Baking Cookies and WORLD CUP (It's a BIG Deal!!)

What do missionaries do during The World Cup??  STUDY

June 16, 2014

Another semana has come and gone down here in Brasil. The cold is coming in but that also means that we are getting more used to it (except for my companion from Bolivia where it stays around 24 degrees Celsius (75 degrees F), so he is dying from the cold). But also here in Rio Grande do Sul during winter it starts to do a cold, windy mist sort of thing all day long and that's starting to come too which is kind of miserable and nothing will ever stay dry... yay.

Anyway so its a preconception down here that every American missionary knows how to bake cookies (or just cooks as they call them down here, if they've even heard about cookies). So for a Noite Familiar (noi-chee) (Family Home Evening) I was asked to make some cookies. And... I don't know how to bake cookies, haha, but I said I would try anyway. So last Monday after we went grocery shopping on p-day, we headed back to the house and picked up a recipe from another member and started to throw some stuff in a bowl and make cookies. But after some confusion and phone calls to another missionary who knew how to make cookies we finally got the dough to work right-ish and bam! We made cookies. And they weren't awful too- success! But lemme just say that I have to repent for not learning how to make cookies from you Mom because your cookies are the best! So as a tip for all preparing to go on missions: at least know how to bake cookies.

    BAM...
                  COOKIES!

 And the World Cup started this week! Which would be more exciting if you know we were able to watch it and it wasn't a point of contention and a little rebellion for some missionaries, haha. As for me never having watched a World Cup before, I was content to stay home and study during the opening game Thursday and for a bit of fun Elder Dos Santos were on a split and I studied a bit of the Restoration movie with popcorn, yum. But it was funny too because we were able to keep the score of the game depending on the screams and fireworks and honking of horns in the streets when Brasil made a goal, haha. As for the next month with all the other games that will be a bit difficult. One because if Brasil is playing everything stops. School gets out, stores close, people have holidays off work, and of course everyone is watching the game. And during the rest of the time the games are always on and asking people to turn off their TVs just doesn't happen especially when your a junior American companion. So as the world turns we see a couple minutes of the games every day trying to talk to people but hey the work goes on... or tries to hah.

Popcorn and The Restoration Movie

Love you all and keep going with all your awesome, crazy, cool end of the year stuff going on! Our next transfers are on July 1st and we will see what happens, I dont know if its a sign that things are going to change when people start to say "oh no you cant leave!" or "for sure your going to stay" but we will see

Elder Pierce

Visit from a Seventy and a Baptism

My District

Elder & Sister Soarez

June 9, 2014

To start off the week we had a visit from a 70 this past Tuesday. Elder Mozart B Soarez, from of Manaus Brasil, and his wife came down and had a "tour" trough out the mission. It was super great and the training sessions went well and I felt that I learned a lot. He spoke a good bit about our actions and the reactions that occur which is right in line with my "theme" of study lately. When we have faith, which is a principle of action, we are going to demonstrate that faith by doing something. Then we must be diligent in our actions and with diligent action we will receive fruitful "reaction". And as always when we have a big conference or anything President Parrela has me sing a special music number so I sang hino 70 "Eu Sei Que Vive Meu Senhor" for the 70 (hahaha) Then after the conference we might have slipped by a McDonalds...

The good ole "Golden Arches"

Anyway on Friday we had the baptism of Andriele! She is the sister of a recent convert in our area and turned 18 on the day of her baptism. Her "path to baptism" was by no means easy but she is an example of how the Lord prepares us for when we need to be ready. And after almost 2 months of the roller coaster of life that hit her after she decided to be baptized it finally happened! So Friday night we gathered everyone together and had a nice baptismal service, and I sang the primary song "I like to look for rainbows" (I can't remember the actual name in English ha) And seeing as it was her birthday a sister in our ward who does cakes professionally baked a cake and we had a mini festa after the service. And on Sunday she was confirmed a member and received the Holy Ghost, awesome experience. And Matheus, my first baptism, blessed the sacrament for the first time on Sunday too which was cool and he almost had it perfect and only had to say the prayer twice. 

