Truckn' along...

Also, I accept the new shoes, they look pretty dang comfy to me, so here's my new address:

Rua A
Q: 1 L: 4 Casa 2
Frei Eustaquio
Anapolis-Go
75044-065

So this week I spent spent most of my time in Goiania for the leadership conference. Apparently they've changed how the missionaries are gonna be taught to teach. There's a new 8 lessons to teach them to be better missionaries, so we spent 4 days learning and practicing, and implementing. The day would start at 8 in the morning and go until 6 at night, and we'd learn 2 lessons per day. We ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the chapel with president, and the last few hours were used practicing what we learned in a real area with real people..... so pretty much...... this week rocked. It was such a fountain of knowledge I couldn't write it all down fast enough, and itś hard to apply it all to my teaching at once. But it was pretty dang awesome, all the leaders from the mission were there, so good times, good times. An Elder Pimentel was there, and he sounds just like Gerard Butler (if thats possible) so i took a video of him saying *THIS IS SPARTA!!* and i'll treasure it forever, haha.

Needless to say my teaching has improved, and for the next 8 weeks we'll be teaching our districts the same lesson, one every district meeting, which is the hardest part of the whole thing.

But the better news is that when I got back the miracles started to appear. Apparently my companion found a lady who had a dream about a baptismal font the day before, so we're starting to teach her, and then we taught two brother's and their wives and all 4 accepted the invite to be baptized, so now we have 5 people with dates, we just have to get them in the water now... and not screw up :) woooo!!

Saturday night the stake had an activity about the plan of salvation, every room in the chapel was a different step in the plan (including a plane where everybody crashes and dies) I was put at the judgment part, so I judged everybody and told them they were all sinners and to go to the telestial kingdom, I quite enjoyed it. And after it was all done, the people that got to help got to go sit in the air plane room and die, since we missed out on it during the actual activity.... so that was fun :)

And yes.... it is HOOOOOT here. They've only got 2 seasons here: the Hot and rainy season, and the not-so-hot and dry season. We're leaving the dry season now and entering the rainy season..... just that there's a lack of rain so far... so it's just really flippn' hot. No fun batman.

I guess I must be doing something right, cuz my district is slowly but surely improving, one companionship is working pretty darn hard, and should baptize soon in an area that hasn't seen baptisms for a looong time. But the other, still is a sad situation, so I'm doing a division with them tomorrow, to try and see if I can fix things up a little bit, I'm leaving the area in the hands of my companion and a slacker for a day... so hopefully my comp will be able to stay in charge and show him how things are to be done.... i don't want to come back and see fire and ashes.

I'm including a few photos:
1. This is a fruit called Jaca.... itś huge, and it grows in trees... so if it fell on you, you would die. We lugged this thing all the way back home after lunch.
2. This is Elder P. Santos performing surgery on the Jaca
3. This is the inside of the Jaca.... it doesn't taste too bad... though it feels like you're eating a lougie.
4. This is Elder Martin, Elder Barton, Me, and Elder Bare at the leadership conference. This is our gang. Pretty much every breakfast was a battle for the corn-flakes and crackers. and every dinner was a battle for the Guaraná. It was us four hanging out most of the time. Along with Elder Pimentel, because he reminded us of 300.

Also, I thought you might like to know, that there was a lan-house up the street from where we live, and the other day it got turned into a church... funny eh?

Well my time is up, so I better get going.
*wow, this path is massively narrow.... what if somebody fell?*

I love you all, miss you all,
Elder Webber

Look at those Shoes!

So, yeah.

This week has been pretty darn gruelling. When we got here, I took a look through the area book.....completely empty of anybody worth teaching, so we´ve spent the whole week walking and talking. Making contacts, teaching lessons in the street, and trying to find anybody who will progress, it´s a pain in the butt but we have no other choice. The elders that were here before us were idiots, so we have to start from square one. And they´re still in my district so I have to keep trying to animate them to work harder/better. Being the district leader isn´t too hard, it´s good that I got practice at it with elder Casey. I find it hard to sleep at night cuz i´m busy thinking about the companionships in my district and what I can do better to help them. The zone leaders here are pretty darn awesome, they were here when I left so they were pretty darn happy to receive their *prodigal missionary* back, haha. Especially since I learned a bit more about what has been going on while I´ve been away.

Apparently the district leaders here before me were doing all sorts of nonsense, doing mischief, breaking rules, and just being idiots. So President came in with fire and brimstone, but things still didn´t improve well enough, so they got beheaded, a bunch of missionaries got taken out and seperated to the far parts of the mission, and we got brought in to call repentance and make sure the rules are followed.

