April 28, 14

Family, 

Happy Birthday!!!!! I thought and prayed for you a lot on your birthday. Today we plan to go to the post office to send your package. I went to send it last week but the post office was closed due to the holiday. I have been praying a lot for you guys this week. I know that God has a plan. 

I was transferred too. I was transferred to an other area in Rio Verde. I am in a branch called Popular. It is a pretty cool  branch and we never fault lunch. My companion will be the first American companion. His name is Elder Haskell. He is pretty cool and I can tell that we will get a lot of work done. Yesterday President Kuceki visited the branch and gave a talk that was really good. He talked about how Rio Verde is really close to turn into a stake. He gave a calling to every member to be a `supervisor of the missionaries` He said that he wants all the members to tell their friends that they have this new calling and they need to see how the missionaries teach. So they invite people to hear the lessons so that they can supervise us. haha It is a good way to find people to teach. He also talked about the importance of the Sabbath day and giving support to all of our leaders. It was a really good talk!

We had a baptism this Saturday. It was a good one. I also had to stop a baptism from happening. haha A family had a son that was turning 8 so they had a baptism for him. They called us and said that they need us to help them out in the chapel. We went over there and they wanted us to be the witnesses. I asked them if the branch president knew about the baptism. She said no. I told her that her son needs to be interviewed by him before he can be baptized. She was confused because her husband has the priesthood to baptize. I had to explain to her that he has the priesthood, but not the keys. But we called the branch president and he came over, gave an interview, and her son was baptized this weekend with our baptism. 

I hope you know that I am keeping all the rules! Both you and Dad said something about keeping the rules. haha 

I hope your Birthday was super good and I am excited for you to get your package. It is really cool! Thank you again for everything that you have done for me. I am so grateful to have such good parents. Especially a good mom! 

I love you all and I look forward to our skype call in a few weeks. I am sure that it will come up here pretty soon. 

Love, 

Elder Wild 

April 21, 2014

Family and Friends, 

I am really happy to read your emails! Its good to hear the Easter is really special there! Hahaha our Easter was interesting. People in Brazil like the holidays, but sometimes they forget why they have the holiday. But we have seen many miracles this week! 

We found this family and the dad had a drinking problem. He was drunk nearly 24/7! All the neighbors want/wanted to kill him, (not literally but kind of) We went their and he was drunk, but we still gave a message. He started crying saying that he wants a change. We gave a priesthood blessing on him. It was pretty neat! The next day we returned and we taught the word of wisdom and made sure that he did not have any drink left. Since then he has been sober and wants to be baptized. He brought a picture of a temple for him to look at when he is tempted. He hung it up on the wall and it illuminates their room! It was pretty neat, the other day their neighbors called us over to talk with them. They said that we were crazy to help them and that there is nothing we can do to help them. She just went on and on and on about how we are wasting our time with them. I got the prompting to give a short message with them. We started to teach about the power of the Atonement. She got really quiet. Then I told her that God loves our investigator (her neighbor) just as much as any other person in this world. Then I told her that we have the authority to change his life. It was pretty awesome! But please pray for him! His name is Luiz Carlos! 

My companion is doing really good! He can teach pretty good and its fun being with him. But we got a call the other day that he is being transferred to another area on wed. We will just have to see where I will go or if I will stay here. Either way I know that our Mission President receives revelation on where we need to go and who we need to be with. 

This week I studied a lot about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Church that he established here on the earth. It was pretty cool. I realized that if people understand the Atonement, they will do anything to accept this gift. If they understand the Atonement they will, read, go to church to show their love for God and the sacrifice of Christ, they will progress, and they will plead to be baptized. The more I study, the more I realize how real this Church is and that this really is THE Church of Jesus Christ. 

I almost sent a package for you this week, but I didn't want to send just a simple card, so I have been putting a few things together to make a cool present! But I am sorry that it wont get to you on time for your birthday, but for sure by Mothers Day! Did Jenna get her card yet? I hope so. 

Wow I couldn't believe the temple of Meridian!! Super Beautiful!! 

Hope you have a wonderful week! Thank you for your thoughts and prayers! I am so grateful to have a family so awesome and supportive! Of course I am and will pray for you all always! 

Love, 

Elder Wild

photo: This is what I woke up to. hahaha a river in the street. It rains pretty hard here. But I think that the rain season is almost done. 

April 14, 2014

That's pretty awesome to hear the good things about the new ward. Its good to hear that you guys are having a good time. And you will be able to see the temple be constructed in Meridian!

