3/21/2011

I know it´s been a while since I´ve sent any good pictures, but on the computers in this lan house, I can´t do anything. I´ll have to try something new this next week.

So, this week was pretty awesome. I think I told you last week that we brought two men to church that we could probably baptize. I´ll tell you now about one of these men, Carlos.

We met Carlos last Saturday, just a little more that a week ago. He was sitting outside his house, all alone. We went and made a contact, and asked him to come to church the next day. he accepted, but here in my mission everyone accepts and then gives a lame excuse when it´s time for church, so we weren´t expecting much. But the next day we passed by, and he was all ready, waiting outside his house for us :) We were super excited, and we went to church with him, and he loved it. He was a little nervous, because he wasn´t used to being around so many people, but it was still really great. We found out that he lived alone, and that his birthday was coming up, so the whole next week we visited him, taught all the lessons, and then on Friday we planned to finish up with the commandments, fill out his baptism form, and then have a birthday party for him to celebrate his 50th birthday. So we started teaching the commandments, and talking about the baptism questions, and we discovered that he had a lot of problems. He drank coffee, but that's easy though as he just has to promise to stop, which he did. He drank beer, but like coffee he just had to promise to stop, which he did. The last problem he had took us by surprise, and was a little harder to fix. Carlos was gay. This 50 year old man who lived alone, who was progressing so much in the gospel, and who was loving the church.... was gay. It kinda killed the birthday party we had planned. And when we started filling out his baptism form, looking at his date of birth we found out that it wasn´t even his birthday, but we didn´t say anything though, because we already had bought the cake and candles. He wanted to be baptized so badly though. He wanted to leave all his sins, and start a new life. He promised us he would stop being gay, but still it was a little more complicated than that. First he had to be interviewed by the zone leaders, then the zone leaders had to talk to the mission president, then the mission president had to talk to the stake president, and then the stake president had to interview Carlos. I felt really bad for Carlos, with all the interviews he had to do, because he was so nervous. But he did really well in all the interviews, and was allowed to be baptized! This man changed his live completely to join the church, and I had the opportunity to help him! It was probably one of the most rewarding baptisms I´ve seen. He was so ready to change, and start a new life following Christ. It was also the fastest baptism I´ve had. We met him and then 8 days later he was baptized.

So that was the highlight of my week. Everything else has been going normally.
I hope you all have a great week. I´ll try to send pictures of Carlos´ un-birthday party and baptism. Thanks for your emails, letters, and prayers. They mean a lot to me. I pray for you guys every night too. Keep choosing the right, and don´t forget about me once Amber gets home :P

Love, Elder Forsyth!

3/14/2011

Well, I started writing an email, and then I got about half way through a paragraph and realized that I was writing in Portuguese, and that you guys wouldn´t understand what I was writing...

This week has been really good though. We had a mission conference on Wednesday that I really liked. They talked about cleaning our houses, budgeting our money, obedience, and baptizing more men. Basically all these things I had been thinking about for a while. When I got into my new area, the house was a mess, and my companion didn´t have any money because he´d been spending it on dumb stuff before, so I had to pay for all of our stuff with my emergency reserve. I cleaned up the house, and made some goals to be more obedient, and then we went to the mission conference. Basically my companion got burned for all of the things that he was doing wrong, and I felt really good, because I was already doing the things that they said we should do, like have an emergency money reserve and stuff.

We´re still working really hard on converting more men in our area, because all of our wards have enough members to split, but they don´t have enough priesthood authority. The good news is that we found 2 really great guys this week that we brought to church, and they´ll probably both get baptized next Sunday. One is Carlos. He´s 50 and lives alone with his dog. He´s a little strange, because you can tell he doesn´t talk to very many people, but he loves talking to us. He got way nervous with all of the people at church being so friendly, but he says he wants to come again next week :) We´ll talk to him more about baptism during the week. The other man we brought was Clebson. He´s 24, and pretty chill. We brought him in the church, and a deacon walked up to him and said " Are you going to get baptized today?" he was a little surprised and confused, and said, "Today is just my first time in the church." I wanted to smack the deacon across the face, but we were in the church... and he didn´t realize that those types of questions tend to scare the crap out of our investigators. Its ok though. Like I said, Clebson is super chill, and says he wants to come to church again too. My favorite question as a missionary is " When can you come back to visit me?" When people are really interested you know! Both of these men asked us that question after church, so I´m pretty sure they´re golden.

