The Weather Plays Jokes With Me...

I finally found a sign that says "Welcome to Cruz Alta" ( I don't know what Erico Verissimo or whatever it says there is)

11/3/2014

Hello family and all! I loved seeing all the fun Halloween pictures. Here in Brasil they don't really do Halloween but most people know about it from American movies and such but think that it's not actually a real thing we do, haha. But some of the kids in the city dressed up for festas (parties) at school. I took a picture with one of my little buddies, a son of one of the families we teach, who was a super hero.

Me and my Super Hero friend on Halloween 

Anyway so spring here in Rio Grande do Sul has been pulling my tail all week. Usually before we head out for the day without intentions to go back to the house (which is at least a good 20-30 minutes walking from our area) it is cloudy and windy outside which means we have some options. It could either clear up and be sunny and hot the rest of the day or it could mean more chilly rain. So we just have to guess and deal with what we've got the rest of the day. So of course I chose wrong a couple of days. On Halloween I had a certainty that it would rain so I put on a long sleeve shirt and brought my umbrella (not putting on sunscreen expecting to stay under the umbrella) And just as we were leaving lunch the sun came out and it got hot and I knew that meant suffering for the rest of the day... (you can see the difference in the picture with me at the sign which was after lunch and then with my super hero buddy at the end of the day). Then the next day when I wasn't going to let the weather get the best of me I did the sunscreen and used short sleeve and everything just to have it rain all day. Go figure. 

This week is the last week of the transfer and we´ll find out whats gonna go down on Friday. We have the feeling that my time with Elder Gois is winding down, but nothing is for certain! 

Also a note from my studies of The Book of Mormon, in Alma 15(:6-12) the healing of Zeezrom (at least that's how you spell it in Portuguese) made a real impact on me and I learned a bit more about two important principles. 1) How our faith and 2) the will or purpose of the Lord are both needed to work miracles. But one without the other "não dá"! (doesn't work) So everyday look for the guidance of the spirit to see the will of the Lord and put all of our faith into every effort and we will see miracles.

Love you all and have a great first week of November! (crazy!)

Elder Pierce

We had another Ward Family Home Evening with a cake and such for everyone that had a birthday last month.
(I kind of hit my head on the table as I did a "super cool" slide into place, haha)

9 Months!

10/27/14

This week like so many others has just flown by. Thankfully (or not so thankfully) the weather has been nice and dry with the lovely burning sun all week long, all hail sunscreen! I do have to admit it's a bit worrisome because it's been hot but only around 30 C (86-ish F) and about mid-December it starts to stay around 40 C (110-ish F), hoping to adjust as soon as possible, all hail reapplication of the sunscreen! 

So this past week made 9 months on the mission! Kind of crazy to think about how much has happened and how much I've changed but I can remember leaving home like it was yesterday. Elder Gois and I are finally getting a solid teaching pool together which is such a blessing. But as with everything, nothing is perfect or easy. Even the family that promised us that they would give it their all to be there at church on Sunday wasn't able to make it, oh the joys of serving the Lord. 

This past week we had one night full of teaching appointments and the only thing that we could do was schedule for 7:00, 8:00, and 9:00 the lessons because that was the only time that we would have been able to teach these people during the entire week. But it was totally worth the "correria" (ko-heh-reea)(run around?). Elder Gois explained in one lesson why it was important that we have a prophet and apostles and the priesthood on the earth while I made funny faces at the two young children and peeking from behind the pamphlet to entertain and distract them. Then in the other lesson the father of the family that I explained to you the other week told us about an answer that he had to a prayer feeling a great peace and purpose continuing to have us meet with the family, awesome. And in the last lesson another family started to open up to us about their real questions and doubts about God and their situation as a family. It was a great night and a huge example of how we all need to be prepared at any moment to be an instrument in the Lords hands. 

