Hello!

Hey Kids!

How is it going? I am doing very well here! Conference was so sweet! I got to watch it in English, we watched it in the chapel here. There were so many good messages. I really liked both of Pres. Uchtdorf's, he is always good! Pres. Eyring gave a good one too in priesthood session that talked about member missionary work (too bad we only had 6 members there)! Its all cool though, oh and also, I am proud (and a little ashamed) to say that this was the first conference that I was awake for every minute! It was weird with the time change though, priesthood didn't start until 9 and we didn't get home until like 11:30. I am really sad now that conference is over and I have to wait 6 more months for the next one.

Elder Heleno left on Saturday morning, it is weird without him. But it is all good I am happy that I am not being trained anymore! We still don't know the transfer info though, sometime today someone is going to tell us. I think that I will stay here though. Oh, they just told me, my new comps name is Elder Araùjo. I will meet him tomorrow.

The whole missionties thing is complicated. Sometimes I get letters fast, other times they take a long time to get here. I did get my blessing though, thanks! Sounds like Mason and Mom's trip was awesome, that is good to hear. I am a little jealous.

I had a pretty wicked cold last week! It was rough,but I am doing good now. The meds that mom sent me with helped, so that's real good, Thanks mom!

Things are going real well here though! It was cold for a little while but the past week has been really hot, the weather is kinda crazy. I can't really think of much else to write, it is crazy that school is almost over and summer is going to start really soon. And Kayc is getting married in like 5 weeks or something! That is very cool! I am having a very hard time thinking of stuff to write right now, I don't know why. But things here are normal, we just keep working! I am grateful for the Prophet and Apostles that we have today, I have no doubt that they are men inspired and chosen by God and that they really do communicate with Him!

I Love you guys tons and tons!

Love,

Elder Stringer

Hey!!

Hey Guys!

How is it going?! I hope that all is well! We had a good busy week. Our baptisms all worked out! The service went really well. Also, since Easter was this week we had some festivities. We ate a whole lot of fish on Holy Friday. For the Catholics, it is a sin to eat red meat. And all the members eat fish too. It was a nice change from the rice and beans. I don't know why, but my mind just blanked.

One of our baptisms, Fatima, was really special. she had been receiving missionaries for years and never even been in the church. She told us that it was our testimonies that made her want to go. I know that the Lord prepared her for us and I have no doubts that she will stay strong in the church!  Another one of our baptisms was Claudio, a gypsy. I baptized him. I think that it is pretty cool that I can say that I baptized a gypsy! 

This is my last week with Elder Heleno. He is great and very excited to go home! haha. He has been counting the days since day 50 I think! But he works really hard and I am really glad that he was my first companion. I had (real) churrasco for the first time a couple of weeks ago!!! It was really good! I am excited to get a little rest today! Last night there was a mosquito flying around my head and buzzing in my ear. I kept slapping myself in the face! Needless to say, i didn't sleep too great. I am jealous that you guys have spring break right now. I think that I could use a week off right about now! HAHA. I guess that i will have to wait a little while for that.

Well, it was cool that we had our baptisms, but now we have to find some more people to teach. This part kind of blows. We have a descent teaching pool right now but we need to build it up a little. I am trying to think of other things to write, but honestly I can't remember much it all blurs. 

I love you guys so much!!!!! I hope that you have an incredible spring break! (Except KC who already had one), but I hope that KC has an incredible week too! Hee hee. Congrats to Mason! Love you guys tons! Have a good one!

Love,

Elder Stringer

Excluding the possibility that a female olympian from Yugoslavia was on our roof last night, what else do we have?

Hello,

How are you? I hope that things are very well over there. Things are very well here. If all goes according to plan, we will have 3 baptisms this Saturday. Hopefully, I will send some good pics next Monday! Its good to hear from all of you! I love your emails, even when they talk about having fun without me and March Madness. Dads email about all the crazy stuff that's happening in the tourney practically killed me. But its all good. I guess...

Anyway, lets see... I don't really know what to say. A lot of stuff happens here, but I can't remember any of it. Anything beyond 3 days ago blends into the last 4 months. I know that families are essential to my exaltation, but after that I am in no hurry to get married. Which is good cuz I can go rafting with Ash and John!

Elder Heleno is getting ready to go home, he leaves the week after conference. He's pretty excited, he likes to tell everybody how many days he has left. Haha, he's funny, I will miss him. I don't know if you can tell from the pic but I'm getting fat. I should start exercising  And also I found the great and spacious building! It was in the middle of no where and was really weird because I've never seen it before but its huge! Anyway so I thought that that was interesting. 

I don't know if the quote at the top is correct, but I tried my hardest. I love you guys a ton and I am sorry that I didn't write very much. But I know that this gospel changes lives. I have seen it. And if nothing else, it is a good thing. I know that it is true. It works. It is amazing, the greatest blessing. I am super grateful to be here. I am glad that I get to wake up at 6:30 every morning. I am happy that I am here. I love you all a lot and I know that these 2 years will change my life. I have realized the importance of the mission. It will mold me into who I can become, who Heavenly Father wants me to become. 

Love you guys!

Braden

Hello!

Hey Kids! 

So there are a couple of changes in the email rules, my email time has been changed from 1 hour to 40 mins and I can now email anyone, family, friends, acquaintances so if anyone wants to talk to me you can give them my email now! Pretty cool huh? This last week was a good one, we got some good work done and had some fun too!

We bought a pizza for Elder Helenos bday on Monday  it was 50 cm across! It was really good too. We went to two weddings, one was of Natanael, who we baptized last month and the other was of Rodrigo and Isabel a very special family who were baptized this week! We helped the couple missionaries teach them a little so we went to the wedding too. They had like a whole cake left over so every time we go over there we get some cake which is delicious!

