29 September 2014 - Santos Dumon, Brazil

Well, if there's any truth to the idea that hard-working missionaries are rewarded for their efforts by the Lord, then this week's e-mail is evidence for it. Elder Frogley is in the home stretch, and we're all encouraging him to finish strong and make a sprint of it (according to Dad, using some track analogies that I think I more or less understood).

Haha, sounds like Dads excited with life! Keep up the energy Dad! Haha, im here in one of my favorite cities, in one of my favorite zones, in the best area of that zone with a cool american comp that i know! Actually were in a trio, but only for three weeks. Were havin fun here! The tough part is we have to work two areas. that means a lot of walkin and on these worn legs, thats no fun. Our area is half of the capital of Sergipe. Its called Santos Dumon and its much different then my last area. Its in a huge city, with a very well organized ward and very old, born in the church, type of member families. We actually get help with our investigators and, best of all, we have lunch!! I was missin the taste of food sooo much... haha, the members here take care of us very well.

Also cool, we started running! We have a park/zoo next to our house and we went joggin through it. Im REALLY out of shape. Ill have to work on that when i get back. Itll be even worse in Utah. But they have lions and tropical birds, and a jaguar and stuff! Its really cool! Theres also this sweet over look where you can see the whole city, next to the river with a huge bride! Its so cool! Ill send pics next time cause i didnt bring my camera last time.

We have a few investigators, but its been hard to really get to know them because our area is so huge, and both my comps take control in their areas, so i just kinda sit content in the middle and talk when i feel like something needs to be said. We did have a pretty cool lesson yesterday with a young man who was visiting his member grandma yesterday. Hed been to church a few times and enjoys it every time. We taught the restoration to him and we all took a turn teaching something. Im pretty sure he didnt really catch the magnitude of what we were saying, but he felt the spirit and accepted baptisim without hesitation. Hes goin to be living with his Grandma every week end so hell be attending church in our ward.

Im so greatfull for this chance to just relax and teach people in a calm ward with a cool comp in a place i like. Its such a huge change of pace from the screaming women with knives and dinky branches with no members where all the people in the city hate the church and us and every lesson is a battle. Itll be excellent to finish my mission here. Ive discovered something. Im one of the most easy going chill missionaries on the mission. Every comp ive had said that he was really stressed out with his previous comp and that he was praying for a chance to work relaxed, then he got me! haha, its a good thing to be i think, and ill try to keep it up after my mission. Work, but in a way that makes people smile and not get all tensed up all the time.

Not much else to report! Love you guys!

Elder Ian

22 September 2014 - ???, Brazil

OK, make sure you're sitting down for this one! Honestly, the most violent thing that happened on my mission in Spain was an old man threatening me with his umbrella, so for me this is nuts! Also, Dad invited Elder Frogley to go to Frontsight training with him and Mom, which teaches firearms training similar to what is taught in police academies. Also, Elder Frogley got transferred, but he failed to tell us where to, but apparently it's somewhere he really likes. Hopefully he'll tell us next week.

Gun class for a few days? Sounds fun! Im down! But anyway, sounds like you all had a fun week full of general authorities! My week was a little more violent then yours was odly. I have some interesting stories and some awesome news! so lets get to it!