Yup, I come back home completely wasted each night, cuz we spend most of the day walking and talking trying to find people to teach, and not enough time teaching. Though our pool of investigators is slowly growing. We have a few people who COULD be baptized during this transfer, but it´ll take a lot of faith to get them there, and we always need a plan b, c, d, e, f and g. So that´s a bit frustrating. But not nearly as frustrating as getting a phone call at the end of the day from you district and hearing that they did nothing all day....*sigh* . But it´ll all come together... I just gotta get a district meeting with them.... which wont happen until next week. Cuz today I´m gonna be going to Goiania with the other leaders for some kind of surprise training/conference, And we´ll be there until Friday.... aaaargh! I´m losing a whole week of work! Who knows what we could get done in that time? I did manage to negotiate with the other district leaders over the phone about all our companions working together, and they´ll spend two days here and one day in the other two areas, so it aint too bad.

Elder Margalho aint too bad, I think he´s a bit offended that he´s my junior companion, but that hasn't caused any problems. I´m the decider, and he has the desire to work, so I don´t have to do any motivating or give any pep-talks to my own companionship at least. Being the senior has given me some opportunities to tell him about my opinion about some things on the mission, and how I think things should be done... and I surprised myself by how much I know. I´ve never had to teach anybody about these things before, but it´s all just become second nature: how to teach, what/how to study, the best way to get people to listen to you, and so on, I denounced the study of *profound doctrine* pretty hard the other day too, I gave it the good ol´ back-hand of common sense. but yup, he ain´t too shabby. I made it clear to him, on no uncertain terms, that I expect him to work hard and be an example to the other missionaries, Cuz the example of the district leader aint worth much if his own companion is a slacker.

Lets see... lets see... I don´t have that many stories to tell.... cuz we don´t have many investigators yet. Suffice it to say that:

we´ve become pretty adept at predicting what a person will say to our contact pretty far in advance.
Elder Margalho set off the alarm at a house we were knocking at... we made a quick escape
we´ve found an icecream shop that is way cheap, so.... yay!! icecream the other day!
I´ve got a few calls from Elder Pattie, and when I answered, it was people from the Anapolis ward, so I had a great time talking with them for a few minutes.
Ah, and yesterday when I went to church I saw most of my old friends from the Anapolis ward, ahhhh, that was awesome. Elder Pattie certainly wasn´t exaggerating when he said that I was famous there. haha, and the companion that he´s training (elder P. Santos) told me that the whole time he´s been there the only thing he´s heard about has been *Elder Webber* haha. Especially when they´re eating lunch, cuz I guess they don´t eat very much, so when I met the families at church, all the women of the ward asked me to come back and eat the lunches they make, hahaha. Awesome Sunday. A few of the young women almost tackled me before they remembered that they´re not allowed to hug a missionary, haha. Either way, I was so happy to see everybody again.
I don´t want to brag but.. I happened to overhear some women talking in the hall, some from Maracana, and some from Anapolis: and this is what I heard:
You´re so lucky to have a great missionary in your ward, he did an amazing job while he was here with us
yeah, it´s been so long since our ward has had a good missionary, I hope so
well if you dont want him, we´ll take him back

more or less that was what was said.
:D

hmm... There´s no sandwich maker in the house here... which is sad... but we have sofas! So all is not lost :D And we found a dead tarantula in front of our door this morning... so that was interesting. it was *dying* to kill us... bwak bwak bwak! (sorry, mom-joke) haha

I´ve included the pictures of my shoes, I dunno if they require a real photo, or if sending it over the internet will work. I hope it does, and I hope it´s enough to get me a new pair. fingers crossed.

Anyways. that´s about it for now I think, keep on working hard. and I´m gonna finish eating the sweedish fish today... they taste like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness....mmmmmmm
I love ya´ll, miss ya´ll

*I´m a moose in a tree-house, eatin´ cookies, dancin´ round the cookie jar*

Love,
Elder Webber

A GREAT Week!

Holy smokes, lots of news batman! I´ve got quite a bit to write about, so we´ll see if I can fit it all in.

