Gravatai

Gravatai is a bit bigger than Feitoria, for certain. All the references here are by bus stop and our ward seems to go for a lot of bus stops. We´re working in the 5 stops closest to the church, so it isn´t that bad. We started with nothing this past week, and tried alot and ended up teaching a decent amount of people.  However none of them went to church this Sunday, so a bit good, a bit bad. The ward has a good amount of older people.  Their voices are very calming so it is very difficult to not fall asleep 😊. Second hour was rather odd for us as a missionary; we don´t have the manual to study at home or in the class, so we just sat there for an hour. I´m worried about how the classes second hour will be for investigators who don´t have the manual as well, but at least this year is the New Testament so things are good with that when investigators come. We do indeed study the Bible.

The lunches this past week have fallen through a decent amount, so I´ve bought a lot of Xis Baicons- a hamburger that is a bit wider, with egg, cheese, and bacon.  I have them make it without the salad, tomato, green peas, and corn. Yeah, it is a weird thing, they put a lot of salad stuff on it.

We played basketball and stuff with some YM this morning. Living with 5 others is very different, living with English speakers is weird. With Elder Banda, we only slipped a word or two in English when I didn´t understand or if it wouldn´t make sense in Portuguese, so it was like I was living with a Brazilian who knew English. I already slip into Portuguese when I try to speak English, so I don´t think I´ll get used to speaking English until after a bit at home. I hope my accent gets better.

There have not been any further elevator issues, and we´ve already started using it again. I have splits on Thursday and I´ll go to their area and teach with an American who is almost done with his training, Elder Owens. We are also going to have a FHE with an RM who has a reference for us who he´ll bring. 
Looking forward to a great week!

Love y'all,
Elder Trevor Mangum

Surprise - I've Been Transferred!

So much has happened over the past week  since we talked on Christmas.  After lunch, we visited with each other, ate watermelon, then went to go pass dinner in the house of another member.  Dinner ended up getting cancelled so we passed the night of Christmas at home eating pizza. Then Thursday, the 27th, we had interviews with President for Zone Conference. Long story short, emergency transfer for me to Gravatai to switch with an American with 3 weeks on the mission who is having health problems with the sun and could only work an hour a day (and with a Brazilian companion who wants to work hard but can´t as much as he´d like and doesn´t fully understand). Thursday night we had an FHE with Pedro and the Cunha family where Elder Banda made tacos. Then we went home and I packed up. 

We woke up the next morning, went to Zone Conference, ate lunch, then went to Porto Alegre to switch companionships, then to Gravatai with Elder Souza from Sao Paulo Capital. We arrived in time for me to only unpack my backs and hit the super market really quick. We live with 2 other companionships, Elder Pereira (Brazilian) and Elder Glasgow (the one American in my group who went to the Provo MTC, from Arkansas), Elder Burobano (from Ecuador, and our DL) and Elder Owens (in his 2nd transfer, from Arizona), which is a bit wild. The same night that I arrived, December 28, was the birthday of Elder Owens, so we made a cake and had terere, and was able to bond with everyone my first night here.

On Saturday we visited a lot of people, or rather tried to, but everyone travels to the beach because it is so hot here and only ended up entering into the homes of recent converts.  There we taught a super spiritual lesson to someone nonactive with a RC. Now Elder Souza tells everyone I´m fluent and a spiritual powerhouse. He is funny, a bit wild, but likes to work hard. We ended up eating lunch in the house of Bishop Andre Saturday and Sunday because of so many people travelling.  A t the end of Saturday, I shared apparently a rather powerful message using the first verse of the BoM about how we learn about the kindness of God during our many afflictions. I learned that their story is similar to the story of Lehi, that two years back, they were doing great in a strong ward, strongest in the stake, and stake president comes up and says the Lord needs you to move to Parque Dos Anjos (our area) and only that. They do so and about a month or two later he was called as Bishop.

