March 26, 2012
Hiya mommy!
How are you doing? Sorry about the house problems! But it’s all good. We have a cool member here that just likes to sing this song anytime that something goes wrong. ´´don’t worry! Be happy! Don’t worry, be happy now!´´ Our house will just be super cool when I get back. Isshh. ´´When I get back´´ are strange words.
So anyhow, this week was good demais! Firstly, we had a big ól rain storm that cooled things down and autumn has officially started. That means it’s should be less hot now and I might survive! We worked quite a bit and had some difficult days, but we had a great big old miracle! We have been teaching 2 women named Mirani and Angela for a few weeks. Mirani had already advanced her baptism for 2 weeks and we were getting kind of worried about her, but we prepared and special lesson and when we went there we talked about the atonement and at the end we just said, ´´alright. We´ll come back tomorrow and you can just give us and answer if you want to get baptized or not.´´ We went home and prayed a lot and then when we went back she just said ´´ I want to be baptized. When can I? ´´ And we were like ´´eis aqui água!´´ no actually Sunday! and she agreed, Then we went with a member named Israel who served a mission in Boston and speaks English really well to the woman named Angela. She told us that she wanted to be baptized as well, but she wanted us to give her a course about Revelations from the Bible first. So, I don’t know anything about Revelations and so we just talked with her about the purpose of baptism and invited her to come with us to the baptismal interview with Mirani that would be the next day. She agreed and went with us. While Mirani was being interviewed we just sat in the chapel and I played a bunch of hymns on the piano and after she said that she felt the spirit really strong and she was interviewed right after Mirani and was baptized with her on Sunday. Hurrah for Israel! It is really cool because Valter, who is the husband of Mirani is a pastor from another church, but he already said he wants to be baptized as soon as he can leave his church and he uses the Triple and Teachings of George Albert Smith in his preaching! Haha! He has a horrible old rickety car and likes to drive us around the city laughing like a crazy person. Just now the black eyed peas song ´´tonight’s going to be a good night´´ just started playing in the road and I had this thought: ´´today is P-day, but tonight we are going to baptize!´´ Yeah!
So, awesome beans.
I know that this church is the true church of God. I love the book of Mormon. I love P-days as well. Conference will be really great. I am praying for you all. Good luck with the house!
Love,
Elder Markham
How are you doing? Sorry about the house problems! But it’s all good. We have a cool member here that just likes to sing this song anytime that something goes wrong. ´´don’t worry! Be happy! Don’t worry, be happy now!´´ Our house will just be super cool when I get back. Isshh. ´´When I get back´´ are strange words.
So anyhow, this week was good demais! Firstly, we had a big ól rain storm that cooled things down and autumn has officially started. That means it’s should be less hot now and I might survive! We worked quite a bit and had some difficult days, but we had a great big old miracle! We have been teaching 2 women named Mirani and Angela for a few weeks. Mirani had already advanced her baptism for 2 weeks and we were getting kind of worried about her, but we prepared and special lesson and when we went there we talked about the atonement and at the end we just said, ´´alright. We´ll come back tomorrow and you can just give us and answer if you want to get baptized or not.´´ We went home and prayed a lot and then when we went back she just said ´´ I want to be baptized. When can I? ´´ And we were like ´´eis aqui água!´´ no actually Sunday! and she agreed, Then we went with a member named Israel who served a mission in Boston and speaks English really well to the woman named Angela. She told us that she wanted to be baptized as well, but she wanted us to give her a course about Revelations from the Bible first. So, I don’t know anything about Revelations and so we just talked with her about the purpose of baptism and invited her to come with us to the baptismal interview with Mirani that would be the next day. She agreed and went with us. While Mirani was being interviewed we just sat in the chapel and I played a bunch of hymns on the piano and after she said that she felt the spirit really strong and she was interviewed right after Mirani and was baptized with her on Sunday. Hurrah for Israel! It is really cool because Valter, who is the husband of Mirani is a pastor from another church, but he already said he wants to be baptized as soon as he can leave his church and he uses the Triple and Teachings of George Albert Smith in his preaching! Haha! He has a horrible old rickety car and likes to drive us around the city laughing like a crazy person. Just now the black eyed peas song ´´tonight’s going to be a good night´´ just started playing in the road and I had this thought: ´´today is P-day, but tonight we are going to baptize!´´ Yeah!
So, awesome beans.
I know that this church is the true church of God. I love the book of Mormon. I love P-days as well. Conference will be really great. I am praying for you all. Good luck with the house!
