Letter

Hey,
This week wasn´t too bad. Good to hear that Erica was funny on drugs. Sorry I wasn´t.

Anyways. This week was not too bad. We have this family in our ward that takes care of us like none other, Jilmar and Rose. Jilmar is the second counselor in the bishopric and Rose is in the Primary presidency and they both team up to be the missionary family. It really started when Elder Holmes and I became a companionship. They give us lunch basically every other day, instead of us having to go out to eat (waste of money here). So they always find ways to make us laugh. Their family is the family that Holmes and I traded American goods for Brazilian "equivalents" I hope that all of you are this family for the missionaries back home. Because it´s priceless. The funniest part of the week was definitely Elder França learning how to distinguish the difference between "man" and "men". It was hilarious. Because he says it and moves his head really elaborately (is that the word?) when he speaks english. When he finally got it down, he was so happy. I´ve literally never seen someone that happy before. It was so funny.
On another note we had another baptism this week, Ana Maria, that was a reference from Salt Lake. She was there in the beginnning of the year and visited all the church history sites, and talked a lot to the sisters there. So when she came back she was interested in the church but didn´t know how to get in contact with the missionaries. So she waited until one day one of the sisters from Salt Lake emailed her and passed her address to us here. When we got the call at like 830 at night, the initial reaction was oh we´ll just visit her tomorrow, it´s been a long day, blahblahblah. But when we were walking back we thought, maybe we´ll just pop in and introduce ourselves really quick. That turned out to be a great decision because when she got there she said she had been praying for us to show up that night because she was extremely depressed and needed help. We ended up teaching her about the Restoration and inviting her to baptism this sunday (this all happened two weeks ago). She ccepted and was baptized yesterday. I was thinking yesterday when we went by to talk more to her after her baptism about how strange it is that we walk by her apartment building every day, like every single day for seven months in this area and she was there the whole time, just waiting and praying for us to show up. And in her moment of greatest need, we received a prompting to stop by when in reality, we had no inention of doing so earlier. It´s really something. Because lately, I´ve been wondering if my prayers have been being heard. I´ve felt sometimes like they haven´t been and that it just won´t happen. I realize this is exactly how Ana Maria was feeling since she got back from Salt Lake, and God waited until her weakest moment to answer her prayers. It goes to show that sometimes, our answers are delayed so that we can strengthen our weaknesses and grow our faith before things get worked out. Sometimes it´s necessary for us to suffer. True, everyone has a breaking point, but what we THINK is our breaking point is often not. I don´t know, it was just a really cool experience and I´m glad we were able to help her not only find the true church but to find hope, and a way to hole onto true happiness forever, no matter happens. The atonement of Christ really is a miraculous force that has the power to save us not only from our sins but also from our burdens. As we can read in the scriptures that Christ not only suffered for the sins we commit but he also suffered every pain and temptation as well. If it had not been so, the atonement would have been incomplete and would not have total effect. It´s a really interesting concept to me, how perfect the whole plan is. Especially out here on the misison being able to see the Atonement take effect in the lives of others, as well as in my life, really reminded me as to why I came out here. I came out here to preach this gospel, yes, but ultimately to help other people, because that´s exactly what the gospel does. Anyways, that´s all this week. Have a great week everyone.

Elder Marley

Getting Hot! and Pictures!

Good Morning Land of the Free,

What´s with everyone getting married? STOP IT! Don´t you know your wedding won´t be very cool because I´m not there? Gosh dang it. But all joking aside congrats to all my friends that are now engaged! It´ll be a weird world to come back to. Let´s see what I have to say about this week. It wasn´t too bad. We had a baptism on September 7th (Brazil´s independence day) of a girl named Jannayé. I think I´ve mentioned her before, but her uncle came down from Ribeirão Preto to baptize her because nobody else in her family is a member, but they were all there and it made for a really spiritual baptism, thats for sure. Our Bishop (Bispo Belo, father of Elder Belo in the Portland Oregon mission) talked about eternal families and the blessings of the gospel, something that I´m almost certain hit home really hard for Jannayé´s family. It was really cool. Also, I did my first confirmation in Portuguese yesterday, nervous much? But it went well and was a really cool experience. Also this week I hit seven months in the mission. Which doesn´t seem like a lot of time in the perspective of two years but when I look back, it´s crazy. Seven months ago I was with the Clawson (and Byers) family getting dropped off at the MTC of course being accompanied by one of my best friends, Josh Kunzler. It´s mega surreal to look back and think about that day and everything that´s happened since then, both in Brazil and in the MTC. It´s nuts to me. And now, almost all of my best friends (that are members) are on missions in different countries. Colin is in North Carolina, Jake is in Hungary (what the heck?), Josh is in France, and Jeff and Conner are here with me in Brazil. It´s freaky business for me because two years ago I NEVER would have thought I´d be out here. In Brazil, or even on a mission. It´s still shocking to me. Anyways, enough of that. I learned this week that Brazilians, at least in São Paulo, don´t really care about their own Independence day. Which, being American is absolutely shocking. I was expecting some crazy partying to go down but nope, that´s only for soccer games. It´s a totally different world.  Holy crap this week was HOT! My comp (from up north where it´s basically hot, hot, hot with a view) was complaining about the heat. It´s been sitting around 33. That´s celsius, you´ll have to convert to farenheit, but with this humidity, mother! It´s been hot. My neck tan is developing nicely.  This is the last week of this transfer and I won´t say anything about it because last time I was dead wrong. Though these transfers get faster everytime. Elder Holmes and I refer to the past two transfers as the great twelve week transfer, and it´s only fitting that we have another American holiday to celebrate together in our last week together. PATRIOTS DAY! ´Murica. It will be some good stuff. Well, have a great week everyone. Nobody else get engaged ok?

