The Lord Protects Those in His Employ

Hey family!                                                                                    4-4-12

"Petra's" looking cute (the new name for Lily)!  Good work on the baby annie! 

These past weeks were good.  We had another BBQ gathering today.  We tried to get some sun tanning in as well, but it was really hot so we just left early to go use the internet (P-Day). 

 Conference was so good!  I learned so much.  I loved Elder Holland's talk about Christ's Parable of the workers.  It's really true about how some people envy and get jealous about the blessings that they don't get.  There are so many people here in the mission that are just like that.  They aren't looking to do their duty as missionaries, they're here to get power over OTHER missionaries.  There's a lot more politics that happen in the mission than I thought there were.  That's why I'm liking my new companion so much more than my last one.  He's just here to serve. There's a totally different spirit in the work now.  We're here to baptize for the glory of God and not necessarily here to be made the "assistant" or the next zone leader!  Im loving the mission, but a lot of missionaries make it into something that it isn't and shouldn't be.  It's kind of sad if I think about it. 

 The mission just baptised 3 people this week.  It was an all time low on the mission.  Needless to say, the President wasn't too happy about it.  Last monday we had a miracle.  We had a meeting at the presidents house where we talk about the mission and things like that; it went fine.  Afterwards we drank some more açaí drink and waited for our bus to come.  After a while our bus came by, it was super packed, but we didn't want to wait anymore so we got on it anyway.  After a few minutes, for whatever reason, we decided that we just didn't want to stand up all the way back to our area, we felt prompted to get off.  So we got off and waited for the next bus.  Ten minutes later the next bus passed by and we got on.  About 20 minutes later and close to our area, we looked out our side window and saw that same bus that we had initially got on and had been prompted to get off,  was laying in the ditch with an ambulance carrying bodies off, and frantic people standing around.  I'm pretty sure that if we stayed on that bus we probably would have died.  We were feeling pretty blessed.  Later when we got home and I started studying for a training that I would have to do the next day.  I just happened to opened up the scriptures ironically straight to D&C 25:2, which talked about how if we're faithful and virtuous the Lord will protect our life... it was a good one.  It's so cool to see how much the Lord protects his elders.  It's a big testimony builder that Christ is the master that can really do anything, it's only through Him and for Him that we should work and baptize.  Anyways I love you all!
Elder Williams

Peter Got his Package...Your Prayers are Working!

Hey Mom and family!                                                                                    3-28-12

This week was great!  My new companion's great.  He's super chill and funny.  We've been working on following the spirit to know where we should go and work.  It's been going quite well and we found a good amount of people to throw into our teaching pool.  There's one 18-yr old kid that looks sweet.  He's super nice and receptive but he's Cathololic.  The one thing I’ve noticed is that everybody that’s a practicing catholic is always trying to develop Christlike attributes.  Everybody else from the "Evangelic" Faction are super snobby and annoying, and think that everyone else is wrong.

Cassan ‘s  idea about me going to BYU Hawaii is great!  I'd really love it, I think that's revelation!  I'd probably get nothing done again, because of the many water temptations, but I’d love it!  Then again, I hear that they have giant sharks in Hawaii, so maybe I’ll just stick with Utah.

 I got my package!  I’m loving the many cereals, etc!  It's great because my companion doesn’t like cereal, so it’s ALL mine!  The chips opened on the traveling, but they're still good stale.  Today we had another BBQ.  This time I prepared the meat and it turned out super good.  I think I want to learn how to cook, I love making food that tastes good.  Our wards getting a lot better too.  Nobody's making those stupid comments about not liking missionaries anymore.  Actually we're starting to get some divisions down and our lunches aren’t falling through as much.  Some less-actives are coming back to church as well.  It's a good feeling to reactivate people, it's very similar to a baptism.  I’m stoked for conference!  I recommend reading King Benjamins talk in Mosiah to prepare (there’s a lot to learn about conference preparation there along with this month’s Liahona). 

Well unfortunately I’m not gonna be able to write a whole lot, there were quite a bit of people that wrote today and I don't have too much time to write.  I need to catch a bus.  (The bus's are lame here in my area BTW, they never come!)  Anyways, I love you all! 

Elder Williams

PS, Good luck and congrats on the new baby Annie!

Peter Sent Pictures...and More To Come!!

