the temple for time and all eternity. Heavenly father has a perfect plan for all of us, and it all revolves around the family.  Being here on the mission has reminded me how awesome family is. I guess it's the whole being away from family for a long time thing.   I don't think I could bear the thought of not being able to live with the people I love after this life. Two years is long enough but, I'm really enjoying my time here.  I'm learning a lot about myself, my strengths and my weaknesses. I still need to work on the whole air-head forget-stuff thing.. That's just how I've always been.  If you know me, you know that.  I'm learning I have way more tolerance than other people, trying to think of an example but I can't right now... Anyways. ..This week was good.  It's the second to the last week for Elder Moore here so we're just having fun and working hard.  We baptized 2 more kids this week, Paulos' kids, the guy that owns the bar.  It was great. Their mom came but their dad was asleep... because he owns a bar. But he doesn't drink so that's cool. This letter is going to be terrible because I didn't write anything down this week to write for y'all.

 

Elder Moore's birthday was this week, so naturally we ate tons of cake and got super fat.  But it's all good.  I planned a surprise party for him with a sister in the ward.  She's gotta be like 80 but, she's the coolest lady ever. She said just to stop by her house that night. So we did and there were tons of ward members there to celebrate Elder Moore's birthday. It was cool. We had hot dogs, cake, and some more cake I guess.  Everything here is cake.

 

One of the days of this week we went to another area in our zone to help them get more in their teaching group.  They have 7, not good. I'm pretty sure it's because the Elders who are there are both about to go home and are just dying. Happens too much if you ask me. But we went there with a little success, taught a lesson and came back. Oh yeah, so my comp is the District Leader now so there's a good chance that I will be DL + train next transfer.  It's going to be crazy but I feel ready for whatever is about to happen.  My Portuguese is solid but I am still learning every day.  My Brazilian roommates said that my pronunciation and rhythm is getting worse because I'm speaking in English too much. That woke me up so any chance I get I like to talk to them and I talk to myself in Portuguese.

 

Well. All is well here. It's starting to rain super hard every day. I guess it's reaching the rainy season. Glad Ashton is married now, and setting the example for the rest of the world on how to live in accordance with the principals of the gospel.  Families can be eternal if we just take advantage of the ordinances god has given us on this earth.

 

Love you all!

Elder Dallin Carroll

Work is Fun!

For those of you who are following Dallin's letters, I apologize for getting behind in posting.  Dallin's sister, Ashton got married a week ago and it has been very crazy in our house.  Things have finally settled down over here and I should be able to get Dallin's blog caught up soon.

 

April 22, 2013

 

Opa.

 

This week was good, I think... Yeah, it was good.  Seriously, every day kind of feels the same and the weeks just fly by like you don't know what happened.  Usually I write things down so I can remember what happened during the week. This past pday we wrestled again. Less people came this time so it wasn't as fun but, it was still good. It was just me Elder Moore and Vitor, the small guy that beat me with an arm bar last time. We all took turns fighting each other and we all lost to one another at least one time.  I beat Vitor twice this time which made me feel good. I redeemed myself by getting him in a leg lock the first time and then I choked him out the second time.  It was fun but Elder Moore and I were super sore the next day so we decided that we aren't going to wrestle on pday again, haha.

 

The first half of the week was full of rejection and people just saying no after we had been teaching them for a couple weeks.  That was tough but there are always more people to teach. We ran out of things to do one of the days so we just started knocking doors (by clapping in the front yard).  We found these two ladies that had been baptized 20 years ago, a Mother and daughter.  One had converted to some spirit church and the mom had just stopped going to church.  It was kinda weird.  Elder Moore was talking to the daughter while I was talking to the mom, who was like 70 years old. The daughter, 30 years, didn't want to bend on her new religion, but the mom... well I kind of made her cry. I started reminding her of all the feelings she had felt when she was an active, faithful member. I guess it was just too much for her to handle. Unfortunately, neither of them went to church on Sunday but I feel like we planted a new seed. They said to come back whenever. They miss the presence of the Elders in their lives.