 My area is Rio Verde. It is a city in the state of Goias. I think there are about 16 missionaries here in the city. We are serving in the Bandeirante area. It is pretty good. I thought that we only needed 8 more priesthood but I think we need 30 more priesthood and a attendance of 100 in the Branch. This last week there were almost 50. Normally there are 80 but I think a lot of people were out of town.

The baptism of that one woman Marta didn't happen yet. She is a seamstress and is really busy. She sewes underwear for a fair that happens every week. She gets paid about $0.50 for every piece. But they turn around and sell them for $17. A bit unjust?  So she was always working and didn't have time to meet with the missionaries. The city cut her water because she didn't have money to pay the water. She worked a lot so that they wouldn't cut the power too because if they do that, she wont have power to work.I hope that she will be baptized here pretty soon.

There was another person that will be baptized shortly too in Caldas Novas. We were walking down the street and Elder Srur talked to this man smoking something. He was very smiley and very happy. (identified what he was smoking) We asked if he had time to hear a lesson. He invited us in and we started talking and sharing a lesson. His sister just returned from the US and asked where I was from. I said Colorado. She said that she wants to live there because a certain drug was legalized there.:( I wanted to leave right then, but we finished the lesson. He went to church by himself that week and we marked a baptism date for him the last week I was in Caldas. Elder Srur got him to stop smoking, and he will be baptized in a few weeks or maybe next week. It is amazing that this gospel really is for everyone and every type of person. 

But we had a baptism in our area the other day. Her name is Luzia. She is 30 years old and has 3 little kids. It was fun to prepare her for her baptism. The branch helped a lot. Now we are focusing on finding families to teach. When we are talking to people in the street, we ask them if they have a family. They normally say yes. Then we ask them how long they have been married? Then they say a few years. Then we ask them if it was a big party in a church or just in the court house. Then the majority of them say they just live together. It is hard to find people that actually are married legally. But the Lord is always putting someone in our path.

When ever we find people that are actually married, we get supper happy! At times over excited! haha This week I got an email from Elder Cavalcante in Iprianga and a family that we taught got married this week, then were baptized! I was pretty excited to hear that!

This week we had a zone conference and it was really good. I learned a lot. It was fun to apply the things that we learned in or teaching. I felt that we improved a lot. They had a lot of cool demonstrations. 

I will pray for Dad to get more work. I hope everything is going well there. It sounds like you guys are having fun!

Have an awesome week! I am always praying for you!!
Love, 

Elder Wild

These are the photos of the people we taught in Jan. and Elder Calvacante got them married and baptized in the last week of his mission!

April 7, 2014

Family!, 

This week was pretty good. My last days in Caldas were good. It was sad to leave, but I was excited to move on to a new area. We went to Goiania and the next day we had a mini transfer meeting and now I am training a missionary in a city called Rio Verde. It is an agriculture town. It is pretty neat! The drive hear was really pretty. There were just fields and fields of sugar cane. I think I was transfered because another missionary went home, so they had to move some things around. My new campanion is Elder Rosa. He is from Rio Grande do Sul. (A state in Brazil) It is pretty fun. We are also living in the same house as another set of missionaries so that is pretty fun. One is from Indiana. I made him that birthday cake that you sent. It was pretty good. 

I also recieved many cards and packages when I went to Goiania. Thank you all very much for sending them! 

Nana and Papa: I really liked your cards and the Life is Good shirt! Thank you very much! Kim and Cris: Thank you for the card and the photos of the air balloon! 

Mom: Thank you for the many cards and the Christmas cards to give out. they will be a good present to give to investigators here in 8 months. 

Conference was really good! We watched the first part of the first session in spanish. Suprisingly I was able to understand a good part of it. Then they figured out how to switch it into portuguese. A little after that an Elder that entered into the MTC the same time as me, but in Provo was super confused. He recieved his visa a few days ago. Serving in Salt Lake for nearly 9 months he did not have a good vocab to listen to conference in portuguese, so the branch president here set up english in another room. All the Americans in our zone watched it in English. And we ate the skittles that Nana sent. It was nice to hear their voices and to snack on a good American treat. 

But I really liked Robert D. Hales and Russell M. Nelson on being obedient and where we are putting our faith. They were really good. I am excited too to read them and study them. 

This week we have a baptism so we will be working hard for everything to work out. It will be a really good week. I am really following the Spirit to a tee so that she will be baptized. This area is pretty key. We just need to baptize 8 more men in our area for this branch to be complete and ready for this District to be made a Stake. This gives incentive to not loose one minute of working. 

But I am glad that everything is going well in Idaho. If things bad come up, just think of President Uchdor´s talk. 

Thank you again for all the packages and for all your support. 

I love you All! 

Elder Wild