Love,
Elder Markham
Maringa March 19, 2012
Hooray!
That is so great that you passed your driving test! Just be careful with that idea about making everybody take it! Hahaha! I am very happy for you. I told you are awesome. That’s crazy about the bathroom as well. I hope it didn´t cause all that much damage. So, there really isn´t all that much news this week.
Transfers were just fine. My new companion is named Elder Van Orden. He is from Saint George and everyone thinks he is my brother because we look a lot alike. We´ve been working a lot and this week has been kind of slow. I am a little sad today because we had some big problems in the Zone today and as zone leaders we have to help out. It is very sad when some people don’t understand the importance of the gospel or the reason Christ sent us out to preach to the world. My advice to anybody who is going on a mission would just be to be totally obedient to everything your mission president says, even if you don’t understand or think it’s stupid. Just do it and the Lord will bless you. We are still working with the family of Michelle and Angela. We received another companionship of missionaries here in the ward and Bishop is waaaay excited. Tomorrow we will have an activity of integration that should be really fun. It’s also funny because our house is very small and we don’t hardly fit in it now with 4 elders! But whatever! Só vai!
Today I am going to sleep and drink tereré. P-day!
I love you a whole lot Mommy! I just know that this is the true gospel. I know the Book of Mormon is true and that our family can be forever. We don’t always realized the importance of our covenants, but they are really huge blessings in our lives. Let’s just keep on enduring to the end and everything will turn out just fine.
Com amor,
Elder Markham
That is so great that you passed your driving test! Just be careful with that idea about making everybody take it! Hahaha! I am very happy for you. I told you are awesome. That’s crazy about the bathroom as well. I hope it didn´t cause all that much damage. So, there really isn´t all that much news this week.
Transfers were just fine. My new companion is named Elder Van Orden. He is from Saint George and everyone thinks he is my brother because we look a lot alike. We´ve been working a lot and this week has been kind of slow. I am a little sad today because we had some big problems in the Zone today and as zone leaders we have to help out. It is very sad when some people don’t understand the importance of the gospel or the reason Christ sent us out to preach to the world. My advice to anybody who is going on a mission would just be to be totally obedient to everything your mission president says, even if you don’t understand or think it’s stupid. Just do it and the Lord will bless you. We are still working with the family of Michelle and Angela. We received another companionship of missionaries here in the ward and Bishop is waaaay excited. Tomorrow we will have an activity of integration that should be really fun. It’s also funny because our house is very small and we don’t hardly fit in it now with 4 elders! But whatever! Só vai!
Today I am going to sleep and drink tereré. P-day!
I love you a whole lot Mommy! I just know that this is the true gospel. I know the Book of Mormon is true and that our family can be forever. We don’t always realized the importance of our covenants, but they are really huge blessings in our lives. Let’s just keep on enduring to the end and everything will turn out just fine.
Com amor,
Elder Markham
Maringa March 12, 2012
Hello! Thank you so very, very much for the letter. To quote Grandma Elaine: I sure do love your letters :) That was great that you could attend the homecomings of Elder Proulx and Elder Davis. They are super awesome. I´m sorry to hear that Jorji is having some serious health problems, but I´m sure the Lord will care for her in the best way. From what I gathered you would probably like the Proulx family quite a bit. I don’t know if you called them or anything since, but you should go visit them sometime. As for the other stuff, sometimes we have trials, but it is always for our good. About the driving test, just keep on practicing like you are and I’m sure you´ll pass just fine. Head check head check head check!
So this week was weird.
First, P-day was the day that Elder Proulx went home so we just spent the day packing and cleaning the house and then took him to the bus station. I went to another house to stay with missionaries from another ward. Tuesday we worked in the center and it was super hot and I forgot sunscreen and the center is lousy to work. Later that day I got on the bus to Londrina for a leadership counsel with the other zone leaders from Maringá. When we got there we would sleep in the Secretaries house. When we arrived we found out that the secretaries’ washing machine had sort of exploded sending a tidal wave of sudsy destruction all over the apartment. The secretaries needed to take care of the people who were leaving and so we stayed there to do a service project and save all the stuff. The next day we had leadership conference and learned lots of awesome stuff. It was a great conference and we all felt the spirit really strong, but I also received some sad news. Elder Stinocher, the Elder I trained in Bauru is going home this week due to severe problems with depression. He bore testimony and the counsel and it was really special. Let’s pray for him that everything will be alright. When I got back I stayed with the other ward again. We found some cool people and worked a bunch. On Saturday we did a missionary blitz in one of the wards where all of the members divided in groups with the missionaries form our district and knocked all of the doors in the area close to the chapel. It was super cool. After that I got permission get as a companion a young man from the ward named William who will be leaving for his mission in May to Salvador Bahia. I went with him to church the next day and Bishop brought a friend to church and it was way cool, but unfortunately the only day that I had to work in my area this week, right after church I got a really nasty throat infection and spent the day at the doctors and sleeping to get better. I´m all good now. It was just a nasty little cold that happens sometimes, but it took me off my feet yesterday. I still don’t know who my new companion is, but he will arrive tomorrow and it should be great.
