Divisões (splits)

On Tuesday we had an amazing day! We were able to teach a lot of recent converts which always helps them stay active! I taught about the past, present and future in Aula de Ingles (English class) which turned out really well. After that we played a game at church for a while then closed the day.

On Wednesday we worked a good amount. We didn't have lunch with a member so we were able to cook what we needed. Then we played uno just us two for a while. Ha ha

Thursday: we worked a ton, then at night Elder Rodrigues and Moura came to do divisions with us the next day.

On Friday we had divisions. I went with Elder Rodriguez and Abarca went with Moura. We worked so hard that day, we managed to set 4 baptismal dates and got a ton of new investigators! The rest of the day consisted of us watching kids play soccer at church for noite integracao. We also bought a big pizza and played uno.

Saturday and Sunday were pretty much the same. We worked a ton with our new investigators and baptismal dates. On Sunday we were walking home when we heard a loud gun shot and saw a ton of people running, so that was great (not really haha). But that was my week.

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers. I hope you all have amazing weeks and I love you all!

-Elder Whelan

Ups and Down [two weeks worth of emails, sorry! -Editor]

Pday was a normal day. We were asble to talk with our families and such. I've constantly been getting better and better at understanding the language which has been a huge blessing. We didn't' really do anything else later that day.

Tuesday was definitely the hardest day of my mission. We woke up and started off great. Pretty much our whole day was going amazing. Then we started teaching a teenager names Gabriel who was going to get baptized. This Sunday was the baptismal interview. We got to the very last question and that's where he told us he doesn't believe in what we've been teaching him and that he follows another church. We've been teaching him for over a month and a half and he tells us this now?! come on man! haha I was devastated. How? I didn't understand. But anyways that was my all time low of that week.

Wednesday I was still pretty bummed but we managed to work like normal. When I'm bummed out my comp is sad also, haha. So I have to try really hard to be appear happy when investigators or things like this happen. Anyways our day was normal but we found a lizard in our apartment again so we took some more pictures, haha.

Thursday we had a weekly planning which went well. All wee we have been going to the cartorio or marriage place and helping families get married. It's been great. We also stayed and taught the parents of Ronei and Tattila who are incredible people.

On Friday we did our normal stuff in the morning but then we had lunch at Irmao Leonel's hours which is a lunch we dread. haha. Not the lunch so much but the mountain we have to climb every time we eat there! But anyways after lunch we went to the cartorio again to help two more families figure out all their stuff to get married. Then we had noite integracao and we played monkey in the middle for an hour which was super fun.

Saturday was general conference. We woke up did our normal studies then left for lunch. After lunch we argued with bishop forever to open the church secretary room to watch general conference. We invited a bunch of people to watch with us which is why we wanted to use the church. But we watched all the sessions on Saturday, it was so amazing. I've never appreciated the words of prophets as much as I do now. I can testify that we have a true prophet here on this earth today and that if we listen to his words we will have eternal life!

On Sunday we did pretty much the same as the day before. again, the experience was so amazing!! On Sunday I also finished my 12 weeks training so I'm officially out of the 'training' phase. haha. But not really because I always need more training. But anyways that was my week. Just hope you all had an amazing week as well.

(week 2)
Hello Everyone! I hope you all had a marvelously spectacular week. To start off my week we had pday which nothing really happened. I made tortillas with Abarco and then I had the idea to cook with oil and put cinnamon and sugar on the tortilla. Annnnnnd ta duh! Elephant ears haha!  They were exactly the same but the last was really good. So that's all that matters, right?

On Tuesday we had Aula de Ingles which turned out to be Aula de Espanol because I let Abarca teach this one haha. After that we played ping pong. On Wednesday we taught at Irmao Ronei's house a lesson and they were playing Moana so we got to see a little bit of that. We didn't really do very much after that. Haha.

Thursday nothing much happened.

On Friday we managed to walk about 14 kilometers which is about 9 miles. Our lunch was super far away so we had to alk there, then walk back to our area of proselyting for that day. Also, when we were walking to an appointment the google car drove by us and of course we had to pose for the picture haha. We also had Noite integracao which was pretty fun.

