Hello!
This week has been pretty normal, but good. We just worked really hard all week. On Tuesday we did a division with Elder Prado and Elder Bohne in an area that was having a bit of trouble. It went pretty ok. We worked with the members a lot too. Things were kind of crazy because this week is starting Carnival and everybody just wants to party... :) WE found some great references from Michelle and the ward list and a woman named Cristina came to church with us and is progressing really well. She will probably be baptized very soon.
The rabbits got in our house again and I caught one in a bucket. I petted him and then couldn´t think of what else to do so I just let him go. Maybe the scare will keep them away for a little while. I think rabbits communicate with each other and make plans against human kind.
I gave a talk on Sunday about missionary work and it was pretty fun. I actually like giving talks. This week we will have Zone Conference and so we should learn some pretty cool stuff. Other than that it has all been pretty normal. We broke our record for most lessons taught in one week and we are pretty excited for some more baptisms. Elder Proulx got accepted to BYU and will be going home in 2 weeks. Wahh! So little time. I really like E. Proulx. He has been one of my best companions. Good thing he lives in Springville so it will be easy to find him after. That’s really sad that Bro. Gutzman passed away. You´ll have to take good care of Sis. Gutzman cuz you know what it is like. I’ll pray for you a lot.
I’m glad Sharon is having a good time on tour. I remember when we went to Disneyland and recorded at the studio. It is pretty fun! As for people going on missions I´ve actually gotten several letters that a lot of my friends that are girls are going out on missions too. That’s pretty sweet! A Mission is awesome. Ryan has written me a lot too. It’s going to be awesome to talk Portuguese with Nils and Ryan. But first, we´ve got the rest of Brazil to convert, so onward!
I know that this is the true church of God. I know that the celestial kingdom will be amazing. I know Christ lives and that our family can one day be together again. I love you whole bunches!
-Elder Markham
Maringa February 13, 2012
Bom dia!
So thanks for the great letter! You´re the best. I am glad that the family is doing well and a bunch of exciting stuff is happening! I miss Grandpa’s potatoes and lemon dip. It’s funny because here in Brazil everybody thinks that Americans just eat potatoes and McDonalds every day. That’s great that Sharon can be so involved with tours and stuff. I always thought that tours were pretty fun. Remember when I went to Europe and it was awesome!? So tell everybody back at the ranch how much I love them and thanks for the support. Thank you VEEERRRY much for the packages! The socks and candy and sunscreen and stuff got here this week and saved my life. You are the best and greatest mommy ever!
So this week was wild and crazy. Kind of like me. That’s why my middle name is: Wildandcrazy. Speaking of strange names, there are some people here in brazil with huge names. For example, one of my old ZLs was named Yuri Lima Lisboa Almeida Vileila. Which I think is a lot of names. So, last Monday we left for Londrina. It was kind of an adventure because another Elder who was going with us missed the bus and we had to negotiate our tickets for another hour and we ended up getting to Londrina and like 10:00 at night. Oops. The conference was real good and the mission started a program for everyone to read the Book of Mormon together over the space of a few months. Pretty awesome. On Wednesday we got back and worked a lot. The next day I went on a division with Elder M. Silva who is a new District leader in a small town called Paiçandu. It was a great division. About 4:00 in the afternoon the sky just suddenly turned super black and it started raining like crazy and we had to hide in a bar. All of the streets were covered in several inches of water and the wind ripped up a whole bunch of trees around the city. It was pretty intense! The next day we had another ward activity that was pretty fun called Bolo Macho (or basically ´´man cake´´) where the men of the ward had to make a cake and the women got to judge the cake to see who made the best one! Elder Proulx knows how to cook super good and made banana bread. I bought an instant cake mix package of vanilla, threw everything in the blender, didnt spread it out in the pan right, didn’t rise, burned it, gave up on it, cut it in half, put peanut butter on one side and jelly on the other, folded it, called it a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cake and got almost last place :) It was way way funny! I think that must be the craziest thing I did this week. Also on Saturday we had the baptism of Alex! Yahoo!! It was way cool and he is really funny. Due to special circumstances he received the priesthood yesterday! It was way awesome and his family is now preparing to go to the temple. Sunday was hard, but we gave blessings to 2 people in the Hospital by our house and had a meeting with Stake President who is way awesome! So, that was my week.
I testify that this is the true church of Christ and that baptism washes away our sins. I know Christ lives and because of Him we will be free from all sorrow one day. I know that we have a living prophet who guides us. Don’t forget to read the Book of Mormon because it is awesome!
I saw a sign on a store window the other day that I really liked. It said: Don´t say to God that you have a great big problem, but say to your problem that you have a great God!