I love you so much mommy. I know that this is the true gospel of Christ. For all trials Christ suffered and whatever we can’t fix right now, we´ve got the resurrection where we won’t get sore throats MRIs or even need to drive (I´m going to teleport. Should be cool.) I know Dad is watching over us and God loves us even more than we know. I will be praying for your health and success. Just summing up the important parts: NEVER GIVE UP. NEVER SURRENDER!
-Love Elder Iron Man.
So this week was weird.
First, P-day was the day that Elder Proulx went home so we just spent the day packing and cleaning the house and then took him to the bus station. I went to another house to stay with missionaries from another ward. Tuesday we worked in the center and it was super hot and I forgot sunscreen and the center is lousy to work. Later that day I got on the bus to Londrina for a leadership counsel with the other zone leaders from Maringá. When we got there we would sleep in the Secretaries house. When we arrived we found out that the secretaries’ washing machine had sort of exploded sending a tidal wave of sudsy destruction all over the apartment. The secretaries needed to take care of the people who were leaving and so we stayed there to do a service project and save all the stuff. The next day we had leadership conference and learned lots of awesome stuff. It was a great conference and we all felt the spirit really strong, but I also received some sad news. Elder Stinocher, the Elder I trained in Bauru is going home this week due to severe problems with depression. He bore testimony and the counsel and it was really special. Let’s pray for him that everything will be alright. When I got back I stayed with the other ward again. We found some cool people and worked a bunch. On Saturday we did a missionary blitz in one of the wards where all of the members divided in groups with the missionaries form our district and knocked all of the doors in the area close to the chapel. It was super cool. After that I got permission get as a companion a young man from the ward named William who will be leaving for his mission in May to Salvador Bahia. I went with him to church the next day and Bishop brought a friend to church and it was way cool, but unfortunately the only day that I had to work in my area this week, right after church I got a really nasty throat infection and spent the day at the doctors and sleeping to get better. I´m all good now. It was just a nasty little cold that happens sometimes, but it took me off my feet yesterday. I still don’t know who my new companion is, but he will arrive tomorrow and it should be great.
I love you so much mommy. I know that this is the true gospel of Christ. For all trials Christ suffered and whatever we can’t fix right now, we´ve got the resurrection where we won’t get sore throats MRIs or even need to drive (I´m going to teleport. Should be cool.) I know Dad is watching over us and God loves us even more than we know. I will be praying for your health and success. Just summing up the important parts: NEVER GIVE UP. NEVER SURRENDER!
-Love Elder Iron Man.
Hello. Hello, Hello! Hello!
And so goes another week! Holy Cow! I am really glad to hear about all the great stuff that is happening back at home!
I´m a little short on time today so I´ll just pass what has been happening here.
So, last P-day we went to the center to buy T-shirts to make an awesome Zone shirt. The next day we had a great activity with the ward about bringing friends and family to church with you. It was really funny because we told the story of an airplane and saving people and got al serious and then (as we had planned earlier) we turned the time over to Bispo to continue and he wasn´t there! So we just gave balloons to everybody and started making a huge racket and throwing stuff in the cultural hall and the Bishop comes in all ´´mad´´ and stops the noise and brings us back to the point of the activity. It was planned like that to show how easy we can get distracted some times and we have to keep our focus on what it important. It was fun and afterwards everybody got up to say good bye to Elder Proulx. Awww touching! He cried a whole bunch. Then we worked a whole bunch and had some great experiences. Ademlson has been helping us a whole lot and is a great recent convert. We also had a family night with Peterson and Larisse and their Dad Antonio promised to go to church for the first time in 20 years. Sunday he was there and Bishop interviewed him and he said that he will work to come back to the church. It was suuuper cool. I also was really happy because the ward went to the temple this week and Marco Lucas and Alex all went and did baptisms and had a super great time! The ward bought Sunday clothes for Lucas and Marco and they passed the sacrament for the first time! Super awesome. Cristina was confirmed and is doing super super well. We are having good success in bringing people to church and filling up the classes. We broke our record for church attendance with 104 people there! One story that was a little sad but will turn out alright is that Mirani, the mother of Michelle, agreed to be baptized yesterday, but Friday her husband had a huge problem and ended up in the hospital for 3 days. He is recovering slowly and she still wants to be baptized, but let’s pray that everything turns out all right. Her husband is a preacher in another church who loves the Book of Mormon and defends us in front of all his other pastor friends. He is really funny too. I hope he gets better soon.
