Feliz Natal

Merry Merry Christmas to All!

 

I miss you all so much! But I am not sad that I am here! Last night for dinner we had what was probably the saddest attempt at tacos that I had ever seen! But I enjoyed them, it is definitely a Christmas Eve dinner that I will never forget! Last night all of the Elders in my district wrapped up our pjs in paper towels and opened them! It was hilarious! And I got lots of pictures, don't worry! Thanks for getting all of those letters and presents! They are awesome!

 

Even though this has been the hardest Christmas that I have ever had, it has been very special! Now more than ever I have a testimony of Christ. I am so grateful that God loved us enough to send his Son. And Christ gave us the best gift, His life. I have come to learn for myself, that Christ knows us personally and He suffered for us personally. When He was suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane  for a brief moment He thought of me. He experienced the pain of having to say goodbye to the people that I love most knowing that I wouldn't see them for two years. He suffered through the incredibly difficult first couple of weeks here in the MTC. All of my pain, all of my sorrow and all of my trials. He knows. He loves me, and I love Him.

 

I have been blessed with the most wonderful family in the world! God loves me so much that He sent me to you! And the least that I can do to show my gratitude and appreciation is to come here and feed His sheep. I will try my best, I want to live up to your expectations and I want to live up to the expectations that the Lord has for me. You mean the world to me! I know that here in Brazil, I will find a family that loves eachother as much as I love you and I want them to know that they can be together forever. Just like us.

 

I love you so much!

 

Elder Stringer

Bom Dia!!!

Hello hello hello!!

I can't believe it is already P-day! This week flew by! Which is a very good thing, here in the MTC the days are long but the weeks are short. The coolest thing happened during sacrament meeting on Sunday! The Sao Paulo soccer team was playing Chelsea in Japan and it was this huge game. You can always tell when there is a big game because people start setting off fireworks at about 6 in the morning! So we were sitting in sacrament when all of sudden the whole city started cheering and screaming! We were inside and I still couldn't here the speaker it was so loud, and then the fireworks started going off! SO Many!! The window that I was sitting next to was shaking! I felt like i was in the middle of a battle with all of the screaming and fireworks, it was insane! People were all out on their balconies waving flags and making noise! It was so cool! I love how excited Brazilians get about soccer (futebol)!

I got my haircut the other day. The haircuts are free so the quality isn't super good, but the barber is a really nice funny old guy. He wasn't real big on keeping his equipment sanitized. He would scratch his face with his comb while he was cutting my hair! But he loves to sing hymns really loud and operatic like, so he kind of reminded me of grandpa! Also tell Mason and John that Thurl Bailey's cousin is one of the security guards here! HAHA!

The weather has been overcast for like the past 4 days and it is wonderful! It rained all day Saturday too! Things keep pluggin along here!

Last night we were in class and I was getting tired I started dozing off. Our instructor speaks to us in Portuguese which I can usually basically get the gist of what she is saying. But I was dozing off and not paying much attention, thinking about how I wish I could speak Portuguese better when all of a sudden I could understand the instructor perfectly! It was a miracle until I realized that she just started speaking English mid sentence. It was a long day. Fun stuff though, our district has started taking time out of the day, usually an hour or two where we speak only Portuguese and it is amazing that we can actually still communicate and converse with each other. The Lord is really pouring out his blessings! Of course I know that once I get into the field it will seem like an entirely different language!

When is/was the family Christmas party? How'd it go? Did you go to the skating rink? I can't hardly even comprehend cold weather right now! Snow is the most foreign thing to me right now. But Christmas will be awesome! Elder Allen and I are in an Elder's choir and we are going to sing some songs for the Christmas program that they have planned here! I will also be able to send an email on Christmas  I sent a letter but I don't think it will reach you until closer to January probably.

Our roommates have completed their 3 weeks and are out of here. I am surprised at how much I miss them! We could hardly understand each other but it was sad to see them go, we loved to hang out at night and stuff! About 80 missionaries left this week! It is crazy we are now down to about 120, and there aren't many coming in this week and none will come in next week. It's pretty nice though because I don't have to wait for a shower in the morning!

I miss you all so much and am so happy when i get to hear from you! I think that I will share a brief testimony in Portuguese:

Eu sei que familias podem eterna! Eu sei que Jesus Cristo vive, e Ele nos ama muito! Eu sei que trabalhar missionario e muito importante e eu amo estando um missionario! Deus é nosso Pai Celestial e Ele quer nos a estamos feliz!

Love you guys so much!

Elder Stringer

Well Hello There

It is so great to hear from y'all! Things get better everyday here! I am getting used to the schedule and even the food a little bit. This week has been considerably hotter than last week was! I am basically constantly sweating! The AC is very inconsistent and works only about 30% of the time! It is inconsistent but you can always count on the AC for one thing: It keeps the Sabbath Day Holy. The AC never works on Sunday! Which is the day that we have to wear our suits to all meetings! I love hearing from everyone, I'm bummed that I can only talk to you on Tuesdays but once I get out into the field, I can mail letters to mission ties any day I want! Speaking of which, the cookies at Mr. Cheney's are like a little bit of Heaven! It sounds like you all have a fun holiday season ahead of you! Lots of family stuff! Good luck! I can honestly say that I have never been as excited to open Christmas presents as I am this year!

Lately we've been seeing lots of bugs around here, but they are all dead. And huge! Mostly roaches! It reminds me of Men in Black! The food does grow on you, except that I am losing weight! Haha, I eat enough though I never go hungry! I will never again talk bad about the portions that mom served back at home! My small stomach is a blessing! I am not losing much weight.  I will probably only be 10 lbs lighter once I am done here. It also helps that in order to get to our room we have to traverse 90 steps on what I like to call "the great staircase" in my best Gollum voice! Elder Austin Allen and I are getting along really well. We have quite a bit in common, my only problems with him are: he's never seen Signs and he doesn't like Duck Dynasty! Ridiculous huh?

