Peter had Two Companions...

Hey Mom and Family,                              8-15-12

I’m sure you'll do just fine in Africa.  It should be good.  This week was good.  I’m feeling like our zone is really starting to get that fire that they need to have success.  These past couple of weeks has been tough for them due to a lack of baptizing, but now there are quite a bit of areas that'll baptize.  We've been trying to help excite them and make them all work together, increasing their faith.  And this week it looks like they have some people that'll get baptized.  Today we played soccer and it was super tiring.  It was a good zone activity. 

So last Friday we got a new companion and we were working in three until now.  This kid lives in our mission and was just helping us out.  He served in the north part of brazil but had to go back home to do a surgery and now he's trying to go back to his mission by serving with us to see if he can make it through another year and a half there.  But it looks like he just can't.  His leg is just hurting way too much, so he's going home today.  It's pretty sad.  These past couple of days that he was with us, we really got a good friendship going.  It's interesting though.  It makes me think of him and our president and other people that didn’t have an opportunity to serve a complete mission.  I guess that God just accepts our maximum.  For example, President Tanner was totally wanting to serve for the 3 years but God wanted something else from him, and so he lowered his health down a little bit, so that it was needed for him to go back home.  Anyways, we were bumbed a little bit. 

Remember Doriedson that almost got baptized?  We stopped by last Saturday to give a present that we got him (which was just a shirt and a tie) and then marked to stop by his house the next day to go to church together.  However the next Sunday we stopped by and he came to the door holding the present we gave him.  And he said that he “doesn’t wear this types of clothes", meaning church clothes.  Later we were talking with him.  He received an answer about the Book of Mormon and he knows that the church is true, but he just doesn’t want to get baptized.  We told him that because of these answers that he's getting he needs to act, but he says that he's waiting for God to give him a bigger answer that he could accept.  He's pretty prideful in that sense.  He deserves “just the best". 

Anyways, a way that we as missionaries give incentive and a desire to read the book of Mormon and to truly search out an answer is to promise blessings.  Our president had us think about why other churches have so many members and so many tithe payers when they don't even have authority.  He said that it’s because the pastors just promise a ton of blessings to their congregations.  Us as members of the church and especially as missionaries have that authority and that right to promise the blessings from God.  Because as the scriptures says by the mouths of my servants or by my own mouth it is the same.  Neat huh?  So with the non-members that you are working with, promise them a lot of blessings and show how it has changed your own life together with the life of our family. 

Yeah so Lucimar is marked to get baptized this Saturday, so pray that everything will work out.  Her son has been really sick so she hasn’t been able to see us too much.  Anyways, love you!

Elder Williams

A Late Letter To Dad...

Hey dad!               8-8-12

Thanks for the email.  It's cool to hear what’s going on at home.  Don’t worry though; it doesn’t make me too trunky.  I feel like there's a light to the end of this mission.  I’m almost done.  It's making me nervous; I really want to be able to work my hardest these ending months so that later I can feel like God has accepted my mission and my service.  These past couple of weeks I feel like I have really been doing just that.  There are days when I just feel exhausted.  It's cool to see that during the day I don't feel the tiredness, but as soon as I get back home I can barely keep my eyes open. 

Last Monday we had a zone leader meeting with the new president.  I think it was a very successful meeting.  One of my old companions was there Elder Smith.  The president opened up the meeting to more of a discussion as to the problems on the mission.  We're having a huge problem with disobedience, and Elder Smith just called out a ton of people saying that nobody wants to be companions with him because of how obedient he is.  It made even a lot of zone leaders look embarrassed and ashamed.  It was legit.  I think that it made a lot of zone leaders become more obedient and helped them open up their vision to the mission and its importance.  This next Friday we're going to have a district/zone meeting and I’m thinking on showing a general conference talk about pride.  There are a lot of problems going on in the zone with people thinking that they're better than someone else, and gossips and stuff.  It was that in 2010 by president Uchtdorf. 

Anyways, things are going good here; I hope you don't die in Kill-a-man-jaro.  Love you dad!

Elder Williams

Pinky Peter...

Hey Mom,             8-8-2012

Thanks for the email!  This week was way good again.  We are working very hard and we're feeling super happy about our progress.  I think the most eventful thing that happened was our meeting we had last Monday with the president.  He is way good and I think he will turn the whole mission around.  Lately there has been a lot of disobedience and a huge amount of gossiping about other missionaries and things like that, and the President it completely stopping it all.  It's great.  It'll help the mission focus once again on the more important things. 

Last Thursday we also had an activity that was way cool.  Me and Elder Duffy had a pancake night.  Brazilians here don’t eat breakfast really, and their pancakes here are more like tortillas so we had to make it for them and it worked out.  We found a recipe to do it all from scratch and made the syrup from hand as well.  Everyone loved it.  We’re now planning a French Toast night for next week and we're publicizing it more so we're hoping that more investigators go. 

