Hey there...fella

How's things there? 

Today is the first day of my second transfer!

Things are going very well here! Both of our baptisms happened on Saturday, it was pretty neat. Elder Heleno baptized Natanael, he had already been coming to church when we got here. His girlfriend is a member, he hadn't been baptized earlier because he was a baptist and had a lot of doubts particularly with the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. I baptized Mariane, she was a contact in the street about two weeks ago, we are currently preparing the rest of her family for baptism too. 

Its great to hear that the 7th ward bball legacy is continuing! Mason was killing out there I am sure! I'm happy to hear that our buddy DDL is having some success too! Its about time! HAAHA!

I'm really sorry, I was going to get you our address here, but I forgot again. I promise that I will next time, I already wrote it in my planner!

It is going to get cold here in a couple of months, but its good we already have blankets and stuff so no worries. I am doing more than fine with my money here, we are switching debit cards here and I had to take all of my money from my account, I didn't know how much I had and when I got there I had like 304 reais in my account! Haha, so I will be eating good this week! I don't have any problems saving money though and definitely receive enough to survive!

58 new missions! That's crazy! Very exciting! Everything is going well here, I will be ripped when I get home you guys will hardly recognize me!

Can you believe that we are coming up on 3 months already!! Its crazy! The next 3 will be even faster too! There is a movie rental place here that we pass by frequently and its weird to see posters of movies that I have no idea what they are! Or I like seeing posters in Portuguese too! The newest was: Batman, O Cavalheiro das Trevas Ressurge. Haha, pretty cool!

Nothing very different has happened, I think that I will be sending some more baptism pictures within the next month though! We have some investigators who are real close! But we just keep on working! 

The Portuguese is coming along very nicely, better than expected even! I found that I can start conversing with people now! If we are giving a lesson and talking about the gospel, I can understand pretty much everything! Normal conversation is more difficult, but still, its coming! I have no doubts that the gift of tongues is real!

Anyway, so I hope and pray that you guys are well! I love you all so much! 

Elder Stringer

You ever heard of the term "nam"?

Now listen hear Jack!

Haha! I wrote down lots of stuff to tell you all this week! I will start with the good stuff:

We have two baptisms scheduled for this Saturday! I think that they will both happen, I can't see any problems arising, that being said you never know. But hopefully I will be sending some good pics next week!

Everyone here is very accepting of us and many people agree to hear our message. Its great, everyone here is very religious and love to hear about Jesus! That being said, we teach so many lessons that go kind of like this, 

After explaining that Christ was baptized in many waters, by someone who had authority and when he was 30 years old. We say 

"Do think that it is important to follow the example of Christ, being baptized as He was?"

"Of course."

"Awesome, we are preparing people to be baptized in the same manner as Jesus Christ was, will you accept to this preparation?"

"Oh I was already baptized."

"That's great, were you baptized as Christ was? Many waters? Age? Authority?"

"No. I'm Catholic, I was baptized when I was a baby."

"What is the purpose of baptism?"

"To take away our sins."

"Do you think that a baby has sins?"

"Of course not!"

"Then is it necessary for a baby to be baptized?"

"No."

"Then will you accept our help, and prepare to be baptized as Christ was?"

"No, I was already baptized..."

(repeat, with authority and immersion)

Haha, and so on. It happens all the time. It's a little ridiculous, but good. Everyone here is really nice.

It is amazing how much sense the gospel makes, every time that we are teaching it is another testimony to me that these things are true. The Church today is just as it was when Christ organized it.

I have had the awesome opportunities of giving the oil anointing blessing a couple of times now! It is very cool, except that when I ask someone for their full name it's usually something like this: Jose Riberto Ricardo Veras Menenizes Frances de Silva. Haha, its always an adventure!

One of the member families here are great! They have two kids, ages 3 and 6, Vitoria and Homero. They love me! haha it's great! Yesterday in sacrament meeting they sat next to me and were making so much noise, I was trying to calm them down and I think that all the other members where not very happy with me! It was fun though, whenever we go to their house I play with them! Vitoria always comes up to me and grabs my hand and loves to show me all of her stuff. Its great! 

I'm sure that you heard that the pope is retiring. This makes for good conversation here. When people say that they have been Catholic their whole life, we'll joke that if the pope can change they can too! This doesn't always go over well, but it's pretty funny.

I'm pretty sure that I would be fat if I didn't walk and sweat so much! I eat a lot, mostly cause they always tell me to eat more and also because I can't say much so I eat. Its good though! I love rice and beans!

