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

missão celestial!‏

Things haven't changed much since I last wrote. The language is still hard. Now I can recognize most of the words people say to me, but still they don´t have much meaning. I have to translate them into English in my head before I can feel their meaning. I´ll keep working hard. Right now I´m a sponge immersed in Brazilians. I think I smell like a Brazilian now. I don´t think it's a bad smell; it´s just a unique smell. I think it comes from eating rice and beans every day. You begin to sweat it out through your skin.

I had a cool experience with prayer the other day. It was about 7pm, and Elder Snow and I were trying to get to Rio Tinto to meet with our district leader. You either need to ride a bus, or find a driver to pay, or take a taxi, or hitch hike; usually you try to find a ride in that order. This night, the buses weren´t coming around, and we couldn´t find a driver or a taxi, so we were trying hard to hitch hike or something. We didn´t know what we were going to do. After about 20 minutes at the bus stop looking for rides, I said, "Elder Snow, keep your eyes open, I´m going to pray." Then after I prayed a tour bus came around the corner. It was a nice one with air conditioning and soft reclining seats, and they let us ride to Rio Tinto for free. I was smiling for an hour after that.

Today we went to a big statue in our zone. It was of a Catholic friar I think. If I can, I´ll try later tonight to send pictures. It was a pretty cool thing.

I hope everyone enjoys conference. I´m really excited for it because I think I might get to see it in English. I miss English. I just haven´t had a good conversation in English in a realllly long time. All of my conversations are just what needs to be said. They're never profound or personal. I feel like I would be a great missionary if I could just learn the language! Right now I´m putting in a lot of work, and not getting much to show for it, but I know the blessing are coming soon. If the blessings aren´t coming to Brazil, then they´re probably going to my family back home, so keep your eyes out for them! I love you all. Thanks for your letters and your love.

Mamanguape

:) Mamanguape is a cool area :) I´m enjoying it. It´s pretty hot, but not unbearable. All of the roads are either dirt or paved with stone. My first few days here it rained quite a bit, but my companion, Elder Snow, said that it doesn´t rain here very often. I´ve seen tons of plant and animals here. Everything is green, and there are tons of stray cats and dogs. I´ve seen a lot of lizards, frogs, cows, horses, goats chickens, and birds. So far all of the people here have been really accepting of our message, but Elder Snow says its not always like that; we´ve just had a lucky streak lately I guess. We teach a few lessons everyday, and right now we have a lot of investigators, but it´s tough to get them to come to church. This week we tried getting all of our investigators to come, but we only got a handful of kids, which made us a half hour late. One of the kids brought a puppy with him, which was frustrating. We tried tying it up outside the church, but it just cried, so we sent him into primary and then gave his dog away to another family up the street that looked like they would really take care of it. I don´t think puppies are too hard to come by here, and the boy wasn´t sad that we gave his dog away.

The language here is a lot harder than I expected. People in the north talk especially fast, and have an accent that I don´t recognize. I´m practicing a lot, but it will be a while before I can communicate well. I just don´t talk very much right now. I have a little memorized part that I share in each lesson about the restoration, then I let my companion do the rest. Right now there are elections in Brazil, so there are huge trucks with tons of speakers blasting music about the candidates driving around all the time. They are super loud and super annoying, and they always drive by at the worst times, like when you´re trying to teach an investigator how to pray, and you´re trying to whisper in his ear what to say next...

I got kinda jealous when I heard that Ben got to baptize someone before I did, so I made up for it this week by baptizing two people :P They weren´t people that I taught. They were converted by two Brazilians in my district, but they wanted me to do the ordinance. It was difficult, because the two men had really difficult names for me to pronounce, and I had to hurry and memorize the prayer in Portuguese. I kept trying to ask one of the men to step forward in the font, but he didn´t understand what was happening, and he was trying to dive into the water before I could say the prayer. It made me smile :) It's tough to baptize grown men in shallow water, but everything went fine, and it was a good experience for me.

Here they don´t usually eat three meals a day. The people with money usually only eat two, so we end up having huge lunches everyday. Yesterday at lunch I probably ate twice as much as I should have. I was stuffed, but I kept craving more food, so I kept eating. I think that's the definition of binging, but it felt really good. We get 150 reais twice a month to buy what we need. I think that's probably more than Amber, and the food here is pretty cheap. A good meal is probably 5 reais, and you can get more bread than you can eat for one meal.

I´m going to try to send some pictures of the MTC, and my first week in Mamanguape. The cartoon is of my instructors, and the other is of my whole district.

