Zone Conference/ Package Delivery

Yep... One year goes by pretty darn quick!
The zone conference was awesome!  We learned a lot and had a sweet all-you-can-eat BBQ lunch!  it was sweet!  I think sister will put up the pictures here in a little bit.

I still like the area, but it´s really hot outside!  And sometimes even hotter inside!
I still am pretty tired during the day.  I don´t sleep all that well, I don´t know if it´s because of the heat or something else.

I don´t think they do anything for halloween.  It´s not a holiday here.  And they usually don´t care too much for holidays...  Only easter, and even then, nobody decorates for any holiday other than the world cup.

On P-days we just write, buy food and stuff, and then go home and clean and try not to die from the heat.  There´s pretty much nothing we can do in our area.  And if we were to do something, it has to be done in our proseliting clothes.  The zoos and museums are all closed on mondays for cleaning too.For general conference we´re going to watch it at the church building.  It´s going to be from 1 to 3 and then 5 till 7.  I just hope that it isn´t super hot in our church building.  It doesn´t have AC...

Oh!  My birthday package finally arrived!  Thanks for the Brazilian shirt!  It´s pretty sweet!(And super soft!)  I inflated one of the punch balloons during the morning and when we got home it had popped...  But I put up the streamer deal and it´s a sweet addition to the house!  :)

Hope you guys have an awesome week!

Mirelle accepted to be baptized on the 13th of September

How´s old uncle Don doing? I keep forgetting to ask about him...
Deiviane showed me the birthday video!  It was super awesome to see you guys and the Duncan clan there!  They had a pretty good lunch prepared at their house on Saturday and they bought a cake for my birthday!  I had forgotten my camera back home and so i didn´t get any pictures of it.
This week Deiviane invited a friend to have lunch with us at her house.  After lunch she asked us if she could have a Book of Mormon.  She read through the introduction and the testimonies at the beginning that same day!  She also woke up early on Sunday to come to church with Deiviane!  She said that she felt at home there and she really liked the classes!  She seemed like a member there!  She made comments and read for the class and everything!  Her name is Mirelle and she accepted to be baptized on the 13th of September!

Sept 13th 2014

Yea!  It was a really special weekend for her!  During the baptizmal service Deiviane gave a really good talk about baptism and made Mirelle cry.  So she had tears running down her face when I baptized her.

Elder Maguet is 6´4"  He´s pretty tall!  And it doesn´t help too much that the rest of us are kinda short...  It makes him look taller!

his past week was pretty good!  We didn´t find many others to teach, but we did find an incomplete family that seems to have some interest!  I think we´ll have a zone conference next week, so that´ll be pretty cool!  Oh, we passed by a place that i´m not sure what they do but outside there were five little puppies in a box.  So we knocked and said to the guy that they have puppies here.  He asked us if we wanted one for free. We just told him that we just were informing him that they were there.  He then said that we could have all of them if we want.  They couldn´t enter because of some law they have here and so they were just outside for whoever wanted them.  It´s crazy that people just give away dogs here!

Love you guys so much and hope you have a great week!

*Note from Mirelle:  Have to thank you Elders for the help and all the support you have given me so far. Today is a great day for me, thank you for supporting me and helping me find the true church!!!

My New Companion

This week was pretty awesome!  We had trasnfers (that wasn´t what was awesome btw...)  But my new companion is Elder Maguet.  He´s from Kentucky and lived with us in Sete Lagoas!  He´s super goofy and an awesome missionary!  We get along really well and we teach well together!

It did get to be really hot this week, but during the weekend it cooled down quite a bit!  I think in about a week or so i´ll be more used to the heat here.

This week we focused a lot on helping Mirelle, Deiviane´s friend.  We started teaching her family too, or at least her mom.  Her step-dad isn´t at home very much...  And they´re not married...  But her mom is super kind and always asks for forgiveness because she thought that we weren´t a good influence on people, due to the things that people say about ´´the mormons´´.  After church yesterday, she came up to me and said that she´s been thinking a lot about baptism these past few days and she dreamed of baptizing.  We set her baptism for this Saturday!  It´s going to be an awesome day!  Deiviane´s super excited because she´ll be able to come to church with someone!

I think I´m doing okay with money, there are some times where money gets a little tight, but i´m trying to manage my money well.

Love you guys so much!  Have a great week!

Thanks for the Birthday Wishes!

Thanks for the happy birthday wishes!  It´s going to be a little strange to have a birthday away from my family.

That´s awesome that Jordan will be giving his farewell talk on my birthday!  Then he´s off the the MTC in a little over a week after that, right?

Deiviane is great!  She´s offered to make lunch for us quite a bit lately, we ate there twice last week and we´ll eat there again this Saturday!  She really wants her family to return to activity in the church so we visit there frequently.  Her family is pretty humble, they don´t have much and they live at the end of the longest neighborhood that we have in our area.

