Welcome Home Elder Leete!

 

The last dot is filled in.



Waiting at the airport



Looks like another Elder is also coming home- turns out he was also in Brazil.



Here he comes!
He met up with Elder Bender in route home.  They were companions in the CTM, but served in different missions.



First Hug is with Mom



Greeting the sisters



Strong Brazilian accent



Souvenirs are handed out on the ride home: Earrings



and nut rings.

 



Home Sweet Home

 

All the Leete Kids together again.

 

Very Happy and Proud Parents.

Coming Home

see you guys thursday.

-Elder Leete

Still Working Hard

hahah definitely was a trunky letter. (yes, his mom is a little trunky writing about plans for when he comes home.) But don’t worry, I’m working hard. We baptized 2 more this week, real miracles; I’m lazy to write what happened, so I’ll tell you in person here in two weeks. haha :)    

BELÉM!!!!

parabéns!!!!! She  is going to baptize a LOT. It’s one of the most baptizing missions in Brazil!!!! (Kevin's cousin Erica got her mission call to Belem Brazil and will report to the CTM on Sept 4)

Have a great week everyone, this is my last week of real missionary work, all next week I will spend traveling.

I love you ALL!
-Elder Leete

Miracles like Skittles

This week was crazy, but good. We went to various small cities where missionaries never went before, one old man was baptized in the sister´s area (president doesn’t let the sisters travel to other cities) that we taught. He had already gone to church several times, we just had to teach him the lessons and challenge him to be baptized.

Also, in another city, there is a family of a missionary that is serving in northern Brazil. The family wants to get baptized, but they don’t have any way to get to church on Sunday. It’s a poor little city, and the bus is expensive. It’s also like an hour away from Apucarana (where I am, the closest city that has the church). I’ll just have to ask the district president to try to rent a van or get some member to bring these people church

But also we had 3 BAPTISMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The girl that me and Elder Hoskin baptized brought three of her friends to church last week, so we taught them all the week and two of them got baptized on Saturday after watching conference!!!

Also, there is a young man that came to church with his uncle, his sister and brother are baptized already, so we taught him everything and he was baptized on Sunday! (He originally was gonna get baptized last week but his mom wouldn´t be able to watch so he wanted to wait till this week)

God is pouring out the miracles; the hard part is working hard enough to try to catch them all!! It makes me remember an old skittles commercial that it starts to rain skittles and everybody is trying to run around and catch them in their hands. It’s kind of like that. I’m tired but happy.

I love you all!

 

-Elder Leete

 

 

Easter Candy, Suits, and Shoes

Feliz Páscoa!!

Seems like everything rolling along well at home. you should defiantly baptize that Japanese family that moved in. when a person moves they are way more acceptable to the gospel, they need new friends and stuff so you should invite them for family nights with other families that have children their age and let the elders leave the message of the restoration. Suggest that you give them a ride to church and accompany them in the classes. They will feel the spirit and want to be baptized.

I got the Easter package, I’m living with 2 Brazilians and an Uruguayan who all love peanut butter and the starburst jellybeans are the best candy I’ve eaten in 2 years. You just can’t beat American candy.

We had my last zone conference this week, yes that’s my new suit. My suits are still in goodish conditions, I think I’ll give one to a recent convert in Londrina if it fits him. My shoes I’ll leave here because they are still in good condition, except for the ones that I used before the mission which the soles are all destroyed. With a shine they still look good so ill return home with those.

How old is Alyson? How can she be getting married? I still think of her as like being 13.

requests to return home? Give the motorcycle a tune up and make a list of all the cool movies that have come out in the last two years. And get me a job. I feel like I’ve just been bumming off you guys my whole life I want to feel useful now.

I love you all!!! Only 4 more weeks!

-Elder Leete

Baptism, Easter, and Itinerario

it’s a very musical time of year now it seems. . .

that’s great that everyone is being so musical, it makes a difference in society as a whole, brazil isn’t very musical. . .every once in a while there won’t be anyone in the ward that plays piano so we sing a capella in sacrament meeting. It took some getting used to.

But that’s okay because we had a BATISMO!!!!!

The grandmother of the girl we baptized a few weeks ago was baptized and confirmed! Also Elder Petersen called me (he is president´s assistant now) and said that an older couple that we found and taught in Londrina third ward a few months ago was baptized too. That made me really happy.

i can really see the hand of the Lord in the every baptismal story, everyone gets baptized exactly when they open up their heart to accept the Lord´s will and not theirs. That couple i taught with Elder Petersen in the Londrina 3rd ward probably have been attending church for the last three months and when they had a spiritual experience, when the time was right, they made the right choice.

