February 25, 2009

Hello!
We just got back from bowling at the Del Rey Shopping Mall.
It's Elder McArthur's birthday so we all went there to celebrate. I celebrated by beating him 133 to 128, bowling three strikes in a row in the last frame to take the lead and win it. I felt kind of bad because it's his birthday, but... three clutch strikes in a row on the last frame is pretty sweet. He seemed okay about it. Tonight we will have cake and ice cream at President's house.
Yesterday President let us eat lunch with all of the zone leaders who came to Belo Horizonte for the monthly Zone Leader's Council. That was fun because I got to see Elder Markowski, my companion from the MTC. He just turned Zone Leader this transfer. After that we all played soccer on the court that they have at President's house. So it was almost like 1 1/2 Pdays this week.
To top it all off, Gilvano is having his baptismal interview tonight, and if everything goes right he'll be baptized this Sunday along with Andreia. But keep those prayers a comin' cause they haven't gotten in the water yet.
I can't remember if I explained the Gilvano situation last week, so I'll summarize it really quick: he's the fiancé of an inactive member. Elder Anderson (the Financial Secretary before me) baptized her son and kind of reactivated her, but when I got her she was inactive again. Two weeks ago, she and her fiancé showed up at church telling us she had decided to come back. When we went to visit them that night, he was excited about the church- he said he knew it was the only thing that could make his family united and happy. So we marked a date for this Sunday and he gladly accepted.
On Sunday night my trainee will get here. His name is Elder Montgomery, and he just barely made a year in the mission. I forget where he's from... I think Arizona. Apparently he's a pretty bright guy- I don't really know him that well, but I think it'll be fun.
The pictures I've attached are the Staff (Elder Rodrigo, Elder Do Nascimento, Elder McArthur, Elder Sisco) with Sister Frei and the flowers we bought her for her birthday a few weeks ago, and me at the chapel/house that serves as our meeting place.
Love,
Elder Sisco

February 19, 2009

Well, Andreia didn't get baptized on Sunday. We finally got her to go to the baptism interview, and so on Friday night I did a division with Elder McArthur so he could interview her, and Elder Rodrigo went with Elder Do Nascimento to the Assistants area. We picked her up at her house and got on the bus to go to the chapel. Everything went perfectly; when she came out of the interview I went over to see how it had gone and she said, "I'm going to be baptized on Sunday." I was thrilled.
On Saturday night when Elder Rodrigo and I went to accompany her she had completely changed ideas. She was resisting everything we said. She knows it's true, and insists that she WILL be baptized, just not now. It was really disappointing.
On Sunday, we decided that she needed to see a baptism, so we skipped out of church half an hour early, and one of the members of the stake high council brought us (Andreia, her member friend Erika and us missionaries) to the other ward where the assistants go and where they happened to be having a baptism at noon.
The baptism was awesome; the Spirit was fantastic and she loved it. But she continued with the same story about wanting to wait. We even gave her baptismal clothing to bring home and pray about and get ready for her baptism that night. But she resisted.
On Sunday night at 8:00 she called us and said, "I want to be baptized."
I was maaadd. If she had called an hour earlier, we could have arranged something with the Bishop and some of the members, but at 8:00 at night it was too late for us to do anything, and we were way far away from the chapel.
When we went back on Monday to talk to her, she had decided she wants to wait until after Carnaval (which is this weekend, by the way). She's driving us crazy!!
We went to eat at this Chinese place yesterday with the assistants and invited her and Erika, and we decided not to even mention baptism or church or anything, because it seems like the more we push the more she resists. The person who talked most about baptism yesterday was her! She kept asking us all about how many people we had baptized in our missions haha.
So anyway, keep those prayers a-comin'. I'll be so grateful when she is finally baptized. Elder Rodrigo and I were talking the other day about how she's the kind of person that you want to help not because of numbers or goals, but because it'll be fun to hang out after this life. She has even talked about serving a mission already. She's not even a member yet!
The other night I was talking to this guy on the bus and he kept asking me if I was German, or Croatian. And I noticed he was constantly sniffing a dirty white rag that he had crumpled up in his hand. He was definitely high- it was one of the stranger conversations I've had.
Love,
Elder Sisco

