17 February 2014 - Estancia, Brazil

Hi, hello, and how are ya? So glad to have you with us for another week of Elder Frogley's crazy awesome adventures in Brazil. As we all know Elder Frogley is currently training a brand new missionary who had a wonderful first-time opportunity this week. And for those who may not be familiar with missionary jargon, trainees often refer to their trainers as their "father," and trainers refer to their trainees as their "son." The metaphor is sometimes extended to brothers, grandfathers, grandsons, etc., but those aren't relevant to this e-mail. Enjoy!

Sorry it's so late, I have a looottttt of stuff to tell y'all and little time. First investigators and our two new baptisms! Yea were killin it here! First is antonia. The women we were helping to stop smoking. We had a bit of a scare but she made it. She told us that she wanted to put off her baptism until next week. Which is usuall a death sentence for baptisms. But she stopped smoking and we had her interview without problems. I'm getting good at this paperwork thing. I never knew before my mission that there's so much paperwork for a baptism. But anyway my son baptized him. She was the first person he baptized on the mission. It was good to see. But Antonia was verry happy and were happy for her. She had been waiting for a while. Her son came and thanked us personally for baptizing his mom. He's been a member for a while. But now on to Edna! She scared us badly on Friday night before the baptism. We asked her if she was excited for her baptism and she got all quiet and told us that she wasn't sure anymore. She said that she would have to work on Saturday and gave a big list o excuses. After we quietly sat waiting for a while she finally got to the real problem. I don't remember if I told you all but she's had been dating a married man, and openly told us she knew what she was doing was wrong, but he helps a lot with finances and buys a lot for her. We told her she had to end the relationship with him but they could be friends and she talked with him. He got really mad and told her if she stopped sleeping with him he'd take all of his financial help away and stop taking her to work. She would lose a lot. She didn't know if she could do it especially now that she's trying to adopt another son. But we had a very inspired lesson with her about saten and the things he does to stop baptism and faith. At the end she through her earlier excuse out the window and told us shed be baptized the next day. At the meeting the next day, she went to church directly from work and we baptized Antonia at 8:30, and Edna at 9:30 after she finished her interview which she still hasn't done. It was excelent! Anyway that's our week! Hate y'all for going on a cruise without me! I await your pics! Love y'all and dad, ask Christian about the email I sent him but don't let mom read! Crazy stuff! Ps I got my beef jerky present! Thanks Jess!! I almost forgot on Sunday pres of the mission went to sacrament meeting with us and gave a talk with me and Cunha! It was cool! We sll talked about missionary work in the ward! That's sll! Love you!

10 February 2014 - Mirante, Brazil

Hello everyone out there! We have exciting news both from Elder Frogley and from Dad this week! As for Dad, the Area Seventy over Cache Valley suggested the stakes in the area have a special fast last week for moisture--they've been suffering a bad drought. So many of the stakes participated, and many prayers were offered asking the Lord to bless them with moisture. And indeed they have been blessed! The windows of heaven were literally opened to them and blessings were poured out in the form of ridiculous amounts of snow and rain! Miracles DO happen! Prayers ARE answered! The Lord loves his children and blesses those who humble themselves before him and recognize his hand in all things.

And as for Elder Frogley, I'll let him share his own awesome news :).

Wow! Impressive week in Utah! Congrats! Gods looks out for us for sure. My week was pretty chill. And with some epic blessings. I start out with the investigators.

First off we got the two kids baptised. Alefe and Gabriel. Their parents singed all the paperwork and everything went perfectly. Alefes mom went to the baptisim with his sister and they said they really liked it. His moms 30 and his sister is 11 I think. His sister said she wanted to be baptised and i told his mom that she´ll be baptised on Saturday. She laughed cause she didnt think i was serious, but then she didnt believe me. We explained that she needs to prepare and everything and she said she wants to be baptised but she doesnt think she can be ready so soon. Thats when its nice to have green eyes. Everyone here thinks theyre beautifull so if you stare deeply into a womens eyes for long enough they just accept baptism. Haha, and it worked cause we marked her baptisim for saturday with her daughter.

This week we also started teaching a women who has been trying to get baptised for a long time but cant stop smoking. Her entire family is already baptised but she hasnt been able too. When we started visiting her she was smoking three times a day. Weve been passing in her house every day and at night we asked her daughter to read the scriptures with her. For the past few days shes been down to one a day. We marked her baptism for saturday and I think that shell make it for sure. Shes doing very well. 

Finally, Edna! You remember Edna right? Eduardos and Lucas´s Mom? She finally went to church! Eduardo had to go to church early to bless the sacrement but he told Lucas not to leave to church without mom and like a good son, he ignored his moms complaints of ´´Im tired, let me sleep.´´ and made her go to church. She had been promissing for ever and finally she got it done and she can now be baptised on saturday! She liked church and everythings ready for her baptisim! It took  while but we got there. 

as far as new stuff goes. Our neighbors got a new dog so we have someone to play with at night. Thats cool. But nothing really crazy happened. Love yall! Tell me how skiing the beave goes! If you use my skiis be carefull! but you can use them if ya want. Love you!

