Really Terrible Tan Lines

Mon 11/28/2011 5:26 AM

It’s so weird to see that Thanksgiving has already passed, i didn’t realize it was Thanksgiving this Thursday until my American zone leader called me to say Happy Thanksgiving.

The weather is getting hotter and the days are getting longer here as we get more and more into summertime, I really hope I get transferred soon back to the state of P, its colder there.

We have been doing a lot of work to update all the information in the church computer system MLS for the people in the branch, and as we´ve been doing so we´ve been finding a lot of less-actives who´ve had changes in their life recently and are ready to hear the messages of the missionaries again.  Some of these people haven’t been contacted by the church in over twenty years! This is why home and visiting teaching is so important, if these good people just had somebody to remind them about and invite them to church maybe their lives could have been completely different.

How are the Wisemans doing? I’ve been meaning to write letters to everybody but whenever I sit down on P-Day to do it I end up sleeping.

Well that’s about it for me, the work is chugging along well, I’m doing well, I really know that Heavenly Father exists because he doesn’t let his poor American missionaries get sunburned, just really terrible tan lines

tchau!
Elder Leete

Mon 11/28/2011 5:30 AM

O I forgot! the halelujah bugs are almost all gone, but we just might have termites in the ceiling. . .

I don’t really have a favorite cookie, as long as its made with love and in abundance

I hope you guys sent my package already! I need something to open on Natal, its like in three weeks!

Love you all!
-Elder Leete

Mon 11/28/2011 5:37 AM

"Parabéns" to all those people who I have missed their birthdays (especially that one from this week)

Mon 11/28/2011 5:47 AM

I remembered to write you about the money ive been spending these past weeks!. this is in Brazilian Real so you guys will have to do the conversion

20,12  groceries 14/11
5,98    dont remember what, probably food 14/11
4,00    more food 24/11
35,99  Showerhead 19/11

in brazil you use a comma instead of point so 20,12 is 20 real and 12 cents
the dates are day/month

most these things should be covered by the money i get from the mission office but we´ve been out because of the move so I’m waiting on getting a reimbursement, so i will keep the money and use it to buy a souvenir or keep it for a reserve or something

thanks!
 -Elder Leete

Mountain of Letters and Finally Moved In!

Wow this is strange. . .  I didn't even remember that Thanksgiving is this week. Thanksgiving I don't even think is a holiday here, and the Brazilians find an excuse for everything  to have a holiday.

This week I received a mountain of letters, I got 6 from Rebecca and another 6 from the family. (Sorry Melissa I haven't been responding to your letters. . . P-day always runs out way too fast) and two packages! Thanks everybody for that reunion shirt and mom for the ties.

This past week me and Elder C finally moved into our house! It took like three days. One day to clean the house of the neighboring city where we took all the furniture, one day to clean our new empty house, and one day to do the move. But I'm happy now that we have our own house to live, the only problem now is that we still don't have beds or wardrobes to put or clothes (Sister Tavares ordered some for us we are just waiting for them to arrive)

We discovered this week too that our house has a significant amount of bugs. It's a small fly-like thing called an "halleluiah". It lives for a really short period of time and flies around light bulbs, and after a while loses its wings and drops on the floor and crawls like and ant. We have to sweep the floor like twice a day because there is so many of the dropped wings on the ground. They are coming in through the ceiling so we are going to buy like caulk or tape and try to seal up all the holes. I hope it works.

That's about it for my week, since we have our house now in the city we are going to try to proselyte in a different part of the city, all of our investigators are slackers and don't go to church so we have to find some new ones.

Love you all, you are always in my prayers. Keep going forward in the faith. I know that Jesus Christ is our savior and redeemer and that the Book of Mormon is the word of God

com amor,
-Elder Leete

Greenall Reunion T-shirt



Study Room of  New House



Two Bedrooms.  One for us. . .



. . .and one for our suitcases.

Life in the Middle of Nowhere

Life here in the middle of nowhere is going along good. We have been teaching a lot in the ghetto because they listen to us but then don't go to church because they have a mountain of problems, so we are going to try to teach in a slightly better off part of the city, I hope they don't turn all prideful on us.

Don't have a house yet, it was for us to get the keys on Tuesday but it turns out its a holiday so the real estate place will not be open. and we are going to have to rent a truck to carry all the furniture over from another city so i can already tell thats going to be a big mess so i think me and elder c are just going to bring our suitcases one by one on the bus with us and maybe our mattresses too and sleep on the floor for a little while longer.

I got a ton of letters and another packet last week during all the transfers, but they are all with the zone leaders so i wont get them until tomorrow for district meeting. its ben like 5 weeks since ive gotten letters so im excited.

Love you all, everything's going along well here. I'm keeping everybody in my prayers especially y´alls health.

tchau

-Elder Leete

No Halloween in Brazil

its weird to see the holidays pass by without doing anything to commemorate them, there isnt a Halloween in brazil

this is the end of another transfer and i learned that me and elder C are going to stay here in p for another. i really hope that we can finally rent that house that we found.

the real estate place is being really annoying, we already won the bid on the house and stuff its just that they have made us redo the paperwork like three times. they finally sent it off to Londrina to get signed by President Tavares so i hope that we can move in this week.

the time is moving by so fast and we do the same things every day so i really dont have anything to say. the work is going forward, and we´ve met some really great people here that i think will get baptized in this coming transfer.

glad to see everybody is doing well i love you all, im going to try to upload some more pictures

-Elder Leete

Me and Elder C

My district here in  P

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