So, first off, how is everyone? Excited for thanksgiving? So, we had transfers this week and I am no longer with Elder Gomes. I picked up a new companion... Elder Thorpe! (To those of you who are not currently residing in Texas, Elder Thorpe is from the same stake as mom and dad). I couldn't believe it when I heard it. So, I'm with an American for the first time in nearly a year. Its a little odd, actually. But it'll be great. We're going to go nuts here in the area and baptize everyone.
Speaking of baptism, they happened!!!! It was great!!! So, we showed up at the chapel rather early to make sure that everything would be ready and we went to fill the font, but we discovered that the door was locked and we didn't have the keys. So, I kinda had to do a spider-man type climbing action to get over to turn the water on, but it all worked out in the end. Also, the water heater wasn't working (I spent two hours fighting with the sucker and it still didn't work... grrrr...) so it was rather cold but the day was really hot and it all worked out great in the end. I love baptizing!!!
So, funny story rapidão: So we were at a member's house and I saw that they have a pull-up bar. So, we were waiting for lunch to be ready so I decided to goof a little bit and do a couple pull-ups. Well, I did a few and then on my third or fourth, I pulled myself up a little too much and bonked my nose on the door frame where the bar was mounted. Well, I actually thought I broke my nose, but it turned out I just scalped a couple layers of skin off my nose and for the last week or so I've been walking around with this huge scab on my nose because of it. When the members ask me what happened I just tell them we got jumped- their reactions are way funny.
So, I also had the coolest lesson of my mission last week. I was in a division with another Elder and we went to teach a Jew. Well, as you know, Jews don't believe in Christ. He had quite a few doubts about the fact that Christ was the Messiah... It wasn't bible-bash, but we opened up scripture after scripture in the Old Testament proving that Christ was and IS the Messiah and the Son of God. You could see his head spinning, but it was soooooo flipping cool!!!!! My whole mission we always testify that the Church was restored, that the Book of Mormon is true, that God calls prophets in our days, etc. But I never had to testify to somebody that Jesus is the Christ. It was a really cool experience and the Spirit was so strong when we testified to him. I love the fact that I know the scriptures well enough to be able to open them and teach people about the truthfulness of our message. Its great!!!
So, I have received 2 birthday packages. The Skittles and Pay days are gone and the electric razor got here safe and sound. Thanks so much for them. Oh, and do you guys remember what I asked you all for a couple weeks ago- to get together that Christmas package for the Elder in my district who won't receive anything? Are you doing that? Please do it and please let me know about it. I would mean a lot to him. Please let me know.
So yeah, things are rolling along here really well. Life's great, the mission's great, I love where I'm at and what I'm doing. The church is true!!!
Love you all, have a great Thanksgiving!!!!!!
-Elder Marx
Hey family!!!!
Well hey guys!!! First off, thanks for all the birthday wishes!!! Am I really 21? Well, not quite but still... Wow, I'm old... I also passed my would be "slump day" If I had entered in the CTM on the right day I would have passed my one year and six month mark. How crazy is that? It seems like yesterday that you guys dropped me off in the MTC but then I realize that P and J have a KID, Mom and Dad live in TEXAS, I've lost 50 POUNDS, etc and I realize that things have really changed a lot. Oh well, I'll stop being sentimental.
So, this week has been absolutely CRAZY. Crazy good. We've been working like crazy. This email is going to be fairly short...If this stinkin computer would let me, I'd send you pics but it doesn't, so this'll have to be in bullet form:
- We're going to Baptize tomorrow!!! 4 People!!!!!!
YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - I discovered my companion's scared of chickens, so I chased him around a member's house with a chicken until he locked himself in the bathroom. Then I gave the chicken to the member and told my companion I let the chicken go. When he walked out of the bathroom the member popped out with the chicken and scared him out of his skin. I've never seen him run so fast! It was hilarious!
- So, we were at a member's house and she asked me to help haul her pig to her car to take it to another ranch-dealy-thingy. So another member jumped in, wrestled the pig into submission, hog tied it, and then told me to grab it and help haul it to the car. I looked at the pig and thought, "where?" His answer? "I'll grab the ears and the legs and you lift it up by its tail!" SO, I had no choice, I lifted the pig up by its tail and the sucker SCREAMED SO LOUD!!!!!! Well, I can't really blame her, I would too.
- So, did I mention WE"RE GOING TO BAPTIZE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? (I'm a little excited...)
