Oct 28, 2012

The week here was a bit sunny, but got really rainy during the weekend, which is awful because that is when church is. It is currently raining and this excess of rain is realy strange for this time of year here in Brazil. I bet Chelsea is super excited to start the mission. Has she left already, or is it this week that she leaves? I knew Matt was going to go to Brazil, but I was thinking he was going to go to this mission. He wil do great in whatever mission he goes to. Especially if it is to the north of Brazil, because those places already baptize A TON.

  Night flights are always some of the coolest things. It is especially cool when you block out the windows and depend only on the instruments while the instrutor messes with the controls. Talk about vertigo. It really helps to learn how to trust the instruments.

I still havent gotten that package that you sent me, but I will be going to the post office here in a few minutes, so if it is there I will know today. I am not being transfered (transfers are today) so I will definitely be here when the package comes. I dont really know how the PO box is working becaue NO ONE (besides you) sends me letters to the Po box. /only the the mission office, so I have still only been getting my letters on the transfer. If I were to be transfered, the letters will be forwarded by the LD to my new city and the packages will be retained by the secretaries and delivered ASAP. The next transfer date I beleive is December 5 (today being the start of the new transfer) and my district changed quite a bit and from the look of things this transfer will be much more difficult for me. Another district in the zone is closing and 2 of the duplas from that district are joining mine. There are now 6 companionships in my district which is going to make things a bit more work for me. I just hope that I can do something to augment the output of these missionaries.

This week was good and bad. I got sick and for about two days we didnt get a whole lot done, partly due to the fact that I was too obstinate to stay at home or call Sister Ribeiro. Im better now, but that effected out week quite a bit. We baptized Moisés. and the confirmation went well, even though he showed up late to sacrament meeting. The baptismal meeting was really spiritual and this ward is really good. He has already been going to church for a few months and he will be getting the aaronic priesthood soon. He also already has a companion for home teaching which is a miracle here. He also has a strong desire to serve a mission here in 2 years. We marked another baptismal date of a young man (21 years old) who has been going to church with his girlfriend who is a less active member that is returning. He says that he has never felt so good in any other church and even asked us at the beginning of the 1st lesson what he has to do to be baptized in our church. We told him and marked his date to the 10th of November and told him he has to pray. He said that he received a really strong answer that this church is true and he is more firm than ever in his resolve to be baptized. He has a few health problems since his birth including heart problems. He was not able to go to church yesterday because he had what turned out to be the start of a heart attack. He is super awesome and we are teaching his mother as well who is incredibly catholic. We have another family that we are teaching that is good but need to go to church. This next week we are going to work on cutting the non progressing investigators and finding new families to teach. The work was difficult this week and I was not at my best health but I know that this church and this work are true. I love you and hope you are doing amazing! Also when does Matt leave?

first pic me and my comp and Moisés  2nd me and Elder R. Souza the only missionary in my district that I was sure was going to leave.

marked Moises for baptism Oct 22

Oct 22

Wow homecoming week sounds like it was a ton of fun this last week. It makes it so strange to think that I was in high school a very short time ago etc. That is so crazy that the recent convert of the Elders died! He was lucky to have learned about and accepted the gospel in this life. Studying a bit in the doctrine and Covenants I learned that the first 4 verses of Doctrine and Covenants 59 are directed to Polly Knight who died shortly after having arrived in the city that would become zion. She was persevering through a scikness, with hopes of being able to set foot on the land of zion. The verses infer that those who die in Christ shall have peace and ´´rest from thier labors´´. Surely this new member of the church is resting from his labors.

Thats cool that Katelyns ´´man´´ knows Portuguese. Who knows, maybe I will have someone t o converse with me and Uncle Scott Stapleton in Portuguese when I get back off the mission. Yea I remembered dads Birthday and I hope he is doing well. I am going to celebrate by having a baptism. Also tell Great Grandma Happy Birthday for me and that I am thinking about her and keeping her in my prayers.
   This week was a bit difficult in the sense that many of our appointments fell through. We passed several days of difficulty without giving very many lessons, but we had a few very good successes. One of them was that we marked the baptismal date of Moisés one of our investigators. He is a really good young man and has been well integrated into the ward. Additionally he has been attending church and mutual and other activities for the past several months. I think he is well ready for baptism.
This week got super hot and I have decided that I am not too ready for the summer. I am really having a hard time this week as well thinking about things to write. I love you and promise that my next email will be a bit longer and more fulfilling. Hope all goes well in Connell.

 

October 15, 2012 Santa Maria

October 15

With 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!
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!
That is good that is starting to rain a little bit more there in connell. The rain here has stopped. The heat is manifesting itself, and I am praying to not melt in the next few months. I can imagine that Chelsea is super excited to be out in the field. I was the same way before going out into the MTC and even more excited to leave the MTC and enter the field.

I found that story of the felon a bit funny, just because it got rachel and Bergen so scared. So you got a VW? That is the brand of car that is most comon here in Brazil. Not usually new though. Joel Crowther has lost a lot of weight? He was already pretty skinny when he left for the mission. I hope he is doing fine. He is going to be getting back way soon. Same with Michael Casper and Blake Nielson. Im really excited now to be able to fly that Cherokee.

