September 3, 2012

Sounds like the labor day is going to be good. I really miss a good cinnamon roll, among many other things that I miss. Mostly breakfast foods, because breakfast is virtually nonexistent here. I didnt know that McKae was going to Cambodia. So she didnt end ip going on a mission? Thats cool though that she will be doing something pretty cool as well. Yea Chelsea wrote me a dear Elder. It works here, but I think you have to pay to get it sent here. Also now with the new post office box we will be able to receive letters every week. Chances are that I will be getting that letter you sent today, unless it took a long time to get here, but it wasnt there last week when I checked. Yea the package hasnt come either.

That sounds like a really cool experience with the baptism of Ashley.Im sure she is an awesome addition to the ward, and she lucked out that she was baptized in a ward that is so great and that are going to be by her side whenever she may need them.

It is interesting that you talked about faith, because our mission this last week was reprimanded for its lack therof, and we were set to study a few chapters in the scriptures: Hebrews 11, Alma 32, Moroni 7 (only part, but I cant remember which part) and Ether 12. They are all really awesome selections talking about faith. We all have room in our lives to improve and grow our faith. That is evident by the fact that most of us have not perpetrated such wonders as those of Moses and Enoch. (Heb. 11) There are many people that we meet here who dont talk to us or who bash down our message by saying that they already have a knowledge of Christ and are already on the right path, and thus need no more, notwithstanding the many erroneous aspects of thier life, worship, and conduct. They essentially say that they have no need of faith because they have convinced themselves that there will be no consequence for thier weak belief in a higher power. Those who have true faith will always seek out to augment that which they already have. They will always seek to know Christ even more. We cannot let ourselves be lured into complacency lest we stagnate in a mire of false assurances of our own certainty. Further, those with true faith always strive to develop attributes similar to those of Christ and to turn thier lives completely in accordance with His will. Essentially like you said is to continually put your faith into action in order to always be on the increase. There is always more to learn and there is much more that we have in our power to do if our faith becomes unshakeable and wide.

I wish I could have been back for Spencers baptism, and I am sure that it was a really great meeting and reunion. And dang it is so weird to think of Matt and Tyson at BYU and on the football team, because they seem so young in my mind. It is as though since I left for college and now for the mission everyone else from Connell has ceased to grow up, but that is obviously not true. And yea you can have a moustache at BYU, just no other facial hair. Is Spencer about to get married yet? also is Matt putting his papers for his mission in yet? Also I was looking at the directory on lds.org at the missionary section. Did Brady come back from his mission? because he is no longer listed as a missionary in our ward.

I miss XC so much. Yea I also had ankle problems and they hurt a lot, but who knows if it is the same as what Bergen has, because all I did for it was stretch my ankles more and run through the pain.

This last week we spent a LOT of our time looking for new investigators because we still have not really been able to establish a good teaching group. We were pretty successful in our endeavor to find good new investigators. We found several families who accepted baptism and several other people who appear to have great potential to progress. We also had a lot of people being not to kind to us, which tends to happen here in the mission. The gaúcho do not like Mormons. We had a situation where we went back to a new investigator who we had marked with and who accepted baptism and in when we knocked on the door her little daughter answered. Then the investigators mom came out and told us that she wasnt there although we had clearly seen her through the window. As the mother of the investigator told us she wasnt there and we started to leave the investigators daughter yelled ´´Liar! Liar! she IS here! She IS HERE!´´ What a little darling, calling her mom out in her lies. People generally use every lie and every type of excuse here in order to not have to tell us no. There is some sort of taboo here around the use of the word ´´No´´. According to the moral of the people here it is better to lie and use excuses rather than say no they dont want to hear what we have to say. We werent able to get any of our investigators to church yesterday besides Moisés, but he cant get baptized for the next few months because he is less than 17. The rest of my district as well had a hard time getting people to go to church. Many things to work on.

Well I hope that the start of the school year is going well and that the Labor day holiday is awesome! I love you and have a great week!

-Elder Eskildsen

 

 

September 25

Well no need to fear because it seems that the letter wasnt as short as you implied it would be haha. I as well will make no promises about how long my letter will be, but it may be long. Who knows?

Its nice that the missionaries there are getting a lot of work, and it is funny that Rachel went out with the missionaries for a lesson. She told about her experience and she made it sound worse and more awkward than it really was. But then again I am a missionary and things just dont ever seem awkward anymore. I really am missing running and having the oportunity to do so during the day and not just in the mornings. I just never feel very good in the mornings (probably a result of not exercising) and so I have been quite negligent with my morning exercises.

I bet Chelsea is getting super excited to go off on her mission! That is super cool. Also it sounds a bit like the ward has changed A LOT since I was last there. It may be a little strange when I get back and give a talk to a bunch of people that I dont know. Also I am really going to be excited to get back to flying after the mission. In particular I would like to see how that Cherokee flies.

