Me and my comp on the street messin' around...
Elder Albuquerque (in the middle) taught mehow to make a sweet churrasco (bbq) today.
It was way good!
Looks delicious...Saturday, June 26, 2010
Pics for the week
Me and my comp on the street messin' around...Elder Albuquerque (in the middle) taught mehow to make a sweet churrasco (bbq) today.
It was way good!
Looks delicious...
Thursday, June 17, 2010
World Cup has begun
So the World Cup has officially begun. Now, I am sure there a lot of you there in the USA that don't even know that it is happening but I'll tell you something...there is not a Brazilian soul that doesn't know that the cup is going on right now. I can't really explain to you what it's like but let's just say that during the Brazil vs. North Korea game it looked like São Paulo turned into a ghost town in less than an hour. Serious. Literally the only business that stayed open were the bars because people would go drink and watch the game. School class ended early so that all the kids and teachers could go home to watch the game. Employees were let out an hour and a half before the game started so they could all get home in time to watch it. And this was just a simple game against North Korea! I can't even imagine what the future games will be like.
Unfortunately, President Cooley isn't allowing us to watch the games. I was on division with the Elders here close by and we were hitting doors at about 3:00 and the game was at 3:30. After not getting in to a single house we realized that it was useless to work during the game and just headed back to the house to wait it out. Them Brazi's love their soccer.
Last week we did divisions with Barueri, Osasco, and Jaraguá. We started transfers again on Monday...my last transfer starts next week! Crazy! Time is flying by.
-Elder Parsons
Unfortunately, President Cooley isn't allowing us to watch the games. I was on division with the Elders here close by and we were hitting doors at about 3:00 and the game was at 3:30. After not getting in to a single house we realized that it was useless to work during the game and just headed back to the house to wait it out. Them Brazi's love their soccer.
Last week we did divisions with Barueri, Osasco, and Jaraguá. We started transfers again on Monday...my last transfer starts next week! Crazy! Time is flying by.
-Elder Parsons
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Pics for the week
Me, my companion, President and Sister Cooley, and Elder Araújo and his wife after Zone Conference.
The mission baptized 30 people last week (which is our goal for every week) and President was in a good mood so he had us make some stuff for the Zone Leaders at Council. A box of candy and soda saying Congrats with a bunch of 30s on them. Haha.
At Council yesterday 6/8 of the people from my group were there so we took a picture. (From the left) Elders Fabian, Perry, Little, Taylor, Me, Bigelow. I never realized it but I think I am the shortest of the group...and it doesn't help that the Giant - Elder Taylor - is standing next to me. Dangit.
Elder Gratil got some Redvines from home so we bought some delicious drinks to use them as straws.
Me...drinking...with a Redvine...Just realized that I have been spelling "counsel" wrong this whole time. In Portuguese it's "conselho" and looks like counsel so that's why I spell it as such, but really in English it should be council. I sincerely apologize.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Attitude About Missionary Work
This week was a pretty hectic week because we had both Zone Conference and Mission Council. Fortunately we didn’t have to worry much about Zone Conference because one of the Area Seventies came in and talked to our mission which meant we wouldn’t have to prepare a training. Plus, it was even better because his training was incredible. I learned a ton and the missionaries gave really good feedback afterward too.
After that, we had a division with São Paulo Norte on Saturday. Then we had to get home and get ourselves ready for Mission Council on Tuesday. The mission is having a lot of trouble finding new investigators to teach so we focused our training on Finding. It went really well.
Part of our training was about the Elders having enough faith to understand that God knows where they are and when an appointment “falls” that they need to immediately look around to find somebody to teach because they are there for a reason.
