7/11/11

Hey All!

This week was a little stressful, but everthing ended up turning out great.

We had interviews with President Hall. He only said good things to me. He´s proud of my consistancy, and said that he doesn´t ever worry about the things I´m doing. Sometimes I want to stand out a little more, but being the quiet one that stays out of trouble can be good too...

We had a baptism this week; A really nice girl named Roniele. The church will really change her life, and I´m so excited and proud of her! We invited her and her brother to go to church last week, but only she came by herself. We asked her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, and the next day she had a dream where she was dressed in white, going into the water! I thought that was so crazy but cool! We hadn´t even taught her about baptism yet. She is definitely elect, and the bapism happened without any snags. I sent a picture.

We had a conference in Mamanguape this past Sunday. I got to see a ton of old friends there. I found a lady who I taught for 4 months, who was never bapised, but who was bapised after I left. She´s still going to church every week!

I´m doing really well here, just working really hard. If you guys have any other questions, don´t be afraid to ask. I always tell my investigators, "I love questions!" It´s hard to teach someone for 30 minutes when they don´t have any curiosity about the subject.

Keep choosing the right. I´m praying for you guys!
Love, Elder Forsyth

Happy Independence Day!

hey all :)

This week was pretty stressful, but I´m pulling through..hahaha...

Flavia told us this week that she doesn´t want to talk to us anymore. We don´t know what happened yet, or why she changed her mind. We´re letting her cool off for a little while first. She had everything ready to be baptised. We even did the interview, but then she rejected everything. Usually when people reject us, it´s because they don´t understand something, or they have a problem with the commandments. I think she feels embarrased to be seen with us, and doesn´t want to leave her party lifestyle. :(

We had another baptism marked for this Sunday of a 12 year old girl, Bia. She´s great, and a lot of fun to talk to, but she also got cold feet the Saturday before the baptism. She still likes talking to us, and still went to church this sunday. We just need to discover her problem. I think it lies with the parents. We´ll talk to them this week.

We worked like crazy this week though! We taught 47 lessons, whereas the mission goal is 25. I couldn´t believe it. We had 10 people at church, but all of them were young women and primary kids. We need to find more men to help out this branch. The problem is that every man has 5 kids, and is addicted to something, and isn´t married, so with every man we find, we only baptise his kids.... it's a little retarded, but we´ll keep working.

Elder Galvez baptised a man this week in the ward. It took 5 tries, and the man amost drowned, and it scared all the investigators who were there, but he finally got it. Our District Leader wants to practice performing baptisms this weeek to help out Elder Galvez. I don´t know if that's sacreligous, but we´ll do it without saying the prayer first I think... maybe I´ll get to go swimming in the baptismal font for district meeting... :P I´m kidding, but who knows....

I´m glad to hear that everyone is doing well at home. I love you guys, and be safe with the fireworks. Happy 4th!

Love, Elder Forsyth

6/27/11

Oi Familia,

This week is São João. Its a big Catholic holliday here in Brazil, and it's even bigger here in the north. During this holiday, everyone makes camp fires in the street (with tons of smoke, we return home way stinky, and hardly breathing), play with fireworks (or bombs), they eat lots of corn, and they square dance (Brazilian style). So far I´ve really liked the holiday. We had a little party at the church, and our investigators really liked it. All of them said afterwards that they would go to church on Sunday, but none of them went, because they went to other parties...:P

This week was really bad for things falling through. We interviewed flavia, and had everything ready for the baptism, but then she went to the beach with her family during church. We had 20 people ready to go to church this Sunday, but then all of them had things come up. Tita was almost a month without drinking, and then this week he started to drink again... last night I came home exhausted, and overall dissapointed with our investigators. I didn´t know what else to do to help them. We went to visit Tita, and he was in his room crying, "Please just help me stop drinking!!! I need your help!!!" but we really couldn´t do anything to help while he was drunk. He gathered us all together, and he said a prayer to have strength to stop drinking, and then started to cry again when we had to leave. It made me want to cry too. He´s trying soo hard to stop drinking. He´s asking for help, praying, and going to church, but he´s still not succeeding. I think that just because of the that one experience with Tita, I´ll never drink in my life, and I don´t want anyone in my family to drink.

