All in the Lord’s Time

Baptism Day for Olmiro- what a great day!

8/13/2014  

To start things off lets go back to Wednesday when Elder Usieda and I had a lesson marked with Olmiro to get everything ready for his baptismal service on Friday. I don’t remember if I sent home pictures of Olmiro when we first met him but he had hair down to his shoulders and when we arrived on Wednesday he practically had a missionary hair cut! So that was cool and unexpected. Anyway we start the conversation and are going through the baptismal questions with him and he stops us and says "I’ve done my research and everything says that drinking coffee is good for you and I have to drink it at least once a week." Imagine the smile that was on my face slowly drooping down into a stupor of confusion. And Olmiro and his Mom who was also part of the conversation started to laugh and said that that was enough for the joke. Phew, back to all smiles, then he said "but seriously I can’t be baptized on Friday..." and again my smile starts to fade but he continues "... because my Mom will be working on Friday so we were wondering if we could have the baptismal service on Thursday, tomorrow?" So after a couple seconds of shock we were like "YEA... umm... let us make a few calls." So we called Bispo and our district leader and as if in a magic dream, or the power of prayer and the timing of the Lord, everything worked out and fit into place and we set up the baptism for Thursday evening. So Thursday we set up everything in the chapel for the baptism and had an awesome spiritual baptismal service with the missionaries, Olmiro, his Mom and another young man who lives in front of the chapel and was preparing to be baptized the next day as well. Haha we didn’t have time really to contact anyone else to come to the baptism but that also worked put because Olmiro wanted it to be smaller and intimate. I had the honor to be the one to baptize him and he is the first person that I’ve baptized in my life so that was an amazing experience, and I feel a bit proud that I did it right the first time.

And now on to Friday, transfers. So as usual we were waiting all morning but not too excited because the news doesn’t normally go out until after lunch when President Parrela unlocks himself from his office and then the phone calls start ringing down the chain of command. Elder Gama and I were talking all together about what might happen or where we would like to go if we could choose and we said cities like Cruz Alta, Uruguaiana, Livramento, Santo Angelo etc. etc. just waiting to get the news. And a thing I hate about transfers is that with all the prank calls and such it’s hard to tell when it’s the real deal or not. After 2 prank calls that I could tell were total fakes we got a call from our DL and the news that all 4 missionaries here in Ala Urlandia would be transferred, Elder Almeida to his house, Elder Gama for Uruguaiana, and Elder Usieda as DL in another small city, and that I would be going to Cruz Alta. Even after a pinkey swear I didn’t believe that it was true because Elder Usieda wanted to stay another transfer and Elder Gama and I would be going to the cities that we guessed before and it was just too good to be true. But then our LZ called too and all the information matched up and then it started to get real and then that night the imperial march rang and Elder Usieda got the official call from President Parrela that he would be a DL and so it was true and I leave for Cruz Alta Tuesday morning. Woohoo but it is a bit sad to be leaving all of the people that we’ve met here and these last couple days have been filled with lots of picture taking. Sunday Olmiro was confirmed a member of the church, received the Holy Ghost and my work here in this area came to a nice close.

Thank you all for all of your prayers support and love. My next email will be from my new area in Cruz Alta with my new comp Elder Gois, wish me luck!!!

Elder Pierce

Study time

Woah, look out- another bridge. :)

Elder Usieda was dying to get on a horse!

Our last Sunday together in Santa Maria.

Last Week Blessings (Hopefully!!)

Catching a glimpse of the view from a bridge in our area of Santa Maria

8/4/2014  

We are heading into the last week of this transfer all too quickly! By this Friday we will know who goes or stays and all that jazz and we will be on the alert for the imperial march ring tone of Presidente Parrela. Quick note, yesterday (Sunday) during sacrament meeting President and his wife came to our ward by surprise, thank heavens I was wearing a long sleeve shirt and had shined my shoes that morning (both of which are rules). And the members seeing and feeling inspired with President there or something decided to have a "GH" testimony meeting of the Elders (GH, Gloria dos Homems, the glory of man) and started to bear testimony of all the great things we do. Such as Reunião Famíliar (Family Home Evening) with the YW President which has been really successful for our investigators and when we visit this elderly sister through the week which has really helped her out (the member friend of our investigator Elza). So that was just kind of funny.

