The Secret to Success

                                                                  Zone Conference
7/20/2015

Break time at the zone conference

Hello to all after another week! The most exciting thing that happened this past week had to be the Zone Conference last Tuesday. It's always fun to see past friends and companions and a great opportunity to hear from Presidente and Sister Parrela. One of the things that stuck out to me from the conference was this question: "What was the secret to the success of Jesus Christ as the perfect missionary?" In the end the answer is kind of obvious but it was one of those mind-blowing, right in front of you moments, haha, that Christ only did the will of the Father and that he was exactly obedient. (John 5:30, 6:30, 7:16-17, & Luke 22:42) The same stuff as always shed in a new light, cool :)
                                                                             Seeing Old Friends:

                                                                    E. Sargent

                                                                           E. Gois

                                                                     E. Lailson Silva
At our apartment after the conference we also had the elders from San Tiago sleep there to wait for the bus the next morning. So obviously we took advantage of the opportunity and got xis with everyone.

                                                                     Xis- Yummm!

Anyway the rest of our week is a big blur in my mind... Saturday night Bishop called me and said "hey Elder, did anyone tell you that you have a talk tomorrow?".. umm nope haha. But it's all good, we are prepared for this as missionaries. I talked about how we receive revelation through prayer, scripture study, and church attendance. Pretty easy considering I only had to say the stuff that I teach to people pretty much every day. 

Well sorry for the short letter but I love you all and hope that your week goes well!

Elder Pierce

Pancake breakfast that one of the other elders made for us one morning :)

Zone Leader Stuff

 Gaucho Legal   

I bought these boots, all I need now is the hat to finish off my gaucho set. :)

7/13/2015

My first week here in Santo Ângelo as zone leader went well. My companion Elder Santos Araujo and I have a lot of stuff to do. We have a "good cop (me), bad cop (him)" relationship haha with everyone, other missionaries investigators etc., haha. When Elder Santos Araujo left the CTM I came in so he has 2 more weeks than I do in the mission which makes him my first companion who has more than a year on the mission when I served with them. 

My companion Elder Santos Araujo

As a zone leader we don't have junior or senior companion so we just work things out as we go... so that's interesting. Here's some of the stuff we got to do last week. Tuesday after the 6 hour bus ride from Livramento to Santa Maria was the Mission Council (coolness!) where all of the zone leaders and leaders of the sisters get together and we receive training from the assistants, Sister Parrela and Presidente. A big part of what they told us to help our missionaries was to 1) be happy and 2) believe we can baptize. Then after the trainings everyone sits in a bit circle and we discuss ideas of how to improve the mission. I presented an idea of how to better accompany our district/zone meetings with specific goals and guided additional studies. After all the meetings were over Elder Santos Araujo and I got on a bus to Santo Ângelo, another 4 hours, and we got home late and tired. 

                                                           The bus to Santa Rosa

selfie #aloneonthebus

Next week we have Zone Conference (meeting with various zones back in Santa Maria ahh! more bus rides) so as the zone leaders we had to contact the bus company that will leave from here in the city. We organized all of the information of the missionaries that will travel with us and had to communicate to everyone when we will leave and from where etc. The bus will pass through here, Ijuí and then Cruz Alta before heading down to Santa Maria (not to mention having to do all that in reverse on the way back -ugh). 

As a zone leaders we also do the baptismal interviews for our district leaders. A bit about Zone Santo Ângelo: its huge! The zone covers 4 cities, here, Santa Rosa, San Tiago, and São Luiz Gonzaga. So Friday I had to travel to Santa Rosa alone to go do a baptismal interview for the district leader there. I left 6 from here got there 7. Ran and did the interview: all good. Then went to the district leader's house and gave him some instruction on how to do the paper work etc. because he is new. Then ran back to the bus station at 9 to get home around 10. A bit exhausting but it's all part of the deal. My area here has had some great elders pass through so we have a lot of work to do. Including we had a baptism this week of a boy named Sandro :) Irmão Guilherme is his neighbor and has been working with Sandro's family to bring them to church, literally we are only helping him do his own missionary work as a member. 
This week will be super busy too so I look forward to getting to tell y'all all about it.