The other day we found a very large spider in the baptismal font!! Haha, it crawled down the drain. I would love to baptize someone but this really scares me!

We've been holding a lot of family nights. We make cookies and play games and stuff and it always goes really well! This is a great way to find more people to teach! We do it in a members house and have them invite friends. Its awesome! At the last family night we had, the friend that the member brought was George Clooney's Brazilian brother! I did a double take when we first got there, he looked so similar!

I have made some errors with the language, but usually it's not a big deal.  I had a pretty good one though the other day when I asked someone if they had a religious child. Criança-child Creença- belief. Elder Heleno seemed to think that it was pretty funny.

I'm having a good time here! The Lord has blessed us so much, I get to see and hear some pretty rough things here. A lot of people have gone through very hard trials, but I know that through the Atonement all that seems unfair in life will be made right! I love you all tons! I miss you too!

Love,

Elder Stringer

p.s. 

I kinda feel like Doc Cassidy when I write to yàll, You should read this letter again in your best B.R.C. voice and play some sappy country music in the background!

Love YOU!!!!!!!!!

 p.p.s

I think that for Masons stu co campaign he should dress up as Si from duck dynasty all week and act like him! That would be classic! Love you guys!!!!

Opa!!

Opa Família!

How are things in Utah!? Or the fabrica (factory) as the people call it down here! I hope that things are going well! Let's see, yesterday we marked a baptismal date for Feb. 23 with one of our investigators who has been very difficult! He is very firmly set on the Bible and would always try and find something to prove us wrong.

Other than that, life is normal here! My feet are wrecked, haha you should see them! They are all sorts of different colors with dead skin and mosquito bites all over! Ha! It's good though, I'm having a good time! I don't know if mom remembers but the umbrella that I brought is tiny! It hardly covers me! When I use it I feel like how I imagine John felt with his pillow in the airport! Luckily its only sprinkled here! I think that a real storm would destroy it. I'll probably buy another one some time. Also its still super hot here! Ha, I can wring the sweat out of my shirts at the end of the night! You get used to it eventually. 

We've been working really hard. Teaching lots of lessons and stuff! Three times this week we've had to run home at 9:25 trying to make it back on time! Its terrible, I hate it, I haven't run that much since 8th grade in Mr. Boban's class! Hopefully I will come home in one piece  Has Topshot started again, if so, what's going on? Or Psych? I think that starts next week. Hows BYU? Are they going to make the tourney? Have they played Zaga or St. Mary yet? The Jazz? Churchball? What happened there? And I was wondering if you could send me the recipe for breakfast cake and a simple choc chip cookie one too? Hehe. I'm trying to think of what else that I could write for you, but I don't know. The days here just kind of blur together and I can't remember much. Oh, Carnaval is going on right now! It all happens at night so nothing is different for us! The youth of the church all go to a youth conference type thing during Carnaval so they've been gone for the past couple days. We've got a couple of pretty serious investigators that we are trying to get baptized, I will let you know what happens with that though! I had a dream the other night and the only part that I remember was that Billy Ray Cyrus was in it!! I don't know what this means, but it has to be significant right? 

My personal goal as of late has been to lose myself in the work. I am very frequently thinking of home and this must stop! I have already given the Lord my might and my strength, but I need to give him my mind and my heart now. I think that this will help a lot and if I do this He will turn me into what He wants me to be! It's really hard though when I have been blessed with so many great memories and know that I will have many more, but that is what I must do. I am here to serve and I gotta give it my all! You are all excellent examples of this to me! I love you guys ton and I will try to remember stuff this week that I can write so that I will write more!! Love you lots.

Love 

Elder Stringer

Hello!

Howdy Partners!

How's it going? I hope that your Superbowl Sunday was as fun as mine! 

So the cards that go to the mission home don't get forwarded here, I will receive them at zone and mission conferences and the next one is in 6 weeks.

Anyway, where to start? We had a couple days here that were around 45 degrees C. Which is over 100 F I think. I was sweating nonstop like a waterfall down my face! It's really gross. I'm tired all the time, I don't know how I'm going to make it two years, but I guess I just gotta trust in the Lord, He'll help me, He already has. We do lots of walking and stuff, both Elder Heleno and I are new in the area so we are just trying to find people to teach, we teach about 7 lessons a day though.

I like it down here though, I feel like I'm in a Brazilian John Wayne movie about missionary work. People ride horses through the streets and stuff. The sunsets are the most beautiful things! It's amazing the sky is so huge and it is a majestic site! I always look forward to it. The gauchos here are pretty cool too. I will now answer some of your questions.

