26 May 2014 - Viçosa, Brazil

Howdy everyone! I hope you all enjoy a wonderful Memorial Day. Please take the time to find a serviceman, servicewoman, and/or veteran and thank them personally for the sacrifices they make and have made to protect our freedoms.

As for Elder Frogley, he's still working hard and loving being a junior companion again, just focusing on teaching the gospel. Also, Dad mentioned that he really feels old now that the last of his kids is graduating high school this week. But anyway...

Haha, ya dont look old yet! Ya look good! Everyone here is amazed that youre not 40. Ive even heard 34.  I think that was the youngest. Its weird that my little bro is finishing hischool. Just strange. Any way, when i get home, im gona have to take a trip up to the old house just to see it again, and say hi to the bensons. 

Were workin it up here. This week we marked 10 baptisims. Turns out being junior is WAY more fun then being district leader. All i have to do is teach and help my comp think of people to visit. Were living with two guys from Peru. I forgot to say. One of thems from Lima. Haha, theyre kinda weird and everyone here calls them the primary missionaries cause they look like 10 year olds. Haha. But i had a cool experience the other day. Actually several. Ill start with Liane.

Shes a 22 year old girl weve been teaching for a while. She reads almost everyday, and shes prayed already, but she said she didnt get an answer. We tried to teach her  a little bit about the spirit and the feelings we get when he touches us. She said shed never felt like that. I decided to just try to follow the spirit to help her feel the spirit. I whipped it out right in front of her and started flipping through all my marked scriptures. As i was looking i opened to a scripture in 2 nephi i believe. When I think Joseph is talking about the things hed writed and for people to believe them, they should judge, and then hed meet them at the bar of god and testify to them face to face. I  had to explain i a little to her but after some talking, she said she felt re energized and a real desire to search and pray about the scriptures. Shes great and the spirits great if you just give him a chace to guide you. Were teaching her little sister too but she wasnt there. 

Another great experience was when we were teaching a women and her family. After we taughter, i thought shed be kinda flimsy with the comitments like to read and pray. But when we came back, she said shed prayed, her daughter prayed, her brother prayed and her other daughter prayed, and theyd all recieved and recognized answers from the spirit. The Mom also decided out of know where that she wanted to stop smoking. But ive never seen a family so addicted to cigarets and coffee. EVERYONE smokes. Including the 16 and 17 year olds. And the mom lets them. But they sacrificed their cigarrets to us and they havent baughten more. They gave us their coffee pot too. The mom said she thought i was kidding about the coffee and steeling their cigarrets, until the daughter said that my comp holding coffee was tempting her, so i took it and threw it out into the street. They all just looked at me like i was nuts. It was great! And they didnt buy more. We braught them some coffee substitute and they liked it alot.

Were also teaching a girl whos friends with a member. Shes a great girl but she has some problems with sexual orientation. But she reads every day, she started from the beginning of the BofM. and she prays every day and already got an answer to her prayer. She accepted all the invatations we gave her.

Apart from investigators, the power went out last night, and since were in a farming town it was black! And we could see ALL the starts. Its been a while since ive really seen stars. It was cool.

Thats about it! Love you fam!

Elder Ian 

23 May 2014 - PICTURES!

Not sure what prompted this set of pictures, but here is a whole bunch that Elder Frogley sent to us this week. I just received them this morning. Enjoy!

A supr (super?) ghecko.

Picture from (?) a bridge that divides the elders' areas.

More pictures from the bridge.

Still more pictures from the bridge.

And yet more pictures from the bridge.

Elder Frogley's companion walking down one of the streets in their area.

Elder Acevedo's last visit before finishing his mission.

Elder Frogley's first scorpion.

Elder Frogley's worst missionary bed yet.

The elders' messy, tiny little house.

House of Uno/Phase-10 cards.

Multi-colored houses.

Last baptism in Mirante.

Typical Brazilian street dog.

Rain pool in front of elders' house.

Some kid's snack in Clima Bom. Yes, they eat giant, flying ants.

Sugar cane juice.

The elders' house in Viçosa.

The view from the elders' side window.

Waiting for the bus.

