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A pic my companion got. I would say it´s profile pic worthy

 Man another p-day. It just feels like yesterday when I had p-day, how strange.

Yesterday I found out that we have an old 70 in our ward. I don´t remember his name and won´t so just don´t ask. We had a couple investigators that came to church yesterday and he just gave a talk of power. Man his words just bring the spirit like none other!

This last week I had a little extra time on my hands and I re-wired our bathroom, so now I can see when I shower! Man I think it was a bad idea though because once I got a light I realized how dirty the bathroom is. Don´t worry mom I cleaned it. 

companheiro 

The reason I had some extra time was as follows. One beautiful day here in the state of São paulo we were walking to lunch. We need to cross the street and this road is really busy so we usually have to wait a while. A bus comes and stops right behind us and my companion forgetting that Brazilian drivers don´t stop when a bus is in the middle of the road took it as an opportunity to run across the road... I should say try to run across the road. Right once he gets past the front of the bus wham gets hit by a car going around 35kph man he just got up and stood in the other lane and said sorry then almost got hit again. Luckily nothing was broke as far as we know but we didn´t tell anyone because we don´t want to get in trouble. and it is a little embarrassing. Once we got out of lunch he decided he can´t walk so we went home and took the day off. That was a different experience I am hoping I never have to experience the other end of it.

Ok now for an awkward and scary story. We had lunch with a super nice super old lady this last week. Her daughter was there and she is crazy. Her mom told us that her daughter hates it when she talks. Long story short she picked up a butter knife and threatened to kill her we were able to have her put the knife down and as soon as she did i took it and put it in my shirt. don´t ask me why there it was just easy and I was a little scared i would have to use my first aid skills ( if I still remember them). It was crazy we told them we can´t eat there any more.

Ok now I am done with all the crazy fun stories now so now is the spiritual stuff.

This last week we just had a ton of miracles. Our president came to our zone conference and promised us that if we were 100% obedient we would have a ton of miracles. Man it was weird we always find people in the weirdest way. We went to the area book and looked for a person he wasn´t there so we went to the drug gang street place to look for him and his family and him moved there. They were not super interested just wanted to joke around, they gave us a name of a person to visit and man this person is awesome already been to church a bunch and now feels ready to be baptized. Man missions are crazy awesome! I wouldn´t trade this for anything else!

Love you all! goodbye for now

Amigos da casa!

 the other people in my house are Elder Olivera and Elder Abregu and yes i love them

(Don't you just love the condition of their couch!)

transferred to Cantareira

I like coco

So I wrote a bunch of stuff in my planner to write you guys but I forgot it at home so sorry about that.

This last week I got transferred to the area Cantareira. This area is super cool! There is a forest area around our area so that is super exciting! Our new house is super nice except for the floor tiles are all loose and whenever you walk they get kicked out of place. Oh and our one and only bathroom that we share between us four, the light doesn´t work and can´t be fixed have you ever showered and shaved in the dark, it´s not easy for me. Oh yeah and there is a lady that likes to stare at us through a window so we have to close it whenever we change. This place also I guess the water just shuts off a lot so we have like 50 bottles of water to shower with when that happens. Other then that this house is wonderful... The mission is looking for a new house for us though so it is all good. 

my new area! it is so dang cool looking!

yes I am transferred I am in the area Cantareira (it always makes me laugh when I think how you guys pronounce Portuguese words)

This new area, me and my companion Elder Zenteno, are both new to the area so I get lost sometimes. We are working a lot with less active members and people in the area book. This last week we didn´t meet a ton of awesome people but we were just kinda getting familiar to the area. This next week we should get a bunch of new people. We found a street that is super ghetto that I think has a lot of potential. 

Sorry I don´t have a lot to say this week 

Love you all,

  Elder Messick

some ugly animal i found

some weird Brazilian bird

I can not drink the water here and that sucks because the natives just do anyways so when they give you water you just have to drink it. I usually say a quick prayer first.

sdafasdf!

Man this last week was awesome! Sorry for the last couple weeks I was being a bummer, having bad weeks just happens, I just need to learn from them.

Me with singer at pizza place

So I just found out that the drought that we are having is far from over and they only estimate having 6 more months worth unless they get like a ton of rain every day here soon, so that is exciting we will see what happens because rain season is going to end here soon. 

This last week was just crazy running all over the place in our area. On Thursday,  Wednesday and Friday we were doing interviews all day. I think that my companion had like 20 interviews total! It threw a wrench in our area but it is awesome that that many people are getting prepared for baptism. During the interviews me and the sisters would usually teach the other part of the family or practice Portuguese. It is really weird teaching with sisters, it just feels wrong. On Tuesday me and my companion were super sick with the cold and some bad food. We stayed home for that day in fear of having something hit when we were out on the street... This stupid cold won´t go away so that´s super annoying but oh well, such is life. I think we only taught a total of 5 lessons this last week and one family was just awesome. They knew we were super busy so they met us in the other area and we taught them. They were super afraid to get baptized and didn´t know if it was true and we had like an hour talk and I said listen right now you may not have a testimony of these things but do you trust us? They said yes and I promised that it was true and they could just borrow my testimony for a little while. That didn´t work at all. They said they knew it was true just didn´t feel like they needed baptism. I promised them that when they got baptised they would feel it is right and if they didn´t I would take off my name tag and go home because i don´t want to serve a false mission. That worked and they both got baptised. To keep a long story short I am coming home sorry... No just kidding Suzana said I had to baptise her and after she came out of the water she was crying. She told me I can stay on my mission!

 oh sorry their names are Suzana and Robson. we have been teaching them for about 5 weeks and they are just super cool.

after baptism pizza party!

after i took the pic the flash was super bright

 so everyone looked over at me a little awkward....