First off, that women that we were teaching, Ana Cleide, had some tough times with her ´´boy fried´´ (married guy whos cheating on his handy capped wife with our investigator). We went over there on Tuesday afternoon to talk to her about the future, and baptisim. She was set on keeping her child and was looking like she was progressing. While we were talking to her Sabasteão started callin her, over and over, and over again. We turned her phone off so that she could focus. Shes scared of the guy and when were not there he dominates her. We hadnt really met him yet but when ever were not there, he visits and yells at her about us. After we turned off Ana Cleides phone, we talked for a little while in peace. Then Sabasteão comes bursting through the front door, yelling that he wants to talk to us. We were both sitting and he was angry, so we stood up to shake his hand as he was getting ready to yell at us. Once he saw our size, he decided it would be a better idea to yell at Ana Cleide about us. Shes slightly handy capped and she has brain damage from alcohol use, so she started screaming and treamoring and getting verry angry. He just kept screaming and trying to drag her out of her chair and she got so angry that she started to hit him. At this point my comp and i were close by to prevent anything crazy, so after she hit him in the chest, and he retaliated with a haymaker to her face, forced them apart. He tried to get me out of his way but i wouldnt let him pass and we told him to leave the house, which he did. He went out side the front door and she sat on the chair crying. Her mom came to the front door (its a gheto duplex. Her mom shares the ceter wall and the house is tiny. THe door is split in the middle so you can open the top or the bottom. Only the bottom was closed.) and I told her to call the police but shes scared of police, seeing as shes from a more criminal back ground, so we were kinda by ourselves. Just Ana Cleides daughters were helping. After Sabasteão left i closed the door and latched it, then stayed in the front door to keep him out. He decided he wanted to come back in but i wasnt letting him so he started getting mad and said he was goin to push me out of the way. WHich was an obvious bluff. He couldnt even say it lookin me in the eyes. He started speaking badly about us and yelling, which made ana cleaide even madder. She got up and went to the kitchen. I still had my back to her keeping Sabasteão out and trying to ask him nicely to just leave. Next thing i knew her daughters were yelling ´´shes got a knife!´´ I turned around and ana cleide was trying to sneak past me with a knife to get at Sabasteão. We stopped her and wrestled the knife out of her hands. AFter that every one started to calm down and we went next door to talk to her Mom a little. That was a crazy episode. After that, Ana cleide got really drunk and ended up aborting her baby. Im ready to get out of this area. We made some good knew investigators this week, but most of our old ones all dropped off the map or stopped progressing. But the silver lining? We prayed for help to make news and we made more news this week then in the last 4 weeks combined! THat was cool! 

This week was Zone Conference and i gave my farewell testimony with the rest of the missionaries leaving the mission. It was a strange sensation being in front of everyone for the last time. It was a sad moment cause the fact that im almost done hit me when i was gettin ready to give my testimony. Soooo weird! But i am excited to start my last transfer.

I got transfered, probably because of the episode above, to one of my favorite cities and areas in the mission! Also with a chill comp! Im so stoked just to be happy for the end of my mission! 

My good friend Elder REams went home yesterday and now were all in a trio for today. Were goin to say goodbye to members and im goin to update our records of our investigators for my comp. I told the pres (of the branch) that we got transfered thismorning and he said something that i appreciated. He said that hed be sad to see us go because he sees so many missionaries that pass through and do nothing, but we some of the few that made a difference in the area. I didnt reach my goal of baptising in all of my areas, but its good to know that i made a difference in my time here.

I love you Fam! We had some other run ins with Sabsteão durring the week but he showed us more respect then the first time, i wont tell all the sories because it would take forever, but im thankfull for the pacience i learned her in Viçosa. Through members, to the investigators, to just crazy people in the street to my comp. I learned to realy talk and work out problems. If I had had this experience earlier in my mission, in think i would have punched Sabasteão in the face, instead of calmly telling him to leave and lovingly trying to help him leave Ana Cleide. I think thats what i was suppose to learn here and im thankfull for that.

I love you soo much again family! Shooting camp sounds fun Dad! I get it signed up for! 

Elder Ian

15 September 2014 - Viçosa, Brazil

You know as a missionary, working with investigators can bring some of the most amazing testimony-building experiences of your life. It can also be a source of seemingly never-ending frustration, and this week Elder Frogley shares a little bit of both. We also hear about how a district of missionaries comes together to strengthen a struggling elder, as well as Elder Frogley's plans and goals for his district over the next few weeks before his own release, which is quickly approaching.

Alright! Hey family! This week has been interesting and full of growing experiences (or in other words, it was tough)! Thats awesome about Christians ordinations! I dont really remember mine that well... Do you have that typed up too? Id love to read that again. haha, im excited to see the kids and ill do my best to take some weight off of moms shoulders so she can sleep in more ;). haha. Im glad that Christian will be there when i get back! Im goin to need people to watch movies and play videogames with! haha

So lets get to the week! 

