Happy 4th!

Okay America, Buckle up, This week was hardcore parkour in Brazil. First off it was July Fourth (Go America) and me and my US comp did America stuff all day. We made 12 eggs for breakfast along with 15 bacon strips, 10 pieces of toast and two liters of chocolate milk. Go America. We called it the Great American Breakfast, and it was the follow up to Panini fest 2012. Oh and of course right after the GAB, we had lunch at a members house, I haven´t eaten that much since Jake and I were at college during post class grub sesh at Crappy Teriyaki in Rexburg. But the real deal on July fourth was that there was a HUGE soccer game in town. The Corinthians (Most popular team in São Paulo) were playing Boca Junior from Argentina in the Libertadores which is the American championship that determines who plays Chelsea for the world championship later this year. Corinthians has never been to the final so the whole country was buzzing and people were going absolutely nuts. You could feel it in the air, and the day of the game, there was fireworks all day (normal), and people just prepping. We had to be hoe at 5, before dark because it gets really, really, dangerous at night during REGULAR games, let alone one like this. Corinthians won, and we didn´t sleep at all that night because of the firworks and bombs going off all nigght. It was hardcore! We just pretended it was people celebrating Independence Day in America. Go America. Also we had more trouble with Dulcemir and her drinking this week and we can´t really do anything about it. We have a ton of other people to visit so we´re going to try to leave her with some members to help, so that´s kinda rough right now. She isn´t a huge fan of us at the moment because we don´t stop by as often. Also, two of the people I baptized, Leandro and Barbara, are dating. Holla-freaking-back. Just a side note. This week was also Festa Junina in Brazil and in our ward. They threw a huge party that´s hillbilly themed and there was tons of food, dancing, and games. But, like a genius, I forgot to take pictures. Just take my word for it, it was fun. We FINALLY baptized Daniel yesterday too. Wow. It was awesome. I´ve been working with him since I was with Elder Atkin and he finally was baptized. Now he can marry his wife in the temple, and have a complete family. His brother in law was so crazy happy (he served a mission in Santa Catarina) and it was great just to see everyone so glad to see him taking this first step towards eteranal life. Anyways, thats the big news of the week. We met President Ferrin too, and I think things will be great in this mission with him. I´m really looking forward to working with him. It is crazy to think this will end someday, but I still have a long time to go so, no worries. Thanks for all the support and I will be back on next week with some more good news. Amor e Bençãos do Brasil, Elder Marley

Amor do Brasil

Okay okay okay. This week was nuts. Elder Toala got transferred and became ZL. I now have Elder Holmes with me as my new comp! He reminds me of Elder Vang a lot haha. He´s a huge duck fan, so we get along well. We had LOTS of trouble this week with Dulcemir (our recently baptized missionary mom) because she´s been drinking and smoking again... and she was absolutely trashed like twice this week when we were there. So we´re going today to go leave a message with her and hope she gains a conviction to not do that anymore. It just kills poor Barbara. So we´ll see how that goes. Oh and surprise! Leandro got baptized on saturday! The first baptism of our new mission President! I haven´t met him yet, so I don´t know anything about him but I´m assuming he´s good. Why not right? Leandro was baptized and confirmed and it was really cool! I got to baptise him, he is so cool, he always has the best questions about the gospel and has a great desire to learn more. It´s really cool. This week Elder Holmes and I had great success. People were showing up to church on their own yesterday, which has never happened while I´ve been here. Seriously all of our investigators showed up alone and stayed for the whole thing, including a contact we did that seemed very uninterested. He showed up. What in the world?? I think it´s the blessings of TWO obedient missionaries working hard. We also had some great improvements in some of our ancient investigators and one is marked to be baptized on the 15th... I can´t explain how it´s working, but it is. Our days feel unsuccessful, but then just happen to be fruitful. It´s pretty cool. I´m really glad I got to stay here for another transfer because I really like the people we´re working with and I think we´re doing a really good job out here. Weird story of the week is that yesterday after church we went to a member´s house (the same one that fed me and Elder Atkin pigs feet) and we ate beef tongue suasage. Weird huh? It wasn´t to bad, just the idea of what it was was weird. And they invited over their friends for lunch and the man is in the mafia. So that was a little uncomfortable too haha. But hey, I hope this week turns out well too. I really appreciate the letters! I will be back next week to fill everyone in again! Have a great week! The Church is true. Nos temos uma grande responsibilidade para compartilhar o evangelho com tudo mundo! Cada membro um missionário! Não esquece!   Amor do Brasil! Elder Marley   P.S. SIX MONTHS