Love and hugs! have a great week

Elder Pierce

before the mission council when all the zone leaders and sister trainers 

(? I dont know the name in English... its Líder Treinador das Sisteres in Portuguese) 

sit in a big circle and discuss ideas to inprove the mission

 Baptism of Sandro (Brother Guilherme (translated would be William) performed the ordinance)

traditional pizza after a baptism

An Impactful Week

                                      I made those scripture covers/ box things for Elder Alencar
7/6/2015
Well family this week was full of impactful events that I will share with y'all.

Monday wonderful magical Mom activated my card! So that ended a bit of the drought and I'm gonna try this week to finish up some of my gaúcho get up because the clothes and stuff here in Livramento are cheaper than anywhere else.

Tuesday was our District meeting where we played my board game. We reviewed chapter 9 of PMG and then when they stopped on a space they drew a sorted practice situation about one of the principles in chapter 9 all about finding new people to teach. I think it worked out great because it turned practices which are usually really lame into being fun! Everyone said that they wished there was more time to play :)

                                           Making the game for our District Training Meeting

                                               (like the First Presidency game pieces/ haha)

                                                                Playing the game! :) 

Wednesday we had the opportunity to be the answer to a family's prayer. The family had been unable to buy food for a long time and without a word after we left the house Elder Alencar and I both knew what we had to do. We went straight to the store and returned to drop off what we could; basics like beans, rice, and eggs. And it worked out that they had left their door open and were in another room so we were able to slip in and leave the groceries on their table without a peep and then we were off.

Thursday I had the opportunity to do some baptismal interviews. It was an amazing spiritual experience to be able to explain to one of them about the importance of the commandments, the miracle that is repentance, and how the love of God is more powerful than all things. I was truly able to see how the spirit works through us to be able to serve his children and help them back home. God really does answer our prayers, we just need to listen and put our interests out of the way.

Friday morning when Elder Alencar and I were doing our weekly planning I got a call from President Parrela. He called to inform and congratulate me for my new call in the mission as a Zone Leader! I will

Me and my son!

be transferred to Santo Angelo, everyone who I talk to says that it's a beautiful city and all the missionaries say that the ward there is really good. My companion and fellow zone leader will be Elder Santos Araujo from São Paulo I think. There were some mixed feelings about leaving here especially as Elder Alencar was about tearing up when I got the phone call and he knew I would leave but he'll be alright. His step-dad will be another Elder who actually is already here in our district who only moved to the neighboring area, weird but cool haha (the same elder who is leaning over playing the game in the pictures). I also couldn't help but laugh when I remembered a talk from general conference: "Unfortunately, there was a time in my life when I was motivated by titles and authority. It really began innocently. As I was preparing to serve a full-time mission, my older brother was made a zone leader in his mission. I heard so many positive things said about him that I couldn’t help but want those things said about me. I hoped for and may have even prayed for a similar position..." - Elder Ringwood. But I know that the brothers won't do the same haha ;)

                                                                                The rest of the week was more of a blur and so I'll leave it at that but I love you all and I hope y'all have a good week!

Elder Pierce

Relying on the Lord

6/29/2015
Hello all! Humm... so just to start things off this week got really hot out of nowhere. It was actually really nice 21-24 C (70s F) But when it should be getting colder I felt that it was hot. On the contrary Elder Alencar has been loving it because in Ceará the weather stays around 24 C (75 F) in the coldest of winters and 34 C (94 F)the rest of the time. So he gets to feel a bit more at home which is needed sometimes for a new missionary to get your mind off some of the stress. Thankfully (at least for me) today and tomorrow bring in the rain and then it's back to cooler temperatures which I've been waiting for. 

This week is the end of the transfer so I'm not too sure how I feel about that. I've got an estimated 60% chance to stay or 40% to leave by my reckoning. President Parrela likes to give the new missionaries Step-Fathers (when another missionary finishes the training), but there's no use in worrying about that till Friday. I would like to stay here and finish the training of Elder Alencar and help see some more progress here in the area with our investigators but we'll see what the Lord has planned. 

