Hard Work is Starting to Pay off.

One more week passes by, me and Elder S have been working really hard and it’s starting to pay off this week, we found a young family on Saturday and they went to church Sunday and when we went to visit them Sunday night they said that they liked it at lot and "who knows, maybe we´ll get baptized. . ." without us even asking them! The only problem is that they are a little poor and don’t have the money to get married.

Also, on Sunday, there was a missionary couple visiting our ward that is serving in the Temple and they went with us to teach a relative of theirs. She is an old lady and asked "if I wanted to get baptized next week, would I have to like take a class or something?" before we even started the lesson!!

I really hope that we can help these people be baptized this week; they are the first people we´ve seen in a long time that are really interested in knowing the truth.

Also today I got 2 packages! One from you guys and one from Rebecca. That and a bunch of cards and letters for my birthday from last week.   Today is a really great day. And to top it all off, I found a place that sells Cereal really cheap only like 4 R$!! A box of frosted flakes is like 15 R$ here so I never buy it, so this week will be the first time in like a year and a half that I have cereal for breakfast!


I love you all! Have a great week!
-Elder Leete

Drunks & Missionary Mid-life

 This week went by really fast, the assistants visited our zone so one stayed with Elder S. in our area while the other (an old friend of mine, Elder L) did a split with me and we visited all the areas of the zone doing splits with everybody. It was a lot of fun.

My birthday was good. I taught a couple of drunks in front of a bar that are real art freaks (are studying art and theatre in the university ) when we gave them a Book of Mormon he gave me a book about Brazilian art in return. That was my birthday present for the day. Teaching drunks is always entertaining. Unless they are those angry drunks that think that our religion is false and they already follow God. (Oh the hypocrisy. . . .)

We have been working for the past month or so with some investigators that are having a hard time to stop smoking. After a certain point you can’t really do much more, you don´t have enough minutes on your cell fone to be calling them all day reminding them not to smoke.

I’m starting to reach the missionary mid-life crisis.

not really mid-life, just the realization that in a few short weeks I will only have 6 months left on the mission.

Have I really worked as hard as I should have?

Have I baptized as much as I could have?

You start to become tired, both physically and mentally. My companion right now is on his last transfer before he goes home, and it shows. He is really beaten up. I’m thinking to myself, will I be like that in six months? Will I have worked as hard and have given my all so that really I’m physically and mentally and emotionally worn out? Or will I just kind have glided through the mission with have given everything I have.

These thoughts give me a new resolution to give more than I have given before and go all out. I’ve got a  lot more time and a lot more people to baptize.

love you all!

-Elder Leete

P.S. did you guys send me any packages? and if so to what address so i can look out for them 

For A Birthday Present to Me...

Oct 15, 2012

Wow, it’s weird to think that I will turn 21 too. It’s weird on the mission too because you are so separated from the concept of time. Time here is just something that you are constantly racing against, that goes by really fast or not fast enough.

This ward that I’m working in know is a really old ward full of returned missionaries and stuff, so you´d think it would be a good ward to work in, but the area is really tough, its super hard to find people that are interested in your message.

The worst part is that even though the members are really great and knowledgeable, they don’t give references!!!! The worst sin that members of the church have nowadays is their disinterest in sharing the gospel with their friends. The excuse that everyone gives is that all their friends are Mormon too.

WELL THEN MAKE MORE FREINDS!!!!!!
There are millions of people around us every day that don’t know what their purpose in life is or how they can find peace in their homes or families but WE KNOW!! So what does it cost to tell your colleague at work or your acquaintance at school or that same guy that always waits at the bus stop at the same time as you?  It costs nothing!!!

Something my mission president says that really sticks out in my mind:

missionaries that don’t talk to people on the street are PRIDEFUL; they think more about what people will think about them than what God thinks about them.

All members of the church have the responsibility to share the gospel with others. if you don’t have a desire to share the gospel it means that you don’t really believe (you don’t really have a testimony) that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is God´s church on the earth, and that it contains the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, and is the ONLY WAY that all people on this earth can return to live with God and Jesus Christ and receive the fullness of joy with their eternalized families.

