Hi everyone,
Its good here. I am in a new area. Amiliana Pernetta. Its in a city called Pinhais. We are taking care of 2 wards here. It looks like a good area. We will just see what happens. I have a new companion as well. His name is Elder Games. He is from Utah but he was born in New York. He is Latin. His dad's Mexican and his mom is from Ecuador. Its pretty cool. He said its hard for him to speak Spanish now because all he has been speaking lately is Portuguese and English. But its pretty cool here.
I got here about 10 hours ago lol. We were late there too because the traffic was bad and B Fernandes needed to pick up his new companion from the bus station.
Yeah they usually do the transfers on pday. But I found out on Monday that I was leaving. They call everyone Monday night and tell them to either meet in Barigui or go to the Bus station. If you are staying in Curitiba you don't find out where you are going until Wednesday. If you are leaving the city and going far away they tell you where you gonna go and what time the bus will leave. Its pretty stressing. Because you never know where you are going to go. lol
Ah I C. Yeah Our power didn't go out. It just blinked I thought it was just natural. LOL. Our power blinks a lot. Well it did in the old house. Now we live behind a LAN house lol. Its pretty nice here.
Yeah I was still in Derosso for my birthday. It was alright I guess. Didn't really do much. We had a division and so it was pretty cool. We celebrated with the kids from my English class. They are awesome lol. We also ate pizza with these two kids from our apartment. They aren't members but they are really cool. We talked with Igor´s dad for a little bit. But not about the church just about life. It was good.
Yes, I had heard about Fort Hood, crazy. I just put pictures up and you have some in the mail. And no, now im not in Curitiba. But its just like Arlington and Dallas. Basically the same thing but different. I had to buy a new bag because C Williams broke my other one so I had to take money out. I bought some other things as well.
I still haven't gotten the package from dear elder yet. IDK where it is. Maybe next week.
Jnett just sent some pics for me. YEAH!! I will let you know when I get those.
Well, I have to go now. Have a great week.
Justin
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
10/21/09 email
Hey everyone,
The last two weeks have been great. We met this girl named Aline last Sunday and she wanted to be baptized so we had to teach her everything in just one week. It was a wild week of running around but it was worth it. She was baptized on Sunday after the regular church meetings. There were so many people there and so it was really awesome and it was also kind of funny. Aline is really shy and so after the baptism everyone was talking to her and saying congratulations which made her open up a bit. We met her through her friend Jessica that we are teaching but Jessica is still on the teeter totter and is still thinking about this whole church thing. I guess when you are younger and life is full of worldly things it'll be hard to make a leap if you would be the only one in your family joining. But we marked a date for her that will be the 30th of October.
I don’t know if I already told you about Mari but she stopped smoking and drinking café and she will be baptized this Saturday. Mari was a very difficult investigator. She used to go to this other church that filled her head with a bunch of jibberish and so many things that would happen she would think its because the Lord didn’t like her or that it was some weird karma. But we have been working with her a lot. She has 2 daughters, 1 is a troublemaker and left a grandson for Mari and the other Hadhija (hajija) is 7. They were both adopted and now only Haji and Du-du(the grandson) stay with her. Her husband is a mess and doesn’t live with them but she is raising the kids the best she can and shes doing a pretty good job. The missionaries have been teaching her for like 7 or 8 months and now we are finally taking the dunk. She wants me to baptize her and Haji but Haji wont turn 8 until march of next year. So we will see what happens.
This past Sunday a girlfriend of a member came up to us and was like. Elders, I have to talk to you, I am moving to Maringa but I want to know things before I get there. We didn’t know she wasn’t a member so we were kind of confused in this moment. And then she said that she wants us to teach her so she can get baptized before she leaves. But the bad thing is, she doesn’t know when she will be leaving. Could be this week and maybe it will be next week. So we are in another rush like last week, just running around trying to teach everything before this Saturday.