It’s funny because many times I forget to follow my own counsel on the divisions I do and I definitely need to get better with that. So last night, after counsel, we did a division with the secretaries in their area. I was freakin’ tired from the day’s events already and I even told that to the Financial Sec. Elder Whitesides who is one of my good buddies on the mission. He has 11 months on the mission and is an excellent missionary with an extraordinary amount of faith. I said “Dude, I’ll be honest, I don’t have even the least desire to be here right now haha.” He told me to shut up and that miracles would happen that night if I would just work hard. I doubted it…
We started walking to our one and only appointment that was on top of a hill. There are two ways to get there but one way is somewhat of a short-cut that saves about 5 min walking up hill. We were about to go up that way when Elder Whitesides just stopped and said, “I don’t know why but I really think we should go up the other way even though it is longer.” I didn’t really care about what we did that night and just said OK and followed him. We were about half-way up the hill when a car stopped right by us and a member poked his head out and asked if we could go by his house that night at 8:00 to talk to him about something. We said yeah and then kept going.
The rest of the night until 8:00 actually wasn’t too bad and we had a couple good lessons. We even marked a baptismal date for another area. Anyway we got to the member’s house at about 8:00 and clapped at his door. Nobody was home. Now it’s normal for investigator appointments to fall but a member appointment that had been marked less than 3 hours before? I was still tired and truly just wanted to go home but I remembered the training that had been given that day about looking for somebody to teach when an appointment falls. I told Elder Whitesides “Welp, it’s extremely weird that he isn’t here right now so obviously God wants us to be on this street at this time so let’s find out why.”
Elder Whitesides, in his great amount of faith, got all excited and suggested for us to say a prayer. I reluctantly agreed and said I would say it. Before I could even start Elder Whitesides started moving his way over to the sidewalk saying “Alright, so let’s kneel down over here…” I cut him off and said “Bro…we really don’t need to kneel to say a prayer…especially when we are here right in the middle of the street. Just stand up and I’ll say it.” Haha. He said OK and got up and tightly closed his eyes while we said a prayer asking God to please show us why we had been sent there at that time.
We ended the prayer and started looking. I looked down the street and every house looked like it was completely empty. We started walking and I saw a house with a light on and decided to knock it. I went there and started clapping. Elder Whitesides suddenly appeared at my side and said “Did you feel that this is the house that has the person we should be looking for?” I just said “yes” and decided to leave out the part that it was the only house on the street that I saw with a light on.
We waited and waited and waited and the only living thing that came out of the house was a Golden Retriever. Elder Whitesides said “some revelation you have…” haha. I said “whatever, let’s just keep looking.” We continued down the street and I tried another house. A young girl opened the window and I asked if we could just sing a song from our church to her and she said “We don’t want anything from you guys” and slammed the window.
I was ready to give up and just go home.
However, Elder Whitesides was starting to get a little bit down and I felt bad so I said “It’s fine man, let’s just keep going.” We started walking down the street and up a little ways I saw a man checking his mail at the mailbox. I cautiously approached him and started talking with him. I saw that his house was nice and he had 2 nice cars in the drive-way…already dampening my hopes a little bit because rich people think they have everything already and don’t need the gospel. However, he treated us surprisingly well and invited us in.
We got in the house and everything went perfectly. It is a pretty well-off family and a family extremely united. His wife was just as accepting as he was and their two kids were way cool (17 year-old boy and 15 year-old boy). Their kids are studying English at a private school and were excited to see “real” Americans. The Secretaries will be going back there tomorrow to teach them again.
This experience really taught me a lesson about the attitude we should have about missionary work and about following the promptings of the Spirit. God knows what he is doing and who he wants to be in His church. He needed us to be in the front of that house at that time. Elder Whitesides followed the prompting of the Spirit right in the beginning of the day by going the long way to the appointment setting off a chain reaction. It allowed us to mark the appointment with the member for 8:00 that happened to be driving on that street at the moment, which allowed us to show up on that street even though he wasn’t even going to be home, which allowed us to find this awesome golden family for the Secretaries area.
I learned a lot.
-Elder Brent Parsons
After that, we had a division with São Paulo Norte on Saturday. Then we had to get home and get ourselves ready for Mission Council on Tuesday. The mission is having a lot of trouble finding new investigators to teach so we focused our training on Finding. It went really well.
Part of our training was about the Elders having enough faith to understand that God knows where they are and when an appointment “falls” that they need to immediately look around to find somebody to teach because they are there for a reason.
