Elder Ellis and others

Dearest Family, (and Friends)
I know that I say it often, but this week was awesome.
Firstly, we had an awesome P-day with the zone and played a number of Soccer based games (but not actually soccer, because soccer isn´t allowed). One game we played was the Brazilian version of Dodge Ball called Queimado.
Because of chasing down baptisms last week, we had spent very little time trying to find new investigators, so this week we had a determination to find some elect. Our efforts are focused in the areas closest to the church.
Wednesday we woke up super early to get our van to Uberlândia for our conference with Elder Ellis of the Seventy. The Bishop´s wife served in the São Paulo north mission when Elder Ellis was President there. Elder Ellis and his wife were amazing. They´re from Texas and have nine children and what appeared to be about thirty grandchildren. Sister Ellis first spoke about developing our faith and afterwards Elder Ellis spoke about how God know everything from the beginning to the end and the end is eternal life. The lesson that he applied was that we need to think of our investigators and less actives in terms of where they are in the gospel plan and what the next step they need to take is.
Thursday was the ward family home evening, and I was honored to play the part of the frog in a primary puppet show.
Saturday we were praying really hard to find a golden family to baptize. We were trying to contact less actives when we came across a family where the mother and grandmother had gotten baptized about 13 years ago, but had fallen away. Before starting our message we asked if there was anyone else who would like listen, so they invited the rest of the family. We soon found out that 15 people live in that house and the 10 can get baptized! The Lord answers prayers!
On Sunday 8 of the family of 15 came to church (the others were working.)
I hit a all time personal record of 13 investigators at church, so to say the least, I´m a little happy.
That´s all for now.
Awake from the dust and write me a letter.
Love,
Elder David Short

Happy Birthday to Me

Dear Family,
This week was truly awesome. This past week we had 25 lessons with members. Our goal from the mission president is 10, so we were really proud of our efforts.
To start off the week, we super cleaned our house on Monday. There is a slight possibility that Elder Ellis of the Seventy might give us an inspection, so we had to prepare. On P-day Elder Lindsey and I found a second hand store, and some awesome suits for 25 reais (about 13 dollars). As a birthday present to me, I bought the suit, and destroyed my old one that didn't fit me anymore (because of the weight loss).
The day of my birthday we didn't have anyone signed up for almo's, so we made milkshakes, french toast, and bacon. No one made mention of my birthday, in the ward. We had previously had a family home evening planned with a less active family, so we prepared a small message/activity. We were told that the primary president (the one whose computer we used for the mother's day call) would be showing up, but then it was a little surprising to have the bishop and his family show up. While we were waiting for the bishop's family we made tapioca and not the tapioca that we eat in the US. This tapioca is a pancakey thingy that they fill with whatever they want and eat like a crepe. They were delicious. After the message and closing prayer, the primary president said that she had prepared another game to close up the night. Everyone retreated to the kitchen and returned with cake and balloons, and singing "parabens." It was the best mission birthday ever. I later found out that the primary president had been planning the surprise party for about three weeks and it had been her idea to have the family home evening.
We were planning the baptism of a recently activated member, so while we were at it, we decided to tract down two other children whose families were members, but they hadn't yet been baptized. It was probably the best baptismal service we've had yet. So many people from the ward came to participate.
Life is good and productive.
The Gospel is true.
The Keys of the Priesthood are restored.
The Heavens are open.
Love,
Elder David Short

PS Thanks be to all who wished me a happy birthday.

Happy Mother's Day

Well I shared a good portion of stuff in the call yesterday, but there were some interesting happening during the week that I forgot to share.

Last Monday after emailing, I discovered that the most ineffective way to write letters is in a hammock, because you just end up falling  asleep.

Wednesday we worked in the Boa Vista ward, which marked the last time that we have to work outside our area for the time being. It was a cool experience, because we went tracking with a couple members, one of which is preparing to serve a mission.

Friday we had a zone conference in Uberlandia, which meant waking up at 430 to catch our rented van. The conference was amazing and instilled a renewed desire to be a more effective instrument in the hands of the Lord.

One of the things that President Prieto shared in the conference was a statistic of the progress our mission is having in baptisms. We saw that for every lesson with a member the mission had (average per companionship) the mission had about thirty more baptisms. One of the most important parts of missionary work is help from members. 

This week we went to back for our second visit at the house of a somewhat elderly woman. She has a lot of family, but because of personal responsibilities (taking care of her parents) she never had the opportunity to start a family of her own. She´s quite the amazing person and she came to church this Sunday.

