3-23-15 My favorite Brazilian foods

3-23-15

Hey Family!!!

President Andrew's response letter to my letter from last week.

Dear Elder Horton,
I appreciate your attitude about the work and your companion. I am really trying to break the tradition of climbing a ladder to leadership in the mission. I know that you can appreciate that. Time in the mission and positions don't mean a thing to the Lord. I firmly believe that, in the long run, it makes sense to have the best missionaries be the trainers. If a new missionary gets off on the right foot, he will be a great asset in the mission. I hope that that is the reason that you have been such a valuable missionary. 
Love,
President Andrew

Elder Olivera is doing well, he's becoming more and more conscious of what he needs to do to become a better missionary and he's determined to be better. He's also paying more attention to some things I do to win the love of the members and gain their confidence and thus, recieve references, help, and baptize para caramba. I hope it works out and that I can really show him how to baptize a lot of people so that he can baptize his whole mission.

I’d love to hear more about E Oliveira (or is it Elder Amoras by now?).  How did he choose the alternate name to use? 

That's his middle name. His full name is José Amoras de Olveira

What is his conversion story?

That's a very good question. He said that as a Jew, he studied a lot about a lot of different religions when he was a Jew. He even said that the people that knows more about Jesus Christ than any other people, are the very Jews, even though the majority don't believe in Jesus the Christ. So he was studying about the LDS religion and he said he found an old Book of Mormon in his aunt's house or something like that and started reading. He'd already read about the first vision and a bunch of other things. So he was reading the Book of Mormon and was touched to ask, in prayer, if that was really true, if Joseph Smith was a prophet and if God's church was restored through Joseph Smith. He said he received an answer but hardly couldn't believe it because it meant that everything he had learned was wrong (Imagine, a Jew that didn't believe in Christ, receiving an answer that not only was Jesus the Christ, but His church was on earth). So he asked again, again received an answer but was still doubtful. Asked a 3rd time, and he said that he didn't receive an answer the 3rd time immediately after praying. But he was getting a bus and on the bus saw 2 missionaries and said that was the answer for him the 3rd time. He went up to one of the missionaries, using a kipa (that Jewish hat thing) and told him something like "I just received an answer that Jesus is the Christ" and the missionary was perplexed and amazed by that. And that same week, he received all of the lessons and was baptized! And his mom and brother (who were also Jews) followed after him. His dad still wasn't baptized but he will be.

So we know you’re in to BYU for fall, and the mission president gave you permission to register for classes. What about housing?  Aunt Linda said that housing is pretty tight this fall because there are a lot of returning missionaries from that first wave and housing is filling up fast.  Let me know if you want me to do some looking for you or what.  Do you have any idea of who you might want to live with, or will you just live with who you get?

Yeah that makes sense....we should probably get on that then. I have No idea of who I want to live with. A lot of people on the mission are planning on living with each other but I'm forever alone :( No one asked me to live with them haha but that's okay. I'm good with whatever. My son did mention with me once, the possibility of living together. I just sent an email to him to see if he still wants too and I included your email mom so maybe later or another day you'll receive an email from him or from his mom.

As for housing goes, you know me mom, I don't like spending a lot of money, but I like things that are efficient. So like a house that's not too far from campus, that has the basics and is on the cheaper end.

Speaking of BYU and what not, i went to see the date to register....man it’s next Monday! That really snuck up on me! I was not ready for that! I got back into my BYU profile too and saw all the courses that I still had to take and I shuddered a bit haha it's a really monumental task all of this and the housing and I want to try and apply for scholarships too to see if I can get some free money....it's a lot of stuff. before I left for my mission, I had it all set up in my head how it was all gonna work out and the classes and the teachers and everything but now that I've been here over a year it's kind of all jumbled up and I have to refamiliarize myself again...fetch haha

How was your week?

This weekend, we had the opportunity to help marry, and baptize a couple here in the area! Elder Oliveira is pretty happy that we baptized. If things work out, we should baptize 2 more this Sunday, we'll see how it goes.

The wedding was pretty fun but it was a great rush to get it all ready so Friday and Saturday, that's all we did. I like the Brazilian wedding traditions :)  We were also marriage counselors to a couple that's having marital problems. We're going to involve the bishop too but a lot of times, people tell us about their problems and we try to help them.

We continue to see the Lord helping us and guiding us every day. He even uses the rain to guide us sometimes! Once, we were at a sister's house to get a curtain for the wedding and we were about to leave but then it started raining pretty hard and we decided to wait. And while we waited, the sister remembered to give us something that was pretty important! And then after a couple minutes, it stopped raining! I also notice that a lot of times, when we're on the street walking, it's sprinkling but when we're getting to where we're going or when we're already at where we're going, it starts to POUR! I think the Lord looks out for His servants. But then there are also other days where we're out walking and it is POURING and we get completely soaking wet haha My wife is going to be really pretty! Did you guys know that that's what we say here, when we get rained on, we say our wife is getting prettier!

O and this week at church, there had (does that make sense?...or is it there was?....) over 120 people in the sacrament meeting!!! Last week there were only 92. And we had 6 investigators there! So that makes me happy. I also got to see some old faces from when I was in Penha because they come to visit Sâo Mateus so that was good to see them :)

Aunt Linda was talking about some of the Brazilian foods that Bonnie loves – and she’s never even been to Brazil.  She experienced them in Boston.  Aunt Linda wanted to know what your favorite Brazilian foods were.

I love estroganofe, which I even did this last week!...with varied results...haha but I know what I can do better to make it over more yummy!

Churrasco! Nothing beats a good ole brasilean churrasco (like BBQ but just meat! no hot dogs or hamburgers!)

Lasagna here is awesome too! I don't remember how amerian lasagna is...but i think it's pretty different.

There are others but these are my top 3 :) oh and pizzaaaaa!!!

Who are you teaching?

A family. Rose, Meire, Flavio, and Gabriel. Gabriel and Rose have gone to church like 4 times already and Meire went for the first time this last Sunday! when we first went there to visit them the first week in the area, Meire said she couldn’t go to church because there were a lot of people there and she had a week immune system (she fought cancer) but this last week we went there with a member and they, especially her, did a Lot of questions and they got very interested to get to know the Church of Christ that we represent. So she went! Flavio would've gone too but he was out of town :( we're hoping to baptize Rose and Gabriel this week and then Meire the other week and then Flavio the other week!

Did you know that May 10 is Mother’s Day??  You know what that means!!!!

Wow....already??? Wait..no, that's not next month, we still got a whole month between now and then haha. But yeah it's getting closer!

What are you studying in the scriptures this week?

I read "The missionary's little book of answers" Which was awesome, had some great explanations for some questions that I'd always been curious about.

I started to read "the great apostasy" By James E. Talmage.

I continue my study of the Old Testament with the manual to help me out and I'm loving the stories and lessons of the Old Testament. The sacrifices and rituals and what not is always annoying but I'm reading it all so that I can say that I read the whole bible, plus the manual helps.

What have you learned from other missionaries this week?

Be good don't be bad....haha just kidding. We stayed up late one night talking about a bunch of things, including illuminatis and the meaning of revelations from the bible and what not, it's always fun to talk about things like this with other missionaries.

Has E Olivera had any big adjustments to mission life?

It's been hard for him getting up early every day haha if it wasn't for me, I know he'd sleep in. He also gets a bit trunky sometimes or gets distracted thinking about things that he used to do and what not, but that's normal, it's not impeding him.

Another long letter, I hope you're happy mom haha like I always say, I know a lot of missionaries that don't write a quarter of what I write. Good thing I know how to type.

I love you all!

Elder Horton