23 September 2013 - Estancia Brazil

Well this is exciting--it's the first time I'm posting one of Elder Frogley's e-mails during the same week I received it! I'm all caught up, so hopefully future posting will be much easier for me. At least that's the theory.

Me and my little friend. He bit me on the nose later.

The new district of Estancia! The white guy with the black hair is from Curatiba. a city down south where a ton of Italians live. Its like Italy that speaks Portuguese and its really close to Iguaceu falls which we need to visit. Thinking about living there.

A bunch of Brazilian kids.

Haha, Im glad you liked the pics, I would send more but Im on a computer that doesnt accept my disk. As far as what you need to travel, you need to apply for a tourist visa. But we´ll worry about it latter as you said. I wish I could be there to help you move your stuff! I hope you found some strong arms to help! Life sounds like its still going stong! I cant believe Scofe is home. Thats weird. It went soooo fast.Good luck with your inventory and figureing things out! Im praying for yall! 

As far as my explanation for things on the success/slacking side. I really enjoyed all of your responses. Ive learned several things about our mission in the past few weeks. The first presidency knows our misson by name as one of the most disobedient missions in the world. Third world south America is rough. But we still baptise alot. Wich confused me. But then I looked at our retention rate and around 80% of the members here are inactive. Most of the baptisims dont even know what the Law of Chastity is or The Word of wisdom. Im glad that most of my baptisims are still firm and strong in the church. Rodrigo (my first baptisim) is doing so well that the Stake Pres is trying to find away to let him leave on his mission before his one year of membership is done. Hes helping the missionaries alot there and with his help theyre baptising. A homosexual man hit on him right in front of the missionaries and he emphatically told the guy that he was strait and to not talk to him like that. The same with Jose Lito here. Hes working very hard to help his wife get baptised, and were teaching her. Hes been reading alot about the temple and wants to go. So overall, I thing that Daves alagory nailed it. Theyre are always easy people who will do anything a rich american in a shirt and tie will tell them to do. but to really continue the work it takes people who are ready. I just gota keep working. 

Alright its time for my week! We Had transfers! We took off on Tuesday morning at one o clock. That was weird. Anderson caught his bus to Macieo (7 hours) at around 3 and Candido (the other missionary with us) went to sleep at a mission house. but the mission house was very small and there were about 10 missionaries sleeping there so me and Elder Steele stayed in the chapple there, turned on all the fans, and slepped on the benches in the main room of which i forgot the name. I was woken up the next morning at 8:30 with an elder tapping me on the shoulder telling me it was time to listen to transfer meetings. We listened to it over the phone like normal and I got my comp. Ready? ´´Elder Frogley, Senior!´´ ´´and Elder Albaquerque, Junior´´ What! That was weird! Mom dad and Christian, yall know him. He was my Zone Leader in Maceio. He got stuck with a bumb companion and hes reaching the end of his mission so he got ´´demoted´´ and now Im his senior. Its just weird dragging him around. But hes tight, I like him, and hes very inteligent.

We got back Tuesday night and visited some members. Wednesday was our first day of work and who decideds to come do visits with us? The Stake Pres! He called us and said he wants visit a family with us. I though he was wanting to show us a family so we were like sweet. Then he pics us up in his car and says. ´´alright elders show me all the less active kids in the ward who should be in seminary or institute´´ I was all like ´´poop´´´So I got to try to direct him to some people that I almost never visit and it was a pain! We got lost several times but we found some good people that were now working with! Happy first day as Senior! The next day we visited a family that a missionary baptised a long time ago adn he asked me to pass by there cause theyre inactive now. We did and a lady answered the door and invited us in. She told us she loves the church but no longer believes in prophets. We didnt even have to drag it out of her. It was like the first thing she said when we sat down. So we were like sweet, we got this. She said that in doesnt say anywhere in the Bible that we need prophets now and we were all like ´´excuse me?´´ by the end she was throughly changed and said shed pray. In her prayer she asked for help returning to the church which was awesome. We went back to visit her two daughters with similar results. 

Diana was suppose to be baptised Saturday but she went to UmbaUba with her Family. But she came back by herself to go to church. She had her interview and passed and we rescheduled her baptisim for Saturday. Shes a very special young lady and Im very hapy for her! 

We also started visiting and teaching Amandas Mom! She had already looked up some stugg about the church on the internet and had a lot of strange questions. We answered them and gave her the church website for future reference. Were going back to visit them on Tuesday. Im living with three Brazilians now and Im starting to forget how to say alot of things in English. Someone asked me what the word was for Vulture the other day in English and it took me over a day to think of it. That was annoying. But Im learning portuguese alot faster now. Thats good. Anyway, Thats all for today! 

Love you fam!

Send me some more pics!

Elder Frogley