Well, I finally got my itinerary; I’m going from Londrina to Sao Paulo to Atlanta to Portland. It will be from 2 in the afternoon on Wednesday 24th of April to 12pm on Thursday the 25th, just lots of flying and layovers. que locura!

That’s okay that I’m signed up just for fall, I just don’t want to sit around doing nothing so if you guys could ask around the ward and stake to try to get me a job that will be nice.

Easter in Brazil is similar to that in the states, but the hunt for real eggs instead of chocolate eggs and only for like organized activities in elementary schools and stuff, never in house. But, the big thing that everyone does is buys really big, expensive hollow chocolate eggs with other chocolates inside. Every supermarket will have a ton hanging on racks from the ceiling to cover all the aisles. Look it up on google you will see the pictures.

I don’t have the courage to buy these eggs, they are always way overpriced.

Speaking of buying stuff, this week I gave in and bought a suit. It was expensive, so that means no more souvenirs for me. But it is good quality so I hope it lasts a long time. I also hope that I didn’t overcharge the card. But, at least I’ll come home looking pretty.

I love you all; I’m working hard as always!

-Elder Leete

Exciting things Happening!

New Rule that came from the missionary department from salt lake!!!!

I CAN WRITE AND RECIEVE EMAILS FROM ANYONE!!!!!! so hurry!! WRITE ME!!!

(If you want his email address, let me know- A. Leete)

 

some exciting things are happening on the mission, we recieve like 15 new americans who finally got their vistas, and like all of them and their trainers spent the week here in apucarana sleeping on the floor in the missionaries´ houses because they had to stay close to londrina to be registered with the Federal police and there was no space in londrina. so that was a big mess that me and my comp had to coordinate.

the mission is getting pretty big, we have 190 missionaries right now, some new cities are going to be opened, which is really cool. Elder Millet (who is the nephew or something of bishop Goodfellow) is going to open up a new city with his trainee (he slept on the floor in my house this week so it was cool to talk about the good old northwest).

no, saint patricks day doesnt exist in brazil.

i feel like i´m more homesick of my country than my family. (sorry family) i miss american houses and streets and cheap prices  in department stores and a bunch of little stuff like that. but when i get home i´ll miss the food here a lot.

anyway, thats about it. it´s weird, i dont feel like its my last transfer

but that is good, it means i´m not trunky
i love you all!
-Elder Leete

Last Transfer, New Companion, Secret to Success

Last transfer day!

I will receive a new companion, Elder M. He is in my same group so we will finish the mission at the same time in 6 weeks. It will be weird for the two of us to finish at the same time.

This week we didn’t have a baptism in our area, but we helped another area have one. There was a girl that went to church a couple of times that wanted to get baptized, but is really timid and shy. We did a split with the missionaries there, and my companion went to their house Sunday morning,  got the baptismal form singed by her dad and after church did the baptismal interview. She had a lot of questions and concerns so it lasted for an hour and a half. Later, at about 5:00 we went to her house again to talk with the family and everything, and after another hour and a half lesson/conversation she decided definitively to be baptized. We ran to the chapel, filled up the baptismal font at fast as we could (hose, buckets, and everything) and at 8:30 that night she was baptized. It was a miracle! It was really great too because it had been a while that that branch hadn´t baptized.

I’m on the last transfer, last 6 weeks. My goal is to have weekly baptisms here, and I know that with the Lord´s help I can do it!

Good luck Jamie on your mission! Go and baptize everybody!! The secret to being a good and successful missionary is just eating, sleeping, and dreaming baptisms. The Lord gives us according to our desires. So just go a little crazy and do everything you can to help a growing number of people come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Crist and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end.


As for packages. . . .just some good old American candy. I miss it. And Brazilians love it.

I love you all!
-Elder Leete

Pray for Courage to make the Right Choice

BATISMO!!!

We taught a 12 year old girl last week and invited her to church, but when we got there we didn’t see her so we thought that she didn’t go. Turns out that when we visited her on Tuesday that she was there, just got the early, even before we did! She loved the meetings and wanted to get baptized, so yesterday we baptized her! It was as simple as that! Her uncle dropped her off at church, and he is our next target to teach, but he has kind of a crazy life. Also her parents aren´t legally married, but they will want to as they go to church so I hope the future missionaries will be able to baptize everyone.

