Email 1-6-14

mmkay! This week was great!!

So, every single day we walk down this same street and almost every time we see this same man sitting on the side of the road.   We talk to him all the time, and mark to teach with him but something always comes up.   We marked for Sunday, (yesterday) to go teach him and got held up for a super long time at lunch.  We were thinking of not going because he´s old and usually old people don’t want to change.  I kept having this strong feeling to go teach him.  But after lunch it was SO HOT and I got a massive headache, but we headed over there praying.  I clapped outside of his house and a lady came.  She told us that the man was her dad and he was sleeping.. Then without thinking I asked her to go wake him up . She got kind of surprised and said, ``uhhh I guess so.`` and left.  She came back downstairs like two minutes later with her dad.  He was so excited to see us.  He said he was beginning to think we weren’t going to stop by.  His name is ‘L’ and he is a very very simple man.  So teaching, we have to teach super simply for him to understand.  So we started.. and we got the Great Apostasy.  I related when Jesus and all of the Apostolos died, the church fell on to the ground and broke.   And it broke into tons and tons of pieces.   People took the pieces that they liked and started their own churches from the parts they liked.  But none of the churches had all of the pieces, or all of the truths, until Joseph Smith restored the church. When he restored it, it was like he took all of the pieces and glued them together perfectly and once again we have ALL OF IT, we have all of the truths.   L got so excited.   He said, ``all my life I have been thinking the Catholic church is true, but now from what you’ve told me, it’s pretty obvious it’s not, of course your church is true, because it has a Prophet, Apostoles, and the Priesthood.``   He’s legit.   The only problem is he has been living with his ``wife`` for 43 years unmarried, and she doesn’t want to get married legally.   He has tried several times and won’t. And, she ``doesn’t like the mormons```  We´ll keep working with him, he wants it so bad!   But it makes things so difficult.   There is one thing that is so simple that God wants us to do, and people don’t do it.   One thing that I have gained a testimony of since I’ve been here.

Lots of awesome things happened this week, but remember that awesome family we found last week??  yeah.. we stopped by their house EVERY single day this week and they were never home.   And we stopped by their house before church and they were just leaving...  We found a perfect family to help, and someone is working really really hard against us to not make it happen. We’ll keep doing our part though, with fast and prayer and it’ll work out.

My old companion just sent me a picture of ``l``. he was baptized Saturday!!   It’s great to see people being baptized, knowing you helped them, to get there.   I remember inviting him to be baptized on the first visit! :)   His story is LOOONGGGG but remember to ask me about it here in 11 months! :)

-Elder Kyler Blane Farr

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I’m good!!!   Ha ha ha   today it is SO HOT!!!   Yesterday too.    Hotter than it’s been since I’ve been here!          90 degrees and 60% humidity    I want 23 degrees!!  (like us)     Ha ha  sometimes when we defrost our freezer here we make snowballs! :)  Just to get that cold hand feeling

chinela  just means sandal      EVERYONE uses them here. The only time people use shoes is going to school or church! Ha ha     you should see the clothes people wear around here in this weather.. people don’t even know what a shirt is.  The only time men put on shirts is when we start talking about Jesus!   .

Giving trainings every week,. and doing baptismal interviews!   Ha ha I like it    Yeah the training are normal.. We spend most of the time practicing our teaching    love you mmomm!!! :)

Email 12-9-13

This week was good! We found some awesome people to teach. One guy stopped us in the street telling us he wanted help with some things he was going through. He was way drunk but we marked an appointment with him and passed by for when we marked.  He wasn´t home.  We marked with his family for another time, and he wasn´t there again.  We kind of gave up on him and sat down to have a conversation and teach his family. (sisters and mom)  As we got to talking, turns out they didn’t want anything to do with us.  But they told us about a kid that got shot six times and lived through it.  He lives on the other side of the street of where we were.  We went there right after.  We knocked on the door and someone yelled `` IT´S THE JEHOVA´S WITNESSES`` we laughed and walked up the stairs.  She welcomed us in and we explained who we were and what not.  Her son limped, the one who got shot.  Turns out he got shot at six times but only took three of them.  We taught them a little bit and remarked to teach them for reals.  We took a member with us the next time and taught the Restoration for reals.  They ate up everything we told them and accepted the baptismal date.  It was cool to see how the lord works in the building of his kingdom.   He worked through a drunk man in the street, for us to find people ready to accept the true and restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We have been teaching this guy for the past two weeks.   We knocked his door and asked if L____ lived there. (We knew L____didn't live there, we just wanted to talk to him.)  He said no but we talked to him on the spot.  We have been teaching him for these couple weeks and will be baptized on Saturday.   He´s super awesome. His name is P____ H____ and he´s 33.   He is elect.   He accepts to live all of the commandments the moment we taught them.   He has given up everything and told us. ``I am ready to start a new chapter in my life!``