Anyways, Sunday, we had church at 8:30, but sacrament meeting is the last hour. Bishop during lunch the day before told me not to worry about a talk this week, but that next week I´d be giving one. Fine by me. Mid way through second hour, with about half an hour left until sacrament meeting, secretary comes in and says we need you to give a 10 minute talk today, thanks. People said it was good, but I´m not so sure. A recently returned missionary, Vagner gave a great talk, and in part of it he talked about how when we don´t use the Lord´s name to talk about his church, we are taking his name in vain. Bishop also gave a great talk on forgiveness and not judging.

P-Day was on the 31^st and we had a P-Day with the whole zone of Gravatai, a churrasco for Novo Ano. Then we get back and we go to Bishop´s for dinner and a meeting on missionary work which was great, took a picture with his family that I´ll send later. Then as we´re leaving and Bishop is giving us a ride home, the other elders call us and invite us to come over to their bishop´s house for a churrasco and stuff so Bishop Andre takes us over there. We eat more, use basically sparklers, and then go home. We´re joking around, using the elevator and only the 3 Americans are inside, I feel an urge to hit to close door button and Elder Owen laughs and says ‘Only Americans’ and as the door is closing by itself, Souza sticks his leg through and it opens back up and all six of us get inside, hit the button, starts to go and breaks and begins to move down in chunks. People freaked out, hit buttons, elevator stopped, we said a prayer, tried to call emergency number but it didn´t go through but somehow managed to call their bishop for him to call the people and somehow we use a Book of Mormon and brute strength to open the elevator door, but we were in between floors and somehow Elder Pereira knew how to open the doors on the floors from the inside so we managed to get out and we took happy celebration pictures. We called President and told him because we weren´t sure if we broke the elevator door and if it would cause problems and he laughed and said if it caused problems with stuff, he´d call us.

New Year´s Day was an impossible day of work, same with the 31st, everything closed and no one answers because everyone is either on the beach or with a bunch of family, but today we finally were able to go to a LAN House and send email and after this we can finally get to work, working hard. It will be a bit difficult because we are essentially starting from scratch, but we´re gonna get things done.

Fireworks are always crazy here. Between that and the fact the fan in our room is broken made it near impossible to sleep the first night of the New Year. It feels like it has been forever since Skype.

Love y’all,

Elder Mangum

Merry Christmas!!

Skyping with Elder Mangum Christmas Morning was the best!

A Baptism and a Sealing!

Things are going great here in Feitoria. Keila and her family right now generally travel at the end of the week to visit Dad working on the beach. Things with Gustavo this week went great. Gustavo is the son of member who was baptized in Cruz Alta, Robison. A couple months back, them and Robison´s brothers, went to our church for a couple of weeks but nothing happened. We ran into Gustavo a week or two back in the street and he tells us, “I´m about to turn nine”. We have him lead us to his house and his birthday was Dec 9 and he was baptized Dec 17.

People in the ward definitely remember Elder Banda. He is the only child, first generation American, his family lives in Laredo Texas right by the border of  Mexico. He passed Christmas here last year, was here in total 4.5 months last year. This week was a fun week with him. I´m eating a lot with Elder Banda, everyone loves him and he loves to buy food for us both. He is a great guy.

We visited some people that he was close to baptizing a year ago and started things back up with them and President let us go to the sealing of a companion of Elder Banda, his first companion in Feitoria, Oilguin (I have no idea how it is spelled).

On Friday we went to Porto Alegre for the sealings, bought some stuff at the temple store, attend the sealing, and it is pouring rain when we get out. We also lost power inside the temple for a couple times for just a little bit which was a bit odd. Anyways, we take pictures under the cover in front of the temple in the rain (whole time I´m thinking how this happened for y’all too, nearly 25 years ago). Then someone gives us a ride to the bus stop that we take to get near the train station to take back to Feitoria. However, once we were on the bus, we didn´t know where exactly to get off or how to get from the stop to the train station. Luckily, at the stop after we got on, an RM who got off his mission 5 months ago got on, sat with us and talked.  He got off with us, bought us milkshakes at Bob´s, and guided us to the train station. We got back in Feitoria late for the activity only to learn that the activity was postponed to start later because Feitoria lost power for a while and a bunch of trees fell, and the activity ended up started right as we had to go home for the night.

