Burgers for training

Hello beautiful peoples! Our week was great here in the lovely city of Fortaleza. This week we gave our Zone Training Session. Everyone in our zone is excited to work and learn more, and we´re excited to teach them what we know.

In our training session we talked a lot about the President´s vision of the mission. He is a very inspired man, and the mission is bound to go forward with his leadership. After the training session, we went on exchanges with one of the missionary couples. The day went real well.

This week we found out that Matheus, Silvio´s son, will now live with the family. We marked his baptismal date already. He´s really excited. He told us that he has a desire to serve a mission also. We are super pumped for his baptism.

One of our recent converts, João Erik, has also been helping along with the conversion of his father. Eliseudo, the dad of João Erik, has also accepted a baptismal date. His testimony is amazing. At fourteen years of age this man was actually baptized in the church. However, due to an anti-mormon group, he was never confirmed a member of the church. We are helping him rediscover the answers that Heavenly Father has already given him. He´s an amazing man.

In church yesterday, we had a surprise visit! We were teaching this real cool family a while back, but they didn´t progress, so we made the decision to stop visiting them. However, they showed up randomly at church, and they loved it! We are going to follow up with them this week. It was great to see them in the true church of Christ.

Also, last p-day we ate burgers. 

AND THAT´S IT!

Elder Bispo

JUNE 2015

Our week was cool. We´re still working our butts off here in Tancredo Neves. This week we found some great new people that surely will progress to baptism. We´re awfully excited to help these new investigators.

This week we had our leadership counsel, and I got to see Elder Imperador. He´s doing great! President Bonini gave a training about following-up with our zones. I thought it was awesome, and definitely something that I will be able to use in work and life and stuff. The mission is cool that way.

I went on exchanges this week with one of the Elders of our zone. We went about to help a few men get themselves prepared for baptism. They both have already showed a lot of desire to be baptized. With our responsibilities as leaders, Elder Arana and I have taken into hand that we need to help our Zone in such ways as this. 

The next day in the area, we ate PANCAKES! With maple syrup! I can´t believe how long it has been since I ate real pancakes. Oh the small joys of the little things in life.

AND THAT´S IT!

Elder Bispo

Change of companions: Elder Arana

Well, my new companion is awesome. Elder Arana is a real worker! This transfer is going to be absolute joy. In our area this week, we absolutely destroyed! We both worked our butts off and ended teaching a ton of lessons! We´ve set pretty high goals for this transfer, so we´re going to follow up with our goals by acheiving the highest standard possible for our companionship. We´re going to test our limits and see what happens! I can´t lie and say I´m not physically exhausted after this first week, however the work pays off. I´m sure I will never regret giving this last push of effort on my mission.

Unfortunately, there isn´t much to report about this week. However there were a few hilarious and crazy experiences. There was one night that we were walking down some badly lit road, and there was this really annoying dog that kept barking and chasing after us. We made this little juke to set the dog running. It actually worked, except that there were about seven other ticked off dogs that came out of nowhere. Stray dogs here are a real pain. All these dogs started barking and growling and snapping at us, so we just started running. And naturally, they started chasing us. I was quite frightened. We managed to escape the mini pack of dogs, and now this whole experience has become a wonderful joke in between Elder Arana and I. 

On a lighter note, we also found a toad the size of a small cat, on the same road! This road is full of strange happenings. I think we are going to stop walking there.

Ward conference was this week. It was real cool to see our stake president talk. I was very glad that he was so attentive to the missionary work. He made sure to make our investigators all feel welcome, and actually socialized with them a little bit. It´s always wonderful to see help from the leadership. 

Our recent converts are all super firm, and I´m happy with their progress. We are going to start teaching lessons with Silvio and his family, as they have developed such a wonderful testimony.

And that´s it!

Até mais!

Elder Bispo

elder

Welp, Elder Peressute will be transferred to finish the training of another Elder. He asked the President to train someone, so he´s super happy. My new companion will be Elder Arana! This will be his first transfer as Zone Leader, so I´m going to have to show him the ropes. I´m super excited to be his companion. I got to know him, as he served in the Ômega ward after I left. He´s pretty awesome.

This week was AMAZING for our zone. Presdent Bonini is really happy with us. Basically, every week all the missionaries have to pass by how many baptism dates they have marked for the week, and it´s our responsibility to help these baptisms happen. This week the zone baptized more than we had baptism dates. So the President is ecstatic. I am super happy with our zone. They´re the best!

I am also super happy with our work! I´m loving our area. We found a new family that appears to be extremely good. They follow up super well with all of their commitments. I´m sure they will accept baptism. We also found a young woman that has accepted baptism and is super firm in her word. However, she wasn´t able to go to church yesterday because she got locked in her home! Her mom left early in the morning and took the only copy of the keys. I am very excited for this transfer.