Having fun with our plaquetas (name tags)

A cool experience that we had: we got a referral of a less active family that was wanting visits from the missionaries again last week. When we went there the wife was full of questions and doubts about the Book of Mormon, the church, eternal families and all sorts of stuff so we just tried our best to answer what we could. We also left them 3 Néfi 11 to read to try and help them rekindle their faith connecting the Book of Mormon with Jesus Christ. When we returned we were all prepared to answer the unanswerable and and use scriptures from the 4 corners of the earth and whatnot. But when we got there they just said "oh we know it's all true elders we just need to plan better to wake up on Sunday to go to church, that's the only thing between us and coming back." and it was a "huh? could you repeat that?" situation which was a nice change from the tumultuous lives of our investigators who seem to get more complicated every week. But hey if it wasn't difficult it wouldn't be worth it :) This week for district meeting I'm going to focus on our main need to find more new investigators. So I'm gonna make a board game with sorted practice situations on the various pathways to help everyone feel more natural in finding new investigators, that should be fun, haha pictures to come.

Until next week! Love you all and know you're in my prayers :)

Elder Pierce

divisão (exchanges) with Elder Chuman

Run Around Then Relax... and Run Around Again

          I found Sheila's cousin at our investigators Thais and Julio's house. His name is "Gringo" because of the blue eyes (me and Ana- Thais and Julio's daughter)

6/22/2015
Today (Monday, 22nd of June) makes 1 year and 5 months that I've been on the mission... I'm starting to feel old haha. Also it's now been 2 month that I'm here in Livramento, which is weird because I still feel like I'm new here, time really flies by. This week felt really rushed because we had two different exchanges that I had to do. Exchanges are always from before lunch one day to before lunch the next day and these 24 hours feel like a weird time warp. It's almost like that day doesn't count in my mind or something so the week goes by really fast. There are some things I like about exchanges but in some ways they really just make things more difficult. For example exchanges can go one of two ways, we will have a day full of miracles, teaching everyone planned for finding new people and seeing real progress in our investigators. Or nothing will go as planned and everything falls through just because your with another person. Thankfully the two exchanges I had went the first way this time. I was in Elder Banks' area on Tuesday then on Thursday Elder Edwards was in my area so the miracles were evenly spread out haha. It's interesting to have the chance to influence the work of another through my assessments and suggestions as a leader. 

Exchange with Elder Banks

Exchange with Elder Edwards

I've been blessed with a district who works hard and is always looking to become better so that makes things a lot easier.  In our area we found a cousin of a member who is 16 and I thought was already baptised but 4 years ago his Mom didn't give permission and now she is letting him go to church again.

Gringo

No one else tried after that so we asked him if he wanted to be baptized and he said "yea, it just depends on my mom" So that is definitely a miracle and we are going to help him out in that aspect :) On Saturday we were invited to a churrasco at Thais and Julio's house (our investigators). It was super good and I even found a long lost cousin of our dog Sheila! They call him Gringo because of his blue eyes haha. This was our moment of "relax" in the week but then everything went crazy again the next morning trying to get everyone to church on Sundays. The rest of missionary work seems easy compared to getting people up in the morning to go to church and this is the only thing that stands in between many of our investigators and taking the next step to baptism. It was a bit disappointing that Leandro and Fernanda weren't able to make it this week but for sure next week will work out! All in the Lord's time, and with active patience.

Elder Alencar chillin with Gringo

Love you all and have a great week! And a shout out the all the family back at the family reunion! Extra hugs around and PARABENS! (congratulations) Grandpa for your Birthday!

Elder Pierce

                                         in the circle eating appetizers at the churrasco

                   the group Ana, Thais, Julio, us, then in the back are Julios nephew and his wife

the churrasco pit

Unexpected Surprises!

A picture of the Zone -everyone with their companion behind them.