Something very cool happened this week! There is a woman here whose sister and brother are members, we started teaching her at the beginning of February and we were super excited because she was the perfect candidate for baptism. But she was traveling for the last month and a half and we kinda forgot about her and figured that when she got back she wouldn't be as excited. Turns out to be the exact opposite! She called on Friday and told us that she wanted us to visit and she had already made plans to go to church with a friend of hers! When we taught on Friday she accepted baptism and said that she really wanted it! Its super awesome and exciting, if all goes according to plan she will be baptized on the 30th, the weekend before Elder Heleno goes home. It is an awesome blessing from the Lord!

Other cool things that happened this week:

I answered 2 telephone calls this week and did it in Portuguese and I didn't just answer them, I talked the whole time! It was pretty awesome, one of them was like 3 and a half minutes! Hahah!

Congrats to Ashli for running and not dying, I think that it's safe to suppose that I didn't get an email from you because you still can't feel your legs!

Congrats to Kayc, the big 2 2 this week, very exciting! I will bring home a cool present for you!

Good luck at region Mason! I expect a quadruple double! points, steals, assists, and blocks!

And I guess that its kind of cool that John is graduating. And Preston. (at least I think that Preston is, but I'm not sure).

Also it is starting to cool down! It gets nice and fresco here at night and in the morning, and I am not in a constant sweat anymore! Haha, things are much more enjoyable like this! Its hard to write about an entire week because there is a lot that goes on here, but I try and give you the highlights at least! I love you guys a lot, sorry that I didn't write more! Love you!

Love, 

Elder Stringer

Phil...Phil Conners!!??

Hello!

So we had a zone conference yesterday and I didn't find out about it until half way through last week, so P day is today! So something funny happened last week! I received a bunch of letters that were mailed to the Mission Home so unfortunately I was once again reminded of all of the fun things that you all did without me! It was weird reading all of the letters that you sent back in January and I also got some Christmas letters too. Things are rolling here! I don't know what to say, honestly this week went by pretty dern quickly. I will explain the branches here in São Gabriel:

Ramo São Gabriel is our branch and the people are all really awesome! Our average attendance is 70-90. Here in Brasil there are a lot of baptisms, but frequently the people don't stay strong in the church, I think that the membership here is around 200 or so. So if all of our plans fall through we can always pull out our list of members and try to teach an inactive member. It is really sad that this happens and I am not exactly sure why it happens so frequently here, but we focus a lot on retention and how we can keep converts in the church. The members here are awesome! They are one of the best branches in the mission from what everyone says and I believe it, we have a lot of lessons with members because they are all willing to come with us! 

Ramo Bom Fim is a little different because their area is very far from the church, they have a bus come around every Sunday to pick people up. I think that the attendance is 60-70. But still great things are happening there!

Right now we have 3 couples that we are trying to get married before baptism. Nobody here is married! Literally its crazy, I think that no one wants to pay the money. 

Its crazy that Kayc already has her dress! Its really coming up fast! I am bummed that I wont be there, but i'm glad that I am here.

The weather here is starting to improve! Its getting much cooler and if I use my fan at night I sometimes need my blanket! I think that I will make french toast today! 

I attached a photo of me and Vitoria. We were having family night and it was real fun! The Portuguese is coming, I can understand a majority of what people say and at times I can converse with others! Haha!

I love you guys a lot and hope and pray that all is well over there!!

Lots of love,

Elder Stringer

They're always putting too much water in these things...

Hey!!!

I am slowly forgetting all of the movie quotes that I spent 19 years gathering in my mind! Things are going very well here! I can't believe that it is almost Kayci's birthday! It was Elder Heleno's birthday yesterday and one of the families here held a party for him, it was sweet! We had a lot of cake and cookies! He has less than a month left and it is starting to take a toll on him. Haha. We had a pretty funny lesson the other day! 

This guy was absolutely crazy, he let us in and we asked him how he was and he told us that he used to be really good at french. And then he explained to us that when Brasil was discovered, there were indians here and after that he explained how he is not white, the wall is white, he has color. We started the lesson and every question that we asked, he would reply with something about how he used to be good at french or indians or how he has color. It was super weird. Weird stuff happens very frequently but not like this, he only talked about these 3 things! It was really hard not to just start laughing, because Elder Heleno was trying so hard to get a real answer out of him, but he couldn't!

We are also currently teaching a gypsy too! He's an interesting fellow as well. I can't hardly understand a word he says, but he's a nice guy. One of the counselors in the mission presidency was at church yesterday and he told the branch president that we must be pretty powerful missionaries if we can get a gypsy to church! Haha! I thought that was pretty funny.

I'm doing well here, my feet have toughened up now and the walking has gotten easier and the weather is better too. I eat a lot of rice and beans, actually that's just about all that I eat! I really like it though, honestly I think that it is very good. I got to watch a part of the Best Two Years yesterday, it was weird watching it cuz I can relate to Elder Calhoun and what not. Its pretty funny how old all of the actors are in that movie though. 

I am hesitant to ask this, but when does march madness start? You all should send me a bracket so that I can win the family bet again! I think that probably the second hardest part of the mission is the lifestyle change, not being able to watch march madness and the superbowl and stuff. That's what kills you. Anyway... if I don't get an email from Ash next week I think that it is fair to suppose that she is regretting the decision to run when it was unnecessary and will probably take her a good month or so to recuperate to the point that she can send me an email!

I love you guys a lot and good things are happening here! I hope that things are well on the homefront!

Love, 

Elder Stringer

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