Londrina, Brazil

Londrina, Brazil

Monday, July 31, 2017

Another week in Brazil

Looks like there is a good space for the ping pong room lol!! How exciting! I am stoaked for you guys and all the new adventures, church callings, friends, and such activities. Awesome! So we had transfers today but my son and I will not be transfered. We were hoping to leave our difficult área. And our zone leaders called me asking if I was ready to be called as a district leader. But nothing has changed. I will be here for a total of 6 months here in Arapongas. This week we had a pioneer/ brazilian July party. Each year every social organization in Brasil has a party in either June or July. Why? I know not but it is sure different. But man was there some good food. We did not get to enjoy the party really however. We were running after investigators all night. But we will have lots of people to contact this week. And we ought two have two baptisms this weekend. Have a good week this week. I love you guys!!! Good luck with the move!

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Hey Guys! What´s up? How is everything going? Here in Brasil all is good. I regained my voice on thursday and was once again able to fully win over the hearts of the brasilian people. But I am still with awful allergies. Eh, I have been ever sense I got here in Brasil. There are lots of trees and fields of gress and forest. And here in Brasil they do not sell OTC drugs in bulk, only in quantities of 10. And it is rediciulously expensive. So I just have been learning to live half sick all of the time lol. But I am feeling much better. We had a Zone conference this week in Londrina. My son met his grandpa and my dad and I talked a lot. It was really cool. Also I was able to talk to 2 americans from my group in the CTM. It was pretty great. And President Pereira said that he would help us with the problems we are having in the ward, and will put another 20 reals each 15 days in our bank account. This week we walked an insane amount of distance. The area here is becoming more and more difficult. We are now having to walk 30 miles a day to get to an area of the city where the people are more humble and receptive. It is 15 to our area of work and 15 to come back. And then there is the distance we walk within the area on top of that. So we are getting in a good amount of physical fitness. But while walking all this my son and I talk about anything and everything and I am learning a lot with him. This week we did not have anyone that we invited got to church with us. Everyone said yeah we will go, don´t worry about getting us a ride we will go. Aaaaaaand nobody went. So we will not be preparing any baptisms for at least another week. But we got an inactive to come back to church and she has an 8 year old son, so we will be working with Sandra so that we can baptize her son this weekend. Oh and this week, we visited Marcio and his family, Graça´s family. We got there and the little girls came running out with a bible and the Book of Mormon in hand. We asked them what they were doing and they said that they were playing church and reading the scriptures. Awesome!!!!! And then sunday Marcio and I were talking and he asked if he could take the elders Quorum lesson home because it was printed out for us. And I said oh most definitely. and he said awesome, because I am starting to teach my little girls in my home out of the gospel principles book, and the scriptures. Whaaaaaaaaaat??? Sweet!!! It is so awesome to see people progess in the gospel and change their lives completely. Man do I love my Calling! My dad and my son and I, Elder Queroiz and I, and My son and I in our new house here in Arapongas that the mission will rent for us. Lol

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Something Different

Hey Guys! I saw the clip of AJ kick the football. His form is looking way way way better. And it looks like there is a lot more heighth to the balls now as well. That is pretty awesome! This week I got to take a missionary vacasion. We had splits with the zone leaders. Because of this, I was forced to leave my area and help the zone leaders in their area while Nicolau (my companion) and the other zone leader stayed in our area. While in the zone leaders area, I was able to take my mind off of all of the problems that my area has for 3 days. It was really nice, and greatly greatly needed. I have been stressing out a lot these past few weeks. It is not easy training a greenie. I have to do almost all of the work and and all of the fire from our leaders is put on me because I and my zone leaders are the only ones baptizing in our zone, Londrina. But I am doing much much better now. And I was able to help the zone leader´s investigators a bit. One even baptized this week over there in Londrina. This week went well. I ended up getting more sick but I am doing alright. I just have a sore throat. I am unable to talk because of this but it is not the worst thing in the world. I just will not be able to win the girls over with my soothing voice hahaha. And I have not eaten anything crazy in a long time. This past week however we had a dish called banana lasagna. It was super good. You take away the dough and wrap ham around the banana and throw lots of cheese on top. It was super super good. But that is what happened this week for me. We also had two baptisms this week, Graça (Grace) and Jefferson. Grace is 8 years old and we have been working with her family for almost a month now. The parents are not married but accepted the invitation to marriage and baptize in the church as well. The family is very very poor. Both parents are job seeking, to no avail. But here in a month the should be baptized. We had a cool experience with them as well. We went to their house friday evening to teach the law of chastity. We taught the lesson and they loved it. We then discovered that it was clara´s birthday, their six year old daughter. I asked little clara if there would be any cake and her mom said no. So We ended the lesson and left. I told my companion, "I am going to buy clara a cake. I do not know how I will afford a cake but God will provide the way." We went to the bakery on the corner of the block and we found a perfect cake. It just so happened to be the cheapest two. It ended up being 30 reais. Which is like 10 bucks but we are poor and 30 reais is expensive here in Brasil. We bought the cake and we returned to Clara´s house. At the gate we started singing the happy birthday song in Portuguese and the little girls came running in our direction. It was awesome. Then we sat down with them and ate the cake. Then little six year old Clara gave me the sweest little hug aroung my legs, because she is tiny. It was so gratifying seeing everyone happy. The father of the family, Marcio had even told us that he spent the whole day asking people for money and assistancve to but her a cake and was unable to, but that we answered his prayer and there was cake. I never had a birthday party, but I always had a nice cake made with love on my birthday, and I would not allow her to pass her birthday without cake. Then we were blessed. I had some 4 reais, 1 dollar more or less, on my mission card. When we passed the bank that next time we looked at our bank account and there was 280 reais. Almost 100 dollars! How we got paid so much, I know not. But our financial burden was lifted. And Jefferson was a reference from an inactive that we helped reactivate. he stopped smoking and read until Alma in the Book of Mormon this week. He was baptized along with graça. And today and tomorrow I will be in Londrina again. We had a zone P Day today and will have a zone conference tomorrow. Oh I was also asked to give a talk sunday, that very day 5 minutes before the meeting started. It was only to be a 5 minute talk but when I got up on the stand, the speaker after me told me to speak a lot and so I gave an almost 20 minute talk about, charity, service, and love. Thank goodness dad dragged me along with him everwhere to speak while he was on the high council. That has helped me a lot on the mission. Then I had to give another unprepared talk at the baptismal service. Lol Life of a missionary is pretty entertaining. This week we have two people that could be baptized. We have not taught weither person, but we are confident that they will be baptized. With my son we have baptized 5 people in 4 weeks. And I now passed the 20 baptisiaml mark. I have 21 now. That is pretty awesome. I am working hard to accomplish my baptisimal goal for my mission. I will reach 92 before we know it!!! My week went super well. I hope your week goes well this week also. I love you guys!!!!😊💓😊 P.S. I will send the photos next monday. I do not have my camera with me. Later Gaters!!

