Things are coming to a close...

Well, this week is the last week of my mission... I can't believe it.

I have learned so much during this time, and I will be returning home with many lessons learned, and many great memories. It'll be interesting trying to adjust to a regular life again. I'm looking forward to the cold New York climate though, that's for sure! haha!

Well, I need to get going, but I just wanted to write a few things quickly here, as this is likely my last time emailing as a missionary.

I love you all, and I thank each of you for all of your prayers, your love, and your support during these 2 years.

There are lots of happy reunions coming up soon! I can't wait!

I'm going to give it my all during this last week. :)

I love this church, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and I know that as we seek to follow His teachings in our lives, that many blessings will come. I know that the work that I have been doing during these 2 years is truly the Lord's work. If anyone has any doubts about the church or it's teachings, all you need to do, is search, ponder, and pray. And ask the missionaries! They can help you! haha

Anyways, I will close here. I love this crazy country (Brazil), and the people here, and I will miss them all like crazy.

Elder Canto

October!

Well, the last month of my mission has finally arrived, and it's honestly, really hard to believe. Before I know it, it'll be over! Meh. -- haha

The past 2 weeks have gone pretty well, and we've been teaching quite a few different people, but, we haven't had much success up until now, as far as baptisms go. We did manage to bring a man to church that had become less-active though, yesterday. We had a funny experience with him on Saturday. We went with him to an inactive member's house that's way out in the country, to have lunch at his house. He had run into him in town on Tuesday, and he said "Hey, invite the missionaries to go to my house on Saturday, and I'll kill a chicken, and we can eat it for lunch!", and so, he told us, and on Saturday, we met up with him, and took the bus to this guy's house. The directions were "The first house after the bridge.", and we managed to find it, but the guy was at his neighbor's house, and so we went there, and his neighbor was like "He's over there." and pointed to a bedroom. He said from inside of the room, that he was too embarrassed to come out and talk with us, because he had been drinking, and he also hadn't prepared lunch like he'd said he would, and so we just had to go back into town and eat lunch a bit later than normal. We didn't actually see this guy either -- he just talked from inside of the bedroom.

I was at the grocery store with my companion, and I happened to see that they had frozen waffles, which I had never seen before in Brazil, and so I decided to buy them, and.. that was my lunch! haha! Here's evidence:

There are no toasters in Brazil, from what I've seen so far, so... I made the waffles like this!

We can rebuild him! We have the technology!

Last night, I had a dream that it was snowing here in Paraíba, and I told Elder Markham (in my dream) "Dude! I never imagined that it would snow here!!! This is awesome!!! Let's go!", and then we went and had a snowball fight with all of the members of the Queimadas Ward here. XD It was so awesome!

Anyways, I've got to get going now. Today is "Dia das Crianças" (Children's Day), and lots of the members have the day off of work, so we're having a barbecue here at the church. I'm hungry, so I'll be going now.. bye!

Have a great week!

:)

Elder Canto

Just 2 weeks left... x_o

Surprise! You were transferred!

So I was transferred last week, and it was a huge surprise to me, since I was the newest missionary in my last area, and what's even stranger, is that everyone else stayed there! My old companion, Elder Riffo, called me twice last week, and told me that everyone misses me, and that this girl that we were teaching was baptized yesterday! I was really excited about that. Her mom had said that she wouldn't be baptized until next year (unless a miracle happened), just 2 weeks ago, and then, all of a sudden, she changed her mind! :D

My new area is called Queimadas, which has something to do with burning or something burnt, if you translate it. It's really hot here -- but apparently that's not why it has this name, hah. My new companion is Elder Markham, and he's an American, from Colorado, and... he's awesome. But also, crazy. (in a good way XD) He's been on his mission for 8 months, and he's still learning Portuguese -- but for the most part, he speaks really well.

We spent this past week getting to know a bunch of the church members here, and learning the area. We found 14 new investigators, but ended up dropping the majority of them before the end of the week, and we had 1 lady come to visit the church. I'm not sure how things will go with her, because she LOVES her church, but.. who knows! Hopefully she'll make some progress this week.

