Mais uma Semana da Alegria! (Another Week of Joy!)

Another awesome email from Elder Olivier!  Here it is:



Falaaaaa todo mundo!!!!

This week was super awesome, as usual. Lots of stuff happened this week.

Baptism

First of all, week started this week off pretty strongly. We are teaching a couple of awesome families and are trying to help two young couples get married before Elder Figueiredo leaves para casa. They´re super excited and we´re super excited and everyone in the ward is super excited, I think. We just have to work a ton to make it all happen. We also are teaching a lot of other people who are super awesome too. The only problem with this week at the beginning was that we didn´t have anyone that could be baptized this week (Elder Figueiredo always says, "é uma regra na missão pra batizar semanalmente, Elder!!" Quick side note!----> he´s super funny because he always talks about how he´s super trunky and how he can´t wait to go home in december and ask his girlfriend to marry him on his first day home. But at the same time he always says, "eu vou morrer trabalhando! Vou trabalhar até o freaking pó!"----> and yes, all of the brazilian missionaries always say "freaking." They repeat a lot of stuff americans say, haha). But anyway, we didn´t have batismo for this week......until.......BOOM! Miracle! One night after an appointment fell through we decided to go visit a girl who is going to be baptized at the end of the month. We decided to go to the church building because she is always there. Well, she wasn´t there, but there were a ton of the young men and young women from church and from the neighborhood there playing soccer and hanging out after seminary, like usual (because seminary is at night here, not at 3 in the morning, like it should be). Anyway, the seminary teacher was there, and she introduced us to these two kids (one is ten, the other is eleven) who I already knew, who I thought were our neighbors´ kids the whole time. They are actually the kids from the house next to our neighbors´ house, which is crucial information, because that means that they weren´t members! They have been coming to church and to activities for a pretty long time and everyone except the seminary teacher thought they were members! So, kind of longish-medium and very unorganized story made into a shortish-medium-ish kind of story, we baptized them yesterday! They were both super excited and happy, because they hadn´t been baptized all this time! It was awesome. We got their mom to come to church and the baptism too, and we started teaching her too! It was way awesome!

Zone Conference

This week we had a zone conference, so our zone and a bunch of other zones went to the "Staff" (pronounced: "staffy," and also known as the mission office). The "staff" is right next to the Amazonas soccer stadium, which is cool. The zone conference was super cool. It took all day, and we had training with the assistentes and President and Sister Castro. The best part was talking with all of the missionaries. I always love talking with the americans because I can relate with them a lot more, but I also love talking with the brazilians. A lot of them think I´m "doido." My companion says (in english) "You crazy guy!" On the bus ride back from the zone conference our entire zone sang christmas songs the whole time. It was cool. Everyone either tried to ignore us or looked at us funny, probably because they are all super lame and aren´t into the christmas spirit yet! 

This week we encountered the rare guaraná fruit! My companion has a list of stuff he still wants to do before he leaves Manaus, and one of them was to see the guaraná fruit. They look like eyeballs. One sister in the ward told me that here there is indian folklore that says that when someone in an indian tribe dies, their eyes become the seeds of a guaraná plant. My first indian folklore story! Yes! But to be honest, we were super excited and we forgot to try the fruit, and it´s starting to go bad. Whoops.

Elder Olivier!

One last story! Yesterday, my companion demonstrated his great faith in my ability to kind of sort of speak in the language that most people refer to as portuguese. My companion, in the very hour of sacrament meeting, told me that I would be the one to confirm one of our recent baptisms a member of the church. So, I got to do some really fast/frantic portuguese memorization, then I got to struggle to give a blessing in front of the entire congregation. My companion said that I had to do it for the first time sometime. Haha.