So anyways, E. Proulx is going home today at 3:40 and tomorrow I will travel to Londrina for a leadership training. It should be an exciting week.
I know that this church is true. I love the Gospel and I testify that God lives and loves us. Jesus Christ can change our lives. I am thankful for the opportunity to serve the Lord at this time. I know He is blessing our family a whole ton and I will keep on praying for you a whole lot!
Até logo!
-Elder Iron Man
And so goes another week! Holy Cow! I am really glad to hear about all the great stuff that is happening back at home!
I´m a little short on time today so I´ll just pass what has been happening here.
So, last P-day we went to the center to buy T-shirts to make an awesome Zone shirt. The next day we had a great activity with the ward about bringing friends and family to church with you. It was really funny because we told the story of an airplane and saving people and got al serious and then (as we had planned earlier) we turned the time over to Bispo to continue and he wasn´t there! So we just gave balloons to everybody and started making a huge racket and throwing stuff in the cultural hall and the Bishop comes in all ´´mad´´ and stops the noise and brings us back to the point of the activity. It was planned like that to show how easy we can get distracted some times and we have to keep our focus on what it important. It was fun and afterwards everybody got up to say good bye to Elder Proulx. Awww touching! He cried a whole bunch. Then we worked a whole bunch and had some great experiences. Ademlson has been helping us a whole lot and is a great recent convert. We also had a family night with Peterson and Larisse and their Dad Antonio promised to go to church for the first time in 20 years. Sunday he was there and Bishop interviewed him and he said that he will work to come back to the church. It was suuuper cool. I also was really happy because the ward went to the temple this week and Marco Lucas and Alex all went and did baptisms and had a super great time! The ward bought Sunday clothes for Lucas and Marco and they passed the sacrament for the first time! Super awesome. Cristina was confirmed and is doing super super well. We are having good success in bringing people to church and filling up the classes. We broke our record for church attendance with 104 people there! One story that was a little sad but will turn out alright is that Mirani, the mother of Michelle, agreed to be baptized yesterday, but Friday her husband had a huge problem and ended up in the hospital for 3 days. He is recovering slowly and she still wants to be baptized, but let’s pray that everything turns out all right. Her husband is a preacher in another church who loves the Book of Mormon and defends us in front of all his other pastor friends. He is really funny too. I hope he gets better soon.
So anyways, E. Proulx is going home today at 3:40 and tomorrow I will travel to Londrina for a leadership training. It should be an exciting week.
I know that this church is true. I love the Gospel and I testify that God lives and loves us. Jesus Christ can change our lives. I am thankful for the opportunity to serve the Lord at this time. I know He is blessing our family a whole ton and I will keep on praying for you a whole lot!
Até logo!
-Elder Iron Man
Maringa February 27, 2012
Hello mother!!!
Thank you for the great letter. You are always a great support to me. It sounds like you week was pretty good as well! That is exciting that Sharon is traveling a bunch and stuff. I always liked going on tour. I´m sorry to hear about brother Terry Anderson died. I remember home teaching him with Bro. Woods. He was a great person and Brother Gutzman as well. Sometimes a lot of sad things happen in life, so I guess that’s why we have to look with eyes of faith to what will be. I am glad that I have a bunch of great friends serving missions as well. That’s neat that Elder Barnes is AP. They should give the car idea to the Brazilian missionaries....!
So this week was pretty exciting. Monday we had a nice P-day and worked hard that night. Tuesday there was a huge rain storm that was pretty exciting. Wednesday we had to prepare for Zone Conference. The conference was really really good. We learned that the mission might get the visit of an Apostle in April. That would be very neat! We also had trainings from Sister about cleaning the houses! You would like that. Our house is pretty well 75% clean :) Maybe even more. President talked about how we can find answers to the questions of our soul in the Book of Mormon. The assistants talked about faith and vision in the work. The mission counselor, Brother Tobias also talked about how to plan efficiently. We had really good strawberry cake and it was basically awesome.
