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