It was a bit weird to hear the youth age changes the church announced.  First the guy on the bus told us and I didn´t believe him because he was pulling a lot of jokes, but it turned out to be true. Doesn´t particularly matter, Noah was ordained to the Melchezidek Priesthood when he was 10 years old, I believe. Priesthood doesn´t really have an age. I keep reading the quote by Elder Anderson about the fellowship being challenged in interesting ways. Someone also said something really profound the other day about the church’s changes, how the restoration is still occurring, and how the law is still being revealed/changed for law of Moses to the higher law. Very cool to be living at a time like this!

Only a week until Christmas and Skype!

Love you!
Elder Trevor Mangum

Transfers

Today is transfers.  I am staying put, my new companion is Elder Banda, a missionary who already passed through Feitoria who will end the mission with me this transfer (which means I´ll be able to go to the temple at the end of this transfer!) Turns out Elder Banda is from Texas, on the border of Mexico, his parents are both from Mexico, I think. 

Not much happened this week, people traveled this weekend so no baptisms.  We did some service moving wood that was a house I think.  We had an activity at the church, a birthday celebration for one of Bruna´s kids, Léo. While we were there, Elder Favoretti felt a sensation to go check what was going on outside.  We saw a person in the entrance of the parking lot and went to talk with her.  We gave her a tour of the church and introduced her to Bishop and she wants to be baptized, so we´ll see how things go this week.

Also this week, we learned that Pedro received a personal response that the church is true. He started off by saying, I know that God won´t strike down a tree to show me that the church is true, but I prayed for him to show me through something that would not happen without the influence of God and it happened. He explained and essentially, his dad hates religion and is always bashing religion and people who participate, and he prayed that when he told his dad he was going to church last Sunday, that his dad wouldn´t care. His dad just went OK. And that was it. He says he knows the church is true, just has to work through some things so I plan on working with him this week to help him be baptized this Sunday, so we´ll see how things go.

I´m feeling really great.  The rest of P-Day last week was great, we went to Parque Imperatriz which I´ll send the pictures in a little bit. Sunday was the sacrament meeting of the Primary which was super good. We have our ward Christmas party this Friday night.  

We had several churrascos this week for lunch from families saying goodbye to Elder Favoretti, but he´s still in the same zone so I´ll see him every week.

I´ll have to travel to Novo Hamburgo in not too long to meet up with my companion at 3 and Elder Favoretti to meet up with his companion. Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Trevor Mangum

3 month holy shoes, wearing those soles out!

Primary Program

December!

Trying on Favoretti´s "funk" glasses that someone gave him and posing. Funk is kind of like Brazil´s version of rap, but different, a more wild-like sound.

Hey Everyone!

Life is going great here, although I woke up at five in the morning, went to the bathroom, threw up, brushed my teeth, and went back to bed, so I probably ate something that didn´t set well yesterday so we´ll see how the rest of P-Day goes.

This week we didn´t have a baptism, with the family of Keila and Julia both traveling on Sunday. We´re sitting there in sacrament as it´s starting and Julia walks in with the family of her member friend, Camila. We look at each other, run home to grab her form for Bishop to sign after her confirmation, and I performed my first confirmation in Portuguese which was exciting but also stressful, but all went well.

This week we really wanted to run into Robson or his son Gustavo because a week or two back, we ran into Gustavo who said he was about to turn nine. Robson is a member who´s inactive and apparently came to church before I arrived in Feitoria when Elder Favoretti was still here and asked for his son to be baptized but nothing happened. Ana, Roseli´s daughter told us where she thought their house was. She was mistaken, and we wandered around for a while. We´re walking and I say a silent prayer in my mind to please please let us find them. Elder Favoretti says we´ll go to where Gustavo gave directions to the other week and as we´re walking there, a random person stops us and says she is a member from Sao Leopaldo who moved here and went inactive for a while and wants to return, but is moving to another house here in Feitoria and will call us this week after the move to schedule an appointment. Then we´re walking, Elder Favoretti goes "you remember what Gustavo looks like right", and I go "Yeah…Actually no I don´t." Then we walk two or three steps I glance to the right down a street and go "Wait isn´t that him" and there was Gustavo, had him lead us directly to his house and visited his father another day and Gustavo´s birthday is this upcoming Sunday, my last day with Elder Favoretti is the first day that we can baptize him because we can´t baptize the children of members that are only 8 years old. 