Did you send that Package to the P.O. Box (caixa postal) address? President and the secretaries are cracking down on letters now and have said that any letter that shows up at the Rua Pascualine address after November will not be given to us until THE END of our missions. They dont want ANYTHING showing up to the mission office. So if you could please advise the people that would be nice. Make sure that everyone that may send me a letter knows to send me a letter to the caixa postal address, because it seems that everyone still sends me letters to the mission office.
The missionary work is going great. We marked the baptismal date of Moisés a young man who has been going to church for about 3 months now, who is essentially already a member. WE are going to baptize him and help him to receive the aaronic priesthood so that he can baptize his friend here in a few months.

We found some really awesome people this week and our perspective sucess is pretty big. We went and talked to Rose, our investigator who told us that her husband has softened to the gospel and now has a huge desire to go to church and keep the commandments etc. They have been taught by missionaries in the past, but he was always hiding from them and never keeping the comitments, but Rose said that ever since we started teaching them he has changed and is really wanting to follow the gospel. We are working on getting them married soon so that they can be baptized next month.

We also found, several weeks back a less active lady who is legally married to a nonmember and this week we finally managed to teach them again. She has a great desire to return to church and I am certain that he will be a member of the church relatively soon.
The ward here is one of the strongest in the mission, and I am really greatful for the members here. Granted the ward has problems, but which ward doesnt. Im hoping I stay here for at least one transfer.
The nearest temple from here is in Porto Alegre which is about 4 hours or so from here.
I love you and hope that everything is going great there!
-Elder Eskildsen

 

Out of order blogs

I came across some blogs that I thought I had published for Dane and they were saved in the DRAFTS!   These are from last November and even in February so the last 3 posts are not in his current area!    SEND ALL MAIL TO THE ADDRESS in the header.  I will keep that current

November 21 Uruguaiana

Hey everyone!

I think todays post is going to be pretty short. This past week has been pretty good, andit only exceeded 100 degrees for two days or so! I am having a great time here in Uruguaiana, and have spent a lot of time in the Ipiranga area searching for people to teach! The members dont give us a lot of
referrals so we are subjected to roaming the streets finding those willing to hear our message. It´s not too bad though because I like street contacts and  knocking doors. (Or at least I do at the moment. Give
it a few months and that may change.) But as for now I am loving the missionary work. This week
has been anything but fruitful though. We lost a few investigators and baptismal dates. Notwithstanding that, I have high hopes for the coming week. I  honestly think that things will go swimmingly this week. (More on that later)

Whoever said that I wouldnt be  eating a lot of meat on my mission was telling a bold
faced lie. Either that or they werent familiar with the
Santa Maria mission and thus were lying in ignorance.
But what I am essentially saying is that I have enjoyed
my fair share of meat in the past week. It has been
splendid. The people here really know how to cook.
They also know how to force second and third helpings
on me, no matter how hard I plead to the contrary.
I may have trouble staying ´´skinny´´ on this mission.
But its all good because I have been running with Elder
Bott the past few days to help him get back into
shape for his track scholorship, and to keep me
from becoming twice the Dane I was when I entered
Brazil.

Theres a lot more to say, but not too much more time.
Also I grow weary of typing. I hope the best for
everyone, and if you have questions, comments, or
concerns please send all letters to the following
address, and I will get back to you in a (relatively)
timely manner:

Caixa Postal 0339
Santa Maira - RS
Centro
97001 - 976

-Elder Eskildsen

January 23, 2012

Olá Guris!
This week has been a good one. On Monday night Elder de Souza was mercilessly torn from me leaving me alone,destitute, and forced to wander from Elder to Elder, not having any true home. ( There is a picture of us at the bus station somewhere. I would put an arrow or something pointing to it but I dont know where it will be posted....---- or ----->       v    ^   ...... There that pretty  much covers all the directions. We are both smiling but dont be fooled. It was brutal.) But anyway, for the next several days after that I was bereft of a companion and had to spend time with other missionaries who had already shown up. It was not until wednesday evening that my new 
companion Elder D. Melo showed up. (Photo coming soon). Therefore Thursday was the real day where we
were set into ´´hard working missionary´´ mode. As a result of the fact that neither Elder Melo nor I have much
experience with this new area, we spent most of the first few days discovering the area. The term ´´to discover´´ to 
a missionary does not just mean to explore. No, it means oh so much more than that. We started with a map and 
some word of mout instructions and found people to our hearts content. We found the houses of many members 
and talked a bit with them, and from there got references and water. (It´s been above 40 Celcius here each day, which is like 104 in real temperature). We also spent time visiting the pre-us investigators. And, of course, no missionaries life is complete without the tabooed door to door proselyting. Safe to say we did a bit of that as well, just for safe measure. These past few ´´initiation´´ days opening this area here have been pretty eventful, filled with joy and love and the gospel of Christ. 
Yea, I dont have much else. Its time to go grocery shopping. I hope a wonderful week for all of you where ever you may be.

 

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