São Gabriel has about 50000 residents. There are two branches here. I was sent out a week early because I was supposed to enter a week early, and the transfers lined up like that. They gave me a debit card and I get like 120 Reals per 15 days or something, which I think is plenty so I should be good. If not I will use my card. I am sort of eating 3 square meals a day. I've already adopted the small Brazilian breakfast way of life. I usually have some bread, yogurt, and cookies. Lunch is always with members and we eat a lot. It's always rice, beans, and noodles with the occasional chicken. Dinner is just whatever. We get back at 9 or 930 and have to plan so I will eat some cookies and bread and something healthy if I can find it. Haha.. More about Elder Heleno, he is from Curitiba his mom joined the church when he was 4, he is going home in April I will be his last comp, he's super excited and walks really fast. Which is a problem for me because it is physically impossible for me to walk fast, but I try to keep up. 

Now that a couple of weeks have passed I think it is alright that I tell you that I think that it is a little funny that mom deleted my voice mail. I'm sure that it was terrible as well, but a little funny, right? Haha! And Happy Birthday Mason!! I forgot to tell you on Monday but on Sunday I told everyone that it was your b day! Haha the big 1 7 wow, you are very old! It's weird I think. I am jealous of the snow and cross country skiing, I miss that. Haha, I miss the time when i wasn't responsible for hardly anything! Oh well, i~ll put in my two years of responsibility and then i~m done. I love you guys so much! I am excited for when we can party again, but until then I will keep going! I hope things are going well, it sounds like they are. Hopefully time starts passing a little quicker. I think it will as I start understanding the language and what not. But even if it doesn't I will keep going. I will continue waking up at 630 and everyday I will continue talking to as many people as I can. I love you tons, you are a major reason for why I wake up every morning. Honestly, I want you guys to be proud of me. I think that things will be okay here. I love you more and more everyday!

Lots of love,

Elder Braden Stringer

Howdy!

Hello there!!!

Sorry it took so long to get this to you! Monday's are my pday now. It's been a very crazy week, we had an hour and a half flight to Porto Alegre and then a 5 hour drive to Santa Maria. We finally got there and that was where I called from. I was just saying that everything was good and that I made it! Pres. and Sis. Ribeiro are awesome! They are both great. The first night here was ridiculous! We slept in a very dirty garage on some dirty beds! Haha, I was pretty freaked out! But we had training the next morning which was good and I got my companion, Elder Heleno! He is awesome and loves to work and is a really great guy! Doesn't speak much English, but we work it out. 

After training we took a 3 hour bus ride to my first area, São Gabriel!! It is really great here! We got here around 930 and the apartment was tiny and pretty dirty. There are two other missionaries living with us, Elders Dean and Teixeira. But it was good to be there and I slept great that night! Thursday, I went out with Elder Dean and he showed me a lot of stuff and he explained it all to me because he can speak English. We had lunch with an awesome member family, they live in a one room house which is basically just a concrete box. It was really small, but they were so nice and inviting and the love the church and the missionaries! It was an awesome experience.

Friday was insane. We got permission to move to a much bigger and better apartment so we did, and as you can imagine the move wasn't very organized! We took everything and threw it into a truck and headed out. It's been crazy and a real pain to move in though! And we didn't get to do a lot of actual missionary work this weekend because of it. Yesterday was great! Church was fun and a lot of people talked at me and I just smile and understand a little bit of what they are saying. We then walked around and made some contacts and we taught a couple of lessons which were very neat. It was good to actually do what I've been preparing to do for two months now! I told myself that I would never miss the MTC but I do. I especially miss having 3 square meals a day. We always get lunch though and lots of it too! The members feed us every day!

I will attach some pics from the MTC and I only have a couple from here, but I will try and send those. This computer is having issues so I will get as much as I can to you! We are blessed to have a couple missionary live close by. Elder and Sister Phillipelli! They are super nice. I wish that I could talk more and I forgot to bring the address of the mailbox here, so I will do that next time! I love you all tons and tons and I hope that every thing is well! I am going to keep going, it's harder here than it was in the MTC for sure, but I can do it. I love you all so much and wish that I could see you and talk to you in person!

Tons of love,

Elder Stringer

Well hello there!!

Dearest Family!