Anyway I hope you all have a great week and I pray for all of you! 
Remember that the Lord is always there to strengthen us and make our burdens light if we always have a prayer in our heart (Mosiah 24:12-16).
Oh and Happy Halloween! which Brasil doesn't really do but I might just have to get a stash of goodies for myself, haha.

Love!

Elder Pierce

Experiences and Difficulties

Our recent Zone Conference ( I'm in the green tie to the left of the group)

10/20/2014

Hello to everybody back home I hope yáll are doing well (exception with the Christian ankle situation). This week has been another rainy one but here in Cruz Alta we missed the worst of the storm that's been passing through the region with hail the size of eggs, what luck. And this weekend was the time change here so we took a "spring forward" which means we now wake up at what feels like 5:30, so much fun. The time there will "fall back" right? Does that affect the time difference? I'm not sure, let me know :) 

Here's a bit of a high-light from a lesson that we had with one of the families that we are teaching. The family is super nice and receive us well. The father was baptized as a youth but soon fell inactive and his wife has a "if your talking about God its all good with me" attitude and then two daughters that live at home one older youth aged and the other primary aged. Anyway unlike many of the people that we teach they really pay attention when we are talking and understand the implications of what we say. So as we were teaching the first lesson about the restoration of the gospel it was almost hard not to get carried away explaining things and keeping the focus but we get to the point where we talk about how the power and authority of God (priesthood) is again here on the earth leading to the topic of baptism. So we made the baptismal challenge and after thinking about it for a second the older daughter said yes right away. We had to explain a bit more to the Mom (the whole "but I've already been baptized" deal) but after that she was like "were gonna baptize everyone in the family!" (us thinking YEA! haha) and the father even showed great interest in preparing to baptize the youngest daughter himself (8th b-day next year I think). So that was an awesome experience that I we had to teach this family. 

And now for some of the difficulties that we have in our area. First off some of the members try to feed us too much haha. I didn't think I would have this kind of problem but there's a cultural difference where they want so badly to please you and make sure that we like the food that (at lease I feel) they pressure us into eating a lot. Elder Gois even felt sick one afternoon because of how much he ate (funny but not funny haha). Anyway now a real difficulty that we are having is getting our investigators to come to church! This really stinks but there's not much more that we can do. Even both of the families that we were teaching where traveling on Sunday. But hey just have patience right? (remembering what I said about patience last week) and more prayers never hurt :)

So yea I'm doing good down here and I hope yáll have a great week!

Loves!

Elder Pierce

                              Playing Pool at a member's home on a P-day while it was raining.

                                           Ooops- we dropped the ball into their pool, haha.

                         We had lunch with Wilford Woodruf, haha. This brother really looks like him.

Storm clouds rolling in one morning.

The Power of Prayer and Fasting

The beauty of Brasil- Rio Grande do Sul

10/13/2014

I hope everyone is doing great this week! The weather here is having a hard time deciding if it wants to get super hot and humid or chilly and thunder storming which makes for great fun trying to guess what will happen by the end of the day. I figure if it's hot at lunch and there is wind it will rain but only on the days that I don't want it to. I'm just not looking forward to 40 degree C weather which is coming (100-112 degrees F) especially for the holiday season that will be weird. Oh and also the weather always decides to get hot and sunny whenever we have a service project and I forget to put on sunscreen that morning... yup. 

We had a couple service projects this week cutting grass at members houses. I like to make "friends" with the dogs at peoples houses and this time I made a new friend named Billy. And I got to go crazy with a weed whacker through a mini-jungle, the plants and weeds that grow here are different that back home which makes it interesting and you never know what has spines and such.

Going crazy with the weed whacker, yea!

I make friends!

Anyway this past week we had another Zone Conference and all the missionaries here in Cruz Alta get in a van and we travel to Santo Angelo. I love getting to see everybody and especially now because Elder Sargent (comp from the CTM the first week) is now here in the city, reunited again! haha And the trainings that we receive during the conference are always good. This time I came away with a feeling of how precious the Lords time is here on the mission and I made some goals to ensure that we could use all the time that we have to its full potential. 