Next week, Sunday night December 9th we´ll receive a call and next Monday we´ll travel for transfers. Elder Favoretti thinks I´ll stay here in Feitoria and he´ll leave, but there´s also the possibility of both of us leaving, so we´ll see next week.

It is great to be in December! I think I´ll be passing Christmas Day in the house of Irma Roseli, so I´ll probably do Skype there.

Love y’all,

Elder Trevor Mangum

Best Week Yet!

This week was amazing. There is a girl Julia (who I thought was a member) who comes with a family that is a member to church like every week. We ate lunch with the family on Sunday and they were like, no go visit her and her family this week, they aren´t members.  The missionaries met with them some time ago & nobody knows why they weren´t baptized. Long story short, the whole family came to church, Julia was baptized this Sunday and her brother Matteus will be baptized next Sunday. The parents have to marry first. 

Keila and her family returned home this week, we learned on Tuesday and visited Wednesday and the dad talked with us.  They are such a great family. Unfortunately, a poisonous caterpillar burned Edinai this Saturday and he was having an allergic reaction so they had to go to the hospital for him and the rest went to a cousins house so no one came to church this Sunday.  This week we also painted the outside of a members mom´s house which was easy.

One family we work with is having a lot of financial and health struggles and just going through a really rough patch right now with everything.  We visited with them one day this week and found out they didn't have any food. Elder Favoretti says, "Don´t worry, we´ll be back by 8 tonight and we´ll have food for y’all to eat". As we leave, Elder Favoretti says to me, "I´ve got a crazy idea". We knocked the doors of members nearby, asking for a little bit of food like rice or beans or something and also passed by in our own house because members always give us food and we cleaned it all out and returned with a good deal of food for them. It was amazing. It reminded me of how we are often answers to others prayers when we are in the right place, doing the right thing and listening to the Spirit. Anyways, doing that for this family was really touching.

I did give a talk in church yesterday. I started off with Revelation 12:11, that we overcame Satan by the Atonement of Christ and the word of our testimonies then in the Premortal life and that we came overcome him again here in the same way, that I already had talking about the importance of using the Atonement in our lives and that I´d be focusing on by the word of our testimonies, talking about gaining a testimony of Christ by reading and studying the Book of Mormon every day, but that the scripture didn´t say by the power of the testimonies that we had, but by the word of our testimonies, that we have to share. Then I read in 3 Nephi 18 how Christ says let your light shine, that He is the light within us, and that we let it shine through us when we do the things which He did. Then I talked about Light the World and invited everyone to participate this year. That is cool that you have the ability to talk with people in my ward and had already heard that I had spoken in church!

Zone Conference was good, interview with Presidente was good. In zone conference, I remember that Presidente talking about improving our acompanhamentos, to not only visit daily but have them feel the Spirit that is with you every day. In my interview, he gave me some tips for improving my accent that the vast majority of Americans mess up with. I´m feeling great. 

This week was definitely one of my favorite on the mission!

Love, Elder Trevor Mangum

Food Poisioning

Happy Birthday Caroline!  

Well this week was a rather different week for several reasons. Elder Favoretti and I both got sick this week, but several days apart, so we lost two days visiting Oban, the public clinic right behind our house. Elder Favoretti´s was the beginning of the week, on Tuesday, and he had gotten food poisoning and that´s why he almost passed out last Saturday and again Tuesday, something he ate. Then this past Thursday we had a ward activity at a park for lunch, apparently it was a holiday, so everyone was off work and school. Anyways, we had churrasco and something you always have with churrasco here is "Mayonese" which is like potato salad. Let´s just say it was very hot on Thursday and apparently I should´ve avoided the Mayonese. However, all the workers at the clinic loved talking to an American and they stuck something in my vein and let it drip in me and I felt better, prescribed some medicine to help with stomach pain and while we were at the clinic waiting for me, we received a phone call to come do service, so while Elder Favoretti helped Brother Jacobs make a cement drive way, I got to sit in the shade, Sister Jacobs brought out their amazing grape juice and happened to have the medicine that I was prescribed and I took it there.