Anyway, this week was awesome, as usual. This week I´ve been studying a lot about the plan of salvation. I really like 2 Nephi 2:25: 

Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

This scripture is super simple. God has a plan for us, and our purpose in this plan is to have joy, both in this life and the life to come. We are here on earth so that we can have joy. It´s as simple as that. And the way we can have joy is by following the example of Jesus Christ, who is perfect and therefore is the perfect example. There are a lot of people here that say they believe in Christ, but know almost nothing about him. To me, this is really sad. Jesus Christ is important to us in so many ways: He organized His church here on the earth, which was restored exactly to its original form by way of a prophet and ministerings of angels (both of which we still 100% have today, just like in biblical times), he atoned for all of our sins, and he taught how we can return to the presence of our Heavenly Father and receive a fulness of joy: through having faith, repenting and working to constantly change ourselves to be better, being baptized by the same authority that John the Baptist, Christ, and the original twelve apostles and all of the original prophets had, since Adam and Eve, and through receiving the gift of the holy ghost. I know, now more than ever, that this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, that through this gospel we can have a fulness of joy. I know, now more than ever, that this is the only church with the same authority that Jesus Christ himself gave to His prophets. I know that Jesus Christ lives, and that he leads this church. And I know that anyone else can know this too, by way of reading the Book of Mormon and praying. It´s as simple as that. If you haven´t read the Book of Mormon, read it. If you have read the Book of Mormon, read it again. It changed the world, and it will change your life.

Anyway, I hope all of you guys have a super freaking awesome week! I love all of you guys so much! 

Até a próxima segunda-feira! Falou, abraço!

Elder Olivier

P.S. I forgot to say in this letter that it is really really hot here

(written 11/16/2015) 

Só Alegria! (Only Happiness!)

We just received an email and photos from Elder Olivier!  How I love Mondays!!  His email is below.

HI EVERYONE!!!!!

This week was pretty sweet! Every day we do the same thing but at the same time every day is so different. I´m starting to get pretty used to the area and all of the (random) street names and (beyond random) house numbers and all of the names and faces and callings of people in the ward. I wish I could also say I am getting used to the heat. 

This week we went on divisões (I forgot the word missionaries use in english...I think it´s divisions but I´m not sure and I don´t want to sound like an idiot here). I went with Elder Cosme, our district leader. He is from Fortaleza, and he´s a super good missionary. He is also a really good teacher, and I learned a ton from him as we taught people.

Elder Figueiredo's birthday

This week we were super focused on teaching and helping all of our investigators with dates for baptism. Yesterday we had two baptisms, a rapaz (teenage boy) and a moça (teenage girl). It was sweet. It was also my companion´s birthday yesterday, so he was super pumped. He turned 20 (I know, he doesn´t look like it). Everyone new that we meet still thinks I´m older than him.

Baptism!!

The rapaz that we baptized was a friend of 4 or 5 of the young men in the ward. Most of them were with us for most of our lessons with him. It was so awesome to hear them bear their testimonies to him. His baptism was so awesome because of the support and the love and the testimonies of all of his friends. Needless to say, the youth in our wards here are super freaking awesome. It is awesome to see how animated everyone here is about missionary work. 

A scripture I really like that I read this week is in the Book of Mormon in Words of Mormon chapter 1 (the only chapter) verse 7. It says: 

"And I do this for a wise purpose; for thus it whispereth me, according to the workings of the Spirit of the Lord which is in me. And now, I do not know all things; but the Lord knoweth all things which are to come; wherefore, he worketh in me to do according to his will."

We don´t know all things. I think about that a lot, and I realize how essential this attitude is more and more every day, especially out here in a foreign country. It seems like there is hardly anything that I actually know. But the Lord knows all things, and when we show our faith and rely on what He and his prophets say, everything will end up good, and we will be blessed and we will bless others. I have such a strong testimony of this. When we obey commandments and follow the promptings of the spirit, we will be blessed and we will help others to be blessed too.

I love all of you guys! Have an awesome week! Boa semana para vocês! Abraço!

Élder Olivier

Pictures: 

A sweet picture of Elder Figueiredo and I last week/BATISMO!!!/E. Figueiredo with his birthday cake that one of the sisters in the ward made

(written 11/09/2015)

New Missionaries in Manaus

We finally heard from Elder Olivier on Wednesday because they had a holiday in Brazil on Monday.  The holiday is kind of like our memorial day, but it's called 'All Souls Day.'  It's a commemoration of the faithful departed.   

Elder Olivier sent us more pictures this week too!  Here is his email that we got today:

Hi everyone!

