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