So think about this to yourself, everyone that reads this letter: I really believe? I REALLY believe?

And if you do, then you will tell your neighbor. Because you will have a desire that he knows how he can be happy in this life and saved in the next. You will feel like these great missionaries in Mosiah 28:3.

I know that this is true, I know it. Not because I saw a vision or had any supernatural experiences, but because the Lord reveals it to me every single day through the Holy Ghost.

For a birthday present to me, talk to somebody about the gospel this week. If they seem even the slightest bit interested, get their address and give it to the missionaries. Just do it.

I love you all!

 Thanks so much for the birthday cards!

We have an investigator that wants to be baptized but is having trouble trying to stop smoking.  If you could pray for her that would be great.

-Elder Leete

Best Thing You'll Ever Do

General conference was so great!!! as a missionary, the best thing in the world is listening to conference.

Ran out of computer time again so all i have to say is EVERYBODY THAT NOW QUALIFIES BECAUSE OF THE NEW AGE REQUIREMENT SHOULD GO ON A MISSION. IT IS THE BEST THING YOU WILL EVER DO IN YOU LIFE. (except for getting married in the temple of course)

Love you all!

-Elder Leete

Busy Pdays

Dad asked:  Are you taking any opportunity to see any of the countryside on P-DAY? It sounds like a nap is the best part of the day.  You might want to try to get to know the country a bit; the change might do you some good.

There isn't really much to do here to get to know the country, and even if there was something good to do I wouldn't have time. P-day goes like this:
Wake up 6:30 just like every other day and follow the normal study schedule until 10:00.
From 10 to eleven clean the house.
At eleven until twelve thirty use the internet to report all the numbers for the zone, write a zone newsletter, write to you guys, write to the mission president, and try to backup pictures.
12:30 to 2:00 buy food for the week.
2:00 arrive in house, eat.
3:00-6:00 free time! (Wash clothes, organize stuff, sleep, and write letters.)
6:00 back to work!

Basically, you have 3 hours of free time every p day. For example, if I wanted to go to the museum downtown, I would spend one hour on the bus to get there, one hour in the museum and one hour to get back to the area, so it isn't worth it. Plus I wouldn't have clean clothes for the week.

When I was in Bauru I almost had the courage to go to the zoo, but I slept instead.

The life of a missionary doesn't have time for sightseeing, and there isn't anything really of worth to go see. Maybe one day I’ll pass through Foz do Iguassu and I’ll go to see the waterfalls which is one of the 7 wonders of the world, but you can only go with the mission president so it’s rare to go. Maybe I’ll be a zone leader over there and I’ll be able to beg the president to go.

One more transfer comes to an end here; the time seems to fly by faster and faster. I have 1 year and four months on the mission, at the end of this transfer I’ll have 1 and a half years. Crazy.

I got a letter from Jessica, she knows Elder C, he was a really great missionary, in my first city  he was the zone leader of the other zone in the city. He was even an AP at the end of his mission, so Jessica you have my permission to date him.

I’m hopeful for this new transfer, me and Elder S will stay together (this will be his last transfer before going home) and I hope that we find some good people to teach. This Sunday a woman went to church that is really interested, but every time we talk about some kind of commitment (go to church, baptism, etc.) she just says stuff like "I can’t answer you that now, we´ll see when we get there." these excuses are really annoying. But she feels the spirit really strongly when she reads, we just have to help her recognize that it is an answer to her prayers.
Another family that we are teaching is a family of 4 that we tried to baptize at the beginning of the transfer, the wife and son want to get baptized but don’t want to do it without the Father, and he doesn’t want to commit to anything. It’s like watching in a horror film when you know the person is going to die and there is nothing you can do about it. you just watch as he is blinded by the craftiness of men and Satan leads him bit by bit to eternal damnation, and worst of all he is dragging his family with him.

Something that I've learned on the mission is how really there are only two options: Follow God through his Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Satan, by doing anything else.
It’s really that simple.

And it’s a pity that there are so many members and leaders of the church that don´t understand that and so they don’t have the desire to share the gospel with their friends. I was one of those people and I’m repenting of it now

Love you all!
até semana que vem!
-Elder Leete