Alright well my new companion is a Brazilian (finally another Brazilian companion). He is from Bahia which is a part of Brazil that many people make fun of because of thier accent etc, but my companion is awesome! His name is Elder Almeida and any fear that I had of getting a new misisonary that wasnt going to know anything and wasnt going to want to work are now gone. He is really here just to serve the lord and came here with exactly the right attitude that is necessary for missionary work. He really has a desire to work and basically already came to the field as a fully trained missionary, besides the normal new missionary defects. But on tuesday Elder Strout went off to his new area in Santo Angelo and me and a bunch of other missionaries who were going to train and a few others that were waiting for buses (including my old companion Elder Glazier) went off to the casa grande or rather, the mission home. There we just waited for like 6 hours talking etc and waiting for the new misisonaries showed up. Then the new kids showed up (which I didnt even percieve until a half hour after they showed up because I was upstairs and they entered in the garage.) We all got to go to President Ribeiros house that night to eat A TON of pizza with the new missionaries and there we found out who our new companions would be. It was a really cool experience there. I love any oportunity that I have to go to Presidents house, it is really nice. The next day we had a day long training for the trainers first (for about an h our) and then for the trainees. I am really excited for these next few transfers with my new companion becuase we are going to have a lot of sucess. We found a man who is married (LEGALLY!!!) to a less active lady who really likes the church and seems like she has a great desire to start going back to church, and her husband is very receptive as well. We also have a few other part member families we are working with that need to get married so that they can be baptized. We are also teaching a man named Ademir who without fail understands the message of the restoration and the need of a true church and prophet, etc. he even told us that he had been praying that a pastor or someone suchas would pass by his house (because he and his wife have a newborn baby) and the pastors of the churches that he visited didnt ever come and then we ended up knocking on his door. He is definitly prepared to accept the message of the gospel! We have got some awesome people we ar eworking with and we are going to try hard in the next few weeks to work with the lord in order to find those who are ready to accept the gospel.

In relation to my responsibilities as a leader it still feels a bit like I am working with children. My district is having a very hard time finding GOOD new investigators and dont seem to have hope nor faith in order to find them. It seems as though the mission as well is having a dry spell in terms of success in the past few months. We really just lack the faith that we can change the people here. But anyway things are still going well.

I love you and hope everything is going great for you there in good ol´ connell!

-Elder Eskildsen

 

 

 

September 30, 2012   Yea September did go by really quick, mostly because I was switching companions so often, so it made it seem as though time was on overdrive. The opposite has happened here in Santa Maria. We have had a winter kick and so it has stayed pretty cold and rainy instead of going into the heat of the summer. (thank goodness, because I am stil preparing myself for one more summer). That also cant have been good for your flying either, because the heat of the summer makes landings tough. Yea RAchel already said that she is going with Colton, but it didnt even hit me that Bergen was going to be going. I dont know who Rian Naef is. But I am sure he will have tons of fun.

I didnt even realize that you already had the houseplans underway. I though this was some fanciful game you were playing in your minds and eventually get around to in the spring. Dang, it looks like I am going to come home to a new house then. Dont let any of my things get hurt in the move.

And with that slug I saw him pretty early. I have gotten into the habit of inconspicuously examining my food before I eat it, and I was wondering what the dark spot on my lettuce could be. Upon turning the lettuce I beheld a slug. Que bom. I was going to keep quiet about it, but one of the elders near me took the plate to the kitchen and showed the sisters who were making our lunch and they were thouroughly apologetic. Poor ladies making our lunch. It really wasnt that big of a deal but they just felt so bad. I wasnt obligated to eat the lettuce though...

The work is going quite well. We prayed this week to find 4 families to teach, but we only ended up finding three, although all of them are really good families. The weeks here go by slow but so much seems to happen in the week. We have found a TON of new investigators this week Almost all of them were really good too. We just need to be able to find them for a second visit and talk soon about the Book of Mormon so that they be CONVERTED! We had a couple go to church this week and they really liked it. They have a desire to be baptized, but first they have to get legally married and they have to make it so that they can attend our ward in the morning instead of just going to the afternoon ward. It will be easy for them to get sunday mornings off seeing as they own the fruit stand they work at. They are also friends with a family of members from our ward which also makes things easier.

My district is a lot more animated than they had been and they are starting to have some good results, which makes me very happy. things are starting to go better for all of the companionships in my district but we still have to push ourselves to get better.

Im super excited for conference this weekend! But I love you all and hope you have a great conference week!

-Elder Eskildsen

October 8With Bergen he wont be able to go out at 18 because he wont be graduated. He will still have to wait until he is almost 19 anyway. I think that this new revelation that the first presidency received will effect the young women of the church more. I think there are going to be TONS more sister missionaries in the field. I am glad I went out at 19 though beacause I had great experiences at BYU the first year before I went on the mission.

