Merry Christmas from Linhares!

We got to talk to Riley for Christmas!

Here's what we learned:

He's happy.  See his face?

He eats with the members everyday for lunch.  Mostly rice and beans.

He is known in certain circles as the guy "who can't eat all of his dessert."

(He says some of it is nasty!)

He has never walked so far for so long in his life. 

They live 30 minutes away from their area.

They aren't worried about being robbed in their area!

He and his companion live in a nice apartment--just the two of them.

They've found three cockroaches and incinerated them.

They are implementing a new 12-week training course for new missionaries.  So far so good.

He actually speaks a foreign language that other people understand!  (We assume it's Portuguese!)

The days seem to fly by.  The hard work makes him sleep well at night.

The Brazilians are so friendly and invite them in to talk all the time--

even when they are NOT interested in the gospel.

He is happy to be a missionary in Brazil!

Linhares - Week Two

Hey FAM! Well my pday has been switched to Monday, so this is the time when I’ll be emailing you.

This week has been pretty rough. Both me and my companion are new to this area, so we've spent most of our time trying to build our teaching pool. This area is huge too, so we spend a LOT of time walking, and we only are teaching a few lessons a day, which is not good. We should have a baptism this week, our investigator, Cida, should be baptized, and she went to church again, but for some reason she wants to ask her pastor if this is good for her. We tried all we could to tell her that she needs to ask Heavenly Father, and not her pastor, but she's stuck on that anyway. Our other investigator that we've been teaching regularly is being weird about baptism, he recommitted to a day, but we think he's having problems with the law of chastity and he is still drinking coffee. He says he knows that it's true though, which is really disappointing. A few of the others we are teaching are having a lot of trouble actually doing things. We  have one who just refuses to pray. Really sad and frustrating. We met with one family this week, the parents are Roberto and Rosangela, and they have two kids of baptism age. They're a really great family, and would be awesome. We've only visited them twice, but they haven't prayed about the Book of Mormon yet. They have friends in the church too, so we trying to get them to go teach with us this week. We are also trying to start using the members more, have a lot of family home evenings and have the members invite friends so that we can start teaching them. We do a LOT of walking. But I like this city. It's really clean compared to São Paulo, but our area is ridiculously huge. It takes us like 25 minutes to walk to our area from our apartment.

I don't think I have anything else about the actual work, since it's been a short week. We're looking to improve a lot.

Well, it's been really hard for me this first week--a lot of walking, which I’m not used to, haha, and I don't understand people very well, and I can only say most of the things I want to during lessons, some things I still have trouble with. And only one investigator is progressing so that is discouraging too. I hit a low point this week, but I've been reading the scriptures, which has been helping me, and I have some goals this week for me to talk and teach more, rather than my companion, who has been doing most of the teaching (mostly because he just keeps talking and I don't really get a chance to do much.) We re going to be working on that this week, but I think that was also a contributing factor to my discouragement, because I felt like I wasn't helping at all.

This week is going to be awesome. I can just feel it. I just have to use more faith. I can do this, because this is where the Lord wants me to be. I was reading in Mormon 9, and I don't remember what verse right now, but the basic message that I got out of it was that if we are really disciples of Christ, we need to preach the gospel to everyone. I really like that chapter. Ths week will be awesome.

Thanks mom and dad for everything that you've done to get me here.

Can you send those family history stories when you get a chance? I would really like to have those. I think that's the only thing that I need, and those shoes. =)

I love you all!
até proxíma semana!

Linhares - Week One

I’m in Espirito Santo! How exciting is that? I got to Vitoria around midday yesterday, and met with the president. We flew Brazil’s version of Jet Blue, and they gave us all the snacks we wanted, but only to the missionaries. haha. The mission president is really cool, but I don't know him that well, and I can't speak Portuguese very well either. We took a three hour bus ride, (me and my companion) to where I’m serving, for the life of me I can't remember the name of the town, it’s about three and a half hours north of Vitoria, and I get to email again on Monday so I’ll tell you then. But my companion's name is Elder Fischer, he’s from Manti, has been in Brazil for about a year, and was in Texas for about 6 months when he was reassigned. He basically knows Spanish too. He's a really cool guy. We got to our home really late last night, probably about 9 at night. Today was a pretty good first day, besides the fact that I hardly know what anyone is saying. If everything works out right, I should have my first baptism on Saturday! I’m so excited. I also taught my first few lessons today, even though my companion taught most of it. Oh, and me and my comp are the only elders in our house, so it's a little weird. There is one other companionship in this city. Oh and my trainer's trainer was Devin so he knows him because he was in campos when Devin was visiting I think. Anyway, we studied a lot today, and when we finally left we had lunch at a member's house. The mom had to go to work, so we ate with the son Gabriel, who is 14. He's a really cool kid. We’re going to play soccer with him on our next pday. After that he showed us around part of our area, since my companion is new here also. After that we went and tried to find the investigator that the previous companionship left. The best part of today, we met with a recent convert, named Valda, she just got baptized about a month ago, she is super excited about the church and has a ton of referrals for us. We went over there--she's the only one in the house who is a member. We taught two of her daughters today, Fernanda and...dang! I can't remember her name. haha I’m really bad with names, especially because I can understand hardly anything being said. My companion teaches most of the lesson anyway. And we were teaching her mom too. I invited them to be baptized and all three of them said yes! How awesome is that?! I have two baptism dates on my first day! We can't baptize the grandma because she lives in a different state is leaving soon. The two daughters are going to get baptized on the 1 of January, so we're going back there tomorrow. The other investigator that we were teaching today is a friend of that family, and lives there too so we were there twice today. Hopefully we get them all baptized. I’m going to be in this area for 12 weeks. This area is really great, I’m excited to be here and actually teaching people about the gospel. I felt the Spirit a lot today, which was a great counter to the worry and the anxiety that I don't know the language. I’m going to work as hard as I can here, I will talk to you on Monday. And I hear that for Christmas we will be able to Skype with you. I’m kind of excited about that too. Well I’m really excited to work here. That's all for now I guess.