I'm a REAL Missionary now!

Well, for the past 9 weeks I´ve felt like a fake missionary. Fake contacting and fake lessons all day long. The last week in the MTC felt like one of the longest. We did our last fake lesson on Saturday, and that went well, and then on Monday we took a lot of pictures and said all of our goodbyes. It was sad to leave all my friends that I´d grown close to over the last two months. I think it was harder to leave some of them than to leave from Pleasant Grove, because all of my friends and family in Pleasant Grove I knew I would see again, but I don´t have that guarantee with any of my friends here in Brazil. Yesterday morning I got up at 5am and went to the airport at 6am. For breakfast I had a cold cheese and butter sandwich, and juice that tasted like melted popsicles :P I´m glad that I don´t have to eat the MTC food anymore. I flew with some Brazilians and Sister Olney, first to Recife, then to Joao Pessoa. The flight was actually pretty quiet. When we got to Joao Pessoa our president was there waiting. His name is President Hall, and he´s an amazing guy. Super friendly and very spiritual. He took us back to the mission office where we had grilled cheese and more juice, and we had some orientation. There I got my current companion. His name is Elder Snow. He´s 22, and he´s from Santaquin. He seems kinda shy, but he´s really nice, and he is going to teach me a lot. Pres. Hall said that Elder Snow is a special missionary, and he was inspired to pair me up with him for a specific purpose. I´ll keep my eyes open for what I need to learn. After orientation we went back to the President's house and had tacos :) Brazil doesn´t have tacos, so all the new missionaries, including the Brazilians, were pretty excited. We took pictures there, and had a short testimony meeting. I can´t wait until I can actually speak what I feel in Portuguese. I have so much more of a testimony than I can say. I feel like my testimony is growing daily, about tons of different aspects of the gospel.

After the testimony meeting we went back to the Moroni house. We had 28 elders sleeping there! It was pretty hot and humid. I slept on the balcony. This morning I got up and came to my zone. I´m living in Mamanguape. It's just 40 minutes north of Joao Pessoa. I feel like I'm inside the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. Plants grow everywhere, and its just all around a cool place. I´ll try to send pictures as soon as I can, but that might end up being Monday.

From now on my p-days are on Mondays and I have an hour to mail. It feels so nice to actually be able to write a full letter! and read a few emails too. I´ll let you all know as soon as I start baptizing people :) I love you all and hope you´re having great fall weather. It´s going to be between 80 and 100 degrees year round around here :P I´m enjoying it today though!

New mailing address as of Sept. 7th, 2010:

New mailing address as of Sept. 7th, 2010:

Elder Jacob Forsyth
Brazil Joao Pessoa Mission
% R. Deputado Jose' Mariz, 515
Tambauzinho
58042-020 Joao Pessoa - PB
Brazil

Last Week in Sao Paulo

Man, the MTC has been great, and I´ve learned a lot of things, but I´m kind of excited to leave. I´ve been sitting in the same classroom 8 hours a day for the past two months and I´m ready for a change :) Joao Pessoa is going to be so different in so many ways. There will be sun, and heat and I won´t be hanging out with 200 missionaries everyday; just one. There will probably be more bugs, and different food. I´m looking forward to walking around a lot more and losing the 20 pounds I put on here. I think the last time I weighed myself I was 177 pounds. I think I´ll loose it pretty quick though; especially if I get some sort of tape worm :P haha. I don´t think I will, but it could happen ya know.

This week we went into the middle of Sao Paulo and handed out Books of Mormon. It was a ton of fun. People here are really nice. I´m definitely not fluent in Portuguese, but I was able to have good conversations with everyone I met. Elder Anderson and I handed out 5 books and met a lot of nice people. Usually we start our all our conversations with, "Do you believe in Christ?", and they´ll always turn around at least to say, "yes", but the last man we talked to said "no", and it totally changed the direction of our conversation. He was interested to hear what we had to say about God and prophets and the bible and the Book of Mormon, and we ended up giving him a copy of our book. It was really cool. Today was our last p day, so I bought a few books at the temple, and a Brazil jersey up the street. I cant wait to see what cool things I´ll find in the north.

I want my brothers and sisters to write and tell me how school is going. Ben is the only one who has written me in 2 months! What is this! Thanks so much for your love and support. I´ll try my best to represent the family well here in Brazil, and I´ll try to make my next email more exciting! A lot will happen this week! I love you all lots.