the members take good care of Elder P

Busy week.....Six months out this week, but who's counting. :)

Oh goodness, my time on the computer is really short now. I had lots of emails today! Some even wishing me a half birthday! yeah, it was yesterday. Sad that I only have 6 months left to be a teen. So I am going to be quick today and just highlight a few main events. 

Tuesday we had a zone meeting and set a goal to have 3 baptisms every companionship this transfer and we are working so hard to reach that goal. We worked our tails off this week! 

Wednesday we found this really old religious couple and taught them. It was pretty fun and after she made us juice and gave us cookies things. So funny, she is like a brasilian grandma. She even tried to give me a hug! Goodness, I feel so mean when I have to reject little old ladies hugs. Grandmas love hugs. ha!

Thursday we had lunch with my favorite family of the ward, Bruno and Mayara, (they even bought mom and lauren something legit. one day you guys will receive them! haha), and they are still preparing for the temple. I am so so excited for them! But after lunch we went out with a priest from the ward and taught a few lessons. One of the most spiritual lessons I had was Tuesday with our investigator named Junior (another junior! haha) and he is 23, don´t know if I told you about him or not. But we taught him the plan of salvation and it took like 2 hours and was so legit, he had so many questions and everything we said he just soaked it up. Even after the lesson he wanted to go to the family night we had planned with us. He loves family nights and has been to 3 already! haha

Friday I spent the day traveling to Miracema where elder p lima had a baptismal interview. We had to take this van bus thing to get home on time and we had to stand up for 2 hours on the bus. Talk about exhausting! wow. But the bus ride was awesome because I had lots of time to ponder about everything. The scriptures always say to ponder them but missionaries just don´t have that much time to ponder, so it was nice to have a few hours to think. haha :)

Saturday night I almost died of heat. The lightning made the power go out and it turned off our AC and we woke up laying in sweat and just dying of heat. Luckily we were able to get it back on during the night. But yeah, satuday we spent on the road teaching everyone and anyone we could. We found this couple that we started teaching as well and even set baptismal dates for them for the 21 of February. They even went to church and loved it! 

Yesterday we had 7 investigators in church and it was awesome. Everyone of them loved it. We had lunch at Gabi´s house (not sure if you saw the pictures on facebook) and its always a great time there. Mom, you would love her, she is hilarious. 

some things I wanted to end with this week. Pugs in brasil are considered world class breeds and only people that are rich can afford pugs. It is true that you can get sunburned through clothes. I am a testimony of that. I have a tan line where my celestial smile is :) haha! its so legit. And I eat exotic fruits everyday for free. Brasil is full of trees in the roads that produce fruit like crazy. Not sure how to spell some of them but you all can look them up if you would like: jambo, carenbola, acerola, guava, pinha, and tons and tons of mangoes!!! Its great! hope you all have a great week :)

com amor, elder patterson

New companion

Hello Family, its crazy how fast the weeks go by here huh? I mean, they seem to take forever during the week but once pday comes its like what happened to the week? I sure do love pdays though. Nothing better than hearing from everyone back home :) This week was pretty uneventful for me.

We picked up the new guys and the new zone leader, Elder Labrada, and headed for Palmas 2, E. Keslers new area. I stayed there with them (E. Kesler, Sanchez, Seth and Labrada) all week waiting for my comp, E. P. Lima to arrive. He got a root canal or something this week down in brasilia. Thats why he took so long to get here. 

So during the week I spent a lot of my time in the hospital. And hospitals smell the same all of the world. ha! And they have that same feeling like you will just get sick from breathing the air there. But before you all freak out and think I was there for me, I wasn´t. E. Labrada arrived here sick and had to go there a lot for tests and follow-ups and stuff. I personally just think he is super needy and needs to milford-up, but hey, not everyone is cut from the same cloth huh? ;) While I was there E. Seth and I did p90x every morning and it was the best ever. He has the new p90x 3 and they are so much better than the first versions. But yeah, I pretty much went out all week with Elder Kesler and His comp or stayed with the sick and afflicted so E. Seth could go out with a member and teach his investigators. Something way cool is that one of their investigators has a couple parrots and I got to hold one of them. They speak portugues its hilarious! Unfortunately I didn´t have my camera, so maybe next time I can catch a kodak moment :) 

My companion arrived Saturday morning and my first thoughts were ``alright, he will do.`` haha! He is super good guy from the few days I have been with him. He is 24 and is from São Paulo. He has 9 months on the mission and is our district leader. He works hard and is for the most part obedient so things should be just fine with him. It was way sad to say goodbye to E. Kesler because we got along so well and joked so much but I will see him every week still at our district meetings.

The first few hours with E. P. Lima he spent the whole time cleaning the house because it was a disaster because of the end of transfers and we didn´t have time to clean it before we left. So we both cleaned everything and organized everything. The house looks amazing now and I even killed on the spiders that were living on the ceiling YUCK. Freaking hate spiders so much, I will never understand why Heavenly Father created those nasty nuisances. The hymn ``all creatures of our God and King´´ does NOT include spiders. haha! Anyways...