In the van on the way to Zone Conference

Reunited

And now to the point of the title of my post. Here on the mission I am learning much more than I thought possible or that existed about the power of prayer and fasting. As a missionary we have a lot of time to think and that means going through the thought process of if we've done enough, we are trying but nothing is working or are we going in the right direction? All things work out in the Lord's time and in the Lord's ways but that also means that we have the responsibility to seek the Lord's will. The Lord's time doesn't mean that we wait till something happens but that we pray that he will show us the right path and then go! That is what Elder Gois and I have seen in our work. The first week of this transfer we were making a ton of contacts and marking appointments with people to fulfill our purpose of talking with everyone and now we are seeing how the Lord has guided our work and blessed us for our efforts. We have been fasting specifically to find a family to help them on the path and this week we found 2! Which is pretty exciting and for sure I'll keep you all updated with that progress. Your prayers and love are always appreciated!

Love you all and until next week!

Elder Pierce

A recent baptism with the other companionship.

General Conference in Portuguese!

Elder Gois and I walking in the street during the interval of General Conference handing out invitations.
"Come Listen to a Prophet's Voice"

 10/6/2014

Hello everybody back home! I hope yáll´ve (is that correct English?) had a wonderful conference filled weekend! To be honest I don't remember much about the rest of the week... It rained a lot and we had "fun" jumping over the mini-rivers that form in the flooded cobble stone streets down here. 

So straight to conference! This General Conference was really great and a bit different for me this time. As a new rule in our mission all missionaries have to watch conference in Portuguese. So I had the opportunity to exercise my Portuguese skills which was fun (aside from the American Sister who recently arrived here in Brasil and couldn't understand anything which was pretty sad). And I understood about 95% of all that was said, yea! It just takes more concentration than in English and there's the whole deal of the translators talking over the speaker and not actually getting to hear the voices of the Prophet and Apostles and such. Speaking of which I loved the fact that the speakers could speak in their native language, so you all got the taste of what listening to a translation is like too. When Elder Godoy (the Brasilian) spoke everybody here was really excited and it was nice to just listen to him speak instead of a translation.

Ice cream on Saturday.  We couldn't watch the priesthood session but we had to keep the tradition alive, YUM!

Here are little bits that I got from each of the sessions (in order). 1st The personal responsibility we have to be on the Lords side. 2nd Goals for the future to be the best teacher and example of the gospel in my home and serve others (shout out to the parents! woo hoo love ya!) 4th A greater understanding of what it means to sustain our Prophet and leaders in the church. and 5th How a firm base in the basics of the gospel can bring peace in our lives and blessings we have been promised. (If your wondering about #3 we were not permitted to watch the Priesthood Session and have to find time during the week to watch or download on a pin drive or something... not too sure about the purpose of that decision...) Anyway I had a great conference experience and cant wait for the next one! (only 2 more on the mission) 

Have a great week! love you all!

Elder Pierce

Elder Sargent is in Cruz Alta too!  It's great to catch up with friends.

Here's a pic of us back in the CTM (nearly 9 months ago)

Bring an Umbrella

Here we are- the Elders serving in our ward.  We make a nice stair-step, haha.

9/29/14

Well I think down here in Brasil we are in spring. Around lunch time it's always sunny and hot but then the wind starts blowing and it rains and is cold in the afternoon. But we have a rule of thumb that if we bring our umbrellas, it won't rain while we are out walking. And of course the day that we didn't bring our umbrellas it started to down pour. So my opinion is just always bring my umbrella. 

On Thursday our ward had a Family Home Evening event and the scheme is that we go around and invite all of the less actives and such on the list who have their birthday in the month. So we invited a ton of people from the list (almost none of which came, joy of being a missionary) and there was a cake and a big balloon arch and pictures and music and it was pretty fun.