Monday, July 10, 2017

Stressful week

Hey guys! How is it going? This week was pretty stressful for me and my son. We had to do a lot of rough work to get these two people to the Waters of baptism last saturday. They had lots of fear because their dad is hard core catholic and threatened us and told us to never come back and he told Jose and Olga that if we came back he would get his pistol, which is ilegal here in Brasil. So we did not go back. But we basically taught them all the lessons over the telephone. When got them to accept the baptismal invite and we picked them up at the corner of the block so that their dad did not see us. And they almost backed out at the end because their dad was taking a shower when the shower head caught fire. He did not realize until the flames started hitting his head. As a result the dude stayed in bed all day. Jose and Olga were worried about him, but we assured them that he would be fine and that it was in fact a miracle that God had done for them so that they could baptize in the church. They believed us and were baptized saturday night and confirmed at church sunday.God Works miracles in strange and misterious ways, but he does so that his work and his glory can roll forth among the children of men. But not this stress is off of our shoulders. I was also sick with the cold this past week. I have actually been sick with super bad allergies from the day that I got to this city, but I had the cold this past week, but staying in bed wont do me any good so we worked hard. God blesses those that sacrifice to increase God´s kingdom here upon the Earth. But this week we ought to have one more baptism. we have baptized 3 in 3 weeks now. The first thing I asked him was how many baptisms he would like to have in his training, what was his goal. He put up a goal of 15 baptisms in 12 weeks. I have never been able to achieve that but I put my trust in my son and God and we are going to work super hard and have been. And we have been blessed because of it. Just keep swimming! I hope you all have a good week this week! I love you guys!​

Birthday Boy!

Hey guys! How is it going? I am glad to here you guys are enjoy a nice warm summer on the beach with lots of time in florida as well. Down here in Brasilian winter it has been pretty cold. It was rather strange when I woke up on my birthday and it was in the 40s not in the 90s lol. Super strange. But my birthday was good. We had lunch with that sister that did not know that it was my birthday haha but that is all good. Then we went and had cake with Ana and Gilberto and then we went to Nilva´s house and had dinner and cake. Then we had a meeting at the church with the Ward mission leader and then we went home. It was a good 30km walking distance day lol. Oh and my lunch plate was the smallest because I place the food on my plate tactically. That vídeo that Dora sent you is very accurate especially in the luch appointment. I grab a little the first plate, a little bit more the second plate, and then a bit more the third round through. They do not let you leave basically without having you eat 2 or 3 plates of food. The sisters Always say, " What? You didnt like the food? Eat more Elder, Eat more! If you are hungry later tonight it will be on your head!" and other variences of the such lol. But this week was really weird. Nobody was in the roads to talk to and the people that we were already teaching were never at home. Then our 3 baptisms for this weekend fell through. 2 because they had to go have lunch with Family members and 1 because the dude disappeared to who knows where. But we will do all that we can to get them baptized. I am glad to hear that AJ got accepted into IMG! That is pretty awesome! I hope all goes well with the transition with work, the house, AJ being number 1 in class, and the Branch. I will be praying for all to go well. Enjoy this wonderful adventure! I love you guys! Elder Worsley