Yesterday was a really good day. We taught 6 lessons not even trying. We only had 3 marked but the other 3 were basically handed to us. One was during our time for contacts(where we try to find people to teach. We are supposed to do 15 each day but we have been slacking the last 2 weeks and so we were trying to get them done) but Elder B Fernandes did a contact with this old lady and then we ended up helping her with her bag all the way to her house where we taught her, her daughter and 4 of her great grand daughters the 1st lesson. It was pretty cool. The family was a missionary’s dream. The kids were paying attention and everyone was saying the right things as well. We will just have to wait and see what happens with them. Then we went to use the bathroom in a member’s house and their dad was there. He isn’t a member! So we shared a message with them. Then we had a meeting with Bishop in the chapel where every Tuesday they play soccer. While in the meeting Bishop received a message from Marcelo (he is preparing to go on a mission.) And he said that he had a couple of friends who wanted to come play soccer. So bishop asked us if we could teach them. So we stayed there and taught 6 guys about the words of wisdom (How to stay healthy and show gratitude to the body God gave us.) It was cool.
So Monday it was my companion´s(Elder B Fernandes) birthday and Sidney, Glaci, Erika and Barbara threw a little party for him with cake and stuff. They even got him a present. It was really cool of them. These 2 families are the best here. Leandro was a missionary here a while back and he returned to work and stuff. Him and Erika used to live behind the house of Sidney and Glaci. They have this book called The Best Leader ever Known and it teaches how to run your business better and become a better leader using the attributes of Christ as a guide. So Sidney and his daughter Barbara are doing a speed reading course. Its 4 months long and the books for this class says that by the end of this course you will be able to read 2000 words in one minute and will understand everything that you have read. Its crazy, but this would be a really cool ability to have for school.
So the language is going pretty good. I understand pretty much everything in Portuguese, now I just need to get the talking part down. They have so many rules its crazy. I don’t know how to talk like I do now because I just talk and don’t think about it lol.
Well don’t have much else cool or interesting news. We will be having the mission Olympics on the 4th of November and also Curitiba conference the 2nd of November. The Olympics will be really fun, when I get more information I will pass it on to you all. If you all have time you should go watch the movie The Other Side of Heaven. Its really good. It was produced by the same people who made Schindler´s List and Jurassic Park. It’s a movie about a missionary like me but he went to the Tongan Islands. I would tell you more but I don’t want to ruin the movie for you all :)
Have a great week.
Justin
The last two weeks have been great. We met this girl named Aline last Sunday and she wanted to be baptized so we had to teach her everything in just one week. It was a wild week of running around but it was worth it. She was baptized on Sunday after the regular church meetings. There were so many people there and so it was really awesome and it was also kind of funny. Aline is really shy and so after the baptism everyone was talking to her and saying congratulations which made her open up a bit. We met her through her friend Jessica that we are teaching but Jessica is still on the teeter totter and is still thinking about this whole church thing. I guess when you are younger and life is full of worldly things it'll be hard to make a leap if you would be the only one in your family joining. But we marked a date for her that will be the 30th of October.
I don’t know if I already told you about Mari but she stopped smoking and drinking café and she will be baptized this Saturday. Mari was a very difficult investigator. She used to go to this other church that filled her head with a bunch of jibberish and so many things that would happen she would think its because the Lord didn’t like her or that it was some weird karma. But we have been working with her a lot. She has 2 daughters, 1 is a troublemaker and left a grandson for Mari and the other Hadhija (hajija) is 7. They were both adopted and now only Haji and Du-du(the grandson) stay with her. Her husband is a mess and doesn’t live with them but she is raising the kids the best she can and shes doing a pretty good job. The missionaries have been teaching her for like 7 or 8 months and now we are finally taking the dunk. She wants me to baptize her and Haji but Haji wont turn 8 until march of next year. So we will see what happens.
This past Sunday a girlfriend of a member came up to us and was like. Elders, I have to talk to you, I am moving to Maringa but I want to know things before I get there. We didn’t know she wasn’t a member so we were kind of confused in this moment. And then she said that she wants us to teach her so she can get baptized before she leaves. But the bad thing is, she doesn’t know when she will be leaving. Could be this week and maybe it will be next week. So we are in another rush like last week, just running around trying to teach everything before this Saturday.
