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

Bland Week

Hello everyone! This week was just bland. It kind of reminds me of that one cereal, Kix. That was a very bland cereal. Just like this week. However, Tuesday was pretty cool. 

Life in Brazil is still just as great, and even better as a missionary. Tuesday we had interviews with the President, and we learned more how to handle our key-indicators (number stuff and such) to serve more effectively in our determined areas. I also got to talk more with my district. Afterward, Elder Calisaya and I went to the bank to draw out our mission allowance, and some random Brazilian girl drove by us and screamed out `Hey American! You guys are funny!´ That´s pretty normal though.

So, I really admire the stalwart energy of Alma the younger when he taught the people of Ammonihah. This week as I read these passages, I reflected on a little part that stuck out to me. I remember that as Alma had finally given up, and was trodding along to the next city, an angel appeared (the same that had sparked the initial conversion of Alma) and told him to go back. Now, the interesting part is that after he recieves this message that he needs to go back and teach the gospel of repentance, it says that `He returned speedily to the land of Ammonihah´ (Alma 8:18). Instead of moaning and groaning at the thought that he would have to confront trial and persecution again, Alma goes running back to the city. I really admire this spirit of enthusiasm to preach the gospel, in any situation that we´re in. 

This week, we sought out new investigators and new people to commit to go to church. Specifically, we are searching out new people to commit to baptism, and we´re hoping to be able to find a lot here in Dias Macedo to give this area a nice base of members to work with. 

And that was my week. Tchau!

Elder Bispo

Mom!

This past year in Brazil, I feel most surprised to look back on how much I have been blessed to have been used by God as an instrument to carry out His works. Specifically, I find it amazing how the Spirit has acted through us in our many lessons, and in the many other opportunities I have had to also serve the other missionaries. This month we have been reading Chapter 4 of PMG, and I´m starting to really appreciate how the Holy Ghost has directed us in every way. Through all my experiences here on the mission, I honor these the most.

Oh, and I also heard that France freaked out and declared war on Israel. Yeah, that was quite a shock.

Whoo Carson!

Whoo all the new families of people that grew up in OP1!

Love you!

Elder Bispo

ELDER BISHOP. reports

This week was quite amazingly full of all sorts of good stuffs! In our district meeting, we all threw a little party for Elder Bradley and Sister Alcocer. Their birthdays were this week. I´ll send pics.

After our little party, we then went into our training session and marked the dates for baptism interviews. Our district marked down three this week. As District Leader, I had to do all these interviews. Normally that wouldn´t take much time, but each interview was scheduled for a different day! And transportation here isn´t the best. So I was a little worried this week that with all the time these interviews would take out of our schedule, that Elder Calisaya and I wouldn´t have been able to work too well in our own area! However we saw a bunch of blessings this week.

Despite all the interviews and such, that took precious time away from three of our working days, we were able to get a bunch done this week! It´s amazing how the Lord blessed us. This week was actually our most productive week that I have had here in Dias Macedo. I´m pretty darn excited.

Also, we found another really amazing family this week! Michael and Tamára! Michael actually lives in the Zone Leader´s area, however we are going to work together with them, because they want to get married and they want to go to church! Unfortunately, Michael was caught in a motorcycle accident this last saturday, so they weren´t able to go to church. Fortunately he didn´t break anything or scar. He simply sprained his ankle. Blessings!

Graça and Marcos are still progressing really well! They are both determined to join the church to enjoy the blessings of being full time members. However, Marcos is having a little trouble with his alcohol addiction. He was actually diagnosed with alcoholism, but he has shown amazing and just about super-human diligence in leaving behind his addiction. He went two full weeks sober, on his first try! I´m very humbled at his great spiritual strength. Please pray for him!

And that´s the week! Até mais!

Elder Bispo

Busy week...

Well everyone! This week was great, and I am just loving this ward. This week we found a bunch of new families to teach. But first, I wanted to talk about Wednesday.

Wednesday was weird. Extremely weird. It rained (weird), and therefore we were late to our District Meeting (more weird). While we were walking in the road afterwards, I saw a man stop in front of a family and begin to quack like a duck (most weird). Then later in the road we heard this huge motorized sound, looked back, and witnessed a whole army of about one hundred or so soldiers, all on motorcycles (flipping out of my seat weird). So Wednesday was weird. 

Anyway, the rest of the week was great. Our regular teaching group (those that are progressing in the Gospel) consists right now of about six families. As I may have mentioned earlier, this ward was supposed to have been divided awhile ago. Until now it has not, because of the low number of active members on our side of the ward. So we are searching out and being blessed with so many families to teach! I am absolutely positive that the Lord has a great purpose for us here. I am ecstatic to help this ward finally divide. These faithful members deserve it.

Yesterday, after the church meetings, we contacted a referral (family of three) from a less-active member. We then discovered that this referral family had already taken the lessons from the Elders, and that the Elders had helped them marry, in preparation for the baptism. However, these Elders were then both transferred, and two other Elders were put in their place. Unfortunately, both of these new Elders decided not to work, and this family stopped going to church. Even though this extremely unfortunate event happened, I know that my Heavenly Father has a divine purpose in helping us find this family again. I´m extremely grateful to be teaching Gleisson, Diane, and their son.

We are teaching also another referral family, Graça and Marcos. They are progressing very well, however we will need to help them get married before their baptisms.

And that´s my week! Até mais, meus amados!

Elder Bispo