Week of joy

Hello everyone! Elder Andersen and I are pressing forward with the work and all that stuff. And the week was good.

This week we were able to work a bit more than the last week, and we found some pretty awesome people! Also, I interviewed one of the Sisters' investigators to be baptized. First time! But let's get to that later.

We were blessed this week to find two people that really have desires to be baptized. The first one, Venicius, flat out stopped us in the road and asked us if he could get a Book of Mormon, and if we could teach him more about the Church. And the second is an even cooler story.

Hortência, a past investigator of the Elders in Ala Fernandes Távora (neighboring ward) recently moved to our area. The only problem was that she moved very suddenly, and the other Elders had no idea about the move. So we were walking in our area one day, on Hortencia's road, and she stops us to talk. She says to us "Hey, I was taking the lessons from the Elders in another ward, and they marked a baptismal date with me. I was wondering if that date will still work here." I then had to restrain my inner instinct to randomly dance and shout for joy. She will most definitely become a good and strong member of the church, however, she has a few things that the President says she needs to resolve first, so her baptism will have to be set up for a later date.

And my first baptismal interview! Sister Lucas and Sister Pinche, of our district, found a wonderful family of a less active member that had served a mission, and his wife that had already been taught all the commandments (and was keeping them when the Sisters found her). And so, the Sisters invited the two to church, to which they both accepted and fulfilled, and from there marked the baptism! Which means that I, as the District Leader, would give the baptismal interview. Thankfully, this first of my biggest responsibility went very well. This woman was very well prepared for the next step in her progression, that of the baptism, and so it was quite easy to ask her the needed questions, and talk about the needed commandments. In fact, in the actual interview I think that I must have been a little more nervous than her. However everything went well, and I'm very happy that this woman, whose name has quite slipped my mind, was able to recieve the ordinance of baptism, and to be confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

And that was my week. Tchau!

Elder Bishop

Doing the work of Salvation

First off, my new companion is Elder Andersen. He's actually been on the mission the same amount of time that I have. Unfortunately, his passport didn't get approved until now, and he just got here in Brazil. His portuguese is actually very good for the amount of time that he has here, and he is learning amazingly fast. It's sort of cool to see someone go through the same process that you did in learning a different language. I'm liking it a bunch.

So anyway, Elder Andersen has been serving in the Vancouver, Washington mission, where he was working his tail off. Now that he is here in Brazil, he is also working his tail off. I like him a lot.

Also, the Sister that arrived in our district speaks amazing portuguese. She studied a lot when she was serving in the states, apparently. Unfortunately her name has completely slipped my mind. I should probably work on remembering the names of the missionaries in my district.

Well, this week was a bunch of chaos, with the new missionaries coming in, so nothing really happened in terms of the work here in Ala Autran Nunes. However, with all the going in and out of the mission office, I got to see and talk to a bunch of Elders that I've gotten to know. I was also able to talk to the Elders that are serving in Ala Omega, and I learned something awesome. Everyone remember that one golden family that we found the last week there in Ala Omega? Well, Rafaela, the wife, was baptized recentely. Her sister was also baptized in the neighboring ward. And the husband, Mailson, is on date now to be baptized as well. I was super happy to hear about that.

And that's my week. Tchau!

Elder Bishop

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

Well, I just learned (literally I learned 37 minutes ago) that the mission is sending two more missionaries to our house. I also learned that I will language train one of these missionaries, which means that Elder Lustosa and I will no longer be companions. However, all four of the missionaries will be serving in Ala Autran Nunes, so the area will be divided between the two missionary couples. 

Also, there is a possibility that the trio of Sister missionaries will be divided, because there's a slight chance that one more Sister will be sent to their home. Which means that in one week, my district will have grown to twice the size than it was. Also, my companion will most likely know absolutely nothing in Portuguese, so almost all the work rests with me. To sum it all up, the mission is going to get a little harder. Challenge accepted.

This week we had the baptism of Lusyleine. She is a saint. The rest of her family has also been investigating the Church, but she has been the most active and the most diligent in her search for the truth. Also, she is an amazing cook, and likes to bake for the missionaries. Added bonus.