 We were very blessed and able to watch Elder Holland's last conference talk about the First Great Commandment! It was so great and inspiring! I would really love it if you could send me a paper copy of the talk so that I can read it all the time! The Lord is so wonderful! It's really amazing to have the opportunity to live with the Spirit all the time. We especially received lots of help when on Friday we had to teach a lesson without any notes! It was amazing how much Portuguese I could remember, we actually had a good lesson! Even though we are so blessed in learning the language, it is easy to get frustrated because I feel like I have learned so much and wish that I could give some lessons in English because I think that they would be pretty good! All in good time though, I will continue to work hard and strive to keep the spirit with me! Once we reach week 8 we get to go proselyting! And try to place some copies of the Book of Mormon! I am so excited, I'm not sure if I can make it that long!

I can't believe that the Hobbit comes out this week! Gaaaghggh!!! It eats me up inside! Oh well, it's still going to be awesome once I get back! I love hearing from you! Everyday I realize that I am more and more blessed to have the family that I do! You guys are the best thing ever! You are my air when I couldn't breathe, you are my eyes when I can't see, you are my strength when I am weak, you saw the best there was in me! Haha, I constantly have the most random songs running through my head! I was wondering if you could send lyrics to One Day More from Les Mis because I can't get it out of my head and I only know 2 lines!

I think that for some reason my Brazilian roommates think that my Vitamin C is some sort of muscle building supplement! They are obsessed with it! They point at their muscles and ask me questions like when I take them and how often! It's so funny!

I gotta go but I love you so much,

Elder Stringer

1st District

Braden's First Letter

Dear Family,

I made it! Wednesday was the longest day of my entire life! The first week was super rough but it gets better everyday. Sao Paulo is huge! Buildings every where and it's exactly like the movies where they fit as many people and buildings into whatever space they can find. It gets pretty hot in the day but I am in class then it's not too bad in the morning and evening though. The humidity is bearable as well, I'm pretty much used to it now ( it also keeps my shirts from wrinkling). My companion is Elder Allen, he is a great guy from Sandy. He is going to the Sao Paulo Leste (east) Mission. He has been sick since the plane ride though, so it's been kind of tough. Don't worry though I eat my veggies, wash my hand and take my vitamins! I'm doing fine. My district is awesome, I seriously couldn't have asked for better! They are: Me, Elder Allen, Elder Robinson, Elder Cherry, Elder Gamez, Sister Anderson, and Sister Kane (who is going to Santa Maria as well). We have tons of fun and work real hard! I have only seen small bugs here so it's not like crazy or anything, I got a mosquito bite though.

Portuguese is tough, but i can already tell that the Lord is helping me with it! We taught our first "investigator" on Saturday, in Portuguese. It wasn't good by all means but I could basically get across what I wanted to say! The Lord really helps you out if you work hard and try your best! We went to the temple this morning, it was really neat (and in English thank goodness). I was soo upset to hear that Mason wasn't going to MC the Christmas Program, that news almost ruined my entire day.

The CTM, where to start. We have lovingly dubbed it the "spirit prison", it is very spiritual and very secure. We are surrounded by high walls with barbed wire on top, and they have an entire private security firm that works here. They have cool earpieces and everything! The food is not very good. I can hardly ever tell what I am actually eating, but I think yesterday was pig-part and bean stew. It was alright until I got a mouthful of cartlidge! Unfortunately our room is on the 5th floor. I get good exercise because we have to go up and down about 5 times a day!

The Brazilians are great! They love to party! We have two Brazilian roommates and they are so funny. They love to talk about gym and when they do they flex their muscles and point at them. So we will walk down the hall and see them and everybody starts flexing and saying GYM! So far I am the only one in district 48-A to receive any letters! That didn't make any of them very happy though. I love the letters though so thanks! I think that I get free cookies because you signed up for mission ties so I am excited to pick those up today. We get to leave the CTM on P-days and walk around a little bit! I know that I have not answered all of your questions, but the timer is blinking at me and I need to upload pictures! Nevermind I  can't do pics here but I will find another way!

I love you all so much and love to hear from you!

Muito Amor,

Elder Stringer

Brazil or Bust

Well, Braden finally made it to Brazil.  For those of you who don't know, he didn't get his visa in time to get there for his original call date.  That meant that he got to spend the week of Thanksgiving with the family :)  I think he was relieved though to find out that he would still be flying out the following week because his visa got approved.

His farewell talk was great and we are grateful for those who were able to come and support him....and get a few laughs from the stories he shared.  He made it very evident that he will be a fun and hardworking missionary who is close to the spirit and willing to serve in every way he can.

His p-days while in the MTC will be either Tuesday or Wednesdays.  I have included his email address in case you want to send him a message.  Next week on his p-day, he gets to attend a session at the Sao Paolo Temple for the first time.

Here is a picture of the group he entered the MTC with.  He doesn't look too bad for such a long flight!

Happy Birthday!

Today is Braden's 19th birthday and the days are counting down until he leaves for Brazil.  I am so excited for him to serve his mission but I will definitely miss having him around.  Braden is such an incredible guy with the sweetest heart and the greatest sense of humor.  I know that he will be a blessing to the thousands of people he will come into contact with on his mission.  It is sad to see him go, but he has an amazing work to do!  As the saying goes.....

We leave our family for two years so that they can be with their families for eternity....

I will be updating Braden's blog with emails he sends home while he is gone.  Please check back weekly for experiences and updates from him.  Thank you for all the love and support you have shown to him and to our family!