On thursday I went to a city called Curvelo to do baptismal interviews with one of the zone leaders here. It's two hours from Sete Lagoas, but they're rebuilding the highway and there's a part on the way to curvelo where they only allow one lane to function at a time, and the stretch is large. We sat in the non-moving bus for an hour and a half while all the cars going in the opposite direction drove by us. What should have been a two hour journey lasted three and a half.
When we got to Curvelo the Elders there met us at the bus station and took us to the area. It was already 8:00 so we had to go fast. Two of the people that were supposed to be interviewed traveled without notifying anyone and so they weren't there. I ended up doing one interview with another one of their investigators.
While we were there at the bus station waiting, we saw this truck filled with frozen foods parked on the side of the road and there was a guy unloading a bunch of boxes behind it. All of a sudden, the brakes went and the truck started rolling backwards because it was on a hill. It rolled over the guys leg and broke it and totalled the front of the car that was behind it. It was scary, but cool to see. The guy with the broken leg was fine - aside from the broken leg.
When we went home the next day we sat in the bus watching the cars go by for another hour.
On Friday we went to visit Rosa, the woman Elder Martinez and I baptized a few months ago. Her family was there, and there was a member who is a friend of her son that was also with us. She gave us dinner and everything, it was great. And then when we had to leave we asked the member to say the closing prayer for us. Everyone was sitting around the table while he prayed, and then in the prayer he said "please bless Irmão (brother) Teodoro that he will get well, and that his recovery may be quick" and Rosa in the middle of the prayer said "he died last week!" Then, without stopping, he said "Then bless him that he may rest in Paradise." Haha no one had told him that this Irmão had died. It's the same guy that we went to give the blessing to in the hospital two weeks ago, and then he died two days later. Now that I think of it, I don't remember if I mentioned that or not.
I did a contact with a group of kids the other night - 4 teenage guys. When I asked them what the most important thing in their lives was, one said "girls." So I said, "you should come to church with us. In the church of Jesus Christ there are lots of girls just like you." I don't think he liked it. I was trying to say that there were lots of girls who had the same age and ideas as him, but it came out wrong, and I didn't have time to correct myself.
Training has been an adventure so far.
The guy we baptized last Sunday, Stanley, went to work on Saturday and never came home. Even today, his parents don't know where he is. He used to be a drug dealer, and they're afraid that either he relapsed and is using drugs again or that someone who he owed went after him to collect. We've gone all over the city looking for him. He didn't even get confirmed on Sunday. So that worries us. The message for the Family Home Evening at one of the members' homes on monday was his. They think that he was fleeing from giving the message.
Today we played lots of soccer and then had a Churrasco at a restaurant where some elders are teaching the couple that owns the restaurant. They wanted to do something nice for the elders, so they said that all the missionaries in the zone could go to their restaurant for this churrasco (like, a barbecue, but better). It was fantastic. We ate a lot.
Tomorrow is zone conference in Belo Horizonte. We're going to have to wake up at 5:30 to get the bus on time. Ouch.
I love you all.
Have a good week.
-Elder Sisco

This week went well, we had one baptism. Stanley, a 19 year old kid that we'd been teaching for a while finally got baptized. He stopped using drugs, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol and drinking coffee, so that was a miracle. Now we're trying to get his 13 year old brother to be baptized as well. He's friends with the Stake President's son which is already a good start, and he's already been to a few activities in the church.
Stanley was Elder Vasquez's first baptism in the mission. In fact, it was the first person that he had ever baptized in his life, so that was fun. He ended up having to do it three times because Stanley's elbow didn't want to go under the water.
On Sunday President and Sister Parrella and their family went to our ward and President Parrella spoke. I wasn't there to see it because I was at church in Paraopeba, but they say it was good. Afterwards when I arrived at noon I invited him to stay and watch the baptism and they stuck around. It was good to be able to talk to them a little bit and get to know them better.
As far as Paraopeba goes, well, things aren't looking so good. We met with the Stake President last wednesday night, and he explained to us his plan and what he wants to happen. He wants them to be able to sustain themselves. In theory his plan makes sense, but I'm pretty sure in practice it's going to flop. I just hope it was inspired. So we're not allowed to proselyte there anymore. We can only teach the people we've been teaching and finish up there and leave. We have a few good people left that will probably be baptized soon, but it sucks to not be able to do contacts. It makes me feel useless. I see people in the street and want to talk to them, but I can't. We had one investigator at church on Sunday, we're going to see if we can mark her baptim for this Sunday.
