Braden's second week in Volta Redonda

Hey Everybody how´s it going?


Hahaha that email about the Baiano accent from Sam is pretty funny. It´s just a really crazy accent that one of the states here has, equivalent to a hippy accent back home or like a surfer guy. Heyyy my brotherrrr, howww are youuuu. Did you get those pictures that he sent from the confirmation and baptism? And I can´t believe I forgot to tell you about our trip to the bus station; or maybe I did but I just don´t remember, sorry if I repeat. But we all got piled into Sam´s car, which remember is about the size of Dad´s old Geo, if not smaller, and we all had our bags as well. I had my two, Rezende had about three, Billin had another two, we had our backpacks and other small things...it was pretty nuts, but way sweet. I couldn't see them in the back seat because they were buried under all of the stuff haha. It was great. And I also forgot to tell you that when we got into our house here in Volta Redonda, Elder Glade got locked in the bathroom within the first five minutes because the door handle was all messed up so I´m looking around for like a knife or something to try and get the dang thing open by sliding the knife in the crack, and finally he got out of there. I couldn't stop laughing but I felt way bad for him. I just hear this ´´ ....oh man´´ from the kitchen, and I figured something was wrong. hahaha he´s such a funny guy. He reminds me a lot of Bill just because he has red hair and he is always doing something funny. So needless to say, we get along swell.

Oh man, the hills here are pretty nuts though. So this ladies car wasn´t starting and we asked if she needed help pushing it up this hill... :) and she´s like yeah, thanks. So we get behind it with these two other little Brasilians and start pushing and we get about halfway up and she pulls her emergency brake for who knows why, so we´re sweating like crap and I just blurt out ´´hey, is your brake on?!´´ in English, not remembering that we´re in Brasil cause we´re dying back there, and the little boy next to me looks at me like I´m crazy and then I look at my companion and just start dying laughing because I realize what happened. She finally puts her brake off and we get to the top and then she just puts it in neutral and goes on her way. It was pretty hilarious; we´re trying to push this dang car and all the sudden it just gets really hard to push all of the sudden haha. Oh Brasil.

More about hills. We went to the other Elders area in 9 de Abril, Elder Haws and Elder Kunz. Oh yeah, Elder Kunz is in my district again which is really sweet. But they have so many more hills than we do, so I can´t complain anymore. We´re trying to help this lady out by taking things down to this party that they are having in the streets, and she lives on top of this giant hill and we had to walk down to the bottom to drop off this stuff, and we ended up making that trip about five times haha. Ridiculous right? And the last time was just a waste because we get up there just to find out that there wasn´t anymore to take, so we walk back down again. :) NOSSA! haha It was pretty great looking back at it now though.

We had some really awesome experiences here as well. On Friday, we went to the area of the Sisters to do interviews for the kids that were getting baptized. This family is elect and they were so awesome. I was talking with one of the kids, Leonardo, and he is such an awesome kid. He was showing me his history book for school and we were just talking about the Book of Mormon and his school and other stuff. It was great. The Spirit was really strong with this family and we all left feeling so happy. It was awesome. They were such an awesome family and I think that the parents are trying to get baptized next. We also met an awesome guy in the area of the other Elders as well. We hadn't eaten lunch that day because we had too much to do and lunch with the member was really far away and he was freakin' out like, you guys have to eat! So he makes us all of these pastels and stuff (even though we told him not to) and talked to him and his family. They are really awesome. They are really poor and it was so cool to see how willing they were to serve us even though they didn't have much to give. Those experiences are when I see the love of Christ the most; seeing someone give all that they have just to help someone else. It is amazing. I love the people here. Money is not an issue for them; they are happy as they are. I love it.

 Yesterday at church was amazing as well; we got to teach a class for the new members because they didn't have a teacher and it was really awesome. I have grown so much here; teaching people and talking in front of people is nothing now. I´m so used to it now and I love doing it. It is so cool working with the new members here in our Ward. They are awesome. We are trying to baptize these two girls this week and the parents of a girl that is a member already. They are really awesome! This week should be good. We also had lunch yesterday with one of the coolest families that I've met on my mission so far. Sunday lunches are the best here; so far we have had the coolest families. The family that we had for lunch last week gave us a ride to lunch this week; they are so tight. But this family was so sweet. We had Churrasco yesterday!! So good! Brasilian barbeque at its finest! Oh man. Best food for sure so far! And one of the guys there got back from his mission awhile ago so we were talking to him about that. He has a brother that we were talking to also and he was trying to convince me to go for one of the teams here, Flamengo, which is already my favorite, but I told him that I would love them even more and make them my favorite team if he would buy me an official jersey of theirs and he just started laughing. It was funny, they are an awesome family. He did give me a key chain of Flamengo though. haha Oh man.

How is everything going for all of you? It sounds like things are still going great. That´s so sweet that you got your braces off Dad. And it sounds like all of the houses are going up quick. It must look really different huh? It´s getting warm there now, huh? Kind of weird to think that there are different temperatures besides hot. :) It actually did get pretty cool last week with all the rain, and that was so nice; a rare luxury for sure.

We had some awesome miracles here yesterday; some tender mercies of the Lord. We have been working all this last week to find people to bring to church and they all fell through when we tried to go and get them all over this city to get them to church. But the Lord blessed us and we had three investigators who had already made it to church when we got there so we are going to teach them this week. The Lord will always bless you when you are obedient and when you give everything that you have to him and work your hardest. It is definitely in a different way than how you would expect, but He always blesses you. I have already grown so much here and this is only the beginning of my mission. I am so excited to see how much I grow in the Gospel. Morning study for three hours is the greatest; but it always flies by so fast! I love reading the scriptures and finding more scriptures that will help our investigators. It is amazing! There is so much power in the scriptures and in bearing testimony! I absolutely love studying and teaching! The people here are amazing and I never want to leave. I have been so tremendously blessed by the Lord and hope to grow even more and become a much better missionary. I don´t want to waste any of my mission so I have been trying to work my hardest all the time and not let any minute get wasted. It gets tough sometimes, but seeing people´s lives change because of the power of the Spirit is amazing and makes everything worth it. You forget about all of your problems and only care about serving them and serving the Lord. There isn't anything like it.

I hope that everything is going great for all of you and I am praying for you always. I´m so grateful for this opportunity to be here and my heart is so full. I love this work and I love our Savior and Heavenly Father. I´m so grateful to have a Prophet today. I love you all and will talk to you next week.

Love, Elder McDonald