Monday November 25, 2013

So we are teaching this 87 year old man. I have no idea what he is saying most of the time. I feel like sometimes he doesn't speak portuguese, but It's getting better where I can understand more.Anyways he has 23 kids. Yeah, he has had 4 wives I think. But he's a pretty interesting guy. He says he fought in the war against germany but we aren't really sure because sometimes he isn't all there when we talk to him. But he's a super nice guy and he's really cool to talk with but he is definitely difficult to teach. But we have a couple really cool people that we are teaching right nowand the work is going good. The last 3 days have been super rough because lunch was a 2 hour walk away. Then we have to walk back to our area and it is hot here. Like it's summer hot now. But it's nice because I have time to think and kind of relax and practice. I'm trying to memorize hymns in portuguese and right now I have I think only 5 memorized and just the first verse. But it's cool because it's starting get to the point where I don't remember the words in english any more and only in portuguese. (Oh I forgot to tell you but tasha got switched spanish speaking last week and Brennan is in an english area now) But portuguese is coming along really well.

According to everyone here I have a massive american accent because I cannot physically roll my r's but i'll get there ventually. But something super cool is I had the opportunity to give a wife of a member a blessing this week and it was really cool. It honestly felt just like a blessing in english. Exact same thing just no words in english. It was a very nice confidence booster this week. Oh this lady that I'm talking about, she isn't a member but her husband is in the stake presidency (i think) and she cooks amazing! And she says she doesn't like to cook but everytime we are there she is cooking for us or making something in the kitchen.She made us this juice and it smelled really weird like mint (oh from scratch) with pineapple and I was like okay i'll try it....AMAZING! My companion and I were shocked and then she said after she spilt alittle bit."It's a sin to throw this away.." And then something to the effect that the only other juice this good

 will be in heaven. It was so good ,I had like 6 cups.

We are going though some christmas withdrawls here. We can't remember the words to all the classic christmas songs so if you could send me the words I would sincerely appreciate it.But everything here is good. I'm missing american food a lot because we have beans, rice and chicken every single day here but I cook griled cheese hamburgers and corn on p-day. But we walk so much that i'm loosing weight and I'm still working out pretty well in the mornings.My companion and I get along awesome. i'm going to be really sad when he leaves but I'm so excited for him because he's going home. We have a zone conference tomorrow so I might get some letters tomorrow. Hopefully. Might just have to wait until the transfer. But things are awesome here, I'm with a great group of missionaries and working hard. Somedays are hard but the other days are worth it. Sorry I'm just super happy becuase we were singing christmas songs this morning. Anyways I love you all and Hope that you all are doing well and that you are reading the scriptures daily and praying daily because that is where the strenght is. The small and simple things in life are what cause the big things to come to pass.

Love, Elder Simonsen

Jardim Carapina

 The one of me above the view is our old area in Jardim Carapina. This area was really poor but I loved that area.



This is his current location and companion (from Logan Utah) 

Yay for pictures!!!!!! 

Monday November 18, 2013

Okay so I'm a bit later today because we got here and they didn't haveany computers open so I had to wait but I'm finally on. Anyways, this week not to much has really happened. We worked hard this week and tried to find a bunch of new people to teach and we did. We have a couple of families that we can teach now. We did a lot of walking this week, so I'm super tired but today is p-day so I can rest. My companion only has 29 days left in his mission and he is going crazy he is so excited and so nervous to go home. But the funny thing is it's so hot here that when he goes home to Utah, he is going to freeze. But he'll probably be fine.

Portuguese is coming along really well, I can speak it almost the entire day but then I miss english and slip back into it. I'm getting pretty far in the book of mormon. I'm in alma 42 now and it is still so cool reading in a different language. It's starting to feel more comfortable then reading in english sometimes. Thank you for all the pictures, I really appreciate them and I should be able to send a few today because we recieved some from the mission and my companion is sending me some. So you all should be able to see them.

