Hello Everyone,
Things are going really really well here. Like I said last week we had my first baptism, this week we should have 6-8 more, then the week after we should have seven more. Its crazy here, we are running everywhere and don't really have enough time to do everything that needs to get done, but we are working our hardest, so we can only pray that everyone. Will continue to be excited for their baptisms. The group this weekend is a group of teenagers, they are all 14-15 and one of them was converted with his mother about a year ago. During the last years when the missionaries have been there, at one time or another they have all listened in. They are all really really cool, because they are genuinely interested in the gospel and doing things right. The second group next weekend, is more of a mix of people we have been working with. In one example, we have a family that converted, everyone but the mom, because she smokes. Well her niece is living there too. Last week we were thinking, and asked her why she wasn't baptised. She said she hadn't received an answer to her prayers. We asked the family about her and was thinking, they said that she wasn't interested, and most likely wouldn't accept an invitation. Well we talked with her invited her to be baptised, the action of faith in accepting the invitation was enough to receive an answer. She has been very firm in going to Church, and it was great when one of the members asked about who she was and everything, she explained, then to add on, said that she is going to be baptised and was very excited about it. Another family Joel and Ana, they are golden and we have been working with them for a long time, Ana received an answer our second visit and we have just been working with Joel, he is an awesome person doing everything right, living a Mormon life without the blessings, the holy ghost and covenants in the temple. But he isn't very religious, but we have him changed now and he is really wanting to go to church and do all the things necessary.The other couple I talked about last week is doing good, he went to church and started contacting all the old missionaries that he liked, and the Elders that baptised him. I think when I told people about them last week I didn't explain right, we are trying to be their friends, help them strengthen their relationship with each other by being friends sharing little messages, we are pretty careful about not doing or saying anything stupid. With all the things we are trying to do, Elder Bemuyal is a district leader and something is wrong with one of the other Elders in our district for some reason he isn't working as effectively. So we are going to be spending lots more time with them for the rest of this transfer, or for the next two weeks. This week too I had my first churrasco, I don't know how to spell it, its a BBQ but different. It wasn't a true gaucho Churrasco but it was close enough for me. Tons of meat and potato salad, very good. And making me hungry now.
Bronson, I send almost all my pictures home you just need to wait for them to get there. Ask Jen what the URL is for my blog, all the pictures should be there too. The pictures of my baptism are here with me and I didn't bring a cable of any kind so we are going to have to wait until I send the next card home. Actually I just looked at the old emails and here is the URL for almost all of my pictures and what not www.elderjacobsimpson.blogspot.com
We are really being blessed here, I understand basically everything now, there are still a few people with a little less education that I don't understand everything. I can communicate almost everything that is necessary and some things that aren't, my problem is I think so fast that I don't take the time necessary to conjugate the verbs 100% right. They are very close but I need to slow down a little and speak more correctly. In fact I think people understand my about the same as people in English. Its so much easier to talk to yourself. Oh for addresses, I send Sean a letter using the package address, I don't know if it worked but I don't know why it shouldn't. I don't have the address for Jesse and Nathan still. So if someone could track down the package address or mission home I would be very grateful. Love you all, do whats right and don't be stupid.
Elder Simpson
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
11/11/2008
Hello Everyone,
This week has been very good for us. Though it has been very very hot here. The good side is I am getting a nice tan, on my arms and face. Since I am always wearing pants my legs are very white. But that's not really important. This week we had my first baptism. In fact we had a lot of things happen this week. First we have finally gotten though and can start helping an inactive family. They are really good people but he doesn't want to open up and let her into his personal life, and when talking with him. Well he is committing adultery, and wants to do the things that are right for his kids and wife but he knows that if he tells the truth to her that she will leave him, which she said to us. But he wants to be with the kids. So we need to strengthen their relationship until the point where they can endure this trial and come out closer and stronger. That is very good news this week, Jaciane is the name of the person we baptised, she is very very cool. We started teaching her two months ago, in fact we were teaching her brother, and she started showing up, after a while we started going to her house. And she was perfectly prepared. She drank alcohol and coffee, but when we explained that its bad for us she stopped. In fact that day(the day we taught that principle) she had just bought a brand new container of coffee, she said that she didn't need it anymore and we took it for her. Her only problem is she is very timid and doesn't really like to be a center of attention. So we didn't announce her baptism at church, and didn't tell anyone except the people necessary. Well some people saw us filling the swimming pool because we don't have a font here, and they told everyone else. There was tons of people at her baptism, but she has a testimony and her heart is in the right place and she was baptised anyway. It was cool I was able to baptise her. In my journal I wrote, that I was able to help my first person through the door to eternal life and more blessing and joy then she is able to imagine. It was very cool. This transfer we should have a few more baptisms, we are teaching a group of teenagers which is really cool. At times they are a little unruly, because I cant spell the word I want to use. But there hearts are good and they want to do the right things. We should baptise 7-9 of them in two weeks. Which will really boost the amount of youth that we have here. Things are progressing, this Sunday the president of the branch asked Elder Bemuyal and I to give talks about the branch mission plan, and to help animate the members about sharing the gospel with there friends. I am not really a person of many words and I didn't have a ton of time to prepare my talk. But I found myself speaking perfect Portuguese, and talking for a little longer then I wanted to be talking. But that's not super important. It was a little funny because everyone remembers the first time I gave talk in church, and they were very excited that they understood everything I said. That's all I have to say about that.