Oh! And Monday we went proselyting in downtown Sao Paulo, it was really easy because there was a TON of people and none of them already had 3 copies of the Book of Mormon already like the first time we went out. It was a great experience.

I really like this city too, even though I can't remember the name. Haha I’ll tell you on Monday.

And yeah, that was Rick at the Melting Pot, he's a really cool guy, I liked working with him.

It’s nice hearing from everyone, and for Zack, Alma 26 is my favorite chapter. And I really enjoy reading Jesus the Christ. It's an  awesome book. Well I love you all! Talk to you on Monday!

Elder Woodmansee

PS.  I remember now. The city is called Linhares, and my area is all of Interlagos. It’s the part that is surrounded by lagoon water. It’s a really beautiful place, and I’ve walked more today than my entire time in the MTC. haha. Oh, and the bus ride on the 101 from Vitoria to here was really long, but oh my goodness was it beautiful! Pretty much once we left the city it was green mountains and forest. It was really awesome.

Brazil MTC - Week Six

Well, first of all, this week is going to be different because it's not all class and we have some orientation classes instead of learning the same thing over and over and over. We went proselyting yesterday and it was awesome! Me and my companion had four Book of Mormons that we were supposed to give out, and we ended up giving out all of them with time to spare! It was a neat experience. (And I’m looking forward to doing the same thing every day out in the mission field because were actually helping people come into the gospel, and not just teaching fake investigators.) Anyway, it was really hard at first, we didn't really want to talk to people and we were pretty nervous. After our first time talking to someone and talking about church with them, (which we were rejected,) it was a little easier, especially after we handed out our first book of Mormon ever! It was fun, but had at the same time. Trying to get people to stop and talk to you was kind of difficult. I was surprised that I could communicate pretty well, but it was hard to understand them sometimes. And if they're not talking about church things, (like if I hear someone just talking on the street) I have no idea what they're saying. haha I guess I’ll learn pretty quickly when I get to the field though. I can't wait to actually go out and teach people. It was interesting, the two things I heard most often while talking to people yesterday was, "I already have one," (we just went out in the neighborhood around the CTM this time,) and "the bible is hard to read" which I thought was pretty funny. I wanted to say, "Well this is way easier to read!" it seemed like the women were more willing to talk to us than the men, we haded out three to women, and one to a man. I can't imagine doing this in the states. The people here are really nice and friendly and willing to talk to us, even if they don't end up walking away with a BoM. Well that one experience was the only thing that really stuck out last week. We all came back sunburnt because we are only in the sun for like 30 minutes a day anyway. haha. Oh and I've gained like 10 pounds since I've been here, but I don't feel like I've been getting fat, and I don't think I look fatter either haha. Especially because we have to walk up more than 100 stairs every time we want to go to our room for something. Today was the last time  that we got to go to the temple. I’m really sad about that, I like going every week.

I can't wait to get out there. Just one more week!

Oh and I got your package! It was a miracle! Normally it takes about a month but it got here in 11 days! How cool  is that? I love that flag, its hanging up in my room right now.

Well I'm really excited to get out of here, I'm kinda sick of all these classes, I want to go out and talk to people and teach real people! Sounds like you're having fun at home still. Oh and no we didn't watch the Christmas devotional thing. I don't know why. Well I'm just about out of time.

I love you all! Sounds like you're having fun, and congrats Cam! Starting real life and moving on from BYU finally. haha =) sounds like a lot of fun. I miss you all, but I want to be here right now instead. =) See ya next week!