Love,
-Elder Iron Man
So thanks for the great letter! You´re the best. I am glad that the family is doing well and a bunch of exciting stuff is happening! I miss Grandpa’s potatoes and lemon dip. It’s funny because here in Brazil everybody thinks that Americans just eat potatoes and McDonalds every day. That’s great that Sharon can be so involved with tours and stuff. I always thought that tours were pretty fun. Remember when I went to Europe and it was awesome!? So tell everybody back at the ranch how much I love them and thanks for the support. Thank you VEEERRRY much for the packages! The socks and candy and sunscreen and stuff got here this week and saved my life. You are the best and greatest mommy ever!
So this week was wild and crazy. Kind of like me. That’s why my middle name is: Wildandcrazy. Speaking of strange names, there are some people here in brazil with huge names. For example, one of my old ZLs was named Yuri Lima Lisboa Almeida Vileila. Which I think is a lot of names. So, last Monday we left for Londrina. It was kind of an adventure because another Elder who was going with us missed the bus and we had to negotiate our tickets for another hour and we ended up getting to Londrina and like 10:00 at night. Oops. The conference was real good and the mission started a program for everyone to read the Book of Mormon together over the space of a few months. Pretty awesome. On Wednesday we got back and worked a lot. The next day I went on a division with Elder M. Silva who is a new District leader in a small town called Paiçandu. It was a great division. About 4:00 in the afternoon the sky just suddenly turned super black and it started raining like crazy and we had to hide in a bar. All of the streets were covered in several inches of water and the wind ripped up a whole bunch of trees around the city. It was pretty intense! The next day we had another ward activity that was pretty fun called Bolo Macho (or basically ´´man cake´´) where the men of the ward had to make a cake and the women got to judge the cake to see who made the best one! Elder Proulx knows how to cook super good and made banana bread. I bought an instant cake mix package of vanilla, threw everything in the blender, didnt spread it out in the pan right, didn’t rise, burned it, gave up on it, cut it in half, put peanut butter on one side and jelly on the other, folded it, called it a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cake and got almost last place :) It was way way funny! I think that must be the craziest thing I did this week. Also on Saturday we had the baptism of Alex! Yahoo!! It was way cool and he is really funny. Due to special circumstances he received the priesthood yesterday! It was way awesome and his family is now preparing to go to the temple. Sunday was hard, but we gave blessings to 2 people in the Hospital by our house and had a meeting with Stake President who is way awesome! So, that was my week.
I testify that this is the true church of Christ and that baptism washes away our sins. I know Christ lives and because of Him we will be free from all sorrow one day. I know that we have a living prophet who guides us. Don’t forget to read the Book of Mormon because it is awesome!
I saw a sign on a store window the other day that I really liked. It said: Don´t say to God that you have a great big problem, but say to your problem that you have a great God!
Love,
-Elder Iron Man
Maringa February 6, 2012
Hello! Once again the week has been crazy demais! So, starting with your news, Thank you novamente for the letter! It is always so darn good to hear from ya´ll. (that got my Utah out for a little while.) That’s too bad that winter has been mild. Summer here has NOT been mild! I´m redder than a tomato dipped in red paint at a Utes football game eating nachos and hot sauce!
Actually I have been hearing quite a bit about Mitt Romney. Here in Brazil everybody is talking about it. One of the most famous magazines in Brasil even published huge articles about the church and the MTC and the missionaries. It was surprisingly about 85% correct and not overly critical. It has brought lots of exposure to the church here as well. Tell Bro. Madsen hello for me and that Londrina is doing great! There isn´t very much red dirt here in Maringá, but in Londrina there sure is. That great that my friends have been doing well too! I´m glad Nils is getting released as secretary. Maybe he liked it, but it’s a rough job! What with getting bossed around by all of those annoying assistants and stuff....!
So this week has been wild! On Monday we had transfers and like I said I stayed with Elder Proulx. This is his very last transfer and so we are pretty excited to work a lot! Monday night we had a family night with all of the young men of the ward. Elder Proulx made home style chili and we taught the young men how to say the first vision to their friends. The YM leader Israel had a rock band and we even got to jam it up a little bit! Ya´know, clearly all gospel stuff like ´´U2´´ are going to get baptized and lets clean “the Beatles” out of the baptismal font.... hehehe. Tuesday all of the new Elders arrived in the zone and since we had three areas closed and opening again we basically just had to sit in the bus station the entire day to receive people. We made some contacts and found a lady who already knew the church and agreed to be baptized in a few weeks. Who hoo! After everybody got there a member came to get us and we jammed 6 Elders and 10 suitcases in a tiny little truck even smaller than my s-10. It was pretty awesome. We got to the house of the Elders and it was totally trashed and so we had to spend the rest of the night cleaning up. We got a brand new Elder in the Zone, Elder Halpin from Salt Lake that arrived in the mission this week. Sweet! After that, we worked pretty normal. As you can see from the pictures, E. Proulx had a little shoe problem and we had to run with Admilson to the shoe store. That what you get for working hard. Then we had a huge miracle and the daughters of Michelle agreed to be baptized. They were both baptized Saturday and are really happy. Sunday night we had dinner at Michelle´s house to celebrate and watch the Joseph Smith movie. Good Good Food! Michelle´s Dad is a pastor for another church, but he absolutely loves us and started using the Gospel Principles book and the Family proclamation in his sermons! He is way funny. Maybe we can baptize him and his whole church. That would be cool! haha! In church we had another miracle. Remember Alex that we started teaching a little while ago? So in Elders quorum Peterson, Lucas and Marco who we baptized all received the Aaronic Priesthood. Alex who has 17 years asked how you get it. The baptismal font had a problem with the drain after the baptism of Mirieli and Mileni and so we couldn´t drain it. We took Alex over to the font and said ´´well you get baptized and then a few Sundays after you get the priesthood.´´ He just said ´´ Cool! And so... can I be baptized tomorrow? ´´ we said How about Saturday? And so Alex will be baptized Saturday and his family will be complete! They are going to start preparing to go to the temple next year! Hurrah for Israel!