Walking home from the baptism

Thank you all for your prayers and love! The Mission life keeps on going down here in Brazil and I'm excited to be hearing about all the great stuff going on at home.

Love Elder Pierce

Uno Abducted! and try not to stress out as a missionary

There were hot air balloons, haha, random

June 2, 2014

To start the story: first off, our shower head was being really bad. It would be really hot, almost to the point of burning, and then switch to freezing cold after one minute and stay that way. So we called Sister Parrela and arranged that we would get a new shower head. Other than that in our house we had Uno and Phase 10 that we played on P-Days which was super fun and I started to teach the other elders Mau, haha and a good way to just relax for an hour (one hour in the week!). But as always someone has got to ruin the fun and as it turns out a lot of missionaries are playing card games like Magic and are going home earlier to play games so that just ruined it for everyone and President Parrela was on the alert. So this past Tuesday we had our district meeting and we knew that President Parrela was going to pass by some time during the morning to drop off our new shower head. So our entire district after the meeting at the chapel and lunch at Irma Iara's (8 missionaries is a bit crazy there) we went back to our house so that everyone could use the bathroom and be on their way. And seeing as we only have one bathroom it was taking a while and what do the other 7 missionaries have to do?, talk and joke around of course. And it was getting a little bit late 2:00 in the afternoon we were still in the house talking we hear someone clap at our gate. So Elder Usieda went to go see who it was "Nossa é Presidente Parrela!" we entirely forgot that he was coming and it was just a bit embarrassing because we were all just chilling and laughing. And Sister Parrela was with him too and she is the iron fist behind the rules with cleaning our houses and stuff and so she walked into our house and thank heavens we had cleaned the day before so she was happy with that (but not with the packages of cookies in the pantry) and then she said "... alright where are the games" and with vergonha nas caras (ver-go-nya nas cadas) (shame on our faces) we gave up our games and hence Uno was abducted... sadness but now its official in the rules for our mission not to play games yay...

Other than that this week I've been learning a lot about how not to stress out as a missionary. Pretty much just worry about yourself! It's a lot easier that way and for me easier said than done, haha. And another thing hard for me to accept is that all the missionaries everywhere that I talk to say the same thing and that is to be happy on the mission you just have to accept that your going to break a few rules every once in a while. That really bugs me but every week I come to see how that is kind of true, still working on that...

Anyway love you all and have fun up there in the hot summer! 

Elder Pierce

Elders Dos Santos Gama and Usieda "roubando bergamota" stealing tangerines, haha

I'm a Normal Missionary Now!

Alright so first off this past week I finished the 12 week in field missionary training program so I'm a normal missionary now! woohoo... So really I just get one less hour of study and I can't use the excuse that I'm a new missionary, haha. It was fun though because the last thing we had to do was watch the District 2 which is like reality TV for missionaries. So we made some pic poca (pop corn) and bundled up by our heater to watch it on our little portable DVD player that we have.

Oh yea and its getting cold here! It gets about 4 or 5 degrees Celsius at night and in the 10's during the day and it kind of tricks me out because hearing 4 or 5 degrees and I think below freezing but that's like 40 'ish degrees Fahrenheit (however you spell that) which I've gone through way worse but back home but I didn't have to walk for 30 minutes to get to the chapel and have the limited wardrobe we do now. But hey to make it better it still gets colder!... yay. And its weird too because I'm having memories of cold weather stuff and I know you guys are getting summer started so that's odd.

Alright so we have this eternal investigator named Ubirajara (Beer-uh-jar-uh I don't know why there's a U there it's not really pronounced at all) And he has been talking with the missionaries for about 4 years. I'm not sure if I wrote yall about him before but he is a super religious, super opinionated guy who loves his bible and to talk a lot so its kind of difficult to teach him most the time but we try. So I met him in the first weeks that I was here and he just had so many deep set doubts and problems to the point that I thought we were loosing our time. He likes the church and knows that baptism is important but for him it was so important and serious that he didn't want to feel pressed into making any decision at all and if we even talked about setting a date or goal with him he would totally shut us down. So we've gone through a cycle of him doing well to him not wanting to talk to us from him showing up at church the next day and its just kind of confusing. But really in the past week or so he has made some astounding progress. On Monday we got to his house and first off he gave me a tie as a present so that was super cool and then after he said "alright when's your next baptismal service?" and we were like "uhhhh, it could be this Saturday or the next, what do you think?" He was like "Lets make it this Saturday I'm ready to do this" so in my mind I'm like YEA WOOHOO!! but just trying to keep it cool  because I knew that there had to be more to the story.  As the world turns after his interview he still has some things to work out like a  more solid testimony of Joseph Smith but its just exciting to know he really wants to make some changes now. 

