10-31-07

Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 10:49 AM
To: Allred, Kevin
Subject: Did you know that "typewriter" is the longest word you can type by using only the top row of letters on the keyboard?

 

Hi everybody!  I think it’s Halloween.  I’m not sure because they don’t celebrate it here.  Anyway, Happy Halloween.  I have the perfect idea for carving my pumpkin in two years.  But it’s a secret until then.

 

We went to the temple this morning!  I think we go once every transfer.  We had to wake up at 5:00am to get there.  You’d think that earlier in the morning the trains would be less crowded.  Nope!  The train pulls up, and there’s almost a bajillion people in there.  I was thinking, ´There’s no way we can fit on that train.´ But I didn’t really have a choice.  Apparently all the people behind me thought it had plenty of room, so I got squished in.  We’ve decided that people here are too busy to go to a theme park for a vacation or something, so the bus and train drivers are considerate to let everyone have the thrill of a roller coaster ride on the way to work every day.  They even throw in an extra bonus thrill of possible death at every turn.

 

So, my first week was pretty amazing.

First of all we have Tito, we marked a new baptism date with him.  His main obstacle is smoking.  I made him a baptism calendar.  Every day he has to tally each cigarette he smokes before he smokes it.  Hopefully this helps him take time to think about each cigarette and see progress from day to day.

Then we have Chris.  That not his real name, but that’s close enough and he let’s us call him that.  Chris is pretty much awesome.  He works for the Brazilian CIA.  We can’t teach him at his house because he has secret documents there.  Portuguese is his second language.  He’s lived in several countries including Cuba and Columbia.  He willing accepts every commitment and we committed him to baptism last Wednesday - I think.  His only real problem is cigars.  He smokes the really expensive kind that he says don’t have nicotine.  It’s an appearance thing.  Before he met the missionaries, he always carried a cigar with him, but he doesn’t anymore.  He’s almost quit.  He’s awesome.  Only 25 years old, and always doing things to help us out.  Last night we had a Halloween Party in our English class.  We taught him at the church before the class.  He’s not even part of the class and after the lesson, he stayed and helped us frost sugar cookies and then when we had to go to class, he stayed in the kitchen and washed all the dishes before he left.  I think he would be a great benefit to the ward.  It the CTM we saw a couple video clips of President Hinckley encouraging us to teach people who would benefit the church, especially in areas where the church is small or young.  That’s our ward.  Less than a third of one percent of the people in our city are members.  Our bishop (very awesome man) is about 27.  He works nights until very early in the morning, sleeps a few hours before noon, and goes school sometime in the afternoon until about the time he has to go back to work.  On top of that he has a young family with at least 2 kids.  One is a newborn.  Plus, he’s bishop.  He talked to us about the importance of finding and teaching prospective priesthood leaders, because there is a big lack of them here.  The last missionary that left the ward came home about 6 years ago, and no one has gone since.

Next is Sidi.  She started investigating the church a couple weeks before I got here as a result of our English class.  She saw conference.  On Thursday or Friday, we committed her to baptism and she accepted.  This Sunday was here first church meeting and she loved it.  Then she and Chris stayed after to watch a baptism from the other ward.  Her son cut our hair.  At first he was very cold with us, but he seems to be friendlier.

On Monday we taught a lady named Dayana part of the first lesson.  And like Preach My Gospel says, don’t hesitate on the first lesson, so we committed her to be baptized and she accepted.  Her mother is an inactive member of the church.  We’re thinking that Dayana´s son will get baptized too, and hopefully her husband, but we haven’t taught either of them yet.

Those are the investigators we’re really working with.  There are about a ton of soft investigators in our area that for some reason or another aren’t progressing, or never let us teach them.

We did 94 street contacts on Sunday.  We have about 4 or 5 new people that said we could come by this next week to teach them in their homes.

 

I think this letter has sort of become a journal entry because we’re always so busy that my journal entries keep getting shorter and shorter.  Maybe at the end of my mission I’ll print all these out and get them bound like a journal.

 

The language is coming, but I can hardly ever follow conversations.  I’ll be catching a ton of words and thinking, ´hey, I know what that word means, and that one, and that one.´  But there’ll be so many words in between and they talk so fast that I can’t ever seem to put the words together and figure out what they’re even talking about.  Every once in a while they’ll stop and ask me if I understood, and I’ll pretty much always say no.  Then they’ll try to explain it again, but by that time my brain is fried and it all sounds like gibberish.  I think that’s something about this language.  The more you listen to it, the more your brain gets worn out.  You can only understand if you’re not tired, which is never the case on a mission.  We walk pretty much everywhere.  At the temple I saw two elders from my district in the CTM.  One was Elder Arslanian, my old companion.  He’s got blisters all over his feet.  Then there was Elder Christiansen who said he can’t even feel his legs.

