The Game is Afoot (Feb 27)

Dear Family,
We have been hard at work this week and so has the enemy. We tried focusing our efforts this week on rescueing the lost sheep of Israel. We grabbed the ward list(which is heavily outdated) and went to work. I am saddened by what I saw this week. Firstly it was a little discouraging to find that so many people had moved and they hadn´t updated their address. Secondly I was depressed by the number of members that had been forgotten by the ward. We found housholds of members who had never ever had home teachers and after a month of membership, they went inactive and now attend another church.
There is good news too. We were able to find several incomplete families they said that they´d be willing to come back to church, and they have children and spouses who haven´t yet been baptized.
Sunday the church was full! There were so many less active families that came this week! The gospel principles class was full. As far as investigators go, our sucess was little. Everything seemed to go wrong with our investigators. Some were rushed to the hospital, others had to go to funerals(for the second week in a row) and some were confused because of the time change.
I sometimes feel disapointed with the small amount of sucess of a week, but Monday always brings a new hope and fire. The same way that the sacrament renews our covenants, P-day renews our vigor. I know that the Lord will bless us for our efforts, I just need to humble myself and remember that his ways are higher than my ways.
Love,
Elder David Short

Stuff (20 Feb 2012)

Well we had some interesting stuff this week.
We´ve been trying to find new investigators, but so many people are hard hearted and hearken not unto the word of the Lord. Regardless of the difficulties, we were able to find new people to teach. We started tracting in a huge neighborhood, that´s a little farther away and missionaries have probably never set foot there, so we´re praying to find some golden families.
On Tuesday we had team ups and I went to work with Elder Wolsey in his area. It was cool to see how much he has progressed with the language and just one transfer.
On Friday we had a zone conference in Uberlandia. From Uberaba, Uberlandia is about a two hour trip. The trip was made by van. Kind of like our van, but the seats were a little more fancy, but not as comfortable. At the conference, President Prieto reviewed some mission rules and told us how lucky we are to not have to wear our suits everyday. I found out that I wasn´t the only Elder that almost got transferred to another state.
Saturday we spent almost the entire tracting to find new people to teach, but this week is Carnival, which means that everyone is either traveling, or partying.
Sunday I was asked to give a talk on goals. My talk went pretty well, but my time ran out and I had more to say. There was only about twenty people at church, because the youth had conference and everyone else was traveling, for the holiday.
We traded/grabbed and didn´t give back a less active´s cigarettes, an then we had the pleasure of flushing them when we got back to the house.
My brain has emptied upon this email.
Love,
Elder David Short

Exciting Stuff

Dearest Family,

Last week my email time ran out way too fast, so to summarize two weeks. Being in Uberaba puts me in the same district as Elder Wolsey, which is pretty cool to have someone I know.
As I explained my companion, Elder Lindsey, is from Arizona and likes playing football (the American kind).
The ward here is really awesome and supportive. We still don´t have a chapel, but at least the house that we use here is capable of fitting everyone.
We had some awesome miracles this week.
Firstly, we´ve been teaching a senhora in her sixties who´d wanted to get baptized for the last six months, but couldn´t find the strength to quit smoking. We started a quit smoking program with her this week and she was baptized Saturday! We had some difficulties, because I couldn´t find the stop smoking program in Portuguese, so I took the program in English and had to translate. We were also teaching her granddaughter, who baptized Saturday as well. For the baptism I decided to make a cake. It was chocolate with a coconut frosting. Everyone seemed to like it.
The weather is a lot different here. It´s a lot cooler and a little dryer. Everyone still complains that it´s too hot, but for me coming from Itumbiara, this is paradise.
We´ve been having a little trouble finding new investigators. It seems as if no one is home. There are neighborhoods here that feel like ghost towns.
We are going to celebrate our success of the last week by visiting wal-mart today! I hope to bbq sauce and deodorant.
Write me a letter or I shall stand witness against you at the last day.
Love you all.
Elder David Short

Transfer

I got transferred! Monday I got the call that i would be transferred from Itumbiara to Uberaba in the state of Minas Gerais. Packing was easy, because I was expecting to be transferred for the last week.
Tuesday I boarded the bus for Uberaba. I was a little confused because my ticket said that I was going to São Paulo (which isn´t part of our mission), but the lady at the ticket window assured me that my bus passes through Uberaba and that my ticket was correct. During the bus ride, there wasn´t anyone sitting next to me, so I decided to sleep. After about three and a half hours I got to Uberaba and everyone got off the bus for a potty break, but no one was getting there luggage. I also found it strange that my new companion wasn´t there to greet me. I decided to ask someone if this was in fact Uberaba and if it was, if it was the principal bus terminal. I was told that my bus doesn´t pass through the terminal and we were just stopping at the gas station in Uberaba. With that news I had to run and grab my bags before they were shipped off to São Paulo. I was shown to a taxi that took me to the bus station and there I found my companion waiting for me.
So all was well in the end, but I have a couple questions for my mission president as to why he tried to transfer me to another mission.
My new companion is Elder Lindsey from Phoenix Arizona.
He´s pretty cool.
My time ran out.
Love,
Elder Short

