Monday October 28, 2013

Yeah so I didn't get your letter last week but getting two this week was really nice. And I really appreciated it this week. Idk why but it was really good to read it. This week has been really good but I'm really glad dad went and said something to kiara's coach. I've been wondering how she as been doing in school and soccer. I'm glad they moved her to a new team. I hope that she gets more playing time and as for that coach....I'm a missionary and I can't share my opinion ;) Thats cool brook is so close to getting her permit, It will be scary when she gets to start driving but It will be a really good thing too. Just remember, no matter how bad she drives or courtney, I promise, promise that they don't drive as bad as brazilians. I don't ever want to get into cars here...it's so scary. Who needs speed limits here or stop signs? They don't do anything and the motorcyclists...do what ever they want all the time. But its fun and all the more interesting. I've been so close to a bus one time it basically scraped my back pack...but all is good. As for coutrney that's awesome about going to regions, just tell her to remember that even though your spending the night, keep your routine because you will be more tired the next day then you normally are because you stayed in a hotel. But I know she will run great. Just don't forget to pray before the race. That's hilarious about talon and emmy. They are so fun. It's weird not having little kids around all the time and when they are here it's impossible to understand them.

Yes I still need the chord, not that I can do anything with it in this area because the usb ports dont work here /: but I'll need it eventually. I haven't got your package yet but It will come, just takes time. Oh and everyones packages here have pictures of jesus on the cover, Idk if that makes a difference but it's just funny for me to think about. I got grandma's letter and linely's as well. Letters come really quick but everything bigger comes later. We got letters this last week because Elder Gavarret was here ( a seventy) and we had a big meeting in vítoria with the three zones closest to us. It was a super cool and spiritual experience but so they have wooden benches in the chapel and I thought I was going to die. We sat there from 8 until about 12:30...I cannot sit still through one hour of sacrament on these benches! But It was really cool and I understood almst every word except for when president talked...He has an accent because he is from fortelaza but I always get the message at least. I need to practice talking more in portuguese because I have a really hard time with the tenses because they have six where as we have 3 (past present and future) but I had the opportunity to teach and english class saturday and it was really hard to speak about the gospel in english. For example, I forgot the name of the church in english...yeah didn't see that coming. It was really funny though.

Okay so yesterday another funny story. This is about hot sauce called pimenta. So we are at a members house for lunch, the usually rice, beans, and the unusual really amazing meat coca-cola and dessert. So they pull out this hot-sauce the grandpa makes and one of the other americans (a texan) takes some he's like I love hot sauce. SO I'm like me too! I'd love to try some. So he dips a knife in a dropps the juice on my rice and I'm thinking that's it? So I ask him for that 4 more times.....and then take a bite after stirring...it was the hottest hot sauce I have ever had in my entire life!!! I was already sick( yeah I've been sick pretty much this whole week, runny nose, terrible cough, but it's all good I can still proselyte) my nose was running like crazy, I was crying but it tasted so good. So I ate it ALL. They thought I was suffering and were sincerely concercerned but it was the best hot suace ever. It was so funny. And the grandpa said before I leave to go home (because I kept telling them I loved it) he would make one and give it to me :D Anways that's my story for this week. Everything is good the people are awesome and I'm doing ggreat. I love you all so much and pray for you every night and day. Sorry If I didn't answer your questions but I took forever writing this. So ask them again next week. Always talk to everyone about the gospel because the spirit will be there whether or not you feel it or they feel it but the spirit will be there.

Yeah the area is really nice and thank you for sending grandpa's blessing to me. There is just a big focus among the missionaries about our blessings and I was curious about his. I have 20 new emails today but I don't usually read them all and about 5 are probably for the mission. But I'm doing really good. I'm glad you all are recieving blessings because If I'm honest I don't see how I could need more here. I have been so blessed with the language, investigators and other things.

Love Elder Simonsen

Monday October 21, 2013 ~ New Area

Alright so new week, new area and tons of new problems. So first off we basically had no p-day last week. We get to the house and p-day is over. Then we don't know any of the members and it was just not fun. The sister's that we switched with left the area book that was better then most but basically told us nothing. So the next day we get completely lost looking for lunch and walk around for another extra hour trying to find it but we eventually do. Oh and I got sick right after I emailed you so we moved on a day that I was sick. But know onto the fun stuff. I love our new house, it's way smaller but it is so pretty. I'll send you a picture when I get the chord or maybe next week if I have time. But so the first thing about our new area is that it's huge and its hilly. Like those sink holes we have near goldhead state park. People live on hills steeper than those. Oh and I realized that I had been living in a super poor part before because the day we got here we went to the supermarket to get grocieries. We went to like a supermarket like walmart....it is so amazingly nice. Like I was just shocked. I had forgotten they exsisted. It's in a mall like area and its just super nice. We all felt so weird being there because we were used to the super poor area. But like anyways these hills are ridiculous.they are like little moutains.I would be scared to go down these on a bike...they are just intense. Then our area is huge, it takes like an hour to walk to our furthest neighborhood.So much walking. My companion said he has never walked this much in any of his other areas.But I like it, It's nice to just walk and think. Its a little harder though because we can't teach as much but itsokay.

