August 22, 2011 New Companion

wow, its already halfway through august, the time is flying really fast.

my new companion Elder P is really cool, not crazy like Elder F but its a nice break. there is also a big difference in accents, he is from the northeast so he pronounces all his "s"s like "sh" and "r"s like "h". its interesting and only leads to confusion every once in a while

we have been working hard to find new investigators, at the start of this new transfer we cut all of the old ones that were not keeping commitments to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and who weren't going to church so we have to start all over again. its sad to see how people can be disinterested in the single most important message they can ever hear, but if they aren't reading and praying or going to church they will never receive a testimony from God and will never get baptized so we just have to find someone else.

it also is really hard when members don't give us references! so as a present to me, I want EVERYONE who reads this letter to write down the name and address of a friend who you would like to see in the celestial kingdom and GIVE IT TO THE MISSIONARIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DO IT!!!!!! you will never ever ever regret it!!!!! us missionaries are wasting our time and your money when we have nobody to teach. there is nothing more frustrating than trying to find people in the street or knocking on doors, it is about half a step up from laying in bed dreaming of teaching lessons to people who really want it

 well that's my little rant for the week, we have one investigator that is progressing and has hope of baptism, we just need to get her to church on Sunday.

all is well here, sickness went away by Tuesday now I just need to remember to not eat fish from Paraguay

love you all!

-Elder Leete

weekly letter 25 de julho

hey all! p day again, I can´t believe how fast this is going, it seems like I blink and the week is gone. on p days we wake up and do our normal schedule of study then go to the super mufato (equivalent of Safeway) and buy food for the week. today I bought bread, bologna, and cheese for breakfast and dinner sandwiches along with milk, bananas, and crackers for snacks. I'm really glad we eat in members´ homes every day for a big lunch, otherwise I have no idea what I would eat. after shopping we head to a lan house to use the computers, its something like 1.50 USD to use the computer for an hour. 

this week has been a week of miracles in my zone, we had something like 7 baptisms yesterday and Saturday. I had my first zone conference this past Thursday which was really great, I really love my mission president, he is truly inspired.

 the lesson that we have really heard is that there are lots of people that are prepared to be baptized, who have already gone to church a few times but just nobody invited them to be baptized. these people are family members of less active members and recent converts and old investigators in the area book.

 the field is truly ready to harvest, the hard part is finding those people that are ready. because when you find a person that is ready they will accept the gospel and get baptized in a few weeks.

 me and my comp made the mistake of trying to teach people that really don't have the will to change, they like the lessons and talking about God and we have great spiritual lessons, but they don't read and they don't pray to know if these things are true, we found that if these people don't accept our challenges to read or pray, then they simply won´t progress and its a better idea just to stop visiting them.

 I'm glad I'm learning these things now early in the mission, I see a lot of people that have 10 months or a year and have very little baptisms because they made this mistake to waste time on people who don't have the will to change.

 well, that's about it for this week, have fun at the reunion everyone, you should guilt all the cousins into writing me or something :)

 tchau

-Elder Leete

The Average Day

Editor's note: Because Kevin only gets 30 minutes to email on pdays his letters have been short. He  spends time reading the long ones we send him.  So this week my letter to him was only one paragraph (we did mail him letters too).  Then I asked him to answer these questions that we came up with at FHE: 

1.     What scripture would you like on your Missionary plaque?

2.     What is Brazilian food like? What are the recipes?

3.     What is your typical day like at the CTM?

Wed 5/25/2011 10:26 AM

Haha. I guess since I don’t have anything to read I’m going to have to spend the whole 30 minutes writing. So here I go I guess.

I don’t know what scripture I want on my missionary plaque. For now it can be Isaiah 41:9-10 or maybe Philippians 4:13 or maybe that one scripture in 2 Nephi that dad shared on the day I left. They are all really awesome.

The food here is 50% arroz e feijão (rice and beans) and 50% salad and meat. Pretty good stuff, I love it. . .  except that the classroom smells really awful after meals. 

The average day is wake up at 6:30 shower and dress for personal study at 7, breakfast at 8, class at 8:30 until lunch at 1. Class again from 2 until dinner at 5:30. Gym from 6:30 to 7:30. Take another shower and change for companion study at 8 and daily planning at 9 till snack time at 9:30. Lights out at 10:30. Pretty exciting, huh?  In class we spend time learning the language and the lessons in preach my gospel and how to be good teachers. On Tuesday and Sunday nights we have devotionals where 70s or mission presidents will speak and Wednesday is P-day. P-day we wake up at like 5:30 to leave to go to the São Paulo Temple all morning and get back at about noon where we eat lunch and write letters and get our 30 minutes to email. After that, we have free time to do laundry or go wander around outside and buy stuff. There is a really good bakery, a cool place to buy ties, a paper supply store, a supermarket, shoe store, Churrasco (like the Brazilian restaurant we went to in Provo), bunch of other shops for like clothing and stuff and a few corner open air cafe places.

More about the food: every day for breakfast we get ham or bologna and cheese sandwiches and cream of wheat-ish porridge stuff. About once a week we will be really lucky and get like potato flour pancakes or cereal. The cereal is delicious, its chocolate frosted flakes! I miss eggs and bacon though. If we ever get eggs the yolk will be pre broken and cooked (gross). Lunch is usually excellent, there will be the meat of the day, beans and rice, Pão (bread), salad, and fruit. The fruit is always fresh and delicious. The fruit juice is always way better than the dessert which is usually a pudding-like substance that has a random flavor. They are really good about 20% of the time. My favorite is Feijoada, when they cook in a bunch of meat in with the beans and rice. It’s really, really good and a staple here.

Well I’m out of time all, I love you all so much. Have a spectacular week! Type you next week!