10/10/11 letter

• Wassup!

Hey there, pals! October Break is officially here and to celebrate I´ll be helping people in their search for salvation. Score! Matt is practically home now! Gah! Mom, stop saying that cilantro is gross. I LOVE cilantro, because people use it all the time in the beans or salad, and it just makes everything better. But, I´m happy that you are at least eating cilantro when forced to.

My kid´s name is Elder Menezes! The kid is awesome and he´s a great missionary. He´s a surfer from Recife (which is up top on the coast of Brazil) that lived 5 minutes from the beach. He reminds me a lot of Californians (no offense intended Mike, I like Californians!). Elder Menezes is the oldest of 3 kids and both of his parents served in the Brazil Fortaleza Mission. And they are good friends of Presidente Oliveira, so Elder Menezes already knew President before the mission. Womp womp womp! As you can see in the picture, Elder Menezes looks kind of like Randy Cox, but is a bit crazier. He´s super easy to get along with and everyone loves him. We´re gonna work wonders here in Universitário!

We had kind of a half-week of work, since the newbies got here on Wednesday, and then we had a meeting that afternoon with all of the newbies and the trainers. We´ve never done that before, so we had a good time getting the basics down about and mission and how we teach. Then, we´ve been visiting some investigators that Elder Stuart and T. Silva were teaching, but they all turned mully. And we were kind of lost during the week since neither of us were here before, but things are getting on the road now. Romys came to Church (he is a member´s friend that already came once before) and we taught him yesterday. It was a sweet lesson! He´s actually super smart and I felt like I was teaching him things that he already knows. Romys was doubting because he´s already read the Book of Mormon and prayed, but nothing ever happened. We talked to him and found out that he was expecting something BIG, like Joseph Smith´s answer, to which we explained that usually our answers come in a much simpler form. Normally we have thoughts and feelings of the Spirit that will tell us if something is true or not. We´ll be visiting him tonight to help him out. We´re excited to see what happens.

Then we had another surprise on Sunday! This guys came to our chapel and wanted to get baptized. So, we talked with him, and he´d already come to Church and was taught by the missionaries a few months ago. We had a conversation with him and then did the interview and he was all set and willing to obey the commandments on got baptized! All out of nowhere. He lives in Elder Ertel and Stipanich´s area (the same ward as us) so they´ll be working with him and teaching him new things and getting to work with Geziel´s mom and sister. Crazy! He´s a really good-hearted guy that´s just kind of weird. But he´s so happy to be a member and keep following Jesus Christ. 

Have a wonderful week folks! October Break! That´s where it´s at. Love ya!

-Elder Carpenter

Fotos: Elder Menezes!

Campo Grande Fact: Almost nobody in Campo Grande has seen the beach before!