This week the water company cut the water at the Zone Leader's house, where there are four missionaries, and this week all of them went to our house every day to take showers and shave and stuff. It was kind of incomidating, but fun to have a change of pace at our house.
I had a fun experience during a division that I did on Monday in one of the other Elder's in my district's area. They had an investigator who when they went to pick him up to go to church on Sunday gave back the Book of Mormon and said he didn't want to participate anymore with the church. During the division we passed by his house and he was sitting out front, and we went and talked to him and I asked if we could go inside and talk for a bit. I think Elder Serafim (the elder I was with) was still mad at him about giving back the BOM so he just let me do all the talking. They thought that the guy's problem was that he didn't want to give up coffee, but it turns out he just didn't believe in the Book of Mormon. We started teaching him about why it's important and he wouldn't budge or do anything to try to understand. He kept saying "the bible, the bible, blah blah blah" and so I opened 2 Nephi 29 and had him read it. After that we bore more testimony and then he started talking about baptism and how people needed to prepare and how he wasn't ready to be baptized, so I showed him Acts 2 where Peter baptized 3,000 people in one day after teaching them once. Then we bore more testimony. I figured he wouldn't budge and that we were just wasting our time but at the very end when we were leaving I invited him to go to church he said, "ok, this Sunday I'll go. I think my mom said she wanted to go too." It was awesome. Elder Serafim was pleased.
Things with Elder Vasquez are going well. Training is definitely a different experience, but I'm enjoying it. He's intelligent and willing to learn, so it's fun.
'Til next week,
Elder Sisco

Something horrible has happened. All of last week we went to Paraopeba (the city that we're opening) and worked there. On Saturday I went with one of the Zone Leaders and he interviewed one of our investigators for her to be baptized on the 19th. On Sunday we showed up at the chapel at 7:30 just like we do every Sunday so that I could go to Paraopeba with the High Counselor and my companion could go get investigators in Sete Lagoas with one of the members. When we got there, we had a quick meeting with the Bishop and then I sent my companion off to get people while I waited for the High Counselor to come pick me up in the chapel. 8:15 rolled around and I decided to call him. When he answered the phone, I asked "are you close to the chapel?" and he said "no, I'm halfway to Paraopeba already. We've received new instructions from the Stake President, we aren't going to be needing you anymore, I'll explain more later when I get back."
I, confused, hung up the phone and sought answers to my questions. The relief society president told me that the Stake President had gone to Paraopeba on Saturday, interviewed all of the members and then made an announcement: No one from the stake is going to come here anymore and support this group. Also, the missionaries will no longer be coming here to proselyte. You all will have to support yourselves, find people to baptize and when you have people to teach here you can call the missionaries to come teach them.
The problem: There is only one family that's firm, the Leader of the Group doesn't know how to read, and when he found out that the stake wouldn't give support anymore he started saying that he was going to fall away.
I called the mission president to seek council. He told me there's not much we can do, because the group is the stake's, not the mission's. He told me to finish teaching all the people that we're teaching there and then to not go back anymore.
Everyone in the stake is in arms. If this really happens, everyone in Paraopeba will fall away and the group will close. Including the family that was sealed. I almost got sick from how angry I was. I'm pleased with the support that the ward has given us, that all the members have given us, about Paraopeba.
So that's what's going on here.
The baptism that we were supposed to have on Sunday fell. He drank on Saturday night and didn't go to church on Sunday. That was sad, but he'll be baptized on this sunday. We'll also be baptizing one of our recent convert's sisters. Her interview is marked for tomorrow night.
Training has been an adventure so far. It seems like with new missionaries all the crazy things happen. Like the Stake President decides to close your area.
We're teaching a girl in our area and we gave her a Book of Mormon and then some JWs went to her house and talked trash about us and told her to give the Book of Mormon back. She doesn't want to receive the visits anymore. This makes me sad.