A few weeks ago I bought a recorder so I can learn how to play it.  My companion has one and it´s pretty cool to hear him play hymns.  So I´m learning the recorder, again, but this time I´m doing a lot better than I did in 4th grade!  I asked a member here to buy a simplified hymnbook for me cause they´re going to the temple this week.  I´m going to be a flute tooter! :)

We went to another city so my companion could interview a lady for her baptism.  While we were there Anotônio showed up at the chapel there!  He´s a delivery guy for a candy company and was making his rounds there in Janaúba!  We hitched a ride with him on the way home and we almost witnessed an accident!  There was a curve in the road and a semi in front of us (along with a few other cars).  A car from behind decided that he needs to be in the front and crossed over to the other side of the street to pass everyone and as he took the curve another car from the other side of the street came around the curve also!  They almost hit, but the car coming from the other side turned to the shoulder (that almost doesn´t exist) and they passed without hitting!  But it was crazy to see how pressed for time some people are!

It´s starting to get pretty hot (or at least hotter than usual).  Summer´s starting up again.  It doesn´t seem like it ever left!

She really liked the message that we shared with her.

This week was pretty good!  We got a couple good references!  One is called Lucione and she was a reference from João Paulo!  She really liked the message that we shared with her and she has a lot of curiosity about the Book of Mormon because she took João Paulo on a trip to work and he brought along his Book of Mormon to read in his free time!

There´s another lady in the ward who´s grandma came to church a few weeks ago and we visited her and another girl that´s studying here in Montes Claros.  Her name is Jorgeane and she really likes the Book of Mormon!  We haven´t been able to visit her very much this week because the member´s grandparents got really sick this week and are in the hospital for now...

A young woman (her name is Deiviane)  also referred us to her friend Glace.  She accepted to be baptized on the 30th!  She has been going with Deiviane to a lot of church activities.  Oh!  Deiviane sent a friend request to mom on FB.

Antônio didn´t take the plunge this week...but we had some pretty good lessons with him this week and it looks like he´ll be all ready to go this weekend or maybe the next!  He always gives us rides to our next appointment or from our previous appointment, so we use that as a way to travel from one side of the area to the other!

We have watermelon here, but I don´t buy it cause it´s kinda pricy...  watermelon is not the greatest here in Montes Claros because it´s really dry!  It sprinkled a little this week and we had cloud cover for a few days so that was cool!  In the way of eating habits and such, there isn´t anything strange.  Other than putting the beans under the rice...  Usually you use a fork and a knife.  They have a couple dishes that they put pig snout, tail and feet in there, but I´ve never had it offered to me.

Hope you guys have an awesome week!

 - Elder Peterson

We taught them the first lesson and learned that they want to be baptized!

I asked Greg to send me a picture of his name tag... I'd not seen it before.  It filled me with joy.  What a special responsibly to be a witness of our Savior Jesus Christ, and His church.

This week was pretty good!  On thursday we had lunch with the district president and his family, just that he didn´t get there on time so we stayed outside his house contating people around us.  We contacted a guy named Leandro, he told us to pass by his house in an hour or so.  After lunch we went there and his mom and nefew were there also.  We taught them the first lesson and learned that they want to be baptized!  They´ve got a smoking difficulty, for now, but each day they´re smoking less and less!  They weren´t able to make it to church this week but I can´t wait for the next week when they come with us!

We also got a hold of Antônio again!  He accepted to be baptized this weekend (with a little doubt, but it´ll happen)!  His wife let him back in his house, and they came to church together!  We helped him pursue a cat that was in his yard and the darned thing ended up biting me a couple times!  He also bit my companion, and his tooth went through my companion´s thumb nail!  The cat was pretty crazy!  After catching it, Antônio threw the cat into the neighbor´s yard (where it came from).

    The yards here are surrounded with walls.  Usually the walls are about 7 or 8 feet high so it´s a kinda hard for something (or someone) to enter or escape a yard here.

 

Yea, there´s four of us in the house.  It´s a little crazy when the bathroom is being used (cause we only have one...)  We all get along well!  There isn´t anyone that´s really annoying here.

  

I bet that was a pretty awesome experience to go through the temple with Jordan!

Yea... Collin and Cameron hit one year this past week!  It´s pretty nuts!

 

It has been really hot this week!  And kinda dry too!  There hasn´t been rain here for over 5 months!

Love you guys!  Have a great week!

They've got a Parrot

We started visiting a less active family that lives out at the end of the world here in Montes Claros and they´ve got a parrot!  He´s pretty awesome! :)

Natália and Carlos were confirmed yesterday and João Paulo showed up for sacrament meeting!  Natália has won herself a slightly crazy old(ish) member in the ward who wants to date her.  She´s not too jazzed about that...  It seems that João Paulo really has changed his life around again!  He stayed for the whole meeting and has made quite a few friends with the young men in the branch.

We got to talk with Antônio again and he came to church this week (with his wife and daughter)!  He´s allowed to move back in to his house, and he seems a lot happier now!  They´ve made goals to read The Book of Mormon together and hopefully everything goes well this week!  I think that next week he´ll be baptized!  (It´s kinda tough to get a hold of him because he travels during the week for work.)

I miss having a temple so close!  I know I didn´t go as often as I should have, but it really is different when there is a temple so close!  Here in Montes Claros I think it´s about a 16 or 17 hour bus ride to the closest temple...

This week I got a package from Fernanda and Tiago (pictured above), from my last area.  It had a bunch of chocolates and stuff in it!  It was an unexpected surprise!(We are all so grateful for thoughtful members such as these two, who are so kind and thoughtful to our son while he there in Brazil)

Hope you guys have a great week!  Love you!!!

 - Elder Peterson