The Church is True

this week me and elder c baptized again! we found a name of someone that already visited church a few years back and we went to teach her but she didnt want to listen, so we taught her brother! He accepted and got baptized! he has to be the easiest baptism ever, we simply taught him the lessons and invited him to get baptized and he did! he even stopped drinking coffee the day we taught the word of wisdom! no problems whatsoever. he really is one of the Lord´s Elect.

I really do know that this church is true, I learn more and more every day that it is. i know for a fact the the Lord wants me here, in a little po-dunk town in the middle of nowhere in the countryside of Brazil. I know that Mission calls and transfers are run under inspiration of the Lord Jesus Christ because this is his church. if anyone decides not to serve a mission it means that they dont understand that the Lord has a plan for each one of us and that he will put you EXACTLY where you need to be and where other people need you to be to accept the Gospel and have the blessings of exaltation.

I Love you all! this week will make 6 months on the mission for me, time really flies

-Elder Leete 

Answers and Responses

Dad:  "I remember the houses on my mission (Equador). They were typically cement cinderblock covered with a cement-like stuff to make the walls smooth. The windows often had no glass, and to keep people out, they would cement bars into the windows. It sometimes reminded me of prison." 

Kevin: "the houses sound exactly the same, but instead of cement cinderblock its a red brick made with the red dirt here. and usually the windows dont have bars, its the norm here to have a "muro" or wall that surrounds the house and the yard with a big gate so people dont get in."

Q: What do you want in your Christmas package?
A: i don´t know what i want in the Christmas package, more peanut butter is always welcome. i haven´t even used the syrup that i got yet because we don't have any time to make pancakes. maybe ill make some today, or maybe ill save it to use for a branch activity or something like that. Brazilians love maple syrup

i still havnt received those two other small packages that mom sent, but transfers will be next week so i will probably get them then

Dad: Melissa got a letter from your companion. She is writing back. She will also try to get the Laurel class to write back as well, so he should have plenty of letters to read in about a month or so.

Kevin:  hahahah i forgot to say that my comp wrote melissa. He doesn´t speak English so he wrote in portuguese and i translated. This week is the last week of the transfer, so maybe when he gets it he will be with someone else.

More Questions Answered

Questions from mom for the week:  So what is the season there in P? Getting hotter?  Tell us all about your new place and the people there.  Do you go door to door?  What kind of approaches do you use? Do the members feed you?  Any holidays or celebrations?  Where do you do your emailing?

Hi everybody!

another week goes by in p. . . we almost have a house to live in!! we are going to see this week if the papers go through and get approved. i dont see why not, the church is stinking rich and probably has excellent credit

this area is really great, the members are always helping us by giving us references and giving us rides to places and bringing their friends to church

the weather is getting hotter. it will hover around 30 degrees (celcius) on the hotter days, and im not excited for it to get even hotter as we are get more into summer (which is really weird, we will be in the middle of summer while you guys are in winter)

me and Elder C we dont need to go door to door in this area because the members are always giving us references, right now we are teaching family members of members and friends that they brought to church. this is the real way to do missionary work. if your missionaries are knocking on doors it means that the members arent doing their part (that means you guys).

here in brazil the big meal for the day is lunch. ever day we eat a big lunch in the members homes. (not p-day though) lunches will consist of rice and beans with some sort of meat (sausage, beef, chicken, etc.) or spaghetti or lasagna. 

probably much to your content mom i am learning to like spaghetti. not alot, but i will eat it.

the place here is normal, just like P every house here is made with the same red brick covered with cement-like stuff. nobody has carpet, it is either tile or cement floor. a little bit out of the city there is a neighborhood where most of the members live that is quite. . . poor. its interesting to see the condition that some people actually live in. makes me really grateful for what kind of house we have. if anyone from this city saw our house back in oak hills they would think that we are the richest people on earth. there really is a completely different standard of living between here and there. 

but dont worry, the standard for the houses for the missionaries is always high, Sister Tavares (wife of the president) is taking good care of us.

very little people have internet, so we always use lan houses

Brazilians like holidays, so every once in a while they will have one, but they arent really anything special, just an excuse not to work for a day.
 

everything's going good over here, working hard all day. i got a bunch of letters from people, but no more of those small packets of pictures.

got letters from uncle jon, uncle jim, my roommate from college who is serving in Germany, the other that is waiting for his call in Virginia, the Taylors, the Youngs, the primary kids, Melissa, and a few more that i´m forgetting.

thank you all so much for the letters! it is especially great to hear from everybody!

I´m completely weirded out that Blair is coming home soon, and that i´ve almost been in the feild six months! time flies!

i love you all!

Birthday Week and Area Info

Answers to Mom’s Questions

1)      Did you find a place to live?

not yet, there are little to no houses in this city that are up for rent, so we have been living in the big city of B on the floor of some missionaries there (don’t worry mom we have mattresses). We ride the bus for 40 minutes each way to get here in P. Today we are spending p day looking for houses so that we can show them to President and Sister Tavares when they come to B for Zone conference tomorrow.


