April 2012, President Holland visits our mission

                               Santa Maria Missionary Conference with Elder Holland April 2012

                                                          Zone Conference in Cruz Alta April 2012

Dear family,

This last week sounds like it may have been pretty rushed for all of you, but it sounds like it was a good one. Im glad that Dillon will be able to recover relatively quickly, and that nothing worse happened to him. I hope that his recovery goes very well. Tell Rachel to send me a letter about how prom was, ect. And Bergen stll hasnt written for a while as well. Thats crazy about coleman!  hope that he is alright, because being in a strange country with a strange language in a ghetto hosptal sounds like a scary concept. There have been a few people in this mission that have had appendicitis as well. I will be sure I pray for him.

Yea I got a letter from Kortney, and she said that she was working on getting a job there, and it appears that she did. I just responded to the letter, but will wait to get her new address before I send it, or I can send it to you guys to send to her.

Those packages got here pretty well. The first one you sent got here a few weeks ago and was torn into, but I got most everything except for the nutella. And / really appreciated the ties in the last package, and so does my companion (I gave him one).

I really enjoyed the stuff in the package and I have gotten tons of compliments because of the awesome green tie that you sent. The second package got here last week and perfectly intact. Also, dont worryabout me being well fed, I have been eating more than my fair share of food here on the misson. In the Santa Maria mission you would be hard pressed to find a missionary who hasnt gained a few pounds.

This last week was really awesome. First and foremost we had a baptism. We baptised Valentina, who is the grand daughter of a less acitve that we have been visting. It has been at least 30 years since she went to church and yesterday she went to the special Stake conference that we had with Elder Mazzagardi of the second quorom of the seventy speak at. Another huge highlight of the week was when Elder Holland of the Quorom of the 12 came to speak to us. I was expecting our mission to get grilled by that fiery apostle, but to my surprise he was very nice with us and only spoke very highly of our mission. He spoke a lot on being what we say that we are and not beng a hypocrite, because that was the only thing that really got the Savior righteously indignant when he was on the earth. He also told us that our mission president and wife are by far the best misson presdent and wife in Brazil and possibly the world. Its fact because and apostle said it, and he cant lie. I was also privileged to be able to participate in a choir of 8 Elders and 8 Sisters that sang a special musical number for the conference, along with Elder Ahsbar playing Violin and Elder Freitas on the piano. We sand hymn 166 ´´abide with me!´´ which has an amazing tenor part, and we sounded amazing, even though we had only practiced together for the first time together a half hour earlier and for 20 minutes. To be prideful I would like to say that Elder Holland said taht it was the best missionary choir he has probably ever heard. We awaited elder Holland we were all seated in the cultural hall to take a pic with him and as he came in he patted me on the back (Im never wasing that shoulder again) and then after the picture we all got to shake his hand and meet him. When I passed through he said ´´You´re lookin´ a little pink there elder, been getting a lot of sun?´´ I guess I should use more sunscreen haha. It was cool to be able to have him here in our mission and just his presensce is powerful. I am very thankful to be here in the santa maria mission, Especially here in Cruz alta. The work went very well this week and we are well on track to have a lot of sucess in the month of may! Its also starting to get pretty cold here. I hope that you are all having an amazing week and I love you!

-Elder Eskildsen

                                                      Valentina with her family on her baptism

                                                     Dane with a pic of the Cuia

Dear family,

Im really excited to hear from Elder Holland in the next week. He is going to burn us like crazy, because we are the least successful mission in Brazil. Thats just what people say. Statistics say it too, but We have at least been finding a bit of sucess he past while. The meeting is only going to be about two hours, but it is going to be powerful, that much I do know.
At Zone conference President old us about that Elder who finally got his VISA. His name is Elder Rodgers and he was INCREDIBLY lucky to have gotten his VISA because they are usually denied when they take so long to go through. He will be coming in here shortly, and Im sure it will be a strange experience for him after having served for so long in the states.
Zone conference this last week was awesome. We studyed the book of Revelation with the help of D+C Section 77, President Ribeiro, and several other Books in the Old and New testament and Book of Mormon. We focused on what John the Revelator says foretells of the second coming, and the restauration. Realy cool stuff. The lunch was really good and I was able to talk to Elder Pole´o, my companion from the MTC and I met and talked with a ton of other people. Sister Ribeiro gave us a little lecture on what we need to do to clean our houses and made us all candy the week before and brought it to us. I also got to talk to Sister Taylor a bit. Its strange to have someone from back home on the mission.
the weather lately has started to become more temperate and will cool down like crazy in the next few days. Im pretty excited about that, but I will need a heater in our house before it gets too cold. (There is no central heating in any of the houses here)
As for teaching we didnt find too many new people to teach, but we have had alot of sucess with the people that we had already been teaching. We marked the baptismal date of Melissa, Eliane´s daugther, for the 12th of May. Eliane is getting really involved in the ward and her testimony is really being strengthened as she reads the book of Mormon and prays to know if it, and the church are true. We are wrking with the parents of a young man in the ward who want to get baptized but cant at the moment because Christiane, the mom, smokes. We are going to help her quit so that they can be baptized.
We went to that ´´Assembléia´´ Church on Monday to appease our invesigators, therefore creating an interesting experience. There was a lot of yelling and there were countless members repeating the same prayers (vain repitition) among other things. There is no way that the spirit can be present in a place with that much noise and that is such an apparent mess as that place. Just as the spirit of the Lord cannot dwell in unholy temples, the spirit was nowhere near that church. The experience there just strengthened my testimony of how true our church is, and that so many people are ´´cut away from the truth because they know not where to find it´´.
But working with Elder Moroni has been really great and this past week was good. I hope that you are all having a great time there in Washington! I love you!
-Elder Eskildsen