On Saturday we taught in the favelas a girl and her family which was great. Her dad got home from prison and he was definitely drinking coke with vodka the smell was horrible. Also we had a birthday party for a man named Emiliano in the church with a tone of members. He turned 90 years old!

On Sunday we worked a ton and had a great day. This week was pretty boring, haha. Well, not boring, but normal. Its never boring here in Brazil haha. That was my week. I hope you all had an amazing week also and I can't wait to hear from you all.

Love you!
Elder Whelan

Lizards and frogs

Semana passado (Last Week).
Mission Tour!

P-day: So on Monday all we sis was relax and talk with our families, it was great! We also cleaned our apartment it is pretty big but we always keep it clean so it doesn’t take that long to tidy everything up. We also bought stuff from the supermarket to make food in the apartment.

On Tuesday we woke up and prepared for our mission tour. We had a super long bus ride (12 hours) but we picked up a ton of people on the way. We drove through the night and arrived in Floripa at 5:30am.

We got to the church and kinda just waited around for a couple hours for our president and other people to arrive. We started the meeting at around 9 o’clock and we had a ton of good training. Everyone has to keep standing up because we all were super tired from the bus ride haha. A member of the 70 spoke to us which was awesome. After our training we all got shots to help us not be sick and then we all piled back onto the bus and started our journey back! I slept the whole time pretty much haha it was amazing!

The next day we got to Chapecó which is a huge city and we slept in our district leaders house until the bus arrived. Our bus ride back we had the pleasure of riding with about 10 very loud and very happy Haitian people haha there were these two ladies that for some reason thought it was a good idea to out of nowhere yell WOOOOOHOOOOOO.

Hahaha this was hilarious the first 5 times they did it but it got pretty old after that because they had to have done it over 100 times. But anyway we arrived in Concordia without incident and we started planning for the week because we plan every Thursday.

Friday: Oscar’s Birthday!! Love you little guy!!! Today we left the house and had lunch at Irmāo Fortunato’s house then we went to the Cortorio to settle a bunch of stuff for a marriage of our investigators. After that we had a few other lessons to teach. On the way to our lesson I was almost run over by a car but I wasn’t so all was well haha. We also had Noite Integracáo which is where we teach a little lesson to a bunch of teenagers then they can...

Well it kinda worked because we brought 5 investigators that day and one of them doesn’t want to be baptized anymore. That really struck us pretty hard because missionaries for over 2 years have been working with this family. The wife (Seliane) still is going to get baptized which is amazing but we want the whole family!!

O LAGARTO!!

P-day: We were able to talk with our family and friends which was amazing!! Thank you all for your thought and emails! Love you all! But anyways after that we didn’t do much after that we cleaned our house and whatnot.

On Tuesday we found the biggest frog I’ve ever seen. I have pictures and videos but those don’t do justice for this guy. In portuguese a frog is called Sapo or Rá (pronounced huh) here’s a little fun fact for you guys haha. But as missionaries we thought it was our duty to give this guy some food so we brought him to our apartment and fed him some bugs that we caught haha it was pretty cool actually.

On Wednesday we had lunch with Irmáo Antonio who is the father of our bishop. Then after that we did our normal stuff haha. For dinner we ate at an investigators house because we’ve really been trying to build our relationship with the father of this girl named Stefany because before he didn’t want anything to do with the church. B

On Saturday we had another extremely productive day. We talked a ton with the bishop about how we can better the ward because there's not a lot of fellowship or anything here, but we were able to talk about a lot of stuff and hopefully can help this ward grow! There’s one part in this city that are favelas or houses stacked on house haha. We did some contacting in there and wet this amazing family that can definitely use the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This part of the city if very poor and as I walked down the favela I realized how lucky I am. I can be having the worst day of my life and there is always someone having an even worse day or even worse life! So I have an invitation for you all to thank Heavenly Father for all the things you have. Food, Home, Family, Friends, Car, Phone, Etc. These simple things that we have are often taken for granted are things that a lot of people don’t have. I always think about how Jesus Christ had the worst day possible and he did good things here on this earth. I can have my worst day ever and that day won’t compare to his. He saved me, you, and everyone there ever was through his Atonement. That’s so incredible to me. I’m so thankful for what I have. But you just always remember to be thankful. :)

