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

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

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.