Fantastic Week

For a follow up on Brad's sleep issues, he seems to be doing a lot better!  He said he is sleeping better and better everyday and he is very grateful for that blessing and for good doctors that have been able to help him.  He would love to hear from all of you and his address for the Brazil mission home is on this site.  Thank you for your love and support as well as your prayers.

This week was fantastic!
We had another baptism! Barbara´s sister Laleska was baptized, out of the blue. Just like Barbara haha. AND her mom, sister Rebecca, and boyfriend Wellington are marked for baptism! How sweet is that?? So we will be spending even MORE time there this week than usual. It´s incredible how in two weeks everything went from awful with no solid work to do, to extremely busy with almost TOO MANY people to visit! And this family loves us! It´s great! We finally found that family every missionary wants to find. It´s so wonderful to be able to teacvh them and watch their testimonies develop. We had one lesson with them where Elder Atkin and I basically sat there and testified to them for an hour because they were having doubts. The spirit was crazy strong until Rebecca just burst into tears and left. It was strange but a really powerful experience all the same. I´m really looking forward to this week with them. Also we had lunch with one of the Utley boys mission companions from 2004, Elder Kavamura would have been his name and he gave us two more families to teach... wow. We´re gonna be super busy but I know there was a reason we had to go through those hard times. We had to prove to the Lord that we really have the desires to help his children here. Speaking of which, we had a unique service opportunity last night. We were on our way to a teaching appointment around 7 o clock at night when we saw this guy with no legs laying on the ground. He was pretty drunk and was crying. We stopped to see if he needed anything and he said he hadn´t eaten in four days, and you could tell too! So we went and bought him a big water bottle and four loaves of pão de leite (MILK BREAD)  and gave it to him. I then realized it was sunday but I thought the Lord would be okay with buying on sunday because we were trying to help someone. It was a really cool, but simple experience and a great opportunity to be real missionaries and representatives of Christ and serve. Well, I don´t have much more to write this week except everyone go on youtube and look up Swagger Rangers UVU. It´s a dance crew and they´re crazy good and Alex Fuchs (the not aian one) is my AP! hahaha. He´s awesome! Anyways, I love you all! Things are going really great here and I´m looking forward to another great transfer here in Monumento!
Love from Ipiranga,
Elder Marley

First Baptism

Olá  Well this week was a huge surprise of a week! I was in and out of doctors offices all week to get this whole insomnia thing under control so I think I spent 30 bucks on bus trips haha. But everything is good. Surprise! We had our first baptism this weekend! Whoa! Barbará was baptised! We taught her last sunday and she got baptized yesterday! We´re teaching her entire family and they´re super excited about the gospel. It´s incredible how this all happens at once because we´ve been praying for this for weeks! Barbará is 17 years old and has a two year old daughter named Ivy that is so adorable! She has gone through some extreme trials in her life and was looking for a church to raise her daughter in and after we talked about the restoration she said she wants her family to grow up in the mormon church. It was incredible. Now her sister, her sisters boyfriend, and her mom want to be baptized next week. What a miracle. It just goes to show that even though we weren´t having any success, that God was preparing people right under our nose to teach. This family absolutely LOVES us and I love them so much. The father is an evangelical pastor but doesn´t live with them. He was there for the first lesson and that was interesting to say the least. It´s the end of the first transfer and I´m so happy I survived! Only 17 left! Talking to you guys yesterday was a huge blessing and made me so happy! Everyone looks so good and I´m glad to have received an update on everyone! This week was really an eye opener for me. I experienced some very interesting experiences that I will hold sacred for the rest of my life. I never noticed really how I walk down some of the world´s most dangerous streets every day and feel completely safe, I literally feel the Lord´s promise of having angels on our left and on our right at all times. As we strive to live the commandments with exactness we will be preserved just like Helaman´s 2000 warriors. What an amazing blessing and I, like them, am taking what my mother taught me as a child and applying it in a battle of a different sort but of equal importance. What a blessing it is to be here and like we always hear `No one ever said it was going to be easy, He just said it would be worth it`. I know this is the most difficult thing I have ever done but I know it´s also the most important. Having a hand in literally helping the Savior save souls is a marvelous honor and I couldn´t be happier to be serving the Lord where and when I am serving Him. Thank you so much for the prayers, I feel their effects every day. And Grandma and Grandpa Peterson and Marley... Thank you for the letters! They made my week even greater! Love from Ipiranga Elder Marley 