Friday I went on a division in a small city called Paiçandu. The weather was really nice and got a bit chilly which I liked a lot! The best miracle that we had was with our investigator Cristina. She is the daughter of a woman who is a member since birth but has been inactive for more than 25 years. When she heard the lessons she said she felt a peace so great that she knew that it was true immediately. She had already stopped smoking a few weeks before, had been thinking about helped her small daughter to learn about Christ and stopped drinking coffee cold when we told her about the word of wisdom. She got super excited about everything and was baptized yesterday after the church meetings! The service was really nice and Elder Proulx and I sang I Like to Look for Rainbows and I played guitar. It was really awesome.
Sunday after church we taught a family who had recently lost their father and it was awesome. Also the mother of Michelle, one of our recent converts, came to church for the first time yesterday and stopped drinking coffee and agreed to be baptized! Miracles! We had a huge barbeque for lunch and after that it started raining a whooooolle ton. The roads turned into rivers! But we kept on working and it paid off because we visited some recent converts who hadn´t come to church that day and their dad was so impressed that the missionaries keep on visiting people even in the crazy rain that he agreed to come to church next week. Só no Family Search!!! Elder Proulx is really excited and full of energy and we are excited for this week.
I am actually reading in Isaias right now too. I´ll be honest, in English it’s tough, and in Portuguese I don’t understand anything, but that’s awesome that we are reading the same part. The Book of Mormon brings lots of power. Keep on reading daily!
I know Christ lives and loves us. I testify of the healing power of the atonement. I know that God loves us a whole lot. Please keep praying for me and the other missionaries.
Love,
-Elder Markham
Thank you for the great letter. You are always a great support to me. It sounds like you week was pretty good as well! That is exciting that Sharon is traveling a bunch and stuff. I always liked going on tour. I´m sorry to hear about brother Terry Anderson died. I remember home teaching him with Bro. Woods. He was a great person and Brother Gutzman as well. Sometimes a lot of sad things happen in life, so I guess that’s why we have to look with eyes of faith to what will be. I am glad that I have a bunch of great friends serving missions as well. That’s neat that Elder Barnes is AP. They should give the car idea to the Brazilian missionaries....!
So this week was pretty exciting. Monday we had a nice P-day and worked hard that night. Tuesday there was a huge rain storm that was pretty exciting. Wednesday we had to prepare for Zone Conference. The conference was really really good. We learned that the mission might get the visit of an Apostle in April. That would be very neat! We also had trainings from Sister about cleaning the houses! You would like that. Our house is pretty well 75% clean :) Maybe even more. President talked about how we can find answers to the questions of our soul in the Book of Mormon. The assistants talked about faith and vision in the work. The mission counselor, Brother Tobias also talked about how to plan efficiently. We had really good strawberry cake and it was basically awesome.
Friday I went on a division in a small city called Paiçandu. The weather was really nice and got a bit chilly which I liked a lot! The best miracle that we had was with our investigator Cristina. She is the daughter of a woman who is a member since birth but has been inactive for more than 25 years. When she heard the lessons she said she felt a peace so great that she knew that it was true immediately. She had already stopped smoking a few weeks before, had been thinking about helped her small daughter to learn about Christ and stopped drinking coffee cold when we told her about the word of wisdom. She got super excited about everything and was baptized yesterday after the church meetings! The service was really nice and Elder Proulx and I sang I Like to Look for Rainbows and I played guitar. It was really awesome.
Sunday after church we taught a family who had recently lost their father and it was awesome. Also the mother of Michelle, one of our recent converts, came to church for the first time yesterday and stopped drinking coffee and agreed to be baptized! Miracles! We had a huge barbeque for lunch and after that it started raining a whooooolle ton. The roads turned into rivers! But we kept on working and it paid off because we visited some recent converts who hadn´t come to church that day and their dad was so impressed that the missionaries keep on visiting people even in the crazy rain that he agreed to come to church next week. Só no Family Search!!! Elder Proulx is really excited and full of energy and we are excited for this week.
I am actually reading in Isaias right now too. I´ll be honest, in English it’s tough, and in Portuguese I don’t understand anything, but that’s awesome that we are reading the same part. The Book of Mormon brings lots of power. Keep on reading daily!
I know Christ lives and loves us. I testify of the healing power of the atonement. I know that God loves us a whole lot. Please keep praying for me and the other missionaries.
Love,
-Elder Markham
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