January 24, 2012

Oi Família!

Well just as the subject says Brasil is really hot and humid during the summer. However we got some relief over the weekend from a couple rain storms that cooled it down a bit but already yesterday and today is hot. Well as for what happened over this last week. . . On Tuesday night we had a family night with a member´s son and daughter-in-law but in the end they were not really interested in hearing more. On Wednesday we had lunch at a place and a lady that worked there said she had talked to the missionaries before and she also said she has been to church but has not got baptized because she has not been married. She lives in a different area but we talked to the Elders from that area about her. We also had a new family move into our ward from Brasilia. They are a great family and i feel like they will give strength to this ward. We also went and did a service project at the church which was picking up branches from a Brazilian pine tree that is in front of the church. The tree always loses all of the branches on the sidewalk and the front lawn of the church so we helped pick it all up to make it look better. The branches have really sharp points on them and i kept poking my finger with them. We also were able to do some visits with the 1st counselor in the stake presidency although he is not from our ward. It went well although we were only able to teach one man. We also got a referral which was a friend of one of the members and we were supposed to meet him at the church on Friday but he never showed up. On Thursday we had our district meeting in Carazinho. It was a good meeting and it was all about having a positive attitude in all the aspects of missionary work. After the meeting we went and made Brazilian Hot Dogs at the Elders house in Carazinho. Another thing that happened this week is we went to the Stake Presidents house and helped him clean up his back yard that was full of old car parts and random things like wood and rocks. His son was trying to get a heavy rock down from a pile and it fell on his foot and he possibly broke it. The rocks were really heavy and large. I was scared i was going to drop one on my foot. Well also on Saturday we did a tour of the church with Maura and her cousin. They liked it alot but sadly Maura was not able to go to church because she had people coming over and leaving after the time church started. Well on Saturday we got a usual opportunity to give a blessing of health to the mom of one of the recent converts. If there is one thing i have experience and learned in this area it is that Priesthood blessings really help and it is very important to do service. Yesterday we did some visits with a recently returned missionary named Igor and after doing visits we went to his house and had a small snack. Well as for the people . . . Tia Santa will know by tomorrow about when we can do her baptism. Maura is really liking the Book of Mormon although she almost gave up on listening to the messages. She seems like she has alot of potential now to progress and one day become a member. It might take some work but it will most likely happen because of how much she is beginning to like the stuff we are teaching. Rosana and Jeferson are going to be traveling for a month so we will have to wait on them although i believe when they come back they will have alot of potential. Meri and Elizeth are slowly progressing and so this week is the make it or brake it week for them. We are staring to get some success with less actives returning. We are still helping the Camargo family go back to church as well as a young man named Paulinho and also another family, the Ambrosio family. They all have some potential to return if the members help us out in the reactivation process. Well we are now on the final week of the transfer and we are going to find some new people this week so next transfer will be great. I am not sure if i will stay here or go but either way i will be happy and do what the Lord wants me to do. Well love you all very much and hope all is going great.

Love Elder Cefalo

January 17, 2012

Oi Família!

I now know what it is like to have summer during January. It is good but really hot. Although we were able to get some relief this week because on Friday and Saturday it rained basically all day long and Sunday was a bit colder than usual. As for the work it is improving but still needs some improvement to get it going in full swing. The problem mainly is that many people are traveling and going on Vacation because it is their summer break. We are having some success with Tia Santa but she still has to get some medical things worked out so she can get baptized. Also we are having some success with Maura, the lady we found last Monday. She is starting to feel the truthfulness of the message but now she just needs to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. As for the referrals we received last week so far not too much has come out of it but tonight we will have a family home evening with one of the members that gave us referrals and the referrals they gave us. It should be good. We are also receiving some help from the members because they were willing to mark days to leave with us this week. We have a brother to go out with us each night which should help us out a bit. Some things that have happened this week . . . We were walking and we saw a family sitting outside and so we went and did a contact with them. The wife liked what we were saying but the husband was too interested and said he would call us. The wife said she would try to change his mind but nothing has happened so far. I had divisions with Elder Cruz. It went pretty well. We were able to teach quite a few people and also able to get a white chocolate cuka. Also some members brought us some left over food from a party they had. A really good thing that happened this week is we had a family home evening with a less active family on Friday and they were at church on Sunday. They were so happy to be back and said they are coming again next week. We also have lunch with them next Sunday. :) On Sunday we found a couple other less actives that seems like it shouldn´t be to hard to help them return to activity. They were really grateful that we visited them and they said it is the first tome some one from the church has visited them in awhile. Every time i hear something like that from a less active it just makes me think of how important home teaching is because it could help a less active return. Well this week so far we haven´t done way to much except yesterday we left with a member and did some visits. Today i got my hair cut and then we helped a family here fix and put up a cupboard. We also had a really good lunch at their house. Well it is crazy it is almost the end of the transfers here. Only two more weeks and it could be changing. Things are going well here and i am loving it so much. I love how much i learn being a missionary. Love you all very much.