Sunday was a rush to get things done before the phone call. 

I´m super excited for the coming weeks, with all the things we have planned to accomplish.

I must go now, but I loves you all!

Love,

Elder David Short

A Week Before Mother´s Day!

Editor’s note: I usually clean up some of the font irregularities in Elder Short’s letters, but I do not know what to do about the weird characters within the Portuguese. My rough translation had him eating something bad that gave him digestive complaints for a number of days.

Firstly I must say that I’m stoked for our call on Sunday. I plan on calling around 18h00.
Secondly, we baptized this week!
We had the great privilege of baptizing two sons of a recently reactivated member. We had planned to baptize her husband as well, but we have to work with him a little harder to conquer some addictions. He’ll be getting baptized this week, or the following.
I’m becoming well known in the ward for making cakes at baptisms. Maybe I’ll become a baking legend in this area.
We clapped a good number of gates this week in the hopes of finding the elect, but no one we found went to church this week.
Sometimes missionary trials raise the questions of “why isn’t it easier?”, but I find strength in the words of Elder Holland. He explained that “Salvation was never a cheap experience. It was never easy for [Christ], so why should we expect it to be easy for us.” For us to have genuine missionary experiences, we have to walk a part of the path that he walked.
This next experience of the week I feel the desire to share in Portuguese.
Esta semana eu tomei a decis鉶 horr韛el de comer 创Mortadela创, isso resultou em me passando mal por quatro dias. Eu tinha a for鏰 pra trabalhar m醩 tinha que usar o banheiro quase toda hora. Domingo foi o primeiro dia que eu estava sentindo normal.
We started teaching the eight year-old son of a member that has started coming back to church. The baptism will count for the ward and not for us, but we’re happy to help this family get reactivated.
Love,
Elder David Short

Pics
the Jabuticaba fruit
Mortadela must die
My rede
Baptism
Tucans!

Awesomenesses

The past week was very very difficult for Elder Lindsey and me. We had to do a lot more walking then was necessary. 

The immense amount of walking began with Wednesday, when we went to work in the Bom Retiro area. 

Thursday, President Prieto came to conduct interviews with the zone. The interviews started at about two and didn´t end until almost seven. I really enjoyed the interviews. While other missionaries were having their interviews we heard a number of inspiring stories and experiences from Sister Prieto and the Assistants. 

Friday we once again had to leave our area to work in Boa Vista, so we only had about three days to work in our area and we got a lot done. 

This week was our stake conference. We were given a couple hundred fliers to pass out to people. Since the stake center isn´t that big, the stake rented a theatre to house the conference. The conference was inspirational and the speakers were great.

Last P-day I was feeling a little excited, so I made a purchase and now I´m the happy owner of a hammock.

We have a lot of work ahead of us this week.

Love,

Elder David Short

Pictures

More Shtuff!

Dearest Familia,
I´m happy to report my latest dealings in this marvelous work in the Lord´s vineyard.
Firstly, last P-day after emailing, Elder Lindsey and I went to eat açaí and do some shopping. I finally was able to find post it notes. No matter how many times I explain it, no one understands when I describe ´´those little square papers that you can stick to things.´´ We also found a thrift store and we went fox crazy on the tie bin. I am now the very happy owner of a zipper tie. Please don´t judge me. Our last discovery was a chocolate store, so we bought some forms and chocolate and tried our hand at making chocolate eggs. They didn´t turn out pretty, but they were delicious.
Brazil has the tradition of breaking an egg on your head on your birthday, in the spirit of this tradition Elder Lindsey and I made brownies for a member´s birthday, because she helps us out a lot. We wanted to keep with Brazilian tradition, but we didn´t want to get yoke everywhere, so we made a confetti egg and used that instead.
We didn´t find a ton of new people to teach this week, but the people we did find were awesome. We´re teaching a family of four, where only the wife is member and the husband and two sons want to get baptized.
We were teaching a member´s sister this week when she asked why she hadn´t gotten baptized. We told her that she has to go to church at least twice to get baptized and that she has to live the law of chastity (because right now she´s living with her boyfriend.) We taught the law of chastity, and when we finished she said that she could move in with her mom, so that her and her boyfriend could get baptized and then they´d get married in the church. I´m learning more and more everyday that you have to be a desafiador!
We had a good number of investigators church this week, but they can´t get baptized Saturday, because it´s stake conference :(
A recent convert had his birthday yesterday, so we reenacted the egg trick, but afterwards someone jumped in with a real egg.
Love,
Elder David Short

PS Write me a letter