After their baptism they took us and a member family to a pizza place, man it was so fun and there was a guy singing there and we asked if he knew any religious music to play and he said yes. It was just super fun! I got a pic with the singer at the pizza place and told him thanks, my mom said i needed to take more pics. He laughed and said tell her, your welcome.

Sunday I was told that i wasn´t getting transferred but i was getting a new companion, I was a little sad but also happy. Just about 2 hours ago today president called and told me I am being transferred. I don´t know to what area all i know is it is one of them that goes to the ward of the church mission office building (In Sao Paulo). That is exciting. I am a little nervous to not be training anymore I feel like I don´t know anything yet but I guess I will do fine. I just need faith and to keep learning and practicing.

That´s all for this week.

Love you all!

a great invention called laundry softener

This last week, I found a great invention called laundry softener. Man that stuff just makes your clothes feel like feathers, it´s great stuff. I also found bleach stuff for shirts so now they should stop yellowing, let´s pray for that... This last week we were walking through a supermarket parking lot and I saw a couple parking lot guards, I then said man I don´t see why they really need those then we turned a corner and almost ran into a guy picking a trunk with a paperclip. As soon as he saw us he booked it. Man that made for a good story.

On Thursday my companion had a sick day. I don´t know how sick he really was, he didn´t seem that sick but we couldn´t go out he said. It was good though because it gave me the opportunity to clean the house and to study a lot extra... 

 

We had a zone conference this last Friday and it was pretty cool. We were able to watch Meet the Mormons and it was pretty good. It was less cool in Portuguese because I had to pay close attention to understand it. During lunch there president decided to come and sit next to me and the first thing he asked was what do you not like about the mission and what is the hardest thing for you. It was very unexpected and it made me freak out a little on the inside. I told him I don´t love waking up at 6:30 and the hardest part is the language. I think those answers worked because then we just started talking about jobs. That man is has more then one billion dollars he sold some diabetic company for .7 billion dollars and has 20ish more companies and then just buys and sells companies as a hobby. Man I wish I could do that.

 

We got 6 new workouts that we are supposed to do one for every day. They are the BYU football team workouts and man they are so hard. At the last like 10 min of the workout I am just crying with my companion as we finish. They are awesome except they just make it so you loose use of your legs... My legs right now are on fire, like the rest of me is sore and all, but man my legs feel like jello made from lava. 

 

This last week was hard but better, sorry I don´t have any wonderful stories to tell you all this week I will work for a good one next week.

 

Love,

 

   Your favorite Elder Messick

esta última semana fui ótimo!

esta última semana fui ótimo!

so this last week actually was a little hard but oh well. We had so many people fall through. These two people named maria and maria (nice they had the same name so I could actually remember) these people were accepting our message super well, they were super excited to get baptized and everything. This last Sunday they called us at like 8:30 in the morning and told us that they don´t want to go to church or anything they don´t want to see us anymore. Man I don´t cry a lot but there was a little bit that escaped my eye when I heard that. Right after that we just ran to their house and they saw us and told us to leave. We are going to go back again tomorrow, we will see what happens. You know I thought it was going to be the hardest part to baptize people but no it´s just to get them to come to church.

 

I don´t want to talk a lot about this last week because it all just was very hard but through all of the praying and fasting God helped us. 

 

We went to some guys house that we haven´t seen forever, I don´t know why we went there because he is super not interested but it just felt right. His neighbor came out and looked super sad. He called us over. He told us oh that guy isn´t home and we asked to come in and say a prayer with him. We went in and taught him that God loves him, not even a lesson just how much God loves him. He then told us he was praying to God for help and felt like God wasn´t listening. This guy if you saw him on the street you would not think he is that good of a guy, but man this guy has so much love in his heart. That lesson was just the most spiritual lesson I have ever been in. OH his name is Edivaldo.

We also had an activity today that was super fun. The four people in our house ran the activity and it went perfect. We had a scavenger hunt and at each place there was a scripture that they they would have to find the next spot. After they got all 9 slips they could start a maze that we made and they were blindfolded being led by the other teammates to a table that had 7 keys and only one was right they had to work the way back out of the maze and they looked up a scripture on the key that said baptized by wrong authority or the baptism prayer then in the baptismal font we had a chair with candy on it. It was super fun.

 

That´s all for this week sorry mom if this is too short for you I could try to add some more stuff. oh random thought i started the BOM again and 1 nephi 6 verse something says you have no clue what you are doing just fowling the spirit, yeah that is my life...

