11/22/2010 My First Baptism!

Well, I had my first baptism this week! It was a neat experience. I baptized a 12 year old boy named Luciano. He´s a little special needs and has learning difficulties, but he had been going to church for a little while and was really liking it. The baptism was a super good thing for him. Because he´s a little slow, its easy for him to get tricked into doing bad things, so with friends in the church, he´ll be much better off, and will be led on the right course. It was really fun teaching him. At the same time that we baptized him, my district also baptized a family. This family was awesome. They weren´t married before, but because they had really strong testimonies of the church they got married and now the whole family is really active in the church. When Luciano saw them get baptized first, he got kind of nervous. He was afraid of the water and said, ´I´m not going to do that...´ I told him, ´You´ll only be in the water for a second. I´ll make sure we do it right the first time so we don´t have to repeat it.´ When I baptized him everything went perfect. I put him deep in the water just to make sure, but then afterwards Elder Cook asked, ´Did his arms come up? I was just watching the feet´ and I just said, ´It was good! We don´t need to repeat it!´ The baptism was all around good.
A few people have been asking me for a cool story about a miracle or something on the mission, but right now it´s kind of hard for me to think of anything. I haven´t had any close calls getting hit by cars yet, or crazy conversion stories. The work is just moving along. I´m really thankful to be out here serving. We had a few weeks this transfer without investigators coming to church, but this week we had 6 or 7.T hat was a blessing. Transfers are this week, but I´m thinking I will stay here in Mamanguape for one more transfer. President Hall told me that Mamanguape needs a pianist.
I have photos from the baptism, but they´re on a different camera and they´re not loading up right. i have a couple photos of my Christmas melon that I made though.
One thing I can tell you for sure about mission work is that it changes peoples lives. When someone really has a testimony, they´ll do whatever it takes to follow Christ´s example. Everyday we invite people to ask God if the church is true, and the change is amazing after they receive this answer. The family that was baptized this week was a great example. They live 30 minutes from the church, and they´re the only family in their city that are members, but every week the whole family finds a way to church without a car, and they´re making changes like getting married, and baptized and confirmed. President Hall came to the branch this Sunday to help confirm them. You can just tell by looking at them that they´re happier now, and their family is stronger too. You´ll always be happier when you´re living how you know is right.
I love you guys, and I hope everything goes well with Thanksgiving, I wish I was there! But not really. I know it´s more important for me to be here right now. I´ll think of you when I´m eating rice and beans and chicken.

Love, Elder Forsyth

11/15/2010

Hey!

We´ve been working super hard this week, but we haven´t seen much improvement in our area. We walked to 10 peoples houses Sunday morning, and none came to church.It´s really bad when you don´t get people to church, and we really haven´t brought an investigator to church in 3 weeks. It´s really frustrating, but I´ll just stay patient, and do what I can.

With one new investigator, we taught the first lesson, then taught him how to pray, then asked him if he would pray for us before we left. He said sure. Usually our investigators need help their first time praying, so we speak and they repeat, but this man said he didn´t need that. We kneeled, and he started to pray. It was a really quiet mumble, and it started getting quieter and quieter until it stopped. We kneeled for 5 minutes, then Elder Cook asked, still praying? he nodded yes. 5 more minutes of silence later we asked again, finished? He shook no. We were on our knees 10 more minutes after that waiting, then Elder Cook just said, AMEN. And the investigator also said, amen...whew.... we had been on our knees for 20 minutes, and I think the whole time he had been waiting for us to finish his prayer.O ur knees were sore afterwards.

the other night we were walking home and walked past a hooker in the street. she said she was willing to give me a deal because i´m tall, thin, white, and hansome (her words not mine). her price was 2 reais. that´s equal to a dollar. it was kinda gross. i didn´t realize you could get an STD for so cheap. needless to say, we joked about the experience for the rest of the week.

Today we didn´t get much of a p-day because we had to clean the church with the elders quorum. I have a few photos from that, but I think I´ll send them next week.

I love you guys, and I´m thankful for all your emails and letters and prayers. It really means a lot to me. I haven´t heard much from any of my friends in Pleasant Grove. I don´t have any of your email addresses, or normal addresses, so shoot me a line, and i´ll definitely reply.

Love, Elder Forsyth

11/8/2010

Mom told me not to kick any frogs, but I didn´t get the email until it was too late. It was super funny though. It was pretty late at night, and there was a huge frog in the road. This frog was a little bigger than both my fists put together. Elder Lima and Elder Souza were walking in about 30 feet in front of me, and I just nailed this frog. It went spinning in the air like a helicopter, then hit Elder Souza in the back! In the moment, it was so funny! The frog hopped away, but I couldn´t stop laughing for 30 minutes straight. I´ll try not to kick any more frogs.

This week was Elder Cook's birthday. We made him pancakes and eggs for breakfast, then we had a festa with cake and ice cream a couple days later. I´ll attach some pics.

