#81 The "New Elder" and a bunch of divisions

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! !

Ha! So Marques complained about talking too much? About time :P (Marques was just made Pres. of the 12-13 year old class at church and complained that he had to do most of the talking at their presidency meeting) ;)

 

I found out that I talk quite a lot too, but it IS a lot different in meetings...

 

Yay Maryn! Go BoM! (Maryn has started listening to the Book of Mormon and her goal is to complete the entire book before her brother is home.)

 

Our week was great... but I'm pretty sure last p-day was yesterday... or maybe two days ago. Our week FLEW.

Teaching and stuff is normal. We have a couple of people that are progressing a bit, but really the news this week lies with the craziness of it. We had TWO TRADES this week. TWO. Like... MORE THAN ONE! I think in my entire mission I've been on about six... including these two. We are supposed to have one trade per person per leader per transfer... but that doesn’t happen. Ever.

 

Until now. Elder H came here to do a trade on Tuesday, I went to Tagua 1 to trade with Elder T on Friday, and we had a division with members for our only free hour yesterday (more news on yesterday later).

 

From what I'm seeing, Elder H is pretty cool, Elder Q is kinda crazy (already knew that, a kinda goodish crazy though), Elder O is kinda new but determined to be good regardless of, Elder T, who is very much so dead. The sisters are perfect as normal. Don't understand how they do it. 

 

Good news about trades: Elder T no longer dislikes me :)

Bad news about trades: TIRED!

 

And then there's yesterday:

 

The day started at roughly 8:55 when the Gouber (bishopric) surprised the new Elder in the area (Carl) saying,

"Elder we have two baptisms today!"

And then surprised him even more by saying,

"Elder! Can you lead the meeting for me?!"

And then a little more by saying,

"Elder! Sorry but I don't have it planned at all, so good luck!"

. . .

The rest of the church meetings were used to get to know a bunch more members and assign things to different people.

 

The baptism worked out alright, although very last minute. 

 

The new Elder, now very tired from a ton of random pressure from nowhere, then went to a very fun but VERY FAR AWAY lunch.(1:00)

Roughly 3:30 He met up with some members he didn't know to visit some people (division) that he didn't remember where they lived. . .

5:00 was ward council meeting. The longest one that missionaries have had to attend (we are only supposed to stay 15 minutes...)

The new Elder sat next to the extremely-excited-and-well-intended ward mission leader, for two hours straight. Two hours later (and five years older), the meeting finally ended.

Then they had a meeting just between the missionaries and A. . .

 

Totally brain fried, wiped out, and dead, the Elder then went home... to do weekly planning!

YAY!

 

Man... Yesterday went super-fast too... but I'm pretty sure I aged like crazy with all those meetings.

Just with yesterday I must be 64 now...

 

But all is well! This week should be nice and normal finally. So today I just have food and sleep I think.

Well, all of a sudden I'm out of words. So, I'll be quiet: P

Tchau Tchau!

Elder Funnell

 

 

 

 

 

#80- My favorite General Conference quotes!

Well... in comparison my week was kinda lame... (I shared some crazy stuff that happened last week around here) until the weekend of course.
We had one of those work-and-walk-forever-and-don’t-run-into-anyone-thats-interested kind of weeks.
Perfectly normal. As they say in Portuguese, "faz parte". Just a part of the work. The kind of part that makes missionaries quite tired, and the kind that gives my companion blisters.
But all is well, and conference was super awesome.

I took notes again (I'm turning into a weirdo... I wasn’t like this before). I think I’ve filled every possible page (that I won’t use) of my planner. Then I took just the "top few phrases"... and filled a whole page. Oh well. That’s what you get for having a cool conference.

Oh, we had interviews this week with president. All happy and fine there as normal.

Oh yeah! I saw a bunch of people from Recanto! Not many of the people that I most wanted to see, but some. Also not for much time. Nélia is a lady that I taught in my last week there. It was the best plan of salvation lesson that I’ve taught, and the most elect investigator ever. Elder Hallinan told me when she got baptized a couple weeks later, and she said that she was sad that I wasn’t there.
Well, I saw her on Saturday. She and also her niece (who is now lives with her) got baptized and were at conference. They look super happy. Awesome.

We also have a stake conference coming up. With a little luck I'll be able to see the rest of the people from Recanto :)

Today we had lunch with a less active. A less active that knows how to cook SUPER WELL. WOW! And so I'm stuffed.