So the story of the week I want to share this week is that I lost my memory card. The 16 gig memory card that was full of 3000 pictures and various videos of the first 6 months of my mission. It got lost in the move of E. Kesler and the cleaning of the house. I started to freak out Sunday because I looked absolutely every where 3 times for it and came to the conclusion that I threw it away on accident because it was on my desk with a bunch of papers that I threw out. All Saturday I was a little distracted and unfocused because I had lost it (you all know how much I love pictures). I tried not to think about it but still it bothered me so much and made me really sad because it had the CTM, my baptisms and everything, thanksgiving, christmas and everything else. I prayed so much to find or that some miracle could happen that someone would have it or it would show up. I woke up Sunday morning and checked one last place that I hadn´t check yet and I was sure that it was there but alas it wasn´t. So went throughout the day and I still was distracted because of it. One of the sisters suggested jokingly during church to fast for to find it jokingly. I put that thought away all day until we got to the house and decided I either needed to find it, or get over it so I wouldn´t be distracted anymore. So I prayed in my heart that I could find it through some miracle or just be at peace. And I started to fast. Right when I ended my prayer I had the thought to flip through every single page of my photo album ( I had already looked there and all my books actually). So I did just that and started flipping through every page until finally I flipped a page and the little blue memory card was there! I couldn´t believe and I was so so happy and excited. I know that God answered my prayers and am so thankful that we can pray and fast for simple things. It was the biggest relief to find it and I am so happy.

The only other thing I can think to tell you is that I spoke in church yesterday. They asked my 10 minutes before and I was thinking ``come on, just ask one of the brasilians to do it.´´ I didn´t know exactly what to say so I accepted of course! haha. I spoke on retention of recent coverts in the church. I wrote down a few thoughts during sacrament and when I started to talk I started saying things that weren´t on my paper and I was like ``Elder, what are you doing?!´´ haha! But the talk went really good and I ended up speaking without any notes, talks, or papers or anything all in portugues. Such an amazing experience. But yeah, thats all the exciting news I have for this week. It has been pretty rainy here and the weather is so nice. I am loving it. Thank you all so much for your prayers and everything you do for me. love you all so much and have a good week :)

com amor, Elder Patterson

January 12, 2015.... Elder Patterson has always been a stickler for spelling, but I think all this new portugues language has got to him.

haha, you guys think you are all so tricky with this facebook thing and what not! But Elder Patterson always has a surprise of sorts that you all don´t know. I don´t know what pictures you saw and who posted or what, but secret is is that I didn´t get transferred! haha! I am staying here so it was a super surprise when you all said I got transfered. I was thinking ´´I got transfered?!´´ haha! But yeah, I am staying here in Palmas 3 :) Elder Kesler however got transfered within the zone and will leave tomorrow.  My companion won´t actually come up until next week because he is finishing some sort of treatment or something in brasilia before he comes here. so this week I am sticking with Elder Seth and his Comp. It should be fun. I can´t seem to get rid of that kid! ha. Elder Josephson from my group is also coming up! So we are really excited to see him tomorrow morning. But yeah! I am staying here and my comp´s name is Elder P Lima or something, brasileiro. Tell you more about him when I meet him.

But this week was a busy one. Tuesday was awesome because we had lunch with our favorite people, Bruno e Mayara (the people we are preparing for the temple) and they gave us all the left overs. The main point I wanted to talk about about Tuesday was that we taught this pesquisador of ours named Elias in the capela. He is a stud and he even likes to sing hymns with us. He is a great kid and is looking for an answer. As soon as he gets an answer he will be baptized. (hopefully this next transfer.) Oh! Also, we found this juicer on the ground in perfect condition and where like what is this doing here?! So we knocked on the portão and this lady said she didn´t want it and that we could have it! haha! So we took it home. Have yet to make juice...

Wednesday was an interesting day. Our lesson with old man João was great. We left the pamphlet of the word of wisdom and he read it three times before our visit. He basically taught us the lesson when we got there. But Wednesday was one of the hard days of the week. All day I felt like nobody was understanding what I was saying and no one wanted to hear from us. The sun was beating down on us all day and the whole time I knew that I would be doing a division with a member that night with a family we found the night before. So by the time our division came I was pretty nervous because I was going with a guy from the ward that is a convert (2 years ago) and he never really said much when we went out with him the previous times. But we went to the familys house and they let us in. I was praying a lot that they would understand me and be nice, ha. And sure enough I was very blessed. I taught the restoration and the book of mormon. They loved it and loved me. They couldn´t believe that I am only 19 and here speaking portugues after 5 months. The mother (catholic) and the end of the lesson asked if she could have the Book of Mormon. I said yes and she was like ``its a really really nice book, it must be expensive huh?´´ and I said ``yeah very... Its free and for you and your family as a present.´´ haha! she was loving it. (Thanks for paying your tithing people!) So yeah, Wednesday ended great after a long day and it was a good confidence booster with my own abilities because I relied on no one but myself during the lesson. And I also know that God blesses us when we are need of a little extra help :)