We Must Smell Bad!

Olá minha querido familia e amigos!
Okay. This week was pretty rough! We no longer have any progressing investigators! A variety of interesting events occured this week to bring that to pass. My theory is that it´s just because we smell bad. But really. Our water got shut off this week because somebody forgot to pay a water bill back in... wait for it... 2008. And they just shut off the water in 2012. hahaha. Oh Brazil. Anyways that was pretty funny. We spent a couple days in the favela this week including a saturday night. Mistake. Things get so nutty on saturday nights in favelas. They don´t have to work on domingos so they just live it up with really loud funk music. Brazilian funk is like ghetto rap. It´s hilarious once they start dancing. Anyways, let´s not get sidetracked. Our four promising investigators just up and moved to Curitiba this week. Surprise! So Marcus will have to baptise them when he gets there. We started to finally get to work with the members more, they´re opening up to us! So hopefully this week we´ll get a lot of good work done. We have a bunch of part member families and less active memebers we´re going to start working with this week and I am super excited. It´s tough to take pictures here because cameras get stolen so often so I hope that explains the lack of photos lately. It´s been raining like CRAZY here! Man oh man! It seriously flash floods a ton here and people have two doors. One regular one and one of cast iron to stop the flood waters from getting in. Crazy life! Hmmmm, oh! The ward I´m serving in has a missionary serving in PORTLAND! Elder Lima! So look for him! He´s from the Monumento ward! This week we had a good experience. It had been a really really tough week and we were getting down because it was just feeling like we weren´t being blessed for all of our hard work. We were walking home last night and saw some people moving some things into their new room. So we decided to help them out because that´s what we do. Well we helped them, and set up a time to go talk to them later this week. After we did that, we got home and ta da! Our water was turned back on! Blessing! It was cool. I also learned that faith is developed over time but really in reality is a gift from God and we need to exercise our gift or we will lose it. I hope everyone has a great week! Thanks for everything!
Elder Marley

It's More then a Drizzle down here

Opá Família!

Okay wow, this week was all over the place. I would be sending pictures of my first four baptisms today but, SUPRISE! Nobody showed up for the baptism, so it was me, Elder Atkin, the ward, and a font full of water, with no family to be baptized. That was the worst feeling I´ve had in my life, bar none. Talk about devastating. We hope to figure their issue out and help them maybe this weekend or next, depending on what the problem is. Other than that, the week was relatively good. I still only get about 1 and a half hours of sleep per night, and that makes things really rough after a few hours of walking, but I´m still alive! Blessing.

 We have been working really hard to find people this week and we find them, but people are too nice for their own good and say yes to our faces then don´t show up at the door the next day or on sunday. It´s quite rough because it´s so important that people keep their commitments! Hopefully things shape up a little better this week.