Love,

Elder Marley

Mail Time

It´s mail time, mail time, maiiil tiiiiiiiiiiiiiime!

 

Okay urrbuddy. So that awkward moment when I don´t get transferred. Joke´s on me, I´m in Monumento for one more transfer! With Elder Holmes, the Brotinho himself. So that was exciting to get that call. But as for this week I´ll start at the top. We got two new zone leaders this transfer and now five missionaries in our zone are from my group. Me, Elder Contreras, Elder Vasquez, Sister Moura, and Sister A. Teixeira. So we´re a pretty young zone now. But that´s not the part I even care about. The really cool thing that happened this week was on wednesday we had interviews with President Ferrin for the first time. Let me just tell you, that man is basically my favorite person in Brazil. For those of you who haven´t been following for the past six months, I´ve had quite a difficult time getting settled in here and it´s been an exceptionally rough first quarter of the mission. So I walked into President´s office feeling a little down and not very stoked, but I left feeling incredible and like the best missionary ever. I don´t quite know how to explain it but when someone REALLY has the spirit you can just feel it immeadiately. During our conversation I could just tell that President Ferrin really was the person that God chose to run the mission here and that he really relies on the Lord for all the guidance he needs. All my worries about the mission were basically washed away as President reassured me and Elder Holmes that despite what our leaders might say that we´re good missionaries and as long as we keep doing what we´re doing we will always feel good about our missions. As opposed to the guys who do things just for numbers or in other ways disobey on the mission who will return feeling very empty. It was basically like President was thinking everything I was and said exactly what I needed to hear to be able to just press on. I have a long time left after all. Oh before I forget, quote of the week from Elder Holmes: "My ultimate goal is to become a trophy husband." Bahaha. I thought that was hilarious! You might not, but I sure did. As for the work itself this week, we focused on finding and teaching as many people as we can every day. And boy did we ever. The only thing that was a bummer was that we didn´t have anyone at church because it´s Brazilian father´s day. But we met one girl who wants to be baptized really bad, and her uncle is a bishop in Ribeirão Preto. He´s coming down to baptize her in a couple weeks. I wish I had a lot more to write, but there´s always a storiy-less week here and there. But I will write a better one next week! Love ya everyone, thanks for the support and love.

 

Amor do Ipiranga mais uma vez,

Elder Marley

Captain America

Okay America,

This week I don't have a TON to write about but, that's life. So it was PROBABLY my last week here in Monumento (we don't find out transfers until the night of) so it was a little surreal walking around here all week thinking that it might be awhile until I see them again. We don't know for sure, but the ZL's threw the älmost for sure" tag on the me leaving thing. So yeah. But this week we worked our butts off. It was crazy. We walk a ton, because our area is one of the biggest in the mission and also mega hilly, we also sweat a ton this week. It's been really hot lately. But we found a lady named Lucia through a reference we received from Church headquarters that she wanted some representatives to drop by and bring a DVD. That was us. So we get there and she's this old lady about 85 years old and she has this awful genetic disease where she can't leave the bed. I don't know what the disease is called but she has spines kind of like a crocodile, all over her body. It's a pretty sucky disease because she can't walk or get out of bed or anything without help. So her husband and daughter help her live basically. Pretty sucky life. But anyways, we have been going there and we have to be really quick with her because she can't sit up for too long, and she doesn't hear too well. But the first time we visited her we just left her with the DVD and shared a quick message with her and a prayer. I gave the prayer and she just started bawling. Marking the second time so far in my mission that the spirit has moved someone to tears during a lesson. She talked about how God knows when someone needs a visit and it was really special, I thought. She couldn't go to church this week, even though I offered to pick her up, literally, and take her there. But maybe next week, it's a hard life. We've been dealing with people using their free agency freely a lot lately and sometimes it's really hard to accept when people just choose not to progress. Like Volquiria. She 1) Knows the church is true. 2) Goes to church every sunday. And 3) participates in all the activities, but won't get baptized because she doesn't want to stop doing ... with her boyfriend. The trade off is obviously worth it, but some people just don't have the same view as us, no matter how well we try to explain it, and some times it's way rough. We had a funny experience this week that was pretty fun. We were walking to an appointment when we walked by a buffet (they're different here, think more like Chuck E. Cheese, or Weenie Hut Junior from Spongebob) and we saw a giant Captain America, made out of Balloons, for some kids birthday. Anyone who knows me knows that Captain America is my boy so naturally we stopped to take some pictures with him. Unfortunatley some guys had the same idea as us, including as Elder Holmes puts it "the Red Skull" who was "just biding his time across the street". So we stood a few feet away and pretended to be on the phone/checking out schedule for like 20 minutes until everyone was gone. Also, We commemorated the kid who, though living in Brazil, decided to have a Captain America themed birthday party, knowing full well who the biggest stud in the world is. That kid is now the runner up to that title. Oh, also we were teaching a lesson to some kids from the english class and it was going decent, whatever, they were asking a ton of questions, but there was this one kid, like 9 years old who was just sitting over there spacing out (kinda looked like he was on some sleep meds or something) and he just blurts out to us in the middle of the dicussion, "I know the names of some dinosaurs!". We just couldn't help it, we busted up laughing. It was hilarious! Anyways, I think that's about it this week. I'm gonna miss Elder Holmes AKA Brotinho, and Monumento but it's gonna be cool to check out some new places. Keep it real everyone. The church is true.

