here are some pictures, finally !

The first is Luiz's baptism, from two weeks ago. From the left to right is João, his son, Ednaldo, family friend, the Bishop (herton) who baptised him, Luiz, his wife who was baptized last month, Elder Vasquez and Me. I think I got that right, I didn't see the picture.

Next is me and Elder Vasquez with our district t-shirts: Missão Brasil Belo Horizonte - Missão de Metas e Milagres (Brazil Belo Horizonte Mission - The Mission of Goals and Miracles. Sounds cooler in Portuguese)

And then me with a parrot in Paraopeba.

So lots of exciting things have happened. And lots of not exciting things.
Let's start on Saturday. Saturday night we went to our investigator Kesley's house. He's 12 and his mom doesn't want him to be baptized. He's Stanley's brother, the drug addict who got baptized, and went back to drugs and is now in rehabilitation. He goes to church every Sunday with us, and has been for a month. But she's afraid that he'll baptize and then fall away just like Stanely (although Stanley didn't technically "fall away" he was more like "forced away by the habit of drug abuse and his family who sent him to a farm to get off of drugs". He can still get confirmed when he gets back in March). On the bus home from Paraopeba on Saturday I felt that we should go visit him and ask his mom one more time for permission to baptize him. We planned a lesson on the bus and when we got back to Sete Lagoas we went straight there and started the lesson with her and Kesley. Before we started, Elder Vasquez had pulled Kesley aside and told him our plan, and at the end of the lesson, before I asked her to sign the slip, we prepared him to bear his testimony to his mom. The lesson went great, she was very interactive, made comments and is very understanding. When we touched on baptism though she started talking a bunch and already showed that she didn't want him to be baptized, but then she slowed down, looked at Kesley and said "but that's just my opinion, what's yours?" Elder Vasquez and I both got excited at this point and looked at Kesley for him to bear his testimony. He thought for a second and then said, "Well, I'd like to keep going to church a little bit more to get to know things a little bit more, and who knows, maybe I can be baptized sometime in the future." I wanted to punch him. He got scared of what his mom would say if he said the truth, and just said what he thought she wanted to her. We lost the Spirit, and all was lost. It was very disappointing.
But on Sunday we had Marcia, from Paraopeba, who was a firm baptism. I went there Sunday morning with the High Counselor and picked her up to go to church with us. She watched the meetings with us and then we all got in the car to go to Sete Lagoas for her to baptize. Marcia, by the way, is the same Marcia who ran away from baptism for fear of water. But she came back.
On the way to Sete Lagoas, I sat in the backseat, in the middle between Marcia and Marileine a member from Paraopeba who came to accompany Marcia. Halfway there, Marcia put her head in her lap and when we asked her what was wrong she said, with her head still in her lap, "headache," and just stayed in that position. She didn't want to stop for air or water or anything, she said to just keep going. After time, her positioning slowly changed so that her head instead of being on her own lap buried in her arms, rested on my lap buried in her arms. It was incredibly awkward, and I had no idea how to stop it. I didn't want to be rude, and I of course was conscious that she was having a bad headache so I just waited patiently. She didn't get up until 20 minutes later when we finally arrived in Sete Lagoas. The member who was seated in the front said that she looked back and saw me turn green, yellow, blue, red, and all sorts of neat colors, haha.
So we got to Sete Lagoas and Marileine stayed with Marcia while we prepared the baptism with the Bishop. Church had ended and everyone was in the sacrament room waiting for the meeting to start. My companion had already changed into his white clothes to do the baptism, and we were just waiting for Marcia to change into the baptismal clothing so that we could start. And so we waited. And waited. And waited some more. And she never came out of the bathroom. Finally, Rejane (the can opener woman who I love), the Relief Society President went in to talk with her to see what was going on . She was in the bathroom holding the clothes in her arms and crying. Rejane started talking to her about the church and her feelings to try and figure out what was going on. She told Marcia to pray about what she was about to do, and ask God to confirm for her that is was right, and then came out of the bathroom running telling us to hurry and pray for her to know.
Marcia came out of the bathroom and said that she didn't want to get baptized. We invited her into the Bishop's office to talk to her and see what had happened. It was Marcia, The Bishop, Rejane, and me and my companion. It should be mentioned that Marcia does not hear well, so we always have to talk a little bit louder than normal for her to hear us. And the Bishop has a tendency to speak very softly. He started talking with her and bearing his testimony about the church and how her life would change after her baptism, and lots of other good things. I think he must've talked for a solid five minutes, and then he looked at her and said, "what we want to know from you Marcia is, are you ready to make this covenant with the Lord?" And there was silence. Then she looked back and said, "what?"
"Are you ready to make this covenant with the Lord?"
"Sorry, I still didn't hear you."
So Rejane yelled in her ear, "DO YOU WANT TO GET BAPTIZED TODAY, OR DO YOU WANT MORE TIME TO PREPARE??"
"oh, I want to wait."
And that was that. We gave her money to get a bus back to Paraopeba, and sent everyone home to eat lunch. It was tragic, really.
I almost cried.
Then on Monday we spent the whole day waiting for President Parrella to call us and tell us who was going to be transferred. Except he failed to mention to everyone that the new system is, "whoever doesn't get a call can just assume that you're not going to be transferred." So we waited all day anxiously for the phone call that never arrived. Finally, at 8 o'clock at night, we found out that he had finished the calls, and that no one was going to be transferred. So I am staying her in Sete Lagoas for six more week. Six. More. Weeks. Possibly twelve, who can tell? I was devastated. I wanted so badly to go to a new area. In my whole mission I've only worked in Sete Lagoas and Belo Horizonte. There are 10 other zones that I could have gone to. But, I stayed here. Again. Oh well.
Then, after all of this disappointment and devastation, on our way home Monday night, an investigator saw us in the road and went over to say hi. When I stopped to greet him, a bomb from above fell and covered my shoulder, my back, my backpack and got a little bit in my hair. I should have been more careful, I had seen all of the pidgeon poop on the ground where we were standing under the tree. I think it was God's way of saying, "See? Things could always be worse." Thanks.
It was the perfect way to end my perfect weekend.
Ah, here are the latest Paraopeba experiences: On Sunday, when I blessed the sacrament, as I was kneeling saying the prayer the four year old son of one of the members ran over to the table and stuck his hand in the bread tray to try and steal some bread. I grabbed his hand and we battled while I continued saying the prayer. By the time the prayer was done, he had returned to his seat.
Then Marileine, the lady who went to Sete Lagoas with us that day, got up to give her talk. The talk was nice, minus comments like, "I think all of the churches are led by Jesus, ours just happens to be the true one." Then at the end, she closed in the name of Jesus Christ, and said "now, to finish, I'd like to pray. May I?" No one argued, so she stuck out her arms towards the heavens and said this half-Mormon half-evangelical prayer, that used the phrase "in the name of Jesus" a lot. It was entertaining, at least.
Well, I think that's all the news for this week.
I love you guys, and will be home in three months.
-Elder Sisco