Empress of Pie

Dear Mother,
How can I concentrate during the week when you write me about pie? Please put pie on the list of things to be waiting for me at the house after I get picked up from the airport. Time moves too fast!!!!! When I got here with 6 months time was moving like this: 6 months.....................7 months........................8............................9, but now time is passing like this: 12....13..14..15.16. I´m excited to go home and start life, but there is so much that I want to do here before I leave. I´m still in Itumbiara for now. I´m beginning to think that President forgot about me. I´m hoping that we get transfer calls today, or tomorrow. It´s been wicked hot for the past couple days, so I´ve been trying to be more careful about using sunscreen so that my rosiness doesn´t get worse. The last time I weighed myself this week I was about 180!!! I just wish that we had some weights so that I could turn my newly fashioned flab into muscle.
So to talk about this week.
Elder Santa Rita was honorably discharged on Tuesday, so it´s been me, Elder Alvarez and Elder A. Sousa for the past week. We were working really hard to have three baptisms this week, but the enemy has a firm grasp on the hearts of the people of Itumbiara. It wasn´t so much a lack of our investigator´s desire to be baptized, but more about what they had to do be worthy. We had three awesome amazing fantastic people to baptize Saturday, but they have problems with the 7th commandment that need resolving, but Tudo Bem, they´ll just have to repent and get baptized this month.
Saturday we had a service project where we helped construct a brick wall and then demolish another. The purpose was to divide one house from another and then make a opening for a garage door. I had fun pretending that I was Thor ( because I was using a hammer to breakdown the wall). To my great shame, I forgot to bring my camera, so the event went unarchived.
That´s all I can think of for now.
Love,
Elder David Short

New Standard

Subject: New Standard

This week we received new orders from Goiânia. For the next two weeks ( we started a week ago) we only study Preach My Gospel and the scripture references that it contains. Any other study is forbidden during this period. We also received a new set of goals for us to reach. Normally we teach 25-30 a week, but now we are to teach 45 a week.

President passed by Itumbiara yesterday to do some training in the branch. We also had a quick missionary training and interviews. President explained to us that in other missions one of the greatest factors for baptisms are the number of lessons with a member present. He promised us that we´d baptize at least one person a week if we taught at least 10 lessons with a member present and that he´d give us a virtual kiss via email if we taught 15 with a member present. What president didn´t know is that we had already taught 15 that week. I´m at this moment waiting for my email from president.

We´ve been running all over the place trying to get things done the past week in order to get everyone baptized on the 21st. Saturday we marked a baptismal date with Ana Flavia (the girl who bore her testimony). She came to church again yesterday, which was perfect, because she got to hear talks by President and Sister Prieto.
In my interview with President, the first this he asked me was ´´have you lost weight?´´, but to translate directly it would be ´´you skinnied?´´ At the end of the interview he asked me how long I´ve been in Itumbiara. When I responded that this week would make 7 months here, he thought for a moment and said ´´well you´re getting transferred for sure.´´ I´m a little sad to be leaving, but I´m glad that President gave me a week´s notice.
Milagres são reais quando você crê
Love
Elder David Short

Testimony

My Dearly Beloveds,
This week, the enemy has worked hard to thwart us, but we have risen conquerer.
One of the first frustrations that we confronted this week was that we were having our second visit with an investigator about the authority of the priesthood, and about twenty minutes into the lesson a group of the young adults of her church (including the young adults leader) showed up to visit. For me it was a very tense situation, because some of the people there we people that we had taught on previous ocasions and they had rejected the message of the restoration. I´m happy to report that no Bible bashing occured, but the lesson didn´t end on a very spiritual note, because the conversation turned what people like to put in their milk.
Sunday had it´s share of miracles.
We left the house early to hunt down our investigators, as usual. We passed by about four houses and no one was home, or couldn´t go. We got to church, praying that some of our investigators had arrived. We found out that two investigators had shown up, and our joy was great! I had tried calling our other investigators that hadn´t shown up yet, but they hadn´t answered. I waited a little bit and tried calling again. I was able to get through to Ana Flavia and she said that she wasn´t coming, because it was raining and she didn´t have a car. I was tired of settling for excuses, so I grabbed one of the brethren who had a car and we picked her up. I thought to myself that maybe one of our other investigators might have the same excuse, so we picked her up too.
During the testimony meeting Ana Flavia was touched by the Spirit and felt impressed to bear her testimony. It was her first time at church too!
Milagres são reais!
O Tempo acabou.
Love,
Elder David Short