Loads of great investigators, and more miracles!

Feb 24, 2014

Dear Family!

 

Hey I love you just so you know!

   I got a new opportunity this week to kind of lead the area here. My companion didn´t know the streets or investigators and we really did very well. We aren´t teaching lessons to focused people as much as we want, but we are teaching and we had a lot of lessons this week. My new companion is a fire ball! He hits it hard every day and strange as it sounds I have to try to keep up with him! He is the first companion I have felt is really gonna push me and help me grow as a missionary and by definition a teacher. He is a rocket during planning and I have a ton to learn from him. I can´t wait to tell you about the successes we will have. We have a man this week named Jean that has been to church 6 consecutive times. He is interested in the Gospel, and is really finding himself at home in the ward. He speaks English fluently and is currently looking for a job to teach it. This last week he told us something that really amazed me. He comes from a family of alcoholics and was one himself, but, miraculously, he stopped the day he started to come to church, and has lost the desire to drink entirely, he told us he feels like his mind is clearer and he controls himself better. Truly this speaks wonders of the miracle and gift of Christ. We can truly lose our desire to sin, and I have seen it happen now to someone very special in a miraculous way. In short the work is good. We have strong, solid families that have good standards and a desire to learn. For this week we need some prayers troops! Regina, Casandra, Julio, Gabriel, Elizangela, and Jean are really super important. Please also pray for Luis, Lucas, Sergio, and Adrielle. I´m super excited to report on where they will be in a few weeks!

  Mom I actually have not gotten the package yet, it takes six weeks from what I hear to arrive in the mission office, and after that I can only get it after they send it or someone brings it to me. But don´t worry! I´m doing great! Hey you know what I just wanted to thank all you guys for the awesome letters and stuff! Mom the ties rock. I am the envy of many a missionary! I especially like the purple one you sent. Super cool. Hey by the way about packages I am good on food. Don't worry about what you send, my stomach is now used to the one meal a day thing. It was just a matter of getting used to. We eat with members almost every day and 95 percent of the time there is plenty to go around. I eat like a champ at lunch now and don´t have to worry the rest of the day! All is well, seriously you guys would be very impressed, I surprise myself daily at how much I eat.

  The super market is sweet Mom. We have access to meat, rice, beans, all types of spices, and the most amazing fresh fruit you can imagine. On days where we need to eat at home we have money given to us usually by the member responsible for that day. No worries! 

   Our apartment is nice, we live on the second floor and it looks out over lots of Guarapuava! It is usually hot here, people are incredibly nice (usually), members have started to take a liking to me and I think things are about to start to pick up momentum! The way we are headed I think you guys are in for some good letters home in the next few weeks!

  Tell me how the quilts, babies, water polo games, college, and new controller/gm are! I love hearing from home. My heart is always there, but I carry it with me too, I am very present here in the work, doing my best, and trying to put it all out there and come home in glory ahahahah! 

Love you alll!!!!!!!!!

 

Elder Mac Attack

 

 

 

Miracles!

Feb 17, 2014

Dear Family!

 Today I don´t have time to read emails before just so you know. I have been having a great time here in Brazil. In honesty so many things are happening so quickly and we keep so busy I barely have any time to reflect on anything! Yet I am loving it. 

  Some really amazing experiences have happened in the past few days. On Saturday we had O Noite de Pizza, or The night of the pizza! We had, between the efforts of four Elders and the Guarapuava Branch members over 160 non-members attend. Miracles! We have seriously awesome investigators right now and an amazing chance to change this area! Presidente Fernades wants to make this district a stake in the next two years!

  Anyway I did get a new companion this week. Elder Long went home and my new companion/zone leader is another awesome missionary named Elder Gonzalez! This will be a good transfer. 

  I wanted to see if you could do something for me this week, if you could please tell all the young women in the ward thanks for all the cards they sent me in the mtc (yes I know it has been a while I kept forgetting=)), thank the Haubers for their nice letter from a few months ago, I just got it last week, Ashley Springer for her nice card, and tell her I just got it and it takes a while for packages/ letters to go from here to there but I will reply, and Thank Sister Bert for me for the recipes!! 

  Brazil is literally awesome. Our apartment is much nicer than in New Jersey however the furniture is lacking. It fits four missionaries relatively comfortably, and I will be sure to send my photos of it home on my card. Food is amazing! Mangos mom......... you wouldn't believe. All the members here are very nice, and I even felt this past few days that some members have a genuine like for me. Our branch President, a member called Ronelson, Rosny, and several others seem to actually like me despite the difficulty of a language barrier. That means I am doing something right!!!! Yayayaya! 

  Super markets are pretty much the same, somethings they have and others they don´t, but really it is the same way in the US. I have taken a particular liking to mangos here and buy them all the time!

  Yes, our house is next to the enormous grain silo! Tan and green building, but I don't know what color the roof is!

 

With all of my love, and sorry for the short one,

Elder Showalter

Legend of the lunch table :)

Feb 10, 2014

Dear Family,

  Another transfer almost down, I would have to agree, time is flying by! I had an issue with the computers this week so it will be a little short this week. 

  I am so happy to hear things are going well at home! I
 wish I could see the quilts, come to water polo practice, see these friends and acquaintances you are all working with, an enormous belly, and ALL my wonderful FAMILY! But I to know that I should be here in Brazil, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't having fun. Mom and Dad I hope you have fun in Atlanta and Ty don´t have too much fun with Darren all weekend! I love and miss you all.

  In terms of the day to day life here in Brazil I seriously have fun just soaking it all in. We wake up, every morning, at six thirty and hit our knees. After we catapult into morning exercises and try to purge ourselves of the groggy feeling we tend to get as missionaries. We never rest.

  Immediately from there we prepare, teeth, breakfast, shower, etc. I usually try to be studying by 7:45 to get everything I want to study in, and still tend to come up short! Companion study follows which includes prayer, training movies for the new missionaries like myself, and mock teaching. It is a really enlightening time. And then we walk out of the house. Literally on of my very favorite parts of the day. I'm fresh, the weather is mild, and it is not an uncommon occurrence to hear a rooster crow. On the streets of Brazil, usually cobblestone and uneven, you can see anything from a Range rover, to a hand-made horse-drawn buggy. What actually surprised me however was the mixture of old world and new. We really do live in a city, yet most houses/buildings aren´t air-conditioned. Our apartment is on the second floor and it, like most of the city, has an earthy, yet modern feel at the same time. (Rua Bahia 869 Guarapuava) We have most comforts of the US yet nothing is the same. Oh, and yes, we do in fact eat rice and beans for lunch everyday, usually accompanied by pasta, some assorted flavor of tang or soda called Guarana, meat, and a vegetable. My body has adjusted to the schedule and now I eat about three full plates everyday at lunch, I´m a legend of the lunch table with the missionaries I live with now! But as missionaries, we walk the streets, sweat, and travel from place to place inviting people to accept and live the most amazing and important principles this world, or the next, has to offer. We teach messages about Christ, and His restored Gospel, His prophets, and the workings of a very living God. We help people change. I am having an adventure of a lifetime and I cant help but stop and think several times a day thoughts like, wow I am in Brazil. I see changes made in my life and the lives of others every day, testimonies of the truthfulness of our message, and really can´t get enough. I love and miss you all, but don't worry, I am doing very very well.

Love,

Elder Showalter