We only have water between Tuesday afternoon and Saturday morning here, and so we have to keep water in these 2 plastic bins that we have, to use on the weekends. I'm not in the US anymore... haha!

Last night, we went up on the roof with the owner of our apartment and watched the lunar eclipse, where the moon turned completely dark -- it was interesting! Apparently, there won't be another one until the year 2037, so I'm glad that we got to see it!

Hopefully we'll be able to find some people who are more interested this week, and we'll be able to teach more lessons at people's homes.

I can't believe that I only have 4 weeks left on my mission, and that I'll be flying home exactly one month from today... I'm going to have to make the most of this time that I have left! I love being a full-time missionary, and I am really going to miss it, especially when I'm at home. But, I am really excited to see everyone again! :) Especially my fianceé! (that means you, Alissa :D)

Have a wonderful week!

We didn't end up going to the parade on Independence Day, by the way. We decided that it wasn't a good place for 2 missionaries to be.

Elder Canto

Happy Brazilian Independence Day!

Hi everyone!

Today is Independence Day in Brazil, and we're going to a parade in about 2 hours. I'm about to sign out here, but, before I go, I just wanted to mention some things that happened this week.

We did a lot of tracting (door knocking, street contacting) this week, and.. it didn't really amount to anything in the end, but, maybe in the future, these people will visit the church. Nobody that we talked to this past week was at church yesterday -- except for the random guy that came up to us in the supermarket and asked us when the meetings are at church, hah. He lives in the other 2 elders' area though.

However! Good news -- we spent all week visiting a 20 year-old guy once a day, to help him prepare for baptism, and he was baptized yesterday! He's the first person to be baptized in the new church building. We brought the giant blue water tank over to the new building on Saturday, and we weren't able to find anyone to fill it up, but a truck with barrels of water showed up while we were in front of the church building, and we asked if they could fill it up, and they happened to have just enough water left to fill it up! That was definitely a miracle.

Here's a picture from yesterday, after the baptism. I'm sorry that it's not really the best picture -- the elder who was using my camera only took a few pictures, and most of them were blurry.. my companion has lots of good pictures from the baptism yesterday, though, so I'll have to get those from him later.

The guy who was baptized is on the right side. He's obsessed with Justin Bieber... hah. Crazy Brazilians...

We went on a short hike this morning to a big pond with our ward mission leader -- here are a few pictures:



Elder Taraveira (from Cape Verde, Africa)(he's crazy. XD)

Anyways, I need to get going now, or I won't have time to eat lunch!

I hope that you all have a great week, and, Happy Brazilian Independence Day! (and happy Labor day, too. XD)

I'm looking forward to seeing you all/talking with you all 7 weeks from now!

Tchau!

Elder Canto

A miracle happened this week

This week, for the first time ever, I had the opportunity to baptize 2 people from the same family! A mother and her 10 year-old son. Also, another first -- these 2 people are the first people that I've ever baptized that I met just stopping them on the road to talk with them! All of the other people that I've baptized, I've met through members of the church (referrals), and so I'd kinda lost faith in the whole idea of "street contacts" and "door knocking"... but, this time, it worked out! It was such a great experience to teach this family. The lady said that she had seen missionaries walking around and talking with people and visiting people, and for a while, she had been thinking "Why don't these missionaries stop and talk with me, or visit me?", and just a few weeks later.. we stopped and talked with her! haha! I thought that that was really interesting. The Lord is truly preparing people to hear our message, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth in it's original and pure state. Did we just happen to talk with her at exactly the right time? No way! The Lord puts these people in our path, when He sees that we are prepared to open our mouths and share the gospel, and when He sees that the person is ready to hear/receive/accept the gospel.