19 May 2014 - Viçosa, Brazil

Well hello everybody! So glad you could join us. In Dad's e-mail to Elder Frogley we learned that Dad was quite sick during the family's final move to Layton, which Elder Frogley references with his "twins" comment, and that Elder Frogley will likely give his returned-missionary talk at the old ward in Providence. Oh, and we have pictures :) And for those of you wondering, those six booklets that Elder Frogley is holding up are the six discussions that missionaries used to use before Preach My Gospel. I used them myself, but I believe Preach My Gospel was introduced shortly after I returned home.

Wow! Sounds like were twins dad! i got sick too! Haha, tuesday i woke up to go to the transfer meeting and i just felt nasty. Cold flashes, headache neck pain, fever, soar throat and clogged sinus. Just in time for the meeting. We got a taxi to the meeting and and we got there right before it started. its air conditioned inside and i was freezing the whole time. i sat uncaring where my next area would be or who my comp would be. I just wanted to go back to bed. My new comp is Elder Harris and my new area is Viçosa. Hes district leader and im his Junior. Dont ask me why, i dont know. But i dont really care. Junior companion is my favorite. All you have to do is teach people. But Viçosa is a little farming city in the country. Its just a Branch and Pres said he put us there so we could help the new branch Pres. Im the Gospel principles teacher. The church looks more like a house. I did a devision here once like a year ago and sent yall a pic of the baptisimal font. Its just a big traugh in the back. The house is terrible and sometimes the ceiling falls down, the area is FULL of flies, and the branch has about thirty people with three men. But on the up side, it has mountains!!!!!! i havent been in mountains for ever! Not mountain moutnains, more like big hills. Ill send pics. But up in the hills close by there is a waterfall. I think we´ll go next week. 

We´ve been trying to find references and visit members recently. There are a lot of in active members here so Pres told us to activate all we could. Its been rough cause ive been sick to whole time. Im still sick right now actually. Sister told me to take tylonole and to work as long as my fever stayed below 99.4. So thats what weve been doing. Which also means i havent goten the rest ive needed to get healthy. Ah well. 

my comp is from Utah. Rich something south of Provo. Elder harris. He´s kinda weird but a chill guy. 

Were teaching two people right now and one is marked for baptisim. Shes a 22 year old girl who was taught before but didnt accept. she accepted now on the grounds that she gets an answer to her prayer. The other was a reference from a member. She went to the church cleaning and she likes the church. The only problem is its hard to get her to stay at home for long enough for us to teach her. 

Thats about it! ill send pics! good computer today! Love yall!

Elder Ian 

Some kids playing, and some women doing laundry.

And look what i found at the church!? I was thinking about using them but decided not to. How much do you still remember of them dad?

12 May 2014 - Clima Bom, Brazil

Guess what! Another transfer! But we don't know where, yet. There's not much to explain before we get started other than simply to say that this past Sunday was Mothers' Day here in the U.S., so (as many of you know) missionaries around the world got to call their mothers (and family as a whole). In many cases I believe the missionaries actually get to do a live video chat, which was in fact the case for Elder Frogley.