February 12, 2009

I'm afraid I don't have much to tell this week. I'm kind of in an office slump- I'm pretty tired of being here. I'll be glad when I get out. We have so little time to work in our area, we barely manage to accompany one or two people per night. Only on the weekends do we actually get to really work. We haven't had a baptism in two months.
We're teaching a girl named Andreia who is 25. She lives with a member in an apartment, and her baptism is supposed to be this Sunday. We marked her interview for tonight, but we haven't been able to get in touch with her all week- the last time we talked to her was Sunday. We know she's afraid to be baptized, so her being at the interview tonight is essential because we know that Elder McArthur will get her excited and ready to go. I'm just worried that she's gotten lazy. She has kept all the commitments- she stopped drinking and drinking coffee, which was her biggest problem. She knows the church is true, she just needs to take the necessary steps now, and she doesn't think she's ready. It would be nice if you could pray for her. So anyway, I'm kind of tired of not being able to teach people as much as I would like.
Last night we scheduled an FHE at the chapel, and 10 minutes before it was supposed to start, the rain came. It poured, and poured. We were on our way to the chapel with an investigator and we all got soaked. We got to the church looking like we had all just jumped in a pool with our clothes on.
There were only like, 12 people there, including 4 missionaries, but it was good- everyone who went liked it.
There's a new elder who just got here this month named Elder Poulson. It's weird to see him interacting with people and trying to talk to people because I look back at the beginning of my mission and wonder if I had that much difficulty understanding and communicating with people. Then I realize that yes, I most certainly did. And I'm very grateful that that part is over, and I can speak Portuguese now.
I think it would be an interesting experience to train an American. Last Sunday I helped Elder Poulson give his first lunch message- it was gratifying.
I've been reading A Marvelous Work and a Wonder by LeGrand Richards. It's pretty cool. I don't have that much time for "leisure reading" but I pull it out sometimes before study and before I go to bed at night. I'm about halfway through it.
Oh, we're also teaching a rich guy (which is rare)! And he already has a date for his baptism (22nd) and he's received an answer to his prayers about the Book of Mormon and is excited. So that is something that gives me hope. His wife worked for a bank for 28 years and is now retired and takes care of 52 old people at an old folks home volutarily. He is a construction worker. Theirs is one of the coolest apartments that I've seen so far in Brazil. It's blatantly obvious that the Lord has blessed them for their generosity and willingness to help. We called him on Saturday to see if we could pass by his house and he was like "no, I can't, I'm at the nursing home fixing some of these doors." And he does it for free! His apartment is sweet. It has two stories, and a pool on the second story balcony. And they're already friends with the Bishop because his wife used to work at the same bank as him. She's hardcore catholic, but little by little she'll get there. So I'm excited about that.
Well, that's pretty much all the news I've got. Today for PDay we're going to go home and sleep. Everyone is exhausted.
I love you all and pray for you constantly.
I love being on a mission. I'm grateful for the opportunity I have to serve the Lord for two years straight. I know that this is the true church- there is no back door to salvation, and I'm happy to be sharing the truths that we know with the people of Brazil.
I know that the Lord blesses us as we follow him and his commandments. The more we go out of our way to serve him, the more he goes out of his way to bless us. The church is a church of service and sacrifice.
There's a guy in our ward who always says that "in the service of the Lord, the salary isn't very good, but the retirement is worth it."
Love,
Elder Sisco

Last weekend we went to this guy in our ward's house and he had prepared a special lunch for us. It's called Rabada. It's a soup made out of cow tail. The actual cow tail, not those delicious caramel candies with creamy centers. It had lots of huge tail bones in it, and when made properly the meat should just fall off the bone according to Elder Rodrigo; but I'm not sure he did it right, because it didn't do that.
The very next day, we ate lunch at one of our Recent Converts' house and what did she make for us? Rabada! Except the one she made was AMAZING! The meat literally fell off the bones when you passed the fork over it. She really knows how to cook, I love going there.
Sorry, I had written a lot more, but I just lost it and don't have time to rewrite it.
Love you guys and am looking forward to hearing from everyone next week!
Elder Sisco