This week has been great. I´m really happy, and I have a lot of energy. I´m loving the Lord's work, and I know that this church is true. p.s. i gave a 15 minute talk in church. It was way hard in Portuguese, but I pulled it off!

Love, Elder Forsyth!

Carnival!

3/7/2011

WoooHooo! I hit the 8 month mark today! That means I´m one- third of the way done with my mission! This week has been really busy, but really rewarding. Elder Fisi is a super hard worker, and we´ve been running around all week, and yesterday it payed off with a baptism of a little girl named Maria Vitoria. She was super happy to be baptized. So far in the mission I´ve only been baptizing young people, but this transfer that should change. Our mission president has been emphasizing teaching men, and now we have a man who is ready to be baptized this next Sunday, and another married woman too.

This week is Carnival (like Mardi Gras). In my area of the mission its really not that big of a deal. Everyone just travels to the busier parts of the city, so our problem is that we don´t have anyone to teach at night. The city is a little dead. The part I do like though, is that there are bands of little boys that play the drums in the street and dance in bear costumes to try to earn money.

I got a package from the young women in the ward. Make sure you tell them thank you for me.

I´m not sure what else to tell you guys about. I´m happy, the church is still true and blessing lives. I know that there is a right way to live and be happy, and it´s choosing the right everyday. I love feeling the spirit, and serving the Lord. Keep choosing the right, and thank you for all your letters and encouragement.

Love, Elder Forsyth

2/28/2011

Hi Everyone :)

Man, my new area is awesome! I´m living in a big city now, which is great because now most of our investigators know how to read...hahaha. But seriously, I work with two wards now instead of one branch, and the leaders here help us so much. They pick up all of our investigators with cars, and they are working to give us contacts, and going on splits with us. We couldn´t ask anything more.

My companion is Elder Fisi. His family is from Tonga, so he lived there for 8 years. He´s also lived in Califoria and Washington. He speaks Portuguese really well, along with the language from Tonga. He works super hard, and has a lot of goals. He talks a lot about GH, gloria dos homens, which is glory of men. He tries really hard to look good in front of people, with lots of baptisms and stuff, and I guess it seems to be working. He´s baptizing like crazy, and he was called to be district leader this transfer. He´s pretty young in the mission too. He´s been here less than a year. I´ll definitely learn a ton from him. He played football as running back, and wrestled, and did drama, and he likes to sing. We usually sing duets at all of our appointments now so that's pretty fun.

I don´t have any pictures to send this week, but I´ll try to get some next week. This week has really been a race; we've been all over the place. We leave the house at 10:30 and don´t get home until 9:30 at night. Elder Fisi is a super hard worker, and he wants to be assistant to the president, so I think we´ll work super hard this transfer and baptize a lot :)

I love you guys, and if you have any questions for me don´t be afraid to ask. My area is a little closer to the mission office now, so I should be able to receive letters more frequently now.

I know the church is true!! Keep choosing the right, and the blessings will come. Stay happy, and I´ll write more next Monday.

Love, Elder Forsyth

2/23/2011

oi familia!!!

I was transferred today!!! Everything has changed. Elder Cook went to another state, and I came down to Joao Pessoa. Now I´m in the middle of a big city, with cars and buses, and my companion is Elder Fisi. He is Tongan. He speaks the language of Tonga, English, and Portuguese, and is learning Italian. He speaks well, and will teach me a lot of stuff. I´m super excited to be in a new area. Time was starting to drag on a little bit in Mamanguape.

Elder Cook and I both left our area, and it closed. All of our investigators were dropped, or will be picked up by the zone leaders there. It´s a little sad, but I think we left a few people there who will stay firm in the church. Our baptism from last week started going to seminary by himself, and he is really enjoying all of the things in the church. He´ll probably receive the priesthood this month.

A lot of elders went home this transfer, and only a few arrived. That´s why 5 areas closed. It's super crazy because there really aren´t any Americans arriving in Brazil any more. I was one of the last. In the whole Brazil MTC, there are only 4 Americans. They´re calling missionaries from other Spanish speaking countries now.

That´s super crazy that Amber will come home so soon! I´ve got to go now, but I´ll tell you all about my area and my companion next week. He seems super cool.

I love you all a lot, and I hope you all have a great week.

