Doing Work

Hello.

Thanks for all the emails this week! Glad to hear that everyone is going good and school is starting again. Que saudade da escola... It´s super weird to think that school is starting and all my little sophomores are going to be seniors. Can´t wait to hear about all the sports and stuff that will be going on. All of that stuff (school, sports, homework, activities, etc) feel like a dream. It feels like it all happened a lifetime ago. But I hope all of ya´ll enjoy a new week and survive the heat. I have been using sunscreen a lot (mom, no need to send more... I have got like 5 full bottles still that you´ve sent...) and I started using one brand that I always used at Lake Powell and other trips and the whole day I will catch a wiff of it and remember the lake and it makes me trunky for boating. And it doesn´t help that our area is on a lake and we cross this bridge everyday! Freak! I just want to jump in so badly... But such is life. 

So this week was a good week. Full of visits, new people, spiritual experiences, and sweating. So I want to talk a little about this family that we are teaching. I mentioned them last week. The less active father that is coming back to church and received the priesthood last conference. His family isn´t a member but we are teaching his wife and daughter (they have the age for baptism). They have 3 other little kids that are adorable as well. So Neysa (mom) and Dandara (daughter) had baptismal dates for this weekend. So we passed by a few times this week to see how everything was going with them and Neysa said she was still unsure and nervous about all of it but she wanted to do the interviews still. So Friday we went there with Elder Barbosa and Elder Medina and they did the interviews. Dandara of course passed because she is a child and they don´t have many problems or doubts. And Neysa´s interview lasted a long time so we were pretty nervous the whole time. But they both ended up passing! The only thing was is that Neysa wanted to pray about it and talk with her husband that night to see if she should be baptized yesterday. When we called her Saturday she gave us the answer that she wants to be baptized for sure! But that she didn´t want to do this weekend. She said she wants to have a lunch after and invite her family and stuff so we were really happy with her answer and said thats perfectly fine. SO we are going to help her set a new date that she feels comfortable with and we are super excited for them :)

We also have many more people we marked dates with this week and are helping them progress towards baptism. We have one family that is really quite odd but awesome to visit. So this woman has two daughters that live next door to her. One of them is a less active. The other is 15 and has a baby that turned 1 saturday. When we teach them they always call everyone to listen. The ``dad`` of the family is basically drunk every time we go there but he is a nice drunk. When we taught them last time he wanted to say the first prayer and we were pretty nervous but it ended up being super good so we were surprised at that! But this family lives pretty far from the church and yesterday they walked about 3 miles in the blazing sun to get to church. And Vilma (the 15 year old) carried her child the whole way. It was awesome to see the sacrifice they did. 

Our sacrament meeting was a lot better. Had about 50 people there. This little branch is so great and I love all of them. I just want to help them all so much and I am so thankful for this desire I have. Because if I didn´t have a desire, we´d probably do nothing here. I am the one that has to motivate all of the elders in our house. I am the only one that wakes up on time, does exercises, studies diligently, and says ``lets go work.`` I have already learned so much here and am loving it. The opportunities here are incredible. 

So random side note, this dude here in this internet cafe just started talking to me like I have known him for years calling me elder and everything. Turns out he is from the same city as my ´son´ Elder M. Santos and he knows him! haha. I have no idea what he is doing here and said he is just passing through but will be at church Sunday. Small world eh? 

Also, this next week should be really good. Tomorrow we are going on a trip to Gurupi to have a meeting with our sisters and help them out. It should be a loooong day of travel (almost 10 hours altogether. We will leave super early.). But yeah, this is my little update on the week. I am doing great, eating well, and learning so much. If I could ask for one thing, it would be more pocket listerine breath spray thingies...  ha! Mine are running out. But other than that, no worries here. Have a great week! Love all of you!

com amor, Elder Patterson

Pictures from a service project......

Back in Paradise

Hello! Nossa, eu estou feliz de mais!

