Merry Christmas, and happy New Year!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your families! Have a happy new year! Let's make 2015 great! :) I had a great Christmas here in Brazil! It was super hot, and I was tired, but, I loved it! I got to talk to my family on Skype. :)

Elder Canto

Exciting announcement!

Alissa and I have decided on December 1st, 2015, for our wedding date. Whoever plans on going, it'll be in the Seattle, Washington temple. You all now have plenty of time to plan so that you can be there, haha! It's going to be awesome, I promise! :D

Elder Canto & Sister Marshall

Christmas is coming!

Hi everyone!

I wanted to share this video with all of you -- go to natal.mormon.org (I'm not sure what the link is in English XD). There's this great video about the birth of Jesus Christ -- it's.. 2 minutes and 24 seconds long, I'm pretty sure. Take the time to watch it, and share it with your friends and family! I promise you'll love it! :D It's really awesome!

Happy Holidays, to all of you!

John 3:16

:)

Elder Canto

One Year!

Hi everyone!!!

I've officially been on my mission for 1 year!!! I can't believe it. It's been great though! 11 more months to go! :) I don't really have any time left to write now, but, I wanted to mention this, haha :) I burned a white shirt to celebrate, and filmed it XD My MTC companion did too -- he was living with me. We went up on the roof at night to do this XD It was awesome!

We baptized a 56 year-old woman 3 weeks ago, and she is amazing! She has a very strong testimony of the restored gospel and the church, and it was awesome to see her progress. She was in depression when we met her, but now, she is a lot happier. What happened was, 3 years and 5 months ago, her husband was run over by a bus, in front of her.. and then, she entered into depression, and moved here, from Sao Paulo, to live with her mom. About 2 months ago, her mom passed away, and then 2 days later, her sister told her that she had to leave her house, since it was in her name, and not her mom's. So now, she's living with her half-sister, but, it's not so great there, because her husband is always smoking, and there is a boy with autism there, who doesn't really realize what he's doing, and it's difficult to be around him. We're helping her find a new place to live, and maybe a part-time job. Her daughter, in Sao Paulo, is trying to save money to get a new apartment, so that she can go and live with her. So yeah, that's the situation with her for now. But, I want you all to know, that living the gospel truly changes people's lives.

I have a very strong testimony of the work that I am doing here on my mission. It is truly the work of salvation. Even though many do not believe, I do. I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the one true church here on the Earth. It is the church of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It is God's church. We have a living prophet, and apostles, who receive revelation from God -- and so, it is God who is directing the church, not men. I know, without a doubt, that this church is true. I will never deny my testimony of this church. Thank you all for your love and support, and your letters and emails, and packages.

I love you all! Have a great holiday season!!!

Elder Canto

P.S. I was going to send pictures, but the SD card reader isn't working on this computer.. oh well! :S

One More Year Left!!!

I'm going to have to be really quick here -- I have 1 minute left.. hah!

This Sunday will be the baptism of our investigator, Tarcilia, and I am so happy for her! She is excited for this Sunday as well :) It was so amazing, the day that we visited her, when she accepted the invitation to be baptized. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation, and told her how her ancestors have been waiting and praying for the day that she would be able to accept the restored gospel in her life, and be able to perform their temple ordenances for them. She will be the first person in her whole family line to become a member of Christ's church, and she will have a lot of family history work to do! After the lesson, we asked her what she needs to do, and she said "I need to have faith in Jesus Christ, repent of my sins, be baptized..." and then she paused, and started crying, thinking about what we had taught her, and then she said, through tears, "I want to be baptized.", and we both had tears in our eyes too. I will never forget this lesson that we had with Tarcilia. She is an amazing person, who has a lot of faith. I am so honored to be able to say that I was one of the missionaries who taught her. We will be continuing to work with her this week to prepare her for baptism. :) Tonight, we are going to be having a family home evening in her house, and we're going to watch the movie about Thomas S. Monson, our living prophet. (it's called, "On The Lord's Errand")

Yesterday at church, I taught the Gospel Principles class for the first time ever. I was nervous, but, I was thinking it wouldn't be too hard. It was even easier than I was thinking that it would be!!!! I was reluctant to accept the invitation to teach the class yesterday, but, in the future, I will happily accept. :)

Oh, by the way, Halloween basically wasn't celebrated here.. :(

And -- I'm in a new area now! Mangabeira II, I. I'm back in the city again! Conde is literally in the middle of nowhere. XD My new companion is Elder Wellington. He is 19 and from Sao Paulo, Brazil. He's awesome! I am learning a ton with him. We are a great team. :D

Anyways, I need to get going now, but, I hope that you all have a great week!!! I love you all, and I am always praying for you!

I now have a few days less than a year left on my mission.. it's hard to believe! I think I'll be getting home on November 5th, 2015. Looks like I'll be having another uneventful Halloween here.. haha!