I haven’t had a problem yet.  I think it’s my shoes.

 

Well, I get to go do some major laundry - and ironing.  Apparently wrinkle free shirts are only wrinkle free if you have a dryer.

 

Love Elder Allred.

 

 

10-23-07

Hello everypeoples!

Well, I’m in my first area.  English is getting hard to write.  I’m in San Andre in the ABC region.  Where exactly, I don’t know.  Mainly because we took a bus around in circles for ever (we were sure the driver was lost) and finally ended up at the mission home.  Then we took the bus to a nearby church to eat lunch and meet our companions (My companion is Elder Quigley from Taylorsville, Utah).  After that, my companion and I took a subway to the mission office (which is on the 8th floor of a building).  Then we walked back to the station (about this time I was thinking that I shouldn’t have brought so much stuff), took a subway, then a train, then a bus, and then walked up a big hill to our ... house? apartment?  I’m not quite sure yet.  My companions and I are the only missionaries that live there.  The bathroom is kind of part of the bedroom.  Guess what!  We have hot water!  There’s an electric coil that wraps around the pipe right before the shower head and heats the water.

So, I’m pretty excited right now.  We are going to teach an English class tonight.  Today is P-day because of transfers, but usually, they’re on Wednesdays.

So I had 5 letters waiting for me at the mission home and another 2 at the mission office.  Just to make sure everyone knows, the pouch (letters you send to Salt Lake) doesn’t go to Brazil any more.  Looks like the last couple weeks they’ve brought the ones that were sent, but that should be it.

The only address I have right now is the Mission Office address:

Elder Jason Allred

Brazil São Paulo South Mission

Rua Dr Luiz da Richa Miranda, 159

8 Andar, Parque Jabaquara

04344-010 - São Paulo - SP

Brazil

 

President and Sister Teixeira are the best mission president couple ever.  They each know 5 languages.  Scott and Grandpa Thompson will be happy to know that the both know German.  They used to live in Frankfurt.  They also know French, Portuguese, English, and something else, probably Spanish.

One of the doorways to our house is pretty short.  Probably about 5 feet.  It’s a good thing that I’m not very tall, or I’d be in trouble.

We only stopped by there long enough for me to drop off my bags, so I can’t tell much about it, or the people here.  I’m been on fast moving things all day long.  It’s a good think I never get motion sickness.  :)  (Did I remember to tell you guys that I threw-up on the very first flight from Idaho Falls to Salt Lake?  That’s why they have those motion sickness bags).  I didn’t have a problem today, though.

My companion is a District Leader.  That’s weird, so was my last companion.  It’s awesome because the District Leaders get cell phones, or else we’d be calling in our reports and confirming appointments outside using a payphone.  None of the houses that missionaries live in have phones.

So, all 12 of the elders in my MTC district came to São Paulo Sul with me.  Oh yeah, and 8 Brazilian Elders from a different district.  I think they said there are about 200 missionaries in our mission.  It’s pretty much the best mission in the world.  One of the older elders said that when he came to the mission, the ratio was 60% American elders to 40% Brazilian, but ever since then there have been more and more Brazilian Elders.  Now it opposite- 60% Brazilian.  Some of the Elders in out district got Brazilian trainers.  Most of the Brazilian Elders weren’t born in the church, and a lot have only been a member for less than 2 years.

 

Well, so long,

Elder Jason Allred

 

10-16-07

Hi!

 

Along with all of you guys, our time here was also affected by daylight savings, except it’s spring here, which means that we sprung ahead an hour and you all fell behind an hour.  So, instead of being 3 hours ahead of Idaho time, we’re now 5 hours ahead.

 

Last Friday was our last time proselyting here at the CTM.  It was awesome.  We went to a huge park (Ibirapuera I think.  You might be able to see pictures online.  It’s a pretty famous park.)  The day we went was a huge holiday here in Brazil - Children’s Day.  The park was full of families with their children.  That kind of made things easier, because there were an unlimited amount of people, they were all in families, and they were all sitting down in groups so we didn’t have to chase them down.

Elder Arslanian and I were praying the entire week before for the Lord to be preparing the people we would teach.  And as a result, 3 of the people that we thought were most receptive actually came up and talked to us.

Perhaps the coolest experience was when we went to talk to one man who was sitting on the grass by himself.  We started talking and he’d always say something that made it sound like he was interested.  Then he’d always end up saying something like "I’ve determined that all organized religion is corrupt and useless for people who want a one on one relationship with God" or "It makes me suspicious when people try to share religion with me.  They’re always after something.  You guys say it brings happiness to you when you spread the gospel - does that mean you wouldn’t ever be happy unless you went around talking to people like me?”  So after a comment like that, we always thought we knew exactly what to say, so we’d explain more to him, and it seemed like he understood.  But then there was always something else that bothered him or didn’t make sense.  So it was this continual cycle for 45 minutes that we talked with this guy.  Eventually we told him we needed to go, left him a pass-along card, and invited him to call the number.  He told us that he wasn’t going to call, so we figured we had just wasted 45 minutes of our valuable time.