 

Another cool thing that happened when we were knocking doors was we found this kid, Jonatas, who had already been taught by the missionaries but I guess they just left him with the Book of Mormon and the first lesson and that was that. We reminded him about everything and he seems like a promising future baptism.  He's already been to church and left all the bad things he's done behind him, all we have to do is teach him and baptize.

 

After going to Jonatas' house we walked over this bridge that went over this trash river.  Literally, there was more trash than water in this thing. So Elder Moore wanted to take a picture.  I took one of him on the bridge and then this lady came up and started saying sarcastic stuff about how her country is so beautiful and how were talking pictures of the rotten river.  I just had Elder Moore talk to her because I wasn't about to take the heat for the picture that he wanted me to take, haha.  It was super awkward and I felt kind of bad.

 

In Brazil they have this stuff called Acai. It's a fruit that grows on this coconut looking tree. They grind it up and make it into a paste and make sort of an ice cream out of it.  It's super bomb.  We've been looking for a good place here that has it but it's kind of rare I guess but, we found one. They put granola, peanut powder, and bananas on it and it's super good, especially since it's so hot here.

 

My companion this transfer is super legit.  We're good friends and sometimes I laugh so hard that I can't breath because we joke around so much.  GOOD TIMES.  I found out that he stayed in Biddulph Hall at BYUI a year before me and that he knows one of the Elders from my district in the Provo MTC.  It's a small world when you're Mormon!  He also helps me with some Portuguese stuff, which is cool.  I feel like we speak way too much English though.  It's super hard not to when you can't express yourself as well in Portuguese.

 

We had some sweet successes on Sunday. Our investigator who went to church last week got baptized on Sunday. He reeeaaaally needed baptism. The Mission President passed him for baptism and everything was good for Sunday. We baptized him before church so he could be confirmed during Sacrament meeting.  I could just tell that he had been wanting repentance for a long time but just didn't know where to find it.  He was so sincere about changing, it was awesome. He left everything. His girlfriend, cigarettes, drinking... and his past!  Repentance is amazing and can only be done through Jesus Christ and his atonement.  This man was a reference from a member in the ward. THIS IS WHY WE NEED GOOD REFERENCES FROM THE MEMBERS! To save people who are ready to be saved! That was something our bishop really stressed in his talk this week. He challenged every person in the ward to give us 1 reference. It was awesome.  He told us to go to every class on Sunday and pick up references. So we did.  It was fun, but disappointingly we only got like 5. It's a start!

 

We had 5 investigators come to church this week and we finally got Isaias to come, Kelly's boyfriend. We want to baptize this guy so bad. He knows his bible so we get into some bashes with him sometimes but the discussions with him have gotten better. He liked church.

 

We also got Paulos' kids to come to church. I had to go get them with a member while Davi was getting confirmed. But Paulo (the guy that owns the bar) basically did our job for us when we were talking about baptism with his kids. We read Alma 7 and he just took the wheel and explained to them what baptism is. And he said, "You're both getting baptized".   Sweet. WE just show up and the work was done for us.  We left that discussion laughing haha.

Well I think I covered everything.... Love you all.  Love the church. Love being on a mission!

 

Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll

Hello USA!

 

April 15, 2013

Hello USA,

This week was a race.  It seems like all we did was run around with our heads cut off.  Our area is split into two towns, Aguas Compridas and Alto da Conquista.  Agaus is where we live but Alto is where we have to walk up a huge hill to get there. My calves still aren't used to it. We always have to go up and down all day to get to different appointments and when we get home at night we're just dead.  It seems like it was hotter than normal this week and this hills were steeper, haha.  We received a few references from members this week so that kept us busy.  The family that we baptized last month is already pumping out the references.  They have distant family that haven't had the chance to receive the restored gospel yet so we are going to bring it to them.  Gosh, it's so freaking hot in here.  I'm in a place called a lan house where you pay for time to use the computers and there is no air conditioning and no fans. And there are kids playing video games and yelling so I can't concentrate on what I'm typing!!

