SO, I'm Lost in Brasil, Again ...

[The message below is from 5-18-15, which we received today, due to technical difficulties]

AMIGOS! COMO ESTÃO!!! [Friends, How are you]

I'm back at making the world think that there is a Brasilian in America! I'm learning a few new things and working my way around understanding the customs of these people now that I have a pretty good idea of what they're talking about. That said, let's take a quick spin around my week here in Pinheirinho with my new companion, Elder Leal.

Elder Leal and I are probably the best match that I've had since my trainer, who is now back a t home. I have a great understanding of the Book of Mormon, my companion is great with the Bible, he wants to learn English, I want to learn all I can about Português. And we both want to transform this area into the area Batisador! That said, let’s look at week one:

He got here and we started working right away to get things in order for the week. I gave him the low down on our current investigators and where we've had the most success so far., and then we went at it. The first day at the grind we found 2 new people that were really soft. SO we moved on from them in one week. But we also had a lot of work to do with less actives. All's well that ends well.

We are working with a Sidimar here in the area, he's 19 and he's served a little in the military already here. Something mandatory as it would appear as my companion has also served. He's less active, but this week he came with us to church, YES! We were quite happy with the fact that on the same day we were also giving a talk in respect of missionary work. We did our talks after which our 2nd counselor in the bishopric got up and burned everyone with scriptures. Excluding the missionaries and the stake leaders.

We had a baptism last week that I didn't mention, so here's some pictures of that, and then we have some photos of us doing crazy things with bugs, hats, Pizza places, and some cool areas we have here. HAVE A GREAT SEMANA [week], oh, foi mal [my bad], WEEK!!

Baptism- with Elder Barros

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New Companion, Elder Leal

Elder Leal and Elder Smith

Brasil, yes with s

I'm struggling to understand the concept of calling your family twice in the year, unevenly placed... But that said I'll gladly tell my stories of blunder and rir [laughter]. 

So this week was the last week of the transfer (5 weeks, not 6) so as it turns out the missionaries have to return 2 weeks or there about before they arrived because we have two short transfers in the mission. So for you that have been feeling fault [?] of Dopey, and that guy with the camera, don't worry, I'm on my way home like the first week of October [2016]. Whether I would like to stick around or not.

Okay, so I had pictures, until I realized they were about the size of that wonderful little thumbnail for Google that shows about the message. Sorry guys, no fun ones this week! And my stories!

BAPTISM!!!! whoo hooooo!

Oswaldir who was an investigator até caramba finally got in the water.  He's about 57 and his sister has been a member for a long time, even his mom and dad were members, but he never joined. So mark one down that we got another baptism here in pinheirinho. He went right in, and didn't need the ordinance done more than once. The water was warm, so I don't know what the problem was if we needed to do it again. And fortunately I wasn't the one doing the ordinance because I was sick with a cold and fever, yea, no thanks. I'm better after two days of hot chills and sweat, which is normal for Brasil, Paraná in particular. So that is my life. Hope to hear from you all soon! And I still haven't heard anything about my companion’s sweater, please help!

Tchau!

Elder Joel A. Smith

Pinherinho Brasil‏

We found some new people to teach, set some goals to reactivate some old members and are really working on getting the members here fired up. We have a lot of people super soft and they really aren't preparing to do anything... other than slacking on the Sabbath. Mall, birthday parties, you name it. … So I was really happy when we had the leader/ president of the area of Brasil talk at stake conference about being like Nephi. "We all like to compare ourselves to Nephi and not Laman and Lemuel, but which of the two groups you think made their trips to visit their families? Which of the two groups are going to church every week? Which of the two groups are helping the missionaries and having family home evening every week?" Que vergonha [What a shame]!

After all that we are having a lot of fun running into people unusual here. Marcelo has to be my favorite. He's not entirely sound in his mind, but he is awesome. He was baptized some 15 years back, and went inactive. He's just coming back now with us. The missionaries before ran into him on the street and didn't get the address or anything really about him. So I had the great pleasure of finding him "knocking" doors. He exited the door, invited us in and started talking about the things in the church, Lamanites having dark skin because of their sins, "slow down! You’re a member?" "Yes, I was baptized by Elder______ and ______ on 12/12/2000." My goodness! The best thing about him is he's so honest. The day we got their he asked where and when church was. Sunday he was back a ready to serve. Oh and I finally got a camera for you guys. SO PHOTOS ARE BACK!!

And for you people who think Brasil is all sun and warm: NOOOOO, NO, IT'S NOT TRUE! We were debating the color of my companion’s sweater and we haven't made up our minds yet. If you have any suggestions please help Send me a line and I'll gladly pass the word to my companion! oh, if you have a less active in your ward, go talk to him/ her as soon as you can. The reason we have so many here is because people aren't looking out for them. Really, they need a friend with a testimony to help them out. Até Próximo! Tchau!

Elder Barros