The first miracle this week was my camera. So it literally was a miracle.If you remeber it was broken and not matter what I did I could not fix it. So the  second I walk in the camera shop to ask the lady to look at it and fix it. I pull it out and it's perfectly fine. like it had never been broken. My face was pricelss. I was so happy and just couldn't believe it.It would have been so much money to fix it and it was fixed itself. Crazy. Then the next day we had interviews with the president and the first couple days in this new area  I felt Like I had been knocked back a day once again, portuguese was diffiuclt. I was just struggling. But After the meeting with the president everything started picking up again.And he said we could go to the baptisms of the people who had been our investigators in our last area. I have pictures but I can't send them yet. That was so cool and so fun to be at. Then that night we ran into the bishop at like randomly at a house we were just going to visit and he took us and showed us the area and where members live and it was just really good for us. Then the next day or friday I had splits with the zone leaders so I got to spend the day with one of them in his area. It was a little difficult at first because it had been almosta week since we had taught a real lesson but by lunch I was getting the hang of things again.

So then eventually we go visit this one guy who wants to get baptized but his mom wont let him and his family is evengelical and his sister shows up and basically spends 25 mins lecturing us and wont let us talk. She keeps going on about how we are wrong and all this stuff about not adding to the bible and such and my companion (the zone leader) in the first five minutes tried to bear his testimony and just did it while she was talking and then took to silience. It was an impressive learning expereince. I learned alot from him that day. But since then things have been good.The food is good and the work is good. I love being out here and I love this people. I still have a lot to learn though. I hope all is well at home and that you all have had a good week.

Love Elder Simonsen

Monday October 14th, 2013

Okay so a ton has happened this week. but one thing i want is pictures, if when you send me a letter if you could send another little picture of each person I would appreciate it. And that's awesome with talon and soccer. He's going to do great!!!

Okay so this week so much has happened and it's a little hard to focus today because but I will try to remember the rest of the week. I'll start with why I can't focus. SO last night we had splits in our district (i think that's the english word but i'm not sure and my companion was district leader so I went with the other elder in our district who is a brazilian) any ways it was really good and I can communicate in portuguese but I need help with conjugations a lot because they have 6 tenses compared to our 3...but anyways we met up again at a members house after the splits and my companion walks in (remember he's district leader. oh and the family whose house we were at is awesome, their daughter is leaving in like 2 weeks to serve in england portuguese speaking, yeah not sure how that works but they are an amazing family) and says (clearly frustrated) we are being transfered to another area tomorrow(today) as an emergency transfer. We don't know why and I don't think we will ever know why but we had two baptisms scheduled this week, we have been working wih 2 less active families, we finally had a service activity that I was super excited for because the guy is really cool (the father of a member but he isn't a member) and we were going to help paint their house. (oh btw generally here some houses or most that we visit are like the size of our living room and my room and maybe talons room. thats their house. other houses have like 3 rooms, one house was as big as my room) and we had an investigator that was doing really well with the word of wisdom (relapsed the other day though because it was a holiday) ad even kicked out her boyfriend so she could live the law of chastity. So many awesome things going on in our area anddddd we get transfered. Oh well, the sisters are getting our area and they will definitely enjoy our success and I'm not too devestated but it is a little sad. BUt right now I'm just excited to see this new area.

Okay so the holiday that happened on saturday is called Dia das Crianchas or day of kids. BAsically the kids have this holiday but at night all the parents drink and party. SPeaking of parties on firday they had this really big, like really big concert in our area and I was so glad that we couldn't go near it. We could however go to the vendors near and get some food. I had this thing called a pasties and it was amazing it had a kind of sausage in it with cheese and other things and then we drank I think its this, the juice of a sugar cane that had been pressed. Anyways it was really good. Oh and yesterday at a members house we had this desert...It was amazing!!! I ate so much at that meal and then she pulled out this desert and It was like, I can't even describe it. It was choclate and was like melted ice cream and just amazing. One of the other american missionaries and I ate so much that we were pretty much sick after wards. Like he was laying on the ground and didn't want to move. 