On Sunday we walked from one end of the city to the other end because we had lunch that was super far away then we taught in a totally different part of the city. Also our sacrament meeting was literally amazing!! We didn’t have anyone yelling at our Bishop and over 60 people in attendance. Me and Abarca opened all the windows and doors and played piano music while people came in. We felt the Spirit very strongly. But anyways after that we had some good lessons in an area of the city named Santa Cruz. On our way to Santa Cruz a lagarto or lizard ran out onto our pathway and we were like oh that’s cool, this little lizard was super fact but he started to get tired so after a while we caught up to him. We wanted to get a closer look so we both went on either sides of the lizard haha and he decided to run and jump over this little divider. And he got smashed by a car!!! We were so distraught, our little buddy!!

Mission Tour

Hello!

This week we had a mission tour, where we got on a bus starting at my area, and did many stops
throughout different cities, picking up other missionaries. It was a lot of fun. I think we only do that once or twice during my mission. Because it's been a crazy week I didn't have much time to write, sorry.

As I've been here following all the rules I've come to see how blessed I am haha. One day we were about to cross the street and I looked both ways and started across and didn't see this car coming. I like to say it was my amazing reflexes that saved my life but I distinctly felt myself pulled back by something else. I was protected. The car drove by a few feet away from me and we continued on our way haha my comp was literally dying from fear haha but I was super calm haha. I just know that if we are obedient we will always be safe from harm, temptations, or things of the devil. this life is hard but its all worth it if we follow Jesus Christ. there are both good and bad consequence. obedience brings blessings. disobedience brings sadness, sorrow, pain, etc.

Here are some picts of our trip, a panoramic from our apartment, and a pict of the cookies I made :)

RATS!!!

Hello All!

This week absolutely flew by! On Tuesday as had a district reunion which went so well! We missed out bus home, haha . So we woke up pretty early (5pm) got ready and literally had to run to not miss the first bus of the day haha. It was raining a ton so that’s great. It’s kinda strange but when I see clouds in the sky my heart is full of joy and I say today is going to be the best day ever! Because…. I won’t be fried in the sun like a squashed cockroach (a barata) haha. But anyway, we had our bus ride to chapeco, which is 2 ½-3 hours away. We got there and I led us through the gigantic city to the church because Abarca had never been there before. WE had pancakes for lunch (made by a fellow Americano). Then we taught some lessons. Me and Elder Abarca taught about why questions are important in conversion. T’was awesome. After that we ran to catch our bus but we were late. So we waited in the bus station for 6 hours while outside was flooded with rain water. We chilled with our district leader and his comp and two sisters (sisters were waiting for bus also. After waiting forever we got our bus and headed home. WE stopped for about 1 ½ hours because two cars ahead of us crashed and 2 people died. Definitely, we prayed for their families to be comforted. But we got home pretty late and were pretty tired.

On Wednesday we had a fairly normal day. We woke up, did our stuff and left for lunch with a member named Arthur He’s super cool! He’s super old and has a huge testimony and is always happy. After lunch we had some great lessons. We have some investigators super close to baptism so please pray for them! Their names are Ronei, Gabriel, and Elison. Anyway we bought cevada which is a barley drink, kind of like coffee but is not coffee for Gabriel because he had problems with the Word of Wisdom but he promised to never drink coffee again. We tried the cevada with him while eating some cookies and it was actually pretty good with the cookies, haha. Don’t worry, I’m not going to just start drinking coffee because of this, haha.

On Thursday we had some planajamento semenal which is here we plan for the next 10 days our lessons and how we can better help out investigators and ourselves. We do this to be more constructive with our time and to use the Spirit to guide us more. We plan lessons based on where our lunches are and where people live because it doesn’t make much sense to walk 5 kilometers to one hours and 5 back to another and 5 back to another than others. We try to have as much time as possible to teach as we can.

Anyway we also organized our area book because if you didn’t know sometimes 19 year olds can get a little disorganized. We made our own lunch, which consisted of french fries and these chicken nugget things. Foi bom! Wsa pretty good. I made a milkshake, which consisted of ice cream, Toddy (chocolate milk powder) leite (milk) and the peanut butter thing called Pacoca. It was sooooooo good! Ahhh.