We visited this mother and son every day this past week, except for Saturday, and helped them to prepare for baptism. She had to give up drinking coffee, which she did every day (and a lot, too!), and she was able to do that after just 2 days! We gave her something to substitute for coffee, which is called "Cevada" here, and I believe is called "Barley" in English, and so she started to drink that. It's very similar to coffee (or, so I've heard), but it doesn't have the bad things in it that coffee has. By the end of the week, they were totally ready, and so they both had their baptismal interview on Friday, and they passed! They were baptized yesterday (Sunday), and it went great. We bought a cake for them, too, because we were really excited/happy for them! One of our investigators makes cakes, and so we asked her to make one for the baptism -- it was really good. Chocolate.. :d ... hah

The only downside, is that now, we have no one left who is progressing, and so we have to start all over again! We do have one girl who is kinda progressing, and we'll be visiting her this week.

I taught the Gospel Principles class yesterday, and it went really well! I love learning/teaching about the basics. :)

One thing that Elder Taraveira told me last night (he lives with me), that a member had told to him, was that the reason that some returned-missionaries end up going inactive or being less-active members of the church, is because when they are released, they go back to being called by their first name, and they forget the name "Elder". If they would remember this name, they would continue strong in the church. But, since some returned-missionaries forget that they were once "Elder", they end up losing sight of the path that they were on. He said to him, "Never forget that your name is 'Elder'. Even after you are released, your name continues to be 'Elder'". He said that he would never forget what that member told him, and now I won't, either. (this goes for those who are or were once 'Sister', too!)

I hope that you all have a great week! I have to get going now.

Tchau! :D

Elder Canto

P.S. Just 9 weeks away from home! I'm still working hard, though! Don't worry! ;)




Our make-shift baptismal font.. haha! The person who is being baptized has to kneel on the bottom, or else it doesn't work out too well! Oh hey -- we're going to be moving to a new building this Sunday! I won't be living in the church anymore );


Another baptism, which happened on Friday :)


P-Day last week on the rocky hill (it's a tourist attraction here!)
Left to right: Me, Elder Riffo (my companion), and Adriano (our Ward Mission Leader)

A NEW ZONE!!!!!

Well, after 1 year and 4 months, I finally left Zona Rangel, and was transferred to Zona Liberdade (Liberty). My new area is called Esperança (Hope), and apparently, the group here recently became a branch. There are about 50 people attending right now, someone told me... I'm a lot more West now in Paraíba than I've ever been, and I'm really excited to be here. Something funny, is that we live in the church! XD The church has 3 classrooms, and there's a main room with a table, a pulpit, a microphone, and chairs, for Sacrament Meetings. If you go past the main room, there's a sink, and then there's another door, which enters into the kitchen, and there's a staircase which goes up to our bedroom. All 4 of us elders share one bedroom, and so there are 2 bunkbeds in the room. I'm living with an American, who is from Missouri (Elder Mather), an African (Elder Taravera (sp?)), and my companion, Elder Riffo, is from Chile! I've never had a hispanic companion -- this should be interesting! :D

I don't know much about my area yet, but when I do, I'll let you all know.

On Saturday and Sunday I was super sick and barely ate anything until now. I had a fever and a headache on Saturday, and Sunday, too. On Sunday, I ate some bread, and drank some juice, and then I threw up about 30 minutes later... so.. I didn't eat much of anything since Friday! I'm extremely tired right now. I'm recovering from my sickness though, at the moment, I'm pretty sure.. don't worry about me! hah

I need to get going now, but, I hope that you all have a great week!

Sorry for the lack of consistency with these updates

Elder Canto

I lost 1 week of my mission! :S

So I found out last week while talking with the Executive Secretary, that I'll actually be going home on October 29th, instead of November 5th! Now I'll be able to celebrate Halloween in the US! Awesome! :D

Yesterday we had 101 people attend Sacrament Meeting, which was the highest number of people I've seen at church here so far! We also had 7 investigators at church, which was another new record for me -- I couldn't believe it! hah :)

I hope you're all doing well! Have a wonderful week! Sorry this is so short!

Elder Canto