2)      Where do you get stuff for the place (Beds, etc?)

A missionary area closed in a city nearby so we will get all the furniture and stuff from that house


3)      How many people in your branch?

4)      How many attend each week?

There´s gotta be something like 150 members registered but we have about and attendance of 45 (it got a boost because we baptized that family)


5)      How many missionaries in your city?

Me and my comp are the only missionaries in the city of P, but B probably has like a good 8 companionships


6)      How was your birthday?

My birthday was good, had a great church meeting and did proselyting like normal; my companion made me a cake of bread slices, peanut butter, and sweetened condensed milk. Was pretty great


7)      Any more packages get there?

We only receive letters when we have contact with the mission office in Londrina (transfers, interviews with president, zone conferences, when our ZL´s go to their training meetings) we have a zone conference tomorrow so I should get something

We had like different 6 people that were almost baptized this week. 4 of them their parents wouldn’t let them (they are under 18) and two said "we aren’t ready yet". 90% of people here believe that you have to be a saint to be baptized, so they say that their kids aren’t ready because they do stupid kid stuff sometimes and they themselves say they aren’t ready because they aren’t perfect people yet. They don’t understand that you NEED baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost TO REPENT, TO HELP YOU CHANGE, you don’t need to be and you won’t be perfect before baptism.

But we will work hard this week; at least one of these people will get baptized.

Love you all! Thank you so much for the birthday cards! Keep me updated on how everybody is doing!

- Elder Leete

My cake Elder C made for me



Me eating my cake

Meu companhiero bonitao

4 Baptisms!

WE HAD 4 BAPTISMS ON SATURDAY!

A family that has been taught by the members before we arrived and a mom of a recent convert. all we really had to do was invite them to be baptized with power and accompany them preparing. só agua nesse pó.

When we showed up the baptismal font was dirty so me and Elder C had to roll up our sleeves and pants and clean it, then fill it with a hose and buckets. our district leader (elder N, he´s from just south of Beaverton) and his comp helped too when he came early to do the baptismal interviews.

We received a lot more references from members this week too that already went to church a few times, so i know we can find more people to baptize this week.

(answers to mail questions)

I only have received one packet of pictures with the family pictures at the reunion 2 weeks ago and last week got the package with the Maple syrup, Peanut butter, and brownie mix.

i also got a bunch of letters that say "don't open until your birthday" so I'm assuming that was a FHE activity and they were all sent at the same time

we only receive letters

-once a month when the zone leaders go to a leadership training in Londrina where they get all the letters for the people in their zone,

-when we have transfers every six weeks where everyone gets mixed around so at least somebody passes through Londrina on the way to our city

i usually receive letters at least a month after they were sent, but every once in a while when they hit the timing right with the transfers. it has been as little as two and a half weeks or could be as long as almost two months.

running out of time, i will try to send some photos

love you all!

-Elder Leete

Pederneiras



Elder C



looking for a house

Transfer and New Companion

Great to hear that everyone is alive and well and enjoyed conference!

i´ve been really busy this week with transfers, i´ve been transfered to open a new city that has been closed for almost a year called P, a small town about 40 minutes outside the big city of Bauru in the countryside of the state of São Paulo.

i have a new companion as well, his name is Elder C he is really great and im really excited to get this city up and running again with missionary work

the countryside of the state of são paulo reminds me a lot of the countryside of California, really hot dirt but with the occasional grove of trees,  the state of paraná where i was for the first two transfers was a lot like Oregon a little more south than where we live, less green and hotter but with a good amount of trees

this week we didn't really do a lot of proselyting, we have been combing the city for house to live in. right now we are living in B with other missionaries and are commuting 40 minutes by bus every day to p. but even though we didn't do much we have been visiting people who have been taught by the members of the branch here and we are going to baptize four of them this Saturday! a a couple and one of their kids (they  have 3 more kids but they aren't old enough to be baptized yet) and a mother of a recently converted member

the work will go really well here, the members are excited and like to help us and give us a lot of references

I loved conference as well, I got to watch the priesthood session in Portuguese (understood 90% of it) and the two on Sunday in English (they gathered all the English missionaries in the zone and had another room set aside for us to watch). in português they are dubbed over by live translators.

i Loved the spirit of conference this time around, there were so many powerful testimonies. I liked the one by Jefferey R Holland, the one by Tad Callister about the book of Mormon, and the one by the guy in the presidency of the Sunday school about teaching by the spirit. the book of Mormon and teaching by the spirit are the two most important things for me right now to learn about

I love you all so much, Parabéns Rachel no aniversário!  

i got the letters from the family reunion, the package with the pictures in it, and the letters for my birthday. (dont worry i have not opened any of those letters yet) thanks Everybody! i really appreciate all the letters and support!

it keeps on getting harder and harder to speak in English, i hope that my grammar isnt getting too terrible. . . today i tried to bear my testimony in English and i straight up couldnt do it until after i started talking in english for a while.

Love you all! i will try to send more pictures!

-Elder Leete