We saw an old man on the back of a motorcycle. The motorcycle stopped in front of us and we realized that the old man was falling off backwards. He almost fell on his head, but we ran up to him and caught him before he fell. It was really funny, and it was good that they stopped in front of us, or else he probably would have died. He too was drunk...

I taught some other drunk guys this week who do Macumba. Macumba is a crazy type of religion here where they beat drums and pray to statues and curse people. I think it's a little like voodoo. They let me play their drum, and showed me all of their statues. They gave me some crab to eat, and it probably wasn´t the smartest thing to eat, but I ate it anyway... and I´m still alive. I don´t think we have much of a chance to convert any of them, but it was still a cool experience to see what they believed, and I think we´ll talk with some of their neighbors and families this week.

The one really good thing that happened this week was that we had a baptism yesterday. It was an 18 year old kid named Joel. He´s awesome, and his family is really neat. He was a reference from a member. When church started he wasnt there, but then we went and got him during Sunday School, and baptised him after sacrament. He´s my first convert baptism as a senior, and now I feel like I´m really doing my job as a missionary. We´re starting to show some results for all the work that we´re doing.

I´m still excited in this work. We´re happy, and healthy, and learning a lot of cool things. I love you guys a lot, and I hope you never worry about me, because I´m having the time of my life right now, and I wouldn´t trade it for anything. Have a great week, and keep choosing the right!

Love, Elder Forsyth

Happy Father's Day

Hey All!

Happy Fathers Day Dad!

This week we did a lot of cool things :) I´m trying to upload some photos for you.

We went to the beach. it really wasn´t on on the beach, but it was close. I saw the ocean for the first time! I even saw a monkey :P

We had a baptism this week. It wasn´t a convert, but I still felt really good about it. He is a child of a member that we re-activated. He is 8 years old, so he was the wards baptism. I still felt super good in helping him get baptised.

We recieved the transfer yesterday. I´m staying here again with Elder Ferreira. I´ll probaly stay here until November. I don´t have any reason to leave.

The work is going really well. We didn´t have any convert baptisms this transfer, but we have tons of people ready to be baptised next transfer. There should be lots. We have a lot of friends here that we´re helping a lot.

Tita didn´t drink this week, and he didn´t smoke for 2 days. We brought a cake to his house to celebrate. He was so happy :) He´s progressing a lot.

Flavia disappeared on the day of her baptism. We still need to talk to her to see what went wrong.

I love you guys a lot. I´m thankfull for all you do, and all your examples in my life.

Love, Elder Forsyth

6/13/11

Hey All!

I recieved letters this week :) that made me feliz demais. I got both of Amber's letters, journal paper from mom, some letters from the grandparents, and a birthday present from Cam, and a few others things. Thanks so much!

I´m doing really good. We´re teaching a man named Tita who is quitting drinking and smoking. When he stops smoking we´ll see how he does with the law of chastity. He´s been to church he last two weeks though, and he´s really liking it. We visit him every day to see how the smoking is going. We had 8 people at church yesterday and 3 of them were men! I feel like all the work from the last few weeks is finally beginning to pay off. We even have a baptism marked for next week.

Dad asked me about Elder Ferreira. He´s a grea missionary. He´s been in the field for 5 months, and is doing awesome. He speaks well, and teaches well. He´s obediente, and I really haven´t had any problems with him. Sometimes he´s a little more serious than I am, but we still like to joke around, and we smile and joke around a lot. He´s from Sao Paulo, and is a recent convert. I think he has almost 2 years in the church. His parents were always members, but they were inactive for a long time after they got divorced. His mom is active now, and it seems like his dad is returning too.

We met another girl named Flavia this week who is interested in the church. She´s 18 years old. She went to church yesterday. We´ll have to teach her a few things this week about missionary work and the law of chastity. I hope she will still want to know more when we´re done.... it could be a touchy subject. Everyone in the street tells us that she really likes to party, but as long as she keeps reading the Book of Mormon and going to church, we´ll keep teaching her.

Thanks again for all your letters and prayers. I love you, and I´m almost out of time now, so have a great week!

