Monday, July 10, 2017

Jardim das Rosas Ward - Campo Limpo Stake - July 3, 2017 and July 10, 2017

Brazil, São Paulo West Mission
São Paulo, Brazil

--
Elder Houghtaling's Email
Monday, July 3, 2017



This week's email 26/6/2017-2/7/2017


I like the new Apple TV. I saw it in the photos. I do have a suggestion the placement of the Apple TV. I think it'll look nice next to the iMac or something. I think it's really cool that you can do that! It was a great idea. Congratulations!

I'm not sure where you can put the new piano in the house... but I'm sure you can find a spot.

I've attached a recording of what has happened during the week, so I can explain it better.

This new rule, when I asked President Thomas he said, "You are correct. You should write an email and move on. Your family should respond sometime during the week and when you arrive next week, you read their email and respond when you write them. And by the way, this is by no way new rules. This has been the rule for as long as I can remember and has never changed. I had no idea there were so many I didn't know and were doing what they should not have been doing.”

On Tuesday, we had our first District Meeting since the transfer. On our way to the District Meeting we stopped by a store to buy breakfast for the district. A man who works there, William gave us a ride in his car back to the meeting, which saved us about fifteen minutes of walking.

We found five new investigators on Tuesday and One more investigator on Wednesday. We were doing some inactive work trying to find perspective elders, which are men who have not yet been ordained to the office of priesthood. We came across Paulo, who became a member when he was eight years old. He wants to have his name removed from the church records. I called the bishop. He told us to stop working with him altogether.

On Thursday, Elder do Carmo was sick with something. He had a minor fever with diarrhea. It was a miracle he was still able to teach violin to Anna Colada and Sauda, to young women in the church who are struggling to have a testimony of the Book of Mormon. They both did well. Sauda did get an answer and she actually shared her testimony for the first time on Sunday, which was Fast Sunday.

On Friday, I went with Elder Melo, one of the Zone Leaders that lives with us, to the mission Office to pick up materials and then to take Elder De Croft on a transfer to deliver him to Elder Ottenschot. Elder Malo was doing a split with Elder Lucas and Elder De Croft and George Mebay in the zone of Campo Limpo. After lunch we basically stayed inside because Elder Do Carmo was not feeling well. Elder Do Carmo started to have a fever of 101 degrees.   

We spent Friday and Saturday at home. Elder Do Carmo said the Advil I was giving him was making him sick as it had passed the expiration date of 01/17. I saw this date only two days after I had given it to him. 

During this time I made a drawing of a city bus here in Sao Paulo. It turned out to be pretty nice. On Saturday, I caught up in my journal.


Saturday night, he was having hot and cold chills, which was miserable for him. On Sunday morning, it was pretty miraculous that he didn't have this virus anymore. The sickness is pronounced Ashmado ghedo, in Portuguese.


On Sunday, we went to a Family Home Evening at the home of Altameiro, which was interesting. Lets just say Altameiro went too in depth on the plan of salvation, such as we have our God who is the father, but there are other Gods. That actually caused a debate between Elder Melo and Elder Do Carmo last night about whether we have a grand Heavenly father or great grand Heavenly Father.


This ending on July 2, 2017. This was day 435 of my mission.
About my Clarinet. I really want to have this for the rest of the mission, to practice and to play it. Are you sending it? I know the Lord will help me re-learn how to play, and to play it better. He has already helped me learn the piano well enough to play some hymns with the 1st, 2nd, and 4th voices, and others with just 1st, and 4th.

The photos I have attached are of Taylor Johnson from Ann Arbor Michigan.

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!


First District Meeting of this transfer.









A majority of busses that pass in front of our apartment.





A drawing that I completed yesterday, 6-01-2017, as Elder do Carmo was healing


Elder Tayler Johnson, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Elder Tayler Johnson, Ann Arbor, Michigan











Brazil, São Paulo West Mission
São Paulo, Brazil

-- Elder Houghtaling's Email Monday, July 10, 2017

Minha amada mãe! I'm on!


On Monday, we spent the morning cleaning up the water from the washing machine, which was all over the floor. Our washing machine empties into a sink. unfortunately, that sink had a clog in it, which plugged the drain. We woke up this morning with a whole bunch of water on the floor. After that, I did the voice recording, which I sent last week.


After the LAN House, we left the mission boundaries to go to a place to put money onto our bus cards and take money out of the bank. While we were there, Elder Do Carmo lost money in the bus card machine. It took his 10 Reis but did not give him 10 Reis on his bus card. While we were there, some missionaries from the Interlagos mission informed us that we were outside of the mission boundaries. We felt bad. We walked home saying absolutely nothing to each other. It was honestly the worst P-Day.


Then, later that night, we had a family home evening with the elder's quorum president, Diogo. Fifteen minutes before it was scheduled to start, he cancelled it. That just left the both of us stressed out.


On Tuesday, the fourth of July, Happy Independence Day for the United States, the district meeting ran extremely late as the elders from Jardim Kennedy, they ran way late today. The district meeting was supposed to start at 8:30am, they arrived at 9:20am. They have been struggling with a few sicknesses going around their house.


On Tuesday, we visited a recent convert. He was baptized the 10th of June, same as Elaine. We showed him a new thing that our district is doing, started by Elder Do Carmo, which is basically goals and rewards, kind of like a game. I am making a few achievements for me as well.