Man, the other day we had a weird lesson. The day was kinda slow, and so we were doing door to door contacts. Some lady who was totally plastered opened the door and invitied us in. I said, dude, this chick is totally wasted (in English so the lady wouldn´t hear), and Elder Cook said, I know, but we can still teach them! I said, I guess you´re right, but you´re nuts... it was basically an excuse to get out of the sun for a few minutes. We sat down and started talking with this lady. She had a husband home who was even more drunk. We started teaching the 3rd lesson, which is about the gospel of Christ. (faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, endure to the end). It was tough because they kept rambling about weird things, but in the end we invited them to come to church. The lady said, I like my church, because we can drink if we want, we can smoke if we want, we can do this if we want, we can do that if we want.... I was about to say, ´ você pode ir para inferno se você quer...` you can translate that online if you want, but I think you can catch my drift.

I still haven´t had much luck in the area of baptism yet. Nildinho still won´t come to church, and Rafael, who I though was really great, is talking with different pastors now, who are totally ruining our work. It's annoying. I know that all the other churches have part of the truth, but really, as a missionary I´m finding that every other church is just a stumbling block on the true road to salvation. It's frustrating, but you can´t do much about it. Our other investigators are doing well. I´ll just continue working hard. The language is coming along still. I´m comfortable talking with people, but I still get lost a lot if the conversation isn´t about the church.

I love you guys, and i hope you have a great week.

love, Elder Forsyth

11/1/2010

I´ve finally got a few photos to send you. we took these last night.

Halloween was pretty fun. We all dressed up like missionaries and went to church. We have 3 investigators ready for baptism, but none of them came today. With any luck we´ll baptize Nildinho, Rafael, and Maria José this next week. I hope so anyway. We´ve been trying with Nildinho for more than a month now. He just needs to show up for his own baptism, but he keeps blowing us off. I need to find out what his problem is. I feel like the missionaries in my area aren´t very good at finding people's problems and solving them. Instead, if an investigator has a problem they get dropped because we have a lot of other people here who will hear our message. Right now our messages are really rehearsed. Partially because of the language barrier, but even the Brazilians just spew out rehearsed messages. That´s not preaching my gospel at all, and I´ll work on changing that. Lessons are supposed to be personal to the investigator, unique to their situation. I was talking to Elder Jay about this. Elder Jay spent 2 months in Texas waiting for a visa, so he knows a lot more about what teaching by the spirit means. He doesn´t know the language yet though, so when I had to go on a split with him it was kinda tough. All of the leaders had training, so I was left with Elder Jay who only has 3 weeks in Brazil. It was fun though. I learned a lot from him. We taught by the spirit, even though we weren´t great at the language.

Yesterday was the end of presidential elections here. There were huge parties in the streets, so we came home 30 minutes early. The elections here are nuts.

Lost in translation: here are just a few things that are a little weird about the language:

when they say push (puxe), they really mean pull
assistir=attend
attender=assist...more or less confusing.

I´d like to thank the family for the things they sent this week. I liked the pictures from the baptism, and of Halloween. Dad´s grouch costume was great :) I can´t believe a term of school is already over.... I haven´t been on a mission that long yet. I still feel like I´m the new guy here, having problems with the language and all. I guess I have been here a while though. Estou pensando en Portugues já, and I´m starting to dream in Portuguese a little bit, but I can´t tell when I am because Portuguese doesn´t feel like a foreign language anymore. It just feels like an accent. It´s weird to describe. I never thought learning a language would feel like this. Sometimes it´s a little strange after a day of only Portuguese to speak a little English, because a lot of little filler words from Portuguese slip into the English, like ainda (still/yet), and já (already), and sempre(always), and assim (likewise? it doesn´t translate directly all the time). Yeah, so just so you know the language is coming along. Most of the people I talk to say they weren´t as far along as me after one transfer, but still it´s tough and frustrating. I just want to be fluent already.

Elder Cook is a goob. I like him a lot as a companion and a friend. He´s from Idaho, but he only speaks Portuguese :) because of this I've been learning a lot faster, and I´m thankful. He´s a drummer like me, and he was on a pro jump rope team. He´s the blondie in the pics. We talk a lot in the streets, and work really hard. I wish my trainer would have been more like Elder Cook, but things happen for a reason. I feel like here every problem is literally a test from our heavenly father. When I´m done with one problem I move on to another, and from every problem I lean something new, and adjust my personality a little bit to be more like Christ. I love being able to take all my worldly problems and see the spiritual side of them.

Sorry if I´m starting to ramble a little bit. I feel like I had a little extra time today to write. Maybe this computer wasn´t as slow as my others. I love you guys, and I hope if you have any questions for me that you will ask. I´ve almost hit the 4 month mark of my mission! That means I´m 1/6 of the way done. I don´t know how it is at home, but for me things are going by really fast. I love you all!

Love, Elder Forsyth