Love Elder Cefalo

A scripture for all to read . . . Mosiah 2:41

January 3 ,2012

Oi Família,

FELIZ ANO NOVO! = HAPPY NEW YEARS!

This week was not too productive because everyone was traveling since here right now is the summer break and also it was a holiday. It was kind of crazy this week. We weren´t able to find alot of people at home. A good thing that happened this week is that we got Tia Santa to mark a date for the 7th of January. We are going to do everything to make sure it happens since she is 89 and we are not 100% sure she knows why she has to get baptized and everything. The worst that can happen is we have to move it to another day but she will in any case just baptized i am for sure. Other good news. The mission baptized 806 people this last year which is a record for the mission even though we didn´t reach our ultimate goal of 1000. We are trying once again this year to reach 1000. This week was another week of finding a couple people who don´t live in our area but have some interest in the Gospel. We found one who came from Libya, Africa and his name is Libyo. It has been awhile since he has lived in Brasil almost his whole live but he was born in Libya. He seemed pretty interested but he lives in another city. We left a short message with him about the importance of prayer and we got his address and sent it to the assistants so they could send it to the missionaries in the city he lives in. We also found a man named José. He lives in another city but is here in Passo Fundo for a week. We are going to visit him this week to leave a message with him. A weird thing that happened this week is a man tricked me into buying a bucket full of plums for 12 Reais (about 6 dollars). They were good but it was too much, i still have a bunch. We were able to find a couple new people including one lady named Neuza who is a friend of one of the members. She wants to hear more but she is busy working so much and she said she would tell her friend when she had more time so we could teach her. We also found a man named Douglas. Who when we first started talking to him he didn´t seem to have any desire in hearing but when i asked if we could go into his house and share a message he said sure. He seemed to like the short message we shared and we are going back to visit him tomorrow. We also found man named Antonio who was a referral of one of the less actives who drinks and smokes. Antonio seemed to have some interest but he has little knowledge of anything to do with the Bible or any religion so we have to teach from the very basics. On Friday there was alot of rain. It was probably the most rain i have seen in my life. It was crazy because we were far from home without umbrellas or rain jackets so we got pretty soaked. It also rained quite a bit on Saturday. On Saturday basically all the Bishop´s family asked for blessings. Elder Kramer did the blessing for the bishop and i did the blessing for his son, his wife, his daughter, and Tia Santa. It was alot of blessing but they all are better now. I was glad to have another testament and witness of the power of the Priesthood and Faith. Also on Saturday one of the members dad died and asked if we could come with some one from the bishopric to do a prayer but we ended up getting there right at the end and not being able to do the prayer. Then on Saturday at night we went to the stake president´s house to celebrate New Years. We were able to stay until 10:30. It was alot of fun because he has a huge and great family. We had a churrasco and talked. It is crazy that it is already 2012. At 12:00 at night while we were sleeping we were awoke by 3 million fireworks it seems like. The were absolutely crazy with there fireworks. The were setting off fireworks all day and night. Then church the next day was only an hour. We were privileged to give a small talk about how the members can help us with missionary this year. It went pretty well. Then we had churrasco again after church at Edvaldo´s house. It was great. Yesterday just about nothing happened although we had things planned and tried to visit a bunch of people. We found a Muslim man and he let us leave a message but he didn´t want to hear anything else for right now. We left him with a pamphlet about the Plan of Salvation with our number and the website mormon.org. We are searching to work more with the members this week so we can get some things going. Well Love you all very much.

Love Elder Cefalo

P.S. Here are some fotos from the last couple of weeks.The first is of some of the people we spent New Years Eve with. The second is of me with a palm tree branch that we cut down to make the nativity scene. The next is of the bishop and the nativity scene. The next of the Family we spent Christmas Eve with. The last of the Stake President and his wife. Love you all.

