Friday, July 22, 2016
Missão Cumprida, Brasil Brasília 2014-2016
Minha querida família,
Eu sou tão grato pelo privilégio que tenho neste momento para escrever vocês. Eu decidi no primeiro ano que meu último email seria em português. È muito difícil para mim acreditar que dois anos já passaram. Minha vida antes da missão parece um sonho. Parece que uma eternidade tenha passada desde então. Também minha missão passou muito rápido. Agora quero agradecer cada um de vocês pelo apóio que vocês me deram. A missão não foi facil e se não foi por vocês, ela teria sido bem mais difícil. Mãe e Pai, eu amo vocês com todo meu coração e não posso agradecer vocês suficiente por me amarem e por me ajudarem aqui. Eu realmente tenho os melhores pais no mundo! E minha irmã e irmão também. Vocês sempre me mandaram emais e mostraram que vocês não esqueceram de mim. A missão me mostrou quanto a família é importante não somente para Deus, mas para mim tambèm. Eu sou tão abençoado por ter recebido vocês como minha família aqui na terra e para sempre.
As coisas eu aprendi aqui no Brasil são sem preço. Eu cheguei mais perto de nosso Salvador. Eu senti o amor Pai Celestial tem por mim. Eu aprendi como reconhecer o Espírito Santo. Eu recebi um testemunho do Livro de Mórmon que eu não posso negar. O livro é verdadeiro, ele é a palavra de Deus, e ele é nossa bússola nestes últimos dias. Eu recebi respostas de minhas orações, dúvidas e perguntas cada vez eu li o Livro de Mórmon. Sou tão grato que Deus nos deu mais escrituras sagradas que ensinam sobre a vida eterna. Meu testemunho do Profeta Joseph Smith sempre foi forte antes da missão. Este testemunho dele foi testado vez após vez aqui na missão. Eu duvidei que ele era um profeta ás vezes. Mas agora, Eu sei que ele viu Deus e Jesus Cristo e que ele restaurou a única igreja verdadeira aqui na terra. Eu sei que Thomas S. Monson é um profeta chamado por nosso Pai Celestial e Jesus Cristo. Esta Igreja é absolutamente perfeita. Eu sou grato eu faço parte dela e que eu tenho uma família eterna. Essas verdades são preciosas para mim.
Quando eu estava no CTM Elder Holland discursou para nós. Foi um momento muito especial. Ele falou uma coisa que eu nunca esqueci. Ele falou que nós nasceríamos espiritualmente aqui no Brasil. Brasil seria a terra de nosso nascimento espiritual. O lugar aonde nós realmente começaremos essa jornada de discipulado. Eu confirmo as palavras dele. Eu aprendi como ser um seguidor de Jesus Cristo. Eu não sou perfeito, mas eu sei o quê eu preciso fazer para seguir a Cristo e voltar a sua presença um dia. As coisas simples são as coisas que fazem a diferença em nossas vidas como a escritura em Alma 37:6 ensina. Essas coisas são: a leitura das escrituras sagradas, a oração sincera, e indo para Igreja cada Domingo.
A escritura da minha missão é Alma 26:12 que fala o seguinte: ´´ Sim, sei que nada sou; quanto a minha força, sou débil; portanto, não me vangloriarei de mim mesmo, mas gloriar-me-ei em meu Deus, porque com sua força posso fazer todas as coisas; sim, eis que fizemos muitos milagres nesta terra, pelo que louvaremos o seu nome para sempre. ´´ Uau. Essa escrita é perfeita para explicar minha missão. Muitas diriam que fizemos muitos milagres aqui e isso é a verdade. Contudo, não é por causa de mim ou meus companheiros, mas por causa de nosso Deus que permitiu que nós fizéssemos tais milagres. Trabalhàvamos de acordo com a vontade de Deus e ensinávamos com poder e o Espírito Santo. E por causa disso, posso dizer a mesma coisa que Alma disse em 26:31: ´´ Agora, eis que podemos olhar e ver os frutos de nosso trabalho; e são eles poucos? Eu vos digo: Não, são muitos; sim, e podemos testemunhar a sinceridade deles por causa de seu amor a seus irmãos e também a nós.´´ Como grato sou por isso.