I think that Elder Ballads talk was legit.  You should totally find it and send it to me.  I'm pretty excited to see the results of dad's climb.  I guess we'll see if he makes it.  I bought new shoes the other day.  They're super nice and they were pretty cheap.  I needed them to.  My last shoes had a hole on the bottom where I walk, so there was a ton of dirt and stuff coming in.  These would be my fourth pair of shoes this mission.  But don't worry I didn’t buy those construction boots again.  They're just pretty ugly and I don't think I’m going to need to walk a whole lot on my mission. 

Hey so I was thinking of what you can say to people that want to know more about the church, and there’s something that might be of help in Preach my Gospel.  (By the way, my president said that PMG could even be counted as a standard work because of how much revelation was put into it).  Anyways in chapter 8 the last point about accountability could help.  It's helped me at least.  An activity that I've used to help teach accountability to my zone once was when I passed around a ton of little papers and had everyone write their reasons as to why they weren’t baptizing (or in this case, getting a job or doing schooling and stuff) on a piece of paper and they all passed it back to me, then slowly I would rip up their excuses and throw them in the trash.  Then I would help them understand that if they weren’t having success, it was their own fault and not anyone else’s fault.  It was pretty effective.

Anyway, I hope you have a fun trip in Africa and at Annie’s and stuff.  Love you!

Elder Williams

Peter and Companion did this to "Gain a Members Trust"...long story.

Is Peter a Natural Optimist?

Hey Mom and Fam!                        8-1-12

So this week was great!  Unfortunately that guy Doriedson didn't get baptized this last week either.  But we haven’t lost our faith at all, if anything I can feel that it's growing every day.  This last week we've been having a ton of help more with our zone than with our area.  We've been noticing that the moral has been falling a little bit so we've been praying a lot to know what to say and what kind of doctrines we should have, and it's been really helping, and I can feel an excitement from everybody.  There's just one group that's problematic, but it's alright.

 I'm really trying my best to baptize.  Half of the transfer's almost over, but I still believe that the Lord will bless us with 10 baptisms for this transfer.  There's this missionary that’s in the worst area of the whole mission.  It's just unbelievably difficult there.  It used to be a part of my old zone, and so I've been there once already for a division.  It's way tough.  Anyways, he's there and he's just baptizing a ton.  It's unbelievable how much success he's having.  And i think that this is going to really help the mission a lot.  He's proving that hard areas don't exist.  That it's just the missionary and how he works.   

My companion Elder Duffy has been sick these past couple of weeks and Monday we needed to stay at home so that he could get better.  But now he's feeling better, and we're ready to work our hardest.  Pray for us both so that we can baptize and be an example for our zone. 

As far as schooling goes, I was kind of talking with dad about my plans.  I would like to go and do a semester for just the summer term, and then just be on the fall/winter program.  I want to go on the boat trip for sure!  Kinsley's looking legit!  I’m glad it all worked out well.  Tell Marc and Brit congrats.  Dad's done worse as far as biking goes right (100 miler this weekend)?  I think he might make it...  Anyway, I hope everything is going good over there.  I love you!

Elder Williams

P.S. The president lets us do our school stuff the last 6 months of our mission.  If I were to go to the spring term the boat trip would need to be before the 24th of April

Hey Dad!                8-3-12

Thanks for the email.  I think you're in Africa now, but it's cool. I think it's funny that that guy dropped his medal.  As far as schooling goes, I’m for sure going to want to go back to BYU Provo.  I’m not too sure about which semester though.  I'd prefer the fall/winter semester, and I think it'd probably be a good idea to go and do a quick semester in summer so that my GPA can go back up... sorry about the lack of pre-school effort with school.  I wasn't the smartest of people.  I’m definitely going to want to work, but I’m not sure if I’m going to want to work a little bit in Oregon until school, and then get a job in Utah, or not work in Oregon and just start working with schooling in Utah or what.  I guess it depends on if I go to summer semester or not.  What do you recommend?  These past weeks have been some of my most enjoyable and productive times on my mission.  I’m not baptizing anyone yet, but I have faith that God will bless us with success.  But I do feel that I have been growing spiritually and in responsibility.  I think the difference was the rise in responsibility that happened, because before when I was a zl, I was being trained to be a ZL, but now I’m doing the training, and I’m helping the whole zone with their excitement level, and unity.  It's something that I feel is really helping me grow and learn how to be a leader not just in the church but in any kind of job that I’m going to want.  Anyways, I hope that everything’s going good over there.  Love you man!

Elder Williams

PS. Kinsley looks cute, congrats to Marc and Brit!