First of all, I think the most important thing that needs to be said is that today, not only did I beat my personal bet, but I also beat the Brazil Belo Horizonte Mission bowling score in the 2 1/2 years that President Frei has presided over this mission. 191 (One hundred and ninety one)!!!! Shattering the old score of 165 that one of the first assistants got at the beginng of President Frei's mission, and absolutely destroying my old person best of 144. I got four strikes in a row! (six in total)
It needs to be understood that in the picture "MC" is me. It stands for McArthur. "SIS" is Elder McArthur because he skipped me in the first frame and bowled in my place. So we had to switch names. "DAN" is President Frei. I know this seems fishy, but it's true. I seem to have undergone some intense transformation since my days of InterMural bowling in the BYU-Idaho leauges.
Sister Frei asked me "did you used to be on a bowling team or something?" and I was like "well, to be honest, yes, but we lost every game we played in."
Last thursday we went to play soccer with the assistants and their recent converts and a couple of ours too. It was way fun, but by the end everyone was dying. We played for 2 1/2 hours, and my entire body hurt for the next four days. And I wasn't the only one. Everyone in the house went to bed at 9 that night.
The other day I was walking in our area with Elder Rodrigo and I had a bottle of yogurt in my left hand. He asked me what time it was and I turned my hand to look at my watch and dumped half a liter of strawberry yogurt all over the front of my pants. I felt intelligent.
Last night we were teaching a new investigator and his wife, who doesn't want anything to do with the church, but she listens because she probably doesn't have anything better to do. The only problem is that she talks a lot, and seems to have some kind of personal grudge with the Jehova's Witnesses. Her daughter is one, and everything that came out of her mouth seemed to be some sort of negative comment targeted at the JWs. At one point, as we were introducing the Book of Mormon to them, Elder Rodrigo said (trying to demonstrate that God speaks to all of His children), "Let's imagine that you have two daughters. One of them lives in Europe, and the other one lives in the United States. When Christmas comes, which one of them are you going to call?" and she says, "well, I'm not going to call Amanda because she's a Jehova's Witness and she doesn't celebrate Christmas."
I laughed out loud, but I don't think she recognized that I was laughing directly at her, which is probably good.
This is the week of transfers, which means it's the week in which we least have time to spend in our area. It's been pretty rough so far this week with all the stuff we have to get ready for next wednesday.
And on tuesday we had computer problems and had this guy from the ward come and help us out, and he stayed working on the computers until 9:00pm so we couldn't even leave to go to our area. But we're working hard, and doing our best to accompany our investigators. Tonight we have an FHE at the church that we invited a ton of people to, and also a bunch of members. I'm excited, it's going to help our investigators get to know the members a little bit better.
Anyway, that's all I've got to report for this week. Hope you guys are happy and safe and warm, too.
Love,
Elder Sisco

Good morning!
It's almost noon, and we just got here to do email. I just finished reading all of your emails. Thanks a bunch!
We've been having a pretty good week here. Transfers are coming up at the end of this month (28th) and we had like a mini-meeting with President yesterday. It looks like Elder Rodrigo is going to train his replacement this transfer and then I'll train mine in the next (in the middle of march). I'm kind of excited about this, and then again I'm kind of not excited about it. There are a lot of perks to being in the office that I'm sure I'll miss once I've left them. I'm sure there's tons of stuff that I probably am not even recognizing that I take for granted that I'll notice once I leave. But I've still got quite a bit of time left. It looks like I'll be leaving the office in the middle of April. Nothing is for sure yet, but that seems to be what President's leaning towards at the moment.
Last night I asked Elder Kent to cut my hair, because he said that he used to cut his brother's hair and that he was pretty good at it. Turns out, he's not. He was really nice and wanted to be helpful, so now I feel bad about paying to have someone fix the unfortunate job that he did. His companion Elder McArthur said he'd fix it for me. I'm just not sure who to trust anymore.
From what I can tell, the only cure now is time.
I got letters from both Mom and Amy this week, so thank you guys a bunch! I loved the Dave Barry cut out. I was laughing out loud in my office and Rodrigo thought I was weird.
Last night I did a division with Elder McArthur so that I could go interview his investigator to be baptized. He ended up not being home, and so I didn't interview anyone, but the division was still lots of fun. And while I was in his area working, Elder Rodrigo and Elder Kent found an amazing family in our area that all have dates for the first of February. We're going back to see them tonight. I'm excited to meet them.
This week I finally finished off all the food and goodies that I got from Christmas. I actually still have one box of Annie's left, but I'm saving it for a special occassion (namely, starvation).
Today we're going to play soccer with a bunch of our recent converts (Bahia's two sons, and Vinicius, the son of Andreia, if you guys remember the pictures of their baptisms that i sent) and the Assistents and some of their recent converts and some members. I'm stoked, I think it'll be lots of fun.
I just asked Rodrigo if anything interesting happened this week that I should tell my family, and he looked at me, looked at my hair, laughed and said "if you haven't told them about that yet, I think they should know."
Anyway, I can't really think of anything else that's very interesting that has happened. I'm sending pictures of us with the other missionaries in our ward and our old ward mission leader who just got back from his mission last year, and the other one is with him and his family that loves the missionaries.
Love,
Elder Sisco