It’s funny because many times I forget to follow my own counsel on the divisions I do and I definitely need to get better with that. So last night, after counsel, we did a division with the secretaries in their area. I was freakin’ tired from the day’s events already and I even told that to the Financial Sec. Elder Whitesides who is one of my good buddies on the mission. He has 11 months on the mission and is an excellent missionary with an extraordinary amount of faith. I said “Dude, I’ll be honest, I don’t have even the least desire to be here right now haha.” He told me to shut up and that miracles would happen that night if I would just work hard. I doubted it…
We started walking to our one and only appointment that was on top of a hill. There are two ways to get there but one way is somewhat of a short-cut that saves about 5 min walking up hill. We were about to go up that way when Elder Whitesides just stopped and said, “I don’t know why but I really think we should go up the other way even though it is longer.” I didn’t really care about what we did that night and just said OK and followed him. We were about half-way up the hill when a car stopped right by us and a member poked his head out and asked if we could go by his house that night at 8:00 to talk to him about something. We said yeah and then kept going.
The rest of the night until 8:00 actually wasn’t too bad and we had a couple good lessons. We even marked a baptismal date for another area. Anyway we got to the member’s house at about 8:00 and clapped at his door. Nobody was home. Now it’s normal for investigator appointments to fall but a member appointment that had been marked less than 3 hours before? I was still tired and truly just wanted to go home but I remembered the training that had been given that day about looking for somebody to teach when an appointment falls. I told Elder Whitesides “Welp, it’s extremely weird that he isn’t here right now so obviously God wants us to be on this street at this time so let’s find out why.”
Elder Whitesides, in his great amount of faith, got all excited and suggested for us to say a prayer. I reluctantly agreed and said I would say it. Before I could even start Elder Whitesides started moving his way over to the sidewalk saying “Alright, so let’s kneel down over here…” I cut him off and said “Bro…we really don’t need to kneel to say a prayer…especially when we are here right in the middle of the street. Just stand up and I’ll say it.” Haha. He said OK and got up and tightly closed his eyes while we said a prayer asking God to please show us why we had been sent there at that time.
We ended the prayer and started looking. I looked down the street and every house looked like it was completely empty. We started walking and I saw a house with a light on and decided to knock it. I went there and started clapping. Elder Whitesides suddenly appeared at my side and said “Did you feel that this is the house that has the person we should be looking for?” I just said “yes” and decided to leave out the part that it was the only house on the street that I saw with a light on.
We waited and waited and waited and the only living thing that came out of the house was a Golden Retriever. Elder Whitesides said “some revelation you have…” haha. I said “whatever, let’s just keep looking.” We continued down the street and I tried another house. A young girl opened the window and I asked if we could just sing a song from our church to her and she said “We don’t want anything from you guys” and slammed the window.
I was ready to give up and just go home.
However, Elder Whitesides was starting to get a little bit down and I felt bad so I said “It’s fine man, let’s just keep going.” We started walking down the street and up a little ways I saw a man checking his mail at the mailbox. I cautiously approached him and started talking with him. I saw that his house was nice and he had 2 nice cars in the drive-way…already dampening my hopes a little bit because rich people think they have everything already and don’t need the gospel. However, he treated us surprisingly well and invited us in.
We got in the house and everything went perfectly. It is a pretty well-off family and a family extremely united. His wife was just as accepting as he was and their two kids were way cool (17 year-old boy and 15 year-old boy). Their kids are studying English at a private school and were excited to see “real” Americans. The Secretaries will be going back there tomorrow to teach them again.
This experience really taught me a lesson about the attitude we should have about missionary work and about following the promptings of the Spirit. God knows what he is doing and who he wants to be in His church. He needed us to be in the front of that house at that time. Elder Whitesides followed the prompting of the Spirit right in the beginning of the day by going the long way to the appointment setting off a chain reaction. It allowed us to mark the appointment with the member for 8:00 that happened to be driving on that street at the moment, which allowed us to show up on that street even though he wasn’t even going to be home, which allowed us to find this awesome golden family for the Secretaries area.
I learned a lot.
-Elder Brent Parsons
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