First Day in Brazil

Elder Showalter (top row third from right) on his first day in Brazil with the other new missionaries and President and Sister Fernandes (front row middle).

And just like that he is off to BRAZIL

On Saturday, Jan 4 at 11pm this is the email we got from the amazing Sister Burt!

Dear Showalter family,

President Jeppson called my husband and asked him to take your son to the airport on Monday because his visa came in! 

So happy for you all!

Love,

Sister Burt

 

WHAT? MONDAY?

YEP!!!

To say this took my breath away is putting it lightly!  I think I just wasn't prepared for that to happen so quickly.   But, we are all so happy for him, and he is thrilled!!

Sister Burt took this video this morning before church. 

 

 

 

Christmas was Great!

Dear family!
Ok, Christmas was so fun! Your gifts were perfect! Yes my suit is great! It is super slick! it fits just about perfect and is just right because it gives me a little room to grow, its awesome!
 Well what can I say this week, honestly its like there is always so much, I can't even remember what is the most important to tell you!
A couple things I want to get out of the way first and foremost! The gifts were amazing. You managed to box up Christmas and family memories and ship that joy right here to Bayonne. Its incredible, seriously, that takes talent. I could tell the care and effort you put into it, it was palpable. You made my day, but not by the gifts; which were all exactly right by the way. No, you made my day because each one of you included tid-bits of fun little things that meant so much to me. Specifically the letters, ties, cologne, suit, and real-GOLD~thing!
Ty, your letter was great, I always open your letters first! You wanna know why? Well because they are hilarious! but more importantly they help me feel connected to you. You really do write well and I love to hear the detail you include about your week, the things that are going on with you, and the sort. You are awesome little brother! Keep up the good work!
Dad your emails do not bore me in the slightest! Are you kidding me! I felt like I was on the beach again! Please keep writting about the small things! Thanks for your insights and like I said before help those missionaries in your ward! You can be such a blessing to them!

Mom, that is affirmative. I will check in. =) Yes, I have been exercising and it has been sufficient. I have set goals and made plans and have seen results, and plus, its just fun to me to work out in the mornings and feel like I am being productive that early. I feel like my whole day is better when I get my exercise in, and its the same with scripture study! The whole day depends on it, so I have learned not to neglect either!
Ok so this week was great! We received tons of help from Heavenly Father and the taste of success has been the perfect incentive to improve and to keep doing what we are doing. Sometimes starting is the hardest part. This week we got 7 new investigators! Sweet right! Well it is for us anyway! So we have been trying to be really thankful for that.
Ok the most special parts of this week for me, the success was amazing, and I am seeing improvement!

Guess what I did? I have learned how to play "He is Risen" on piano! I just have decided every time the opportunity appears, and it is OK to do according t missionary rules, I play that one hymn and I pretty much have it down! Now I am just working on perfecting it and finishing up the last part. I have never learned a hymn before, and with a piano in the house for 18 years!, so that in and of itself proves to me how this mission is helping me. I have just really learned to focus on what I want to see happen and, God willing, it often does! I have set spiritual, language, and physical goals in that order of importance for the upcoming year and I have been rewarded with the contentment in realizing, "hey this is where I am at, and this is where I can be, and if you are willing to do what you have said here on this paper Elder Showalter this is how you are gonna get there!" It has made me so much less worried about why am not this and that, and made me realize what and how I can become something better, the said "this and that". So that has been fun really fun. I've learned life is like dinner, you have to eat all types of food. In high school life was sports, but now I see you can't pull that off, and I didn't! Hahahah So now I just want to apologize to Mom for being a stinker about homework and school. =) Yes, after all these years. It is cool to do well in everything you do, and that included school! So I promise to stop being lame and do well in missionary work, physical fitness, school, or whatever! If I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna try to do it well! 

This week the names that are very important are, Brother Deangelo and Sister Caroline, The Dominguez family, Medhat, and the Rodriguezes. I have felt the power of your prayers this week! And I know this week I will feel them too!
Love you sweet family,

 Elder Showalter
 P.s.
 And it was also awesome that I received a box of sugar cookies from sister Marquez! Tell her I love her! Just to know she cares enough to send me something is such a great thing to know! That means she is thinking about me! AWE =)

Christmas Day Dinner with the Burts

This is an AWESOME one!! Check it out for sure!

Sister Burt Sent us this email on Saturday morning, Dec. 21.  It was such an amazing, fun thing for us to get this insight into some of the Christmas festivities going on for Elder Showalter.  In the video "Go tell it on the Mountain" you can see him in the background video taping Alex Boye.  Go check out the videos on the blog link listed below, they are great!!!

As the mother of a new missionary, and it being his first Christmas in the field I am so grateful to all those who obviously went to such great efforts to make this a really special Christmas party for these missionaries!!  It has really been so much fun to be a missionary mom!

Dear Showalter family,

I thought you'd be interested to know that Alex Boye' was our special guest speaker/performer at our All Mission Conference. You can read about it and see video footage at our blog http://kingstonburts.blogspot.com/.