Anyway, on Friday we had lunch with Leonel, a member who lives on top of a flippin mountain haha. We’ve had a ton of clouds in the sky lately so that’s been a huge blessing. We had noite integracao which was a disaster, ahah. All the kids were crazy. Fighting, yelling, and creating havoc. Me and Abarco decided not to have soccer anymore because it causes too much contention between the kids. We’ve also been having trouble with the ward because no one is helping us with contacts or references or anything. Really it’s just us working the whole city. We are definitely trying to get the ward more involved in the missionary work because everyone is an instrument in the hand of God. We aren’t just missionaries for 2 years. We are missionaries for the rest of our lives. Constantly striving to better ourselves to come closer to Christ to bring others unto Christ as well. We all need eternal life with our families.

On Saturday we had a really good lunch with a member named Monica. She gave Elder Abarca a cuha to drink chimarrao with a bombo or straw. He was sooo excited haha! Later that day I received a cup for terrere! Chimarrao is a hot drink while terrere is cold with juice depending on how you like it. I like sweet things so I like terrere haha.

On Sunday we had church like normal. We talked to the house of Elison but I think he was asleep. So we weren’t able to bring him the to church which sucks. But church was good. We had lunch with two members named Igor and Patricia. They are super cool! Igor works on cruise ships. He’s a waiter so he lives on the ships for about 6 months. He visits places all over the world. But anyway, we had a ton of good lessons after lunch. In one lesson we were teaching me or Elder Abarca was talking and I see some movement and I see this HUGE rat run across the ground. Abarca noticed also but we didn’t say anything haha. During the lesson we had to have seen over ten rats running around, fighting each other and making a ton of noise. The lesson actually went great thought.

Today it rained all day but it was a really good temperature all day so that was a blessing. Also, Elder Abarca was sick this week with a sore throat and a stuffy nose but he’s better now. We have our mission tour on Wednesday. I’m super excited. I’ve really only gotten to know a few other missionaries while I’ve been out in the field because of how far everyone is from each other. And we get to have a 13 hour bus ride so that's probably the most exciting thing, haha. NOT!

I’m excited though to received training also to be a better missionary and talk with Presidente Goncalves personally. We’ve heard some whisperings that we will receive smartphones pretty soon but I don’t know haha. I can only cross my fingers and hope. I get one while I’m on the mission because smartphones will help the work so much! There’s a lot of disorganization here and smartphones will help the members be more aware of our work. Because a lot of times we don’t have ways to contact people ot let them know our plans so we’ll definitely be better working with members and investigators. But anyways this was my week, pretty uneventful ha ha. Just a normal week in BRASIL!

There’s been shootings in Sao Paulo and New Zealand so please pray for the families there. This is definitely the time when Christ will appear again because of all the calamities that are happening so please pray and try to always help those around you. Because people in the world need to feel more love!

I am so thankful for the love you all show me and for all the things I have in this life. I’ve come to realize how blessed my life is how many things I have that some people here can’t imagine.

This Gospel is beautiful, and when we share it with others they hear the Spirit and feel Christ’s love. I know they do. There’s nothing better than seeing a light click on in someone’s eyes as they come to realize the truth, as they come to see how they can have eternal life. This gospel is literally perfect. The people in the Gospel make mistakes but the Gospel of Jesus Christ is literally perfect. Remember that.

I love you all and hope you all have amazing days full of fun and most important the Spirit!

-Elder Whelan

Ty's Birthday!!

Happy Birthday Tyler-Ann 19 years old!! You are so old, ha ha. Hope you had an amazing birthday.

This week went by super quickly. On Tuesday we had almoco (lunch) really far away so we took a bus back. Nothing much happened after. We had Aula de Ingles (English class). There were two people, an investigator named Gabriel and a recent convert names Christopher. Gabriel is going to get baptized I hope this week. He's super cool. On Wednesday we didn't really do anything too special. Thursday was Elder Abarca's birthday. I bought him a cake and we sane happy birthday in the apartment. He thought his birthday was going to be quiet and uneventful but I told Family Fortes about his birthday. So we had dinner at their house and me and Victor distracted Abarca while Alessandro prepared the cake. It was so cool. We all sang Happy Birthday super loud and I'm sure Elder Abarca felt a ton more happier than before.

