BRAZIL! ALWAYS IN MY HEART!

Brazil!!!  my home!  You will always be in my heart!

Hey today, I can only send a quickie, saying that I am alive and well, last night we traveled to Maceió and we are staying in a little apartment the church owns.  We're now here in the mission office quickly sending an email letting you know that I am alive and well, and I will be home on Wednesday.  We're going to have lunch with a member in my old area, Jatiúca, who now lives on the other side of the street of the mission office! I'm excited, we're headed there now, then we are going to have interviews with the president afterwards, then a testimony meeting, then we go to the churrascaria with the president, and then we sleep to wake up and go to the airport tomorrow morning.  I love you so much, and see you soon!!!! :)

Elder Coon

June 16, 2014 SERVICE DAY!

On my birthday, we painted someone's house.  It was the perfect service to always remember that day! 

Today, we were in the center getting my final souvenirs and things to remember here by, and we also went to Siqueira Campos for my Companion to visit his recent convert there, since he thinks he'll be transferred too, and not come back to Aracaju, so we just barely got back from our p-day travels, and technically our p-day has already ended, so I'm sending a quick email home letting you know that I am alive and well.  Here is a propaganda truck with all the speakers blasting louder than you can imagine.

This week, it was, needless to say, different.  The world cup started here in Brazil, and it is nothing less than craziness on the days of Brazil games.  On Thursday, Brazil played against Croatia, and all heck broke loose during and after the game.  During the game, we heard sooooo many bombs and fireworks go off, it was crazy.  And afterwards, our neighbors must have thought we looked Croatian cuz they lit of tons of fireworks aimed at our windows and our bathroom window.  The fireworks here are also way different.  In the states, the fireworks are made to be beautiful, and still make noise.  Here, they're supposed to simply made noise, as loud as it can be.  There are even "bombs" bigger than my copy of the Bible that people throw in the street hoping that it makes a louder noise than their neighbor during the Goals.  So yeah it's interesting.  Other than that, whenever we go teach someone, they are almost always watching the current game, since there are games here the whole afternoon and evening, and it's pretty difficult to work as we usually do.

Delicious Corn dish called canjica--super good!

On my birthday, we were visiting a members granddaughter to see if she still didn't want to be baptized.  She made it deliberately obvious that she didn't, so we were about to leave and get a pepperoni pizza (our plan that we had planned the night before).  As we were leaving, N offered to take us to a pizzaria.  Who woulda known?  He didn't even know it was my birthday and brought us to a pizzaria, our planned idea for the next hour, our dinner hour.  Anyways, just thought that was cool.   The ward also did a little surprise birthday party for me at the ward integration meeting, it was pretty cool.  

 

We helped a member move into our ward too this week, he came to our house in the morning and asked if we could help him move from the ward right next to ours in the afternoon, so we helped him move his stuff.   It was quite different than in the states.  

 

I still don't feel like I'm moving and going home.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I'd like to close with a scripture, 3rd John 1:13-14.  

See you soon! Love you so much! 

Abraços, pela última vez,

Elder Coon

Working Hard

Well, this past week was pretty much just a continuation of the last week. There really is not much new to tell you guys unfortunately.  We're seeing miracles daily, working hard, and the time is flying by.  This is a road MUCH traveled by!

I get a weird feeling in my throat whenever I realize I'm not going to be here in 2 weeks.  But, honestly, it hasn't hit me yet that I'm going home.  It hasn't sunk in yet.  I feel like I could be here forever, but everything has a date to finish, and mine is here.  But, honestly, like I said, I don't feel like I'm going home.  I've seen a bunch of missionaries go home before, and there were some where you could simply look at them and think, wow, this guy must be going home soon.  I've also seen missionaries where I thought to myself, wow this guy must have some time left, it hasn't hit him yet... and I try to see myself and analyze where I am exactly.  I've been trying to be the example of the missionary who everyone doesn't realize is going home yet, and as I've been doing that, I have even confused myself, lost myself in the work, and I, myself, don't think I'm going home yet.  It's strange.  

This week should be very interesting.  Everyone is preparing their homes and streets for the World Cup!.  It 2014 starts on Thursday, we have been told by everyone that it's gonna be nuts, and it probably will be.  So, until then we are going to give it our best, going hard in the paint until we can't do anything else.  

Wednesday we will have a service project in the morning, painting a house of a member blue for the world cup haha, should be fun.  

We had a great service project on Saturday morning, where we were part of a brazil-wide project of helping hands against dengue, a disease that kills lots of people here.  It's a disease that comes from mosquitos, and somehow manages to kill tons of people.  We inspected houses basically looking for the disease.  It was pretty cool I guess.