So my big focus this week has been the Holy Ghost. I feel like I focus on that all the time but it's so important because without the Holy Ghost you cant do anything. This isn't our work but the Lords work and through the Holy Ghost you will know what to do. So the first experience this week was during lunch when I gave the thought.I had the thought to share something I had read from Jesus the Christ (pg. 511 if you want to go look) that talks about the two greatest commandments and its when Elder Talmage is explaining how if we love the Lord that we will keep all of His commandments. The spirit was so incredibly strong and was like a wave rushing over me.For me it was like a conformation of what I knewand how important that is. Literally obedience will bring the Spirit into your life more than anything else. Then I had the opportunity to later that day recieve inpiration that we weregoing to teach a lady about the restoration and how exactly we weregoing to do it. And it was cool because right afterI recieved it my companion looked at me and basically said do you have an idea what we should do? Then the next day while I was bearing my testimony about the book of mormon the spirit was overwhelming again. And I literally recieved the words that I needed because I spoke clearly and fluently in portuguese. Following that yesterday we were visiting a woman and we decided to show her some mormonmessages and I had the prompting toshow her the oneabout marriage and divorce. I thought that's weird why would I do that? Turns out that's something huge in her life because she is on her second marriage and such. SO all in all the Spirit is huge in our lives and will guide us and help us as long as we are obedient.

So that's the little sermon for this week.I hope all is well and look forward to hearing from you all next week and how things are going. Happy Thanksgiving! (I think it's this week...)

Love Elder Simonsen

Zona Serra (Zone Conference) 

  The bottom picture is Elder Simonsen's current location. They are going in the church to perform a baptism.

Monday, November 11, 2013

So falo isso. Oração que é guiado pelo Espríto Santo é muito legal. Amazing. and marvelous.

Okay So I have 31 emails this week.......... :) but I'll focus on yall because you all are home. SO funny thing is I talk more southern now then before. Idk why but not speaking english as much it just happened. So I honestly don't remember much of this last week. SO much has happened and it's getting harder to keep the weeks straight. Haha guess I'm super tired. But I'm healthy so don't worry :) An Elder in our district isn't though he had to leave our fhe we had last night. I love visiting this family. The 3 kids all about mine and courtney's age were baptized in july and the 14 year old too but the parents arent because they arent married yet and the mom actually said yesterday that they were trying to get married in feburaury because it cost a lot of money (300 reals) and it takes a while to get the certificate here but that's awesome for them. BUt we watched mormon messages with them and it was cool because the dad who usually doesn't have much interest when we stopped and finished the prayer asked " we arent going to watch more?" And we were like well if you want to you can but we have to leave because we have to be home at 9....and then they pulled out the birthday cake for my companion. 2 cakes!!!!!! They were amazing and then one of their friends that we baptized took the left over of the cake (he is 16) and shoved it in my companions face! He was covered in cake! It was a lot of fun. 

SO yesterday we were talking with this one catholic family and this other thing happened. It was just the parents They are about in their 50's and we were trying to expalin how we baptize and we got in this big arguement about the proper way to baptize right. So we pull out the bible and say Jesus was immersed by John because he had the authority to baptize and the lady was like, no that's not right. John spalshed water on jesus's face and he was baptized that way....my jaw like hit the ground. She said that's what it says in the bible. My companion and I were just sitting there for a little bit and so after that (because we had already tried to explain that the whole different translastions of the bible and that's why the book of mormon is here) we pretty much left. Like we closed really well but we just were shocked. We thought it was kinda funny she thought that because the bible she uses doesn't say that. But just a funny story to share.

We had our primary activity yesterday as well and it was actually really funny because it's just the primary. You get the kids that sing as loud as they can for the solos and then the other kids that try to eat the microphone and it was all in all a really cool experience. Then this little, little kid said the closing prayer, but the problem was no one knew it was the prayer because no one could hear him. So we all sat there for a minute after the prayer and the primary preident was like "should we repeat the prayer?" The bishop was um no lets go eat. But that's awesome talon did so good.