It is most excellent to hear from you this fine afternoon! I love reading emails! I do believe that my departure date is Jan 22!!! Two weeks from today! I am so excited to get out there and do some work! I don't know if you could tell from my last email, but I am running out of things to say. Basically I have done some studying and a little more of that and I sleep a little bit every now and again too! I really do enjoy it here though, I've made lots of great friends and I've learned so much! It is great to hear that you all had fun over the holidays! I wish you all luck getting back into the swing of things. I think that winter is going to come really quickly and then the crazy thing is i will only have one more summer here. Its insane to think about. We had mission conference on Sunday and it was amazing! It was very spiritually uplifting! We also have cycled through another pair of Brazilian roommates  one more pair left to go. I will miss these guys, they just left this morning. I can't even imagine weather under 70 degrees right now, much less single digits!! Typically the coolest that we can get our classroom here is 75 degrees and it feels so good! The language is really coming along! During mission conference, I could understand almost all of what the speaker was saying! But I'm pretty sure that the accent is very different and they say different words down in Santa Maria.

I'm glad to hear that the jazz and cougs are winning! Their aren't a lot of jazz fans down here, so whenever we talk basketball I always end up having to defend them and that's not always easy to do! I also appreciate the movie quotes! It's great to hear about everyone receiving their mission calls! That's so exciting! I'm pretty sure that Tyler goes into the field this week and Hunter to the MTC, with Xander following next week! Those lucky ducks are on the 6 week schedule now! There are so few Americans here now! We are still the youngest district and we are on week 7! We have gotten only about 30 from Provo and 2 from home since I got here! I think that we are supposed to get 5 or so tomorrow and they may be joining in with our district, if this is the case I'm bummed because I will have to give up the best seat in our classroom to make room for them. We got to go to the temple again today! It was awesome! I can't believe that I will only be able to go one more time. And I don't think that I will go at all in the field. I'm not exactly sure, but from what I hear, I will fly to Porto Allegre and then take a bus to Santa Maria. That might be a long day! I don't know if you could tell, but I was really tired when I wrote my last email. I just read it again and it's kinda all over the place!

I always love hearing about what's going on up there! You guys are the best and I wish you all luck with work, school, Pocatello (hehe) and life in general! I love you guys tons and tons! You are the greatest family in the entire world!

Love,

Elder Stringer

Feliz Ano Novo!

Dear Family,

 

 

Happy New Year! It sounds like you all had a good one! We did too, the people here love to party! The city set an alarm for us at midnight, it was insane! Fireworks were shooting off everywhere! The whole sky was lit up! I didn't sleep much. We also got to watch a New Years Eve movie, The Emma Smith Story. It was pretty good and really nice to take a break from studying just to watch for a while. We also got to watch part of a talk that Elder Holland gave to some mission presidents. It was amazing to say the least! 

We got to go to the temple for the first time in 2 weeks today! It was great! I still am not sure, but I think that I am leaving a week early, which would mean that I would only have 2 more p days here!! As much as I love the MTC, I am ready to leave. I hope that Mason had fun in Hawaii. I can't believe that I was there a year ago! It doesn't feel like it was that long ago! Things are going well here though. I am so excited to watch the Hobbit and Les Mis when I get back! I think that there will be lots of movies that I will need to catch up on! 

New Year's Eve was the first time that we got churrasco here! It was also the first non breakfast meal that i didn't have beans and rice. I missed them actually! I really miss not going to Lava, I haven't been over Christmas for a couple of years so when I get back it's going to be awesome! I'm really tired basically most of the time here, I try to stay awake but it doesn't always work out. I wrote you all letters through missionties so I can't really think of what else I want to say. Oh yeah, I have been working on structuring sentences in Portuguese and as much as I love the gospel, I'm getting kind of tired structuring gospel sentences. I was wondering if you could send me some of your personal favorite movie quotes (like president Bill Pullman's famous speech) or something that I could structure. I know that it's kind of weird, but I think that it would spice things up a little bit. I love you guys so much and I even worry about you! You don't have to worry about me though, I'm doing fine. Before we know it, I will be in Santa Maria! And after that KC will be married! And then it will be Christmas again! And I think that some other important stuff will happen in between those events, but I can't really think right now. You guys are the most bestest and I miss you lots and I love you more and I am excited for the day when I can tell you about all the cool stuff that I am doing once I get in the mission field. Don't get me wrong, I like the MTC too.

 

I am very excited for 2013 and it is going to be a year that I will definitely never forget! 

 

I love you all soooooo much!!!! You seriously are the best!!! Seriously.

 

Love,

 

Elder Stringer