So woke up this morning and saw some Toucans flying outside of our window. Just a little picture you all can imagine right now. :)

Here I am! back in Palmas. The bus ride last Tuesday was super awesome. We came back with 3 sisters and 3 elders. We all played games on the bus ride and jokes around. Super fun. We also celebrated after the 14th hour on the bus when the bus stopped we bought a 2 liter of coke and all shared! haha. Freaking missionaries :) 

But yeah, after I got to Palmas I was greeted by sooo many missionaries that I love and missed! Elder Medina and Elder Fernandes are here and they were excited to see me. But the best part was was when all of us missionaries were there in the bus station an elder told me someone wanted to talk to me and I looked and saw Bruno from palmas 3 there! Gosh I got so excited and ran up and gave him a big hug. He´s basically the best! I have missed him so much and it was soooo good to see him again! Made me so happy. But shortly after we had to catch another hour bus ride to Porto Nacional...

So tuesday morning we got to our apartment and basically the day consisted of us eating lunch, me unpacking, and a dinner with a member family. Our apartment is nice. Small but not to small. There are 4 elders in our apartment and its weird because they are apart of the other zone here in palmas. I don´t know if I told you all or not but the transfer I left Palmas they split this zone so now its Zona Palmas and Zona Tocantins. I am apart of Tocantins. But yeah, so we live in the same house and are in the same area but not apart of the same zone! haha. Its weird but cool. Elder Fox and elder Silva are with us. Elder Fox is an Indian, Navajo. and Elder silva is argentino! haha, I constantly mess with him, its great. 

But Wednesday we had a zone meeting in Palmas and during our bus rides some members from Taquaralto saw me and talked to me. It was super awesome. I am basically loving every part of being back here in Palmas in the heat. Did I mention that its super hot??? Yep. And I love it! Not that I love the heat because I prefer the cold, but its just what I am used to :) hehe. 

This week we spent most of the time meeting members and less actives and our investigators. We have some people that have LOTS of potencial here. We even have two baptisms marked for this week already. A mom and her daughter. Her husband is a less-active that is coming back to church and recently received the priesthood. Our visit with them was incredible and all my feelings and love towards Palmas came back. The people here are so different than the other places in the mission because its so far away. The people where I were are great as well and I sure do love them but I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the people here because they helped me from the beginning :) 

So my area is pretty big and I realized our areas problem super super fast! And that is less actives. We have enough less actives here to have 3 wards but its still a branch because people don´t stay firm. For example, in church we had 27 people, 7 of which were kids. We have 2 youth here. Its crazy how small the amount of people is that go to church and how many members we have. So we will be working a lot with less actives here. We even found a guy yesterday that I consider a ´´less active investigator.´´ His name is Fernando and he went to our church for 3 years straight but was never baptized because of cigarrettes and booze. But he is super super legit! Like he acts and talks like a member of the church. The whole time he was there I could just feel Gods love for him. Like never before have a felt that someone is so special that I just met. I did everything I could to get his address but he said his parents wouldn´t allow it. So we gave him our number and he said he´d call us when he is ready and promised he´d go to church this week. 

Oh! Also, we did a service project this week at a chacara of a member. Its like a farm house of sorts out in the weeds... He is moving out there with his wife and kid and we helped him clean it up. And the title of my email is apart of this project. We had to clean out the house and it had tons of cobwebs on the ceiling and walls and everywhere. I was killing spiders like crazy. Spiders where falling from the ceiling and it was just my worst nightmare... Nossa. It was a nightmare and you all know how much I hate spiders, but after saturday, I conquered my fears and I am sure I killed more spiders that day than I have in my entire life. But yeah, it was fun to serve. Also I painted the bases of trees with white paint to protect them from fungus and stuff... I actually got paint in my left eye and I must have been allergic or something because the very day it got all red around it and seemed like I had fought someone :) haha! But its already good. Just good times here. 

Well, I love you all and hope you all have a great week! Tell everyone that I love them and that I miss them :)

com amor, Elder Patterson

TRANSFERS

So this week was super awesome. we had a mission conference and I got to spend the day with Elder Anderson, Elder Seth, elder goodsell, and elder josephson. Wow, what a great day and such a fun experience. I honestly love being with all of them and we all got trunky talking about our one year mark and elder goodsell already started making plans for all of us when we get home :) he has a house in sunbrook so for sure we all will get together and party... But the conference was great. Learned lots of stuff that I won´t bore all of you with ;) hahaha.