Our zone has changed quite a lot. Many people in the zone will now be serving as leaders on the mission. So the challenges will be quite new. However, I´m confident that Elder Arana and I will be able to help our zone this transfer. 

Daqui a pouco!

Elder Bispo

Hey Mom! 

The story behind my hair is pretty funny. Although I like how it turned out. Basically, we went to cut our hair, and there´s a less active here that cuts hair for free. I told her to be careful not to cut my hair too short, because of my coulick. Well, I don´t think she took my advice pretty serious. My hair cut turned out pretty awful. So I´m styling my hair like that until everything grows back to normal. However, I´m liking the new look!

Being Zone Leader has brought more responsibilities, however it´s basically the same as district leader, except with more missionaries to take care of. Also, we have a lot more contact with the Assistents and the President. It´s nice to finally get to know my leaders better. 

The public transportation here is pretty easy. You just have to know how to ask directions, and you can get anywhere!

Of course I remember Johnson´s Shut-ins! Full of hillbillies and fun! 

Wow, I miss high adventure! Sounds like they´re in for loads of fun. I can´t believe they´re going to go caving! I always begged to go caving on high adventure, but it was never approved. Great to hear that they´ll be able to cave now.

WOW! Everyone is getting home! Tell Jake and Alex to send me some emails in Portuguese!

As soon as the church pays our itinerary the mission office lets us know, so nothing has happened yet. However, I believe it will come this transfer.

LOVE YOU MOM!!!

Elder Bispo

On Mon, Jun 8, 2015 at 9:08 AM, Stephanie Bishop <sebishopmobile@me.com> wrote:

Dear Elder Bishop.         JUNE 7

What a fantastic picture of Silvio, Luzirene, and Nicole´s baptism. I see such joy, commitment and purity in their faces. I am also amazed at your maturity and growth!! Your appearance has certainly grown and evolved!! You are a very handsome young man with awesome hair!!! I imagine that wearing a FULL suit is rare and that when you wore your suit you were very hot in the 86° weather.

Your duties as zone leader have certainly taught you many things. I imagine that your organizational skills and travel skills have improved due to these responsibilities. Your familiarization with the city is a great benefit to you as you travel and meet with other missionaries and other converts to conduct interviews. Are you able to use the public transportation systems without problems now?  I look forward to some of the stories that you will share of the specifics of this travel.

We are enjoying a rainy summer so far. Each day it has rained for the last month. The trees, flowers, and shrubs and other living things are beautiful and green. We hardly have had to water the plants that I have planted. Carson and Jesse are happy to not have to do that Chore.

This is a busy and fun week for Carson and dad. They, along with seven other young men will travel to southern Missouri and participate in outdoor activities including zip line caving and a outdoor water park called Johnson's shut-ins. Our family went there when you were about 10 years old. Do you remember floating down the river and sliding on smooth rocks into a shallow pool? It is quite a remarkable natural wonder. I hope they survive because the heat will be rising this week and the bugs and the tics will surely be biting.

Jesse and I will enjoy our three days together.  Somehow we will make it through.

Alex Evans arrived home safely this past weekend. We  will look forward to hearing him speak next Sunday. Chaz Suby also arrived home last week to his family in Utah. Jake Hershey arrived home several months ago and is here in Kansas.

When will you know your itinerary for getting back to Kansas?  It would be helpful to know the date and the airline and the timing of your arrival.

We love you and pray for your success and safety each day. We are so proud of our Brazilian missionary.

Love MOM

Stephanie E. Bishop
BLOG:  theanimalshaveescaped.com

I hardly recognize ELDER BISHOP...

Hey family, friends, and future friends! Our week was super duper awesome and jam packed of stuff for us. We were running all around in our zone this week, because there were lots of baptism interviews for us to do. Silvio, Luzirene, Nicole, and Brena were also baptized. Silvio and his family are super happy, and so are we. Brena is also very happy. For those that have not heard about Brena, she is the daughter of a recent convert that we starting teaching two weeks ago.

Silvio, Luzirene, and Nicole´s baptism was great! They were all shining, and the ward was all super excited for them. Everything worked out great, and we are extremely happy that we were able to be part of the conversion process of such a wonderful family. Sunday, their confirmations went real smooth also, and Luzirene´s mom came to watch.

Brena has showed an amazing growth in her road to baptism, and she has really surprised us with her wonderful commitment to all of our invites! We are really happy to have been able to baptize one more member of this family. Our former Assistent to the President is the one that baptized Neide, Brena´s mom. Now Elder Millet (the Assistent) has been asking us for Brena´s baptism pics. It´s great to see everyone´s joy over one more soul that has entered into God´s fold.

See you all later!

Elder Bispo