 

BYE! love you all

Brazilian culture is still getting me in trouble

so the bishop of our ward complained to me that i don´t write long enough emails. Well to tell you the truth I don´t think that is going to change so sorry family. It was exciting getting a package full of food and shoes from him.

Oh so another example of how everyone thinks Breanna is beautiful. Bishop's son told me how beautiful he thinks she is but the only problem is she is a little to tall and young. Its just funny everyone says that. So Breanna, I guess after 3 tries with other kids dad and mom figured it out.

Brazilian culture is still getting me in trouble. I always do things wrong and i guess it is rude, like the other day I didn´t shake the hand of the head of the house first and it was just weird. Oh and they just call people fat and people don´t get offended here, it is amazing. It kinda sucks also though because people are like wow your accent sucks. 

 

I finally went out and bought some food so I won´t be super hungry. Now for breakfast I eat plain oats and popcorn. The two cheapest things there are. we had some frozen strawberries that i added to the oats and umm it was good but i cut my finger while cutting the strawberries and didn´t realize it because of all of the red juice so i got some blood in the oatmeal as well. I figure it just adds some extra flavor.

 

This last week president told us all in the mission that we each needed to mark 10 dates this last week and I thought no way but i guess president knows what he is talking about so lets go. This last week was just a week of miracles. (other then the fact i almost cut my finger off)

 

So we found the coolest investigators this last week, two of them, Mary and Mary, (that is a super popular name) work in the catholic church but they were like yeah i guess that is true our baptism is not true. She then came to church and just ran up to us and said this church is true now i know i want to be baptized. This also happened with one other lady named Isabel she is super afraid of her husband and won´t let us talk to him so we only talk when he is gone, because of this she only went to the first hour of church but we went and talked to her after and she also told us she knew it was true and wanted to be baptized and she would tell her husband and if he doesn´t like it she will just divorce him. She is so cool I love talking to her. 

 

This challenge thing kinda made our week so we only worked for 5 days because 2 days were filled with interviews. I am happy to say that we still marked 12 dates. As a mission we marked 1800 dates so that is crazy considering we only have 100 and the usual is only like 400. 

 

It´s annoying, I always think of stuff to say while emailing during the week but when the time comes to email I just break under pressure and forget everything, so sorry about that.

Just remember Breanna, that even though all the boys think you are super good looking you don´t have to kiss any of them. hint hint...

love you all! talk to ya next week

 

 

Man this last week was crazy.

Man this last week was crazy. 

Tuesday: we went on a division today and I was with my area with Elder Montero. This kid is super cool. We went to a ton of people and just threw down the gospel at them, it was probably one of my funnest days I have had in a long time. He wanted McDonalds so we went there and he bought me a Big Mac meal, I haven´t had something like that forever, it was nice. This kid also only speaks Portuguese which is good and I learned so much just from talking all day with him! 

Wednesday: so today our lunch wasn´t until 4 which kinda sucked. We ate at this guy in our ward who´s name is Wilson. He is so crazy, I will tell you why. It took like 2.5 hours to leave because when we got there he was like oh crap I forgot to buy soda, so he ran to the store which wasn´t close and we were all just there sitting in his house. He then after we ate told us a story of how God showed him his throne and heaven in a vision he had and described to us what heaven looked like and told us that God´s hand is super warm to touch. He tells us he hangs out with him sometimes.

Thursday: We met this lady named Silvania and her daughter Bia. I love them so dang much. On Thursday they made us a fish dinner which was not cheap. They love us so much but they won´t go to Church. She is like oh it is so early, I am not going to wake up. as of today she promised she would go in at least 2 weeks. She is so fun to teach and talk to, we usually end up laughing at the end of every lesson because of some sassy comment she makes.

Friday: Friday kinda sucked not going to lie. I did a division with Elder Flores a kid from another district. we did it in his area so I didn´t know a lot to do. We didn´t even start doing stuff until like 3, it was so annoying. 

Sabado: today really only one cool thing happened, I don´t usually share these kind of experiences but it was super cool how it worked out, so I will. Us four who I house with were walking home from a lunch apt and some crazy guy with a huge pole was following us and yelling not so good things at us. He started to run up to us getting ready to hit us, and another elder just said keep walking. Some car of a random guy came up and stopped him and got out and took him down. He then waved to us and said oh have a good day, I have never seen him before but he is amazing. It is crazy how we are protected since we are doing what we are supposed to. 

Oh I forgot to talk about new years. New years here is so dang big. from about 11:30-1:00 there were constant fireworks going off. It is kinda funny because every type of firework is illegal here. I think i saw more fireworks in 10 min then i have seen in my whole life. 

Jan 1 the drunk guy who lives on our street was outside singing with his friend i think the song he was singing was called F you, It is very repetitive, I was not the biggest fan. The song was like 3 hours long and for some reason when he sang it he just walked in circles. 

Overall a super good week! love you all!

oh i forgot the best part. We found real milk this week! It is called milk from cow. huh sounds weird in english... It is like strait from a cow, it has a top layer of cream and fat stuff. We also made eggnog this last week. It is so good! I am pretty pro at making that stuff now!

vandalism used to be a garbage can...

making cookies

Hey that´s talking about me!