First off....... 2 baptisms last Saturday, WOOOO!!!!! on the last possible day of the transfer to baptize we finally managed it. We baptized a Renan, he´s studying at a University in Uberaba, he studied for 5 years to be a pastor before he came to know the church, and now he´s planning to study at BYU, he´s a pretty smart dude. And we baptized a Nayara. She´s the daughter of a family we found by accident, we were looking for a house on a certain road, and it was only later that we found out we were on completely different road. She´s the only one who went two church twice, so only she could be baptized, her brother said that he´d go on Sunday and then I can baptize him ( cuz they felt bad that they both chose me to baptize them, so Nayara let Elder Xavier baptize her, and Michael chose me) SO YAY!!!
And then on Sunday, Renan and Nayara got confirmed, and Nayara wanted me to confirm her... so that was a first for me. I don´t even remember what I said... but it wasn´t too bad I don´t think, very spur-of-the-moment. But I liked it, I know how to do it better next time now. haha.
But then... Sunday as also when we found out about the transfers... I was on divisions with a guy from the ward at the time Elder Xavier got the phone-call, we were visiting all the people on the ward list to see if they´ve moved, died, or just don´t want to go to church anymore, so I didn´t find out until later.......but.......... when I found out.......
.....
....
.....
I got transferred to.......guess where..........think.........ponder..........
.......
.

.
.
.
.
.
.
......
.......
......
......
Anápolis.

hahahahahahahaha, yeah, you heard right. I´m back in Anápolis right now, in the area Maracanã, which is RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the Anápolis ward, just on a different hill, I can see all the houses i visited and everything, haha. But here´s the more important part:
I´m District Leader.
Yeah, So it´s my first time being senior and district leader, and my companion has more time than me on the mission.... no pressure eh?
So I spent my preparation day on the bus yesterday ( that´s why i´m writing today) and met president in Goiânia, and he said a few things.... heaped on the pressure, and sent me on my way. haha. Apparently, after I left, the zone here has been having some problems with obedience, diligence and a few other things... nothing like it´s former glory. So President burned a few people, sent them away to other areas and outer darkness, brought in two new district leaders, and told us to change things. Bottoms up.

Going back to Uberaba for a bit, after I found out that I got transferred, there were only two families I wanted to visit: The family of Nayara, and the bishop. After I told Nayara´s family that I was getting transferred, Michael got the most depressed look on his face, so I tried to cheer him up by teaching him more magic, but when I finally left the house the whole family was crying, even the parents who aren´t even baptized yet and only went to church one time, Michael couldn´t even speak properly cuz he was all choked up, poor kid... he really was excited to have me baptize him.
Then we passed by the bishop, which was a little easier. The whole time I was there, he kept asking me about Halo: ODST, cuz he had bought it a few weeks ago, and he was always asking me for help, or hints, and now he´s completely addicted to it, he says. He tells me his kids wont even touch the lego games anymore cuz they want to play with him when he plays Halo, hahaha. So he wanted to get as much help from me as possible before I left.

I´m gonna miss my area, even though I only had 4 weeks there, I came to love the people, especially the bishop. Not gonna miss my companion, but I´m grateful for the experience and the things I learned, just hope it´s enough to prepare me for what is to come.

So yeah, now I have control not only over what my companionship does.... but over an entire district. I believe a quote from Pirates of the Caribbean is appropriate:
*I didn´t ask for this, but it would chase a lie to say it wasn´t what I wanted*

I guess I´ll find out if I´m really prepared for this now eh? Here goes. I leave the city as a junior, and return after a transfer as the new district leader... when I met the zone leaders in the bus station I asked them how things are here:

*they´re.....going, Elder.....but they´ll get better, I´ll call you tonight to give you the details*
me: *of course it will, at least I´m not gonna leave this place any worse*
*No, you´re here to fix what´s been going on, this city needs you*

Ah, and I got two packages, the first one was filled with candy, candy, and more candy, with the Brazil pin and pen, yay Swedish fish. And the other one with the star charts and books, I´ve looked through it all, and I´m digging the Stikky book, sweet stuff. So thank you for the packages!!! and thank you Mariah for the notes you write too :D
Good times, good times.

My new companion is Elder Margalho, he´s got just a bit more than a year on the mission, and so far he ain't too bad.. but we´ve only got one day together, but I think we´ll be just fine. I´ll work on getting the address of our new home and send it to you, cuz I think I´ll be sticking around here for a while, at least six weeks eh? haha

hmm... well I think that´s about all the news that I have.... I went on divisions with the district leaders in Uberaba last week....so that was fun, before transfers came at me like a train hell-bent for my destruction. haha. Hopefully I didn´t cause too much panic by not writing home yesterday, haha. I slept at the house of the secretaries last night in Goiania before finishing my voyage this morning, and Elder Barton was there, he´s from my group in the MTC, and he just turned district leader as well. So we had some catching up to do, and talked about what might be in store for us, and just how AWESOME our district is and how we´re gonna rock this mission together.