- Thanks for all the love and support. I'm going to get a Christmas package together in a week or two and hopefully it'll get to ya'll for Christmas
Well, time's up, gotta run!!!! Love you all!!!!!!!!!!!! The church is true!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Elder Marx
Carta de Elder Marx. Vocês conhecem... aquele missionário lá no outro lado do mundo...
Hey guys, how's life? Things are going great here. I'm pretty sure I already mentioned it to you all but I'm working in a branch that's struggling to grow, but things are going really well now. We have 4 baptisms scheduled for next week! Its going to be great! We've been working our tails off and haven't been seeing lots of success but now things are going really well and we're going to baptize!!! (We're pretty dang excited).
So, seeing as Chritmas-time is coming closer and you guys are asking me what I'd like in a package I'll address that. Well, I don't really need anything. Before you guys send me something I want you all to make another package and send it to another missionary here in the mission. He's in my District, and his name's Elder Justino. I've known him all his mission and I'll tell you his story: He's from Fortaleza, Ceará, which is up in the Northeast of Brasil and its really poor... He and his sister are the only members of the church in his family and they're both serving missions right now. His parents are from another church and don't support him serving a mission. In fact, its been about 6 months since they've written him anything. He's a great missionary, but I don't think he's going to receive anything for Christmas. So, before you guys send me anything, I want you all to send him a package so that he doesn't go through this Christmas receiving nothing. So, he plays the violin (got one second-hand and taught himself how to play) but doesn't have much sheet music so I'd like you all to send him some sheet music and training books on the violin on the intermediate level. Make a really great package-fill it with cool stuff from Deseret Book, cool church things and cool American things and send it to him, he's a great guy and deserves to receive something for Christmas. I'm sure it'll mean a lot to him. As for me: oh whatever, you guys know what I like.
So, funny story... I threw a load of whites in the washing machine (our washing machine is total rubbish but oh well) and they went through the wash. However, I forgot to pull them out until the next day. So, when I pulled them out, all my garments were completely moldy. Gross. Like they were covered with this black mold. So, unfortunately I had no other choice but to use them this week until today when we got permission to run to the temple and buy new garments. It was straight up nasty. But oh well, life as a missionary, and now I'm careful to never leave my clothes in the washing machine in the Brazilian heat.
Well, time's up, gotta run!!!
Love you all!!!!!!
-Elder Marx
Hey!!!
Hey family, how are you all doing? Are you liking the cold? Is it snowing yet? How is football going? Anything fun or exciting happen?
So, this week was fairly difficult work-wise. We were teaching quite a few families but this last week they all pretty much decided that they don't want anything to do with anything. So, our teaching pool pretty much evaporated. Annoying, but its life and its their decision. So, (as always) we're starting from scratch again and we're working hard to find new people to teach. We're trying a different approach now: in this area nobody's home until about 7 at night (they all go to Curitiba to work during the day and only come back at night) and at night they don't let anyone in for safety reasons (I understand why, I'd do the same thing, it gets dangerous at night) so knocking doors isn't the most effective way to try to find people to teach. So we're now trying to work more with the less actives. I'm working in a branch right now, so we're going to try to reactivate the less-actives so that they help the branch grow. Also, the less actives always have friends and family that we can teach so that's our new focus. Let's hope it works out because we REALLY need people to teach.
So we walked in front of a magazine stand this last week and the owner called us over. When we got there he told us that Veja (this really popular magazine here in Brasil) had written an article about the church. So we took a look at the article really quick. It talked about Mitt Romney and how the church is growing here in Brasil and talked a lot about the Book of Mormon. They even interviewed Elder Andersen. It was way cool to see the church get good publicity and that more people are paying attention to us. It was way cool because there were some times the church has had some REALLY bad press here...
So, I'm going to start getting a Christmas package ready for you all. Do you want anything specifically? Just let me know...
So I gotta send my report to President and then I'm gonna have to run but I love you all. The gospel IS TRUE!!!!!
Have a great week!!!!