E ai, vocês provavelmente querem ouvir histórias também sobre minha última semana aqui na missão. Então, vou vos dizer que foi incrível. Na última semana eu vi várias milagres. O primeiro foi uma lição com a Thaiane na terça-feira. Nós chegamos lá e foi uma lição muito importante por que foi a lição perguntamos se ela ia ser batizada. Eu já sabia o que ia ser a resposta dela por que sonhei a noite antes com a mesma cena. Nós começamos a lição e perguntamos ´´ Como foi sua oração?´´ e ela respondeu, ´´ o que horas é meu batismo no Sábado?´´ Foi exatamente como meu sonho. Ela recebeu uma resposta muito forte and decidiu seguir o exemplo de nosso Salvador.
Nós tivemos lições bem importantes também com o João e a Vilane. Ela estava indeciso durante a semana, mas Vilane foi para a entrevista batismal . Depois a entrevista ela tinha decidido que o batismo era a coisa certa. João nunca desistiu no batismo. Ele tinha certeza que ele queria ser batizado. Eu fiz duas entrevistas para Elder Seth e Elder Medina também essa semana. E na sexta-feira tivemos mais duas entrevistas da Thaiane e a Jessica. Todos passaram nas entrevista! E depois das entrevistas, nós fomos num lugar para celebrar e comer juntos. Foi uma noite muito especial.
Sábado de manhã nós limpamos todas as coisas na igreja pelos batismos. Quando todo mundo chegou nós trocamos de roupa e tiramos muitas fotos! Foi tão legal tirar fotos com doze pessoas vestidas de roupa branca. A reunião batismal foi muito espiritual. Presidente Lundgren e Sister Lundgren estavam lá também. Eu não tenho muitas palavras que eu posso usar para descrever os sentimentos todo mundo tinha lá. Depois dos batismos muitos deles estavam chorando porque a reunião foi tão especial. Por ser minha última reunião batismal, ele foi a mais especial de todas.
Ontem nós tivemos o privilegio de assistir todos deles receberam o Espírito Santo. A reunião sacramental foi muito espiritual. Elder Seth e Eu fomos chamados pelo Bispo para discursar. Falamos sobre nossas missões e tudo que aprendemos e passamos. Eu fiquei triste ao ver nossos conversos chorando naquele momento porque tivemos tantas experiencias espirituais juntos e temos criados amizades fortes. A ala Guará 2 mudou minha vida e sou tão grato que tive o privilegio de servi-los. Eles fazem parte da minha família brasileira e nunca imaginei que isso ia acontecer num período de tempo tão curto.
Minha família, eu amo vocês muito. Nem vocês sabem o tanto que vos amo. O plano de Deus por nós é absolutamente perfeito. Nós só temos que confiar Nele e sermos dignos do Espírito Santo. Eu sou tão grato que eu carreguei o nome de nosso Salvador no meu peito por esses dois anos mas também sou grato que carreguei o nome Patterson. A maior bênção tenho na vida é minha eterna família. <3 Estes últimas semanas pensei se eu tenho dado tudo e se o Salvador realmente aceitou a minha missão. Apesar de eu ser imperfeito, humano, e com muitas falhas, eu tenho a certeza que O Salvador aceitou minha missão aqui no Brasil. Eu tenho sentido isso e o Espírito Santo confirmou no meu coração. Minha missão de servir o Salvador não terminou aqui mas eu vou continuar a seguir Ele, seus mandamentos, e ajudar a ele crescer seu reino aqui na terra. Este Sábado vai ser um dia muito especial. Agora eu posso dizer que eu estou trunky. Eu estou com muitas saudades de vocês. Eu não consigo esperar até eu ver vocês este Sábado.
Esta igreja é verdadeira. Cristo vive e nos ama. Até Sábado!
With love, Elder Cason Craig Patterson
3 John 1:13-14....July 11, 2016
Hi family!
I love this scripture. It says a lot in so little :) hehe. Seth and I chose this as our second to last email header because it perfectly describes our current situation.
Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed the cabin and whatnot! It was good to finally get some news about how the trip was and stuff! I miss that cabin so much. I think it will be a good hideout for me after the mish.
I am not going to take much time to write today because this last week was just really fast and I feel it better to write just a few details this week and leave my last letter for a good one. I had an experience so spiritual Saturday and Sunday that I don´t find it fitting to write and tell this story through email. But I´ll just say that God answered a few of my prayers that I said exactly 3 years ago this month. It was a weekend joy and tears of happiness. God´s plan is so perfect. I know I have said it a million times, but it is. When we are following Jesus Christ and his teachings, everything always happens the way God wants it too. Anyways, I´ll just leave you all curious with that one for a while.