Well that´s about it I think, I´ve got some work to do cuz our Area Book is almost completely empty....makes me wonder what the Elders here before me were doing with their time... slackers. how embarrassing.

So, wish me luck, pray that we´ll baptize.
I love you all, miss you all.
Make righteous decisions

*Violence and Technology: NOT good bedfellows!*
Love,
Elder Webber

More Updates...

So yeah, things are plodding along here. This is the last week of the transfer, so we´ll see how things are shaken up next week eh?

I did get the package you sent to the other house, the sisters brought me a slip saying it was waiting at the post office, so I sent another elder to go pick it up for me. YAY! so I have the missionary quote book, the how to be a gentleman book, the weird spinning stick thing, the oil container, and the bar of chocolate..WOO!!! well... I don´t have the chocolate anymore, I ate it all by myself on the bus headed to Uberlandia....best bus-ride ever. So thank you, thank you again for the package.

The other preparation day all the missionaries here went to the church to hang out and eat and play games. Me, Elder Smith, Elder Erickson, and some other Brazilian kid sat down to play War (it´s pretty much just Risk, but with missiles, and less rules) and guess who won?? two times in a row even. ME!! woooo! So I´m pretty much the champion of risk around these parts.

Anyways, last week we had a conference with Elder Godoy, which was way fun. He reminded me of Mr. Bean. So we spent two days up there, ate ice cream :D and then headed back, I dunno what it is but I seem to take notes about everything these days. It´s a good habit, but I don´t remember when it started.

So yesterday was fast Sunday, I dunno if I mentioned this before, but when we fast down here, it starts after lunch on Saturday, until lunch on Sunday. And it is the most suffering experience ever. All the heat and no food does not make for a happy time. Especially when you´re the only one in the companionship fasting.... and your companion asks to borrow money so he can drink guaraná in your face.....sheesh. yeah, it´s hard.

I dunno how they manage it though, we receive around 105 Reais every 2 or so weeks, and yet there´s still missionaries (my companion included) who end up with nothing at the end of the two weeks. How is that possible? My problem is not being able to spend the money fast enough, so I have a reserve fund slowly growing at home. Some people need to learn how to manage their monies better. So young, so naive

Haha, one thing that´s funny though, is that EVERYONE here thinks that the USA is just a frozen wasteland. *You´re from America right? wow, America is a really cold place, always has snow all year, right?* So I have to remind them that Florida and Arizona make part of the US of A.
Stop watching your soap operas and watch the discovery channel! haha, cuz really, everybody and their dog here is completely addicted to the soap operas here, every house we pass by we can hear the music for them, or the announcements of them ending or starting. how sad....all day every day they just sit around watching soap operas....

The other day we were walking down the street, and a car pulled up next to us. The guy inside leaned out the window and asked to shake our hands. So we did, and he just kept saying *thank you, thank you, for all you do, thank you for your work....* and so on. He didn´t mention anything specific, just that we were great people, and he´s so thankful that his city has people like us here. I´ve never seen him before, and he wasn´t a member. But he held onto my hand for quite a while, then finally drove off again... so I felt pretty good afterwards.

Yesterday after church we went to help the members visit all the inactive, and less-active members and give them invitations to the ward conference coming up. So we went on divisions, I went with a kid named Carlo. That kid is pretty darn cool, we didn´t have many people to visit, so we just did contacts in the street and talked. His family is leaving this month to Miami, and then to Italy after a while. So he´s gonna have to learn English while he´s there, and then Spanish cuz he´s studying it in school there, and then Italian.... good luck to him. haha. His Dad also looks exactly like James Bond, except just a little bit fatter. So that was a pretty fun time, to work with a younger kid and do some missionary work, he gave me his email, and I gave him my xbox live name so we can keep in contact after the mission.

Congratulations to Josh on making the BYU team. Pretty darn sweet. Those were good times, along with going to the BYU football games... man I miss those. So BYU is going it alone next year eh? And Utah is going to the Pac-10 I hear, things are shaking up quite a bit.

It´s funny though, I´ve written longer journal entries during my time with Elder Xavier, than I did during the transfers when I was having fun... and it´s cuz all my entries here are filled with thoughts, self-discovery moments, and times when I just sat down to think and wrote down all the new things I´d found out about myself, who I want to be, and what I want to do....it was interesting to read back through those. Definitely not a fun time... but I certainly learned a lot about myself.