 Unfortunately I only have one funny story this week and it´s mostly sad. We contacted with some folks in the park and we went over to talk to a group of kids (it was about 9:20 on a Wednesday... sketchy) anyways, they were like 14 years old max. They were heckling us and being really obnoxious and rude because kids are kids everywhere in the world it turns out, so Elder Atkin decided it would be fun to talk to them. After a little bit of talking and enduring some rude remarks we came to find out that one of the girls was the mother of two. And that her boyfriend was wait for it... twelve years old. Yikes. We didn´t have anything to say to that so we left them with a law of chastity pamphlet and went home. It was more surreal than funny. Oh and fun fact of the week, I identified what favela water smells like! About 500 dead camels. I can hear Cassidy laughing about that but it´s true! Oh man it reaks. Also, I thought I knew what rain was living in Oregon, but man was I wrong. The rain here is unreal!! Seriously! Anyways. Basically what I learned this week is that, the will of the Lord isn´t always what we want, but if we submit to His will we are promised blessings in return. I will continue to work my hardest until my body either sleeps, or falls down again, haha. I hope I have some baptism pictures for you all next monday! I really love the work here, there´s a lot to do, and knowing that Christ would do the same thing if He were here, keeps me going everyday. I love this gospel and I´m so glad I decided to remain faithful when the choice was placed before me. I love you all and thank everyone so much for the love!

 

Eu amo Vocês,

Elder Marley

 

P.S. We got to see Elder Holland speak on saturday at our mission conference and he spoke about the will of the Lord and the importance of remaining faithful, aka, exactly what I have been thinking this week! It was incredible!

1st Letter from the Mission Field!!!!

Oh do I have a lot to pack into this email. haha. First off everything here is even better than I expected, except we haven´t really had any success yet. The weather is pretty hot usually in the mid 80´s during the day and super humid, we walk about 12 miles a day and the days go super fast. Everywhere smells bad here but it´s always a different kind of bad smell and it just makes it feel authentic. My trainer´s name is Elder Atkin, he´s from Chico California and is 27 years old. I´m super grateful to be serving with him because he´s super good with the language, doesn´t hardly speak English to me, and is the district leader so we work probably the hardest out of anyone in our zone. He has a year left in his mission and is still loving it.

 The food here is perfectly fine, I haven´t gotten sick once, and memebers feed us lunch here because they only eat one meal a day here. I´m losing weight pretty quick, it´s funny. Anyway I have a few funny stories. First, we went to the ward mission leader´s house for a meeting and while we were talking to him his son walks in and starts watching a movie, I look up like 15 minutes later because I heard a ton of " f" words in english... this 9 year old was watching Paranormal Activity 3! hahahahah. I was like, oh my gosh, that´s one way you can tell nobody in the house speaks english, they let a  9 year old watch rated R movies with no idea that they are rated R. haha. It was hilarious. We HAD like 5 investigators we found and taught a few times this week but they all fell through yesterday and weren´t there when we went to pick them up for church, talk about heart breaking. This is eternal salvation we´re talking about! People just don´t understand. It was a little discouraging but we just have to rememeber that people will always have their agency to accept or reject the gospel and we´re doing all we can do.

 Oh this place is called Monumento and it´s where Brazil declared its independence from Portugal! Pretty cool! Except now it´s all industrial and reminds me a lot of what Detroit Michigan probably looks like. It´s pretty darn sketchy. I love the ward here, they´re super friendly and all the kids call me Elder Marley e Eu. Marley and Me haha. It´s pretty funny. Oh and I met my first Brazilian Rastas yesterday and they were yelling at us because Americans are racists and they were mad because the pictures in opur pamphlets had ´White Jesus´´ hahahaha. So funny. Then the guy who was totally stoked, figured out my last name was Marley and literally laughed for 15 minutes non stop while we taught hi wife. hahahaha. It was SO WEIRD! Anyways there´s a couple funny stories. I really like the area, it´s quite impoverished and people, like whole families live in a place the size of Sammi´s room, two beds, a kitchen, and a television. Seriously, and there homes are just dug into the side of an alley way. It´s pretty intense. But the people that live here are generally really nice. Except the guy that was screaming at us about being fake and hating all the other christians. That was the night of the big gang shootout. The cops killed like 8 people. CRAZY! 

It´s been a great week and the work here is tremendous, this mission is the busiest mission in the world (288 baptisms last month) and it looks like it´s gonna keep going. We get to meet Elder Holland this week so I´ll definitely write about that soon! Love you and tell everyone I Love them too and hope maybe someday I can get a letter like I used to when I got my last one a month ago. haha. Love you,

Love

Elder Marley