Ward Family Home Evening Event

the Bishop's family 

A note from my studies: I am reading the Book of Mormon all the way through in Portuguese for the first time! I calculated that if I read 2 chapters a day I should finish by the end of the year. Reading in another language is interesting but seeing as I've read the Book of Mormon before, I know the stories well enough to keep it all together even if I don't know what a word means (which thankfully isn't too often). Although I do have to confess the Isaiah chapters in 2 Néfi were a bit torturous and less productive. But I have faith in the "Book of Mormon Promise" and that after reading it all, my Portuguese will be on a new level! 

As for Elder Gois and I as usual at the beginning of a transfer we have great plans and goals to have many new investigators so that means we talk with a lot of people. Here is a list of some of the stuff that we get all the time in our contacts: "I already have a religion" (most common) "I'm catholic..." (like that means we´re not going to talk to you) "Ive already learned about you all" (and still call the Book of Mormon "your Bible") "I respect your work" (but no way I'm gonna listen to you) "There's just one God" (in the sense that whatever religion you follow it leads to the same place) "Just do what is good" (because any obligation is way too much). Or the various excuses that people give because they don't want to flat out say no like: "I have work tonight..." (when its 3pm) "I'm about to leave" (and we pass by the house 30mins later and they´re still there) and so much more.  But my favorites are when we talked with pastors of other churches. I've had one try to convince us that we are allapostolos and another who testifies that we (E. Gois and I) were prophets and that in his church there was a child prophet and that his wife has the tendency to prophesy (its hard not to laugh sometimes the way that people say things) and another who would say nothing more than we all as a collective are God... yup, so we just say "tchau boa tarde" (bye, good afternoon) and keep on walking.

Gotta love the gaúchos, have a great week everybody love you all!

Elder Pierce

Crackers I like to eat (customized to the name of my Mission)

Show de Talentos e Dia do Gaúcho

Cruz Alta Sunset- the clouds make the city look on fire, awesome!

9/22/14

Bom Dia! everybody back home!  Some awesome stuff happened back home this week. Parabens Calvin on your baptism and super cool baptism blankee! And hugs for all the family that passed through I hope you all are well and that you´ll have safe travels.

Today (Monday the 22nd) marks 8 months that I've been on the mission yea! and I hear time flys by from here, we´ll see. Transfers came in this week and I get to stay here with Elder Gois for at least a little bit more which we are super excited about! Last Saturday was Dia dos Gauchos here in Rio Grande do Sul (Day of the Cowboys) to celebrate the culture here which is pretty cool. Kindof a bummer here in Cruz Alta isn't very "bagual" (like red-neck) so we hardly didn't see all the gaúchos riding horses in the street and such but there was a churrasco in almost every house! 

Roupa Gaucha, yea!

And on Saturday our ward had a talent show. Expecting to fill in some gaps us elders planned to do a couple of acts and it turned out really well (if not a bit embarrassing,  haha). Turns out that Elder Gois is really good at juggling and juggled with oranges and eggs and I helped throw him some stuff which was fun. And Elder Rios plays the guitar super well so I sang some hymns and he accompanied on the guitar which was cool doing a semi singles ward version of Called to Serve. Also we had a little something "up our sleeve" and we made a midget named "Joãozinho" (little Johnny) with me singing and Elder Rios playing the guitar and it was hilarious because I just tried to sing whatever he started to play on the guitar (the embarrassing part) so I sang a bit of AC/DC and Red Hot Chili Peppers and then Hallelujah from Shrek which worked out the best.

Anyway I hope everyone is well and Id love to hear from ya!

Elder Pierce
                                                                  Talent Show Fun

Talent show prep

Elder Gois with his juggling talent

Elder Rios and I singing and playing some hymns

                                                  Joãozinho (Little Johnny) djo-ao-zee-nyo

Our talent show group