Thursday was pretty awesome as well. We found a lot of new pesquisadores and made some awesome contacts. One guy even said he wanted to have us over for lunch! But we got to go to the fair for about an hour Thursday and it was awesome. After the fair we had our tour of the capela that we do every Thursday night to show people the inside of the church during a little more tranquil setting. We went and got one of our investigators and while we were walking to the church he said out of no where that he had got an answer to his prayers and that he knew the church was true! We were stoked and after our tour with him we marked a date for him.

we taught João again but this time the Sabbath day. He again impressed and said that it was rediculous that the 7th day adventistas keep Saturday holy but yet still work and stuff. He said this ``I am going to say I am mormon and I don´t work Sunday!´´ to his friends! haha. We were loving it :) he is great. Friday we also exercised our priesthood a lot and blessed an investigator of the sisters to help her stop drinking coffee and we also blessed a recent converts house. It was great and very spiritual. I have come to recognize more how powerful the priesthood is.

Saturday all I did was travel... We travelled all over the zone to do baptismal interviews, well elder kesler did because he is the zone leader, and I just studied. It was great and I learned a lot. The zone had tons of baptisms yesterday 1/3 of the missions for this transfer!

Yesterday was pretty much just full of the transfers and stuff. We had to help everyone get to the bus station and make sure everyone was good to go down to brasilia. Nothing much else happened. Glad that I didn´t get transferred and that I didn´t have to take the bus ride again so soon! ha :) But I am really excited about this up coming transfer and I am hoping to have a few baptisms as well. Something about Palmas 3 is that it is the richer part of the city and harder to work here, but we are definitely seeing success. And numbers that you also don´t see is people you have reactivated. While I have been here we have reactivated a family and 2 other people and are now preparing that family (bruno e mayara) to get sealed as well as the other two make it to the temple this year. So I have been loving it. I am praying for you all. Hope everything is going good and stuff. until next week!

com amor, elder patterson

A New Year....01-05-2015.  His favorite food.....salgado. They are filled with chicken and cheese.

Hello my queridos! It sounds like everyones news years were super great. And I totally forgot that it was news years this past week. So I guess I will get right into it and tell you everything I did for that. 

Wednesday, we just spent the whole day working and it was probably our most successful day yet together and was super awesome. But the last hour we had we went to a members house and he made a bbq and we all loved it. Other than that we went to bed at 10:30 that night and woke up at 11:55 made some terere, and watched fireworks from our appartment. It was sweet because our appartment faces the beaches that they have the parties so we got to see all the fireworks. We went back to bed at 12:03 because sleep is precious to us missionaries! ha

But was really weird because everything was closed and the streets were deserted. More so than christmas. Pretty much everyone was having hangovers or something of the sort so everyone stays inside new years day. 

So I want to tell you about my investigators this week because I honestly don´t know what day I day what this week. It was such a blur. But the first guy I want to tell you about is named João. He is like 65 or something and was an investigator of the sisters but they gave him to us 3 weeks ago. We had a really cool experience with him this week trying to help him get an answer to his prayers about baptism and if he should join the church. And he actually had a dream where he was being baptized and that was his answer! It was way cool because he ended our visit with him with a prayer and said he was thankful for the book of mormon that is true and for the church. And we passed by his house yesterday to check up on him and he was sitting out front reading the book of mormon. 3 nefi 11. And he was saying amazing things about how Christ gave Nefi power to baptize and he starting talking about that. We are loving teaching him because he is doing everything right. We have a date for him the beginning of this month.

Another family we are teaching is really cool too. Their names are Everton and Sirleide and the have a baby girl. We visited them this week and it was a day they were needing us for reals. He was drinking and they were both kind of fighting but we taught the plan of salvation and they both received a lot of strength from our message and the hope Christ brings us. It is amazing to see how the Spirit changes the attitudes of people.

The last family I want to talk about is probably my favorite. They are less-actives named Bruno e Mayara. They are so legit. They are a young couple that we visited and own this catering business of Salgados (delicious fried food brasilians eat for lunch). And we visited them right before christmas and after they said they wanted us to come and prepare them to go to the temple to be sealed because they said they didn´t feel the true christmas spirit this year with their family that was drinking and partying. So we visited them and had an awesome lesson on families and the Proclamation to the world. I could only think of how awesome my own family is and how much I love you all so much. I am so thankful that I have a family I am sealed to for time and for all eternity. And its even better that I can bear testimony on how I know how special being sealed is. But yeah, Bruno and Mayara always joke with us so much and give us tons of food. It is the best because we can joke with them and have fun because they are already members. Its hard to show for our investigators that we aren´t there to just joke around and stuff. So visiting them is always fun because we can be their friends and joke and have a good time :) 

So the title is end of transfers because this is the last week of transfers and I am afraid that I will be transferred again. I don´t want to leave this area and every single one of your prayers would be appreciated :) haha. But whatever happens is the will of the Lord and I will go and do. I love you all so much and hope you have a great week :)

com amor, Elder Patterson.