Yesterday was a really good day. We taught 6 lessons not even trying. We only had 3 marked but the other 3 were basically handed to us. One was during our time for contacts(where we try to find people to teach. We are supposed to do 15 each day but we have been slacking the last 2 weeks and so we were trying to get them done) but Elder B Fernandes did a contact with this old lady and then we ended up helping her with her bag all the way to her house where we taught her, her daughter and 4 of her great grand daughters the 1st lesson. It was pretty cool. The family was a missionary’s dream. The kids were paying attention and everyone was saying the right things as well. We will just have to wait and see what happens with them. Then we went to use the bathroom in a member’s house and their dad was there. He isn’t a member! So we shared a message with them. Then we had a meeting with Bishop in the chapel where every Tuesday they play soccer. While in the meeting Bishop received a message from Marcelo (he is preparing to go on a mission.) And he said that he had a couple of friends who wanted to come play soccer. So bishop asked us if we could teach them. So we stayed there and taught 6 guys about the words of wisdom (How to stay healthy and show gratitude to the body God gave us.) It was cool.
So Monday it was my companion´s(Elder B Fernandes) birthday and Sidney, Glaci, Erika and Barbara threw a little party for him with cake and stuff. They even got him a present. It was really cool of them. These 2 families are the best here. Leandro was a missionary here a while back and he returned to work and stuff. Him and Erika used to live behind the house of Sidney and Glaci. They have this book called The Best Leader ever Known and it teaches how to run your business better and become a better leader using the attributes of Christ as a guide. So Sidney and his daughter Barbara are doing a speed reading course. Its 4 months long and the books for this class says that by the end of this course you will be able to read 2000 words in one minute and will understand everything that you have read. Its crazy, but this would be a really cool ability to have for school.
So the language is going pretty good. I understand pretty much everything in Portuguese, now I just need to get the talking part down. They have so many rules its crazy. I don’t know how to talk like I do now because I just talk and don’t think about it lol.
Well don’t have much else cool or interesting news. We will be having the mission Olympics on the 4th of November and also Curitiba conference the 2nd of November. The Olympics will be really fun, when I get more information I will pass it on to you all. If you all have time you should go watch the movie The Other Side of Heaven. Its really good. It was produced by the same people who made Schindler´s List and Jurassic Park. It’s a movie about a missionary like me but he went to the Tongan Islands. I would tell you more but I don’t want to ruin the movie for you all :)
Have a great week.
Justin
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
09/30/09 Email
Hey yeah I am doing well here. Soccer has been super fun. Last week the other elders came down so that was fun to play with them. The week was pretty good. We had a stake conference last week and so that was really good. It was on the process of sanctification. Talking about how its an ongoing process and sometimes we can be really close but let others bring us down. This happens in a lot of areas in our lives. We get far in our business or in school or whatever and we let someone else decide what we will do and sometimes it brings down.
But I didn't go on the division with the other elder. They were super busy I guess and so it didn't go as planned. But the English lessons are super fun. They are a little wild at times but its still cool.
But yeah things are changing everyday and I will be super far behind when I get back to school. LOL But it will be fun to try to catch up. In the netbook do they have cd drives and everything or do you need external?
I think we will play soccer today, but we are going to pass by Andre´s house to make sure. He doesn't get home from school until 12 and I have been up since 6:30. So we decided to leave the house. We played soccer golf this morning. It was fun. Soccer golf is just like golf but with a soccer ball. You have different obstacles to go around and you kick the ball to get there. We played in our house. It was loud. We are on the 3rd floor. I hope they didn't get mad lol. We played at 9 in the morning. My new companion was going to play professional soccer but he has a low immunity so they didn't want to pay someone who was going to be sick all the time. He is pretty good. He is excited to play today and so I hope we will. The other elders are doing some other things so I think we will play with them next week or something.
My new companions name is Elder B Fernandes and he is from São Paulo. He plays soccer and went to school for administration but will change it to Odontology when he goes back. He's been on the mission for 10 months and he just became senior last transfer. I like him a lot. He is smart and he is a hard worker. He is a chick magnet so we have to watch out lol. Also this guy tried to kiss him lol so we have to watch out for that too. But I think the next 6 weeks will be great. Last transfer, he was robbed, he got the swine flu, and these girls & guys tried to kiss him lol. He had a difficult last 6 weeks.
IDK when I'll post more pictures. There is one lanhouse that I use that has a memory card reader there so thats when I usually update but its so far away lol. And so I just kinda wait until we have something to do close to there. Because with my camera you need the program or something if you plug it in with the usb cable or something. I dont know.