Also the weather here continues to be crazy but I have recognized the pattern. First it’s cold and then it gets really hot then the "north wind" comes in for a day and brings a ton of rain. So yesterday was a lovely, sunny, windy day and today came the rain, joy. At least when the rain stops the dogs that live below us to stop barking at 3 in the morning. 

Note from my studies, I re-read the talk that Pres. Uchtdorf gave this past conference on gratitude and it gave me a great boost to not only be grateful for the things that we can see or count (like the number of lessons we had that week) but develop an attitude of gratitude which he counseled is the catalyst for all Christ-like attributes which ties in with the study I've been doing for the past weeks, pretty cool.

And on to the blessings of hard work, diligence, obedience, and I’m sure many prayers and fasting from many of you. Elder Usieda and I have a pool of investigators where 4 or 5 of them could be baptized at any time but they all have their own problems that keep them back and so we just keep trying to help them along. One of those cases is our good friend Olmiro. He went to church for over a month but due to some doubts and change in weekend activities, he stopped coming to church with us for a time. We always take the time to visit him in the week and mostly we just talk about whatever with him and his family because they've already had all the lessons and we just keep our relationship open. But yesterday was different, we went over to his house and were talking about this and that and of course we brought the news that changes could be happening this next week and he brought back up the gospel. We felt inspired and invited him again to be baptized and explained that baptism isn't for people who are perfect but for those who are trying. And he accepted! which was a surprise and an awesome answer to prayers and a blessing, so we are helping him to be ready for this Friday when another young man will be baptized with the other elders. So that’s exciting and prayers would be appreciated!

Love you all and don’t let summer go by too fast! 

Elder Pierce

                            We really like these dogs and say hi to them in the street daily, haha!

Birthday party of these little girls who always invite us to festivities :)

It’s Winter Again

7/28/14 

Hello family and all! I hope you’re having a wonderful summer. July ends this week and we are heading to the end of this transfer here on the 11th of August pretty crazy. So we said goodbye to Elder Gray last week and got to know Elder Almeda who now has 2 more weeks until he goes home from the mission. It’s pretty fun to talk with him because he knows about everywhere in the mission and has tons of stories to tell.

Taking cover  when it rained out of nowhere!

Anyway, this past week the weather decided to pull a 180. On Tuesday morning the "northern wind" came in and brought a bunch of rain out of nowhere in the afternoon and then continued to thunder storm and almost nonstop rain for the next two days. It’s kind of miserable to walk around in the rain haha a combination of walking around in soaking socks and shoes or something turned my feet orange haha that was weird. And after the rains the sun came out again but its back to being cold which kind of stinks but it is still winter so it makes sense.

Also a cool little experience Elder Usieda and I had was when Elza, the elderly woman we are teaching, showed us her collection of old Brasilian money. Before the real (hay-aw) Brasil used the cruseiro (kroo-zay-roo) but when they switched the cruseiro lost all value and Elza had this huge wad of cash and tons of coins and there was even a 50,000 note! It was cool and she joked that she would be set if the money didn't change haha. 

Elza's cool collection of old Brasilian money

Well, another week gone by, enjoy summer up there while it lasts and I love you all!

Elder Pierce

 Me with Vó (open o sound, short for avó grandfather, I don't remember his name we just call him Vó) and Irmã Adelina (member) who we visit and Vó gives us candy :)

Elder Usieda making corn bread for his personal progress project...

6 MONTHS!!!

It's quite normal to just have horses walking in the streets #gaúchobagual

7/21/2014   

Last Sunday with Elder Gray

 Well another week has gone by. Here it feels like we go to church, then P-day is already over and we wake up on Tuesday to but realize that it’s already Friday again. Time goes by super weird and speaking of time I've now got 6 months on the mission, yea! (well the 22nd officially) I’m a quarter of the way through and a funny thought is that I've only got a "Sisters Mission" more to go. Another crazy timing event, Elder Gray the other American that we live with, is being transferred due to some mission politics after only 3 weeks here in the area setting a record for least time spent in the ward, haha. He was a great guy and I liked talking with him a lot (it’s nice to just talk with another American sometimes) and to commemorate his short stay here we got pizza- yum. 

Brazilian Pizza-yum!

Elder Usieda and I are teaching an elderly woman named Elza who is the friend of a member in our ward. We didn't "expect" much in the beginning because people around here usually have their religion and would rather just walk to the church down the street but we had an awesome experience with her this past week. We gave her a pamphlet to read about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she read it all the way through the night before we came back to talk. She liked the pamphlet a lot had some very interesting experiences she told us with her other churches but then she said to us that still to this day she felt that she hadn't received the Holy Ghost like it talks about in the Bible. And we felt a super strong spirit and invited her to be baptized with the restored authority of the priesthood again on the earth and promised that she would be able to receive that Holy Ghost that she has been searching for. Cool experience and we will see what happens next.

Also in my personal study I am doing a more in depth study of Chapter 6 in Preach My Gospel about the attributes of Christ and I feel that it is helping me out a lot as a person and a missionary so I encourage all to give that chapter a look!

https://www.lds.org/manual/preach-my-gospel-a-guide-to-missionary-service/how-do-i-develop-christlike-attributes?lang=eng

I love you all and hope this week goes well!

Elder Pierce

A "family home evening" we had

You can see the sign for  Casa do Gaucho- where you can buy traditional Gaucho clothes- hmmm

"Não Fez Frio Ainda" and The Maria Contact

"A day in the life..."- Santa Maria, Brasil

7/14/2014

Oi everyone back home I hope your summers going great! And here it feels like summer is coming early, haha. When I first arrived in Santa Maria everyone one would say "Só espera vai fazer muito frio" (just wait it will be very cold) and then when it was starting to get cold everyone said "Só espera não fez frio ainda" (just wait it hasn't been cold yet). But now it’s getting almost hot during the day and every one is saying that it didn't even get that cold and that the cold already passed, so much for that "gaúcho winter" I was promised but we've still got another month I guess of winter so we´ll see.

Elder Usieda (who is feeling much better) and I had a funny experience while we were making some contacts batendo portas (hitting doors) this past week. Here in Santa Maria there are a lot of women with the name Maria. So he decided that we would try and talk with this one lady and he said "Good afternoon, we are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ and we are looking for someone named Maria who lives on this street do you know where she lives?" and the lady thought for a moment and then directed us to a house a little ways down the street where Maria lived. It was too funny because it was just an idea because there were so many Marias to try and find one and it worked! So we went over to Maria´s house and spoke with this elderly lady. And we said "Hello we are looking for a woman named Maria" and she asked the last name and so we were like "uhhh... we don’t know the last name" then she said "Maria da Silva?" and we said "yup that’s it" and she said that it was her and then "who sent you?" so we told her it was the other lady from up the street (which was true, haha) anyway we gave a quick lesson to her and her husband and we have a new trick in our bag that worked out pretty well haha the Maria Contact.

And I have to comment on the vergonha (shame) that was the Brasilian Soccer team, wow 7-1 we could hear literal sobs as we walked through the streets that night from kids crying that Brasil had lost. A funny point is that I to a Brasilian look like a German haha we had to "be careful in the street" haha (joke). And now with Germany (Alemanha here in Brasil, weird name) as champion we can get back to normal so that’s good. And we had a Birthday party for the grandson of a senhora in our ward and we ate cake and it was super good :)singing happy birthday for Bernardo (the 2 yr old little boy) everyone claps while singing the happy birthday song

Singing Happy Birthday to Bernardo ( the 2 yr old little boy). Everyone claps while singing.

Eating cake with the Birthday Boy- Yum!

Love you all and have an awesome week!

