LOTS OF PICTURES of our handsome missionary

Yesterday was stake conference, everyone. I love stake conference. However it was a really crazy day. Our week was also super great.

This week we have been following up with Sérgio and Luciane. They are AMAZING. We taught them about the Word of Wisdom, and immediately when we mentioned coffee, they started laughing. They had just bought four packets of coffee before we got there. The Bishop was with us, and he loves to joke around, so we had a few good laughs. Afterwards, though, they just handed over the coffee and promised that they would always seek to obey this commandment. Then we walked home with four packets of coffee. I have some pretty great pics of that. 

Anyway, I was quite surprised with their reaction! Normally people will ask "Why coffee?" and we´ll have to explain stuff and such. However, this family is so prepared to follow the commandments of God, without question. I feel they showed a great humbleness in that lesson. They reminded me of the Prophet Alma´s words to the lower-class among the Zoramites, in Alma 32: 15. I would love to quote that part, but it´d be better if all of you could search it up yourselves. Also I´m really pressed for time right now. GOOD LUCK FAITHFUL AMERICAN! Or one from another country.

Also, we had a TON of people that we invited to go to Stake Conference, and there were about 10 people that said that they would go. Unfortunately, in the state of Ceará, it seems to be that if 12 people say they will go, you get 2 that actually go. However, we had three of these people that made it to conference, so the turnout was alright. 

However, the day of conference, I woke up and passed almost the whole morning in the bathroom. I got super sick! Also, I had no idea that my body contained so much water. I´m pretty sure that with everything that my body put out, and with the amazing force that it seemed to leave, I could´ve powered the Hoover Dam for a week. You don´t have to picture that if you don´t want to.

Despite all this, in the very hour that Stake Conference would be, my sypmtoms completely fled away. What a miracle! Afterwards we went to Stake Conference, got a referral, and we watched the Zone Leader´s baptism that I interviewed on Saturday.

THAT WAS MY AWESOME WEEK!

Tchau!

Elder Bispo

TRACKING MY PACKAGE TO BRAZIL

ZONE Conference and a Mission Musical

Hello to every man, women, child, or dog that may or may not be reading this! Our week was AWESOME! First off, we had our zone conference on thursday. Then on saturday we had our Mission Musical. I´ll explain later in the email.

Thursday was great! Zone conference went extremely well. We were able to hear many spiritual experiences from varios Elders and Sisters, plus their testimonies. Also, our mission now has an official and inspiring song. It kind of reminds me of marching band, which is weird. However it is quite a catchy song. We also have a war shout. Our mission just became the coolest in the world.

Also, Sérgio and Luciane are progressing very well! They are a couple that we are going to baptize here in the ward. They´ve both been from different churches, but the two of them lost trust in all the other congregations that they went to. However, they felt the spirit very strong when they went to church a week ago, and also everytime the read the Book of Mormon. Plus, we marked their wedding today. Whoo! I´m super excited.

Saturday was our super-special-spiritblast-secretweapon-mission-musical. It worked out super well. Sister Evans, my sort-of cousin and the wife of our mission financial advisor, organized everything. It was quite a feat considering that she doesn´t speak Portuguese. However, we all sang spiritual songs and stuff to an audience of more than 400 or so. About half of the people were investigators of certain wards in the mission, mixed in with less-active members. Ninety people from my area and the area of the Zone Leaders went to the activity. Our ward organized super awesomely and rented a charter bus to take everyone there and back again. Also, I conducted the opening hymn. That was very interesting.

That was my super awesome week. The work presses onward!

Elder Bispo

I´m very excited to be recieving my last mission package! I understand that it must be frustrating to ship things with Brazilian customs. However life on the mission is great!

I have realized here on the mission that I am a big fan of snow. I miss it a tons! It´s great to hear that the weather in Kansas is still just as crazy as serving a mission in Brazil!

Testimony meetings are wonderful here! It also gives us great opportunities to bear our testimonies about the missionary effort, and I love taking a little time to challenge the members. Our ward is really wonderful, and is really deserving a better chapel with it´s frequency of members. We are fighting to meet my original goal! Although it´s quite difficult.

I LOVE YOU MOM!

Elder Bispo

HELICOPTERS!!!

Well everyone, winter has come by here in Ceara. By winter, I mean it´s still blazing hot, but it rains about everyday now. I guess you all wouldn´t really call that winter. Oh well. Itps the closest they´ve got!

This is my second and last rainy season in Ceara! After it passes by, never again will I have to walk the streets of Fortaleza with soaked socks and shoes! Never again will the people here use rain as an excuse to not go to church! Whoo! I´m quite excited.

So yes, the people here don´t like leaving their houses when it rains. I´m not quite sure why, but that´s how it is. However, this Sunday we had a new family that came to us to church! We contacted Sérgio and Luciane about a week ago, and they are really wonderful! They have a really great desire to get married and to serve the Lord. They have been searching for the truth, and were so happy in the church! It looks like their search is over. This week we are going to begin the marriage process with them, and then onto their baptisms!

Dias Macedo is still proving to be a challenge, but Elder Castanho and I are starting to find some amazing people! We have been working very diligently to be able to baptize in this area (something that in the past few years has proven quite difficult for the Elders in this area), and the blessings are happening!

Also, with all the rain, our house has sort of turned into a swimming pool. Our ceiling appears to be very well-made, but apparently there are some cracks in the telhado (clay shingles that they use here). So that´s fun. Don´t worry, though, because the owner of the complex is going to fix everything up this week.