But miss you too. Hope all is well. Well my time is running short. My computer will turn off in 40 seconds. I hope all is well at home and have a great week. Tell everyone to look at the new site. You can get to it on lds.org/topic/hope . I think that is it. But its super good.
Bye!
But I didn't go on the division with the other elder. They were super busy I guess and so it didn't go as planned. But the English lessons are super fun. They are a little wild at times but its still cool.
But yeah things are changing everyday and I will be super far behind when I get back to school. LOL But it will be fun to try to catch up. In the netbook do they have cd drives and everything or do you need external?
I think we will play soccer today, but we are going to pass by Andre´s house to make sure. He doesn't get home from school until 12 and I have been up since 6:30. So we decided to leave the house. We played soccer golf this morning. It was fun. Soccer golf is just like golf but with a soccer ball. You have different obstacles to go around and you kick the ball to get there. We played in our house. It was loud. We are on the 3rd floor. I hope they didn't get mad lol. We played at 9 in the morning. My new companion was going to play professional soccer but he has a low immunity so they didn't want to pay someone who was going to be sick all the time. He is pretty good. He is excited to play today and so I hope we will. The other elders are doing some other things so I think we will play with them next week or something.
My new companions name is Elder B Fernandes and he is from São Paulo. He plays soccer and went to school for administration but will change it to Odontology when he goes back. He's been on the mission for 10 months and he just became senior last transfer. I like him a lot. He is smart and he is a hard worker. He is a chick magnet so we have to watch out lol. Also this guy tried to kiss him lol so we have to watch out for that too. But I think the next 6 weeks will be great. Last transfer, he was robbed, he got the swine flu, and these girls & guys tried to kiss him lol. He had a difficult last 6 weeks.
IDK when I'll post more pictures. There is one lanhouse that I use that has a memory card reader there so thats when I usually update but its so far away lol. And so I just kinda wait until we have something to do close to there. Because with my camera you need the program or something if you plug it in with the usb cable or something. I dont know.
But miss you too. Hope all is well. Well my time is running short. My computer will turn off in 40 seconds. I hope all is well at home and have a great week. Tell everyone to look at the new site. You can get to it on lds.org/topic/hope . I think that is it. But its super good.
Bye!
Friday, September 18, 2009
Letter home 09/18
I'm uploading four images. They are the four pages of the letter that Justin wrote. Click on the images to make them bigger to read them.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
09/09/09 Email
Hey everyone,
Things here have been going pretty well. We didn’t have much success this week and it was a little hard but something happened yesterday that was pretty cool. We were walking on the main road here called Francisco Derosso and usually there are a lot of people on this road but it was pretty empty because of the holidays and the fact that it was raining didn’t help at all. But we ran into this guy who was just broken down. Telling us that he has lost everything and how Jesus doesn’t love him. We had the opportunity to share the 1st lesson about how much God loves us and all the things that he has given us. He loves us so much that he has called another prophet to guide us in these days. We could see a difference that this made for him. He told us all the work that we are doing is not in vain. And that God sent us to him. He doesn’t live in our area but it was a blessing to run into this man. At this point in the day we were kind of down and didn’t have anything planned for the day and we just thought that the day was just a waste. But we got a little boost with this guy. Well that was just one cool thing that happened this week.
Yeah I usually send more than one when I send via missionties. Like to bishop and what not. But I guess in the box, I have a vest in my room somewhere in the armario that is black but has red and white in it as well. Ummm, reeses, pretzels almond bark, ritz cheese, hamburger helper. Whatever else you want to send would be cool.
What was the new movie called that you went to see? Was it good?
Only 3 months left for Jordan? Is he pretty excited? He doesn’t know whether he wants school or a job?
Well hope everything is going well with everyone back home. Things here are going, its been raining the last 3 days and its supposed to rain until Saturday. We have some different activities going on this week, a fireside on Sunday that should be really good. We have the mission president attending, so hopefully it will spark some fire with the references here.
Take care everyone, have a great week!