I am really excited to fly the Cherokee. I enjoyed the talk that Elder Uchtdorf Gave talking about his piper cub that he flew. He also talked about the Wright Brothers which afterwards sparked the same argument that the Brazilians have that Santos DuMont invented the airplane first. The truth is that there are many people that were tinkering with the idea of an airplane but those that flew first were the Wright Brothers, who took to the air one week before Santos DuMont. Yet besides the established dates and facts the brazilians will argue to the death about that.

\Thats good that the misisonaries are doing well there. I think that the problem that they have there is the same problem that we have and that all missions must have. It is difficult to find normal people from stable families to teach that will actually ACCEPT the gospel and stay active in it. The people that have been baptised in most wards here in the past few years are more often than not incredibly strange and in some sort of extenuating circumstance and are unwilling to take the effort to go back to church.
Conferecne however was really great and I am excited to get the Ensign with all of the talks next month!
Thats crazy that Garrick is getting married. Hasnt he been back only a month or 2 ? Who is he getting married to?
Well I hope that you are doing well with the ward there and that if you have any work this week that it can go well!
Conference yesterday was really awesome. We were able to watch all of the sessions incuding the priesthood session. The only downside was that I am the only American in my district, so there was no one to watch the sessions in english with me, therefore I was not able to watch a single session in English. I understood everything, but the monotone of a brazilian translator is just not the same as hearing the voices of the apostles and prophet. We have a family that we are teaching that ended up going to the first saturday session and they loved the talks. We have been talking to them very seriously about getting married so that they can be baptized, and they accepted. They have been taught by elders in the past, but since they werent married they couldnt get baptized and stopped going to church. All we had to do was teach and speak with authority and commit them to marriage and baptism. They are hoping to be able to get married by the end of this month or beg. of sept. (the paperwork and wait time involved in a marriage here in Santa Maria is horrendous.) Unfortunately they were the only investigators of ours that made it to conference. The elections for local government offices here got in the way quite a bit. Obligatory voting occured on SUNDAY and each person has to return to the city they were born in order to vote and so many people used the voting as an excuse not to go to the conference and many people were simply out of town. Elections here is something ridiculous those elected are sometimes just as ridiculous, probably resulting from the forced voting (if you dont vote you get a heavy fine).
That is really too bad with Tori and Bryan, but im sure she will be fine. It is a good thing that the family was one of the big subjects of the conference. Also Tell Katelyn to write me and tell me about how things are going. It has been a while that she has written to me. Thats funny that she is dating though. She´ll be married soon.
As for needs in the Christmas package I dont think I really have any at the moment. maybe one more pair of pants, because I have one that is getting close to the end of its life (one of the pair I got from Jase) as for that everything else is holding up pretty well. I will see if theere is anything else I need and if so I will be sure to tell you. My shoes are still holding up well. I will hve to get them resoled here in 2 or 3 months but after that they should at least last another 2 or 3. The ones I use for meetings still look new though, so if the ones I use everyday somehow get destroyed I will use those and maybe buy a pair of those electricians shoes. They are pretty cheap and good for a lot of walking. My eccos are a size 44.
The work here is going well. WE have finally been able to establish a good stable teaching group and wwe are working with some really awesome people. The hardest thing here is just to find people that have enough drive to go to church and to eventually stay firm in the church. Many people claim that our coming to thier door was a sign from God because they were praying to have someone respont a certain question they had or to show them the true church and that they receive answeres to thier prayers about the Book of Mormon but then do NOTHING about those magnificent signs they have recieved.
My brazilian companion is doing great, and he would like you to send a recipe for Chocolate chip cookies so that we can make some next p-day. He is learning a ton and I think he is already ready to be senior companion. Things here have been going good though and we have been trying harder to use the Book of Mormon more in our day to day work to demonstrate the power that it has.

Anyway I love you and hope you are doing well!

-Elder Eskildsen

 

August in Santa Maria

August 2012      Well to answer your last question frist, the next transfer date is today, and well, I was transferred to Santa Maria to be in the Santa Marta zone. Im a bit excited but I really wanted to stay here in Ijuí to help all of the awesome people we have met get baptized. But I know that Elder Glazier will do well here without me. That little trip to the lake house sounded like a lot of fun, but thats too bad that you left your books and stuff. Just study as best you can the material really gets easier the more you go. Theres also one more thing I would like in that package if it is not too much. It is a book by Truman G. Madsen Called ´´Joseph Smith the Prophet´´. I would like to have that if it is at all possible. They have it in paperback. Dont get it confused with ´´The life and teachings of Joseph Smith´´, by the same author. Your talk looks pretty good as well, I wish I could have been there to hear it. But I sent most of the stuff about the week in an email to Rachel, so you can read that one, sorry! Im kind of pressed for time. But oh, I am so happy for Brant! He is going to LOVE serving in the states. It may not seem as exotic or as cool serving in the US but there are many many elders who would like to have the nice and cushy life in a stateside mission haha. But I can deal without AC for the next little bit. But also he is going to love being a missionary and everything. Also I want his adress ASAP. I love you and hope you are having a great week!