January 10, 2012

Oi Família!

This week was a bit difficult as far as missionary work goes. This week was full of contacting in the street and finding no success with it. We would mark to visit the people another day and they wouldn´t be there. Tia Santa´s baptism had to be put off until next week because she has some health problems that she is taking medicine for and should be gone by next week. The other thing that made the week hard was the heat. It has been some of the hottest days of my life. I no longer think Utah is hot during summer because of how hot it has been here and it is only supposed to get hotter. We have been getting a little bit more interest out of a member´s cousin and her family. They seem to be finding the importance of the gospel and the difference it could make in there lives. We now just need to get them to church and get them reading the Book of Mormon regularly. We got an idea of how to help the members do missionary work. The idea was to have each of them do a list of friends who are either less active or not members and every night pray for those people and when they feel like it is the right time for us to visit them then we will go with the member to visit them. Another thing that happened this week that is already helping with referrals is on Sunday two of the Sisters, who teach the class for young single adults and also for older members, had us bring a box of copies of the Book of Mormon and they gave one to each of the students to find someone to give to after dedicating the Book of Mormon. Already from just that spark we got 6 referrals just yesterday. We are going to go and start visiting all the members that grabbed a copy of the Book of Mormon and asking them if they have already found someone. I am hoping it gives alot of results like it already has. We still have not had time to visit any of the referrals but we are going to do it as soon as possible. Well some weird and crazy thing that happened this week. . . While we were walking to lunch on Friday a man´s car broke down at a stop sign and so we helped him push it to the curb because everyone else that passed by didn´t stop to help. On Saturday when we went to visit a less active a dog came up and bit at my ankle and luckily on caught on to my pants but got really close to biting me. On Saturday while we were walking we found a man sitting on a curb and asked to share a message with him and he accepted. He said he was at the time living with some less active members and he had been to church before. We set up a time to visit him again but he sadly wasn´t there. On Sunday Irmã Mara brought her friend Sheila to church and she said she really liked it so we now just need to set up a time to visit her because she wasn´t sure when on Sunday. Good news that happened is on Sunday we visited a less active family and they told s they want to start going back to church and they want to do a family home evening with us this week. Yesterday we found a lady named Maura who while we were teaching her started crying and told us she was glad we stopped to talk to her. She really liked the message about the Restoration. She even said a prayer in front of us that was simple but great. She is a great lady. We are going to visit her again tomorrow. Well although the work can be tough like it is it sure is helping me learn alot of things i need to change like how to do better contacts and how to use members to help with the work. I love this work and i will be sad to leave Brasil this year. Love you all very much. Hope all is well.