We got a reference from Fabiana this week, her sister in law.  We've already seen her a lot because she lives way close to Fabiana.  We taught her the first lesson and she didn't have any objections or anything so that was cool.  I'm beginning to start the lessons now and not just rely on my companion to start.  I'm pretty comfortable with the language now.  My companion said I'm fluent.  That really surprised me because I definitely don't feel fluent. He said you never really feel fluent so I just accepted it and I guess now I'm fluent, haha.

We've been talking to Kelly with her boyfriend these past couple of weeks. We baptized Kelly like a month ago. Her boyfriend is the hardest headed person I've ever met. First he says he's going to go to church because he receives an answer from God in a dream saying that he should, but then he doesn't act on it because he didn't feel like it.  It's too bad.  Missions are full of difficulties and disappointments.

It seems like we have so many people that could be baptized right now if they just go married and stopped living with each other.  It's a really normal thing here to just have a family without being married.  When you talk about getting the parents married, they think it's a load of besteira and they're too lazy to do it.  We just have to tell them it's a commandment from God and they look at it in a completely different way.  It's just frustrating when marriage and the law of chastity is in the way of baptism.

We did have some miracles this week despite a lot of frustrating things happening, like having a full day where nobody was home and nobody wanted to hear anything from us.  The whole last half of this week, we were chasing this baptism. We needed a miracle baptism to happen this week because none of our investigators have been to church, which is required for baptism. His name was Gulherme and he is nine years old. We found out that the previous Elders in this area tried to baptize him like 4 times.  He must be a really special person for diabo to work that hard against his baptism. They always had the OK from his mom and the date marked but he always got away somehow.  His baptism was on Sunday and we were relying on his member friends to bring him to church so that was stressful. We also tried like three days in a row to get the mom's signature but she was never home.  We got it at the last minute. We also still needed him to get interviewed because the baptism was so last minute so we had to get the District Leader here super fast.  All the while we still had to go get an investigator and bring him to church, which we had been trying to do with this particular person for at least a month but it always fell through. Elder Moore and I were super stressed and needed help! So we split up. He went to the Bishop's office and I went to the chapel to talk to the kid and fill out his baptismal form and to make sure he didn't run away. The kid had the worst ADD I've ever seen and he was bouncing off the walls. I literally had to hold him so I could get his information.  He didn't know his birthday and his name was like 10 names long.  During all this we told our ward mission leader to go get our investigator, Davi and bring him to church. Thank goodness he knew where to go.

So here comes the resolution. The district leader got here and we baptized the kid after church. Our investigator, Davi got here and he loved church and said he could feel peace. He's like 40 so there's some potential priesthood right there. The only thing that went wrong is the Bishop was busy so we couldn't confirm Gilherme that day. Oh, and Davi couldn't stay for the baptism.

Wow.  Being a missionary is hard work and mentally and physically draining but there's always something that happens that makes the work worth it. Baptism! Woo!  Another thing that makes it worth it is the members. They always have our backs and have some food to give us if we're super drained.  I know all the houses that give us food no matter what so when we're hungry and we don't have food we just go to one of those houses, Ha.  I guess were kind of freeloaders but we're also missionaries so that's OK.

All in all this was a pretty stressful week with no time to really think.  I guess I've finally hit the missionary wall that everyone talks about.  I'm grateful to be challenged because the Lord gives us these challenges so that we can grow.  I know this is the Lord's work.  He can't do it without us and we can't do it without him.  It's a kind of circle of trust I guess. The more I teach people, the more I realize that we really do have the true gospel of Jesus Christ and we're really lucky to be members.  If you look at the statistics of the people in the world and the number of members, it makes you think how lucky we really are to be members of the church.  Everyone will be a member eventually but for now there are very few to spread the gospel compared to the number of people on the earth.  There's tons of work to do!  Help the missionaries wherever you are. Give references, open your mouths!  The missionaries will be very grateful for the help and so will the Lord.

Love you all, hope you have a great week and that everything with the wedding goes smoothly.

Elder Carroll

PS Loved the emails from everyone. Sorry I can't respond to every single person because of lack of time but I love hearing from everyone! Keep 'em  coming!