Also we are teaching the girlfriend of the branch president´s son. She wants to get baptized, just is scared of offending her mom, who is catholic. I told her about my experience with Rebecca, and maybe I’ll find some good letters Rebecca wrote me with her testimony to show to this investigator. She could be baptized at any moment, she already lives the commandments and knows everything. Our first lesson with her wasn’t even a lesson, we just asked her a few questions, figured out her situation, and read the batismal invite in Alma 7. She accepted. We challenged her to be baptized on Sunday (we were teaching her Saturday night). She almost accepted, but on Sunday she said she wanted more time to talk it over with her mom. Pray for her to have the courage to make the right choice!

I’m starting to go a little crazy, I only have 7 more weeks on my mission, and I have to baptize 7 more people to reach my goal.
I think I can do it!!! I just got to go all out and confide in the Lord that he will put the elect in my path!!

Also for the past two years the mission has had a goal to baptize 200 people in one month. This is my last full month on the mission so this is the one where we will reach our goal!!!!

I love you all!
-Elder Leete

Answers to Mom's Questions

What’s your new area like. How are you doing?

The new area is good, the people are great and the members really friendly, just that nobody seems to want to go to church, in the last 3 weeks, none of our investigators went to church. The only visitors where from another City, a member moved from São Paulo to a small little city in the middle of nowhere that  my branch is the closest church unit. This member is really excited about missionary work, he was a bishop in São Paulo. He brought some of his neighbors to church, so we went to that city to see how it is. When we got there, we realized that we were the probably the first missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ to ever set foot there. It was a cool experience. We are going to try to baptize the friends and family of this member, and who knows, maybe even open a branch there. It has always been my dream to open up a new city to the gospel. We´ll see how it all turns out. The city is called Marumbi, it has about 6,000 inhabitants.


Any good teaching stories in the new area?

Teaching stories are all the same: teach, answer questions, call to repentance, accompany progress, etc.

What’s the weather like? Cooling off a bit? Or is this still the hot season?

The weather has been nice these last few weeks; it will rain for a couple of days then get hot again then rain again. This city is at a higher altitude so it’s cooler and windier than Londrina.

We got some crazy news here! Because of all the new missionaries, in July the church will open 56 new missions!! 7 new missions in Brazil!
That means my beloved Brazil Londrina Mission will probably divide with other missions close by to make new ones. I think that the cities of Pederneiras (my second area) and maybe Marília (fourth area) will probably make part of a new mission being made in São Paulo. It’s weird to think about.

I love you all!

-Elder Leete

Work in Apucarana

Wow parabéns Melissa 18! And John came home and Matt is coming home this week! What craziness!

The time passes by . . . time to sign up for classes already. . . I haven’t baptized nearly enough people for the mission to be ending already.

The work here in Apucarana is going along well, we just are having problems with bringing people to church. In my area we have two parts: on one side of the train tracks is super rich and in the center of the city, on the other side is poor and a little farther off and a long walk to the church. We are working on the poorer side that has more recent converts and we are teaching all of their families. (Also it seems like everyone in the neighborhood is related in some distant way) but, because it’s a long ways away from the church it is hard to get people to go. Yesterday we woke up at 5:30 just to get dressed and get to the neighborhood at 7 to knock on all of our investigators´ doors to walk with them to church which starts at 8:30. Nobody went that said that they would go. Finally we got to church at about 9:15.

This is an annoying thing about Brazilians, if they say that they will do something, they don’t really mean it. If they say "yeah, one of these days I’ll go there" it means "I have no intention whatsoever to go" if they say "I´ll go tomorrow!" it means you have to pass by their house, wake them up, and walk with them and they will go. It´s a little frustrating.

love you! bye!

ran out of time!

New Area and Companion

I´m liking my new area, it’s been nice and cold and rainy here, which is a good change. Good for me at least, but really bad for the branch here. Nobody goes to church when it rains.

My new companion is Elder H from  Pennsylvania. He’s really chill and a hard worker so I’m liking it.

The area where we are working is a little bit poorer, so it’s a good contrast of Londrina. a good thing is that it’s a lot easier to teach people, the hard thing is that the people have a harder time keeping their commitments (going to church, reading the BoM, Keeping commandments, etc.)

O, last week I didn’t end up buying a suit, the only one I liked was twice the price that I wanted to pay. So ill use the money for dry cleaning this week. we found a guy that likes the missionaries so it will be real cheap, like the equivalent of 18 or 20 dollars (I heard that the dollar dropped in value a little) to clean the two suits.

Basically here there are two families of recent converts, each one with like 10 kids and a bunch of grandkids, so this week we are just going to try to teach all of the various in-laws and find out who isn’t baptized yet.

I love you all! I’m trying to think of cool souvenirs to look for to bring home. I already bought a hammock (that I slept in for all of last transfer).