So that´s about it for this week, I´ve eaten quite a bit of top ramen these last few days. I guess the last missionaries here didn´t do a good job of making friends with the members, cuz they´re always *forgetting* about lunch, so we have to eat at home... but I´m buying a lot more fruit and milk these days to stay healthy, so no worries. (and I´m wise with my money, so I can actually buy the food I need) And the last time I checked I weigh 89.9 kilos... I dunno how many pounds that is, I just know it´s less than I was before. :P

I love you all, Miss you all
Thank you for all the advice and news and everything

Love you, miss you, Thinking about ya´ll (not too much though, that would be bad)

Welcome to our Family Time
Welcome to our Happy-to-be time
This is our festival
Y'know the best of all?
You´re here to share it all!
-Brother Bear, and Disneyland-opening song

A GREAT week.

So the conference went pretty good, always fun to hang around with president and the assistants. I don´t know why, but I just love being around them, just sitting and listening to them just feels....good. President calls all the missionaries *child* or *son*, and he´s a pretty happy guy.... though we found out he´s already sent home 2 missionaries... so he´s not here to mess around. haha.

It´s always a bummer to have to head back to your house after the conference, being with all the missionaries, president and the assistants, it´s just....awesome. I took a bunch of notes, and he took us all out to lunch, of COURSE I ate the most. It was at a buffet and they ran out of pineapple....what a crime. On the walk there and back I spent most of the time talking with Elder Kevern, one of the assistants. And....wow....he´s pretty much the most hardcore kid I´ve ever met, he served in the Army Special Forces before he came on the mission, so he has pictures of himself blowing up buildings in Afganistan and all that... crazy stuff. Fun guy to talk to.
My interview went pretty good. It was way different than the interviews with Pres. Tobias, he didn´t ask so many questions, and just looked over the weekly letters, but eventually we were able to talk and I explained my frustrations and all that kind of thing. And then he told me that many times the last few weeks he´s looked over the pictures of all the missionaries, and been drawn back to mine repeatedly and recognized that I have something, I have potential. So I left that meeting pretty happy. As I was leaving, Sister Prieto told me to go back in....so I obeyed... and she asked me if I had had a birthday in july, I replied yes, and she gave me a little statue and a note for a birthday present, haha, oh yeah :D so that was pretty sweet.

The day before the conference, we got a call that the assistants wanted to do divisions in our area, so I spent most of the day with Elder Webb.... so a lot of people were confused about that fact that we have almost exactly the same name. But that was pretty darn fun as well, learned a lot. Most of our appointments fell though, so I just had to keep doing contacts and finding alternate plans, and that's when he told me *The difference between an excellent missionary, and the others, is what he does on the days that everything falls though, ya done good today* Among other things as well :D We then ate ice-cream and we parted ways.

I´ve been watching Venus move through the sky the last few weeks/months, and wow that thing moves fast... compared to everything else.

Haha, so I´m gonna have 3 packages headed my way from 3 different cities eh? haha awesome, we´ll see which one gets to me first, but thank you for sending another :D It´s always great to get something, even just letters, from home. Speaking of which... I´ve been looking for a new journal the last few days, don´t panic, I still have pages left in the one I´m using now, but I´ll have to find another sometime in the future. There´s some stores in Centro that I still have to check out. so yeah.

One thing that´s new these days....Communist adds on the TV. It´s election season down here in Brasil, and apparently the communist party is a tad more popular here than it is back home, so it´s kind of strange to see communist candidates running adds on tv, and campaign workers waving communist flags in the street. Kind of fun I must say. Also, there´s bats outside our house, every-time we return home at night there´s a bunch of bats circling above our heads.
And speaking of night....there´s a hair salon across the street from our house that only opens at around 7:00 pm... and stays open until 5;00 in the morning...and it´s where all the street-rats and riff-raff hang out all night long... cutting hair, playing videogames, blasting music and revving their car engines... not fun.

I´ve included a few pictures:
1. Us walking back from lunch.

2. They have cookies here with images from Cartoon Network! woo!! they come with stickers too, so I´ve bought quite a few of them, hahaha

3. This would be a truck, a car, and a horse-drawn cart parked outside of the mall. I´ve gotten used to horses and carts a looong time ago, but i just thought this was funny.

4. The sign above our toilet... just in case any of you forgot how to pee. hahahaha, the 4th point says: don´t pee on the ground. Don´t forget that, very important. :D


Anyways, thank you very much for the advice and the insights you write every week, it certainly helps.
We have a conference this week with President Dodoy(?) the first counselor in the area presidency, so that should be fun, we´ll have to catch a bus to Uberlandia, yay roadtrip!!

For the last time: we did NOT order a giant trampoline!!
I love you, miss you
Elder Webber