This week we had a holiday on Monday so I´m emailing today! Elder Figueiredo and I had an awesome week this week! We worked a ton! We´ve been a lot on finding families to teach and working with all of the members to get our investigators to progress. Missionary work is so awesome. It´s awesome to see how much influence the members of our two wards can have on others. A little really goes a long way. Elder Figueiredo is awesome because he´s not afraid to ask every single member for references, and a lot of the time members have references to give right away and they´re just waiting for us to ask. We´ve been trying to get a lot of the members excited about doing member missionary work. It´s so sweet, because most of the time members are a lot better at being missionaries than the actual missionaries. We started teaching a bunch of awesome new families this week, just from asking members for a couple of references.

This week was also really hot. And plus, we got lost for a couple of hours a few times because of me. Haha. I´m learning the area the hard way right now.

Elder Olivier's Zone

So our new zone has 6 americans now instead of 2. It´s funny to talk to americans. It´s kind of weird though, because I never know whether to speak portuguese or english. I think I´m at the point where I sound like an idiot whether I speak portuguese or whether I speak english. Haha. Mas tranquilo.

Today was sweet. We woke up super early to ride the bus to the temple. The missionaries in the city get to go to the temple once per transfer. After that we went to the "Shopping" to eat lunch. The "Shopping" means "the mall." Haha. Sometimes there will be a random word for something that is straight up english. I think they use some english words for things here to be fancy. Anyway, we went to the shopping, where we ate Subway. Subway here is freaking expensive. Tu é doido. But it was still good. We had milkshakes too. For 45 minutes it felt like I was in America again.  

The temple here is at a place called "Ponta Negra," which is like the nicest, touristiest part of Manaus. They have a little beach on the bank of the Rio Negro. People have to swim in the roped off area or else they will probably get eaten by the alligators. The "shopping" here is super nice and they even had a giant christmas tree with a place to take pictures with Santa (Papai Noel). He wasn´t there.... :(

Anyway, this week has been super awesome. We have a bunch of people set for baptismal dates and we found some awesome new families. It is crazy how much I have learned in just the past couple of months. Brazil is awesome. I have been thinking and studying a lot lately about charity, and how to genuinely love others. Something that is really hard as a missionary is to genuinely love people that you barely know. A scripture I like is Alma 7:24: 

"And see that ye have faith, hope, and charity, and then ye will always abound in good works"

As we strive to have faith and hope in the gospel and as we strive to have charity, or to truly love other people, we will be able to do good things and to help those that truly need our help. I really like the promise of this scripture. It´s so simple, that if we try to love people, we will do good things.

Anyway, until next week! I love you all! Abraço!

Elder Olivier

(written 11/04/2015)

Eating fish...with the head still on:)

A spider after Elder Olivier stepped on it.

Transfers

Today is Monday and that means it's p-day for Elder Olivier plus the day we get our emails!  How I love Mondays now!  Below is the email he sent plus some photos!  I love getting a glimpse of what is going on there!



Hi everyone!

Holy cow! I can´t believe this transfer went by so quickly! Time goes by so much faster in the field than it did in the CTM. 

So on Saturday Elder Galván and I were out preaching the gospel and we got a call from the secretary saying that Elder Galván is being transferred and that I am staying here in the area. Elder Galván is going to "the interior," or in other words, one of the small towns outside of Manaus. That means that I am now the guy who has to know the area and all of the members and investigators. Freak.

My new companion is Elder Figueiredo, and he is from Paraná, Brazil. So hopefully he can help me a lot more with the language, because he is brazilian.

The rain storm.

Yesterday it rained for the first time that I´ve been here. It rained pretty hard, but it was nothing crazy. It was actually really refreshing because while it was raining it wasn´t hot.

Elder Olivier's new companion is on his right.  

His name is Elder Figueiredo.

Today was transfers. I talked with a couple of other americans there and they were saying how halloween and thanksgiving were coming up, but nothing happens during halloween and thanksgiving because we´re in Brazil. It was weird talking about american things.

This week was pretty much a normal week. We worked a lot, and we walked a lot, and we sweat a lot. I´m going to miss Elder Galván. He was always super funny and he was super helpful with everything. But the next transfer is going to be awesome too.