Elder Canto

This one time.. I ate armadillo.. and.. wait, what?

Hi everyone!

This week, we had a lady come to church with her daughter, after a few weeks of bad luck (nobody coming to church). It wasn't exactly what we were expecting, since we had spoken with various people, and 5 of them were telling us that they would for sure be going, and 8 of them were saying that they would maybe be able to make it.. 5 + 8 = 1? This math is a bit tricky.. haha! But yeah, it's always like this -- we have 10+ people who we invited, who said they'd go, and then Sunday morning, there are 0-4 people at church.. I'm not sure why, but.. that's just how it is! It's always like this.. always!

Anyways, I learned how to make tapioca last week (finally -- and it's really easy, too.. haha! oh well.. -- basically, you have this certain type of flour, and you spread it out on a frying pan, and it all sticks together, and it's more or less like a burrito in the end -- but yeah.. it's really good! if you're confused, look it up. haha), we walked 2 hours from Conde to Valentina for our district meeting (2 weeks in a row now), um.. what else.. I went on an exchange and stayed in Valentina for one day with Elder Lisboa, and we were doing a bunch of street contacts and door contacts -- he's really good at it! I bascially just stayed quiet most of the time and helped when I could -- sometimes it's hard to participate when the other person starts the contact, and also, when it's between 2 Brazilians, I barely have time to think, since they're talking so fast! hah

My companion and I are becoming good friends (it wasn't easy.. hah) -- but yeah, we're doing lots of good things here in Conde now -- basically, this week we dropped almost all of our investigators who weren't progressing in any way, shape, or form, and then, we found a ton of new people to teach. It's working out pretty well! We also received a reference from a sister missionary in another area, and we went and contacted him yesterday, and he told us about how he was being taught by two elders 4 or 5 years ago, and then he lost contact with them. He said that it is his dream to be baptized (I can't believe he said that -- this is something any missionary would love to hear from an investigator XD) -- so we're going to be teaching him this week, and mark a baptismal date for him. This weekend is General Conference, a broadcast where the leaders of the church speak to everyone, and I am really excited. Watching General Conference is always awesome, but, as a missionary, it's the coolest thing ever! haha! If you're interested in watching it, go to http://www.lds.org on October 4th and 5th, and you can watch it live, online. I promise that you won't regret it! :)

OH! I forgot to mention something very important. Two Saturdays ago.. I ate ARMADILLO!!! XD I didn't know what I had eaten until the next day, when I asked a member here in Conde, who speaks English, "What's Tatu?", and he told me, and I laughed hysterically for a few minutes. XD I had been thinking that that was what it was, seeing as it had a shell and all.. haha! I didn't know that people eat armadillo.. But anyways..

I love you all -- have a wonderful week!!! Keep me in your prayers, please!

Be sure to watch General Conference this weekend!!!

Elder Canto

Transfer #7

Hey everyone! So yesterday night, we got our phone call about transfers. It was very exciting news.. everyone is staying here in Conde! Again! All 4 of us! haha

 I'm planning on making goals for Elder Cesar and I to improve on the work that we're doing here in Conde -- we have lots of room for improvement! Oh man.. I have 7 minutes left to email.. yikes.. hah, this always happens

So there was a parade on Sunday to celebrate Independence Day (Brazil), 1 week late, but, it was still awesome! It went on for about 3 hours, and there is a crazy amount of schools here in Conde. They had the bands from each school marching and playing music, and there were other things as well. The Brazilian style of clothing is pretty interesting for parties and celebrations. Oh, and at night, on the way home, the power had gone out in the center of the town, so we walked along the streets and it was completely dark -- I used our cell phone to see where I was walking XD The cobblestone roads and sidewalks like to stick out and try and trip you

I'm excited to have 6 more weeks here in Conde. We have 2 investigators who we've been working with for about a month, and we're hoping that they will feel more ready to be baptized soon. Other than that, we found some new investigators last week, and we're beginning to teach them this week.

I've been studying Preach My Gospel a lot more the past week, and it's helping a lot! I was reading through The Book of Mormon when I arrived in the mission field, and then I read part of The New Testament, and various other things. I realized that I was barely studying Preach My Gospel! I'm planning on reading it a lot more from now on -- it helps a ton with missionary work. Lots of great suggestions and advice.

I need to go now, but, I want you all to know that I love you, and I am so grateful for your letters and emails. I know that the work that I am doing here is true the work of salvation, and I have such a strong testimony of the things that I am teaching people about here on my mission. I love being a missionary, despite the many difficulties and trials that experience here. I am learning so much! I am definitely a different person than I was when left -- for the better. I am still the same person, personality-wise, though, of course! haha

Have a great week, everyone! Keep me in your prayers!

Elder Canto