A Busy Week

 

 April 8, 2013

Hello everyone,

  

Well this week was a little different because of my new companion and everything. It was a bitter sweet thing to get an American companion because we have a lot in common and we joke around and stuff but I don't think my Portuguese is going to  improve as fast as it has been in the last few months. At transfers I got to see my companion from the CTM, Elder Kennedy. It was hilarious. We just started spouting out all the inside jokes we had. This past week we were told we could email friends. Everyone flipped out. So I guess I need some emails! 

 

The first day that my new companion was here we just went around and met everyone, all the recent converts and investigators. It was funny. Everyone started comparing us because we're both blonde and American. They kept saying that his Portuguese is way better than mine. That's one thing I've learned about the people here. They have no shame when it comes to telling someone the truth about themselves. Like last week I had a big ol pimple on my cheek. And you'd better believe that I heard about it from everyone. At first it was awkward but then I got used to it, the people are so different here!

We got to go to the temple this week with our zone. It was cool. We took the bus to Recife and had to walk like a mile to get there. On the way we went to this market that was bigger than any Walmart I've ever seen. They had everything! Except for peanut butter. It's impossible to get here. I was disappointed.  We went to Subway there for lunch and it was just too good. A little taste of home. Then we went to the temple and did everything there. The session was in Portuguese. It was a little harder to understand for me because it was in the formal dialect with different conjugations. After the temple we went to Burger King. Apparently it's tradition to go there after the temple. The Brazilians go crazy over it but the Americans all want to eat somewhere else. We got a cab from there. It was kinda expensive but twice as fast as the bus. The drivers are crazy so it was interesting. Lanes don't really exist.

We didn't really teach that much because of conference and the temple and everything else but we met some new people. Henrique brought us to some of his friends and we taught them. They're all like 12 so they were intimidated by us and wouldn't talk so we just started playing dominos to break the ice a bit. We also taught Henrique's mom's boyfriend. He is from the Assembly. All people from there like to Bible bash, so you know what happened. My companion bashed while I sat there. Then I talked after it was over and toned it down a bit. His problem was with the authoritity that we have and that anyone can have authority if they're a good person. Kelly(Henrique's mom) just wants him to be a member so they can have a happy family. They want to get married so that they can live together. We challenged him to pray about the church while we were there. He prayed but not about the church. He's stubborn but, he prayed that night and had a dream that he and his wife were going to church together. Our church. We haven't talked to him about it yet but Kelly said he's still thinking about it. What more of an answer does he need that this church is true! I'll write about it when we figure it out/ set his baptismal date.

Before conference started on Saturday we had a baptism. It was a little different cause our font is broken. The kid's name was Armondo and we baptized him in an inflatable pool at a member's house. It was a really cool experience. Very intimate. It was just the Bishop, us and the kid's dad. I think baptisms are the best meetings that a non member can go to. The kid's dad was a nonmember and he was talking to Armondo like he knew what he was doing was right and that he really would be accepted into the kingdom of God by being baptized in this way.  Maybe we'll baptize his dad soon!

Conference was the big thing of this weekend of course. It was exciting to get some more material from all the speakers!  We had the opportunity to watch all the sessions. We can't watch conference in the chapel here so we have to go to the stake center in Rio Doce. It's an hour by bus. We tried to go to priesthood session but we took the wrong bus and missed it. But ,we got to see another part of a city.  We'll just watch it later today on the church computer. When we finally got there later,my companion and I went to the English room with the rest of the American Elders.  It was fun.  I really got a lot out of conference.  I think we heard the stone cut without hands quote about 12 times.  They're really pushing missionary work now!  It's awesome!  This new surge of missionaries is going to baptize the whole world. Really the only thing we're waiting for in order for Christ to come is for the gospel to be spread to all the tribes of Israel and it's our duty to spread it, as members and missionaries.

Well I love you all. Hope you got a lot out of conference like I did. We are so blessed to be able to hear the word of the prophet from so many miles away to guide us and our families.

Love,

 

Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll
 

When Dallin's Dad was on his mission he said they used to take pictures with the drunks that were passed out on the street or on park benches.  Here's Dallin's first drunk picture.

Dallin said in order not to have to pay bus fare, some of the kids just hang on the outside of the bus while it's going and ride for free!

