A Area of My Very Own!

So I didn´t get an email out last week, because we got transfer calls Sunday, and Monday I took the bus to Goiania and then a six hour bus ride to Uberlandia in the state of Minas Gerais(I don´t know if I spelled that correctly). My new companion is Elder Sousa Silva. He hails from São Paulo and has one transfer less than me on the mission. I´m finally in an area that I can call my own. Every other Area I´ve had I´ve been stuck in limbo, but now I´m no longer a greenie and I don´t have to worry about where I´m going to be in six weeks (at least I hope I don´t have to worry). We have a lot of work to do here in the Tibery ward. Our area is pretty massive, so this last week our efforts have been focused on finding new investigators. We taught a lot of lessons and set a lot of baptismal dates, but when it came to Sunday we didn´t have anyone in church. The language is coming faster now that I´m with a Brazilian companion, and I don´t have that temptation to speak english. I just know that I´m going to sound weird when I call at Christmas. I´m doing a lot more street contacting for myself now, and it´s funny the excuses people come up with. I should be writing about some awesome baptisms in a couple weeks. Love you all.

Love,

Elder David Short

A Month in Brazil!

This last week has been pretty fantastic. We baptized pretty much all of our most progressing investigators, so we´ve been spending a lot of time finding new people to teach. What better way to find people than to tract (actually there are tons of better ways, but this can be effective sometimes). It´s weird to go tracting, because it´s something I never did for the first six months of my mission, but I´m starting to like it. For some reason rejection is easier to take in another language. Maybe it´s because I´m already struggling to translate in my mind, so it´s easy to tune out all the negative feelings.

The language is increasingly becoming easier, but it´s harder to practice when you´re in a trio. I´ll probably be transferred in a couple weeks, so hopefully I´ll get placed with a Brazilian, then I´ll be forced to practice. Yesterday I got up and bore my testimony in sacrament meeting. It was funny because afterwards a girl in the ward came up to me and said (translated) ´´It was good to hear your testimony. Before then I´ve never heard you speak.´´ I know I don´t speak a whole lot, but I´m really in trouble if people don´t know what my voice sounds like. My courage to speak is increasing with my ability to understand.

We met an awesome family of four the other day and after teaching them we asked them that if they receive an answer and know that these things we teach are true that they´ll accept baptism, and their answer was ´´well of course´´, so now we just have to teach them and pray that they are open to the spirit. 

We had one more baptism this week, Tallytah, the sister of Fernanda. She would´ve been baptized last week but she didn´t really feel compelled to be baptized, until she saw her sister get baptized, and then she got excited. I love working with families. It´s what the gospel´s all about and it´s so amazing the impact the gospel can have on a family.

Well that´s all I have time for today. 

Love you all 

Love,

Elder David Short

Primeiros Batismos No Brasil!

This week past week was pretty exciting. We had four baptisms, which was all pretty stressful and complicated up till the last moment. We had the baptisms of Paulo Vitor, Fernanda, Penelope, and Cinthya. It was pretty awesome and spiritual. The best part for me was that I got to baptize Fernanda and Paulo Vitor. It felt a little rushed for me, because Paulo Vitor had to be at work at 430 and the baptism didn´t get started until 435. Penelope forgot when the baptism was so we ended up having two baptisms, one at 435 and one at 800. We were also in charge of a ward activity, which took place in between baptisms. Our activity was we had everyone in a room together to start, and we gave a brief summary of the Plan of Salvation and then explained to everyone that they were currently in the pre-mortal life. Their task was that they had to go to earth and participate in a variety of games to earn 15 points so that they could go to the Celestial Kingdom and eat food. Some of the games we had were the egg and spoon race, bowling, scoring goals in soccer, and I was in charge of the three legged race. Once people got to about 10-14 points we´d kill them and they´d have to wait in the spirit world for the final judgement. Once everyone died we had the final judgement and one by one Elder Wride would ask someone if they wanted to go to the Celestial Kingdom so that they could go eat. They would have to turn in their scorecards and Elder Chandler would have to do a pushup for every point they needed to get to 15. Towards the end Elder Chandler had done well over a hundred pushups and people didn´t want him to have to do anymore pushups for them, but the lesson was that we need the atonement if we want to make it to the Celestial Kingdom, and that the Savior sacrificed for us even if we don´t accept it. A good number of people were crying toward the end, it was awesome.

This week we found a couple new people to teach, but it´s too soon to tell how dedicated they´ll be. Next week we´ll be having the baptism of Tallytah, the sister of Fernanda. I´m running out of time, so continue to know that I love you all and write me a letter if you can.

Love,

Elder David Short

 

in the pics:

the big group pic

Paulo Vitor, Cinthya, Fernanda

other group pic

Penelope

 

A little bit about Brasil

Oi Minha Familha

Well the past week has been pretty crazy with getting accustomed to everything here. I´m still incapable of teaching a full lesson in Portuguese, but I feel lucky to have two American companions to help me out.

On the plane ride it was forever long, but I got to sit next to Elder Grandy, so we spent a lot of time catching up. We were joking about how excited we were going to be in two years on the plane ride home and how great it will be to understand what they´re saying over the intercom.

My mission president, President Prieto, is like Santa Clause without the beard. I´m sure that´s he´s really funny, but I don´t really know what he´s saying yet.

To elaborate a little on Brasil. Everything thing is GREEN! except for the houses. The grass couldn´t die here even if it wanted to. It´s annoying be able to understand  what people are saying up until they talk to me. Then I panic a little and have no idea what they´re saying, but it´s all good. I´m getting there with the language so I´m not worried.

