Oi Família!

Another crazy week! The day after i e-mailed last we had a zone conference with an Area 70 named Elder Itinose. He was a mission president in Manaus, Brasil. He was really great and gave us alot of good ideas to try new in our work. He talked alot about being more bold in our commitments with our investigators, it was good to learn new things about missionary work. The next crazy thing that happened is the next day after we got back from the zone conference we had heard there was a flood in Lajeado and other cities surronding it. It had rained so much that the river, Rio Taquari, overflowed and had filled streets and houses. It was so crazy to see. It had flooded so much that in some areas the flood had reached to the second floor of some houses and buildings. Luckily it was no where close to where we lived but it was pretty bad. We had some investigators that lived in the parts where there were floods so we couldn´t go visit them. The day after we went to Estrela to do a division and ended up helping a couple people. We got this one old lady in their branch food because it had all got ruined during the flood. We also had to ride a boat to try to find some kid named William who was supposed to get baptized in their branch this last Saturday. When Elder Anderson and I reached his house, it was completely under water, his neighbor told us where he was. They ended up moving the baptism until next week. Sad news is we had a baptism planned for Marroni for last saturday but it ended up falling through and he no longer wants to be baptized or even come to church. We are now going to try to help Cleber the 13 year old boy be baptized some time in August because he is out of town right now. The work of course has been slow with me being sick, then having zone conference, then having the flood, and now Elder Jacques has something wrong with his eye and also he is a little sick. We actually spent almost the entire day on sunday, after church, in Porto Alegre with President Pavan going to the eye hospital to get Elder Jacques eye checked. We found out he has some infection in his eye and he has to put some eye drops in it. We have to go back to Porto Alegre on Thursday for them to check on his eye again. It was great to spend time with President Pavan, he is a great guy and really cares about us missionaries. That is about what happened this last week, it was crazy and i felt like we were running around all week and trying to do a bunch of things. I am glad because this week it will be a normal week other than going back to Porto Alegre on thursday. I am happy to get back to work, it really is no fun to not work. :) I am glad that the Lord blesses each and every one of us with what we need in our lives. I know that the Savir Jesus Christ suffered for all of our pain and affliction and sicknesses (Alma 7:11-13) and we must rely on Him to receive healing in our lives. I love all of you very much and hope all is going well. Até proximo e-mail! :)

Love Elder Cefalo

July 19, 2011

Hey Family,

This week not much happened so this will be a short e-mail. Shotly after e-mailing on tuesday i was not feeling the best so that night when we had soccer with the young men i didn´t play. Then i woke up wednesday morning and was not feeling the best but we still went out and did a division with Taina and Evandro and visited a couple people. It started to rain ad my umbrella broke so my head was getting wet but i didn~t think to much of it. Then the next day i woke up and my throat was absolutely killing me and my head was hurting and i had a fever and there was no way i was getting out of bed. We called Sister Pavan and she had the mission doctor call. He said he thought it might be strep so i needed to go visit the doctor. I went to the doctor after lunch and ended up having to wait for over 2 hours. Finally he looked at my throat really quick and said i had an infection and that i needed to take some medicine. So we went and checked how much the medicine was and bought it. It ended up being 50 Reais. Then Sister Pavan said to stay in that night. Then the next day i was feeling a bit better but Elder Anderson was really sick and it was raining so after lunch i came back to the house and just slept like Elder Anderson. That night i couldn´t sleep and was up all night coughing almost to the point of throwing up. The next day we were supposed to help with people moving. Elder Dowden and Elder Jacques ended up helping while Elder Anderson and I stayed home again, which is good because it started to rain again. Then on Sunday i was feeling alot better and we went to church and then lunch and things were going good. Then we were out visting pople and it started to rain really hard and no one was in there house so we ended up going to the Bishops house since it was close and spending a bit of time there warming up and drying off. We tried this weird drink that was oranges cinnamon ginger and some other thing. Then we ended up going to the house early because i was not feeling good and i was getting rained on all night. Then yesterday i was not allowed to go out because it was raining all day and Sister Pavan didn´t want me to go out and get more sick. Elder Jacques and Elder Dowden ended up doing visits in our area and also in Estrela. Right now i am in Santa Cruz because we have a Zone Conference tomorrow with a 70. I am not sure who it is going to be. It is going to be in Porto Alegre which will be good. I am doing better health wise i just have a bit of a headache and have allergies for some reason. Well that was about my week. Sorry it is short. Thanks for all of you prayers and support i definately need them and they helped me get over this sickness faster. Thank you all and love you very much.

Love Elder Cefalo

July 12, 2011

Oi Família,

What a crazy week but yet also not so crazy. I went to the Bus station in Porto Alegre to meet my new companion and also say bye to Elder Marcondes, there i met a bunch of other missionaries and also caught up with some other missionaries i knew. My new companion is Elder Jacques (Jacks). He is from Curitiba, Brasil. It was funny because i was tlaking to Elder Persinger from my MTC group and he was talking about only having americans and once i got Elder Jacques I told him I have only had Brazilian´s. It is good because i still have to use portuguese to communicate things and cannot resort to english because he only knows a little. Elder Jacques only has 2 more months than me on the mission which seems crazy but it is good. It was a tough week as far as plans falling through basically every day. I do not like being the one who knows the area better and having to make most the plans but it is good practice for being senior which is most likely to happen next transfer or the transfer after. We found some good new investigators this week which could be relly good and could end up being baptized at some time in their lives. We almost got into a bible bash with a jehovah witness at a investigators house but she ended up leaving because we were answering everything right so that she couldn´t mix us up in our words like she wanted to. On one of the days this week we witnessed a pretty bad motorcycle accident. We were leaving to go visit another investigator and this car pulled in front of a motorcycle, the person on the motorcycle tried to stop so they didn´t run into the car and ended up flying of the moto and it landed on her (we found out it was a girl). The back was full of paint which spilled all over the road. It ws crazy, Elder Jacques grabbed the phone and called the ambulance. A crowd started crowding around her and it was getting crazy. After cleaning up the paint cans off the street and making sure everything was alright we headed off. It was crazier than i can explain through e-mail. That same day we were walking to go visit someone and my nose just started bleeding like crazy. I got blood all over my hands and a tree next to us. We ended up having to go to a moto shop and using their bathroom to stop the bleeding and clean it up. Saturday was actually really hot this week, the weather is starting to warm up her. On saturday we were walking to go visit some less actives and we saw some lady who was strugglng with hands full of bags. We offered to help. She was so thankful that we helped her that she wanted to give us money but we told her it would be good enough if she would listen to the message we have to share. She loved the message of the Restoration, it was probably one of the best lesson I have taught in portuguese. She also wanted to pay us for the Book of Mormon and a pamphlet we gave her but we told her we do not receive money for our work. Her name is Gisela and she speaks better German than portuguese. (I am not sure if I told you but there are alot of people from German or Italian decent here in the southern part of Brasil, there are actually people who only speak German.) She is an older lady but she already promissed that when it warms up a bit she will definately come to our church. :) Things are starting to improve with the ward here, they are starting to get more into the helping missionaries spirit. It is important that we are getting help from the ward memebers because the work goes better. Well that is about all that happend this week. It sure was crazy but also a good week. Love you all very much and wish you well.

Love Elder Cefalo