2/6/2012

Hi family!

This week was a pretty good one. We didn´t have any rain, so Elder
Bueno and I got to work really hard in the street making a lot of
contacts.

we had interviews with President this week, and the night before the
interview, one of the assistants came to our house to work with us in
trio. I think his goal was to embarrass us by making more contacts than
us in our area. He was chasing people down in the street, and making
us run to catch up. He taught me a lot of things, but he also did some
stuff that I didn´t agree with. With one teenager, the assistant
asked, "Does your family have a few minutes to hear a message about
Jesus Christ?" the boy went to ask his mom, and when he came back he said,
"No, my mom said that we have to leave right now so that I can sign up
for my classes at school". The assitant asked, "Do you think that
signing up for classes is more important than Jesus?" I felt like that
was a pretty retarded question to ask, and it didn´t help us get into
the house to teach a lesson...

The next day at interviews, President didn´t ask me anything. He just
told me that how he knows I´m working, is by the numbers I send him
every week, and that I need to work hard...
I asked him about Elder Kutomi. He said that Elder Kutomi is
progressing; I´m glad to hear that Elder Kutomi is getting better.

I´m really loving my companion Elder Bueno. We did a family night this
week with a part member family. We played the "shock" game. We sent
Alex, an 11 year old boy, out of the room, and we chose one person to
give the shock. When alex came back, he had to touch everyone to see
who had the shock. When he touched the person we chose, everyone in
the room SCREAMED! Alex's eyes got all wide, and he fell on the
ground. I couldn´t stop laughing. I laughed so hard that I cried. It
was the funniest think I´d seen in the mission. Alex couldn´t stop
shaking for 10 minutes.

I love you guys! The church is true! Keep choosing the right, and be happy.

Love, Elder Forsyth

1/30/2012

I´m so happy to hear that Ben got his mission call! He´ll love Boston. I´m sad that I won´t get to see him for 2 more years now, but I know I´ll see him again one day :P

Everything here is going super great. It rained quite a bit this week, but other than that the weather was great. My companion and I get along really well. We joke around in the street, and teach well together. We´ve been working really hard, but this next week we´ll have to work even harder because we´re not finding enough new people to teach. Where we live is a small city, and everyone has already talked to the missionaries. We do a lot of contacts, but no one wants to talk to us.

This week, the ceiling started to fall in our chapel, so now we have to travel to another city by bus to have our meetings. The bus is going to pass through 3 or 4 different cities that are in our area, that we didn´t have access too, so now we can go into these new cities and find a lot of fresh people to teach. We´re really excited. This week should be pretty busy.

I love you guys, and I hope you all have a great week! I´ll try to send some new photos when I can :)

Love, Elder Forsyth

1/18/2012

Dear Family,

I got transfered from Parnamirim today. I knew that I would probably be transferred, so I visited a few members houses to say good bye to them. I grew really close with the members in this area, and I will miss them a lot. I´ll for sure sure sure have to come back and visit them someday. A lot of them told me that whenever I come to visit, I can stay at their house.

I made some maple syrup and left it as a present for a couple of families. Brother Flavio and his family gave me a new soccer jersey as a going away present. I stayed in Pparnamirim for 6 months, and the people there really made a big impact on my mission.

I think Elder Kutomi got pretty nervous once he knew that I was going to leave. This whole week, he hardly spoke to me, but then at the bus station today he almost cried, and gave me one of his favorite ties. I really hope that his next companion is a good one, and that he´ll be as patient with Elder Kutomi as I tried to be. I´ll definitly remember Elder Kutomi for the rest of my life.

Now I´m in Campina Grande. It´s the coldest city in the mission, which means that instead of being 80 degrees, I think it will be 70. That makes me super excited, because now we´re entering into summer.

My companion is Elder Bueno. He´s from Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and is really young in the mission. He´s from Elder Kutomi´s group. He appears to be a little shy, but he´s excited to work, and for me, thats all that matters. He was trained by Elder Ferreira, my second to last companion. I think we should have a lot of things in common to talk about.

I was really hoping that I´d get to hear where Ben is going today. I think I´ll have to just wait a couple more weeks to find out. I´m guessing that he´ll go to Santa Maria, Brazil, and that he´ll leave on the 11th of July.

So far, I´m doing great here. I love you guys, and I´m so excited to get to know my new comp and new area and batizar com força! Keep choosing the right, and writing letters to me.

The church is true, and makes people happy.

Love, Elder Forsyth

1/9/2012

Hey Family!

I got your letters and the package this week! It made me super excited. I had forgotten how sweet skittles and starbursts are, and I can´t even eat half a pack of skittles without feeling like I´ve eaten too much.

I really loved the photo book! It's good to see how everyone has grown.

