16 June 2014 - Viçosa, Brazil

So in today's update, we hear a little about the World Cup, which is of course happening right outside Elder Frogley's door. We also hear about many investigators in various stages of progression. Personally I never understood dropping investigators who aren't progressing as fast as you want them to, but then I served in Spain, and we were more than happy to visit anyone who was willing to even talk to us. Also, for some context, Dad shared some of the fun from the Frogley Family Reunion and got some of the uncles and cousins to say hello. Anyway...

Haha, thanks everyone! Im not going to lie, i do miss good old Frogley family reunions. Theyre some of my favorite memories. Thats good to hear that people in the US are watching the world cup! You all should here the explosion here whenever Brazil makes a goal! Seeing as the biggest party in the city is 20 feet outside our front door, we can hear every moment of it. We walk around and catch peices of almost all of the games. I saw part of the game between Italy and England! We were buying bread and i ´´accidently´´ saw 5 min of it. That was satisfying to see. Brazilians dont want Italy to win because they are rivals for most world Cups won. I dont want Brazil to win. People here need to be humbled. Theyre some REALLY cocky abnocious people here when it comes to soccer. Im pumped to see who wins tonight! GO USA!

Our dinner the other day. We mixed all the flower we had with water
and salt and put all the sugar we had over it.
It was almost edable.

As far as my week, it was pretty good! We found some new investigators and marked some baptisims! Ill make a list of them and what happened so i can keep it all strait. Elisia is first. Shes the girl who was having problems with homosexuality. Shes doing much better as far as her girlfriend goes, shes pretty much cut contact with her. But she also started drinking again and shes kinda runnin from us. We also havent seen her member friend in church or around, so were kinda worried that something happened with them both. The World Cup is making it hard to contact people because everyones traveling or watching. At least we got permision to work. We only stay home for the Brazil games. 

Remeber Oseis? Hes a 13 year old kid, but hes super smart. Were teaching him English, and we taught him about the restoration. He went to church and already has a firm testimony that the Book of Mormon and the church are true. The only problem is that his Dad is SUPER catholic. He doesnt want his son to be baptised and even baned him from going to church more or even English class. Oseis told him that if he could go to the church of Jesus Christ, he wouldnt go to any other, because he knows its true! Awesome kid. His Dad came and talked to the Branch Pres asking him to try to get his son to not come to church. Pres refused, and bore his testimony. So Oseis´s dad is thinkin about it now. Say your prayers for them please!

Home made gnocchi.

Marcia (the women who had a huge smoking problem) is doing a LOT better with smoking. Shes down to one or two every three days or so. but she stopped reading the scriptures and she still hasnt come to church. She started working a lot and we´ve been having troubles teaching her because shes never home. If she doesnt go to church this week we might have to let her go. THat would be sad. 

Weve been teaching a women named Juliana for a week now. She does everything we ask but shes having a tough time getting an answer to her prayers. She reads the scriptures and prays every night but she didnt make it to church. We taught a little about the importance of church and how we get answers to our prayers. She promised to come to church Sunday and pray more fervently.

Our current golden investigators are a family that went to church sunday! Three women and their kids. We met them looking for a women that had been taught before by missionaries. When we went to visit we found out that her family was visiting! Her brother and her Mom were FULL of questions. Theyre all very inteligent and have a lot of desire to understand God. The son (17) went off about the Big Bang and who made the elements that made the big bang and the faults he found in his old church. They use to be from the symble of God church but they left and are searching for the truth. We taught them several times about Joseph Smith and about the Plan of Salvation and the Gospel of Christ. They all gained firm testimonies of the church and it was just inforced by a little miracle on Saturday. The moms baby was sick and had been all week. She said that she didnt know if shed be able to go to church because of the baby. Her sister asked us if we could ´´pray over him´´. We said of course! So we gave him a blessing and Elder Harris pretty much comanded the baby to be better so they could go to church. Then we left. The next day, sure enough, they all came to church with the baby. The Mom said that after we left she put the baby down and it crawled over and started playing with some shoes. Her faith was made concrete by that and all i could think about was when Jesus healed that mad blind from birth. Healed to show Gods hand. Its great to be able to be a symble of Christ to people. Im pumped to hear about all the cool stories Christian will have! The only down side is only one of the sisters is from our area. So we can only baptise the one.

Yesterday i gave a talk in sacrament meeting, and i think it was one of the best talks ive ever given. I said a praye before asking God to help me teach in a way that would touch people in the congragation, and i was relaxed the whole time and just talked. I think it was about 20 min about how to share the gospel. 

Also we have the Pres.and Sisters farewell party Thursday. Itll be sad to see him go. But pumped for the next pres!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Ian