Hey Family!                                                                                                                      3-20-12

Yesterday we had transfers again, but this time I stayed and my companion went away to a place called Hortolândia.  This time I got another American companion, Elder Smith.  He's pretty cool.  He was my district leader about 5 months ago, so I already knew him.  I’m pretty excited to stay here in Cosmópolis.  It's a tough area, but I’m thinking of some ideas to start in this transfer, that we didn’t do in the last one that should help out the ward here.  It's about the size of talent with some more inhabitants (everything's more spread out in the states).  Anyways, there's a ton of members here, if they were all active, we could have two wards !  Elder Anderson said that out of 40,000 people that were baptized in Brazil, less than a thousand stay active. 

Anyways, Elder Smith is from Texas and looks like he's gonna be a fun companion.  He's been teaching me on another principle as to obedience.  I've always thought that we have the mission rules to protect us physically, spiritually, and to keep us from thinking about home.  Which is true, but he was talking about how it helps us become disciplined for further responsibilities from the Lord down the road and how it plays a part of our journey towards perfection.  Cool huh?  It's something to be put into practice at home, such as TV or video games on Sundays and whatnot.  How we should follow the spirit of the law and not the letter of the law. 

Last week we found a guy that wants to be baptized this Sunday.  He already went to church and has already picked who he wants to baptize him (he was a member reference).  The only problem is that he smokes a bit and is trying to stop.  Pray for him. His name is Paulo. 

That problem I have in my throat is only bothersome when I’m walking, and it's pretty easy to alleviate.  It looks like the weather's getting pretty cold.  I’m sweating all the time still, but it's not as bad as it was.  I think winter's starting.  So here in brazil they have a ton of music that I’ve never heard of until coming here.  They have something called “funk”... It sucks sooo bad!  It's basically the same beat and then they throw in random sounds and noises, and there's some Brazilian that raps in a very non-tonic voice.  (Then there's the music genre “Forro”,  and that's pretty alright, it's got some dance feelings behind it and whatnot.)  There was a guy here that is VERY popular and (he has one of the most played songs) so they made some of his songs into different languages (there's even a version of that song in sign language, which is pretty dumb huh?).  I don’t like it, because it sounds bad.  It gets even stupider in English.  I really hope it doesn’t make it to the States. 

The mission's going so fast right now!  This past 6 weeks did not even feel likelong!  It feels like I just got here in my area.  I already know that these last 10 months will fly!  So I gotta make every minute count.  As far as writing in my journal goes... it's about as good as Omni and his sons...  I'm trying to get better at that.  Anyways, not a whole lot happened this last week.  I did a division with some guy that's ending his mission.  He went 1 out of 17 transfers as senior, and is gonna be ending his mission as junior.  He just doesn’t work!  With me he was fine (I guess I just have that intimidating effect), but I keep hearing stories from his past companions, and they aren’t good.  Anyways, I love you guys!

Love,  Elder Williams

Hey Pahoran, (AKA Dad)  Thanks for the email!                                  3-20-12

It sucks to hear that you got sick (Flu for 4 days), one thing I can truly enjoy is my lack of being sick on the mission, if I ever get sick I just keep going and it usually just clears up the next day.  There was only one time I had to stay home during the mission.  I ate a pepper that made me throw up and gave me the squirts with a fever.  Every other time, I've just got up from my sick bed and gone on.  It felt sort of like God was testing me.  Apparently I passed a mile marker, because it's been a long while since I’ve gotten very sick. 

My companion got transferred last week and I received another American one.  I've always gotten along better with the Americans, so I’m pretty excited!  Not that I don’t like the natives, it's just that there’s always that language barrier.  So a lot of their jokes are different than ours.

 I'm throwing in some pictures of “Minas Gerais” when I went there (Will be posted to blog later). Right when we got off the bus, there was some guy that polished our shoes for free.  He was a little bit crazy.  He ate a little bit of the polish to prove to us that it's toxic free.  And we were wearing some broken Oakleys ... Ahh, it was a good division. 

We're gonna be able to watch conference in our area, and I’m hoping it's going to be in English with my companion.  It should be on the same days, although because of the time different time zones it's going to be offered at various hours.  We always try our best to bring investigators to watch so that they can hear the prophet’s voice.  I’m pretty excited to watch it this next week.  Anyways, I love you dad!

Elder Williams 

Too much shredding going on!

Peter approached this guy off the street and he agreed to be baptized!

Two Letters to Read!