 

Other than that, pretty much all of our investigators have now given up on us, One investigator went to a crazy party in Alagoas, drank, told her family she'd be baptized, and they freaked out and are not going to let her get baptized. She is deciding to completely revolt against her parents, but we weren't able to talk to her on Friday or Saturday when we passed by, since she is rarely home. 

One investigator didn't come to her mom's house this weekend, so we're not sure exactly how she's doing, but her mom isn't too optimistic about her being baptized, she's not really too excited.  But her mom, is getting firmer and firmer in the church, and one of my favorite converts for sure, she's the best.  She's half way done with Jesus the Christ now, and already read everything else, the book of mormon, d&c, pearl of great price, our heritage, preach my gospel, teachings of joseph fielding smith, gospel principles, daughters of my kingdom, and some other books that I can't remember.  And she hasn't even had 2 months in the church yet!  She'll be a fantastic member of the church here, and I'll miss her, and everyone else here.  Our investigator who was supposed to be baptized on Saturday told us during the week that she didn't wanna be baptized any more, and told us that her mom wouldn't let her since she goes to the "mundial" church.  So, we talked to her mom, she authorized her baptism, even encouraged her to get baptized, but she still didn't wanna be baptized. And the person who would have brought her to church yesterday, apparently has dengue, that disease, and didn't go to church yesterday because of that. Hopefully this week will be better investigator-wise.  But it sure will be interesting with the world cup and all, until the end of my mission.  

Here are some interesting sites I think you will enjoy...

Soccer field! For Brigham and Sarah

Soccer field for Brigham and Sarah!!

Mario and Luigi...

 

 

"Hexa" dance to celebrate the World Cup at the Ward building

Love you all and see you soon,

Elder Coon

Last Zone Conference...

Our Zone shirt!  Into the water!

Coonzinho translates to "LITTLE COON"

June 1

Honestly, I haven't got much new to tell you guys this week, unfortunately.  Time is flying by.  Much faster than I expected.  We're working harder than ever, and we should have a baptism this week, another granddaughter of a member, the member who we baptized his grandson 2 weeks ago.  I still haven't been able to teach her, since the one time she was taught, I was on a divison with the Zone Leaders, and ever since then, every day we've gone to visit her, and she was never home.  She's very hard to find home, but this week we'll make sure she gets baptized.  

We also had my last zone conference on Friday.  For me, it was pretty emotional, even though I don't cry as I am speaking and such, but I sure get strange feelings as I bear testimony at the pulpit now.  For those of you who don't know, here in our mission, and I believe in all of the missions, at least here in Brazil if not in the whole world, on the last zone conference, the missionaries who are going home bear their testimonies in what is called a "testemunho de saída".  Basically, we try to sum up our entire mission in only 3 minutes, the time the president told us we had to talk.  Wow.   I had a few things I wanted to say, but I pretty much went blank when I got up there, saying how the mission changed me and how I will truly miss it.  I don't remember much of what I said honestly, but I hope it made sense and was able to bear a descent testimony.  

We also learned a lot in the zone conference about change, repentance, and the atonement and free agency.  It was great, the President really knows how to teach stuff in a way that we understand.  I'll really miss him, he's great.

We tried teaching piano again this week, it didn't work out all as planned, but we are now teaching an atheist, the sister of a member that I met in Siqueira Campos. She seems like she's doing much better than a year ago in respect to God and believing, we had a pretty long lesson just talking with her, not teaching anything specifically, for like an hour at the chapel.  Hopefully that all works out with her.  

We are also teaching a recent convert's daughter.  She is now progressing pretty well, she's now actually admitting to other members now that she's preparing to be baptized, members told us, but she still doesn't quite have that FIRE of baptism.  We'll work with her a bit on that.  It's just difficult with her since she is only home on Saturdays and Sundays, she lives in another area the rest of the week to go to school.  But when the world cup comes around, that'll all change since schools are closing from June 11th until like July 14th.  So she'll be here in her mom's house for the last week and a half of my mission, and I will be able to baptize her on my last day of the mission, June 21st.  

Speaking of the world cup, things are going more nuts here daily.  We also have São João pretty much this entire month (the brazilian equivalent of the 4th of july), except tons more bombs and fireworks, so there are tons of fireworks stands everywhere, and as we walk around, it sounds like Baghdad, tons of random fires already, it should be a good last 3 weeks with tons of celebrations going on.  People here are going to be celebrating São João for the rest of my mission, and the actual day of São João is the day I go home.  That, in addition to the world cup, here in Brazil is complete chaos in the street the whole day.  BUT we keep working hard and we'll see what happens during the world cup.  During the days when Brazil plays, it’s a rule that we have to stay in the house, and on the other days, we just need to use common sense, but it should be pretty nuts.  