6/15/2015

This week went by well. It's starting to get cold here, around 30 some degrees in the early morning. Sometimes I think Elder Alencar is joking shivering in the street... but he's not joking, haha. He says that he can't support the cold very well but that he is liking the experience. We'll see how he feels about the cold in a few weeks. He promptly denied my proposition to run around in a field of frost one morning. Funny thing down here, frost is the ultimate sign of cold because it doesn't really snow anywhere in Brasil. Most all Brasilians have never seen frost and many people don't understand that the frost doesn't "fall" but forms on the ground, haha. When I tell them about how I had to scrape the frost off the car early every morning to leave for seminary they just look at me with big eyes O.O 

Anyway this week I had two surprises, one way cooler than the other. So I'll start off with the less cool but funny story. We taught a lesson to an investigator with the bishop's wife one night. The lesson went well but the investigator wasn't too interested in actually going to church but in just receiving visits. OK  that's normal but after the lesson was over bishop came to pick his wife up and give us a ride to our next appointment. As he pulled up he drove over the sewer "lid" (? it's the concrete slab over the storm drain) and here in Brasil things are a bit... less sturdy you could say and the concrete slab was shifted so that it wasn't square over the hole. Since it was dark the lid moved without us noticing. In a line Sister Claudia (bishop's wife) stepped on the lid to get to the car, then Elder Alencar went in the same path no incident, but when I stepped on the concrete slab the next thing I knew I was in the sewer, haha. The concrete had flipped and I was in the hole up to my mid chest but surprisingly, I didn't hurt myself at all just a bump or two on my knees. 

Suprise number 2 is much better. I was on an exchange with our Zone Leader Elder Edwards when we got a call from his companion and Elder Alencar back in my area. They had gone to visit a couple that we are teaching named Leandro and Fernanda. Leandro and Fernanda are super special and we received another witness that the Lord really is preparing people to receive the restored gospel. We already knew that Leandro had quit smoking for over a year and drinking for more than 5 of his own accord which is a huge step. But when I heard Elder Edwards repeat to me (he was on the phone at the time) "huh!? they are married??" (pretty much no one is married here in Brasil so that's a huge time process while people are preparing to be baptized) I dropped what I was holding in my hands and my mouth dropped. Then he said "you marked their baptism for the 4th of July and they accepted?!!" At this point I fell to my knees (this actually happened before the sewer incident) in the middle of the street (street in a manner to say in public we were actually on a sidewalk) and began to give thanks on high (thankfully it was night and no one was around, haha). So that was a super awesome unexpected surprise! Many prayers will be needed so that everything can come together for Leandro and Fernanda to be baptized on the 4th but I know that it is possible and that the Lord truly prepares those we teach :) 

Love you all and I hope y'all have a good week

Elder Pierce

                 exchanges tradition: xis! 

                 (Brasilian cheeseburger)

lunch last p-day

One More Last Try

                                                            Loving Life in Livramento
6/8/2015
Another week gone by. Elder Alencar is doing very well. He came very prepared for the mission spiritually and went out with the missionaries a lot at home so he is even practiced at teaching. I feel totally normal with him here, I don't have to drag him around or explain the obvious etc. When I asked him how he felt he said that it still hasn't hit him that he's a missionary yet, haha. 

Taking pictures on the border.

We have been working really hard to find new investigators which cam mean some long hours with little results. But it was an awesome testimony builder for us on Wednesday when literally we were just about to throw in the towel for the day having searched and searched and nothing happening and we decided to knock (well clap really) one more door and the lady stuck her head out the window and was like "nope". Unsatisfied with no the whole day and various appointments falling through I knew that we had to have at least one yes. So I decided to give it one more last try and knocked on the next door that I saw had lights on. The guy stepped out and we did the normal introductions and he was like "umm yea, you can come in" Elder Alencar and I looked at each other with an expression of "really?!" We taught him and his wife the restoration, they liked it a lot, we felt the spirit, and we marked another visit. The whole day of no was worth it for that one yes :) We went to bed extra happy that night. 

This week President Parrela came to the city to do a round of interviews with the zone. It'

s always good to have interviews with him because he is in his what he calls "with sugar mode" (not his without sugar mode haha). As I talked with him about a situation that Elder Alencar and I went through this week he told me "Elder Pierce you now have a certainty beyond faith that God exists." President Parrela really has a way with words :)

Love you all!! and have a good week

Elder Pierce

                                             "Missionary Life" Cartoons by Elder Pierce

 *Riley takes pics of little hand written notes to his brothers and sends them by email and he often includes a little cartoon drawing that each brother might enjoy.  We thought you may enjoy them too. :)