Also we have been teaching this family where the mom won´t marry her man because she doesn’t like him, but she goes to church with three of her kids, and the other two kids said they will start going next week. Well the three that are going will be baptized on Sunday!   E____, E____, and W____.   They´re great! We´ve been teaching them for over a month now.  They are all already talking about going on missions. We´ll finish this transfer with one baptism on Saturday, three on Sunday.  And IF I stay on the area we will have two more here in two weeks, and two more the week after that.

Yesterday the Bishop told us, you are the two we will remember forever.  The ones who changed this ward into a baptizing ward. The Bishop is a pretty untrustworthy man, but it made me feel good when he said this!

This week was good.  We had some great times!   I´m really glad this computer had spell check... without it I would be lost.  I am finding it really hard to think and type in English.

Thanks for all you do!!

-Elder Kyler Blane Farr

More info:

We will find out on Thursday all of the rules about Christmas! I hope we will be able to skype

We made up L____ just to be able to talk to P____. We do it alot.. it gets awkward when the fake name we use ends up being the name of the person! Ha ha

It is snowing!?!?       I am missing the cold so much! Ha ha ha it is sooo hot here right now. But it’s okay!!   Tem que sofrer para crescer!   It sounds cooler in Portuguese..   “You have to suffer to grow.”   We say that alot..   it keeps us going sometimes.

Yeah we talk to them (our African brothers) a few times a week when we see them in the road.  They are so awesome.  I love the guys, but they are NEVER at home.  We mark with them, and we pass by without warning, and they’re never there... The only time we see em is in the street.   We’ll get em sooner or later though!! :)  Z____ hugs me every time he sees us.  He’s awesome and his accent is legit.   They’re just really humble kind guys.

We’ll be leaving in ten minutes!   I didn’t realize the time.   I love you guys though.   Try to send me some of the cold..   And I’ll send you the hot!   :)   LUUVV YUHH   

Okay --- get ready.....  here comes some cold!!!   Did you feel it?!!!!

I didn’t feel it.. But maybe it takes a little while to get here to Brazil!

Transfers are next week.. I think I’ll stay here but anything is possible! I’ll le you know when I know though! Ha ha

When do you get the new president?

In like 6 months! His time’s almost up.. He’s super trunky too! Ha ha

The president?  He’s from Curitiba.   His accent is so funny!   I love talking to him, ha ha.   but yeah! We’re getting out of here now!   We have a ton of things to do today we have CHURRASCO at the stake presidents house tonight! :)   A huge barbecue, for all of the missionaries in our stake!   It’s gonna be awesome.

 Love you!   Have a great week

Email 12-30-13

YEAH!

So, this was our first real week here in our new area. We pretty much got to know all of it, and got the real working done! Ha ha. . but for real..

The beginning of the week started off kind of slow due to Christmas and everybody leaving, and there being NO ONE in the street. But we still did work anyways.

We spent Christmas eve at a members house and they made us an awesome soup and gave us a bunch of coke. (of course) Then Christmas day we ate lunch at the same members house and we got there while they were talking to their son who is also on the mission. It was way cool.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday were the days! We worked our butts off. But one thing in particular happened that was awesome. Our lunch appointment called and said it would be delayed a little bit and she said she would call when it was done because we live super close to her. So we were kind of sitting there awkwardly waiting for the call and my comp said, ``lets go contact some people in the street while we´re waiting`` So we left.. He asked where I thought we should go, but since I’m training him I left that decision up to him. :) We walked down one street, NOTHING. Then we stopped at the corner.. he looked around not seeing anyone.. then said, ``lets go back.`` Then we walked down the same street that we had already walked down. I was really confused and kind of mad, because at noon it´s super duper hot outside. But! As we were walking down the street again he stopped in front of a house, looked it at for a little bit, then knocked it. A lady came to the door and I wanted him to try and contact her (as he is still learning Portuguese.) He did his best, and she pretty much understood everything, but then I took over for him. Turns out, my companion is legit! He was super inspired. This lady lives with her husband and two kids. AND THEY´RE ACTUALLY MARRIED. It’s a miracle.   It’s so rare to see a couple  living together that are legally married. Just like God intended it to be. And one of the kids plays soccer at the church every week. It was awesome. We only taught them once, but they already accepted the baptismal invitation. I’m excited to go back this week and teach some more.