Later that night we visited Marcos and Rachel at the house of Efigenia. We invited Rachel to be baptized on the 22nd of July. It was a miracle and made us feel very happy.


We were walking on a road near our apartment and we found a 17-year old woman, whom we had talked to before. Her name is Jessica. We presented her with a baptismal invite, and she accepted it for the 22nd of July.


On Wednesday, I guess I wasn't feeling too great. As much as I tried to make myself feel better, I tried praying but unfortunately, I felt like I was drifting further away. So, I opened the Book of Mormon with my eyes closed and put my finger on the page which I had opened to. It was Alma 38. I read the entire chapter and it seems like it was a letter directly from our Heavenly Father. It was honestly amazing. I felt better after that.


On Thursday, Day 439, I feel like I have not been putting our investigators in front of ourselves, there is a saying in the mission field that we need to forget about ourselves and just work. There is a part in Preach My Gospel, Chapter 36, about diligence, Elder Do Carmo showed me this. So, after that I knelt, prayed, and recommitted myself to the work.


At this point in the week, almost every lunch given by the ward sisters have fallen through, and they were not able to give us lunch. On Tuesday, we had lunch in our house. We made spaghetti, which was great. On Wednesday, we went to a restaurant, of which a member paid for us. On Thursday, we made something that is pronouced maha houa de penelepe presou, which is basically a corkscrew noodle and tomato sauce cheese and ham or sausage. In Portuguese, it is called Linguisa. It is like pepperoni and sausage mixed together. It was good, honestly great.


On Saturday, everyone was tired. In the morning, or noon, we went to member's house to scrape off loose paint and cement, because here the construction is completely different than the United States. Concrete is used here. Then we painted their house. They were scheduled to give us lunch, Unfortunately, because everything ran so late we had to go home and make ourselves lunch. We started our work around 5:00pm and at 6:30pm we had to go to the chapel to ward choir practice. The ward choir would be singing for the ward conference, yesterday, which was Sunday.


Today, Sunday, was good. During the sacrament during ward conference, President Ponder, the Stake President of the Stake of Campo Limpo gave a talk that burned just about every member of the congregation. He talked about temples and fasting. He said, "I know I came here with this talk for one person. I don't know who it is, but I am sure I am speaking to every one of you. So, imagine that I am in front of you, hanging onto you, shaking you, and calling you to repentance, saying repent ye, repent ye. Fast and go to the temple." These were his exact words. He was encouraging us to fast and go to the temple. One more thing he said, "And implored us to fast, and not to say to the Lord, I'm good. I am not in need of these blessings that you have in store for me."


There was also a statistics report that also kind of burned the congregation. He said, "Out of 300 members of this ward, the ward has an average attendance of a little over 100."


One thing I learned this week, and especially today, as much as Elder Do Carmo is trying to help me be the senior of the area and to guide the area and to help me grow as a missionary, sometimes I get way too stressed out and then I quit. And then we get annoyed with each other. So last night when I called to have the weekly report of our companionship to Elder Oyasis, our district leader here, he basically qualified this calling as the senior companion and this is something that I have not been seeing. So, being the senior companion, I should not give up, that I should continue to try. As long as I am trying my best our heavenly father will help me.


Day 442, the 9th of July.

Day 436 in the Mission

On Friday, July 7, 2017, we woke up extremely early at 5:00am to go to a multi-zone conference in the São Paulo fifth ward chapel. This church building is on the side of the temple. It is basically where the church headquarters is here in Brazil. It was pretty good there.

Today after finishing this recording, Elder Do Carmo got annoyed with me because I took thirty minutes to make this recording. He started to ask the zone leaders for a split today, I got angry and I climbed up into my bed to lay down, as in that moment I had quit. This entire week I have been forcing myself to speak and I'm running low on strength to continue. Don't worry mom, just pray for us and for our hearts to be softened.

But anyways responding to your letter.
No there were no fireworks here in Brazil on Independence Day.

Well Pilots don't fly directly from west to east, in the Northern hemisphere they fly a curved pattern (on a map) going from N-NE-E-SE-S as seen here http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFL123/history/20170710/0500Z/KJFK/UUEE.

It is the shortest route to conserve the most amount of gas as possible. But the South Pole same reason, it is just that flying over the South Pole isn´t a good route for planes.

Thanks for advising me about the Advil. Elder Do Carmo didn't want to eat because he thought that the food would leave out the other end in the form of diarrhea. We called Sister Thomas and she told him what he should do, which is eat, so he ate.

I wish Eric good luck healing! Tell him to be careful!

The rules depend on how they're interpreted. "Email is to be used to write letters to your family."

I wish that I could go more in depth but my time is short. I LOVE YOU AND DAD! Elder Do Carmo says he loves you guys. 

Don't worry about the clarinet. It can stay home.

7-04-2017 Happy 4th! Lunch in house today.





7-02-2017 Family Home Evening with Altameiro, Star Wars fan. I thought Dad would like to see his collection.









7-02-2017 Altameiro's grand daughter, "Give me camera!"

7-04-2017 Happy 4th! Lunch in house today.



















Tylor would love to hear from you: tylor.houghtaling@myldsmail.net