We can definitely tell the seasons are changing because it's getting darker earlier during the day. So we have to be more careful to plan our lessons earlier to not be out at night super long. Friday we walked a ton but I felt like we got nothing done. We went to the carterio to help two investigators get married but we didn't have much success. We have four people super close to baptism but all we are waiting for on three of them is marriage. Ahh why does no one get married here?! It's super strange people live together for years and years but don't want to get married.

Anyway these past three days have been a ton of clouds and some rain. It's been so nice because we aren't dying of heat haha. On Sunday we had a ton of success, we taught a ton or people and got a ton of new investigators. It's super strange, some days you work super hard, walk a ton, talk to a ton of people then you have no success. But other days everything just falls into place. Yesterday just fell into place. haha.

But anyways I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to serve my Heavenly Father in any way. My testimony has grown so much while I'm here. I've also finished the Book of Mormon and I get so much more out of it as I read and think about how this affects my life after death and how I can better teach my investigators about eternal life. I read about how when we teach we need to be devastated if our investigators don't follow up on a commitment. Because a lot of the time we don't take this serious. But it's literally eternal life we need to think about. Eternal life for children of God. So I want to invite whoever reads this to seriously think about how you can save someone's life and their family's life forever if you just talk to them, bear your testimony, and just love that person. I know this gospel is true. I know we can receive eternal salvation if we have faith, repent, are baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, partake of the sacrament, and endure to the end. If we keep the commandments of God He will bless us with an unimaginable amount of blessings!

I know this to be true because already I have seen how many people's lives have completely changed here. It's literally amazing.

But anyway, I love you all and am very thankful for your love and friendship.

Love,
Elder Whelan

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TY!!

Chileno!!!!

Since I wasn't able to write last week because of tranfers I get to write for two weeks now, Yay! Anyway, this week has gone very extremely fast. The work has been going great and we've had some success. One week I had Elder dos Santos and the next I have Elder Abarca. Elder Abarca is soooo cool. He's from Chile and loves to mess around and make jokes and laugh. He's definitely not used to the hills here in Concordia because one day we had an almoco (lunch) with a member who lives on top of a mountain haha. We both were dying after that. But I for sure have some stronger things becuase my pants are getting tight. 

I had some great breakthroughs with the language as well. I'm speaking better and better everyday. I bought a ton of food to make also. I love to make food because sometimes I get tired of rice and beans haha. Anyway we've had some problems finding people to teach becuase neither of us know the area very well. we sometimes are stressed because we have soooo many people to teach and we don't have enough time to teach them all in a day or even a week.

Add the fact that sometimes we walk across the city 3 or 4 times to get to meetings or lessons. At the end of the day we are DEFINITELY tired haha. But a good tired. I've had so many good experiences becuase of this hard work we do. But anyway, My comp was transferred on last Monday to Corintibanos which is a smaller city than Concordia but is more cold and gets more rain. I want to serve in Corintibanos, haha it is so hot here. But we were in Cotintibanos last Pday so thats why I couldn't email. But my new comp is so cool, I love him so much already.

Today we woke up and got a haircut that was fun (we waited two flippin hours). After our haircut we ate Subway!! That was great but a tiny bit different. The cheese was that cheap cheese you buy, called American cheese haha. But I was fasting earlier so the food tased like Heaven!

This week has been great, I'm excited to hear from you all and I LOVE YOU ALL!

Love, Elder Whelan

pictures are of a bird that a member had. and that bird ended up pooping on my shoulder soooo that was great hahaha

the flower picture was just a joke haha there are huge flowers everywhere by the way.

there were three toilets on the way to a lesson so i decided to take a picture and sit on one of those extremely clean and great Brazilian toilets haha

theres a ton of huge butterflies here that are all sorts of colors, blue purple, black, brown, white Etc.

I took some pictures of me and my companion with my new comp in corintibanos.
took some pictures of some members of corintibanos.

found a little baby lizard in our apartment, there are some huge lizards here.

we were walking to an appointment and my comp stopped me and stood under this sign and I had to take a picture haha i pretty much says that you cant throw your trash in that spot haha

but ya those are the pics of the week! hope ya liked them!!