Everyone will be partying on the street, lighting huge fires, throwing huge bombs, lighting tons of fireworks, celebrating, except for me.  I'm not too excited I'm going home, not, at least, excited enough to throw a party like how they are throwing here.  Sure, I'm excited to see all of you soon, but I will really miss this place.  I love my mission.  I love Brazil.  I love the Brazilian people.  I love nordestinos.  In Portuguese, you can say something about that that you can't say in English.  You can say that you will "sentir saudades" (you will miss it).  When you break that down, the literal translation into English is that you will "feel the miss" (I think that's how you'd say it- but you get the point).  The point is that I will FEEL something inside of me leave me when I go home.  This place and these people will hold a special place in my heart forever.  And I will be able to feel the lack of them with me.  I hope that made sense, it makes sense to me.

Until next week,

Elder Coon

Acai Ice Cream!  YUM!

Cool lake in our area

Brazilian Through and Through...

May 26, 2014

It was nice to read all of your Memorial Day e-mails.  As I was reading them, I felt kinda weird, cuz honestly I now feel more Brazilian than American... it's weird.  I've lost a little bit of my patriotism.  Haha when I am home watching the world cup, I won't even be cheering for the US, I'll be rootin for Brazil all the way.  

Crowded bus!

Oh, world cup.  How you have messed up Brazil.  Everyone here in Brazil is either extremely excited for the world cup, or is detested by the very idea of the world cup being here, and want to protest against it.  I don't know if in the states, the news gets up there about the protests here in Brazil, but it's gettin pretty rough.  People here don't want the world cup to go down, since the health situation is horrible (hospitals), education is horrible (kids study on the ground in school), and in the meantime, the government is spending billions on stadiums that will never be used after the world cup is over (there is no good soccer in those regions).  That's the argument for many people here in Brazil.  Sure, there are tons of fanatics still that are super excited and count down the hours until the world cup starts, but there are also 2 sides to it here.  There are tons of world cup things here in almost every store.  Lots of yellow and green mini flags, and things all over the street, tons of flags, Brazilian colors everywhere.  

We are also working with the members in a different way lately, teaching them, and asking them certain questions, like how they got to know about the church, why they were baptized, and why they stayed, and what this gospel means to them.  They suddenly all start to bear their testimonies, every time, every house, every member.  The spirit is strong, and then we ask them to give a book of Mormon to a friend.  So far, it has worked out very well, and we hope for more success along the rest of the transfer.

We had a baptism this week!!!  The past 2 weeks, we were teaching a grandson of a member who has just over a year in the church.  He's 8 yrs old, and his grandpa is around 70ish.  His grandpa wanted him to be baptized when we visited him like 2 weeks ago, and then he came to church last Sunday, and on Saturday he was baptized.  Even his dad and his mom came to watch his baptism!  His dad even came to church on Sunday (yesterday) with his wife.  Bummer they don't live in our area, but the elders are in for a treat in the other area.  We are also going to start teaching another granddaughter to be baptized in another week or so, she also came to church yesterday and said she wanted to be baptized too.

We're also teaching our avid reader’s daughter.  She is progressing slowly but surely, doing well.  This week, she was progressing much better than the other weeks.  She always wanted to keep going to her little garage church, liked the noisy church and all, but is not getting used to our church, and probably will even be baptized

on my last day in the field (we marked her baptism for that day).  We also have another baptism marked for that day.  She's kinda hard to teach since there are tons of little crazy kids she takes care of in her aunt's house, but she is doing pretty well too.  She couldn't come to church these past two weeks, or this next week since she'll be traveling, so we aren't teaching her too much, but after this next week, we'll start focusing more on her, and get her in the water too.

Love you guys so much, have fun visiting graves, and talk to you next week!

Elder Coon

PS- did you guys like the festive "luis gonzaga" "cangaceiro" "nordestino" hat? :) i got a good negociative price with the guy, reminded me of being in mexico, negociating prices. and if you speak the language well, they usually will accept reasonable prices :)

GOOD TO BE A MISSIONARY IN BRAZIL!

From April 14, 2014

This week was awesome, a week where I could say that I don't wanna go home, IT'S GOOD TO BE IN BRAZIL!!! :) And I have very HOLY SHOES!

We had so many wonderful experiences this week.  I'm not sure whether I should start out with what happened first, or what was the best.  Hmmm.

Well first of all, I'll start out with what we did during the week, we basically focused on our fabulous investigator, of course.  We made a goal to keep her free from anything that Satan could do to keep her from being baptized.  We followed up like no other, and on Saturday, at 5pm she entered into the waters of baptism!!!  It was extremely special for me, and a testimony builder.  It's an interesting story.  