This week has been a battle in the house and with our investigators. In the house, one of the missionaries in the other companionship has been trying to go home 4 months early for the past several weeks. He finally got permission to go and talked to his Stake Pres and was all ready to go, but his comp and i felt like we hadnt done enough to help him stay in the mission. So we sat him down and had a really heavy talk for a while. We said some tough stuff to him, and to his credit, he took it well. At the end, he called Pres and told him he dicided to stay! That was cool. His Stake Pres hadnt called his mission Pres yet so he caught it just in time. But now hes firm in staying until January. Now we just have to get him to want to work again until January, haha. 

My comp has been having some tough times. I found out that hes chronically depressed and extrememly paranoid. he thinks that everyones against him. Anything we do that he doesnt like, he calls Mission Pres. behind her back. Pres told me that i needed to help him talk to us more and new that he was a tough comp, but also asked me to help him as a personal favor. Were really trying to help him as a district, but we could do better. Its tough to help someone who doesnt want help. We had a pretty intense talk the other day with all of us and he got really quiet. hes getting a little better now, but any suggestions?

Our investigators are REALLY annoying. We have a few breaths of fresh air but on the most part its just crazy. 

Ana Cleide, that women who is trying to stop drinking and smokin to be baptised, is passin for some tough stuff. We found out that she is pregnant and the father is a married guy that she use to work for. He doesnt leave her alone and he told her if she leaves him he´ll kill her. She doesnt want the baby, so she decided to abort it. We spent the past week trying to convice her not to abort her kid and to stop drinking. I heard the sadest prayer i think ever. Her daughter prayed in the closing prayer and asked God not to let her Mom kill her baby brother. I feel so badly for her kids. They think that all this is normal. We also found out that shes already had 4 abortions with other men. We talked to Pres about her and he told us he´ll have to talk to her, and that it would be hard for her to be baptised, which we already knew. We´ll keep workin with her though. She decided not to kill the child again but shes realy ficcle.

Juliana is still really firm but she missed her baptims date again! This time it was her time of the month, which was what happened the first time we tried to baptise her three months ago. She didnt go to church later, but we think she might have gone to Maceió to go to the hospital because she wasnt home at night either. but she still reads the scriptures every day and she really wants to be baptised. Ive never had a baptisim this crazy. Pres said he wanted to talk to her too, but her baptism is marked for next week again.

João was doin great. We visited him with his uncle whos a member, and he promised that he´ll double his efforts to get an answer from God. But then he didnt go to church Yesterday. When we went to his house, he told us that he was thinkin last night, and decided that he didnt want to study with us anymore. He told us that it wasnt because of the church, because he believed its was true, but its because hes goin through some psychological problems. Hes depressed like i think i said before, but hes started seing a shrink and he wants to wait till hes better to continue with the church. We marked Ether 12 for him to read and told him that he could get better more quickly studing with us then goin to a shrink. He promissed to read and think again but we´ll see what he wants tomorrow. 

Ana Lucia met up with the Father of her kids and theyre goin to get back together. Thats good i guess, as long as they get married, but theyre also moving away. So were goin to lose her, and she was one of our only progressing investigators. That was a bumber. We´ll get her address though and send new missionaries to her house.

Finally, Larisa was tough. Shes the girl whos been trying to get bapised forever but her Dad is super Catholic and crazy (litterally). She got permission, but her Dad REFUSED to sign her permission form for baptisim. He said that she can be baptised but he ´´wont sighn anything!´´ We tried to reason with him, but hes crazy. After that we went back to check up, and found out that he had been attacking his daughter for her choice and Larisa told us that she didnt want to be baptised any more. Her Dad after she said that decided to argue with us and with some, I think, rightous anger, we burned him to the bone. We testified and corrected and taught from the scriptures until he shut his mouth. That was satisfying. But i think it helped Larisa because she talked to Branch Pres and said she wanted to be baptised the 27th again. He´ll go there and try to get her paper signed. 