On Saturday I did a division with Elder McArthur, one of the assistants from Rexburg, ID. That was a blast, and he had already passed in our area at the beginning of his mission so he knew where stuff was better than I did.
We found a family to teach, and they were very receptive. The lady even said that she had been looking for a church for them to go to. And they live right by the church, so it's perfect. They went with us to church on Sunday, and they both loved it. Even their four year old son loved primary. I went back with Elder Rodrigo on Sunday night with one of the members of the ward and we taught them an awesome first lesson, and invited them to be baptized on the 18th and they were really excited about it. Then we ended and prayed and as we were leaving Elder Rodrigo asked her, "by the way, how long have you guys been married?" And she was like, "we're not married, we're just 'together.'"
So that was unfortunate. We talked to the Bishop and he said that maybe we could work something out, but in Brazil the process of marrying someone is very drawn out. They make it very difficult for some reason. That's one of the reasons why a lot of people aren't married legally.
Last night we went to a family home evening at the Bishop's house. We were supposed to bring investigators but none of ours could go. The other two missionaries in our ward were also supposed to bring investigators but none of theirs could go either. So it ended up being just the Bishop's family and the missionaries playing games at his house. It was really fun, but not very productive as far as missionary work goes. At least we got to know the Bishop a little bit better.
-Elder Sisco

It is a new year!
Last night the fireworks at midnight woke us all up, so we gathered at the giant window at the front of our apartment to watch them all go off. It was cool because since we live so high up we could see the fireworks going off all over the city. Some so far away that they were just little silent explosions in the distance. Very cool.
We passed by President's house last night for cake, because it was Elder Kent's (the new assistant) birthday. We stayed and talked to his two sons and one of their wives for a bit, which was fun.
Our golden investigator and her mom are no longer golden. They stopped keeping the committments, and never even went to church. Tomorrow we're going to go there to get the Book of Mormon and other stuff that we loaned to them back. I'm a little sad, but have some other really good prospects.
The other day we were at a lady's house in the middle of a lesson when the doorbell rang. She went to see who it was, and when she opened it it was this homeless guy, and he said "Pedro died." And she said, "excuse me?" and he repeated, "Pedro died. Is Junior here?" (Junior is her husband) She said he was sleeping and that he couldn't attend the homeless man.
We decided we'd better find out what happened to Pedro, so we went out and walked down the steps of her apartment to the street with her and her son and the homeless guy, and sure enough, there lying on the sidewalk was Pedro, with three other homeless guys just sitting there next to his body looking around. Elder Rodrigo went over to see if he had a pulse, and he didn't. Then he called 192 (9-1-1) and within minutes an ambulance showed up.
A bunch of EMTs jumped out and started trying things to revive him, but the guys who were sitting down on the sidewalk said he had been dead for more than half an hour, so they didn't make much progress. Apparently Pedro drank so much that day that he just laid down and died afterwards. It was sad.
The other day we went over to a member's house and painted her living room. The walls were all peeling paint and stuff, so we were like "this needs to be scraped and sanded and stuff" but she just wanted us to slap the paint over it. So that's what we did. It didn't turn out that bad, but I imagine she'll be needing us to do it again pretty soon.
'Til next week,
Elder Sisco