-Elder Marx
Hey
Hey family, how're you all doing? First off, I'm so sorry to hear about Molly. I knew it would be coming this week (actually, I think I actually knew before the email last week- the Spirit prepared me). To be honest, I was really sad last Wednesday when I heard about her and when we got back to our house I sat and pondered and I remembered a scripture I had read quite a while back- D&C 77 2-3:
Q. What are we to understand by the four beasts, spoken of in the same verse?
A. They are afigurative expressions, used by the Revelator, John, in describing bheaven, the cparadise of God, the dhappiness of man, and of beasts, and of creeping things, and of the fowls of the air; that which is spiritual being in the likeness of that which is temporal; and that which is temporal in the likeness of that which is spiritual; the espirit of man in the likeness of his person, as also the spirit of the fbeast, and every other creature which God has created.
3 Q. Are the four beasts limited to individual beasts, or do they represent classes or aorders?
A. They are limited to four individual beasts, which were shown to John, to represent the glory of the classes of beings in their destined border or csphere of creation, in the enjoyment of their deternal efelicity.
So, I read that and remembered how marvelous the Lord's plan truly is. Christ truly created all things spiritually before he created them physically. That includes you, me, the trees and Molly. I read this and I believe that this means that if she existed before, she'll exist after as well in "[her] enjoyment of [her] eternal felicity." That brought me much comfort and I hope it helps you guys if you're struggling with her loss.
Okay, so let's move on to happier topics. So, the stupid postage strike is over and my package finally came in. I promptly gave my comp the BYU T-Shirt (he's really grateful for it) and gave the CTR Rings to several of the Brazilians (its hard to get those down here). They all really appreciated the gifts and said thank you. There was just one problem: the deodorant you guys sent me? Didn't get here. The police went in and robbed it. (I don't know HOW the iPod got here safely- I truly count that as a miracle) . So just a lovely reminder not to send anything too valuable to me down here- you really can't trust the police. But thanks a ton for the love and support and packages that I always get. (Hint hint... birthday in three weeks... hint hint... Christmas in nine weeks... hint hint...)
So this week was a good week in our work- I had a huge realization actually. There are some times when we get so caught up in all the little things that we completely forget about the big picture. We get so stuck in the nitty-gritty that we forget about the things that really matter... get so preoccupied with numbers that they forget that there are PEOPLE behind the numbers- and we're here to help them, not just see who can post up the highest score like we're in a huge video game. Its actually something I've been fighting since I've gotten here, but I found myself falling into the same trap- doing things only to get a number- not for the benefit of our investigators, and certainly not because we love them and desire their salvation. So, as I started to fall into this trap I found myself getting more and more depressed and frustrated and miserable. I lost the Spirit because I wasn't working the way the Lord wants us to work. So I had this huge realization this week that I was falling into this trap and we (Elder Gomes and I) made some drastic changes to the way we do our work. We've completely changed the way we do everything- the way we work, the way we study, the way we act with the members, everything. It all has one huge focus- helping the investigators. Everything we do isn't for us and it certainly isn't for the numbers- its to help these children of God receive the restored gospel of Jesus Christ by helping them have more faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repent of their sins, be baptized by the priesthood authority of God, receive the gift of the Holy Spirit by the same means, and stay strong and firm the the Gospel until the end. I'm sure some of you (especially the returned missionaries) are looking at me and thinking, "well no durh!!!" but you'd be surprised how many missionaries haven't realized this yet. After we realized this and changed the way we work, things have changed 100%. We have the Spirit so much more while we are working, we're honestly trying to help these people. They're progressing better, they're feeling the spirit more, and I'm positive the Lord is more satisfied with our service. Its remarkable the difference that happens when we stop and look at the things that matter most.
Well, I sure do love you all. I want you to know that the Gospel IS true, Jesus truly is the Christ, he truly is our savior and redeemer. (By the way I finished reading Jesus, the Christ in Portuguese this week). This work is a work to do nothing more or less than help our brothers and sisters receive the same blessings we're receiving daily. I'm kind shocked to realize that in a couple weeks I'm going to hit 1 year and 6 months- man time flies. I'm going to do all I can in the little time I have left to bring as many of our brothers to Christ as I can, and I have a testimony that the Lord sure does bless us when we trust him.
Love you all!!!!
Go help the missionaries!!!!!
-Elder Marx
So, I read that and remembered how marvelous the Lord's plan truly is. Christ truly created all things spiritually before he created them physically. That includes you, me, the trees and Molly. I read this and I believe that this means that if she existed before, she'll exist after as well in "[her] enjoyment of [her] eternal felicity." That brought me much comfort and I hope it helps you guys if you're struggling with her loss.