-Elder Eskildsen

Aug 20,   Dear Family,

Yes I have been called as a district leader. It may sounds glamorous and all, but really it is just a bit of extra work. I do like it though, but it is a bit annoying having to not only deal with the free agency of investigators, but also with that of the missionaries. It hasnt been too bad though, just a little bit more stressful. I wanted to see Sister Taylor before she headed back for the US but it seems that she snuck out of the Casa Grande a few hours before I got there. She also was a great missionary here, and was always one of President Ribeiro´s most reliable sister missionaries. Thats what a lot of missionaries said about her here on the mission. Yea the Brazilians cant pronounce my name, but its all good, because it makes it easy to identify the people who like me a lot (because they actually take the time to learn how to say my name,). It´s so nice to hear stories like that of Ashley and the Brownings to be able to demonstrate that when the church works the way it is supposed to and the members really embrace the less acitves and the investigators, miracles are sure to happen. Even just knowing that paperwork and the members records, is working in some areas is quite refreshing to me. I have seen too many people who have been baptized, shortly thereafter gone inactive, and moved away and no one knows who they are or where they live, therefore making them just a name on a piece of paper and essentially nonexistant in terms on church membership. Order is good.

One thing I am really excited for when I get back is to go to the temple again. Not having one here in the mission is really sad and makes me miss going to the temple.

Thats so awesome that Chelsea is going to Resistência! Im super excited for her, but it would have been cooler if she were to be going to this mission here. But even then maybe she will pass in Passo De Los Libres just like uncle sam, and then be able to see one of the cities I served in from across the bridge!

This week has been pretty good, but was a bit difficult as well. We have been putting into practice Presidents council of Challenging everyone to baptizm in the 1st lesson, and several people accepted a date etc, but many of the people that accepted the baptizmal date werent home for the second lesson that we scheduled (which actually happens alot here because even if your mark for the next day people generally forget). We will have to really work hard to find all of those same people again so that we will be able to accompany them well and get them integrated into the ward and a testimony of the church. One thing that really suriprises me here is how quickly and easily people claim to have received an answer from God to thier prayers. sometimes people claim a testimony out of the fervor of the moment and other times people just dont want to say that they havent received an answer, yet many times they have genuinly been answered. We brought Moisés a young man of 16 to the stake conference yesterday, but his mom didnt end up being able to (or disposed to go) which is disappointing, because we arent going to baptize moisés if his mom doesnt get baptized with him. Other than that it has been getting hotter here and rainy and overcast, which I personally like. Other than that the week was pretty normal, and I dont beleive that I have anything else to say. Next week I will think more about what I will write so that I can send a more descriptive email. Maybe I will send a voice recording as well. Well I love you and hope you are all doing well!

-Elder Eskildsen

Oh and the adress will be this:

Élder Eskildsen

Caixa Postal 0339

Santa Maria -RS 97010-970

Brazil

 

Aug 27, 2012

Thats awesome! I cant beleive Garrick is already home. Time really passes by fast on the mission, and Im sure that he agrees with that. I now officially have a year on the mission and it feels like it has gone by really quick. Me and several other elders from my group got together today on p-day and went to one of the only chinese restaurants in the mission. Its not incredible cheap, but the buffet was exceptional and I got my fill of chinese food.
Its good to hear that you passed your test! and did Rachel and Bergen both pass?
I cant beleive Jake Taylor is already getting married! Is it that same girl that he was dating before his mission?
This week was kind of hectic and a lot changed. There was an emergency transfer because of some things that went wrong with some other missionaries in a different zone and they were switched out of the area they were in, and my area was affected by it. Elder Jensen went to Uruguiana to be with a brazilian companion named Elder Lourenço, and Elder Strout, who is from my group in the MTC came here to be my companion. It is kind of cool serving with someone from my own group,. President told me that I am not going to be companions with him for very long, but that in the next transfer I am going to train a new elder. Im gonna be a dad on the mission! Im pretty stoked for that, but also its risky because I have no clue who it is that I am going to be training. That made this week a bit crazy, and we lacked a day of work because my companion had to leave. We spent most of this week trying to establish a teaching group and spent a lot of time looking for new investigators. WE found quite a few of really good people, but none of them went to church because it was really cold and rainy. When it gets really cold and anytime it rains here not even most of the members go to church, so during such weeks it is really hard to get investigators to go to chruch. We had many people say that they would go to church but none of them did and I am expecting to hear the excuse of ´´it was cold/raining´´ a lot. But they can go next week. The only problem is that we will have to look for even more investigators this week and still try to balance the old ones. Things will get pretty good though this next week. I know we are going to baptize in this transfer still, we just need to work hard.
I got a letter from Chelsea today. She sent it before she got her call, but it is pretty awesome that she is going to Argentina. Did I tell you ‘Im living with an Argentinian at the moment? He is one of the LZs. I hope that everything is going well!! and I love you!