Love, Elder Forsyth

6/6/11

hey all :)

So, if you guys had difficulty pronouncing Mamanguape chances are you´re having troubles with Canguaretama too. They´re Indian names. I still don´t know what they mean, but maybe Amber can help you out :P

This week was great. We worked really hard, and time flew by super fast. I feel like we´ve finally opened the area. We´ve got investigators now, people going to church, and we even have a baptism marked for next Sunday. We´ll have to see how that goes though. This man is a heavy drinker, and smoker, and does other drugs, but he wants to quit everything and start a new life through baptism. As long as he has this strong desire, we´ll be right there to help him out, but if not, then there is nothing we can do for him.

I´ve decided that for the most part, a mission is all about trying to help people who don't want to be helped. Everyday we make contacts in the streets, talking with everyone, just trying to find someone who wants to recieve our help...

We have found some good people though. We had 5 people to church this week. Some of them look pretty promising. We had one man, Wilson, who already read all of 1st Nephi. He couldn´t go to church this week, but he walked all the way to the church to tell us so that we wouldn´t sit there waiting. He´s really nice, and I can see a lot of potential in him. He´s firm in another church though, so everything rides on his testimony of the Book of Mormon.

I can´t think of much else that happened this week. I´m just way happy to see everyone at home having fun. I can´t believe that I´ve almost been in the field for a year now! Just one more year and I´ll be home going on vacations too.

Thanks for all your letters, and pictures and prayers. I love you all a lot. I´ll keep working hard here for now, and do my best to not get too trunky.

The church is true, and makes people happy!

Love, Elder Forsyth

5/30/11

Oi todo mundo!

This week was pretty great. It flew by super fast. We've been working a lot trying to find new people to teach. We taught more than 27 lessons this week, and found 26 new people, but still we didn´t have any investigators at church. We´ll have to keep working and see what we can do.

The good news is that we reactivated 5 people who haven´t been to church in a long time. One lady hadn´t been to church for over 2 years, but now she´s come the last 2 Sundays in a row by herself. I feel like she´ll stay firm in the church this time. It makes me happy seeing people's testimonies grow. So many missionaries just think about bapisms, and not about enduring till the end, but I know that baptism is just one of our purposes as a missionary.

In our searching for investigators this week, we came across some crazies. We went to a crippled ladies house, who is probably 4 feet tall. We asked her who could say the opening prayer, and she said that she could. It turned out that this woman had a very different idea about prayer than we did, because next thing I knew she had stood up, put her hand on my head and started to sway back and forth and yell, "DEAR JESUS! I KNOW THAT THESE ARE YOUR SERVANTS, BLESS THEM! HALALUJA! GLORY TO GOD!....." It was hard for me to stay reverent, but this kind of thing happens sometimes in our lessons... we were going to share the message of the resoration, but after that I just shared a verse, and Elder Ferreira said a reverent closing prayer and we left. I don´t know what kind of priesthood she used, but her blessing made me feel a little more happy and laughing afterwards. I don´t think we´ll return for a little while. She´s a wonderful lady, but...yeah...

Another drunk man in the street started speaking a little English and Spanish with us. In Spanish he said, "You guys are very HOT :)" Then we said, "Uh, we can still understand you.." and he got embarassed.

I can´t think of much else we did this week. Elder Ferreira is turning 20 today. We´ll have a party tonight for him :P I´ll try to take some pictures for you guys. I love you, and I´m glad that you guys are all having fun now that summer is here. For me, it´s been summer for a little over a year now, so I´ll be excited for when I can see snow again. Winter 2012.

Choose the right, and be an example

Love, Elder Forsyth

5/23/11

Hey everyone,

Wow, this week has been tough... I got a call Monday saying that I would be transfered, and then on Wednesday I packed up and left. I was called to open an area in Canguaretama, which is in Rio Grande do Norte, and in the zone, Mamangape. I´ve come back to the zone where I was born! The city is much smaller than João Pessoa, and a little bit more inland, but I´m really liking the city.

With the unexpected transfer, I was called to be senior companion. My new comp is awesome :) He´s from São Paulo, and he´s been in the mission for 5 months. He is obedient, and teaches really well, and speaks Portuguese excellently :) I´ll learn a lot from him.