The actual baptism of Lusyleine didn't run too smooth, as we found out that the baptismal clothes of our ward disappeared. However, we were able to borrow some from the other wards, and everything worked out fine in the end. Mabye the baptism started a full hour late, but Lusyleine was all fine with it. 

We are hoping and praying that the rest of Lusyleine's family will follow in her example. We have grown to truly love this family, and it's really hard to see a family that is partly in the truth, while the other part is out of it. So, we are going to need a lot of prayers on everyone's behalf to really help this family out!

Until next week!

Elder Bishop

Happy Birthday,--from Carson

September 8, 2014

Happy Birthday Hunter!

I hope you're having a great time on your mission, teaching people the gospel like a BOSS. So a lot has happened since I last wrote to you (and before that as well), so I’ll try to get through it all as fast as I can.

First off, a week or two before going to EFY, I gave up my vow to not play Skyrim again, and I started a new game, naming my character Ymbert Phillips III (Ymbert is a legit Middle Ages name trust me the internet told me so it has to be true). I haven’t gotten very far in the game due to having a crap ton of work, but it’s pretty fun. While we’re on the topic of videogames, I must also add… You know that old game, Odd World, that we lost a long time ago, then we found it again, then lost it a second time? Well, I was wanting to watch Shaun of the Dead, but we couldn’t find it, so naturally I was reminded of Odd World, which I had also spent countless hours searching for. In my search for Shaun of the Dead, and partly Odd World, I found all the old ps2 game cases, along with our old ps2 that broke. Naturally, I was really excited. I took the box with the game cases in them, and sure enough Odd World was in there! Yaaaaay- wait a minute… I took the case out of the box, unable to quell my excitement…… AND THE CASE WAS EMPTY. It was like the game was just mocking me at this point. I frantically searched through all the other game cases, but alas, Odd World was not among them. I thought of looking in the old ps2, but decided it would probably not be in there, and I didn’t want to be let down again. Then a few weeks later (after we had bought a new copy of Shaun of the Dead and I watched it with dad), Brandon and Alison came to visit. I had sent a text to Brandon when the incident had occurred, so he knew about it, and I decided to show him the box so he could share further in my pain. When I mentioned the old ps2 and how I thought there was a teensy chance it was in there, he was like, “Well, why don’t you check it?” I told him the same reason I wrote down earlier, and Brandon just said, “If there’s a chance, you should exploit it” (note: not a direct quote). So I took his advice, found the cable for the old ps2, plugged it in, opened it up, and guess what was inside? FREAKIN’ ODD WORLD, SUCKA!!! I was overjoyed! Since Brandon and Alison were over and we were doing stuff, I had to wait to play it, but boy was it worth it. That game is AWESOME! It’s even better than I thought it was.

            Another thing I just wanted to mention: quite a while ago, I discovered Ryan Higa via Landon telling me to watch his videos, and he is now one of my favorite YouTubers. Just thought you should know.

            Getting off the subject of electronics, I finally read Ender’s Game after all these years. I’m actually glad I waited, because I wouldn’t have understood the moral dilemmas in it had I continued reading when I first started reading it. I just wish I hadn’t watched the movie first, because it totally ruined the plot twist. Same thing with Speaker for the Dead, except it was Orson Scott Card himself who ruined the plot twist in that book for me. Note to self: if you see an introduction in one of Card’s books, don’t read it. But yeah. Those books are pretty dang awesome. And I am not ashamed to admit that I may or may not have cried a little at certain points in both stories (aka when Ender writes the Hegemon and Marcão’s speaking). But you would probably enjoy re-reading at least Speaker, if not for the fact that there’s a lot of random Portuguese scattered around the book. And the fact that it’s an amazing book. I wanted to get Xenocide and Children of the Mind, but I get the feeling dad doesn’t want to buy any books, so I just checked Xenocide out of the school library, and I didn’t even get to the 8^th page before a character who had been introduced at the beginning of the book was dead. It was rather sad.