This week we experienced one of the biggest miracles of my mission. Luiz, Rosa's husband (who we baptized two transfers ago - her son is on his mission, left in may), was baptized. We ate lunch at Regina's house on Friday who is Rosa's visiting teaching companion, and Rosa was there. They said that Luiz commented that he was contemplating being baptized, he just didn't know when. He goes to church every Sunday and is keeping all of the commandments, he just needed to be baptized. We marked to go visit him that very night. After lunch, we started a fast specifically for him. Regina said she would prepare a message about temples and eternal families and then would pass it to us for us to challenge him for the baptism.
That night, at 7:30 we all went there and sat in their living room with Luiz, Rosa, Regina, João (their 14 year old son who's also a member), me and Elder Vasquez. We started by watching Together Forever, that old, cheesy church film. It brought the Spirit, and then Regina talked about eternal families and temples and then passed the lesson to us. I talked about what a blessing being sealed to my family was, and talked about all the blessings that they would receive when they are sealed together, and then said "but in order for that to happen, everyone needs to do their part. In order to enter into the temple, everyone needs to be a member of the church, and we'd like to invite you, Luiz, to become a member of the church by being baptized on Sunday." He evaded the question and changed the subject. Then I asked again, and he evaded the subject again. Then there was silence and Regina said, "Lu, the Elder asked you a question." And he said, "what's the question again?" and I said, "will you be baptized on Sunday so that your family can be sealed in the temple when Felipe gets home from his mission?" And he sat, and thought, and then said, "yes." Then everyone jumped out of their seats and hugged and it was a marvelous experience.
Our bishop baptized him after church on Sunday, it was great. We took lots of pictures. I have a stronger testimony of the power of the fast.
That's the biggest news of the week.
We also had our first interviews with the new president on monday. The interview was different, but really good. He's a very spiritual man. He's changing lots of things in the mission.
Last night we did visits with Junior, the 18 year old that Elder Martinez and I baptized. He's dating a member and is already excited about his mission. He will be eligible in July of 2010. He said if he doesn't leave the country he wont go haha. I'm going to give him some ties. One of my mission goals was to baptize a future missionary, so I'm really excited that he's really excited.
Next week is transfers, I'll probably be transfered out of here and to my last area.
Three months left!
Love,
Elder Sisco