I´ve been thinking a lot this week about the restoration, and how powerful of a message it is. We taught the restoration a lot this week, and every time it is a super good lesson. It is so powerful because of how clear and simple it is. God loves us and wants to bless us and our families. He does so through the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he teaches us the gospel of Jesus Christ through prophets, who have authority to act in the name of Christ. When Christ was on the earth, he established a church with a prophet, apostles, and authority. After Christ died, people killed the apostles and the authority was lost. Many churches were formed by people who were searching for the word of God, but couldn´t find it because there were no more prophets. So Jesus Christ called Joseph Smith to be a prophet and to restore the authority to act in the name of Christ on the earth once more. Today, the Church of Jesus Christ is on the earth again, exactly the way Christ organized it when he was on the earth. This message is so powerful because it is true. This church is the church of Jesus Christ, and He literally directs it through a living prophet, Thomas S. Monson. Every day we teach this message, and every time we teach it I understand more and more how true it is, and how amazing it is.

Anyway, I love all of you guys! Keep being awesome!

Abraço!

Elder Olivier

(written 10/26/2015)

Week Four in Manaus!!!

We didn't receive any photos this week.  We are hoping for more next week.  Below is Elder Olivier's email that we received October 19th.  He is still working hard!  Elder Olivier's birthday is on December 4th and it can take a couple of months for him to receive things, so if you would like to send a birthday card, please do so!  His letter address is on the right side of the blog....package address is there too.  He also loves to receive emails!  Thanks everyone!





Hi everyone! 

This week has been awesome as usual! And really hot as usual! There wasn´t too much exciting that happened this week. We worked a ton, and walked up and down tons of hills. It´s just starting to hit me how hilly it is here. 

This week was a little disappointing, in that we had a ton of lessons fall through and it´s been hard lately to get investigators to progress. This week we tried to bring 8 people to church, so we walked all over creation before church to find all of them. We ended up only bringing one person to church, which is still awesome, but for some reason lately the work has been a little slow.

This week we ate a lot of chicken, as usual. And beans and rice. Oh, and we ate a lot of fish. With spoons. For some reason, most of the people here don´t like eating with forks and knives. Everyone has them in their house but no one uses them. This week I learned how to eat fish with a spoon.

So the past few weeks have pretty much been the hardest few weeks of my life. The transition to a new language/culture has been super hard. The language gets better every single day. Every day I can understand more of what people say. But this week I have realized that as the language gets easier, all of the other aspects of missionary work get harder. Missionary work is probably one of the hardest things ever. But it is so awesome. The church is true. 100%. I have never ever felt that so strongly. I´ve only been in the field for a short time so far, but there have already been a lot of good times and a lot of hard times. But it is through trials and challenges that we become better people. And that is why we are here on earth, to keep on becoming better and better people, to keep on becoming more and more Christlike every single day.

I love you all! Abraço!

Elder Olivier

(written 10/19/2015)

Week 3 in Manaus

We received this email from Joshua on Tuesday, October 13th.  He included a couple of photos as well.


Hey everybody!

Sorry I couldn´t email yesterday! Our mission president changed our preparation day to today because yesterday was a holiday (Dia das Crianças). It was super cool. We had an activity at the church building yesterday. There was a ton of food and cake, ping pong, and music. Everyone here listens to american music. It´s pretty funny. People keep asking me to translate song lyrics into portuguese for them. At the activity they had a playstation set up with fifa with tons of people crouded around it. My companion kept looking at it and saying "stop tempting me, Satan!" (as missionaries we aren´t allowed to play videogames or watch tv or movies).

Brazil is crazy! It is still really hot here! 

This week we worked a ton, like usual. We also ate a ton, like usual. We eat lunch with the members instead of dinner here, and nine times out of ten it´s chicken, rice, beans, and noodles. Elder Galván always talks about how tired he is of chicken. I still like it. This week also we ate this fish called pacú. The fish here is super good. 

Random flashback: One time I was with my family in Delaware and we saw (and smelled) a bunch of trucks full of chickens driving on the streets. Here they have trucks full of fish that drive on the streets. They also have vans full of fruit that drive around selling it, and a guy will be yelling into a megaphone: "Melancia, melancia, maçã, banana, melancia, abacaxi, melancia!" They drive really slow.