Include Doriedson in Your Prayers...

Hey Mom and Family,                                        7-25-12

So this last week was a great week.  My new companion is super excited to work and to do what the Lord is wanting of us.  This last week we made a ton of new goals and we decided to try out a ton of new stuff that's never been done before.  We also made a goal to increase our faith and power levels.  It's an interesting thing that the more we use the priesthood the more our authority and power that God gives us.  We have goals to baptize many, many people, but the only way to do that is by working miracles here.  I am firmly convinced in the truth that faith without works is dead.  The problem here is that many missionaries are doing the works, they just lack the faith.  I think that that's been a good part of my problem during my mission until now. 

Last week many miracles happened here, our actions were the same, the only difference was our faith.  We started a program called 'Trial of Faith', where we put our faith in God that He will do something that we ask if we do our part.  Last Saturday for example we went to an English class at 10 in the morning.  Nobody showed up so we did some extra planning for our day.  While we were planning we decided to do a Trial of Faith, where we told God that we would wait outside the church and do contacts with everybody walking outside, and we asked Him to show us someone that could be baptized the following day.  10 minutes later we invited a guy to come and take a tour of the church.  He accepted and we went inside, gave him a tour and then brought him to the baptismal font.  We invited him to get baptized and he accepted but wanted to wait.  We taught him the 1st lesson and gave him the Book of Mormon and we marked a lesson for later that day.  Later that day we taught him again the 3rd lesson, the gospel of Jesus Christ and we pushed baptism a ton.  He accepted to go to church the next day and to have a baptismal interview afterwards.  Anyways, everything went great, he went to church, and he had his interview, and passed his interview.  The bishop got mad at us because we told him that we were going to baptize him that day, and our interviewer said that he didn’t accept that day for baptism.  What really happened is that the interviewer didn't speak right, what he meant to say was that he couldn’t get baptized at the marked time that we had planned, but that he probably could have been baptized later that day.  However, we didn’t know this until we had already gone back home at night.  We just thought that he had just straight-up refused to baptize on Sunday, but really he had just refused to baptize at that time that we had marked.  Anyways, I almost beat my record of how long to baptize from 8 days to 1 day.  Anyways, I suppose it's for the better because now the bishop still likes us, and it'll give us some more time to integrate him.  His name is Doriedson, you guys should pray for him.  We're going to take him to the temple tonight and try and finalize a little bit.  We also did another one the next day that God will show us at least 1 person that could get baptized in two more weeks.  The next 20 minutes we invited everyone on the street to be baptized and 5 of them accepted to get baptized.  It's really getting us excited for the work.  The only problem now is that my companion's getting sick, so we have to stop and take a lot more breaks than usual. 

Anyways, everything’s going good.  I hope you guys have a good trip to Africa.  I know you'll be fine mom.  Love you all! 

Elder Williams

Peter was Transferred and is ZL again!

Hey Mom and Family,                 7-17-12

Thanks for the email!  So this week was a crazy last week.  I got transferred yesterday and was put as a zone leader again.  I’m in Progresso now.  It's an area that I’ve practically already passed through.  Remember when I was in Ponte and lived in 4?  It's the area that's attached to Progresso, so imp back in the same house that I had lived in 7 months back serving in an area right above where I served last time.  It's gonna be cool, because I think im gonna have an opportunity to see some people that I baptized there in Ponte.  The bad thing is that I left my greenie there in the ghetto with another elder to finish his training.  Last week was tough cuz Luiz Felipe fell through on the very last day.  He had never been to church but wanted to baptize on the 15th.  So we had settled with him that he could baptize if went to church.  He didn’t go to church.  We stopped by there 3 times on Sunday, once at 8 (when we called) at 8:50, and at 10:20.  Church was starting at 9 and sacrament meeting at 11.  At the last time my companion had found him there at home, and said he'd go.  So he went back inside to 'change clothes', 45 minutes later he still hadn’t showed up so my comp just left.  We had to stop by there later to tell him that he couldn’t get baptized.  It was the weirdest thing.  It was the first time I had to do that, usually I’m the one trying to tell them why they should get baptized.  Anyways, my zone leader burnt me that night, and it made me mad cuz he didn't have any authority to do that.  He said that if it were his area he would've baptized him, even though there's a rule saying that they need to go to church first, and he doesn’t have the keys to say when someone’s ready in my area.  I’m gonna miss my area though.  Even though I didn't baptize we had some really good youth in the ward that imp gonna miss, I want to ask the president to go back there and spend my last transfer there.  Anyways, I don't know how or why they put me as a zone leader again.  I didn’t baptize anyone.  It'll be cool to get the new president though.  Today we went to the temple again.  It was great.  While we were waiting for the bus that went from the temple to the city we started talking to this 83 year old guy that was leaving the temple as well.  He was a funny guy that was making fun of black people.  He really liked me I guess cuz he gave me his watch that he was wearing.  It's a pretty nice analog one too that glows in the dark.  I didn’t even ask for it, he asked me if I have a watch and I said no, so he gave it to me.  Cool huh?  Blessings of being a missionary I guess.  My new companion's great.  He's pretty funny and was laughing the whole time the guy was talking to us.  His names Elder Duffy, and he's from Seattle.  This is going to be a great transfer!  Pray for us that we can baptize!  Love you!