What is Brazil known for? What’s cool that can sit on the mantle for the rest of my life?

tchau
-elder Leete

Time to Transfer and How I Make First Contact

this week is transfers! i am being transfered to Apucarana, a smiller city about an hour away from londrina. its weird to think that it will be my last area. but, i have a lot of time left, i just got to find a lot of people that want to be baptized!!!

all of missionary work comes down to this, finding people to teach.

to do a contact, i will always just invite someone to go to church,

if the person says "no" or "i already go to a church so i cant visit yours" then  i dont even continue.

if a person says "maybe" or "who knows" then i ask a question that makes them think. it could be anything from "what happens after death?" to "Who is God?" to "why are there a lot of churches when there is only one God?" i just say whatever pops into my head (and hope that it was the Spirit that put it there) after about 30 seconds of conversation you can tell if someone is interested or not, when you will ask if the person wants us to go to their house on a specific date and time to share the message.

if a person says "sure" or "where is your church?" then we talk about where the church is and ask if we can mark a day to pass by their house and share the message.

if a person doesnt mark a day and hour specific then it means that they are not interested in the moment.

and thats about all i do, instead of saying like "how are you?" or "good afternoon" to people on the street we just say "wanna go to church on sunday?"

sounds a little crazy but its the best way i´ve found to filter people

i love you all! i´m a little sad to leave the city of londrina, but excited to see how Apucarana is

até mais!

-Elder Leete

Enjoy the Ride

this week right now will be the last week of the transfer here, and i´m here 6 months already so i probably will be transfered. its good i´m getting worn out of this area.

also we have a couple that we are trying to help, they were able to stop drinking coffee but now we just need to help them feel the spirit strongly to want to be baptized this sunday.

after this week i will only will have 12 weeks left on the mission, i´m starting to get scared, its like that feeling when you start to sled down a hill and you start going so fast you cant control it or stop it any more. you just got to hold on tight and try to enjoy the ride.

i  love you all
-Elder Leete

Finding the Elect that God has put in your Path

this week we had a Miracle!!!

BATISMOOOOO!!!!!!!

on Tuesday i was doing a split with an elder in another area, and during companion study he got a call from a guy that was wondering where the chapel is located. he expressed his desire to go to church here because he had moved recently from another state where he was going every week. 

we discovered that he is living now in the area where i´m serving with elder P, so we called him later to find out more details. turned out that he has been going to church for 4 years but couldn´t be baptized because he was living with his girlfriend and was not married.

he split up with her and moved here and wanted to fufill he dream of being baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ!!!!!

we didnt even have to teach  him anything! he already knew everything! was baptized on saturday and confirmed on sunday

it really goes to show how all that we do as missionaries really isn't about how smart or how well we have memorized the scriptures, its all about finding the Elect that God has put in your path. in 4 months i worked really hard with Elder S, but didnt baptize anyone. and in this last week God just sends someone out of nowhere. thats why you cant really measure your success by how many Baptisms you have, but by how much you feel the Spirit in your day-to-day proselyting and how much you try.

I love you all! we have a a couple that is progressing but is a little scared of the baptismal commitment. pray for them.

-Elder Leete 

A Great Week for Me

First things first, in our area we had a 

BATISMO!!!!!

 

 A recent convert family in the ward has a son that wasn’t baptized because he went to go study in another state, he came back last week. His only problem was that he was addicted to coffee (not SUPER addicted but enough to make it a little hard to stop) so a priesthood blessing and us buying his coffee from him solved that problem. He was baptized yesterday after church.

On Saturday we had a CASAMENTO

After a year of teaching this family, (that family that we found and baptized their daughters) were married. That was a cool experience; the first couple that I helped get married on the mission.

Then on Sunday night we had another BATISMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

A great a week for me, and we have another couple that is progressing a lot, I think they will get baptized this Sunday.

I love you all,

-Eder Leete

Trying to Hold Water in my Hands

This week has been pretty normal, spent the whole time trying to find people interested in the message of the restoration.

This week marks 1 year 8 months on the mission. It feels like the time is slipping through my fingers, like I’m trying to hold water in my hands. It’s ending way too quickly, I’ve baptized way too few people!!

But that’s the life of a missionary, try your best to use the time that´s given to you, and when you run out you run out and that´s that, can´t go back to change it. I just hope that as I approach the end I have the energy to keep doing my best, every week I get more and more tired. When I get home I think I’ll just hibernate for a week.

love you all, keep praying for my investigators so that they have the courage to follow the spirit to change their lives.

-Elder Leete