Usually I write this big letter first, then my letter to president in Portuguese after. But today I switched the order.. So I’m like thinking in Portuguese trying to write in English so if this letter is weird of hard to understand, you know why! Ha ha

I´m kinda short on time, but I’ll send all of the pics of the baptisms in my last area.

ELDER KYLER BLANE FARR!

OH YEAH!  we got to district meeting on Wednesday! CHRISTMAS! and the zone leaders were there with my package! YES! It was awesome. I loved EVERYTHING IN IT. But that album.. TRUNKY!.. ha ha ha It was awesome. Thanks a ton!!!! I love the ties too! And my comp said thanks a ton! :) :)

Well I was going to attach the photos, but it´s not working.... They won´t connect. I´ll get it to work next week for sure though!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! :)

have a good week.

Skype Notes 12-23-13

23 December 2013         Monday    SKYPING WITH ELDER KYLER

The missionaries in Elder Kyler’s mission were given the choice of talking on the phone on Christmas day or skyping on the 23^rd – P-day.  Duh…Of course, we chose skyping!    We hooked up our computer to our TV and he could see almost the whole living room.  We had an amazing 2.5 hours with Elder Kyler – none of us wanted it to end.  He looks good and happy!

He was skyping in the LAN house.  It was really hard for all of us to end the call and I have to admit that I cried like a baby for most of the rest of the day (miss him!)  but I am so happy that he is serving a mission and so happy for the work he is doing and the way he is doing it.   We are glad to rejoice in the happiness!

So here are a few things we remembered from our skyping.   I was trying to remember everything as we talked but it was too much.  I just wanted to enjoy our time with him but I do remember these things:

• This is the first LAN house he has used that has cubicles.  Usually there are just computers set up on tables.  This is also the nicest LAN house he has been in, which is interesting because he’s in a very remote area.  He’s not very far from the city but it’s remote.  The LAN houses are everywhere because very few people can afford a PC in their homes.
• Along with a girl that kept staring at us, which cracked me up because it made Kyler laugh so hard and it was amazing to hear his laugh and see his shoulders shake, there was a guy who tried to sell him chocolates!
• His Portuguese was amazing!!  Really really good!!   Loved hearing it!
• In his last area, there were around 40 people attending church when he got there.  When he transferred, there were around 65.   Here there are about 120 attending – a much bigger ward!
• On Sunday (Dec. 22^nd)  the Bishop invited the 4 missionaries to dinner.  He speaks fluent English and is planning to come to BYU in 2016.  He told them,  “I know what will make you trunky.”  And he put on some Christmas music!  The Elders asked him to turn it off, because it was making them soooo trunky but he left it on!  I don’t think he was trying to be mean – they really like him, but I think he was trying to be funny…. But it wasn’t really very funny at all.  That was pretty hard on all those young men.
• He heard Blane whisper to Curtis that the Nova’s battery would have to be jumped to start it and got very concerned!  He said, “What did you say about the Nova – the battery won’t start—what’s wrong with it…..”  We assured him that everything was fine - we just haven‘t been driving it because it’s been snowy and the Nova is horrible in the snow.  Then he wanted to know where it was parked – you see, it’s important to know whether it’s stashed in the backyard or up front!  It’s up front!   Whew – crisis averted!!   He doesn’t need to be worrying about the Nova!
• When asked if he’d like to return to Brazil some day, he told us he would not feel safe at all there without his missionary tag!    

23 December 2013

I just talked to you guys! We’re finishing up our time here and I just got my letter off to Presidente S____.

Just wanted to say how much I love you guys and how much you all mean to me! :)

Have a wonderful Christmas and I’ll see you for the next one!! ;)

 much love,

Elder Kyler Blane Farr