Woah!!!!!

Hey kids!!!!!

How are we doing? I am well. It was super cold this last week! It reached -1 degree celcius!!!!!! but now it has warmed up and the weather is pretty much perfect. We got our energy back, after a week of living without. It was a pain, the secretary didn't tell me that we needed to go to the energy place and show them that we payed. Basically I did a split with the district leader and we ended up running around for 4 hrs trying to get everything worked out. Hehehehe, that will teach him to ever do a split with me again!

The work is really picking up now and I am super excited. We are going to leave with at least one member every day in August. I am super excited! We have people with really good potential for baptism but they all have some problem that is in the way. Three people need to get married first, one needs to get divorced and then married and the other is on house arrest and can't leave until October. It will be a long term project but I am seeing good results that will come. I hope that I stay here for a little longer.

Yesterday, I had my first experience that I thought "maybe I shouldn't tell mom about this" but I will anyway. We were walking home, it was about 9:10 and this dude stopped us in the street. He was clearly not all there. He asked if I was American to which I said yes. He then started telling me about how everyone here hates Americans and that I wasn't welcome. I tried to walk away but he grabbed my arm and Elder Dias almost knocked his lights out. Then he said that I was a spy and that he could prove it because I didn't know anything about the Bible. He asked me to ask him 10 questions from the Bible and he would answer them all. I stumped him with the first, the names of Jesus´ 12 apostles, He knew Peter. We kept trying to walk away but he wouldn't let us and we were nervous that he maybe had a knife or something. After making more of a fool of himself we finally got to walk away. It was pretty interesting...

A member here went through the temple for the first time this week, she was super nervous and we had been helping her feel better for the past month. Last Sunday, her mom took the key to her house and hid it. She couldn't leave without locking the door. We were nervous that she wouldn't be able to go. We were eating lunch with her Thursday when we prayed that she could find the key. At the end of lunch she found it and we were all very happy! She went through on Saturday and loved it, it was a very awesome moment for me.

Sounds like you are all well... I don't know if you have sent me any letters, but I haven't gotten any here in Ijuí, maybe I put the wrong address. But I don't know maybe if you want some extra brownie points or something it would be cool to get a letter. Especially Mason, he used to send good long letters and now he only writes 4 sentence emails...

Anyway... I think that is about it. I am doing really well and we had a great week! It passed by faster than the fame of Nicholas Cage's second Ghost Rider film. (and I didn't want you to understand it didn't pass, because as we all know Nicholas Cage gets a lot of hype and he deserves every bit of it. Ghost Rider 2 was just a little disappointing alright).

But I love you guys a lot and I hope that you have an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Stringer

 

 

Hey Tche

Hey!

It sounds like your week was good! Ours was too. It got really cold and our energy was cut. The missionaries before us didn't pay the bill and we have been without energy since Thursday. We are sleeping in the house of the other missionaries here in the city. But the house is like 40 mins from our area.

Other than this I don't have a lot to say this week. We have been working a lot more with the members and I think that this will help us. 

 

The cold here is almost killing me!!! It is cold and wet and the wind here is crazy! And sometimes it does a misty rain that penetrates all the way to your bones and I only have my nightly lukewarm shower to look forward too. hehehehe.... good times...

We have found some pretty good investigators that hopefully will progress. We are in a good situation as far as the work goes, it is just falting the commitment. But I am not worried. We will be alright.

I can't believe that mom and dad have been married for 27 years!!!!! holy smokes!!!!!!! I remembered that it was their anniversary but I thought that it was 24 or something. But then I learned that Ash will turn 25 and so I was hoping that they had been married for longer. 

Well, I think that that is just about it. Thank you thank you and good night.

I love you guys lot!

Elder Stringer

 

 

Let Go Baby Hippo

I love pdays, but all I do is make cookies now, we are doing so many family nights and our relationship with the members is getting good.

The training is going really well, Elder Dias is super cool and I have never wanted to help someone so much in my life as I want to help him now. More info on him, he is 20 and he played soccer professionally for a short period of time. Pretty neat right?!

I was happy to hear that Ash and John got jobs. Good work (if I were my old self I would make a joke about them finally moving out of mom´s basement.) hehe, but I've changed, I am a newer and better person. Also good to hear that Kayci and Preston got callings. Preston is the mission leader and I am expecting weekly number reports. Let's make a goal to baptize weekly.

I met President Parrela on Friday. He is ridiculously awesome. Seriously I think he is great and I am super excited to work with him. One of our goals as a mission is to baptize 500 people per month, which we have never done or come close to doing, but he has a plan and I am super excited to get to work. Sister Parrela is cool too. She talked for 3 hours straight about food. I am going to buy prunes today and clean out my system. Also she is making us all eat honey from now on. I like honey so it is all good (also John the Baptist ate honey all the time and he baptized quite a few people).

It isn't too cold here, I am doing well. It should be colder in the truth.

This week passed really quickly and I think things will continue and before we know it school will have started already! And you guys will have to stop having so much fun!

I LOVE Y'ALL TONS

and have a great week.

Love,

Elder Stringer

Hey Diddle Diddle, Right Down the Middle

Hello!!!!!!

It is July already! I cannot believe how fast things are going by. I was doing really well, until mason told me that top shot started again and they brought back people from the other seasons, it nearly kills me just to think about it! My new comp is Elder Dias, he is from Manaus and he is super cool. he has been on the mission for 16 days or so and he is really good! I am excited to work with him and think that we will be able to help the ward out a little bit.

This past week was pretty crazy! I went to Santa Maria on Tuesday and I went to MCDONALD`S!!!!!!!!!!!!! hahahahaha, it was really good, I ate a big mac, fries, and guaraná. It was only 18 reais. But it is cool cuz I didn't have to pay for it! Back at home, I never thought that I would like Mcdonalds so much in my life, but it was really good! My trip to Santa Maria was awesome, even though I had to sleep in the garage, which was not cool. Wednesday we had a training with Pres. Ribeiro which was his last training ever. It was super good. He and Sister left on Saturday and Pres. Parrela is already here, though I have not seen him yet. I will miss the Ribeiros a lot, they were really great, though I am sure that Pres and Sister Parrela are awesome too. We got back here Wednesday night at 11, and we went to work on Thursday! We've been working ever since.

You guys are the best ever, except that you don't send pictures to me and I don't even know what KC's wedding was like... and it would be cool cuz I could show other people too, and pics of Ash's wedding would be cool too. I think that the package you sent will get to my hands some day before August 20th, that is my hope at least. My time is running short and I have to run, but I want y'all to know that you guys are great and that I hope that you have fun with all of your adventures!

Love,

Elder Stringer