But, what I thought you'd especially like to know is that during one of his songs (while in the chapel) he walked down the aisle and occasionally touched missionaries on the shoulder.  All the missionaries were straining their necks to follow him with their eyes to wherever he was going, but your son choose to just focus on the music and did not turn his neck and was therefore very surprised when from behind him, he felt a tender touch and rub across his shoulders as Alex came down the aisle on his side of the chapel and paused just long enough to make contact with your son before he returned to the podium.

On the ride home in the car, we were all commenting on how special that was for him, and he said, "My mom would just be thrilled to know that that happened for me."  So..... I thought I'd tell you :)

Merry Christmas,

Sister Burt

P.S.  We are taking our two lap tops with skype to the Church on Tuesday at 9:00 am so that our Bayonne missionaries can make their Christmas Skype calls. Your son is going to let you know when he emails on Monday - but now you already know :)

Dec. 23, 2013

Dear Family,

Can't wait to talk to you tomorrow! It feels like yesterday when I was talking on the phone to you from the airport! Time is going by! 

Ok, so a couple of things, I got one package, but not the other. I think it just had a little sticker attached to the top in clear, transparency tape that said New Jersey Morristown Mission. It didn't look like it was mailed. I'm actually not sure if that was your package.

Secondly, dad last week I asked what you wanted me to do about the international charger thing. I looked at the packaging that amazon sent it in and it said 2 replacement batteries...non elph 110 hs New. That is clearly not what I got though. What do I do?

Third, I have a package I want to send for Christmas, but I will have to use money off of my debit card, is that ok?

Fourth! I love you all so much!

Love

Elder Showalter

Dec, 18, 2013

Dec. 18, 2013

Dear Family!

Well I have been super busy this week! Sorry for not being able to email, we have had and will have a major activity everyday this week. Ok so first, guess who went to Manhattan? I did! I saw Times Square, The Empire State Building, Central Park, the big tree outside of the Rockefeller Center, and all of this crazy, busy, glowing madness on the way to the Temple. Crazy cool right? Right. We sang Christmas Carols in a subway station, and it was legit, there are a ton of pictures (relatively speaking) of the sweet stuff I saw yesterday. 

I was happy to hear from you all again! Dad your letter was really good this week! I'm a fan of the small things and brief looks into everyone's lives! Keep it up! I hope work keeps going well (or starts, whatever the case may be this time of year!)  and you, and the rest of the family, are lifted during this Christmas season.

Brooke(and baby=)). I love you so much!!!!!!! You are the best! I love your letters and they always make me so happy! And yes I expect to have those pictures on my desk by New Years! I cant wait to see the harbingers of my little nephew! 

Christian, nice Portuguese hombre, keep that up and one day you will you can be like me! =) Thanks for writing! Finish up this semester strong! I can't wait to hear about Christmas break and how all your tests went! (and yours too Brookie) Study hard, work hard, your the best!

Mom. I absolutely love your letters. I can literally feel your love seeping out of your emails! You are the best and I love you. Yes I did get your letter and it was awesome! Ok and two things I think we will be skyping with the Burts @ their place and I never got those batteries, Amazon sent me two international chargers, I'm not complaining, because they look expensive and I need them, or at least one. So I actually don't know what to do about that.

Thanks for telling me what you did about Filipino. Although sometimes generalities like that don't always ring true I can see what people are saying.

 I do need rubber overshoes. One of my sets of shoes has really taken a beating. Thermals would be good to but I will be ok for several more weeks. I have gotten used to the cold and I actually really enjoy it. I asked Sister Jeppson where to buy overshoes today and she told me to go to Walmart, but I won't be able to get back there until at least Monday. If you could or already have sent them that would be great. 

We really are not teaching much at all. What we need are solid, interested people, and in all honesty better communication with those we have already contacted.

The companionship has me more upset than even last week, but it's not like its unbearable. I feel bad though because I feel like my trainer just wants to go home. At the same time I don't know how critical I am being. For all I know I just have incredibly high expectations, in fact that is highly likely, but until I have something to compare this companionship with I will have no idea how effective it really is. I do know however, something has to change simply because I DO see so many issues. I also find that it is difficult to act the way I want to and know I should because I feel from my companions like they think I am not doing something right! But they won't tell me what it is. It is super frustrating. 

The branch is small, and well I don't really know how to explain it besides saying it is different. There are very normal members and they do try to feed us. There aren't an army of them though so we do eat a lot at home.   

I do language study alone, and I need to improve there. If there was something I would want prayers for it would be that. I really want to get all my studies in every day, but even out here on a mission there are excuses for why they didn't happen this day or why they can't happen for tomorrow, but they are just that, excuses.

The apartment is sufficient, and comparatively nice I'm sure. I am sending home pictures of it and so you will be able to see it soon.

I will skype for an hour on Christmas at the Burt's! Can't wait. 

I'm sending a package but don't open it until Christmas. 

I love you all and wish you my best

Elder Showalter

Singing in Sacrament Meeting

On Sunday December 15, Elder Showalter sang Away in a Manger in Sacrament Mtg w/Sis Burt and President Grant (the Branch President-  He was singing a solo as the picture was taken which is why McKay and Sis Burt aren't singing).  Brother Burt stepped out of the chapel to take the picture.  The Burt's (a senior missionary couple in Elder Showalter's area) have been amazing at sending us emails, pictures and videos to share more of  our dear missionary with us!!  We are so grateful to them!