Hello World!

April 1, 2013

Hello world,

This week was full of awesome stuff.  We had 5 baptisms this week so that's awesome, one being Dagina and the other 4 are members of that family we've been teaching. There are still more people in the family that we will try to teach but it will be more difficult.  

Monday was Pday of course. The activity of the day was to wrestle in the church with the young men. It was the funnest thing ever. We even put a bracket up on the board.  There were three Elders and myself and then 6 of the young men. I ended up wrestling one kid and I beat him and then I wrestled my companion and beat him so I made it to the Championship with a guy who had already trained MMA or something like that.  I was just relying on strength and size because I was bigger than him, but he knew some moves!  It took a longgg time but he finally got me in an arm bar.  I was so mad.  I think the best thing we got out of this was that  one of our investigators was with us, Henrique, and he really bonded with the guys. We got videos and everything so ya'll will see it in a little less than 2 years, haha.

Tuesday we had Zone conference. It was awesome. I thought I was going see my companion from the MTC but I didn't.  I was a little disappointed but there were a few good talks and our District Leader, Elder Abramson played an awesome piano solo of Abide With Me Tis Eventide combined with the other Abide with Me hymn.  He arranged it himself, it was so good I almost cried. The power in music never ceases to amaze me. The A.P.s prepared a presentation that really got everyone motivated. They provided lunch there and there was more food and variety than anyone could even handle.  It was awesome.  I almost died of fullness!

Wednesday we baptized Dagina. It was cool because she didn't want anyone to know, so the ceremony was more intimate. Just family, the elders, and the rep from the Bishopric. It was very spiritual and everyone couldn't stop smiling.

Thursday we worked. This whole week we've just been trying to get signatures from parents to give permission to baptize their kids.  We did that and we taught a few lessons along the way.  I can't remember if I already wrote about the kid that just wanted to be baptized but we taught him and got the signature from his mom. We will teach her too.

Friday we did interviews for the baptisms and got more signatures. And taught.

Saturday we went to the temple and we baptized 4 people in one day. The temple here is amazing. It's huge and the inside is beautiful. It sits in the middle of the city so it kind of just stands out like a beacon.

This family of baptisms just never ends but it's awesome. They really love us and have found friendship in the church. It was a really exciting day for the whole family, Henrique, Andreza, Alessandra, and Cristiane. Afterward we had cake and we won more pizza from the zone leaders.

Sunday was cool. We went to church like normal but my companion, Elder Barbosa spoke in sacrament.  It was a really good talk and of course, he talked about missionary work.  He wanted to visit everyone after church because it was his last day in the field. So, we visited evvverrryyyonnnee. And since it was Easter we got way too much chocolate from the people we visited. I feel so unhealthy it's not even funny but, I guess the mission is the place to eat whatever you want right?

So Here comes the news about he transfer.........I'm not training but, the President already said that I will definitely train next transfer.  I wanted to train because I felt like it would help me become more responsible but at the same time, now that I think about it, I wasn't quite ready.  My new companion is American, Elder Moore from Arizona.  He's cool. This is his last transfer. Hopefully he's not wanting to just give up on the rules like Barbosa did, haha. He was already a secretary in the office and everyone is telling me that he's awesome and speaks really well so that will help me with Portuguese.  I just have to refrain from speaking in English with him!  I bought, Diary of a Wimpy Kid in Portuguese to help me learn.  It's really helping with dialect and conjugations.

Awesome. Well, the time just seems to fly by.  The weeks feel like days and I'm learning so much every day that I can't even keep track of it.  It's just all piling up and is becoming part of me. Gospel principals, Portuguese, culture.... everything!  I'm really glad to be here. We watched a video in zone conference about how we as missionaries are as Christ was when people rejected him. It hit me really hard.  We're here to help him in his work to bring souls back.  Even when people reject us we have to keep trying.  It was from a talk by Elder Holland.  He said that salvation was never easy so why would missionary work be easy?  Hit me really hard.

Well family. Glad everything is going well. Glad to hear the wedding is coming along and that everyone is ficando firme! (google translate)

Love you all!

Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll