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

Service Project: Extermination! and My Unexpected Talk

Zone Meeting

6/23/14

5 months on the mission yesterday (Sunday) that's pretty crazy but I still wont say its going by fast until I've hit the 6 month mark, although I did think it was still May last week... And this huge 7 week transfer (they are usually 6 weeks so it feels much longer now) is coming to a close this week and on Friday we will know what all will go down and its possible that there could be some changes.

So during the week we (us 4 missionaries) got called over to a service project to do some deep cleaning at a house with and suspected rat issue! So we started to do what we do best and throw everything outside of the house into a big pile and clear out everything that could be a hiding place for the ratinhos (ha-chee-nyos) (little rats) and for the majority of the morning we only were finding evidence until Elder Usieda and Elder Dos Santos found some of the little babies (and were hilariously out smarted by those fast little buggers who got away).  From then on we knew that we were getting close to the big momma rat. And a little later when we were thinking about leaving because we were late for out lunch, we hear these screams from another room and this huge rat comes running by so we all freaked out and ran out the house where I held the front door shut (you know to not let the rat get away) and watched through the window the hilarious and wild hitting of the floor with brooms by Elder Usieda and some of the others in the house! Gracious it was too funny with all the screams and running around and in the end we were victorious and got one of the big daddy rats, euhhhggg<wigged out shudder>  We also had some close calls with some other rats but they were smarter and ran away, but great news the house is a lot better now and for now rat free. 

And I feel that I've hit a mile stone in the mission because Saturday night at 9:30 I got a call from a member of our bishopric to give a talk the next morning. And it was interesting because every morning before my personal study I ask that I will be able to use what I study through out the day so I look for that and this week, I felt that hasn't really happened.  So, I was thinking more about that and maybe I was studying wrong or something but then the call came and it was cool because the things that I've been studying are just what I needed for my talk. So I gave a talk about that Priesthood and used 3 examples to explain 3 key points about the priesthood. 1) Captain Moroni and the power that we can receive through the Priesthood (Alma 48:17) 2) The baptism of Jesus Christ and the authority that John the Baptist had (Mat. 3:13-17) and 3) I was reading through my journal and remembered an experience when Dad and I gave a blessing and the example he gave me to always use the priesthood to serve others when given the opportunity. And it worked out pretty well so now i can give a talk in Portuguese at last minute notice cool    

Here's a funny you had to be there moment with Portuguese. So we were at lunch on Sunday and we were discussing the differences between words in English and Portuguese. And I said that there were some words that I liked better in Portuguese than in English such as "portador" do sacerdócio (priesthood holder) and it just clicked in my brain that a "portador" was someone who opens a door (porta) like we are opening the door for the priesthood or something like that and then everyone began to laugh because the word for a doorman in that sense is a porteiro and it was kind of a had to be there moment but I haven't laughed so long in a long time and I want to be a portiero do sacerdócio, haha.

Love you all so much and have fun in the summer heat! 

Elder Pierce

Baptism in the other dupla

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