You're going to be jealous!

I´ll get to why you´re going to be jealous in a sec.

I love my new comp! We talk a lot in the street, and are getting to be good friends. His name is Elder Mike Cook. He´s from Idaho Falls. He plays the drums like me, and he´s on a professional jumprope team too. I´m not sure exactly what that means, but he says he can do some cool things with a jump rope. Whatev..haha. I haven´t really heard him speak English yet. This whole week we´ve spoken only in Portuguese, and it´s helping my language skills so much. Just because of this week I´m thinking in Portuguese now. I feel like I´m getting stupid though, because all of my thoughts have become really simple; only using the words I know. When I do speak in English I accidentally substitute Portuguese words in a lot. It´s exciting. I´m learning so fast. I can almost literally see changes daily in my confidence in speaking the language. It shouldn´t be long until I start dreaming in Portuguese. We´ll have to see how that goes.

As the saying goes, you don´t know what you´ve got until it´s gone. It turns out that with Elder Snow I had a pretty trunky missionary. In Brazil we have a word, ´fubeca´, I think that's how you spell it. It basically means a lazy missionary. With Elder Cook I´ve been working way harder, and it feels great. Within two days we talked to the same number of investigators I had for 6 weeks with Elder Snow, plus we made a ton of contacts. I´m almost positive that we will baptize this transfer. Probably a family or two. I think it´s pretty rare in our mission to go a whole transfer without baptizing, but that's what happened with Elder Snow. We still have one boy, Nildinho, ready for baptism, but he didn´t come to church again this week. We´ll have to try AGAIN next week. It´s been a solid month I think of trying to get him to come to church. The problem is that he wants more friends to come with him. I think we can bring all his friends to church next week. That would be super nice, because then his friends could see his baptism and join the church too.

Although Nildinho didn´t come to church, we did get one other lady, and I was so impressed by the members. They took her to all the meetings and sat by here and were way friendly! You don´t see that everyday with the members here. I bet Amber can testify of that. We can probably continue to teach this lady through the week, and maybe baptize her next Sunday if things go right with all the commandments. I don´t know if she is married or not.

Funny story/sad story- we were walking down the street and there was a big frog in the road. Elder Cook said, "Have you ever seen a frog fly before?" I said, "Nope" and then he kicked the frog. It flew way up high in the air spinning like a helicopter, then landed about 100 feet away. I started to laugh really hard, and asked, "Why did you do that?" and he said, "Frogs never die. You can do what ever you want to them and they´ll always hop away." We walked up to the frog he kicked, and he said it would still be alive, but it was pancaked flat in the dirt with its legs sprawled out. I started to laugh even more. I don´t know why. He said, "Oh, it´s just knocked out. It will jump away later." and then we walked away. I don´t think my moms will like this story. sorry...

alright. so now i can tell you why you´re going to be way jealous.

ready?

Elder David A Bednar came to my mission today. He came to Joao Pessoa and we had a training with him. It was so cool! I was sitting on the second row of a chapel listening to a prophet speak! He asked us questions about learning by faith, and then we got to ask him questions. He was funny and nice, and gave some great council. He said when we ask the Lord for things, we need to ask with the intent to act. He gave a lot of examples that were great, and he bore a firm testimony that the Father and Son live, that they have tangible bodies of flesh and bone. I know that he is a special witness of Christ.

I too have a testimony that this work is true. Ben said he liked how Amber and I tag on mini testimonies at the end of letters. I didn´t always recognize I was doing it, but here, no matter who we talk to, we bear testimony of a truth, and commit them to do something. Like go to church, or read the Book of Mormon. I hope that you will all follow the council of Elder Bednar. Pray with intent to act. A lot of times we pray for answers then wait for them to appear. This is hypocrisy and shows lack of faith. Our prayers will be answered as we diligently try to seek out the answers.

I love you, and hope you have a great week. sorry i don´t have photos again.

love, Elder Forsyth

Letter of Oct 11, 2010

Not a ton has happened since I last wrote, but I´ll try to find some cool things to tell you about, and I´ll try to send a video.

In my house we have some gecos that live with us. They´re pretty cool.

I made up my own recipe for banana pancakes. They turned out well, and I made a lot of pancakes this morning :) They were delicious. Thanks Mom Annette for getting me that mapoline stuff.

I don´t think Brazilians have that much ingenuity. They copy a lot of stuff from the states. All their music and movies are pirated from the us, and if its not a direct copy, then its an American song turned salsa with Portuguese lyrics. It´s funny. All their shirts have English on them, but a lot of the time the words are spelled wrong. One of our investigators, Nildinho (nil-gene-yo) has a shirt with a soccer ball on it that says `word cup`. I think its funny, but he doesn´t have a clue.