(He sent feedback for M&M learning languages) Just a note: I do NOT regret not learning Spanish... I honestly find it way uglier than Portuguese: P But that's just my opinion :)

A for mother's day and stuff, they usually don’t tell us until the last week... But whatever.

One last random note before a couple favorite lines: Having sisters in the district is AMAZING. They make food!
I mean sure, I do too... but now I'm not the only one making goodies for district meetings :)

Alrighty, I didn’t write the names of everyone in my "top 39 ideas from conference" page, but the idea is still there:

Temple in Rio! Whoo!
65,000 missionaries plus another roughly 30,000 missionaries waiting. WOW.
Some of the younger missionaries were in and ready with their papers in five days after the rule changed was announced.
(Did I mention that one of the new sisters this transfer is younger than me? WEIRD. That doesn’t (didn’t) happen)
"what 'ere thou art, act well thy part"
We were dignified spirits of our Father before this life. We developed our talents and practiced obedience.
We are capable of finding peace, not world peace, but individual and family peace, through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Saints in Africa have little of what matters least and much of what matters most.
The power to bring life to the world is God's power, and so it must be used in accordance to HIS plan.
Love increases through righteous constraint.
Is my happiness contagious?
A voice of perfect mildness unlocks the hearts of people and children.
Marriage: Priceless, faith, repentance, respect, love.
Obedience to law is liberty.
We need not explore unknown paths, we have the plan of God laid out for us!
Defend the truth, with words or sometimes silence.
What titles do we have? Which ones are important?
Plan your life with purpose. Study the scriptures with diligence. Teach by your testimony.
Balance the "concrete" of your life with prayer, scriptures, and sacrament.
Put more value on what you DO know, not on what you do not know.
Jesus taught literally, not theoretically.
We must extend our arms to the needy and lonely.

There. My favorite bits :)

Anyhow,
Tchautchau!
Elder Funnell

#79 Taguatina! I LOVE this city...

Well... Lots of stuff happened this week... Makes sense given that it's a transfer week.

So, I left miracema on Monday after emails, we waited around for a while, and I left for Brasilia with Elder B. There were some people that we were 'certain' would leave Palmas (and basically were begging to as well), and they... stayed

Now I'm in Taguatinga 2. When I was in Recanto, it was a part of stake Ceilandia, but now it's Taguatinga (makes sense given that it's literally IN Taguatinga...). That means that I should be able to see some people at conference this week. Cool stuff.

We have a HUGE district. It's also the first district that I've been in with Sisters. Recently all of my districts have been four people, this one is eight. Myself (1/6 months) and Elder S (5), Elder T (1/9) and Elder l (9), Elder H (1/8) and Elder Q (?), and Sister T (1/1) and Sister T (0). (I am not sure what all the numbers are…Could be how long they have been there and how long they have left on their missions? I will ask next week…) We are by ourselves in our ward, and we are the only ones in the district with a separate chapel. The other one isn’t too far away though.
This ward is pretty great. There are TONS of investigators here (unlike Miracema), the only problem is that they are only home at night. Our nights have been super crazy busy this week, and we are teaching tons of lessons. It's pretty awesome. Elder S was trained by elder C before me. Elder S didn’t even know it was possible to teach so much in one week :P

He's from Utah, his dad is from Argentina, and he lived with his aunt before the mission. He is yet ANOTHER nerd (possibly more so than my other companions), and... that's about it. (So pretty Much Carl is in heaven with someone else that his similar to him ;)) It's pretty fun working with him, but as always I have the title of 'second comp'... which is always interesting. But we are getting there.

We've got several people closeish to baptism already. Some are waiting to get married and some are parts of less active families that we found this week.
All in all, this area is great.

Oh, and we have a REAL STORE here. It’s SO COOL. Biggest store I’ve ever had in an area (also the 'biggest' city I’ve ever served in)
Luckily, all is going well, this has got to be the best city on earth. It’s huge, but people still talk to you. Weird combination, but I love it.

The LZs and Elder T have AMAZING areas as well. Baptisms like crazy.

I like this place. So far.

The LMA is new and is... kinda stressful... But we are getting there with him. He simply doesn’t know how to be a missionary, so he works very different than we do. It’s not all bad, but he will get it soon.

Anyhow, I'm super excited for this area. It should be pretty awesome. That week flew though... and with only 5 weeks again, the transfer will disappear faster than I can blink.

I think I'll leave it at that for now. I am off to find some meat and mashed potatoes... So, until later!
Tchau tchau!
Elder Funnell