Elder Pierce

Reunião de Zona

Bovinu´s (Churrasco Heaven!) and Crazy Weather for the 4th of July

7/7/14 

So last P-day was our last with Elder Dos Santos which was a bit of a bummer but we did some cool stuff to make up for the short time. First off for lunch we went to Bovinu´s (pronounced how it looks with a Brasilian accent) which is a Churrascuria (Brasilian Steak House) (shoo-ha-skoo-ree-uh) in Centro (like down town) Santa Maria. And oh my goodness! It was churrasco heaven! The way that it works at a churrascuria is that there’s a buffet line of normal food, can’t forget the beans and rice, and then the servers come around with all different sorts of meat on swords that they serve to you. And since we were one of the first ones there in the restaurant it was non-stop meat- too good! And then after a lunch of "exceeding joy!" (a joke that we have where we say exceeding joy and spaz out like we are falling to the ground with exceeding joy as they say in the scriptures) 

Yummm- churrasco

We did a little secret Santa tie exchange and everyone drew the name of another elder and we bought ties for one another as a commemoration of our awesome household brothership, and because ties are very useful. 

Tie Exchange -everyone is holding up the tie they got for the other Elder

Last day with a good friend- I'm wearing the tie he got me :)

And this week we had some crazy weather! It’s been cold and super rainy as of late. And now the weather is deciding to switch between raining really hard then the sun coming out and getting really hot, crazy. A side note Elder Usieda was sick all Thursday and so we stayed in our house, and so I had a lovely study the scriptures all day session saving me from a good dousing of rain then hot sun back to rain again (tender mercies sort of). And the weather was no different on Friday for the 4th of July. But rain or shine that didn’t stop the Brasilian people from shooting off a bunch of fireworks and honking horns and yelling in the streets when Brasil beat Colombia in the world cup. So I celebrated a little bit on the inside too for ´Merica! And in honor of our family cookout I ate a xis for lunch (shees, a Brasilian burger). And the weather that night was doing some crazy lightning so I even got some of nature’s fireworks. 

Love you all and I hope you enjoy the pictures and another of week of summer!

Elder Pierce

I ate a xis (shees) for the 4th of July, yeah!!

My awesome doodle in my planner- "Merica!!

Lunch at Irma Iara's with our new District Leader (from Washington State and he has a super deep voice)

Rain and Transfers (or not)

I got a new sweater and my new name tag with a clip came in- Joy!

6/30/2014  

First off it has rained every day this entire week and it just really stinks because nothing dries and considering that we have to walk everywhere, everything is wet!  The joys of winter down here in Rio Grande do Sul. So we just set everything up with fans blowing all the time and it works our... sort of, haha.

And transfers! So normally the mission president will lock himself in his office on Wednesday and Thursday and then Friday morning is when everyone starts getting phone calls and we would generally know where everyone will be going by lunch time on that Friday. Also if you're "moving up" in the mission world like being called to District Leader or Trainer or something the president will call you personally to give you the news. So in possible anticipation for this we changed our cell phone ring tone for President Parrela to the imperial march from Star Wars to know if it was him calling. Let me just say I will be traumatized from that music for a while because they (our senior companions) played a joke on Elder Gama as if President were calling and changed the name of our cell phone in theirs and put on that ring tone and then called during our lunch.  It was super funny but we all, even though it was a joke, got a bit excited after that. So all day Friday we tried to go about our business and not be too jumpy when the phone rang. I'm not gonna lie I was a little apprehensive because this is the first transfer that something could actually happen and I might be transferred out of the city. So when we got about the 3rd prank call for transfers I was a bit on edge to know. And finally at the end of the night Elder Dos Santos came in to tell us... that transfers wouldn't come out till the next day ahhhh!! and that President still hadn't finished transfers and something big was happening. So Saturday morning the transfers come out and... I'm staying here with Elder Usieda for one more transfer and oddly enough Elder Dos Santos, who only had one transfer here and almost finishing his mission, is being transferred. Which is a bit sad because he is a really great guy and we are good friends but that's the mission. So I'm excited to figure out the next thing I need to learn from my companion and my area this next transfer until the 11th of August.

Love you all and I hope your having an awesome warm dry summer!

Elder Pierce

Last Sunday with Elder Dos Santos

Cake for an early birthday for Elder Dos Santos