As for conference ensign it's all good, I'm getting a portuguese one so just keep it for you guys there. You don't need to send it but yes I still need the usb cord. Not that i can use it at this lan house but I will want it later. If you could send some candy that would be cool....like bottle caps or something like tootsie rolls. But other than that I don't need anything.

Love Elder Simonsen.

So falo isso. Oração que é guiado pelo Espríto Santo é muito legal. Amazing. and marvelous.

I will speak only this. Prayer that is guided by the Holy Spirit is very cool. 
( We had to google translate to figure it out.. Brooklyn did it) 

Monday November 4th, 2013

Okay so your letter is really long :p but I'll print the parts you sent me and read them. I got the p. blessings on thursday and the line of authority. Thank you (We had to get online to send something to our zone leaders so I only looked at those three emails, nothing else) But I really appreciate you sending them to me and don't worry about printing them, i try not to print here because the pages are bigger and stick out of my binder and drives me crazy but I print what I think is important. This week we have transfers so if I got a package I will know tomorrow but letters get here really fast so those are fine to send and if you send packages just put pictures of jesus on them and i think they get here better. If it doesn't really matter i'll have more pictures of jesus ;) I just see that everyone else has them on their packages. The cold is gone and I didn't get a blessing for it because I got one like the day before for another sickeness and because I already know that that is one of my trials for my mission. Só vai. But I will be staying in this area for this transfer and I'm actually excited about that because we still have a lot of work to do. We have some really cool investators and some realy cool people we are talking with. This one girl, her boyfriend is huge, like every one of her brothers are jacked and then her boyfriend, is definitely a descendant of a lamanite. He's tall and just huge.  It's just super funny because one time we went to see if she was there and her boyfriend answered and said she wasnt and so we are walking away and I turned to my companion and said " That guy is huge" and he was like I  was thinking the exact same thing. They are so fun to visit and they give us cake and drinks every time we visit. The people here really know how to take care of their guests.

Our area of town we are in, in my opinion is a really nice par o town. Like I said before we have a store that's basically like the grocery section of walmart. It's huge compared to the store we shopped in our last area. It's a really nice area. We are in the town of Serra, I think north of Vitoria. Our last area was really poor comparatively but the people were still just as awesome. And we have this huge awesome mountian next to us that looks like it could be in lord of the rings. so cool. Our washing machine is fine but we have to air dry all of our clothes so things are a litle bigger than normal because they stretch while up there but it's all good. I finished Jesus the Christ this week, so that was really cool. I want to read it again but I think I'll focus more on finishing the book of mormon in portuguese now. I'm on like Alma 20 or something.

Don't worry about my food. The lord takes care of us and we have a ton of members here that said if we are hungry just to stop by and they will give us stuff. They actually don't have peanut butter here that i've seen and jelly is expensive but i don't need that, there is other stuff to eat. Like grilled cheese and hot dogs and hamburgers and I have cereal and oatmeal and apples and tons of stuff. We have ice cream once a week. It's all good. and we have hot water. The houses that the missionaries stay in are always taken really good care of. There is a standard for the houses before we can live there and our president takes really good care of us. It's funny because I can understand really well now so a challege I have is remembering to speak portuguese. Because sometimes I forget and start speaking a little english or throw english words in the sentance. But all is well and things are good. I'm keeping my companion for another transfer and then he goes home. So he's having a fun time realizing that. I appreciate the letters and the emails and everything you all do for me. I'm going to try and send a letter for your birthday this week but we aren't to sure when we will be around the post office again (its way out of our area but we try to find time to go if we need so send a letter) so if it's not there before your birthday it will be like right after. Love you all so much and miss you tons. 

Love Elder Simonsen

ps. Did courtney apply for colleges yet? How is Mrs. Jens class and how is her senior year? if she answered in her letter never mind but I'm just curious. And that's fine about Eric. I got an email from David this week so I'm excited to read it. Thanks for the pictures :)