Our city  of Anápolis is in the Guinness book of world records for having the most churches per square mile than  anywhere else. It was really funny, we were tracting a little bit the other day when a older lady and her grandson let us in. We were sharing about how Christ established his church on the earth and we got to the part about Joesph Smith, and everything was fine, but then we pulled out a Livro de Mórmon and the grandma´s eyes got all big and she whispered in a shocked tone ´´Mormons...´´ She wasn´t really interested after that, but I thought it was a funny experience. We were going to have a baptism on Saturday but it fell through, so it will be this week along with four others.

My companions like to have fun with me especially Elder Wride. We were at lunch with a member, and Elder Wride told me that it is polite to tell the sister who made lunch that it was exquisite ´´esquisito´´  I told the sister ´´ que a comida foi equisita´´ and she gave me a strange look and asked why. I said ´´because it´s really good´´ she was confused, so I looked up the word in the dictionary and esquisito means Weird. I proceeded to sock Elder Wride in the leg.

My mission address is:

Elder David Short

Rua 18 No. 110 Sala 1105 a 91107

Ed. Business Center Setor Oeste

Goiânia - GO 74120-080

All mail gets sent to the mission office and then the zone leaders pick it up once a month, so it takes mail about two weeks to get here, but I only get mail once a month, so that it will take awhile to receive and respond.

Love you all.

Love,

Elder David Short

Estou No Brasil!

Desculpe por causa de nao escrever. foi muito dificil para me escrever enquanto estava voando ao Brasil.  (you may need to use google translater) Eu gosto de estar aqui. Aqui o povo sao muito amistoso. È muito difirente trabalhando aqui. Vamos ter alguns baptismos nas semanas proximas e nos estamos ensinando muitas novas pessoas. Eu nao tenho permissão para falar em ingles, depois uma semana minha portuguese é melhor. It´s really weird for me to speak english and on the rare occassion that I have spoken english I can feel a actual physical change in minha mente. I´m beginning to understand what people are saying and I´m also beginning to know how to respond. It was true what they told me about rice, beans, and noodles. I now know why missionaries here don´t go home for dinner, it´s because the members here stuff them to the brim so much that they can´t eat until ten at night. I´ve been told that we´re going to have gator and snake this week and I´m very excited. I remember being told about how you clap the gate of the houses here, but what I didn´t know was that all the houses here have a twelve foot wall. Fruit juice is so much better here! I´m a little overloaded with stuff to write about. Oh I know. I´m in a trio right with the zone leaders, Elders Chandler and Wride. Got to go now, but I´ll write more later.

Love,

Elder David Short

Times are a Changin'

How goes it friends and family? On Wednesday I finally got Elder Huntsman as my companion. He's really nice. He's from Austin Texas, and a lot of people say that he doesn't have an accent, but I notice it. The last week was a little hard with not being in my area for the first two days, but we were still able to get a lot done. We started teaching a new investigator on Saturday. Apparently her cousin from Utah referred her, because she's been going through a rough patch in life and is looking to be more happy, so we have some ideas to help with that. We talked a lot about how the gospel blesses us and how she will be happier through becoming closer to her Heavenly Father. She seemed to take it in pretty well, and we set up a return appointment. We got called on Sunday to see if we could do some service by keeping score of the USA wrestling match. We spent all Saturday morning at the school gym and watched kids twelve and under grapple with each other. The funniest to watch was the kids six and under. They would flop around while their coaches would be yelling at them. I didn't expect to see so much crying at a wrestling meet, but it was there in its bounty. We did a lot of walking this week. Friday night we had three less actives that said that they'd call us when they got home, and with no one else to visit at eight at night we walked in circles hoping to catch one of them. Sunday was the seminary program. It was a lot like the primary program, but not as cute, and it didn't have nearly as large of a topic range. We've been trying to work with our wards more, and to coordinate better, but it is really hard with four wards. The work continues to move forward. No more word on the visa, but I'm not worried about it.
Love,
Elder David Short

A New Transfer

From: David Short
Subject: A New Transfer

Well we got our transfer calls on Friday. I get to stay in the lovely town of Lovell, and Elder Hancock was sent up to billings. It was sad to see Elder Hancock go, but at the same time it is exciting to get moving on new things (like getting a visa). My new companion will be  Elder Huntsman, but he won't be here till Wednesday, so I'm in Powell right now till he gets here. I'm so glad that I didn't get transferred, because I have all this extra stuff for being in the US like my English preach my gospel, and a bunch of warm clothes that I won't need in Brazil.
Elder Hamblin, who has been waiting for his visa a month longer than we, is getting his visa within the next couple weeks, so hopefully mine will be right after that.
The last two p-days have been pretty awesome. Last week we went to the devil's canyon lookout and took a bunch of pictures; we also saw a bunch of bighorn sheep. This week we went hiking in the Shoshone national forest. We climbed up the mountain till we couldn't go any further, took a bunch of awesome pictures, and then slid down to the bottom.
The weather has seemed to stabilize, at least it isn't snowing anymore. All the snow is finally gone and the temperature has been climbing into the fifties. Today was the first day that I didn't need to wear my jacket.
Things have continued to go well in Lovell. A lot of the last couple days was spent letting Elder Hancock say goodbye to a bunch of investigators and some families. I wonder what I'll feel like when I have to leave.
The keyboard on this computer is really frustrating, so I'm getting tired of writing.
Tuesday I was on team ups in Powell with Elder Trujillo. Other than that I'm hard pressed to think of anything noteworthy.
Love,
Elder David Short