Love, Elder Forsyth

Happy Valentines Day!

2/14/2011

Happy Valentines Day, and Happy Birthday EmmaLee! It sounds like everyone is happy at home. In Brazil they have a Valentines Day, but it doesn´t happen in February, I think it happens in October or something...

This week was just work. Not a lot of crazy things happened that I can thing of, but I do have one little story. Last week when I was writing you guys, a drunk guy entered, and passed out the floor. Then another guy passed and said, "Be carefull! He's armed!" and then the drunk guy got up and pulled out a huge knife from his pants, and ran out of the lan house chasing the other man. Then the drunk man returned, waving his knife all around. All of the missionaries were hiding behind chairs, and the drunk guy started hitting his knife against the ground. Then he sat down and started break dancing. He left soon after and started break dancing for the policeman outside... you only see this kind of thing in Brazil :)

Other than that, I really don´t have anything else to report. We baptized a boy this week. Josenildo. He´s awesome. 100% elect. We met him at church two weeks ago. He just went because the lady he works for is a member. We went to his house and taught him about the Book of Mormon, and then the next time we passed by he´d already read 11 chapters by himself. He had a bunch of questions about the tree of life, so we answered all of the questions, and then taught him about Joseph Smith, and asked him to pray to know if the church is true. The next time we were there we taught the commandments, and he stopped drinking coffee, and then chose to be baptized this Sunday. I think he has potential of being a missionary someday.

I´m sending two pictures. One is of Elder Possamai on the bus ride to church. He´s my zone leader. The other picture is of Josenildo's baptism.

Like I said, we just worked really hard this week, and didn´t see a ton of crazy things. Thanks for all your letters. I´m so thankful that I have so much support.

1/31/2011

I had a good week here in Mamanguape. We didn´t baptize this week, but we still have plenty of people we can baptize next week. I was talking with some of the other missionaries about how I didn´t feel like I had any really cool stories about miracles or curing people or demons or anything, and then that same night something really crazy happened. I don´t know if it classifies as a demon story, but I´ll let you be the judge.

A few weeks ago a member asked us if we could go to her mom's house to give a blessing to her son who was sick. When we got there, the son ran and locked himself in a room, and the grandma there was deaf, so we tried to talk to the boy, but we couldn´t really do anything. Last night we were walking to an appointment when we ran into this same member again. She said that this time the dad was there, so we would be able to talk to the boy this time. We went over there, and it was already late and dark in the afternoon. The boy bolted for his bedroom, but the dad held him back. Then the boy ran to a corner and stood with his face in the corner and wouldn´t talk to us or look at us. The dad started yelling, "Just let them give you a blessing! Accept the words of Jesus!" and then the grandma started shouting the same thing in a deep raspy voice. Everyone was yelling, and we were just trying to talk to the boy nicely in a normal way. Asking questions about the books he liked to read, if he liked going to church. But everyone in the house was freaking out and just making this slightly autistic boy worse. Then all of a sudden the lights went out. There was just one light barely flickering above the boy´s head. The dad grabbed a flashlight on his cell phone, and when the flashlight turned on the flickering light went out.

I was starting to get pretty creeped out. The boy ran and sat on a bed and put a sheet over his head. His mom came running in the house with two little boys and the boys started yelling and playing with candles, and everyone was just yelling to give the boy a blessing. We just kept trying to act normal, asking the boy questions and stuff. Like I said, I was creeped out, so I started to pray that whatever evil was in that house would leave. Then a little later, all the lights came on. Tthe dad took the little boys out of the house, and everything quieted down a little. Elder Cook asked, ´Would you like to recieve a blessing?" The boy then spoke for the first time, in a deep creepy voice, ´no.... haa haa haa haa´. Elder Cook and I looked at each other a little creeped out. Then the boy started speaking in english, ´What´s your name?´ We just smiled, ´Oh, you speak English?´ then he said, ´Buenos Noites´ and ´Bonjor´ he started throwing out all the words he knew in other languages. I asked, do you want to learn some other words in English, and he said,´Yeah, let me get my notebook.´ He went and got his notebook and came back and we started talking to him normally about all the things he learned in school. Eventually he took off his sheet, and we said a prayer and left the house.

I´m out of time now, but I love you all a lot, and I hope you have a great week. I´ll send some photos next week. I went to that big statue again today with Elder Cook and my zone.

Love, Elder Forsyth!