This week was an essencial week for us in teaching João and Vilane. It was the weekend we had to go over and teach a few of the commandments that were missing. I was most nervous about teaching the word of wisdom because João mentioned a few days ago that he drinks a lot of coffee. When we taught them, they accepted and João promised to give it up. And sure enough he has! He hasn´t drunken coffee since then. We also went to visit them one night and when we got there they had gotten in an argument and we taught according to the Spirit. We ended up teaching about the Atonement and the love of Christ and what we can do in our families to avoid contention. When we got there the vibe in the room was just unpleasant, but as we talked and taught the mood changed. We left their house with love and hope. It was just a good feeling to help them resolve family problems with the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
We are also teaching Thaiane. She is just sooo great. She is 25 and speaks english fluently basically. It´s always so fun for us to teach her because she has so much in common with us. She is a little unsure about baptism this week, but we know she is ready. If you all could please pray for them each day and night I would be so grateful.
Funny story of the week, the Bishop called us Saturday night and asked Medina and Nascimento to give a talk. Well, they are ´´burros´´ as we say and didn´t prepare anything because we had a bbq that night at our house. The topic was Jesus Christ and the Atonement, so they said it would be super easy (in theory it is easy). But the funny thing is that when we got to Sacrament meeting, an area 70 was there! Nascimento looked at me and said ´´oh freak!´´ I laughed so hard. They ended up doing an amazing job though. It was just a great day at church.
Oh, and this week we went to the zoo! It was a lot of fun. I will send pictures :) We also had a lunch that was in the woods and lots of monkeys started coming out after we had eaten. The family that gave us lunch sells churros and that was our dessert. Needless to say, we shared churros with the monkeys! I will be sure to include some pictures for y´all to see. Anyways, that is it for now. Don´t be trunky yet!! I know that I am not. I don´t want to come home! lol (Relax, I am coming home) but I just want to say is that I am loving it. Things have been going so great lately and I am so blessed. How grateful I am to have a Savior that loves me and a Heavenly Father that looks out for me! Have a good and safe week!
com amor, Elder Patterson!
1. Selfie with the monkeys eating churros at lunch!
2. Selfie with the Elefantes!
3. Picture with Red (our driver). ´´don´t give food to the animals´´
4. The entrance sign of the zoo.
5. Tigers!
spoiled by Sister Lundgren....
So something real quick that I didn´t include in the email that happened today. Today was our Exclusive Lunch with the President. Which means the best companionship's from the mission get to eat with him at his house. And of course we went today and it was super special because it was Fourth of July! And Sister Lundgren out did herself. We had pulled pork sandwiches, bbq chicken, potato salad, pasta salad, salad with croutons salad (lol, so much salads) and for dessert, strawberry shortcake! I was loving it. I hung around in the kitchen afterwards with her and she cut up a bunch more strawberries for me and put them in a bowl to eat :) I am so spoiled! ha :) I love it. But yeah, I just wanted to send a few more pictures of today before I forget. I think today was the best 4th ever!
com amor, Elder Patterson
1-Me and my comps. (yeah, a trio again because E. Batista is taking E. Nascimento´s spot next transfer so he is being trainned.)
2-A plate of heaven.
3-Dessert!
"I'm coming home..... July 4th
Tudo bem minha família?
Maybe you all noticed the title of this email is rather trunky… Well, as we were walking out of church yesterday E. Seth started singing ´´I'm coming home, I'm coming home, tell the World I'm coming home….´´ ha! It was hilarious. The things that come out of his mouth sometimes just crack me up. He is crazy, I don´t think you guys even understand. But I can´t wait for you to meet him one day. As I am on the topic of E. Seth, here are some of the things he said this week ´´My wedding is going to be a riot. My 7 sisters are crazy…´´ ´´I gotta be rich by 25. I gotta have a wife, 6 kids, a helicopter, and private jet by 25! Gotta get started now patdaddy!´´ ´´Here in 10 years I´m going to be living in Florida. Don´t ask me why! It´s a part of the plan.´´ Yeah, he is basically a hoot. Love this kid so much. We both bore our last testimonies together during a fast and testimony meeting, it was a pretty special moment because we started together and now we are finishing things up together.