 

Transferred to Santa Maria

                                       Dane and Elder Glazier,   looking sad to being transferred

  July 30 2012  Did aunt marci say I have a lisp? haha The lisp is more of a Portugaul thing, I just dont enunciate very well. I didnt think I would miss t he olimpics too much while on the mission, but I miss it haha. and yea I took flight lessons at bergstroms. And I know what you mean about the heat in those airplanes. Its not too hot if you go up to 6000 feet or so, but staying close to the ground makes the cockpit really hot. Not to mention the hot air above the black pavement of the runway makes  the air very thin and harder to land on/in. The heat in the airplanes kind of reminds me of the houses here during the summer but cooler haha. We saw some guy flying really low over the city this last week in a Cessna 172  for a few hours and it really made me miss flying. Especially just hearing the sounds of an airplane takes me back to those days at the Pasco airport. Wow everyone is getting married... but that is really bound to happen.           We were broke last week because we all had to use all of the money in our mission accounts in order to pay for Elder X’S medical exams (which showed that there was nothing wrong with him). He claimed foot problems, but the expensive and excessive MRI called his bluff. He has been causing a lot more work for President than he needs, and as a result he was emergency transferred to Santa Maria and we received another new elder from that same group. His name is Elder Saunders. He is a farm boy from eastern Oregon. A little city called Vale. Ive never heard of it, but it is smaller than Connell.

        And no I did not say that I was 145 I said that I was 175 when I started and now I am 185. You think I was THAT skinny when I left for the mission? Is my accent that hard to understand on the voice recording? haha. I have another voice recording and if  you have any questions just ask, becasue sometimes I talk about stuff without elaborating,and I can imagine it might be hard to follow without being properly informed about certain things. I also am not very good about remembering things in the week without being questioned, or having my memory jogged. You will probably hear about many parts of the mission after I get back because I am so bad at remembering details during email time. But any way , Iove you and hope  your week has been awesome.

Dad,---That sounds like it was a  good 5th sunday lesson. And yes I am familiar with the karate kid, notwithstanding my lack of age and wisdom. It is very true that we must be obedient as a result for our love and gratitude towards God, instead of following a commandment because of the temporal blessing or consequence. For example, most people will not follow the Word of Wisdom just because you tell them that it is a commandment of God. What people want and expect is some sort of temporal incentive. The fact is, it doesnt matter whether studies show that a cup of coffee a day is good for your health, or that a cup of wine per day betters heart health. What matters is that our abstaining from those substances is something that God requires of us. Sometimes we must do things that we dont understand fully because they are commandments of the Lord. Nothing (from God) that is required of us will not lead to our well being. It is easy to rationalize our deviance from a commandment because our lack of understanding of it, but I know that if we follow the orders of the Lord we will be blessed. This last week we found out that we are no longer allowed to have MP3 devices, Ipods Etc. As devastating that is to me, I know that I must comply, so I had to say goodbye to my Ipod until August of next year.

AUG 5, 2012 Well to answer your last question first the next transfer date is today, and well, I was transferred to Santa Maria to be in the Santa Marta zone. Im a bit excited but I really wanted to stay here in Ijuí to help all of the awesome people we have met get baptized. But I know that Elder Glazier will do well here without me. That little trip to the lake house sounded like a lot of fun, but thats too bad that you left your books and stuff. Just study as best you can the material really gets easier the more you go. Theres also one more thing I would like in that package if it is not too much. It is a book by Truman G. Madsen Called ´´Joseph Smith the Prophet´´. I would like to have that if it is at all possible. They have it in paperback. Dont get it confused with ´´The life and teachings of Joseph Smith´´, by the same author. Your talk looks pretty good as well, I wish I could have been there to hear it. But I sent most of the stuff about the week in an email to Rachel, so you can read that one, sorry! Im kind of pressed for time. But oh, I am so happy for Brant! He is going to LOVE serving in the states. It may not seem as exotic or as cool serving in the US but there are many many elders who would like to have the nice and cushy life in a stateside mission haha. But I can deal without AC for the next little bit. But also he is going to love being a missionary and everything. Also I want his adress ASAP

