Hi everyone! I finally got a way to connect my camera to the computer, so now you can se some pictures!
This is Sidi´s baptism! It happened on Sunday 11 November. It was supposed to happen on the Saturday before, but her car broke down on the way to church. :)
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Elder Allred
Hello Everybody!
Today´s email is a day early because of transfers. Every 6 weeks there are transfers, and they´re on Tuesday, so that becomes our P-day. Hurray! I didn´t get transfered. But, sad day, Elder Quigley did. I was only with my trainer for one transfer. My new companion is a Brazilian - Elder Cruz. He´s been on the mission only a year more than I have. He´s the only member in his family, and he´s only been in the church for 5 years. His mom won´t let his younger two brothers get baptized. But they said they want to serve missions. :)
I´m really excited for this transfer because I´m going to learn a lot of Portuguese. Elder Cruz doesn´t really speak any English. I´ll probably be even more confused. Now I´m the only American in my district. And, on top of the language, it´s up to me to remember where all the investigators and members live in our area.
Love Elder Allred
P.S. Does anyone have any good ideas of what I can do for my companion for Christmas? It´s kind of hard to make something or buy something for him because we´re always together. How do I keep it a surprise? Thanks for all the support everyone!
Hi!
Well, I was going to send some pictures, but I left the cord at the house. Hopefully next week.
Next Tuesday is transfers, so I don´t know where I´ll be next P-day. Our English class that we taught last night was really sad that it "could" be the last time they see us. We always start and end English class with a prayer, and Sidi prepared a prayer in English for the end of class that was very special. In her prayer she thanked her "Dad" for the missionaries and asked Him to let us stay at least for Christmas. Then she asked that even if we needed to go that He would bless us throughout our missions.
After class, she gave us both our Christmas presents and told us to open them when we got home. We each got a Brazilian flag, a tie, and a pair of socks! But the most special present we received was her testimony. She told us of how the Lord had prepared her for baptism. When we invited her to be baptized, she was very surpised at herself when she said yes. Then she told us of a few very special experiences that helped her know she was making the right decision.
Guess what! Now Cris is giving out pass-along cards to his friends! Did I tell you guys that a few years ago he ran for what would be the equivalent of City Councilman under the Communist Party of Brazil? He´s since converted from communism. He´s such a new person than what he used to be. He was showing me some pictures of him before I met him. In each picture, he had a pipe or cigar in his mouth. Now, looking at him, I can see that his countenance has changed. He might even go teaching with us sometime this week!
In church everyone was asking us where Cris is from because he has a slight accent. The funny thing is that he´s actually Brazilian. Well, both his parents were. They were traveling, and he was born in Greece. Then, they moved back to Brazil, but while he was still young they moved some more times. He´s lived in Cuba, Columbia, and some other places I can´t remember. Anyway, Portuguese is actually his second language. He grew up using Spanish. He´s only lived in Brazil for 7 years now. He always helps us with our Portuguese. I think he knows more about the language that other people around here do because he had to learn all the rules himself. If there´s one language that isn´t used correctly by it´s own people, it´s Brazilian Portuguese, probably because there are so many grammer rules. Portuguese is supposed to be the hardest of the Latin-based languages to learn.
This last Friday we had "Nova Força" (New Force/Strength). It was a training for all the new missionaries from this transfer. I had three specific questions to which I was working on finding the answers. President Teixeira answered two of them in his presentation and Sister Teixeira answered the other one in hers. It´s just more evidence that our leaders can receive revelation for us.
Besides those three things, one really neat thing I learned is that you don´t plan your goals. You set your goals and then plan to reach them. He used the analogy of a travel plan. It´s not setting a goal if you can see the destination. Most of the time you pick a destination before you even now how you´re going to get there. Then you plan the trip.
During the training he talked a lot about preparation. The thought came to my mind that sometimes appointments fall through because the Lord won´t let you teach if you´re not prepared to teach.
Love,
Elder Allred (and love everyone else too, because that´s what the scriptures say)
Question and Answer Session:
-What is your p-day like?
* Well, it depends on the day. My first P-day in the field we went to the temple, and that took up all of our time besides email. The next P-day we spent all day cleaning the apartment because there was mold everywhere and bugs all over the walls. Last P-day and today and for all the p-days until Christmas we go to
-Do you have maids or do you get to do your own cooking/laundry?
*Nope. No maids. We do all our own laundry and cleaning and stuff. We don’t have to cook very often, because we always eat lunch at a member’s house. Lunch is pretty much the only meal of the day here. You eat some fruit for breakfast, a big lunch, and maybe a really small dinner and the very end of the day. Dinner hour doesn’t really exist in our mission. After lunch we just keep working until we get to our house again between 9 and 9:30pm. Then we might eat something really quick before bed.