Opening an area has been a little tough these last couple days. My first day here I was way excited to just get out and make contacts, but then it rained the whole day and there wasn´t anyone in the streets so we just got soaked. The next day was good though. In the last 4 days we taugh 27 new people, and we´re going to start separating the wheat from the tares this week. It's a lot of work, but the time just flys by like crazy when we work like this. I´m so glad that today is P-day, but at the same time, today is going to fly by super fast too...

The area that I´m opening used to be open before, but President closed it when we were lacking missionaries. There used to be 4 elders in this city, then there were two, and now there are 4 again. The other two elders here are nice. One is Brazilian, and one is American, but looks Hispanic. He doesn´t speak Spanish though. The four of us live together in a really big, nice, house. The nicest house I´ve seen in the mission. The only thing it doesn´t have is 4 beds. I´m sleeping on a mattress on the ground, but we´ll get beds soon.

I´ll have to send photos next week and I´ll keep you updated on the work here too. I love you guys, and I know that the church is true, and that we recieve blessings when we do the Lords will.

Have a great week! Love, Elder Forsyth

5/16/11

Oi Familia,


I know that transfers just happened last week, but it looks like they´re happening again this week. My comp got a call today saying that he´s going to train at the end of the week, and I´ll have to leave. I was really liking my area, and my comp, but I guess I have to be willing to do whatever the Lord wants of me while I´m serving him. I´ll look foreward to the changes, and let you know how they go next week. I still don´t know where I´m going, who my comp will be, or what my calling will be, so I´ll fill you in later.


This week was a little stressful with transfers. The first half of the week we didn´t get to work, because of all the changes that were happening, and the second half of the week we worked overtime to get all of our goals for the week. The good news is that Elder Jacoboski is a worker who is efficient and knows how to preach the gospel. We made tons of contacts this week and taught a ton of lessons, and I learned a lot of things. It would be nice to stay a little longer with Jacoboski, but I can´t...


It's good to hear that everything is going well at home. It sounds stressfull, but everyone is alive, and summer will be here soon, or winter for me... it's getting more rainy everyday, and a little colder. But who knows what it will be like in my next area. I could go interior where it´s still really really hot.


Keep me updated on your lives. I´ll be sure to include all the cool stories I find here on the mission when I find them. This week just went by super fast though. Choose the right, and follow the Holy Ghost.


Love, Elder Forsyth

5/11/11

Oi Familia!

This week was a good week. I got to baptise Ingred, and talk to you guys, and the transfers just came last night, so there are going to be a lot of changes in the mission.

Ingred had to move to another city a few hours away from mine, so I´ll probably never see her again, or at least I won´t see her for a long time.

So the transfer... on Monday we got a call saying that Elder Simpson was training, so we went home, and I packed all my bags, and said goodbye to a few people. Elder Simpson got super nervous about being called to train and started getting really sick, so we went home early, and I finished packing, and we got ready for bed. I asked him, " You´ve got to go pick up a new missionary tomorrow, so where am I going to go while you´re there?" He called the assistants to find out, and they said that actually, Elder Forsyth is staying in the area, and Elder Simpson is going to train and open an area at the same time. Elder Simpson was not happy. It was already too late to pack his bags, and he was sick, so I gave him a blessing and we went to bed. In the morning we got up, packed his bags, and went to the mission office. I had to wait with the zone leaders all day to hear about the rest of the transfer. When the transfer call came, I found out that I´m staying in my area with Elder Jacoboski. He´s Brazilian, and is almost finished with his mission. I think he was almost called AP, but he chose to go from Zone leader to District leader and be my companion. So I´ll learn a TON from him this transfer. He has a lot more experience than me, and he´ll teach me the language perfectly. I´m excited. From what I hear, his last area was really really hard, and he got stressed out, and so now President is giving him an easier area to let him relax. I still haven´t met him yet, so I´ll let you know on monday how things are with him.

I´m happy though. It will be good to be junior for one more transfer. I feel like I´m learning tons in this part of my mission. Thanks for all your love and prayers. I´ll talk to you more on monday!

Love, Elder Forsyth