We were going to baptize Nildinho this week, but he didn´t come to church again :( It makes me sad. I might get transferred next week, and I want to have at least one convert before I go. We have 3 people who would be eligible for baptism if they would just make the decision. We have a grandma and an 18 year old boy praying about baptism right now. I think we´ll baptize the 18 year old and Nildinho this next week. I´m good friends with both of them. The grandma has only heard one lesson, but she watched conference last week and enjoyed it, so if she decides to be baptized we can teach all the lessons and have it ready for next week.

This week my district leader invited all the missionaries to bear their testimonies. I was up by the organ, so I raced to the pulpit and bore mine first. I said, `Meu nome é elder Fôrçai. So um missionario novo. Eu tenho 3 mezes no Brazil. Estou aprendendo a lingua agora. Esta dificil, mas eu se que por nossos provaçãos podemos crecer e aprender. Eu se que a igresia é verdideira, e que o livro de mormon é verdideiro tambem. Eu se que por oração podemos receber força, e que por obediencia podemos receber bensãos e voltar viver com Deus de novo. este é meu testimunho no nome de Jesus Cristo. Amen.´

This time my testimony felt different. I wasn't saying what I believed, I was just stating true facts; like there wasn´t a question in my mind. It felt good. Afterwards an RM bore testimony that the gift of tongues exists and used me as an example. The members were really impressed with me and wanted to shake my hand and congratulate me. I felt really good. I know that God could have allowed me to learn Portuguese instantly, but he had something else he wanted to teach me, like patience. After I bore my testimony I got the feeling that I´ve learned what I needed to learn from this trial, and that things are going to start to get better now. I´m becoming more confident in the language. I contribute to conversations from time to time, even though I don´t always understand completely what´s going on. I think things are going to start improving really fast now.

I hope the video I´m uploading works. It´s just a 20 second clip in my room. I didn´t take any cool new photos this week. Next week will be a new transfer, so I should have a lot to talk about. I´ll probably have a new companion. Maybe a Brazilian one. Who knows. I love you all a lot. Thanks for your letters and prayers. If you have any questions for me be sure to let me know!

Love,

Elder Forsyth

Letter of Oct 4,2010

This week has been fine. I received a couple of letters from siblings which made me super happy. I saw most of conference, except priesthood. I saw it in English and I loved it a lot; especially a couple of President Uchdorf's quotes. I´m sure a lot of you are wondering right now what this story has to do with airplanes... I laughed so hard. Before the talk I placed a bet with Elder Lima that he would say the word airplane in his talk, and that quote was the first time he said airplane and I cracked up. I also liked when he was talking about fundamentals, and lost his voice, and he said, "My voice is one of the fundamental things I must have!"

Transfers are over in 2 weeks. Today I´m making rootbeer and pancakes because we only have one p day left. I think my trainer and I will get split up next transfer, so this couple weeks will be my last with him. Either he´ll go or I will. Do you guys have a good pancake recipe? Even if you do I dont know if I would have the ingredients. I couldn't find baking soda or corn syrup. My pancakes will be flour, butter, milk, sugar, and whatever else I can throw in. Maybe bananas. Wish me luck. I hope they turn out. If they taste crappy I´ll just cover them in home made syrup and I´m pretty sure at least that will taste good.

I love you guys. I´m uploading some photos; from the statue last week and just random stuff. self explanatory I think. The spell check on this computer is in Portuguese, so it marks every word in English wrong. I hope my spelling isn´t that bad.

Not much else has happened this week. We were going to baptize Nildinho, but he didn´t come to conference. Next time he comes to church we can baptize him I think, but right now it doesn´t look like he will be very active. We have another investigator that looks promising though. His name is Rafael. He came to almost every session of conference. He knows a lot about the Bible, and wants to be a missionary, but we´ve only taught him the restoration, and he thinks he´s already been baptized. We have a lot to teach him, but he lives 40 minutes away walking, so every teaching appointment is usually a 3 hour commitment. We´ll see how things go. I want to have at least one solid convert this transfer. I feel like once I know the language I´ll convert everybody! I want so bad to be the best missionary, but I have to learn a lot of things first. I´ll try my best, and try to be an example of diligence and patience. Over the the past few weeks I´ve gained an increased testimony of the Book of Mormon. This book is true, and no one will ever disprove it. I think it's funny when people claim its false, because their claims are so ridiculous. If anyone reading this has any doubt about the Book of Mormon, I want them to ask me, or better yet ask God. The Book of Mormon is the most important book in this life, because if you know the Book of Mormon is true, then you know Joseph Smith was true, and that the true church of Christ was restored. And with that comes a testimony that Christ is our Savior, and that through him all is possible, even immortality and eternal life. I hope you all enjoyed my testimony this week. Continue to write. I love you. My time is up now, so until next week! Love, Elder Forsyth