 

Elder Marley

Another great week

Everyone, what is up? (Jim Rome...?)   Sorry for sending some pretty lackluster letters lately. So first off, our mission broke the area record for baptisms in a week this week, 85! Whoa. That was cool. And our new mission president is changing a LOT of things up, for the better I might add, this week to help us be more effective. (Like zone P days). Hollaback! Okay, so, taking my mom´s advice, I started writing stuff down that happened this week so I could remember it for the weekly letter. Well, it mostly ended up as a bunch of funny quotes from my companion and I as we make astute observations about the world around us. So I´ll just kinda throw them in this letter as it happens. But as for the good stuff, we picked up two new families this week. They´re Jehovah´s witnesses so they were really tough to start teaching, they invited us in to bible bash, which we don´t do, and jokes on them because they´re marked for baptism on the 7th of August. Oh, also, Eric´s dad wants to be baptised but the thing is he´s just living with Marlí, ( a normal thing here), and she´s not divorced from her first husband here yet... and Renato´s a little crazy. But hopefully they can prayerfully consider what to do and get things moving in the right direction. They have this awful dog, ironically named Alegria (Joy), that is ALL OVER THE PLACE, and bites the crap out of my ankles all the time. So I mildly hate going over there, but it´s been really cool seeing their lives change as they´ve re-opened to the gospel. We also are teaching two exceptional young men who go to the church to play volleyball with the ward twice a week, Felipe and Caique, and they´ve been going to church lately. They really love Gospel Principles class because it´s so easy to understand. And yesterday they showed up at church with a shirt and tie and everything! Imagine my surprise. The only thing is these guys grew up without a christian background so we have to teach them starting with who Jesus Christ is, and why he´s important and everything so it´s a little slow, but they live in the ghetto so it´s always fun to go teach them. Oh, one of the people we´ve been teaching for 40 years, Volquiria, will be baptized finally this coming week. If all goes according to plan. Last time she was supposed to be baptized, they had a VERY SERIOUS family emergency and she went into limbo (yes, like Inception) and pulled out for a little, so I hope she can step up this week and follow her faith into eternal bliss. Here´s something that´ll make Mom laugh. This week we were walking down the street with all the car dealerships and saw a motorcycle. It was really sweet. Flat black, with auburn accents and everything. Just like, boom. Then at a closer look it had a name on the side of it, and that name was... Motard. Haha. Motard! Does 6 year old Brad own that motorcycle? It was hilarious. Elder Holmes didn´t get it. Also, we celebrated the release of the Dark Knight Rises this week by eating yogurt. Don´t ask me how it relates, because it doesn´t. Also, the streets here are dangerous to cross so we often just run across the street out of instinct and Holmes did it once with absolutely no traffic, and when I got to the other side of the street he said, "Speaking of uneccessary run..." but I thought he said uneccessary nun, because there was a nun on the other side of the street so now whenever we see a nun we say "speaking of uneccessary nun.". I don´t really expect anyone else to think that´s too funny. But let me just say we have quotes that would make Paul Sorenson proud. Last awesome experience of thwe week. Last night we went to have a family home evening with our favorite family (Barbara´s) and Barbara invited her new boyfriend, Leandro (yes, I baptized him too). Let me just say, I could not be any more proud of anyone up to this point in my life than I already am of this whole entire family. They did the whole thing. Prayers, maessages, spiritual thought, everything, and it was literally spiritually ground shaking. It was nuts. Barbara was just testifying on one side of the room, Dulcemir was sharing her conversion story on the other side of the room, Wellington was talking about serving a mission neext year, and they ALL (including Leandro) have set a goal to get to the temple next year. I can not adequately communicate the feelings I was feeling in that house last night other than that family already has made this mission worth it. And in the end of this life, seeing them on the other side, will be the greatest reward I can imagine, for my short, and sometimes falting service to my Lord. I am not perfect. I have a TON of weaknesses and difficulties. But these difficulties are making me the man I need to be in the future. But, I will keep working hard because experience has taught me that I´ll be grateful for this stuff in a bit. Thanks everyone. Have a great week.   Elder Marley

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