Elder Frogley 

8 February 2014 - Mirante, Brazil

Hello again, all. I actually got these photos a few days ago, but they've been sitting in my Downloads folder ever since. I have way too many computers that I use. Anyway, I have no captions for these other than to say you wouldn't catch a missionary dead in a photo like this in my mission :)

7 February 2014 - Mirante, Brazil

Hi friends and family. I'm not sure exactly when these were sent, nor what the captions were, but I received them in bulk from The Source (a.k.a. Dad). So, without any preamble whatsoever (at least, not more than I've already given), here they are:

3 February 2014 - Mirante, Brazil

Sorry, folks, but I didn't receive the e-mail from last week. Apparently there was big news: Elder Frogley is now a trainer! That's quite an amazing responsibility I'm sure--having the Lord trust you with one of his brand new missionaries. We're all pleased with Elder Frogley's progress and are confident the Lord will guide and direct him in how to help his new companion become a successful missionary! And we have pictures :). Not really sure what's up with the hair, though... Plus we hear a few suggestions from Elder Frogley concerning how to keep the Cache Valley missionaries busy. And I didn't know missionaries in Elder Frogley's mission don't knock doors--ever. In some areas that don't have as many members (or where the members have already been milked dry), that's about all you can do. And it's preferable to street contacts because then you already know the person's home address :)

Hey family and friends and stuff! 

First im going to go over Dads questions. Yes we are still taught how to plan. Kind of. But if ya want to excite some dead missionaries, ya just got to get them some exciting lessons. We taught 29 lessons last week and 12 of them were with members. We work to find incomplete families of members, recent converts especialy, and less actives. We always try to find the member who lives closesed to our investigator to teach with us. And we never, ever, ever knock on doors. Luckily for us we have some excelent members here helping us. Theyre always free to teach people. And some of the best people to have help are the youth. We are thinking of doin a thing where whe pass papers around in all the classes at church to have everyone put down the name of a friend that we could visit and the members cell number and addres. You could try that.

Anyway, I hope yall get some snow! Im excited to have some when I get back!

And now for the week which was interesting! Lets start with investigators and then we´ll get to funny stories. So, Edna! The women whos dating the married guy. Shes really making progress. Shes going to be baptised next week on Saturday. She said that she doesnt let that pig boyfriend of hers touch her anymore and she doesnt even want to break the law of chastity any more. We taught an awesome lesson using Ether 12 and Alma 7 and she really got firm about baptisim. Shes doing very well and were verry proud of her. Her sons and doing awesome too. Eduardo will bless the sacrament next week! 

Daisy is a women we started to teach last week with a member and shes funny. Shes really shy but i think she has an ability to feel the spirit more then other people. When we taught about the restoration she started to cry along with my comp. It was an excelent lesson and she promissed to pray earnestly about the BofM to know if it is true but shes scared that shell enter the church and one day she apostize and shell be even worse then she is now for it. Its a fear that a lot of people here have. Theyre scared to start cause they dont know if they can finish. But the spirit gave me an excelent question to ask which was ´´do you do what you believe?´´ and she obviously said yes. so I said ´´ then what we should be focusing on right now is getting you to believe.´´ she agreed and promised to start praying and reading. 

Andreana is a women whos sons we tried to bring to church but theyre never home. She started to recieve the lessons and liked them and us to i think cause were super attractive and all. But she accepted baptisim but its really hard for her to go to church. She taked care of peoples clothes for a living and every Saturday she gets a MOUNTAIN of clothes to wash and iron before Monday so shes always working on Sunday. But she doesnt workthis sunday so she promised to go to church. 

Were going to baptise two young men on Sunday. They were both references from members. Brothers or nephews of members and their names are Alefe and Grabriel. Alefes Mom wants him to be baptised but shes not a member. We marked a time to teach her in a members house (another good idea for the missionaries there Dad) and she didnt even know why baptisim is important. So we taught her a lesson about families and the importance of her example and of baptism. She promised to start going to church to help her son. 

So those are our investigators!

Now stories! so earlier this week we showed up at this less active womens house and they were pulling a tree out of the ´´back yard´´´through the house cause they dont have side yards here. They told us they didnt have time to talk to us right then so we asked if they needed help. They said no cause they didnt want us to get our ´´fancy clothes dirty´´ we were all like ´´shut up and let us carry your tree´´ (not litterally) and we just grabbed some branches and started dragging. A non member friend was so impressed by us that he asked for a BofM and gave us his address.

Now funny story! So church Sunday. I go into the Bathroom and the moment I walk in this crazy guy walks out of the stall and goes strait for me. Not a member of the church and looking like a guy who lives on the street, he grabs my hand, looks me right in the eye and says ´´Sorry, I was pooping,´´ no he didnt wash his hands. He started mumbling to me how he wanted a prayer for him and how he had chosen me to give him a prayer, never blinking and looking dead in my eyes. I told him that shure id pray for him and tried to leave but he grabbed me and said that he wanted a prayer with oil and stuff. I was like ah poo. He said ´´I have a lo-lo-lo-lot of pain in my spine, and i have deamons.´´ that freaked me out a little. So I made my comp come with me to talk to the bishop with this guy and the bishop took us into this room and so closed the door. We asked the guy his full name and he started yelling it at us which was creepy. So we gave the guy a blessing which was hard to do under the circumstances and told him to leave which he did. Weird. anyway! I love yall! Thats it for this week! And pics incoming! finally

Elder Frogley