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