  Aug 13, 2012  Dear Dad,----Thats good to get a new family in the ward, to help strengthen things up and get some new candidates for the church callings. That investigator sounds like she is pretty golden, which means that she is the kind of investigator that every missionary wants to have. I have met a few investigators like that. She seems to really have a broken heart and a contrite spirit and has real intent as it says in Moroni 10:4. Im sure the Elders are super Excited with that family. Hows the rest of the ward doing? My new ward in the mission is one of the best in the mission! there are about 150 active members that comprehend clearly the gospel and all of its principles and how the church is supposed to work. The bishop here is really awesome as well and the ward members and ward mision leader have already helped us a ton. Im really excited to be here in the  Santa Marta ward and hope that I will be here for much much more time. Thats very probable. We are also working with a part member/less active family at the moment.  It has been many many years since the mom was baptised. She came to church yesterday and really liked it, so did her son. She is almost like a nonmember because she doesnt remember anything about the church so we have to teach her everything all over again. This gospel is truly marvelous. It was no joke when Joseph Smith was told that a marvelous work and a wonder was about to come forth. I love being here serving the lord, although it is a bit difficult.

      Dear Mom,I know how you feel, my week was also quite rushed and difficult. Right when I got into Santa Maria we had to head out to teach lessons, etc. My companion is a fairly newbie american and so he didnt really know what was going on or much about the ward, investigators, etc, but we found our way around pretty well. Because my companion is not familiar with the availability of the inveswtgators/ members and such we were running around the area quite a bit, but we ended up being able to get a lot of lessons in. To add to that I have to worry about the rest of my district and how they are doing etc, so I had to call and advise them every once in a while to make sure that they are doing well. I went to bed everynight thinking about how I can help my district and our investigators etc and woke up thinking about the same thing. Lots to think about here on the mission , but it isnt too bad. Im really excited to be able to fly the Cherokee. And does this mean that I will be able to take the Citabria up to BYU with me after I get current on my liscence? Im sure you will do fine on your test, but make sure you study and fly a ton, because if not it gets really annoying trying to get the liscence with a due date.  like I had to do before the mission.   Do you think that Kortney is going to end up getting married to that guy? Tell her to wait until at least august 13 of next year to get married.   I might actually wear Red skinny jeans. Well burgundy probably, I think red is a little too conspicuous. And I wouldnt fit into skinny jeans so it would have to be regular looking jeans for a normal person that would fit me like skinny jeans.    Santa Maria is awesome and I am really liking it a ton. It is the biggest city on our mission with 300,000 people or so. The ward, like I said is really awesome here and this is always an area that the Elders want to pass through. There wernt a ton of investigators when I got here and we lost a few more because we challenged them to baptism and they refused, and of course, when that happens he have to stop visiting them, at least for the moment. We do have some pretty good people that we are working with though. My companion is Elder Jensen, he is from California and has like 3 months on the mission. He has a bit of trouble with the language, but he is learning very quickly. Well I hope that you are all well and I love you! -Elder Eskildsen     p.s. I am opening a P.O. box for my district here in a few days, so if you want to send me anything wait until next monday and I will tell the new adress. Thanks
                                                           Santa Maria as seen from my area

                                                    New companion Elder Jensen from CA

Ijui' winter in Brazil

Yea That is exactly what I will tell you. Be thankful that 80 or 85 was as hot as it got in the office. I got the immense pleasure of living in a house that maintained a brisk 95 degrees throughout the night there in Uruguiuana. Luckily it was only about 3 and a half months of such absurd heat. The temperature this week has been really bipolar. The nights get down to about 32 degrees and the mornings are sometimes colder, yet when 10 or 11 rolls around it is back up to 75. Im still waiting for the ridiculous cold that everyone here talks about. There never really is any weather that is nice here because there is neither heating nor air conditioning in the houses.
        Bergen is super lucky. I think in the week that I am back home before BYU starts I would like to go kayaking. Im thinking lake Kachees. But that´s like a year distant, so back to mission stuff.
            I was really good about running two weeks ago, but this week with the cold front I couldnt bring myself to do anything besides study in the mornings. We have decided that we will pick back up this week though.
           Speaking of the books, you dont need my to get the great apostasy. I borrowed it from another Elder and already read it. I will need some of that same hair gel though. Speaking of hair, I got mine cut today. I beleive that all previous packages have now been received so no need to worry in that regard.
            The work is going quite well here. We had a good week and found a lot of new investigators, the only problem being that those same news didnt seem so willing to hear us on the second visit. We did find a few that are still interested though. The same family that came to church last week came again yesterday, and on Saturday we marked the baptism date of two of the family members (the others being absent during the lesson). But we will teach more this week, do a rockin family night, and (hopefully) mark the baptism date of the other members of the family (and manage to get the father involved). They are really awesome though and besides being incredibly receptive, they understand EVERYTHING that we teach and the real magnitude of it. Something that has escaped most of the people that I have taught on the mission. The oldest daughter has a college scholarship that is only received by the top students in the nation, so she especially doesn't have any trouble comprehending the messages. As simple as the gospel is  some people have a lot of trouble grasping it. But basically we are probably going to have 4 baptisms marked for the 28th which is awesome! The fruits of our labors here in Ijuí are finally manifesting themselves. I feel like funny things must have happened this week, but I am not recalling any. Oh, actually we had our 1st councilor of the stake presidency decide to give a talk about many things that should NEVER be talked about in a sacrament meeting, let alone with investigators present. As if it wasnt hard enough to get people to church here...
Oh, and Elder H, the newbie missionary sent an email to his parents last week complaining about how he was only eating rice because he had no money (it was his choice to buy only rice) and made it seem as though he was starving here. Well somehow his parents decided to call Salt lake and complain or something, and it resulted in Elder H having to call home explaining to his parents that he was eating well and not starving. BTW Mom, I´m starving, could you put some instant potatoes packets into my next package. Thank you, I´m famished(Dane trying to be funny I hope!)
            Yea I decided I had better take the time to write back to the activity days girls if they took the time to write me. I know I would have liked to get missionary letters when I was young. BTW did Jake Taylor get home a few months back?
That is all. I love you all and hope you are doing well there in Connell!
-Elder Dane Eskildsen