As far as my plan for the District Dad. Its to find as many news as we can and change the was missionaris are viewed here. Most people hate the missionaries and the members are used to constant persicution from other churches. We started teaching members how to pass references and how to help us more effectively. We´re having a tough time finding news here. So were goin to go around and visit all the members until we have a large pool of news. We also started a reference sheet on the announcement board at the church. To make it easier for members to give references. So our plan is to make friends and get references! Any suggestions?

Thats about it for this week! Im holdin, and your prayers are appreciated! Love you all!

Elder Ian 

8 September 2014 - Viçosa, Brazil

For those who may not be aware, my younger brother Christian (the youngest sibling in the family) will be receiving his own mission call in the near future. Also, Grandma Harrison (our last surviving grandparent) had a minor accident recently while at home that seems to have addled her mind somewhat. If you feel so inclined, please include her in your prayers.

Im soooo excited to see where Christian goes on the mission!!!!!! What if he goes portuguese speaking!? We could speak Portuguese together! That would be so cool. Somebodies gota learn Portuguese to speak with me. Haha, Ill be sure to pray for Grandma. I gota hang on to my last grandparent! I dont wana be that old guy who doesnt have grandparents. 

So this week was epic! Weve really been seeing the blessings of working hard in our own personal worthiness, the only down side is that people have their own free agency. João has been awesome! we visited him several times last week and hes really doing well. We visited him Friday night and he told us hes been having a problem with depression. He takes pills and stuff. We hopped on that and decided to talk about how we can be truely happy. We taught about the comandments and how obeying them blesses our lives. He promissed to obey and has been really doing well. He´s still praying and has started reading the scriptures. We have his baptisim marked for the 13th and its lookin like he´s goin to make it just fine.

Juliana was suppose to be baptised on Saturday and she was all ready to go. The only problem was that the church didnt have water on saturday to fill the faunt. NOOOO! we´ve been trying to baptise this women for the past 3 months and it just never happens. She didnt go to church too because she was scared that her cat would die because shes sick. We marked her baptisim again for this Saturday or Tuesday. We´ll try to talk to her today ortomorrow. Shes really good though. She reads the BoM every day. 

That family we found from the reference from the girl from the store is lookin good and bad at the same time. We´ve started focusing on two of the women in the family. A sister; age 28, and a sister age;14. Theyve both revieved answeres to their prayers and both expressed a lot of desire to be baptised. THe older one said that she wanted to leave her old life behind and told us that she wanted to get baptised imidiately. We taught them the comandments and told them about the seriousness of baptism. They promissed to go to church and were getting ready to go and everything, but never showed up. Later yesterday we passed by to see what happened and we found them at a birthday party at their house, both drunk. We were a little frustrated to say the least, but we´ll return to visit them today to burn them. My comp likes doin that so ill leave him to it.

Larisa is goin to be baptised on the 27th. shes that little girl who always goes to church but her parents didnt want her to be baptised. She decided she wants the baptisims and her parents finally let her, but her Dad always tells her how bad her decision is and everything. Hes really annoying and really ignorant. He got in a showting match with my comp yesterday. 

AnaCleide, who use to have a problem with drinking, has stopped drinking and only needs to stop smoking now. Shes helping her family and taking in sisters in trouble so she couldnt go to church on Sunday, but shes goin to be married the fist week of October and shes really progressing well. She cant read so she has her kids (who are members) read to her.

Friday we had a mission tour with the second councelhor of the Brazil area Presidency. He burned us to DEATH about our planning. He told us we had to have a planning on Friday for the next week, every week, and he said that it needed to be at least 3 hours long. I felt like that was a LOT but we tried it out. It was so hard to stay focused. But he was really cool and we felt the spirit a lot.