Hey Mom and Family!                                             3-14-12 

So this week was alright.  We didn't baptize anyone which is always disheartening.  Especially when we were trying so hard to find someone.  We've had some pretty good experiences where we just talk with someone and he gets baptized without doubting.  Some weeks back, we were sitting on the curb resting, when a guy walked by on the other side of the street and I felt something good about him.  We used a technique that we learned in this transfer, where we just whistle and call him over (using the idea of Christ sitting on the beach and calling peter).  Anyways, he heard the call and walked to us, while we were still sitting.  When he got to us we stood up and introduced ourselves.  We invited him to be baptized the next week and he accepted (this was a Saturday).  So the next day we went and picked him up at his house to go to church.  Then we went to the area of Minas Gerais for 5 days.  If 5 days goes by without someone following up on someone, it almost always goes bad, Satan tempts them really thoroughly and it's impossible to baptize him.  But we went there and he was excited for baptism, we taught him and that Sunday he was baptized.  It was cool to see the Lord help us out so much.  Anyway, we we're hoping for something close to that for this last week.  It's tough when it doesn’t work out.  Being Zone Leader is fun, but hard.  We're in our area about 3-4 days out of the week, so it's hard to develop relationships with people in this area.  So these past couple of days I’ve been thinking about the future and I’ve written some ideas for the book I’m gonna write after the mission.  I really want to put in some Brazilian culture and whatnot.  They’ve got a ton of awesome fruits here.  I’m gonna send some fruit packets to you guys, but do you guys want anything in particular from brazil?  I’m at a blank for what else I can send.  My health is fine, since I got sick about 6 months ago I’ve always had a big thing in my throat that I can’t cough out, but it's not a big deal.  The companion's fine, he likes to talk, I’ve realized how quite I am this transfer, it's ok though, it helps a lot with the work.  Anyways, I love you all!

 Elder Williams

Hey Dad!                                                                3-14-12

Thanks for the email!  It was good to hear from you.  I'll do what I can to write a little bit more like Mormon, but you gotta force yourself write to me a little bit more often too k?  Let's see, let’s start with last PDay.  We played soccer again, and we were exhausted for the next week.  We played in the burning sun and I got a hardcore burn on my neck, which made it hurt every time my shirt was on.  They have an awesome fruit here called açaí.  It's freaking addicting.  I ate a liter of it the other day, they serve it like ice cream, but it's just it's frozen juice that you can put in other fruits, chocolates, milks and other stuff.  Anyways, the area I’m in is basically flat with a slight incline which makes  it alright to walk.  It's a lot better that my last area in that aspect.  But the members here are lame.  Our ward mission leader keeps calling us to complain about how we're never there.  We keep telling him that if he wants, we'll tell the president and they can have sisters working full time.  However, he gets mad and says no (he knows that sisters are terrible), he doesn’t know what he wants I guess.  Anyways, he's pretty mad at us, cuz he thinks we don't work.  We do, but we're just never in our area.  One thing I’m learning is that as zone leader, you need to be way more efficient in your area when you’re there.  So what your average elder does in a week, we do in 3-4 days.  The Lord blesses us with help, and follows up on the investigators when we can’t.  And then there’s your average sister, which 4 days out the week, they have a "doctor’s appointment".  They're learning quickly here: within one week of a sister arriving,  she’s already called for her first doctor’s appointment.  Of course you have better ones and worse ones, but this is usual for them here.  We have two sisters here in our zone, so they're always calling about how they can’t leave because they're sick.  My companion gave them a health blessing because they had 'pain in their body', saying that they won’t have a problem if they just left their house to work.  The next day she called saying they were sick again.  But it's cool, it's their choice that they're here.  My companion's cool, he's that Argentinean guy.  He's got a terrible accent, so everyone thinks he's got a lot less time here on the mission.  So anyways, I still gotta write mom and Cassandra, but I hope that was a good start.  Today we got some districts together and we're gonna have a huge BBQ.  Love you dad.

Elder Williams

PS, I can’t send pictures yet.  I haven’t found a good enough connection.

Your Prayers Are Working!!

Hey Mom and Family!                                                                                     3-7-12

This week was great!  Our mission got 41 baptisms this WEEK, which is about half of what we had for the whole last MONTH!  If we keep this up, this will be a new record for the mission with about 230 baptisms this month! WOOHOO!

Also, Can you send me some socks?  My socks have had holes in them for half a year or so…something cheap…the ones with the gold tips on the end hold up well.   I hope Annie and Chris can get James health issues all completed so he’s ready for his new little sister, Lily!  I've been trying to send my Christmas package for the past days, but it's hard to find time to do it...I am SOO flipping busy!.  Do you guys want anything from Brazil?  Hey can you send me a list of the family’s birthdays?