Love Elder Cefalo

December 27, 2011

Oi Família,

So there is a new rule on the mission that using the internet should only be an hour so if you send me an e-mail and i do not e-mail back for a bit it is because i can only be using the internet for an hour. Well as for the week and how it was and everything. We stopped teaching quite a few people this week. We are now in the searching stage of the work. We have gotten a few referrals from members but either they are hard to contact or they are not very interested. Since it is the end of the year and summer it complicates the process of finding people at home. We are now beginning the teaching of the Bishop´s aunt who is not a member and is 89 years old. She has liked it so far and i am sure she will get baptized soon because she lives with the bishop and plans on going to church with him every week. We have being closer with getting Rafaela to lose her fear of being alone if she gets baptized. She went to an activity we had on Friday and she liked it. We also had a young woman from the ward go to her and talk with her. The sad part is she didn´t come to church this week so we have to figure out why. We also are finding a couple people that could be interested in the gospel and all of its teachings. We found a man named Alberi and he seems to be interested although his family might not be way too interested. We have only taught him once so we will see if he continues to have a desire to learn more. It was really weird that on Christmas Eve and Christmas it was cold and a bit rainy. It means i will never have to experience a hot Christmas or at least for awhile. The rest of the week however was hot. On Wednesday we had to do a service project which was taking rocks from in front of the house upstairs to behind the house downstairs. It took about an hour but it was really hot and i was sweating alot. We did it for a widow here in our ward and she thanked us and gave us canned peaches that she canned herself. We are really getting help from our Ward Mission Leader which is great however it is not enough to get the work rolling along like it should. We are finding ways to work more with the members. On Friday we had an activity at the church. It was a live nativity scene. The bishop, a couple other men from the church, and us sang a hymn at the start. We were wearing Santa hats. For food we had fruits and cuka. It was really good and alot of people liked it. As for Christmas Eve we had a good day. We were able to visit a couple people and leave messages about the birth of Jesus Christ. Afterwards we went around with two members from our ward and sang hymns to a couple of people. The people really liked it. It was a great experience to go and sing to them and see how happy they were to have someone that cares about them and the true meaning of Christmas. At night we had permission to stay with a family until 10:30 because it is a tradition here in Brasil to stay up the night before Christmas until 12:00 and have a big dinner. We went to a members house and had dinner and also watched them open some presents. It was great and i love the family that we spent it with because they are always helping us out. The other crazy thing they do here in Brasil is basically set of fireworks all day and night on Christmas and Christmas Eve. They also open a majority of their presents on Christmas Eve. Well now for Natal (Christmas). . . We went and got ready to go open up the church. The bishop brought a friend and her cousin or niece to church. The said they were coming again next week because they liked it. Church was only an hour. Then we went home and studied for a little bit and then went to lunch. It was with a returned missionary named Janio. We talked alot about Christmas on the mission and it seemed crazy to me that it was my last Christmas on the mission. Well after lunch we went to the Bishop´s house and started teaching his aunt and i started to get worried because my family was supposed to call but they hadn´t yet. After finishing the lesson and watching a movie about the Restoration i got permission to go online and check my e-mail to see if i sent the right number and i found out that i sent the number wrong. I hurried and sent the right number and waited anxiously. I finally got a call from my family and it was great. After talking to my family we went to set up a time to visit a members friend with the member. Then we went home and rested from a stressful day. Then yesterday was back to a normal day but a day without barely anyone home and a bunch of people telling us they were going to be out of town this week so we are still looking for new people to teach. Well that is basically what happened this week.Love you all very much.

Love Elder Cefalo

December 19, 2011

Oi Família!

This week was a little on the crazy side but it wasn´t too bad of a week. We are going to stop teaching a couple people because they really are not progressing all to well. Sadly one of them is Vanda because she just can´t give up her smoking habit which is really holding her back from being baptized. We had a meeting with our ward mission leader on Wednesday and we talked about finding the elect to teach. He gave us some suggestions to find out if someone was truly elect or not. We are going to be doing alot of finding this week because i believe that alot of the people we were teaching aren´t way elect at the moment. Also on Wednesday during the afternoon Elder Kramer had to go to the dentist. It was a girl dentist that was a friend of the bishop´s family. She was really nice and she even made it cheaper for Elder Kramer. We ended up giving her and her secretary a Book of Mormon because the bishop´s wife asked us to do so. The dentist thanked us for the Book and we are going back this Wednesday to see if she wants to hear more. Sadly she lives out of our area so if she does want to hear more that we will have to hand her off to the other missionaries but either way it would be great to see her accept the gospel. On Thursday we had divisions with the Zone Leaders. I stayed with Elder S. Costa the entire time. We were able to find a couple new people to teach and also we were able to teach some older investigators. He also felt like some of them weren´t very elect at the moment so we invited them to church and those who didn´t go we aren´t going to teach any more and leave it for other missionaries to try. We had to go and help with some baptismal interviews for the Passo Fundo Elders. They were having 6 baptismal interviews. Then at night we went back home and the Elders from Boqueirão came to our house to sleep because the next day we had our Christmas Conference and we had to leave at 6 in the morning. Well then on Friday we went to Caixias a city that is about 3 hours from Passo Fundo. We rode in a small bus all the way there. It was great to see all the missionaries and talk about the work. The Christmas Conference was really good and we talked alot about the Savior Jesus Christ and His birth. It was great to spend time talking about the true meaning of Christmas. We got some presents from the mission. We got a Christmas card from the First Presidency, we got a temple recommend holder that was specially made for our mission, we also got a bunch of food and sweets and everything. It was great. At night we went back home. Then on Saturday i was supposed to go do a baptismal interview after lunch for the Elders of Carazinho. We went there and it ended up falling through and since on Saturday there are not as many buses as there are during the week we weren´t able to get home until 7:20. We tried to do some visits with a member but they didn´t really work out. Then came Sunday, the testing day. Sadly the only one who went to church was the bishop´s aunt. After church and lunch we went out with Irmão Campos, our ward mission leader, and did some visits and tried to get referrals from members. It worked out a bit. Well i don´t have much time to write today but just wanted to let you know that i love you all and hope you all have a Merry Christmas. I am staying here in Bosque with Elder Kramer for one more transfer. Love you.