Anyway I love you all have fun starting summer! Thanks for all of your prayers and love sent my way!

Elder Pierce

ps. sorry for no pics I will repent and send some next week!

I'm the English Teacher

Just a little "horsing around" :)

 So this Thursday I will have 4 months on the mission, that's pretty cool. Anyway, this was our first week with Elder Dos Santos our new District Leader and he is super chill so things are a little more relaxed around here, but in a good way. Since I'm the only American in the house now we started doing language study all together and I teach them English. I enjoy it because they have some manual that has lessons for learning English that we go over and we read the Book of Mormon in English together.  I help with all the pronunciation and explaining what words mean and yea, one day we took one hour to read first Nephi chapter one. Its nice to be the one to know how to say something sometimes haha.

Also every Saturday we have classes of Libras (Brasilian sign language) and English at our chapel for the ward or stake to attend which is awesome (when people show up haha) And we always go but this past week the Libras teacher couldn't come so I taught for a little bit just reviewing things we had learned in the past weeks which was fun and then after I always teach the English class. So what we did this week was go over and learn the alphabet in English, it's interesting though because almost everyone here has taken or is taking English classes in school but from what I'm hearing none of the teachers actually speak English with correct pronunciation or anything. Anyway so after everyone said they knew it I had them spell their names in English and that was a good laugh.  After we had a conversation in English!... well sort of. What I had them do was everyone asked someone else a question and I would translate for them so they would ask the question to the other person in English and then I would help the other person respond in the same way so little by little learning little phrases in English that they could actually use (being careful to only teach nice words in English haha).

Anyway I'm doing good! The work here... well we just keep pushing forward with faith and just keep doing the little things to help us on the right path. This transfer is until the first of July so I've got a good chunk of time to work here in our ward still! 

Love you all! and good luck to all those finishing up school with tests and stuff. BIG hugs and maybe this week there will be a little bit more to write about haha.

Elder Pierce

Last day with Elder McCutheon and first with Elder Dos Santos

p.s. A funny thing about here is that they pronounce my name like Percy as in Percy Jackson which they know around here so that's interesting

Blessed Mother's Day

Awesome Mother's Day Skype with the family!

 First off it was so good to get to see you guys through skype!!! Really it just made me so happy and I can tell that the other missionaries feel the same way because everyone is just happier and more smiley and it's just great, so thanks for being all awesome! 

Set up from home in NC

Set up on my end in Santa Maria,Brazil

Alright so last Monday for my birthday I got a cuia (cooeeuh) (a chimarrão cup) and straw thing and I may not like chimarrão but the cup is cool. And we went on a scavenger hunt to find a decent Brasil soccer jersey that wasn't the R$ 240 official shirt which was crazy but I got that too yay! 

So this Wednesday we had a Zone Conference and 3 zones came together and we all had trainings from President Parrela and the Assistants and it was great. First thing President said to me when he walked into the meeting was that I was going to sing, haha.  But I expected that and came prepared with some music and it turned out really well. But I feel like I learned a lot from the meeting and little things like how to improve my personal study which really help the day go better. And this past Friday we got our transfers information, ooo. I'm staying in the same place but it was really funny because there were a lot of jokes about fake transfers but the other American that I live with is getting transferred and another Brasilian is coming on Tuesday so there goes my English talking buddy but it will all be good and it'll help my Portuguese that much more. 