Keila should return home within the next couple of days, I think. Irasema as well, along with her deaf sister that she cares for, also got sick, theirs was Saturday, vomiting and stuff and said if they were better she´d go to church the next day, but didn´t end up going. We also met her daughter that works in Sao Leopaldo this week. Anyways, Irasema is doing great. Church was good, final speaker was the stake YW president who had another great talk about all sorts of stuff, but part was about uniting and uplifting other members, investigators, and recent converts.

This week someone that we´ve only taught the first discussion to, Pedro, who is the boyfriend of an RM came to church and he brought a friend, Murilo. They both really enjoyed it. Pedro has already been to institute and liked that a lot too. 

I don´t know how Thanksgiving works, like yesterday at lunch I saw something about Black Friday and asked if they have Thanksgiving and they said yes so well, we´ll see. We do have zone conference this week again. As long as I don´t get poisoned again and get to eat some good meat, I´ll be alright. I think this Thursday we actually have lunch at Roseli´s based on the calendar, but not sure for certain.  

Have a fun, week long Thanksgiving break! 

Love y’all, boa semana!

Elder Trevor Mangum

Eating ice cream with a giant spoon and drinking tererê after a hot day. Tererê is cold chimarrão, like the one we made is with cold limeade, tastes super good

Irasema's Baptism and an American Lunch!

Keila had to go to the hospital in Porto Alegre Sunday night/Monday for the pains from anemia false form. She had to take morphine and have blood transfusions, stays in the hospital for like 15 days I think. Her brothers stay at a relatives house while the parents deal with stuff at the hospital and dad works, so we haven´t had physical contact with anyone except the Grandpa on Monday night who told us this, but we´ve called Cintia, and Keila is doing fine.

Irasema's Baptism

Irasema has progressed very well. We visited her Monday and talked with her about her baptism for Saturday but she said she wouldn't give a for certain yes until Wednesday, that she needed to pray and ask if she needed to be baptized now. We come back on Wednesday and she starts talking with us about how she´s so worried for her daughter, like Tuesday or Wednesday she had a dream about her dying and just has been thinking about her daughter nonstop. Elder Favoretti pulls out Ether 12:27( through 29 I think, stopping where it says something about The Lord´s will be done or something) and applies it to her, that she prayed drawing near to God about whether she needs to be baptized and God showed her weakness, her daughter, that she really does need to be baptized this Saturday, set an example for her daughter. She´s crying and goes I will. I will be baptized this Saturday. His will be done. We leave, I say something to Elder Favoretti about like what on earth, how´d you connect that, have that scripture ready. He said something like yeah, it just popped into my head when she was talking about her daughter, I didn´t prepare it at all, all the work of the Lord, but we are happy to be His instruments. The Relief Society President visited her Friday because she knew she´d be working during the baptism. Irasema was baptized and confirmed the next day.

Sunday we had a member of the stake presidency who talked about how the ward needs to help more with missionary work, how every member is a missionary, how while they don´t wear a name tag like us, people still know they are members and thus they have to act in a certain way and can´t do certain things, needing to be accepting politically because just because you received personal revelation that a candidate is right for you doesn´t mean that is the right candidate for someone else and stuff like that. Apparently, our ward has had a hard time with politics and several people have stopped coming to church for this reason.

We had two teaching miracles happen this week. One was we were trying to find a contact and knocked a door to ask where the street was and we happened to knock on the door of his brother.  He and his wife have seen us walking and wanted us to teach them. They told us that they wouldn´t be able to make it church this Sunday but next Sunday that they would. Then, one time when we were visiting Roberto, two boys, 12 and 11, friends who live by Roberto walked in and we taught them. Not sure why they didn´t come to church, one of them even ran up to us as we were walking back to our house after (and scared us) saying that he checked with his grandparents and he would come to church. In answer to your question from the pictures from last week - The pizza here from this place is so good, I get one half bacon, the other half chocolate and strawberry. We are not allowed to play soccer, so no. I haven´t played any sports out in the field.