Love you all,
Elder Sisco

Today we all went to Belo Horizonte for transfers. My new companion is Elder Vasquez from São Paulo. He's fresh out of the MTC as of yesterday, or in other words, I am training him. He seems cool, I think things will go well with us this transfers. I'm excited to train.
On Sunday we had a baptism. A kid named Junior who we had been teaching for a week or so. He's 18, which means that by this time next year he should be getting ready to go on his mission. He said that he will think about it. He's dating one of the girls from our ward, which is how he got to know the church. I will send pictures.
Junior's sister went to church and watched the baptism and asked us to go to her house and teach her too. We marked for tomorrow. While we were taking pictures she hugged me which was awkward. But people told her that you couldn't hug the Elders, so that wont happen again.
The Belo Horizonte East Mission and the Belo Horizonte Mission are now one. Some of our missionaries went over to areas in the east mission today and some of theirs came to ours. Now our mission is huge - almost 200 missionaries!
Yesterday Stanley was interviewed and will be baptized on Sunday. He's 19 years old and is the son of an old investigator. She basically told us, "no, I don't want to go to your church, but bring my son he needs it." So we did, and he loved it, and now he's getting baptized. We've helped him stop using drugs, stop smoking, stop drinking coffee and stop drinking. He's made enormous progress in the two weeks that we've been teaching him. I'm going to have Elder Vasquez baptize him - his first Sunday in the mission! The same thing happened with me when I first got on the mission. He said he's never baptized anyone before, so it'll be a neat experience.
My district now is 4 Brazilians and 2 Americans. The other American is Elder Kezerian, Boyd K. Packer's nephew. Hopefully we will have much success this transfer.
Love you guys,
Elder Sisco

We had 3 baptisms for this week - 2 from Paraopeba and 1 from Sete Lagoas - but it's not looking good for them. One is an elderly lady and her daughter, and this week her grandson went and said a bunch of trash about the church and talked her out of being baptized. We're going there on Friday to talk to her. The other one is this kid who has been to church a bunch of times. He is 18, and is friends with a ton of members from our ward. He's a sure baptism, we're just having trouble getting in contact with him this week for him to be interviewed and prepared by Sunday. His name is Junior.
This transfer it's looking like our only baptism is going to be Wilson, who we baptized on the first Sunday of the transfer.
Speaking of transfers, we will go to Belo Horizonte next Wednesday. I don't know if I will stay or go, but imagine that I'll stay since my companion was already here one transfer when I got here, and we've been together for two. Usually missionaries don't stay longer than 3. We'll know on Monday night.
Today was our zone pday. We went hiking up a big mountain that is here in Sete Lagoas. We hiked up one side and down the other and at the bottom there was a little pond with a playground and a beach volleyball court, so we spent most of the day playing volleyball, which is always fun. Not as fun as soccer, but fun. I'm exhausted, just like every Pday. We never get to rest here, there's always something going on.
Tomorrow we will go to Belo Horizonte to have a mini-Zone Conference with President and Sister Parrella, our new Mission President. President and Sister Frei fly home today, and the Parrella's arrive at the same time.
We're working a bunch in Paraopeba. On a division with one of the Zone Leaders we found a family of 11 people (the youngest girl is 9) that were interested in the church. On Sunday, 5 of them went. Elder Martinez and I showed up at their house yesterday and they gave back the Book of Mormon and said they didn't want to hear the messages anymore, but didn't say why. I think it has to do with having to give up coffee. We're going to go back on Friday to see if we can save them. They love us, it just appears that they love coffee more, and didn't completely understand the things we taught.
On Monday I went to Paraopeba with Elder Leme, one of the zone leaders, and we went to visit a family that we're teaching there and only the sons were home and they hid from us. Their neighbor, some little kid, who was visiting came out and told us that no one was home, but he was obviously lying. We gave him 2 Halls and told him to suck on them. Then we gave him a glass of water and told him to drink it all. He didn't finish the cup of water, he spit it out because of the burning.
We went into the house and the sons were on the couch watching a soccer game and drinking beer. We reprimanded them, and left, but they told us to come back later in the afternoon for a Churrasco (like, a barbeque, but better). We went. We decided that they're not interested in the church, but are only interested in having our friendship. It seems like everyone in Paraopeba is falling.
I guess I don't have much else to say. I love you guys and miss you.
-Elder Sisco