Elder Simpson
This week has been very good for us. Though it has been very very hot here. The good side is I am getting a nice tan, on my arms and face. Since I am always wearing pants my legs are very white. But that's not really important. This week we had my first baptism. In fact we had a lot of things happen this week. First we have finally gotten though and can start helping an inactive family. They are really good people but he doesn't want to open up and let her into his personal life, and when talking with him. Well he is committing adultery, and wants to do the things that are right for his kids and wife but he knows that if he tells the truth to her that she will leave him, which she said to us. But he wants to be with the kids. So we need to strengthen their relationship until the point where they can endure this trial and come out closer and stronger. That is very good news this week, Jaciane is the name of the person we baptised, she is very very cool. We started teaching her two months ago, in fact we were teaching her brother, and she started showing up, after a while we started going to her house. And she was perfectly prepared. She drank alcohol and coffee, but when we explained that its bad for us she stopped. In fact that day(the day we taught that principle) she had just bought a brand new container of coffee, she said that she didn't need it anymore and we took it for her. Her only problem is she is very timid and doesn't really like to be a center of attention. So we didn't announce her baptism at church, and didn't tell anyone except the people necessary. Well some people saw us filling the swimming pool because we don't have a font here, and they told everyone else. There was tons of people at her baptism, but she has a testimony and her heart is in the right place and she was baptised anyway. It was cool I was able to baptise her. In my journal I wrote, that I was able to help my first person through the door to eternal life and more blessing and joy then she is able to imagine. It was very cool. This transfer we should have a few more baptisms, we are teaching a group of teenagers which is really cool. At times they are a little unruly, because I cant spell the word I want to use. But there hearts are good and they want to do the right things. We should baptise 7-9 of them in two weeks. Which will really boost the amount of youth that we have here. Things are progressing, this Sunday the president of the branch asked Elder Bemuyal and I to give talks about the branch mission plan, and to help animate the members about sharing the gospel with there friends. I am not really a person of many words and I didn't have a ton of time to prepare my talk. But I found myself speaking perfect Portuguese, and talking for a little longer then I wanted to be talking. But that's not super important. It was a little funny because everyone remembers the first time I gave talk in church, and they were very excited that they understood everything I said. That's all I have to say about that.
Elder Simpson
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
11/04/2008
Hello Everyone,
How are things? back home mail (email too) has been strangly quiet.... But things are going good here, this Saturday we will most likely have my first babtism. Which is really excuting. Jaciane is very cool we have been teaching her for about a month. Its really intresting, we started teaching her mom, then her brother in a different house, then she started showing up for a few of the lessons with her brother. About a month later we thought about it. And asked if we could teach her seperate. Now we are babtising her. Her brother and mother stopped progressing a long time ago. But she is really really cool, though she is very timid. She doesnt want to pray out loud, she has a testimony and knows that our message is true, and she is feeling the spirit and recieving blessings. But doesnt want to pray in front of people. She has been to church 6 times now, and even though she is timid she went to confrence with us in another city. With people she doesnt even know. The week after we should babtise 4 friends of one of the teenagers here. Luiz Felipe is really cool, his mom was converted about a year ago and a few months after he was babtised. But he has lived a life a little more difficult then all the other youth in the Branch, so its really good that his friends are accepting our messages so he can grow with them. We are doing lots of work with the youth here, the adults are cool, but they gossip so much is really difficult to work with them. Elder Bemuyal is a good Elder, its a little difficult working with him because he doesnt really care about the rules, he wants to work (most of the time) but ahh rules arent really important. So I am working on him, its intresting beacsue with Elder Torres, I didnt make any decisions, but here I do all the planning and quite a bit of the talking with people. So I am learning by being thrown into the frying pan. My arm has been hurting a little bit lately, I have a feeling that he will never heal. Its so strange people when I got my call to Brazil I thought that the people would be more inclined to accept more knowledge about Christ, and its true of every other mission here in Brazil. This mission is difficult, something of intrest, at the end of this transfer the beginning of December, I will have more time on my mission then half of the missionaries. I think I will become senior at the next transfer. But I dont know if thats a good thing, I have lot of things to learn still before I can teach another person how to do missionary work, and while my companion is lazy here and I am learning a lot, my progress is also retarted by his lazyness. I have been thinking about the APE for President Rau, there are a few things that you can do with the youth that can help them a ton. First, its good to start your mission with a Lesson Plan for every lesson that a missionary will teach, people will do this in the MTC and mission prep classes, but if they have