Elder Mitchell
Things here have been going pretty well. We didn’t have much success this week and it was a little hard but something happened yesterday that was pretty cool. We were walking on the main road here called Francisco Derosso and usually there are a lot of people on this road but it was pretty empty because of the holidays and the fact that it was raining didn’t help at all. But we ran into this guy who was just broken down. Telling us that he has lost everything and how Jesus doesn’t love him. We had the opportunity to share the 1st lesson about how much God loves us and all the things that he has given us. He loves us so much that he has called another prophet to guide us in these days. We could see a difference that this made for him. He told us all the work that we are doing is not in vain. And that God sent us to him. He doesn’t live in our area but it was a blessing to run into this man. At this point in the day we were kind of down and didn’t have anything planned for the day and we just thought that the day was just a waste. But we got a little boost with this guy. Well that was just one cool thing that happened this week.
Yeah I usually send more than one when I send via missionties. Like to bishop and what not. But I guess in the box, I have a vest in my room somewhere in the armario that is black but has red and white in it as well. Ummm, reeses, pretzels almond bark, ritz cheese, hamburger helper. Whatever else you want to send would be cool.
What was the new movie called that you went to see? Was it good?
Only 3 months left for Jordan? Is he pretty excited? He doesn’t know whether he wants school or a job?
Well hope everything is going well with everyone back home. Things here are going, its been raining the last 3 days and its supposed to rain until Saturday. We have some different activities going on this week, a fireside on Sunday that should be really good. We have the mission president attending, so hopefully it will spark some fire with the references here.
Take care everyone, have a great week!
Elder Mitchell
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
09/02/09 Email
Hey everyone.
So my mom has told me I have been a little skimpy on these emails so I will definitely try to make things better for you all.
Well things here this week were a little weak. We only taught 15 lessons but it was the best in our district so we aren't doing too bad. This week we taught 6 first lessons but none of them really had interest so its been hard to find good investigators. Nothing really new or anything hás been going on these last couple of weeks. Just doing the same old same old. Trying to find some good people but in this área a lot of people are well off so they are hard to come by. When people have money sometimes they just don't want to talk to a lot of people about this type of stuff. We meet a lot of new people but they aren't solid so its just another day in the mission.
This area is about the same as my other area. They have a lot less hills here and the members are a little harder to work with here but other than that things are good. They play soccer every Tuesday here but of course I can't play. The bishop has some good things planned for the ward these next couple of weeks with firesides and activities. Should get them pumped up for some missionary work. We have a new mission leader of the ward and so we are getting to train him and I think it will be a good change.
Other than that its pretty much the same. We have our areas that are better off than the others and we can definitely work harder to get more work done. Just a little difficult some times.
We have 4 lessons that we get to teach the one of them is called Evangelho de Jesus Cristo. (The Gospel of Jesus Christ) I love this lesson. It relates the most to everyone here. Everyone already has this knowledge of Christ but its so awesome to bring more light to them and to help them realize what he did for us and what it really means for all of us.
But anyway things are good. Just working. Hope everything is well there. Take care.
Elder Mitchell
So my mom has told me I have been a little skimpy on these emails so I will definitely try to make things better for you all.
Well things here this week were a little weak. We only taught 15 lessons but it was the best in our district so we aren't doing too bad. This week we taught 6 first lessons but none of them really had interest so its been hard to find good investigators. Nothing really new or anything hás been going on these last couple of weeks. Just doing the same old same old. Trying to find some good people but in this área a lot of people are well off so they are hard to come by. When people have money sometimes they just don't want to talk to a lot of people about this type of stuff. We meet a lot of new people but they aren't solid so its just another day in the mission.
This area is about the same as my other area. They have a lot less hills here and the members are a little harder to work with here but other than that things are good. They play soccer every Tuesday here but of course I can't play. The bishop has some good things planned for the ward these next couple of weeks with firesides and activities. Should get them pumped up for some missionary work. We have a new mission leader of the ward and so we are getting to train him and I think it will be a good change.
Other than that its pretty much the same. We have our areas that are better off than the others and we can definitely work harder to get more work done. Just a little difficult some times.
We have 4 lessons that we get to teach the one of them is called Evangelho de Jesus Cristo. (The Gospel of Jesus Christ) I love this lesson. It relates the most to everyone here. Everyone already has this knowledge of Christ but its so awesome to bring more light to them and to help them realize what he did for us and what it really means for all of us.
But anyway things are good. Just working. Hope everything is well there. Take care.
Elder Mitchell
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