This transfer, I received more referrals from members than I did in my entire mission.  We ended up getting 29 referrals in 6 weeks.  However, all of these referrals were what we call "moles", or in other words, investigators who don't progress, don't come to church, don't pray, don't read, all that good stuff.  But, in the contacts we usually do, they end up usually being these "moles", while the referrals end up being the "eleitos", the people who actually do what we ask them to do, and are baptized.  But in this particular's case, I gained a testimony that contacts can be baptisms too!  We showed our faith to the Lord and he blessed us with a contact baptism, even when we received a ton of referrals that weren't baptized.  We need to work with our own force and our own effort, and the Lord blesses us.  That was the big lesson I learned this time.  At her baptism, she also bore a strong testimony, right before she entered the waters of baptism with me, it was great.  

And how do we celebrate baptism here?  AÇAÍ!!! It's pretty much the tastiest thing on the face of the earth.  

I also played for another wedding this past Friday, at the chapel, and I played some interesting music for sure, I played Waterfall and All of Me by Jon Schmidt, got the sheet music and practiced a bit and played them for the wedding.  Turned out pretty good, I love those songs.  I also played some romantic versions of popular songs here, popular songs from the states, and a wedding-downed version of the Lord of the Rings (nobody recognized it here since people don't know it that well, but my comp and I got a good laugh out of the songs I played).  

We also had a clogged up bathroom so we got doing Brazilian plumbing, in other words, we took a wire hanger, opened up the drain, and plucked around with the wire and ended up finding a lollipop stick stuck in the drain.  

Brazilian members usually know a variety of words here, usually thanks to missionaries.  They usually know "freaking", "freak", "flip", "crap", "oh man", and words like that, but this week we heard one that I had never heard a member say, "HOLY COW", while we were looking for something in the bishop's office, the 1st counselor couldn't find what he needed, and said, holy cow.  We got a good laugh out of that.  

At that same member's house for lunch yesterday, while we were there, the kids were playing with LEGO's, which are super rare here, and I asked them to write Brigham’s name out in Lego’s and put their various Lego projects they made around it.  That family reminds me a lot of our family, the dad reminds me a lot of dad, is a counselor in the bishopric even, and loves American football, and the mom reminds me a lot of mom, cooks very well, and is very sweet, and the 2 sons remind me of Brigham, and love to make LEGO's.  They're great.

I love being here, on the mission, and in this area.  It's a fantastic area, the members are awesome, and now we have a recent convert we can help.  We had transfers yesterday, and we both stayed together here, we're getting along great here, and this upcoming transfer will only be 4 weeks, and ends on May 13^th.

It's great to be a missionary in Brazil.

Abraços,

Elder Coon

Look for the Small Miracles--they are there!

May 19, 2014

The people here always think that God doesn't exist or doesn't love them because bad things happen in the world.  Thanks Mom for the email.  I know who needs to hear it.  There's a man that I met who is a firm member's husband, and their daughter is going on a mission in August.  We taught him in Siqueira, and marked his baptism and everything, but he still couldn't get over that barrier.  We tried everything we could, but then we got transferred.  Turns out this past week, these members moved into our ward!  Now we have the chance to try teaching him again.  We also have another investigator who is a girl we are teaching, who has that same roadblock.  Your email will be the answer.

Thanks so much for the support and love.  I am working harder than ever.  I have noticed something interesting as of late.  I think I have seen more little miracles in this area and with this companion, just recently in general, than in almost all of my mission.  I am working hard, focusing on the work.  Something I noticed is that when I work hard at the end (where almost all missionaries are out of force and will to keep going), that is when the Lord blesses us the most, in our difficulties.  

For example, with the most elect person I've seen in my entire life, and the most avid reader and learner too.  She was an enormous miracle that God gave us.  And she was a contact.  A contact!  That hardly ever happens, even in Brazil.  

This past week, we worked super hard, and weren't even really able to teach people, the Lord is really testing us here.  In the end, it is now becoming much more difficult, we are rejected more as of late, and almost without people to teach.  But, that's when the miracles come up.  This week, we were approached by a member who has just over a year in the church, and he said he wanted us to baptize his grandson, Marcelo.  We taught him a little bit this week, and he is gonna be baptized this Saturday.  

We also had another miracle, this member's wife was always super against us, and against the church.  But this week, we taught her too, she was always trying to come up with excuses to not come to church, and guess what happened?  All of this time the member has been a member, he's been trying so hard to get his wife to come to church, and she was always against it, saying she's super catholic.  "I was born catholic, and I'm gonna die catholic!"  She was always super hard-hearted with us, but I always joked around with her, asking when she was going to go to church, and be baptized.  She was our investigator that was least likely to expect at church.  When we showed up at church, we looked in the window to the relief society, and there she was!  I looked once, twice, to confirm, then told my comp and he didn't believe it either.  

Miracles are happening here in Soledade.  HARD WORK + FAITH = MIRACLES.  Even at times, like this past week, where we had a lot of time where we had nothing scheduled and ended up being rejected as we contacted people, we were blessed.  That was basically all that happened this week here, another week in the avexamento do trabalho do Senhor. 

Love you so much!

Jordan