one before they can use that time for perfecting instead of creating. Two in the last zone confrence we were challenged to make a good question for every key point of every principle. For example in the first lession there are eight principles. God our Heavenly Father, the Gospel Blesses our Families, Prophets. Each one of these has 3 or 4 points that missionarys need to talk about. If they were to have questions prepared before they came they will be able to teach exponetially better. Three, we live in the gospel and we know the blessing but at times its really difficult to explain to someone who doesnt have a background of faith, what those blessings are. When you say to someone your faimly can be together for eternity, they know what the words mean but dont understand the concept. When you say I know Jesus is my savior, they dont really understand the purpose of Jesus Crist in the plan of salvation and how dependant we are on him. The truth is lot of missionarys dont understand fully about this. But thats not the third point. They need to know how to explain to someone what the advantages are of the gospel without saying your life will be blessed. That is so vauge, if they say that they need to do it with the spirit. But those things and preach my Gospel, it may be a little difficult to teach some of these things effectivly in a short amount of time like the ape but they are some ideas of things. Well alex was the only person that sent me an email so I dont have a lot to say. Until next week Elder Simpson.
How are things? back home mail (email too) has been strangly quiet.... But things are going good here, this Saturday we will most likely have my first babtism. Which is really excuting. Jaciane is very cool we have been teaching her for about a month. Its really intresting, we started teaching her mom, then her brother in a different house, then she started showing up for a few of the lessons with her brother. About a month later we thought about it. And asked if we could teach her seperate. Now we are babtising her. Her brother and mother stopped progressing a long time ago. But she is really really cool, though she is very timid. She doesnt want to pray out loud, she has a testimony and knows that our message is true, and she is feeling the spirit and recieving blessings. But doesnt want to pray in front of people. She has been to church 6 times now, and even though she is timid she went to confrence with us in another city. With people she doesnt even know. The week after we should babtise 4 friends of one of the teenagers here. Luiz Felipe is really cool, his mom was converted about a year ago and a few months after he was babtised. But he has lived a life a little more difficult then all the other youth in the Branch, so its really good that his friends are accepting our messages so he can grow with them. We are doing lots of work with the youth here, the adults are cool, but they gossip so much is really difficult to work with them. Elder Bemuyal is a good Elder, its a little difficult working with him because he doesnt really care about the rules, he wants to work (most of the time) but ahh rules arent really important. So I am working on him, its intresting beacsue with Elder Torres, I didnt make any decisions, but here I do all the planning and quite a bit of the talking with people. So I am learning by being thrown into the frying pan. My arm has been hurting a little bit lately, I have a feeling that he will never heal. Its so strange people when I got my call to Brazil I thought that the people would be more inclined to accept more knowledge about Christ, and its true of every other mission here in Brazil. This mission is difficult, something of intrest, at the end of this transfer the beginning of December, I will have more time on my mission then half of the missionaries. I think I will become senior at the next transfer. But I dont know if thats a good thing, I have lot of things to learn still before I can teach another person how to do missionary work, and while my companion is lazy here and I am learning a lot, my progress is also retarted by his lazyness. I have been thinking about the APE for President Rau, there are a few things that you can do with the youth that can help them a ton. First, its good to start your mission with a Lesson Plan for every lesson that a missionary will teach, people will do this in the MTC and mission prep classes, but if they have one before they can use that time for perfecting instead of creating. Two in the last zone confrence we were challenged to make a good question for every key point of every principle. For example in the first lession there are eight principles. God our Heavenly Father, the Gospel Blesses our Families, Prophets. Each one of these has 3 or 4 points that missionarys need to talk about. If they were to have questions prepared before they came they will be able to teach exponetially better. Three, we live in the gospel and we know the blessing but at times its really difficult to explain to someone who doesnt have a background of faith, what those blessings are. When you say to someone your faimly can be together for eternity, they know what the words mean but dont understand the concept. When you say I know Jesus is my savior, they dont really understand the purpose of Jesus Crist in the plan of salvation and how dependant we are on him. The truth is lot of missionarys dont understand fully about this. But thats not the third point. They need to know how to explain to someone what the advantages are of the gospel without saying your life will be blessed. That is so vauge, if they say that they need to do it with the spirit. But those things and preach my Gospel, it may be a little difficult to teach some of these things effectivly in a short amount of time like the ape but they are some ideas of things. Well alex was the only person that sent me an email so I dont have a lot to say. Until next week Elder Simpson.
Monday, November 3, 2008
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