Weekly update! and a photo!

June 4th, 2012

HEY HEY HEY MY FAMILY!

Man sounds like you all have had a busy week! 

Danielle congrats on getting the calling of being in Seminary council! That will be an awesome learning experience for you, enjoy every meeting with Brother Hales! Danielle, what car have you been using going to school and everything? And you have gotta send me the videos that you make for seminary council too! haha

Mom, and dad im glad that you two had a good getaway. haha Walking in gardens, massages, the ocean, hopefully some tilamook icecream too ;) That is one thing that I miss is the ocean, and that cool breeze there ha. I tell people here that the ocean where I go... hardly no one goes in the water. The first thing I always hear is... IS IT BECAUSE OF SHARKS!!!!!!!!????... ha no, because the water is so cold! People don't believe it, but that is just because it is so dang cold here! haha 

Man, hearing that everyone is graduation high school is crazy! Time passes so dang fast, and Danielle is next to graduate next year! wow!

So this week was awesome! My first week with Elder Lins in an area that I am still getting to know. haha We have a huge area and we had some fun times this week finding streets. But in the middle of all our running around we encountered another amazing family! A mother a father and their three sons, and a little baby. They visited the church without an invite about 2 years ago just to see what it was like and the said that they loved it. They said they didn't know anyone so the stopped going. So we knocked on their door and they welcomed us in and they are really interested in the church. And this last Sunday they all went to church and we made sure they got to know lots of people! :) They are not married but we explained the law of chastity and they are excited about marriage too. It was so funny when we said the word marriage. The moms face lite up with happiness! We could tell she wanted to get married :) But we are seeing the Gospel change their lives and also in the lives of the family we baptised last week. We had our first FHE with them last week and they absolutely loved it. Fancisco and Lucas also received the priesthood yesterday as well! I am so happy for them and I love passing by there. 

This week we didn't have too many lessons out of the ordinary... but there was one lesson that was a little weird. We were teaching a mother and a daughter and one of her friends came in. We stood up to greet her and she tried the kiss on the cheek greet with me, and I was not expecting it at all. So just reaction I stepped back to avoid it, but she didn't see it so she kinda tripped. ha She was super embarrassed, but we explained that as missionaries we don't do the kiss greet and then she was all good. But we had a good laugh about it. Missionaries gotta watch out! 

I think I forgot to talk about it in my last letter but there is a sister here that lives in Moses Lake! Sister WEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you know here? I think she is about 27 and she is in my mission. She knows christian and jordan. I just meet here the other day, it was a cool connection to talk about moses lake CHIEFS!!!!!!!

Well my time is running out, but I love you all and it you have not sent the package yet, I need some contact stuff. I am on my last bottle. Just the normal kind :)

I love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!! Elder Heath    P.S. a cool Brazilian song I learned on the guitar ``So os locos sabem`` you guys should look up! Its super good!

I love you soooooooooo much!

 

 

June 11, 2012

 

WOW!!!!!!!!!!! 

That is some crazy news! I am wondering how that new boundary line was made, sounds like it is pretty crazy and sounds like we will be getting some richlanders in our ward! But now we will be with the Flints which is awesome! Have you heard anything about Elder Flint? Dad, congrats for being worthy to receive a calling to be in the bishopric! That is so awesome! So are the Szendries, Pratts, Desanties, Gearhearts in our ward? Who is still in our ward? That will be interesting to come home to a different ward, But you all will be there and so that is all that matters. :)

Danielle, when you go to Rexburg for EFY there are 2 places you should go to!!!! First there is a chinese restaurant that is awesome right in front of the Big I center. 5 bucks for TONS of food!!!!!!!!! haha And there is also sammys! They have awesome milk shakes!

SO this last weekend we had an interesting change up here in Brasil. The temple of Manaus was dedicated by Elder Uchtdorf and Elder Christofferson. So we were able to watch (in the church) the celebration of the temple. Where tons of people danced and there were lots of the culture shown. There were kids dressed as monkeys, birds, fish, and all types of animals doing native dances. Then it showed a little more culture, of how the germans integrated to manaus, so there were some proper dances and there was even one dance where everyone was in jeans and cowboy hats. :) It was really interesting! Kenton participated?????? That is weird.... he is in the south of brasil and manaus is more toward the north. He must be a stud missionary to of traveled all the way there. There was one missionary (Elder Sant) that went to richland high that is serving there in manaus and he appeared on the tv. It was really cool to be able to watch the celebration and also the dedication on sunday. The whole country of brasil didnt have sacrament because all the members watch the dedication. Was it like that in the US? We heard that the Fortaleza temple was on stand by until the temple of manaus was dedicated, so now.... they should be starting to build! They are going to build it right next to central! And right next to our mission library! That will be really convenient for the missionaries here in 2 or 3 years... ha I hope one day that I can come back to visit the Fortaleza temple! Maybe with me Family :)

This week we had some really cool experiences. We are starting to teach more people in the chapel and it has been awesome! Here in Brasil all the houses are very open to let all the wind go through the house. So when we teach people in their houses a lot of times the neighbor is blasting music, or there are motorcycles passing and sometimes it takes away the spirit;. So we found a solution... lets teach in the chapel! It has been really cool and definitely a lot more reverent.

There was a story of 2 missionaries that happened just this last week!!!! They had a baptism all set up, and so that morning they went and filled up the font to be ready for night time. They font had a window and so they left the window open to have some ventilation. They left to work and then came back for the baptism that night. They started the ceremony and they proceeded to open the font all ready. When they opened the font they found a 4 foot long snake in the font !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! haha Im pretty sure they freaked out. They called the firemen and they took it out and they were able to continue with the baptism but....... only in brazil! ha

I love you all so much!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Elder Heath