DOG BITE!

June 25, 2012

Its great to hear from you. Yeah  one concept that I have learned here in this wardis that people become fairly discontent when they aren’t ever called to speak or when the same speakers give talks every week. Everyone in this ward complains about that because the same 6 people alternate speaking each week and awesome members have not spoken in years. Its good for even those who are not eloquent to talk. Though another concept I learned in my mission prep class is that you should never take time from the presiding speaker, because he usually has something important to say.  Yea with disciplinary councils it is just that like you said, to help the repentance process. Spencer W Kimballs book the miracle of forgiveness gives a very interesting view of the repentance process and the concept of disciplinary councils etc. Tell SaraH congratulations! I will write back to the note she sent me soon. 

 Yeah,  ground school is really quite difficult. It was the only thing that compared to a college class that I had ever taken before college. Just study a lot and the stuff that seems confusing now will just get clearer with time.

 The weather yet again got warmer here and it seems that we aren’t going to have much of a winter here and I have heard that summer is going to start earlier this year. Oh joy. There were a few relatively cool days this last week. Just sufficient enough to wear a sweater.
        Yea our investigators made us dinner a few weeks ago and we started to teach the plan of salvation. This last week they made us churrasco as well. They basically want to make us dinner once a week on Wednesdays because that is the only day that they really have free. But thats fine. They are really great and really want to go to church, but for some reason they didn’t go again this last week. We are going to teach them on Wednesday and well see what happened. Yesterday a family of investigators of ours invited us over for a lunch of churrasco, and it was literally the best meal I have had on this mission. They really knew how to cook. And boy did they do it well. They are really great, but I just dont know how genuine their interest in the gospel is.
          We got a reference of a family from a member this last week and we went with that member on Wednesday to teach them, That lesson was awesome. We taught the first part of the restauration. They were incredibly accepting of the message and they expressed many doubts and problems that they have with other churches that exist today. We marked to go back and teach them today. They are a really awesome family and have a huge desire to learn about Christ’s true church.
   I got bit by a dog on  Saturday. We were walking through a very ghetto neighborhood and we passed a few people on lawn chairs that had dogs around them. As we passed they started to grab the dogs, yet it appears that one escaped their reach and went to take a bite out of my quadriceps. He didn’t rip my pants, but he got into my leg a bit. So I went to the doctor got it cleaned up with some antibiotic stuff and I should be fine. Luckily the rabies season isn’t until august, It didn’t hurt too bad until the way to the hospital.
      We taught some awesome lessons this week and our teaching group is filled with awesome families. We just need to help more people realize the importance of going to chruch. No one seems to want to go here. The Elders in the entire city have been having problems with gettting investigators to church. Luckily we had a few yesterday.
   I hope you are all having an amazing summer (my winter) and I love you!    -Elder Eskildsen

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"

 Me and Elder Bargus making P-day meal of doighish things called pastel filled with meat or carmel and apples or other sweets that I put in them.

May 2012
  Yea the weather here has stayed pretty hot, which has been annoying me, because we are supposed to have winter weather here pretty soon. As for the subject of the car.. What cars are existent at our house now? Did the Camry ever end up getting fixed? Sounds like everything is going well.