This week, we almost baptised a 19 year old boy. We interviewed him and everything, and everything was going right. We put water in the font, and invited the members, but when the hour arrived, we couldn´t find him anywhere! We went to his house, and tried going to his work. We wandered in the rain for 2 hours, but it didn´t work out. :( He´ll have to be baptised next week.

The good news was that at the same time, a man showed up in Elder Tenney´s ward who wanted to be baptised. He´d already been taught by other missionaries in the past, and everyone else in his family was already members of the church. I interviewed him, and he seemed to be a perfect baptism candidate. He was baptised in the water that I had put in the font, and his family was SO happy that he had finally taken the decision to be baptised in the true church. I feel like everything that happened this sunday happened for a reason.

I can´t think of much else to write, and I´m out of time, but I love you guys! The church is true! Next week I´ll talk to you on a Wednesday because of transfers.

Love, Elder Forsyth

1/2/2012

Feliz ano novo!

For New Years, it was just me and Kutomi in our little house, but we still made the best of things. We bought some of that alcohol free champagne, and chocolate, and played chess until midnight. Usually I always win, but he´s managed to have a few ties with me.

We met a really cool 19 year old guy this week named Edson. He comes from a really humble family, but really has a great attitude about things. He really wants to be baptised, so we took him to church for the first time this week. He lives about 40 minutes to the church walking, so we talked to a member so that we could all go in his car, and he agreed to give us all a ride if we showed up at his house at 8:30. We walked 30 minutes to Edson's house, and then we walked to the member's house who had the car. When we got there, it was exactly 8:30, but he had already left :( I was kind of sad and frustrated, and we started walking to the church. We walked for about a half hour, and while we walked, I taught the 3rd lesson to Edson. When we were about 10 minutes from the church, another member found us in the street and gave us a ride the rest of the way to the church. Edson said, " That's so cool that God was watching out for us, and sent these people to give us a ride! The car was air conditioned and everything!" I was feeling frustrated because of the thirty minutes that we walked, but Edson was feeling grateful, and even excited, because of the 3 minutes that we rode in the car. These are the lessons that I learn everyday here on my mission. I´m learning that I can be happy in any situation. My happiness doesn´t depend on the weather or whats on tv, or what team won the ball game. It doesn´t depend on my companion, or who we´re baptising this week. It depends on my attitude, and what I choose it to be. True happiness comes when you choose to do what you know is right.

I´m out of time now, but I hope you all know that I love you, and I pray for you every night. Keep choosing the right, and being happy :) I hope you guys never worry about me while I´m here. I´m enduring to the end, and really enjoying the journey.

Love, Elder Forsyth

P.S. The church is true!!!

12/26/11

Merry Christmas!

haha, I loved the photos. I think it´s so funny that Amber gave me Obama hands. I have some good photos from when I burned my shirt. I think they´re on the dvd that I´ll try to get in the mail.

It was so great to hear and see all of you guys with skype yesterday! That made me so happy! These last few weeks have been pretty stressful for me, but talking to you guys made all my stress go away. I don´t ever remember what we talked about anymore, but I still feel happy inside.

So yeah, this christmas has been one of the most different Christmas's in my life. It was weird to wake up in an empty house with just Elder Kutomi. We ate breakfast alone, then went to church, then ate lunch alone, then talked to you guys, then spent the rest of the night at a members house. That was the part that I liked the most.

At this members house, we ate dinner, and read the scriptures, and sang songs and told stories. It was a lot of fun. Definitely a Christmas that I´ll never forget.

Up until now, I´ve recieved a tie and a lightbulb for Christmas. My district will trade the secret Santa presents this afternoon.

I love you guys a lot, and I´m thankful for your examples. The church is true, and Christ is the Savior of the world. Believe it! I know that through the atonement we can change our lives, because that's what I´m doing right now. My life is changing more than I can understand. I love you guys!

Love, Elder Forsyth

12/19/11

Hey family!

I got the details worked out with my Christmas phone call. I´ll be able to use skype, so I need you guys to email me your information so that I can make an account and add you guys this Sunday.

This week we had our Christmas Mission Conference. We had a devotional, food, basketball, soccer, and an xbox. I spent the afternoon playing piano and singing with a few other missionaries. I liked it, but I was hoping that we would be able to see Kungfu Panda 2.

At the end of the day, everyone in the mission got food poisoning, me and my companion included. :P I won´t go into the details.

I really liked the photos of the wedding that you guys sent. It looked like everyone had a lot of fun. I´m excited to hear all the details when I talk to you guys on Sunday.

I love you guys a lot, and I hope everyone has a great week with the Chrismas break and everything.

The church is true!

Love, Elder Forsyth