Anyways the mission is amazing and yes it is still dificult. Sometimes i feel like I'm standing on the other side of a glass window watching because most of the time I understand but I can't think fast enough to participate as much as I want to. Or the one time I get asked a question I don't understand what they are saying. But it's all good and it will all come. As for my package I won't know until november when we have transfer meetings. We get letters from our zone leaders but everything else only comes at transfer meetings every six weeks.  Don't worry about money, I have a lot. I transfered my 200 to brazilian money and it basically is doubled in brazil and I have like 200 left. If I get my camera fixed I'll have less but everyone keeps telling me to just buy a new one but Idk what i'll do yet. I'd rather get it fixed because I really like this camera. So not sure yet. But I want to send pictures but The camera won't even turn on because the lense is stuck halfway out so it just glitches. So we'll see what I'll do.That's sweet about brook making the soccer team and courtny's race. They are both doing really good. And kiara should hurry and beat brook on her persoal progress. Where is he applying for jobs?

Oh speaking of which I remembered today one of the missionaries gave me his picture thing, the one of the soldier that has the red, white and blue angle wings with the scripture, super excited to have that. For free too. But don't worry about me I have like 3 times the amount of stuff other missionaries have. That's cool about the bishopric and about you getting braces, what color do you have. And don't feel bad most people here have braces as adults because they are expensive.

Love you all so much and miss you tons!!! Keep doing the things your supposed to!

Love Elder SImonsen

ps. I bought this awesome tiger blanket because it has been so cold with the rain, your going to laugh when you see it and btw, I do not like little dogs, so many people have them here and they are so annoying. I'm talking like little chiawa dogs or however you spell it. Oh and you should read jesus the christ. It gets really good after chapter 20.

Oh yeah and I'm getting fat, Like we eat so much...everyone gives us food. I weigh almost 74 kilograms. Idk how much that is in pounds but just wanted to give you a laugh.

Elder Simonsen

Monday October 7, 2013

Conference was interesting, we were late to all the sessions except the last one on sunday. But I loved conference, it was really good, in portuguese. Priesthood was really good and sunday morning. The others i got as much as I could from them and i got quite a bit but its completely different in another language. i'm glad my letters came and the reason they came so quick is becuae the smaller the package the faster they come. The larger it is it takes way longer.idk why. but as for mail and packages here in the field i get them every six weeks. the president just wants them sent to the mission home becuase it's easier to distribute them at transfer meetings and through the zone leaders then having them get sent to the wrong house and trying to figure that out. But i'm super happy you got the letters, and I will write more eventually but i don't have as much time in the field as I did at the mtc. I get the liahona monthly so don't worry about a subscription but I hope to eventually get conference in english. This last session, not april, i already have april.

The area is really cool and the members are really awesome. We get feed us a ton here.  They have really big lunches in brazil and they don't really have dinner but we get feed so much we don't need dinner. I got some hot dogs from the store last week and for like 3 bucks i got like 40 hot dogs or something so that was really cool. As for rain it rained like 2 times since i've been here but after the first session of conference saturday we dedcided to try and go get a investigator to come with us to conference and it was right after the talk about tithing and the heavens being opened and us recieving blessings...I can testify the heavens were opened and we got soaked. Like we had small rivers running down the streets and the wind was crazy. I looked like I jumped in a pool. and i was that wet. MY scriptures got wet too :( My leather case protected my triplice alright but I didn't zip it up and I din't zip up my bible and the leather binding protected most of the stuff but the center of the books got soaked. SO yesterday they were drying ally day and saturday night. They are okay they just don't look as nice anymore. And my preach my gospel got a little deystroyed last week because I left in in my backpack one day and I sweated through the layering and the outside cover got deystoryed but everything else was fine. BUt don't worry all is well. RUning through the rain was so much fun and a once in alife time expereince. Got soaked by a bus too, it went right through a puddle but I was soaked anyway. I met an elder our zone leader and him and I get along really well. He's a convert but him and I talk about the spirit so much and we are like best friends. Also we were talking about patriarichal blessings, there has been a bit of a focus on it this week with us idk why but they are really cool and I enourage you to go study yours. The only thing here that makes me sick is riding the bus, or driving in a car. We all thought we were going to die yesterday riding in a members car to lunch. The roads arent smooth and people floor it and slam on the brakes. I get so sick. Food wise I've had rice and beans for every meal for about ever now and it's not bad, I like it, I just can't wait to have humburgers. The meals are really good though and there is always ome kind of juice with our meals. The members are awesome and the land is beautiful we are in a valley of sorts and thesurroudning areas are mountians covered in trees and stuff. It's so beautiful. We are going to try and get my camera fixed today so hopefully I can send you pictures eventually.

Thank you for the quotes, I didn't get most of those or even hear those so I really appreciate it.

I love you all and miss you so much. I'm learning so much about myself and the gospel and the spirit. The spirit i the best companion you can ever have and it's so important to have the spirit with you. Remember obedience brings blessings but exact obedience brings miracles.

Love Elder Simonsen