The only reason we don’t baptize him today is because we have to go to Londrina this week for leadership training. We leave this afternoon and it should be pretty great.
So that’s about it! Thanks for the love and support. I love you so very much! You are a wonderful and great Mom. I know that this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that families are forever. I know we have a living Prophet in our days to lead and guide us. My advice: Read the Book of Mormon, Follow what the prophet says, pray a lot and go to church. Do this and things should turn out pretty good!
Love ya!
-Elder Iron Man
Actually I have been hearing quite a bit about Mitt Romney. Here in Brazil everybody is talking about it. One of the most famous magazines in Brasil even published huge articles about the church and the MTC and the missionaries. It was surprisingly about 85% correct and not overly critical. It has brought lots of exposure to the church here as well. Tell Bro. Madsen hello for me and that Londrina is doing great! There isn´t very much red dirt here in Maringá, but in Londrina there sure is. That great that my friends have been doing well too! I´m glad Nils is getting released as secretary. Maybe he liked it, but it’s a rough job! What with getting bossed around by all of those annoying assistants and stuff....!
So this week has been wild! On Monday we had transfers and like I said I stayed with Elder Proulx. This is his very last transfer and so we are pretty excited to work a lot! Monday night we had a family night with all of the young men of the ward. Elder Proulx made home style chili and we taught the young men how to say the first vision to their friends. The YM leader Israel had a rock band and we even got to jam it up a little bit! Ya´know, clearly all gospel stuff like ´´U2´´ are going to get baptized and lets clean “the Beatles” out of the baptismal font.... hehehe. Tuesday all of the new Elders arrived in the zone and since we had three areas closed and opening again we basically just had to sit in the bus station the entire day to receive people. We made some contacts and found a lady who already knew the church and agreed to be baptized in a few weeks. Who hoo! After everybody got there a member came to get us and we jammed 6 Elders and 10 suitcases in a tiny little truck even smaller than my s-10. It was pretty awesome. We got to the house of the Elders and it was totally trashed and so we had to spend the rest of the night cleaning up. We got a brand new Elder in the Zone, Elder Halpin from Salt Lake that arrived in the mission this week. Sweet! After that, we worked pretty normal. As you can see from the pictures, E. Proulx had a little shoe problem and we had to run with Admilson to the shoe store. That what you get for working hard. Then we had a huge miracle and the daughters of Michelle agreed to be baptized. They were both baptized Saturday and are really happy. Sunday night we had dinner at Michelle´s house to celebrate and watch the Joseph Smith movie. Good Good Food! Michelle´s Dad is a pastor for another church, but he absolutely loves us and started using the Gospel Principles book and the Family proclamation in his sermons! He is way funny. Maybe we can baptize him and his whole church. That would be cool! haha! In church we had another miracle. Remember Alex that we started teaching a little while ago? So in Elders quorum Peterson, Lucas and Marco who we baptized all received the Aaronic Priesthood. Alex who has 17 years asked how you get it. The baptismal font had a problem with the drain after the baptism of Mirieli and Mileni and so we couldn´t drain it. We took Alex over to the font and said ´´well you get baptized and then a few Sundays after you get the priesthood.´´ He just said ´´ Cool! And so... can I be baptized tomorrow? ´´ we said How about Saturday? And so Alex will be baptized Saturday and his family will be complete! They are going to start preparing to go to the temple next year! Hurrah for Israel!
The only reason we don’t baptize him today is because we have to go to Londrina this week for leadership training. We leave this afternoon and it should be pretty great.
So that’s about it! Thanks for the love and support. I love you so very much! You are a wonderful and great Mom. I know that this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that families are forever. I know we have a living Prophet in our days to lead and guide us. My advice: Read the Book of Mormon, Follow what the prophet says, pray a lot and go to church. Do this and things should turn out pretty good!
Love ya!
-Elder Iron Man
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