-Did the slug make it back in?
*No, but today I found a huge spider that holds the world record for long jumping. It was impossible to squish it and escaped somewhere in the kitchen.
-How have you been dealing with the humidity?
*I don’t really notice a difference. It just makes it take longer to dry clothes (especially when it rains) and makes the mold grow faster.
-How’s the mission life?
*Great! I love it. Last Saturday we baptized Cris (his real name is Cristófes Badarovsk Chaves). It took Elder Quigley about 5 times trying to say his name right in the baptismal font. I confirmed him on Sunday. I was pretty nervous because I had never done that before, let alone in Portuguese. But it worked out good.
Sidi (the one we baptized a week before) is already giving out pass-along-cards to people. She’s in our English Class (that’s how we met her). Yesterday in class we went around the room and to practice their English, everyone told for what they were grateful because Thursday is Thanksgiving. Sidi said, "I am grateful for to God to put in my life two wonderful guys who they changed my life and make my soul to burn when they speak of God. It is you guys." That was one of the most wonderful things I’ve heard. Missionary work is amazing.
-How big is your area?
*It takes about 45 minutes to an hour to walk from one end to the other. It’s pretty small in area, but there are about a bajillion people here because all the houses are built in, on top of, under, and behind other houses.
-How well does your hot water coil work?
*It actually has a thing on the end that heats up the water pretty good. The first time I only saw the wires wrapped around the pipe. Basically all the houses have the same thing. I heard one Elder say that because the wires are bare, he can feel a little shock with his. And sometimes their hair stands on end when they shower. Ours usually works fine, but sometimes we have to fiddle with it. Besides that, everything else is cold water. Sometimes I heat up water on the stove to wash dishes because I hate washing dishes in cold water.
Love, Elder Allred.
Hello to Lyman 3rd Ward from São Paulo, Brazil!
I´m just writing to say hi to all of you. I´ve been in Brazil for less than 3 months, but I can already see that this work is amazing. I entered the MTC in Brazil on 22 August 2007 and spent 2 months there learning the Portuguese language. Now I´m out in the mission field in my first area. I love teaching these amazing Brazilian people. There are literally millions of people here that need to know the gospel.
For those of you who are still deciding whether or not to serve a mission, I wanted to write and tell you that there is nothing better you can do with your time. It´s the most rewarding work someone can do at this time of life. It´s amazing to see how the Gospel of Jesus Christ can change people´s lives.
The best way to prepare to teach on your mission is to study the doctrine. Study the doctrine of the Restoration. Study the doctrine of the Plan of Salvation. Study the doctrines behind the principles and ordinances of the gospel. Ponder why it is important for us to have a living prophet. Learn to appreciate the commandments of God. Live worthy to enter the temple before your mission so that you can be a missionary with faith of action and faith of power.
Learning a new langauge is fun and tough. Pay attention in your English classes in school. Knowing English grammer will help you learn a new language faster. For example, before you can learn how to a past participle in a new language, you have to first know what a past participle is. Even if you don´t learn a new language on your mission, you need to learn how to speak correctly so that you can more effectively represent the Lord Jesus Christ.
Others areas in which you need to prepare include social skills and physical ability. Remember that you can´t teach the gospel to a family over a text message. On my mission, we walk everywhere. I don´t have a problem with all the walking, but other missionaries here get blisters, cramps, and ingrown toenails all the time. Before my mission, I really enjoyed walking or riding my bike into town. I think that activities like those really help.
I have a lot of other advice for preparing missionaries, but I don´t have a lot of time to write; there are families out there waiting to be baptized. There are plenty of returned missionaries in the ward. I challenge every preparing missionary in the ward to spend time with a returned missionary to learn more about the joy there is in preaching the gospel and to find out other ways to prepare.
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Elder Allred
Elder Jason Allred
Brazil São Paulo South Mission
Rua Dr Luiz da Rocha Miranda, 159
8 Andar, Parque Jabaquara
04344-010 - São Paulo - SP
Brazil
Hello everybody!
Guess what! I gave a talk in church on Sunday in Portuguese, I´m going to sing in the mission choir for our Christmas conference, we had a baptism last Sunday, we have another one planned for this Saturday, and ...
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... and then her car broke down on the way to her baptism on Saturday so we had to postpone it for a day. I hope you enjoyed the email.
Love, Elder Allred
Hi!
Guess what! Uncle Bobby knows my mission president. He sent me a picture of President Teixeira´s family when President was a stake president there. I’m going to show President the picture because we have interviews tomorrow morning.