In other news, this week flew by in the blink of an eye and I realized that two sacrament cups stand in the way of me and my mother. Talk about a giddy feeling eh? But I got so much more stuff to finish before that day comes and I am just super excited for the weeks to come. Why? Because we just have amazing investigators that all have baptismal dates for the 17 of July baby!
So I will tell about the first two. João and Vilani. They are cousins and it was divine design that we found them. I honestly don´t remember if I told you all how we found them. Three Sundays ago we were walking to lunch and E. Nascimento said ´´Let´s talk to him´´ and it was João sitting on the ground. We talked to him but he didn´t have his address because he came here from another state recently and just moved. We gave him our number and he told us he would call. (Which he never did) A few days later we were looking for another address and decided to knock a random gate. That gate was his and the rest is history. So, they went to church last week and loved it. We went to a family night with them this week (the one with E. Anderson) and it was a good environment for them to learn about the Gospel. This week we also helped them out a ton because they don´t have a stove or anything. They were basically using a scout method of making food in there house. It was super sad, but we were able to get an old stove for them and propane tank to cook. When we visited them Friday night they confirmed that they´d go to church and that they´d be there before us. We got there 45 minutes before and sure enough, they were already there, all ready to go. First time ever that an investigator got there before us. They are progressing so much. Remember them in your prayers.
Thaiane, she is just a gem. She is a young adult (22-23) and is awesome. She is super outgoing and goes to church all by herself (found her helping push her car that was out of gas). She speaks English fluently and goes to our English class we have every Tuesday. We marked a baptismal date with her this week. We went to her house and she started telling us about her family and how her parents both died when she was young, so we taught the Plan of Salvation and asked what she had to do to make it to the Celestial Kingdom and she responded ´´be baptized.´´ It´s an answer that we always want to hear but rarely do. She is super integrated with a family of the ward that likes to sing and we happened to have lunch with that family today so they invited her. Walking home after lunch we were talking to her about baptism and all the good feelings she has in the church, reading the Book of Mormon, and praying, and she basically said that she feels good about baptism! It is just a blessing to be able to teach her. Pray for her as well!
Now, we have Laila. She is a moça that is super awesome. She was the first investigator I meant here in the area. After our first visit she disappeared just super busy with school and family stuff. Finally, Saturday we were able to visit her. She accepted to go to church with us again and she went. She loves the church and wants to be baptized. The only problem is that she is going to travel the 17th, so we are going to see if another date beforehand works for her. Please pray for her as well. These wonderful people need some extra strength and prayers these next few weeks.
This week, we also found two teenagers that are less-actives that haven´t been to church in 2 years. We found the girl and her parents that aren´t members. Her older brother wasn´t there. But we shared a simple message with her and invited her to come to church with us and she accepted. You all should have seen the members when she came in. They all went up and gave her big hugs and kisses. One of the young women that knows her just grabbed her by the arm and they didn´t separate the entire time. Now, we have a family night with the families for this week. It is incredible how a simple invitation can make a big difference in the lives of people. All she was waiting for was an invitation to come back and she went. ´´By small and simple things, are great things brought to pass.´´
Now to summarize real fast about my adventures here in the office… This week was transfers and boy was that just a mess! I was basically travelling all day with Red in the van to pick-up and drop off missionaries at the bus station or in their areas. The best part of the whole day was picking up the greenies at the airport Tuesday morning. We took them to Presidents house for their special first day lunch (which was just delicious). There, we had to give a training about the mission and all the do´s and do not´s. Sister Lundgren and I just talked for the longest time about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness afterward. And if you all saw that picture, she showed me her pantry and I just died with all the Mountain Dew, Mac-n-cheese, and delicious goodies they had. Needless to say, she didn´t let me leave without sneaking a can of Mountain Dew J ha. Good times here on the mission! Oh, also got my last hair cut this week. I have been wanting to cut my hair since I got her in the office but E. Seth wouldn´t let me cut mine without him. So finally we did it. Now we are looking sharp and handsome. I love you all so much! The church is true, miracles happen every day, and God and Christ love us more than we can imagine. Have an amazing week. Talk to you all soon!
Com amor, Elder Patterson
1-Getting açai with the boys on our 1 year and 11 month mark.
2-Felicidade
3-These really ghetto ´´work out´´ parks they have all over the place. We love to joke around on them :) haha
4-The boys at our last transfer meeting.
5-In the office with the bros!
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