Speaking of which, it was really funny when I skyped with you guys. I didn't expect speaking English to be that hard at all, hahaha but I guess that really does show the progress so thats cool and I cant wait to see how much worse it will be in 6 months. 

Birthday letters and THANKS  Murchison Family for your letters!

So yea, there's always more I want to tell y'all but the times always working against me! Again I love you all and I hope the end of school isn't too crazy!

Elder Pierce 

Birthday!!! and Becoming a Gaúcho

First off I got my package last week thank yall so much! I’m trying to make the goodies last, haha. I got Easter for my birthday week- good stuff. Funny stories this week: so one night Elder Usieda woke up and apparently I was counting in Portuguese which I was kind of proud that my subconscious is trying to speak Portuguese. Also one day our land lord dude was cleaning the water tank on our roof or something like that and he did it wrong, so water started to flow down the side of the house and we could see it going down the window and then water started coming out of the light sockets and that was crazy but he got it all fixed up now (at least we hope haha).

 This past Thursday was the day of becoming a Gaúcho! We ate lunch at a member’s house and I had my first real churrasco! (shoo-HA-sco) which is the Brasilian meat on a spit that you would get at a Brasilian steak house, and like everyone here has a thing to cook the churrasco in and it’s a big gaúcho thing and I finally got to eat at one! It was super good and then later that day I had my first chimarrão (shim-uh-how)(nasal on the how). So for chimarrão you have this special cup and a special straw and you put in this herb that they use and you pour in hot water with the herb and then there is a filter at the bottom of the straw that you suck the hot water through and literally everyone here drinks it all the time and its a gaúcho trade mark so I had to try it and... it was awful! hahaha goodness I just didn’t like it at all ughhh it was just bitter hot water with a bad smell to me but the love it (like last week there was a national chimarrão day or something) so now at least I can say that I’ve tried it and I’m that much closer to being a Gaúcho, haha, sort of.

And then Domingo was my BIRTHDAY!!! yayayayay 20 years woohoo! And it’s kind of funny because everyone here thinks I’m at least 22 or 26 or something.  Anyway lots of people sang happy birthday to me, Elder McCutcheon and the other elders when I got up, our entire district called and sang parabéns (Brasilian happy birthday) and Elder Fávero my first companion called and sang with the missionaries at his house and so that was good. And on that beautiful Sunday morning... it was raining, joy, and here when it rains like no one comes to church so we had about 30 people instead of the normal 70ish rough, but it was all good. So the other missionaries decided to play a joke on me too, they told me that our lunch had fallen through and it was already Sunday so we couldn’t buy anything and practically nobody was at church including Irma Iara who would have helped us out and made us lunch for sure. But they said we still had some beans and rice at the house so we were going to have that and they were like telling everyone at church that lunch fell through so I started to really believe it. Then as we were walking home in the rain and I was thinking of how to rig a makeshift birthday cake out of some cookies I had, we passed by Irma Iara’s house and she had everything prepared for lunch (which was really great after fasting which here in Brasil since lunch is the big meal we fast from the end of lunch on Saturday till lunch on Sunday) and lunch at Irma Iara´s house is always the best.  We even had a cake with candles that said 20 and they sang parabéns for me and it was just a big blessing and a great birthday "surprise" haha. So today here in the centro of Santa Maria I’ll get like a Brasil soccer jersey or something gaúcho-y for a present woohoo!

Birthday lunch at Irma Iara's house

Anyway, work with Elder Usieda is coming, I definitely feel that I am progressing as a missionary and we are working better together but still things can be kind of stressful when we both feel that we are trying our hardest and all of our plans fall through and all of our investigators and just complicated and we don’t "see" results but all we can do it keep moving forward with faith!

So here I am in Brasil a little bit older and a little bit wiser (I hope haha) love you all so much and I just heard from some other missionaries that Ive got a bunch of letters at the post office! Love you all so much and I can’t wait to talk with the family this Sunday YEA!!!

Love Elder Pierce

Lots of pics:

Package from HOME!

first time almost eating churrasco at
our investgator Olmiro´s house

Churrasco- YUM

eating with the members

trying chimarrão

didn't like it but couldn't say so, haha!