We had zone conference on Thursday. It was pretty amazing. President Teixeira changed how they do zone conferences here. It’s actually called "conference of the zones" now. The mission is split into 3 groups of zones. Our zone is part of the ABC region. So our zone[s] conference was a pretty big meeting. Sister Teixeira gave us all an excellent exercise program. Some of the stretches and exercises are quite funny. We practiced each one at the conference so Sister Teixeira could make sure we were all doing them right. My companion and I think we could put together a movie with synchronized exercises. It would be even cooler with a fake moving background when we jog. One of the missionary trainings that the assistants gave at the zone conference was to always wear "family goggles" so we can focus on finding families that are ready to be taught the gospel.
Church on Sunday was good. We had 4 investigators there. Did I tell you guys that I’m the official piano player for our ward? There isn’t an organ, and most of the keys stick on the piano. So every time I make a mistake (about 6 times a measure) I can blame it on the keys. A lot of the ward here has to sing a capella. Ha! That reminds me of something funny my companion and I were talking about the other day. The word for chapel in Portuguese is capela. And it’s feminine, so "the chapel" is "a capela" and "to the chapel" is "à capela" So we could sing a capella à capela. :) Tito is decreasing the amount he smokes everyday, but he’s not on track for his baptism date, so we’ll have to move it again. It’s hard to tell someone they can’t be baptized when they really want to. The only reason he smokes is because he has nothing else to do. We’re trying to find something to keep him busy, but nothing works.
Sidi is all on track to be baptized this Saturday. The only problem is that her family (her father and sons) are all staunch Catholics. She hasn’t even told them that she’s getting baptized. She says she knows she needs to get baptized because she feels it’s the right thing to do. She just doesn’t have to courage to invite her family to her baptism.
Chris is awesome. He’s getting ready for his baptism a week from Saturday. We’re running out of things to teach him. He’s read almost half the Book of Mormon already. :) That reminds me - a lot of our English students always pronounce my name Elder Already. Other people usually say Elder Awhedge or Elder Todo Vermelho.
Dayana won’t be able to get baptizes on her baptism date. She told us that she and her husband weren’t ever married. We’ve moved her date to the last Saturday before Christmas. Hopefully things work out by then. She said that her husband doesn’t want to get married now. They were planning on marrying maybe in 5-10 years. That really doesn’t make sense to me because they have a 9 year old son and have been together over 10 years anyway. Marriage just adds blessings to their family.
We had a division on Monday. I went with Elder Neves for 24 hours to his area. Elder Neves and I were both in the CTM together. He left 6 weeks earlier than I did because he’s Brazilian. They didn’t have a lot of appointments scheduled, and they don´t have very many investigators so we spent most of the day finding people to teach. Here in
I slept the night in Elder Neves and Elder Borges apartment because divisions are 24 hours. I don’t know how they sleep over there. About 4:00 in the morning someone’s rooster started crowing and wouldn’t stop for the next 2 hours, after which the dogs started a chorus. Elder Neves slept through the whole thing. Then he slept through the alarm. I nudged him to wake him up, but he stayed in bed. He ended up not getting up until 7:15 during which time I has already exercised, showered and gotten almost all ready. Brazilian Elders are weird when it comes to sleep. They either insist on waking up really early or really late. Our roommate in the CTM woke up at 5:00 every morning.
Well P-day today was Cleaning-day. Some time last week my companion pulled some pants off of a hanger that he hadn’t worn in a couple weeks and they had mold all over them. So we spent all day cleaning. We found out that most of the small black dots on the walls in the kitchen were actually small bugs. Oh yeah! I forgot to tell you guys. Last Sunday morning I woke up, said my prayers and went into the bathroom. On the sink was a 7-inch-long slug. I’ll send some pictures of it some time. I didn’t see it until after I was finished washing my hands because I was still in the process of waking up. We took it outside, but we didn’t really have anywhere to put it. Everything is concrete out here. We had it in a container but it escaped. It’s probably hiding and waiting until it can sneak back into the bathroom. We think it was eating the mold on the sink, but it will sure be disappointed because we cleaned it all off today!
Yesterday it rained really hard. And neither of us had brought an umbrella because the sun was shining that morning. We ran from shop to shop along the street until we got to the church where we taught our English class. On the way we say that it was raining so much that the sewers backed up. We thought it expedient that we avoid those areas of the streets.
My address:
Elder Jason Allred
Rua Dr Luiz da Rocha Miranda, 159
8 Andar, Parque Jabaquara
04344-010 -
Love Elder Allred