My comp is being tough. Hes a little desturbed and the Pres told me to try to help him. He gave me this comp on purpose to try to help him, and ive been trying to but the dudes crazy. He always gets mad about the littlest things that i do and then i have to go appologize even though i did nothing and he thinks that he should be senior and thinks im dominating him. Sooooo annoying but hes teaching me pacience. Good skills i can use with my future wife!

Any way thats about it! Love you all! have a good week!

Elder Ian

1 September 2014 - Viçosa, Brazil

It's MONDAY!! So seriously, the only thing I enjoy about Mondays is e-mails from Elder Frogley. They are always a treat and help bring the Spirit and a sense of hope and positive attitude. Good stuff.

Wow, so much changing and sooo many people getting old! Sounds like yall are doin great though! im actually doin really well now! Last week was a little tough becaus of my comp, but we got things worked out more or less and now were workin it up and we have some awesome investigators. The only problem is im getting really tired of writing these HUGE emails! Only 7 left though. I can do that :)

So this week started off with a District meeting that was pretty awesome if i do say so myself! We talked about chapter 8 of preach my gospel, which talks about Christ-like attributes. We talked about diligence and we talked about things we could do better as a district. We´re workin to help this Branch become a ward and were almost there! We have 11 men now and we need 15! Were teaching two new men now so were sneakin up on it. 

With investigators, we started teaching João, that man that went to church last week. He is very inteligent. We taught him and his sister about the Restoration and he understhood very well and asked questions after! That doesnt happen to often! Hes lost a brother recently and his sister is married and has lost 6 babies. So we also taught the Plan of salvation to them. When we went back to teach the second time he brought out his Restoration paphlet and showed us the questions it has to answer in the back (every one has a bunch of questions and scriptures to study in the back) and he had answered every single one in detail! We marked their baptisims for two weeks from now. Their only problem is they have a hard time realizing the Holy Ghost when they pray. They are praying and reading though.

We also started teaching a women named Ana Claudia. We´d met her a couple other times and every time we had met her she was drunk to the point of not functioning. Pres passed by her house the other day and talked to her, because all of her kids are baptised. he told us she wanted a visit so we passed over just to say we did. We walked in and she wasnt drunk which was strange. Then she started to tell us about how awefull her life was and all this stuff. She told us about this man who abused her and wouldnt let her leave the house. Hes married but hes ´´dating´´ her. She was just a mess but she wants to get out of it. We talked to her about the Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom. She promised to talk to the Man and also to stop drinking and smoking. Usually a promise like this is temporary, or that was what i though. She hasnt drinken since, and that was 5 day ago. Thats huge for her. Were goin to continue to help her and we´ll see where she gets to. 

We also taught Dameão and family again. Dameão is getting a little lazy but his family is determined to go to church. His sister told us that she wanted us to pass every night because she felt something different in the house with us there. She would have gone to church, but she has a fobia of going outside. She got traumatized a while back when her friend got shot by the police while she was with him. But the real progress was in his little sister. By the way Dameão is the guy who recently got out of prison and ´´found Jesus´´ in the joint. But the younger sisters name is Mayara. She was taught about the Restoration and believed it, and i taught her about the Doctrine of Christ and how it applied to the Restoratoin . After the lesson she said how she just felt a pull to go to the church and she said that she knew it was the holy ghost. She only didnt go to church because she had to work. 

Saturday we had a church dance and me and Elder McMahan danced around like crazy fools! It was good to get a little energy out.

Heres a funny story! Have you guys ever felt like Rock stars? Cause i have now! Today we went to a school in a neighboring city to talk to the students about the United States and Africa. After the class people started to attack us! People were asking us questions, asking to take pics with us, asking for our names and stuff! They didnt even let us leave for like 15 min! We were wading through a crowd of 10 to 17 year olds thrusting papers into our hands to sign and takin pics of us. Haha, it was crazy. When we left they tried to bar the front door so we couldnt leave! The principal came and thanked us and an English teacher came and talked to me a while. We were a hit. There were like 300 students there. A bunch promised to go to church and we handed out a lot of pass along cards. 

Anyway, thats about it!

Love you!

Elder Ian