But wedensday we basically spent the whole day doing a service project at the bishops house painting his gate and barred windows. It took forever and at the end of it, I looked like the Hulk! I still have green paint on in my fingernails and we did it last wednesday. 

Thursday we made two visits because I got a cold the night before and barely slept a wink. I was super exhausted, my voice was completely gone, and sore throat. So I called Sis Lundgren and she told us to just go home and rest, so we did for a little while but we still went out at night to make a few visits and Priscila made us a nice dinner for my one year mark! She is the best for sure :) 

Friday was also wayyyy fun! We had an activity in the ward called Festa de Junina. Its like a holiday where people dress up as cowboys and girls where what looks like pioneer clothes and they eat traditional food from brasil. Lots of food made with corn, canjica and soups! We took a few investigators there and they all loved it. Especially luis fernando! he went and made lots of friends. The activity was a huge success and had lots and lots of people.

Saturday we spent the day running from appointment to appointment. We visited lots of people ending with Luis Fernando finalizing everything for his baptism! He is such a stud. But we also visited Valeria and her family because they didn´t go to church the past two weeks because we ``didn´t explain well enough`` for them. Even thought I explained 10 times exactly what she needed to do and the hours of the church and everything. So we visited her and invited her again to go to church and she gladly accepted! And the best part was was when we were on the bus and she got on accompanied by priscila and a few other members. It was great to have help from the members yesterday. Especially because we didn´t really have time to stay with Valeria and her kids the whole time because we were getting everything ready for Luis´ baptism. AND it happened! Our little amigo Luis Fernanda was baptised! I let elder m. santos do it and he was super excited. It was so great and Luis loved it!! Super spiritual and he had tons of support from the ward and his new friends :) Unfortunately Eduardo wasn´t baptized... Don´t know exactly what is stopping him. Well, mostly it is his family that doesn´t support him very much so it makes it super super hard to help him finally get baptized. But I have faith he´ll be baptized one day...

SO some news... #ISURVIVEDLUZIÂNIA. I was transferred!!! I was actually a little surprised about it. I thought I´d stay to finish the trainning of my son but thats not the plans the Lord has for me. And the plans the Lord has for me a super super super great!!! I got transferred and during the transfer meeting they went through every zone and showed the picture of the missionaries faces on the screen. I was more than surpirsed to see my face show up on the PALMAS screen!!! I AM GOING BACK!!!!!  Heck yes!!! I was soooooo excited! I am going to Porto Nacional! It´s an area realitively close to my other areas there and for sure I am going to see everybody there that I left from both Palmas 3 and Taquaralto!!! Nossa! I can´t explain how happy I am and I am going back as district leader. I will get on the bus here in couple hours for the 13 hour bus ride that I have never been so excited to take :) ha. My companions name is Elder Burock, brasilian, and i´ve heard that he is like a more or less missionary that sounds like he is ``dying.´´ So I am going to have to kick his bottom into shape. 

But some other news is that my package from mom got here! I had to go to Brasilia today to get it. I had to pay 40 reais for it. Which is like 10 american dollars in the moment so it wasn´t so bad. So today was also super excited and fun. Because I had no one to go with to the mail place, I went with sister and Elder Rowe. The senior couple that work in the mission office. they were my companions for the day :) And they are so great! They took me out to lunch in the mall :) I got some Parmesan chicken and some potato bites. Wow, what a treat to eat in a fine restaurant! They are amazing and I love them. Everyone can feel the love they have for the missionaries. But yeah, I have tons of pictures to send of everything that happened this week but I can´t send them from the computers here. Just know that hopefully next week you´ll get some pictures. 

I love you all and hope you all know I am excited for me new adventures in PALMAS! Yeah!!!! haha :) have a great week to all of you. Love you all lots and thanks for everything!