MARCH 26, 2012

Dear internet blog,
So like two weeks or so ago we got a call from one of the scretaries saying that we hadnt paid the electric bill for 6 months in our apartment, because the last elders to pay the bill hadnt told anyone that came next how to pay it. Therefore the next elders to come came up with some false notion that the bills were paid directly from the mission office, which falacy was perpetuated until recently. So we were blissfully unaware of our lack of payment until our beloved secretary related it to us. So we graciously sent 6 months worth of unpaid billage to the mission office. As time went on we thought about how truly lucky we were that they hadnt yet cut our power. This week however, our light was cut, thus ending our energy laden euphoria for 2 days. Turns out that the secretaries had received the bills but had not paid it. The energy company decided then that 6 months was too long for us to be stealing power and belatedly cut our power. We spent then two days doing everthing by candlelight and living like pioneers. In the end we got everything sorted out, and nothing that was in our powerless fridge has killed us yet.
     Baptisms. We had two baptisms on Saturday, which was truly amazing. I baptized Igor, who is 14 and was the one that I talked about last week who quit smoking, and my companion baptised Pedro who is 10. It was awesome to see how happy they were to take on that covenant. This work really is amazing.
Hope you are all doing well, and I hope you hear from each of you someday.
-Elder Eskildsen

March 19, 2012

Querido mundo,

This week was difficult, yet had results. We knocked a handful of houses. (Handful= 30-40 based on the contemporary standard for measuring edifices). That was the less than pleasing part of our week, due in large part to our denial of admittance by each one of those abodes.
The good part of the week was that we have marked 2 baptisms for the next Saturday. We marked with Igor (age 15) and his younger brother Pedro (age 10). This last week Igor recounted how his life has improved dramatically as he has started to fulfill the comittments we have given him, an he knows

it is because he is on the right path. He has incredibly strong faith and, without our asking, has decided that he wants to stop smoking so that he can be baptized. He has been smoking for quite a while notwithstanding his young age, but he has already exponentially decreased his usage and is well on track to fulfill the covenant of Baptism. Im stoked. Hope you are all doing well!
-Elder Eskildsen

New area Cruz Alta March 4, 2012

                                              Final day in companionship with Elder Melo

   Me and Elder Nascimento.  We both left the same house and were transferred to Cruz Alta together.

                                    My  new companion Elder Fulton at an investigators house
Oi pessoal,

 

just a quick funny story this week, because I dont have a whole lot of time. So we were teaching a guy named Tiago and we were about to use the scripture John 3:16, ´´for God so loved the world´´, and he started to recite it. That kind of shocked us, so we questioned how he knew it so well, and he said ´´oh, I have it on my back´´. So he turned around and showed us the tattoo he has of John 3:16. That was the first time I have had a tatoo aided lesson. Fun Stuff. Tchau. -Elder Eskildsen

                                  Paint balling with my zone.  Elder Lyman and Elder Garrett Elder Rosa

                                                 Me and Marcia , Anderson and Giovanne

                            Me and Guhlherme and his family  Below part of my zone getting ready to paintball

To whom may be concerned,
This last week was a good one. We had a few baptisms which is always a fun thing. After all, that is my purpose here.We also attended the marriage of our investigators on Friday! It was fun. Tears were shed by some,
and to all who were present partook of cake. I spent a majority of my time this week sweating the equivelent of my body weight, and eating enough sweets to down a grown elephant. Seriously though, Ithink I may die here. The week however, was fruitful and gave to us great prospects of the weeks to come.
  So We played paintball earlier today as our p-day activity. It´s a bit different in Brazil. You have to crush berries and 
things like that to make the paint and then find a certain hollow plant that they have here and place the paint inside. Then you just go around chucking the makeshift paintballs at each other.... Im just kidding Brazil isnt that ghetto. I enjoyed it quite a bit, notwithstanding the heat. Então, até mais pessoal. Also hope you are all doing well, and I always would like to hear what is happening in your lives, so if you have the time feel free to write me a letter. 
-Elder Eskildsen

Feb 13

                                                 Zone and Meeting with Elder Costa

Oi, tem gente?

So I have been thinking that these entries may start to become more infrequent,but then again maybe not. Don´t trust that. I have had a pretty good week this last week. We have begun to see real fruits in our labors. We marked a few more baptisms for this Saturday, which has gotten me pretty excited. Also we have a marriage of our investigators! Woo! MArrIAGE, is what brings us here today. Stoked for that as well. I apologize for not having a funny/entertaining story to tell this week,but I will try to procure one for the next week. Hope you are all doing well!          -Elder Eskildsen