            I almost forgot! School! I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but Doc retired last year (the horror!), so we have a new assistant band director now (her name is Mrs. Wells), and Mr. Freeman is the new band director. So I have band first hour, algebra 2 second hour with Mr. Phifer, Spanish third hour with Mrs. Trigg, history of the western world with a new teacher name Mrs. Cornell, Health fifth hour with Mr. Attig, ELA sixth hour with a new teacher named Mrs. Klote, and Field Biology seventh hour with Mr. Ollig. Speaking of Field Biology, we had to catch and identify an animal that was not a vertebrae from a grassland. I ended up just going to Summercrest Park and catching my bug there. I caught a differential grasshopper and named it (though further research has shown that it is female) Lord Hoppington of Summercrest. Deep thought and consideration went into that name. But this project has once again made me want a pet, as Lord Hoppington of Summercrest is a pretty awesome individual. If only I could convince mom and dad to get us one… Aw well.

            So last Friday there was a rock concert sponsored by the radio station The Buzz. The title of this concert was Buzz Beach Ball (due to the fact that there were about 3 or 4 beach balls being hit around the audience). It was held at the Sporting Stadium, and featured 12 alternative bands, the most popular of which were The Mowglis (who were pretty awesome), The 1975 (the lead singer was WAY too profane in between songs for me to enjoy them), and (brace yourself) THE ARCTIC MONKEYS AND WEEZER!!! Dad bought tickets for him and me, we went, and it was AWESOME! And, also the first rock concert I’ve ever been to. I also have a bunch of new bands to look up now; it’s pretty sweet. Well, have a great birthday (that is, if you're able to read this today), and keep baptizing everybody you see! Your bro,

Carson

First DISTRICT Leader Training

So, this week was quite exciting. Two weeks as a District Leader and crazy things have happened.

First off, it's hard. But it's also fun. I am the district leader of four sisters. Well, I was. Now it's just three. One of my sisters got extremely sick and had to go home. I really hope the district was able to help her feel alright. It was really hard for her.

Also, I gave my first training! For those of you that don't know, the "District Meetings" is actually with our Zone, which is made up of about 14 Elders, and 7 Sisters. The district leaders conduct the meetings, give trainings, and that sort of stuff. The Zone Leaders give counseling from the President, and share other tidbits of stuff. And this week, I got to stand up in front of everyone and teach how to effectively teach and preach the Gospel. Now, before the mission I would say this sort of thing would've been impossible for me. Normally I'm very nervous in front of large groups of people. There's nothing like the mission to get rid of stage fright! Anyway, I taught about the role of prayer in the conversion of the investigators, and the future members. The training was well recieved, and it went pretty smooth. It was actually pretty fun.

This week, we will be preparing Lusyleine and Desirre for baptism! They are really great. Unfortunately, Lusyleine's husband hasn't been taking the challenges to go to church, and hasn't been progressing. Hopefully the baptism of his wife and daughter will stir up some motivation for him to seek the truth!

Also, we found a really great family, and they're married! I see great things for them in their search for happiness.

And that was my week!

Elder Bishop

Mom!!!!

Thanks so much! I never thought I'd be a missionary that felt trunky, but it's inevitable. I miss you all so much! Having a birthday on the mish is really leaving me a sorry sop.

It will be a little hard to buy something cool for me, because only dowtown has cool stuff, but I will most definitely get something so I can say that I did!

I love you so much, Mom! 

Elder Bishop

NEW AREA: STRAY CATS

Well, this week felt extremely weird. I guess I had really grown accustomed to Ala Ômega. However, my new area is full of work, and I'm really excited to dig in.

The first thing that is flat out awesome in this area is that we already have about seven people that will be able to be baptized in a few weeks. The members here are very strong in giving us pointers about friends or family, and they are very excited about the work.  We will be recieving a lot of references here. 

The second thing that is really great here is my companion, Elder Lustosa. He's absolutely hilarious. We're going to have a good time.

The third thing is... Well, actually the third thing is just plain fun. Our house, for some odd reason, is the center of all devious plots of the stray cats in our area. Everytime we enter the house, as well as when we wake up, there are darn cats sitting on the ground, sleeping on the kitchen table, etc. It's a good thing I have a water gun.

Well, that's it for this week. Talk to you all later!

Elder Bishop

P.S.- Yes, I have a water gun.