Alright! An email more for friends and Dave and Em and Jami and Jason then for Mom and Dad cause ill call you tonight at5:30. This week was weird. We started out the week pretty normaly. We were in a trio with Elder Acevedo who only had 4 days left of mission. We went to meetings, we taught lessons.On Thursday we went to the mission office for Elder Acevedos last interview with pres. It was a weird experience seeing him finish his mission. For the other Elders I ´´killed´´ i just stuck them on a bus and sent them back to Farol to pass the day with Pres. But since we live so close, i saw the whole thing step for step right up until he got in a taxi to go to the air port. It made it all feel so real. Id be lieing if i said i didnt feel a little trunky. It was sad to see him leave cause the house felt kinda empty with just me and Steven. But Saturday was back to work! We spent a lot of time durring the rest of the week letting Acevedo say goodbye to people and visiting old baptisims. Saturday we went to a members house for lunch, and it was his birthday! We didnt know. He just invited us. We got there and there was a buffet table and a canopy with tables under and stuff! We got there a littel early so it was just us and a friend of his from work. We decided to talk to her for a while while we were waiting for lunch to be ready and she was excelent. She really felt the spirit and understood the message well about the restoration. She decided that she would like to visit and know more about the church and whe promised to read and pray about the BofM. the only down side is that she doest live in my area!  :( but ill find out who her missionaries are and send them to her house. When the rest of the party guests arived there were several people from all over Maceio. We had the great opportunity to talk to all of them a little about the US and about the Church. It was great to be able to teach so many people with out walking 10 miles. After the party we ran to Cristianis house to teach a lesson. She looked like shed been having a rough day. She was sick and had been for several days. We talked to her about the Plan of Salvation which she thought was iteressting but she had something else. At the end i felt impressed to ask her how she was. She said fine, so i asked how she was spiritually, and she started to cry. She had had some problems with her boyfriend and didnt know what she wanted to do. We talked a while about what happpened and about what she could do. I marked a chapter in the Book of Mormon for her to read and she promised she would. she also promised to make it out to church. After that we RAN to a lan house to try calling home only to discover that the lan house didnt have webcams! So we went to another, still no web cams, and another, closed. So we remembered that the other elders were going to the church to try and call with the secrataries computer and a lap top. When we got there they had already finished up and the members had left. We called several people, finally found a camera in a closet at the church, and got the church computer password just 5 min after Steven had scheduled to talk to his fam! It was perfect. I also got a supprise talk in sacrament meeting durring all that hubub. Hurray! SundayCristiani kept her promise and went to church. I talked about the roll of men in the house and how as men we have the duty of helping our wifes. Not just with money but around the house. That totally goes against the national custom of Women serving men after work, but i didnt care cause its a dumb custom. I think a few guys got mad, haha! But yesterday was our transfer call too and i got transfered again! That was fast. Where to i know not but im off on a nother adventure! Thats it for now! love yall!

Elder Ian

5 May 2014 - Clima Bom, Brazil

This week we get some great updates on many investigators, as well as some exciting/sad news--Elder Frogley received his "trunky papers." (At least, that's what we called them in my mission.) Anyway, exciting stuff happening in Brazil for Elder Frogley!

Wow, i wonder if ill be like that when i get home. It´ll be weird. But life sounds pretty chill in the US. Life here is starting to heat up. The world cup is getting started here in a little and the whole world is starting to slow down. I got a magazine with pics and stuff of the players to colect. Its crazy here. haha, but the mission is chill! We keep working and we have several baptisims marked for next week and the week after. Baptisim for my birthday! Thatll be fun.

 Our favorite investigator is Cristiani. She went to Sao Paulo this week to visit her boyfriend but she said shed go to church there. She says she wants to be baptised cause she always feels the spirit when we come. Which is awesome to here cause it means that were doing it right with her. She prays and does everything we ask. Plus her mom lives with her and she really likes us. Shes parapalegic and has to stay in the bed 24 hours. We are going to start teaching her, but it will be hard if she wants to be baptised and for her to get to church. 

Our other investigators who are progressing are three brothers. The oldest is very inteligent. He remembers everything that we teach him and wants to be baptised. And if hes baptised his two brothers said theyll be baptised too. Which is good enough for us! His Mom and older sister are already members but they havent been to church for ever. Really a cool family. It was funny cause when we were teaching the house started attacking me. It was raining so the ceiling started to leak on me. Then fungus from teh ceiling started to fall on me. All durring the lesson. And only on me! haha, it was funny. Were trying to teach a man who had an excelent experience with us. But its hard to find him at home. Hes excelent though. Also were teaching a girl who wants to be baptised but she is also never home! 

But on the up side its been raining every day, so the heat is going away now. Were not so sweaty any more and its fun to run from shelter to shelter. Were in a trio now! one of the elders got emergency transfered to fill a spot in another area. President is going to wait to send a new elder because Elder Acevedo is going back to Texas! Soooo weird. But hes still working every day and were still visiting people every day. Hes a good Elder. Anyway! Thanks for all the emails and love from yall! I pray for you every day! Miss you! 

Elder Ian

PS I got my ticket home. Ill send my itinorary to you.