Elder Williams

Hey Dad and Family,     7-17-12

Thanks for the email, im getting impressed with your Portuguese, if I didn’t know any better I'd say you put it into Google translator, but I’d like to think it's from you Portuguese studies.  As far as the German goes, it's going good but these past 3 days I’ve had to stop due to all the stuff I’ve had to do.  Unfortunately as ZL you have a lot more time killing responsibilities like calling and fallowing up our missionaries.  I have a feeling it's going to be hard to study with another companionship living with us.  But my premonition was correct, I totally got transferred.  So in answer to your question, usually the standard is that the investigator has to watch 2 sacrament meetings.  And as soon as they stop smoking/drinking they can get baptized. They don't need to pay tithing till after their baptism as well.  They need to have a baptismal interview as well.  The quickest I've seen is a baptism in 2 days of finding someone.  But this person had already gone to church in the past, but had just stopped after a while.  My quickest would have been last week which would've been 7 days, but he fell through.  My current record is 8 days.  This was that week that we went to Minas Gerais, so technically less days, because we were in another state for 4 days, but the Lord did his part there and per day it was 8.  Last transfer I feel like I really learned patience.  My companion was great but he was just a very weird guy.  He likes cats and to crochet if that gives you an idea.  But I also feel like I learned how to love, and I think it's prepared me for this transfer and that it will help me in my leadership needs.  So I don't really know my president at all.  I shook his hand on Tuesday and that's about it.  But I'm pretty sure that I'm gonna have an opportunity to get to know him this transfer.  So things are going good here imp pretty excited to work.  Pray for us to baptize!  We're hoping to baptize a girl named Lene.  Ask everyone to pray for her to receive her answer about the book of Mormon and baptism.  She says that she believes that the church is true but she just can’t make the connection between that and baptizing in it.  She’s a member’s wife.  Anyway, I hope things are going good over and up there.  How’s the fish that you and mom caught?  Anyways, love you dad! 

Elder Williams

PS.  Nice pictures Dad! I'm totally going to slide down Shasta, you'll just have to carry me up; I’ll lose some weight I promise.

(Another letter to Dad from Peter this week...)

Hey dad,     7-12-12

So I promised I'd write you something big so here it is.  I heard you had a crazy Shasta climb.  And that you couldn't even talk or function.  I can honestly say that I have never been that tired, not even on the mission.  You’re crazy man.  So this past week was way good, we're hoping for a baptism this Sunday.  It's truly a blessing that just came out of nowhere.  We also had to fight for one of the areas that I take care of.  They also had a baptism that came out of nowhere but their ward didn’t support it, neither did the baptisms inactive girlfriend.  To be more exact they were actively against it, trying to do all that they could to keep this 15yr old kid from getting baptized.  It's interesting to see who and how Satan tries to prevent things from happening. 

Anyways, they ended up calling the President to go down and talk to the whole ward to tell them that they don't have authority or keys to say when they should and when they shouldn't baptize.  Anyways, the baptism happened, and no one from their ward watched it.  The bishop was there but he just stayed in his office and didn't even come out to watch or support the kid.  It’s pretty prideful in my opinion.  There's still quite a bit of apostasy going on around here that we're trying to do away with.

 I got the German books the other day.  It's legit!  I actually understand a lot easier than I thought I would.  It's pretty close to English, and I suppose our trip to Germany is helping me remember a little bit of the pronunciation.  But I suppose I’m trying to just take advantage of the gift of tongues that I have, while I have it.  Anyways, these past couple of days I’ve been thinking about how I may want to get into marketing.  I'd imagine that speaking English, German and Portuguese would help quite a bit.  I would like to get into some kind of business that works through other countries like Brazil.  And Brazil has a big German influence in the south so it'd be a good third language I think.  But this is all my past thinking for whenever I have time.  These past weeks have been a little bit easier due to us being sick, and having to move a lot slower.  It's strange how much energy gets drained from you while you're sick.  You go to bed weak and wake up weak.  But now I’m a lot better, nothing of mine got stolen either which was a great blessing.  Well I hope you had a great 4th of July, I sure did!  Love you dad!

Elder Williams