    There is a Stake conference in Cruz Alta next week and my new ward is part of that stake, and if everything goes as planned there are some members in Cruz Alta that want to make me a birthday lunch and stuff. I really hope the zone leaders clear me to go back to Ijuí a little bit later after the conference. My new companion is really great. He is from Provo Utah, a city that I am pretty well familiar with and has been out one less transfer than I have. He went to BYU before and is 24. He is a pretty smart guy and doing pretty well with the language. As for families in the area we had nothing when I got here. To be honest there weren’t any investigators here.  We spent a lot of this week looking for new investigators and using the area book to find people who had been taught in the past. We should be able to have success with some of the people that we have found and started to teach this week. The city is a bit like Cruz Alta, but a little bit nicer. We live in more of a downtown area, which is nice because it is closer to everything, but it is kind of far from our area. There is also a little bit more in terms of souvenirs than cruz alta because cruz alta had nothing. The ward has like 80-90 people per week and the Bishop is really focusing on getting more people there so that they can construct a new chapel. He has been augmenting the number of people attending and sends 110 or so as the number of people that go per week to try to give some incentive to get a new chapel. Our area is pretty far away from the chapel too, so that makes it a bit difficult, but Im likeing it pretty well.

        It was a really sad goodbye there in Cruz Alta, but Im getting used to the new area. We are gonna have to work super hard again these next few weeks. But thats pretty much it for this week, nothing else has changged too much.

I hope that you are all doing well and I love you!!

May 27   Thanks for the happy birthday shout out! We got to go eat after the stake conference with Rogerio and Christiane Klein and thier family in my old area. She is really awesome and I love that family. She said that you had been talking to her and that you were really nice, so it seems as though she understood at least part of what you had said.

Yea that whole ´´saved´´ thing is a bit ridiculous, and the same sentiment abounds here in Brazil. They think that all religions that beleive in Christ offer salvation to its followers and neglect any sort of error that may be found therein. It makes it hard to try to teach most of the people here because they think that way. To be completely honest I got into a mild argument with a man who attends the ´´assembleia de Deus´´, which religion ignores more than half of the teachings of Jesus Christ. He said our religion was false because the pamphlet said that our religion claimed right to the title ´´only true chruch´´ and that that could not be true because all christian religions save. Despite the inherent irony in that I read a few verses in the sermon on the mount that castigate a few practices in that church. Not my best moment ever. I did not treat that situation in a loving manner and I really regret that. Getting annoyed at ignorance or hard heartedness never gets anyone anywhere. He doesnt like me, but he says he has no hard feelings against the chruch.

During the conference this week with President Ribeiro we talked a bit about the morning of the first resurrection which was really cool, and then talked about tithing. He touched on the fact that Brazil is really suffering when it comes to full tithe payers. Basically we as missionaries need to find the people who are willing to make at least a little bit of a sacrifice to pay thier tithing. We need to focus more on teaching what the blessings of tithing are instead of just saying what tithing is. As he said, we need members who are self sufficient and willing to quickly become full tithe payers and leaders in this church.

 Dang sounds like stuff is going pretty well there with a few hard times. But that is always bound to happen. As for the Electric blanket, yea it fried as well even with the adaptor. I think that the current fluctuates a lot here so it just kind of exploded. Its all good though, it is still a warm thick blanket.  As for the weather it has stayed pretty hot the past while but is supposed to ´´rain´´ in the next few days and get cold, but the forecast always claims that. Yea the birthday package is not here yet, but im sure itll get here soon. As for my shoes, when I clean them they still look pretty new, so they will at least last me until the year mark without having to get them resoled. Those are jsut the walking ones, the nicer looking ones I use only for meetings, and so they look like the shoes of the elders that just got on the mission. Also tell Kortney she needs to get married quick before its too late, but not to allow any gold diggers near her.
  We spent a lot of the time this week again finding new investigators because almost all of the appointments that we had ´´fell through´´ meaning the people werent in the house, or in certain cases they hid from us. But this guy yelled at us on the street the otehr day and said ´´why are you american?´´ I could tell that he was joking so I said ´´ because I was born there´´. He thought that was pretty funny and we quickly got into a conversation about the gospel. I asked for his address but he refused, but then after saying something, (I still cant remember what I said) I asked for the address again and asked if I could pass by. He gave it to us and said ´´you cant pass by, you have to show up´´. But we went there on Saturday and he is really cool. He has a ton of antiques and pretty much knows the bible like the back of his hand, and beleives a lot of things that are specifically our doctrine. Im excited to work a little bit more with him. As for the rest we just found a few families and a house full of students taht go to the local college here. All of which seem to have a good chance of progressing.

      At the conference there in Cruz alta we saw Vanisa and Pedro Luiz and Valentina, who are going to get baptized in a week. Im so sad that I wont be able to be at the baptism but so excited that they are happy in the gospel. Vanisa has outwardly changed and looks much happier and excited, and Pedro Luiz is definitely going to be a Bishop someday. I havent been much happier on this mission than seeing them there at the conference and progressing as a family in order to make covenants. That is what this work is all about. This area here in Ijuí is difficult, but I am really enjoying it here despite the challenges. And it appears that Elder Welch got here and is in Santo Angelo with my old companion Elder Matthieu and someone else in a threesome. Thats pretty much it for the week. I hope that you are having an amazing time there in the states and I hope work doesnt get too stressful. I love you!     -Elder Eskildsen