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