Okay, so let's move on to happier topics. So, the stupid postage strike is over and my package finally came in. I promptly gave my comp the BYU T-Shirt (he's really grateful for it) and gave the CTR Rings to several of the Brazilians (its hard to get those down here). They all really appreciated the gifts and said thank you. There was just one problem: the deodorant you guys sent me? Didn't get here. The police went in and robbed it. (I don't know HOW the iPod got here safely- I truly count that as a miracle) . So just a lovely reminder not to send anything too valuable to me down here- you really can't trust the police. But thanks a ton for the love and support and packages that I always get. (Hint hint... birthday in three weeks... hint hint... Christmas in nine weeks... hint hint...)
So this week was a good week in our work- I had a huge realization actually. There are some times when we get so caught up in all the little things that we completely forget about the big picture. We get so stuck in the nitty-gritty that we forget about the things that really matter... get so preoccupied with numbers that they forget that there are PEOPLE behind the numbers- and we're here to help them, not just see who can post up the highest score like we're in a huge video game. Its actually something I've been fighting since I've gotten here, but I found myself falling into the same trap- doing things only to get a number- not for the benefit of our investigators, and certainly not because we love them and desire their salvation. So, as I started to fall into this trap I found myself getting more and more depressed and frustrated and miserable. I lost the Spirit because I wasn't working the way the Lord wants us to work. So I had this huge realization this week that I was falling into this trap and we (Elder Gomes and I) made some drastic changes to the way we do our work. We've completely changed the way we do everything- the way we work, the way we study, the way we act with the members, everything. It all has one huge focus- helping the investigators. Everything we do isn't for us and it certainly isn't for the numbers- its to help these children of God receive the restored gospel of Jesus Christ by helping them have more faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repent of their sins, be baptized by the priesthood authority of God, receive the gift of the Holy Spirit by the same means, and stay strong and firm the the Gospel until the end. I'm sure some of you (especially the returned missionaries) are looking at me and thinking, "well no durh!!!" but you'd be surprised how many missionaries haven't realized this yet. After we realized this and changed the way we work, things have changed 100%. We have the Spirit so much more while we are working, we're honestly trying to help these people. They're progressing better, they're feeling the spirit more, and I'm positive the Lord is more satisfied with our service. Its remarkable the difference that happens when we stop and look at the things that matter most.
Well, I sure do love you all. I want you to know that the Gospel IS true, Jesus truly is the Christ, he truly is our savior and redeemer. (By the way I finished reading Jesus, the Christ in Portuguese this week). This work is a work to do nothing more or less than help our brothers and sisters receive the same blessings we're receiving daily. I'm kind shocked to realize that in a couple weeks I'm going to hit 1 year and 6 months- man time flies. I'm going to do all I can in the little time I have left to bring as many of our brothers to Christ as I can, and I have a testimony that the Lord sure does bless us when we trust him.
Love you all!!!!
Go help the missionaries!!!!!
-Elder Marx
Hey
Hey family, how are you all doing?...
So, this week was a really great week. We're working hard here in the area and we're seeing fruits. Its kinda refreshing to be with a companion who isn't a junior, and we're working really hard here. This area opened up just a transfer or two ago, and it had been shut for a year or so because of several Elders breaking a lot of the rules, so we're working really hard trying to get the branch excited about the work and win the confidence of the members. Its going pretty well, we're recieving lots of references from the members and they're introducing us to lots of people, so we're teaching like crazy. The problem is, nobody's married so we're going to work with all of them to get them all hitched and baptized. Its actually a fairly lengthy process for someone to get married here in Brasil (stupid Satan trying to ruin the sanctity of marriage...) but we're going to do everything we can to get them all ready to be baptized. Maybe we'll have a huge marriage and marry everyone at the same time and then we'll take them all straight to the baptismal font to be baptized. That'd actually be amazingly sweet...
So this area is also in the same Zone where I started off my mission, so I'm getting dejá-vu like crazy here. It seems like only yesterday I was starting off up in Pilarzinho and now its a year later and I'm back here. Things are coming full circle here. ITs crazy how much time has flown by. But let's not get sentimental here.