We found Stanley, the investigator that ran away. He fell to the power of drugs again, and sold his brother's bike and his cell phone for more, so he was afraid to come home for fear of his brother.
Today he went to a rehabilitation clinic where he will stay (it's like a farm in the middle of nowhere) for the next seven months. Which means that he will not be confirmed and will have to be re-baptized when he gets out. I'll have to leave a post-it note on the wall or something for the Elders that will be here in March.
Marcia, the woman from Paraopeba that was supposed to be baptized on Sunday fled from us. I went there with a member in his car on Sunday morning. We went to get her at her house and she answered the door and was ready to go already, we didn't even have to wait for her. We went to the church/house where we have the meetings and she watched the sacrament meeting and then in the interval before Gospel Principles she came up to me and said "I'm just going to run back home to invite my niece to the baptism and grab the things you told me to bring to the baptism (towel, sandals, etc.)." I, suspecting nothing, said "that's fine, we'll pass by your house to pick you up and then we'll all go to Sete Lagoas together for the baptism." She agreed. When church ended (in Paraopeba it's only 2 hours), we went to pick her up and her mom said that she had left and that she said she didn't want to be baptized anymore. We went to the house where her mom said she had gone, and the people there said she had just left. We're going back this week to see what happened.
It's difficult to work in two areas. Everyone who gets baptized from Paraopeba has to go to Sete Lagoas, because there's no baptismal font in Paraopeba. It's rough.
So, my birthday was yesterday. For lunch the members whose house we ate at made a special meal (beans, rice, french fries, and these parmesean chicken things - excellent. I loved it) and then at night we had an appointment at Rosa's house, the lady who Elder Martinez and I baptized last transfer. Turns out that it was a surprise party, and her husband was doing a churrasco (barbecue) for us, with all of my favorite meats. It was awesome. He also said that he's going to be baptized. Probably next Sunday. All in all, it was a blast. I think I ate cake in four different houses. By the time we got home, I was dead from having eaten so much during the day.
Elder Rodrigo (remember him?) sent me a really expensive cologne called Carpe Diem from some perfume store called Boticário. I've never heard of it, but my companion said it's really expensive. I don't even use cologne, but I guess I can start now. Anyway, that was neat.
Today we played soccer, and a bunch of our investigators went. Soccer is the best integration tool that exists in Brazil.
Love,
Elder Sisco

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