This week we taught a ton of lessons and we found a bunch of new investigators. It´s still super confusing and hard for me to remember names and faces because we talk to so many people every day, and because most of the time it´s pretty hard to understand what people are saying. The accent here is super different from the accent in São Paulo. There are a few other missionaries here from São Paulo and it is a lot easier to understand them than the people that live here in Manaus. 

This week I have been thinking a lot about obedience. A lot of times we are told to do things and we don´t understand the purpose behind them, or sometimes we need to do things that seem impossible to us. I´ve been thinking a lot about 1 Nephi 3:7, how Nephi was obedient to the Lord and risked his and his brothers´ lives to get the brass plates, even he didn´t know how the task would be accomplished at first. But instead of giving up, he said he will go and do the things the Lord commanded of him, because he knew that when the Lord gives commandments to us, he always provides a way to accomplish them. Sometimes it´s really hard to be in the middle of a foreign country away from home and family and friends and english and peanut butter, but I know that I am here for a reason and that Heavenly Father will provide a way for me to accomplish all that he has asked of me, because he never asks anything of us that is impossible for us.

I love all of you guys so much! Keep being awesome!

Falou! Abraço!

Elder Olivier

(written 10/13/2015)

Week Two in Manaus......

Earlier today, Elder Olivier emailed me a few short emails back and forth and then it abruptly ended!  I was so sad, wondering what happened!  Then hours later....we got the awesome email below!  We found out the power had gone out in the city of Manaus!  What a blessing that the power came back on for so many reasons!  He got fans that came on and we got an awesome email!!


OI EVERYBODY!!!!

This week has been crazy. Elder Galván and I have been working super hard and walking a ton and sweating a ton. It is so hot here. Today the power went out for a few hours and it was torture. Normally everyone has fans everywhere in their houses, but today they wouldn´t work. But it is okay, we are still alive.

Elder Olivier with his companion, Elder Galvan...must be in front of the Amazon River.

Everyone drinks tons of soda here. I think some people drink soda more than water. There is this soda called Baré (it is a type of Guaraná) that they only have here. I´ve never had this much soda in my life. Plus my companheiro is pretty much addicted to coca cola. He drinks at least 2 liters per day.

Confession: I made spaghetti with spam today. I know Dad, I´ve been making fun of spam all these years, but not until now did I realize what a useful ingredient(?) it is when you are super poor and don´t have much time to cook. I still don´t know what kind of meat(?) it is.

This week we taught a lot. I love teaching, partly because 90% of the portuguese vocabulary I know has to do with teaching the lessons, and partly because it is awesome. The people here are so awesome. One of the other elders that has been here longer than me said that the people in this area are the most friendly out of all of the other areas of the mission. Everyone is so willing to learn about the gospel.

Baptism

Another Baptism

We had three baptisms this weekend. It was so awesome. We had one on Saturday and two on Sunday. We had them in between sessions of general conference, which was sweet. General conference was so good too, as usual. 

Manaus is so crazy. It is a lot different from how I expected it to be. The culture is way different from the culture in the states. We pretty much walk into peoples´ houses and everyone gives us water and/or food. Everyone is super friendly, especially at church. And plus there are tons of members. Most people are outside a lot, so we always see members when we are walking around. It is amazing to me how productive I feel I can be even when I have to tell every. single. person. to speak more slowly. I notice more and more how many things happen that seem really "lucky" (we run into someone on the street that we are looking for, or a member gives us a random referral, or a random person asks us about the church and we give a lesson on the spot). I know that we are being guided in this work. I don´t know how to explain it, but somehow things keep happening and things keep perfectly falling into place. I know that when Jesus Christ was on the earth, he organized a church. And I know that this church is the same church that He organized, restored once again on the earth. Every day I can understand more and more portuguese, and at the same time every day I know more and more that this church is Christ´s church.

Elder Olivier with his CTM district.

In the CTM.

I hope next week is even more awesome than this week! I love all of you guys! Do me a favor and have the best week ever this week!

Eu amo vocês!!!!

Elder Olivier

(written 10/05/2015)