One interesting thing that happened this week was the fifty helicopters that passed by our house on Tuesday. It was CRAZY! Alright, mabye the number was more like eleven helicopters, but it was still awesome. 

And that´s the week. Tchau!

Elder Bispo

CARNIVALESQUE

Well folks, this week was super fun and great. My new companion is a blast! Elder Castanho literally means Elder Nut. Yeah, it´s just as weird of a last name in Portuguese as it is in English, but I feel that it describes perfectly his character. Elder Castanho is from a small city in São Paulo named Ibiuna. 

First off, this week we found a bunch of new families! We challenged everyone with baptism, and all of these new families accepted. Now the hard part is to get them to church!

Lukas was confirmed a member of the Igreja de Jesus Cristo dos Santos dos Últimos Dias this past Sunday. I was able to confirm him and give the Gift of the Holy Ghost. I´m very happy that the Lord prepared Lukas so well for us to have been able to officiate these sacred ordinances for him. 

Also, news of Elder J. Andersen reached my ears today. He´s serving in Ala Ômega now! I was so excited when I heard about that. For those of you that don´t know, Ala Ômega was my first ward here in Brazil, where I stayed almost 9 months! I love that ward!

And lastly, this week started the infamous holiday of Carnaval. It´s pretty calm here in my area. The only difference is that the number of drunks in the street has increased. Also I saw two men walk through the street, super drunk, in womans dresses. One was playing a triangle and singing, and the other was doing a little drunk-guy jig. It was quite amusing.

And that´s my week. Daqui a pouco!

Elder Bispo 

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TRANSFERS!!!

Hello everyone! This week was great! We were able to get quite a lot of work done, which always makes me happy. Also, today is the transfer! Elder Calisaya is going to leave the area. He´s also leaving Fortaleza! He will be going to a more rural area here in the mission, called Canindé. It was opened fairly recently. The Church has blossomed exceptionally well there, so he´s going to have a great time.

My new companion will be Elder Castanho. He started out his mission in the Litoral Stake (where I stayed for 9 months), so I got to know him a little bit already. He´s from São Paulo.

Also, Lukas was baptized yesterday. His baptism was really wonderful. Some of the less actives from our area were able to watch the baptism and feel the fire of the gospel again. Also, one of our members brought a friend to church, and she also was able to watch the baptism. Gil Filho (one of the priests in our ward) baptized Lukas, as Lukas had asked. Everything went super smooth and peachy. Now we´re going to get this man on a mission! 

This week, we also found a few new investigators that have quite a lot of potential! We have two new families that we are teaching. I´m pretty darn excited to see their progress.

So basically, it was another great week. Except Saturday. Saturday was just one of those days where everything had to go wrong. However it was also quite a hilarious day. 

Saturday, we woke up at 7:00. Yup. Our alarm decided that it would take the day off. So we missed out on our time to work out with Robério. Then, when we were going to lunch, I tripped and hit my thigh on a rock. That hurt. Then, about 10 minutes later, I noticed that because of said trip-rock-hit-thigh incident, everything in my shirt pocket had spilled out. So we had to walk all the way back to get it. What I found most cruel was that my brand new unused pen was nowhere to be found. After spending a short but sentimental moment, reflecting on how the young and shiny pens must always die young, we then continued on to lunch. Afterwards, we were bombarded by some really crafty drunk guy, that wanted 5 thousand bucks to free his grandchild from prison (don´t worry, the story was a lie). He was quite insistent. Then, later, we went to teach a man who struggles also with drinking, and my companion broke his door (on accident). After this, we talked to one more drunk guy, who insisted that we were catholic priests and that we should come to his house to bless it and stuff like that. 

HOWEVER, Saturday ended with pizza. The end always justifies the means!

And that is my week. Tchau!

Elder Bispo

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Elder Bishop gets locked out of his apartment

Hoorah for Karma! Last week was pretty awful, but this week was great. The work is picking up here in Dias Macedo, and Elder Calisaya and I are ready to reap the rewards.

This week, I made brownies, for our district. Yup, I made brownies of my own free will. Actually it was more of a response to a challenge from the district, however I still did it. The sad part is, though, is that my brownies turned into a cake. I´m not exactly sure what I did wrong, but it was still delicious. I feel like this experience deserves some cool gospel-related analogy about free agency and something like that. However, I´ll just leave that part up to all you brilliant readers! 

Better yet, this week we got locked into our own apartment! It was quite a hilarious happening. Early in the morning on Thursday, we loaned our keys to the owner of the small complex (basically just a big house with different living spaces). We live on the second story, and we have three windows that look out into the street, and our door faces inward into the complex. Unfortunately, the owner forgot that he had the keys, and took them with him to some far away place. I had also forgotten to open our apartment´s door, so we couldn´t leave! However, since the Zone Leaders work in the same ward as us, they helped us escape our cozy prison so we could get to lunch on time. As I was sitting at the door, trying to improvise a lock pick (disregarding the fact that I have no experience in picking locks) I heard the voice of Elder Granville, that was strangely close by. I looked behind me to see Elder Granville´s floating head in our window. That was quite a strange sight. Turns out our Zone Leaders found a ladder and put it up at our window. We got out alright. And then we had an awesome lunch.

Even better was how one of our members randomly came up to us this week and told us about Lukas. Lukas was a past investigator, and has been to church many times. However, he never accepted the baptismal invites. This past week, though, it looks like he had some really spiritual experience, because he talked to this member and said that he wanted to be baptized by him. So we went to his house to talk to him, and now he´s on date for this saturday. Whoo!

And that was my awesome week. Stay frosty, everypeople.

Elder Bispo