So, we also had a really cool activity here in the branch. The banch presidente and all the branch leaders went out and we all knocked doors and distribuited pamphlets and DVDs and got the people's addresses so we can go and teach another day. It went really well, they all felt the spirit of missionary work and they all got more excited about it. One of the sisters in the ward got really excited about a young man that she talked to and wants to go with us when we teach him. Best of all, one brother said, "man, I didn't realize knocking doors was this tough! You guys really need our help and more references!" That was like music to my ears. The missionaries really need member help, so don't hesitate to give it to them! Go out on splits! Talk to people to see if they want to hear the missionaries! You'll see that if you do that the Lord will bless you more and more and you'll be an instrument in His hands to help other people recieve all the blessings of the gospel. I love you all and hope everything's going well for you. Go and help the missionaries!
Love,
-Elder Marx
P.S. The postal strike ended and its now only four weeks until my birthday... hint hint...
So, this week was a really great week. We're working hard here in the area and we're seeing fruits. Its kinda refreshing to be with a companion who isn't a junior, and we're working really hard here. This area opened up just a transfer or two ago, and it had been shut for a year or so because of several Elders breaking a lot of the rules, so we're working really hard trying to get the branch excited about the work and win the confidence of the members. Its going pretty well, we're recieving lots of references from the members and they're introducing us to lots of people, so we're teaching like crazy. The problem is, nobody's married so we're going to work with all of them to get them all hitched and baptized. Its actually a fairly lengthy process for someone to get married here in Brasil (stupid Satan trying to ruin the sanctity of marriage...) but we're going to do everything we can to get them all ready to be baptized. Maybe we'll have a huge marriage and marry everyone at the same time and then we'll take them all straight to the baptismal font to be baptized. That'd actually be amazingly sweet...
So this area is also in the same Zone where I started off my mission, so I'm getting dejá-vu like crazy here. It seems like only yesterday I was starting off up in Pilarzinho and now its a year later and I'm back here. Things are coming full circle here. ITs crazy how much time has flown by. But let's not get sentimental here.
So, we also had a really cool activity here in the branch. The banch presidente and all the branch leaders went out and we all knocked doors and distribuited pamphlets and DVDs and got the people's addresses so we can go and teach another day. It went really well, they all felt the spirit of missionary work and they all got more excited about it. One of the sisters in the ward got really excited about a young man that she talked to and wants to go with us when we teach him. Best of all, one brother said, "man, I didn't realize knocking doors was this tough! You guys really need our help and more references!" That was like music to my ears. The missionaries really need member help, so don't hesitate to give it to them! Go out on splits! Talk to people to see if they want to hear the missionaries! You'll see that if you do that the Lord will bless you more and more and you'll be an instrument in His hands to help other people recieve all the blessings of the gospel. I love you all and hope everything's going well for you. Go and help the missionaries!
Love,
-Elder Marx
P.S. The postal strike ended and its now only four weeks until my birthday... hint hint...
Well, new things have happened
Well, first things off: I am no longer in Paradise. Yes, Elder Bubba is a little sad... So, after apenas one transfer, I got transferred again. I'm now in the City of Colombo (google map it, would you kindly...) Its a suburb of Curitiba so Bubba's back in the big city. I'm working in a Branch, not a Ward now as well, so things should be fairly interesting.... Also, for the First time in more than 6 months, I'm working with someone who ISN'T a greenie, so that should be fairly refreshing. I like working and helping out the new elders, but they were starting to burn me out. So my new comp is Elder Gomes, he's from São Paulo (surprise, almost all of my comps are from there) and he's got a little more time on the mission than me. He seems pretty chill... But yeah, we're going to go nutzo on this area and baptize everyone that we can.
So, this last week things went really well, things were finally starting to get going with the ward. We taught a bunch of lessons and were finally starting to see success but now we're not there to see the fruits of our labors.... Also, today is a national holiday: Children's Day! I'm actually really glad that its P-Day because on the holidays its almost impossible to do anything other than walk around the whole day accomplishing nothing- the people all get drunk and ´party so I'm glad its P-Day and we can relax a little.
Hmm... what else? Well, as I said I'm trying to collect books in Portuguese and I found another one for my collection. Do you guys know the book Eldest (mom should at least)? Well, I saw it in Portuguese and I couldn't resist. I'm getting a fairly large collection. Its the one trunky thing I do, and I don't read them, so I feel justified. It'll be lots of fun to read them all AFTER my mission.
So yeah, I got transferred... I'm no longer in Paradise, and I'm going to forget all about it and go crazy on this area and baptize everyone we can!!! I love being a missionary!!!!! Hope you all have a wonderful week!!!! Love you all!!!!! The Gospel is TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Elder Marx
PS I made Root Beer. So. Flipping. Good.
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