Roseli said if I ever visit with my parents (or without) that we can stay at their house to save money by not paying for a hotel. That really touched me. Also, this Sunday for lunch, we had it at the Alves family who have two sons on missionaries right now in Brazil and they made a special American themed lunch for me, with French fries and hamburgers. It was so awesome! They're a fun group, have a son a little younger than me and a daughter younger than him and a son who's married. Also, if you or dad receive friend requests, it is from Brazilians who are feeding us and have taken a picture most likely and would like to send it to you.  Anyways, have a good, birthday packed adventure this week!

Love, Elder Trevor Mangum

Keila's Baptism!

Keila's Baptism on Sunday, November 4, 2018

Things are going great. Keila and her family are amazing. Only Keila was baptized this Sunday, but the whole family minus grandpa came to Sacrament, but only Keila and Wellington (14 yr old brother) stayed all three hours because they had a visitor come into town. We baptized Keila after church and her dad pulled up as we were taking pictures beforehand and he really liked her baptism. Really, the whole family wants to be baptized, everyone likes us a lot.  We usually read a bit in the Book of Mormon with them and explain, then everyone reads a verse and explains it. 

The other people we teach are doing fine, a decent bunch of them need to marry and that takes quite a while once that process actually starts. Irasema´s baptism is marked for this Saturday and she´s progressing well.  We had my first ward council here, started at 4 in the afternoon.  It happens on the first Sunday of every month, but not when there is General Conference, and thus this was my first one. We were just a part of it for the first thirty minutes, talking about recent converts, people progressing, and whatnot and then Bispo Warken dismissed us.

A funny encounter happened yesterday we visited Sergio after ward council. Sergio at some point while we were visiting together said, “Thank you very much” in English. Certainly startled me! Apparently some years ago he took like a basics of English course or something. People do want an English class but I’m not sure about teaching one. Elder Favoretti said he´ll make up excuses for the rest of the transfer, but after that (because he´ll leave and I won´t) "Boa sorte, meu amigo!" Elder Favoretti and I have some fun together.

Our district grew in size, now we have a set of sisters, one of them was one of the Sister Trainers for our mission while I arrived. Our new zone leader is Elder Romero, don´t know where he´s from. We also received another Elder, Elder Rush from Nashville. This Sunday was also weird because it was "Horário do Verão", day light savings, so we jumped forward an hour which made getting up rough. So we are now 4 hours difference in time from each other. 

Roseli also said this past week she was going to come to church, but she didn´t, but we visited her and she told us how she had to housesit for her son William who went out of town. I figured it was because of time change, because the time change happened automatically on people´s phones last week but this year it was changed to the first week in November or something. This week we’re going to start teaching the boyfriend of a returned missionary sister, we´ll see how that goes. I think he might be atheist or something, but she´s brought him to Institute, gave him a Book of Mormon, and talked about her mission with him and she said he wants/is willing to meet with the missionaries. 

This past week did have a good amount of rain, but it kept things cool, so I can´t complain too much. Apparently the only thing that is done for Halloween here is you can have a Halloween party at school where you dress up and stuff. Also school here is very different, there are three different sessions, morning, afternoon, and evening, and you pick one and go to that. Also, their summer break is in like December/January to February/March or so. Milkshakes here are amazing, there is this ice cream/milkshake stand not too far from us that we hit up sometimes, I love me some chocolate ice cream, but it is definitely no blue bell. 

Tell Brother Skanchy thanks for the advice, about finishing the chimarrão before passing it (which I´ve done every time and talked with my companion and he said yeah you have to otherwise it is really rude) and finishing my plate every time (although one time a few weeks back I left some sauce, was like a cheese whatever on my plate because it was seconds that I was forced to get and the mom apparently tried to make me feel guilty with a I don´t care, but ,,, and her kids got embarrassed and said mom stop he doesn´t understand. This was near my beginning so Elder Favoretti did explain what happened/how she was trying to make me feel guilty afterwards to me. Now I make sure and look at the plates of the people who’s house we are in to see if my plate must be literally spotless or if I can leave some grains of rice). I do like looking at all the advice of everyone in my journal, it really helps!

Love y’all, 

Elder Trevor Mangum

Pizza with the tradition of writing how long you’ve been on your mission