June 17, 2012
Sounds like father’s day was pretty fun. Speaking of those
kind of shoes, everyone wears them here, but they aren’t quite as long lasting
or as high quality as toms or sanuks, but I will definitely be bringing a few
pairs home because they are like 10 dollars a pair here in Brazil and way
cheaper if I end up going to Uruguay sometime.
Not sleeping in
will be good for Bergen, and tell him not to whine because you never let us
sleep in past 8 when we were working or even before we started work. Also there
is no whining to president about not being able to sleep in when you are on the
mission. You just got to learn how to wake up early. No, matter how difficult
it remains to be.
Yea the music in
churches now is kind of silly, but it is worse in Brazil. Many churches here
are just constant scenes of screaming and ´´singing´´ that sounds a lot more
like weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Nothing yet tops the Mormon
tabernacle choir. Yes I got those CD´s and they work fine. One of them I
already had on my iPod, but I will just give it to someone else, and the other
that is sung by the phantom of the Opera guy is pretty awesome. Tell Brant that
I love him and he is going to have an awesome time on his mission when he gets
out there!
Yea coming home
to a new house will be a little bit weird, or I could just live in the old
house for the week and a half that I will be home after the mission haha. But
Im used to switching into new houses frequently anyway, and it is inevitable
that the new house will be far better than any other mission house that we may
have here in the mission.
The weather this
week stayed crazy. Where last week´s cold left, this weeks blazing heat took
its place. Definitely nothing characteristic of the Rio Grande do Sul winter.
The first few days of the week gave an awful humidity where the walls were even
sweating. (That is not a metaphor, they were literally condensating). And then
there was just heat up until a few days ago where it started to rain off and on
and then yesterday gave about an hour and a half long downpour which started
just as my companion and I were as far from our house was possible. The only
thing that the umbrella did was protect my tie. Luckily my shoes are very good and
I had that dry sack to protect all of my books and things. I definitely
recommend getting a dry sack like that to anyone who goes on this mission. It
works better than shopping backs which often leak and rub off ink. Today stayed
temperate in terms of the weather.
We had
interviews with President this last week. Like usual my interview was about 3
or 4 minutes long, but I shouldn’t complain because that just means that I am
not doing anything wrong or on Presidents bad side. He basically said to keep
up the good work and asked how my companion is and if I like being with another
American again. Truth is I had rather stay with a Brazilian companion for the
rest of my mission, it makes for a good balance.
We had a hard
week in terms of finding new investigators, but those that we did find truly
are good. We found refuge in the rain yesterday in the house of investigator
who we taught in order to wait out the rain. Her intire family was there this
time so we taught them the restoration and left the commitment to pray. They
understood very well our lesson and invited us to come back as soon as they
were available. We talked to a lot of people this week, totaling almost 100
contacts and got turned down 90% of the time. Thats missionary work though,
what can you do? Surely cannot mess with anyone’s agency. The week was good
though, leaving many good prospects for the next weeks. This work is true.
I love you all and hope you are doing very well!
-Elder Eskildsen
Dear family, June 10,
2012
Wow, crazy to
think that dad already has one year as the bishop. It wont be too long before I
hit my one year mark as well. This last week has been cold as well. Yesterday
we had a ton of rain which is good because there has been quite a drought
throughout this state in Brazil and the agriculture here depends on the rain.
It is starting to warm up again though and this week is supposed to be pretty
mild. I had gotten some good use out of my winter clothes here this last week. (Even
through the night as a result this countries glorious lack of central heating).
Yea if you could
put portions of my letter on the blog that would be splendid, because I dont
really have time to type up a separate blog post. I received that announcement
from SaraH today. Also I got a letter from Grandma and Grandpa Eskildsen (and I
sent a letter to them today) and a letter from my roommate alex norr who is in
Sweden.
I got that
package today that is filled with the warm winter clothes, which I was excited
about, because it really is quite frigid here. Just barely not cold enough for
ice or snow though. Thanks for the Journal, those are really hard to find here
for some reason. I guess Brazilians aren’t really too concerned with
documenting their lives. I had to resort to writing my daily happenings in a
large daily planner I bought.
That’s also amazing
that you are really getting into your calling and visiting the less actives,
because that truly is the duty of the members and not of the missionaries. We have only one member of the ward, (or
rather, one sane member) that visits less actives. We have also come to notice
that the less actives (at least here) really have nothing against the church
alot of the time, but they have fallen away for other reasons, and still have a
great desire to help the missionaries.
This week has
been really good. We didn’t manage to get a ton of lessons, but those that we
did teach are really awesome. Our investigators for the most part are families,
which is exactly what we are supposed to be focusing on in this work. We have
two young couples (legally married I believe, which is incredibly difficult to
encounter here) that we are teaching. Both with very young kids, who are
studying and well educated as a result. One of the couples, Eliane and Silmar,
made us dinner the other night, even though it was only our first lesson there.
(They had a little bit of exposure to the missionaries already when Elder Lipps
was here a month or two ago.) The other couple really wants to make us lunch
two Sundays from now. The other family is one that we found doing street
contacts, who also comprehend thoroughly everything we teach. I am really
excited to be teaching such awesome families. This week we received a referral
from the elders in one of the other wards of a girl that has been attending their
ward with one of her friends who we started to teach. She has already been
going to church for 2 weeks, so she already has a great foundation in the
church and is thus very easy to teach. In praying for inspiration this last
week to find places to find new investigators, we have found new families and
individuals to teach, in exactly the first house that we knock after choosing a
certain road to knock doors. We got to see the dedication of the temple in
Manaus (the mission where Trevor Lott is) and that was awesome. I had never
really remembered seeing a temple dedication and was very grateful to be able
to see one. It also made me really want to go to the temple ASAP because I
really miss it. And no I am not able to exercise daily. That seems to be it for
the week, but I love you and hope you are all do superbly.
-Elder Eskildsen Me in fields"fields without end"
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