So, why did I say this was perhaps the best experience?  For one thing, we felt like we needed to talk with him, and we all had an enjoyable conversation (by far our longest so far in Portuguese).  But the real result was that after we had gone down the road and contacted a couple more people, one man came up to us.  He told us that he had been listening from a distance to a little of what we were talking about with that man, and he felt like he should talk with us.  He told us that his girlfriend told him not to talk with us "so I left her over there." :) That was the awesome experience that resulted out of 45 minutes of "wasted time."  He seemed so excited and happy when we told him of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon.  We read a little with him, and he told us he would read the whole book.

Well, that’s the only part I have time to share.  There were a bunch of families that we talked to, and I also felt really good about those contacts.  It was by far our best time proselyting.

 

We went to the São Paulo temple again this morning!  We were lucky.  Out of out 8 P-days here, we got to go 7 times.  We know a district that only went 5 times.

 

We leave the MTC early next Tuesday morning.  It’s kind of intimidating.  Even after 8 weeks so far and 1 left, no one feels like they’re ready (even though most of the elders said they couldn’t wait to leave the CTM on day 2!).

 

Love, Elder Allred

 

10-09-07

Hi!

 

So why do Mormon women stop having kids at 30?

 

Because 31 is too many!  :)

 

We went to the São Paulo Temple again this morning.  It might be our last chance, but we might be able to go next P-day.

 

Oh yeah, before I forget, the church has decided to disable the pouch to Brazil.  They have concluded that the mail service here is reliable enough.  That probably means that 2 strikes in 2 months is better than normal.  So, anyway, just to let you guys know, I have to get mail the regular way.

 

Mission Home Address:

 

Elder Jason Allred

Brazil São Paulo South Mission

Rua Dr Luiz da Richa Miranda, 159

8 Andar, Parque Jabaquara

04344-010 - São Paulo - SP

Brazil

 

So, how did everyone enjoy conference?

It was pretty much one of the best conferences ever.  I took like 29 pages of notes.  I was going to type a little about some of the talks, but I left my notes in the CTM.

 

Well Bye! Have fun!

-Elder Allred

 

10-2-07

Hello Everybody!  Everybody, Everybody!

 

So here´s some information I found out about my mission.  Since President Texeira´s been president (the last two years), the mission has grown from 11 to 13 stakes.  I heard that there are about 160 missionaries there.

 

We went to the São Paulo temple again this morning!  It was pretty neat.

 

We went proselyting again on Friday.  We were able to say a few more things and understand more, but they always talk too fast.  We get to go again a week from Friday, so hopefully we´ll be able to speak more then.

We gave a Book of Mormon to this one guy.  He was very quiet but he said everything we were talking about made sense.  He seemed pretty excited when we gave him the Book of Mormon.  He told us that he would read it as soon as he got home.  After we were done talking, we walked down the street a little and started talking to another person.  When we turned around, we saw that the first guy had walked a little bit in the direction he was going, and then stopped, sat on the curb, and started reading the Book of Mormon right then and there.

Another really cool one I remember is a mother and her child to whom we gave a pass-along card about families.  Actually, two different sets.  The first mother and child we walked and talked with, (does that make it a walkie-talkie street contact?) and the second mother actually approached us.  I could hardly understand anything she said, but I think she was asking us for food, or for money for food.  I told her that we couldn´t give here the things she was asking for, but we could give her something she needed.  Then we talked about the importance of families to God, and that through the restored gospel, we know that families can be together forever.  Then we gave her the family pass-along card.

Our very last contact didn´t work out too well.  The man was a Baptist, and when we started talking to him about the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, he got really angry.  He walked up to me and started poking my chest telling me that I didn´t have real faith in Christ, that I was a liar, and that Joseph Smith was a false prophet.  Then he stormed off in anger.  I remember thinking how sorry I felt for him.  ´Why won´t you just listen; we´re only trying to share with you a message that could bring happiness into your life.´  Hopefully he´ll accept the gospel sometime.

 

We´ll that´s pretty much my week.

 

 

*****************************************************************

*  Running Scores for the competition:                        *

*  Top four:                                                               *

*   1. Mom - 4 letters                                                 *

*   2,3,4.  Ryan, Kristie, and Jennifer - tied, 2 letters  *

*****************************************************************

 

The mail has started to roll in little by little after the strikes.  But keep it coming.  I have only three weeks left at the MTC, and it takes ~2weeks, so I´d say that anything else anyone sends after this week should probably go to the mission home so the church doesn´t have to forward it on.

 

Love, Elder Allred.