 The mission is going really good.  I’m sending you a special standard’s list from this week.  We get it when we complete various mission standards.  My photo’s up there with my companion and 3 other areas from our zone; I've never seen that before on this mission!!  (At the very bottom there’s some numbers and colors with the very last one being our zone.)  Anyways, I love you all!

Elder Williams

Pray for our Zone!

Hey mom (and Family)!  Thanks for the email.                                 2-19-12

IT's crazy, Ashlee and Garrett are having a baby... that was fast!  Cool for them!  These days have been alright.  This week was the end of the month for baptisms and it was pretty low in the zone, but this new month's gonna be good.  We came in halfway through last month.  Anyways, I hope that everything goes well.  There is one thing that you all need to pray for and that is that this zone gets excited and unified so that we can work happily.  The mission's great; It's super tough and I’m learning a ton.

It's cool that Chris Elliott is going on a mission.  Oh, I have a letter for Nick (at Skillmans)  that I wrote in December.  I just haven’t gotten around to sending it yet.  Tell him from me, that he needs to do everything he can to get himself on a mission!  Nothing beats it!  Tell him that I'll keep good care of his video games for him. (Haha)! 

Sooo, last Monday we had a leadership meeting with the whole mission, and we figured out one of the reasons why the Lord sent two apostles here to our mission.  When they got here they told the President that he was looking really unhealthy.  They told the Prophet and the prophet said that President Tanner should only serve a two year mission.  So this July he's getting sent back home and we're getting a new president.  It's pretty sad; he was saying that he needed to spend time with his family and what not.  I’m concerned that his health may be such that he is terminal.  In regards to the package, I love cereal.  You don't need to send salsa and chips, or jerky, just cereal.  Anyways, I love you All!

Elder WIlliams

Keep Praying for Peter...

Hey mom and family!                                                                     2-21-12

This week was even more tiring than last week.  We went to another state called Minas Gerais and here we're doing a ton of divisions.  The Elders here are all great!  They seem to have great work ethic, the only problem is that some of them aren't too excited and are losing hope, because the area here is very difficult.  I hope it helped that we got here.  We found 6 people that accepted baptisms in each area and so now we'll check out the results.  We've been sleeping with a group these past three days, so I’m pretty excited to get back home and sleep in my own bed.  Being a ZL is tough but it's truly helping me develop my talents and it's helping me to love others.  These past days we've had something called "Carnaval".  It's made it crazy here though these past couple days; it's the biggest summer holiday.  Here it's pretty tame, just lots of music, beer, nearly naked dancing woman (and a good many of them are actually naked, but all painted up), and just two deaths.  But I hear it's terrible in other cities, so I guess I’m just counting my blessings.  In our ward here a guy moved back with his wife.  He was the 1st councilor in some temple in the south.  He's one of the humblest, spiritually strongest guys I’ve ever met.  Anyways, he gave a talk last Sunday and it was like I was watching general conference.  He talked about the importance of reverence, and being saints, and not just members.  He talked about one of his "secrets" that he learned in the temple.  He talked about speaking slowly but with power, like in prayers and talks, and at other sacred times.  He says that many people say prayers but don't feel prayers, and the spirit stays a long time after everyone says amen.  Anyways, I love you guys!  

Elder Williams

Hey Dad and family,                                                             2-21-12

Thanks for the Email!  It's true, the world is getting pretty bad, but I’m pretty sure that the really hard stuff won't hit until I get back from my mission.  That's why it is so essential that we all keep doing missionary work after the mission.  Every now and again I see a member that just appears out of nowhere to add a miracle into the missionary work (as it should be), but unfortunately there's just so few of them.  Anyways, it's like my patriarchal blessing says, that there's going to be a lot of hard times coming up, and that the hard times will come after my mission.  It talks very little about my mission actually, compared to some other patriarchal blessings that I’ve seen from other missionaries.  Anyways, the work here is tough, a lot of traveling and very little sleep, but I bet you remember how it is, dad.  Also, here on the mission, you have no idea how proud I am to say that my dad served a mission as well; it's something that helped me keep serving diligently in the beginning.    It's cool to hear the news.  Keep up the prayers; it's something essential, not just for me but for you guys as well. 

Love you dad!  Elder Williams