Love Elder Cefalo

December 13, 2011

Oi Família,

This week was a bit better than the last few weeks have been. We were able to teach a couple more people but still with all we are trying we are having a difficult time getting people to church which really makes it feel like all the work you did went for nothing. We taught a couple and the wife is interested but the husband really isn´t interested so we are trying to find a way to get him interested in the gospel. We also are trying to get Vanda to just throw away all the stuff she has to make her cigarettes that she smokes but she is having a difficult time wanting to do that. Jussara is starting to get hard to teach because she got surgery on her eyes and hasn´t been feeling good so we haven´t been able to teach her. On Wednesday we were able to teach Paulo and we used a movie (Joy to the World) to teach him but it still didn´t help with keeping him focused the whole time. He said he was going to church but he didn´t end up going. While we were walking it started raining really hard and we got soaked in about 5 seconds. We stopped realy quick underneath where there was a covering for the bus stop and there was a random drunken guy. He started saying really weird things and i was wishing at that time i was like Elder Kramer and didn´t understand what he was saying. We ended up giving him a Restoration pamphlet and running away to a members house that was close. Right after it stop raining the sun came out and it was really hot again. We also had Vanda almost stop taking the missionary lessons because she wasn´t sure if she could stop smoking and also she didn´t like the rule that we couldn´t enter into her house unless there was a responsible adult in the house of our same gender. We ended up explaining about it all and she was fine in the end and said she would continue to listen to us and go to church. Then we had a weekly meeting with our Ward Mission Leader and it went well and afterwards he went with us to meet Jairo and his family. We ended watching Joy to the World with Jairo and his family and we gave it to them as a present. We are hoping it will get them more interested in going to church. On Thursday we had a churrasco (BBQ) with all the Missionaries of our Zone. It was because Elder Grabner was going home on Saturday and he wanted to do it before he went home. It was really good like churrasco always is. Then i went on a division withe our District Leader Elder Cruz. It was really good and i learned alot from him about how to do contacts and teach lessons. I like to see other people teaching because it helps me see where i need to improve. We ended up teaching a son of one of the members who knew alot of anti Mormon stuff. We ended up clearing up a few of his doubts and helping him to understand a bit more about the church. He thought that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon and not translated. He also had questions about why there is need for the Book of Mormon and etc. It was good to see him understand a bit better what we believe instead of believe in what the internet says. We also had a family home evening but none of the members brought an investigator like they said they would. It was good and we watched a video about prophets and had cuka (it is like bread that is a dessert it is hard to explain). On Friday i had to go with the district leader to do a couple baptismal interviews in another area. We were able to get Vanda to make a goal for stopping smoking before next week. We also were able to go and teach Rafaela, Gabriela and Maria (family that was a referral from a member). Rafaela said she read the Book of Mormon and felt better after reading. They all said they would go to church but sadly they didn´t go. On Saturday we were able to find a family who seems really interested in the gospel. The dad´s name is Marcio and his wife is Franciela and they have a two year old daughter named Manuela. The both work at the hospital. We found them because we were passing their house and i saw him outside getting something out of the car and i said to Elder Kramer lets go talk to him and it looked like when i asked him if we could share a message that he would say no but he told us we could come in. The we went and taught Rosana, Jeferson and Laricia (a members relatives). They really liked our message and said they might go to church but they weren´t sure if it was going to work out. It was cool because while we were walking through a small forest/jungle area we saw a family of toucans. Then came sunday and the only investigator at church was the Bishop´s wife´s aunt named Tia Santa. We weren´t able to teach too many lessons like most Sundays. We found out Vanda didn´t go to church because she went to a churrasco that went until 3 in the morning. Yesterday was a really hot day and at the end of the night my eyes were hurting from so much sun and also i had a headache. We had a family home evening at night with the stake president and his sons friend named Pedro. It went pretty well and he is interested in learning more. Well that was the week this week. Love you all very much. Next week is transfer week.

Love Elder Cefalo