January 3, 2015

Happy New Year!  My New Year’s was definitely unique.  We went to the chapel in Aguanambi and met as a zone.  We had a training and then watched 17 Miracles.  I had never seen that movie before.  It is awesome!  It is about the Willie Handcart Company.  It is amazing to learn about everything that our early ancestors went through.  What a sacrifice.

New Year’s Eve here is insane.  There are so many fireworks.  I fell asleep at 10:50 and then right around 11:50 I was wide awake for many hours.  I felt like I was in a battlefield.  Our apartment is close to the beach and every year they have huge parties on the beach.  It was about 40 minutes of straight firworks.  Though our apartment doesn’t face the beach, the tall glass buildings in the distance reflected the firework show.  It was pretty neat.  Elder "T" and I had gone to the market in the day and it was as busy as I have ever seen it.  Every cart was filled with beer and wine.  The grocery store must have made a killing.  However, the funniest aspect of it all was the next morning.  The city was a ghost town.  There wasn’t a single car on the street.  We had to travel to an outlying area of the city, Jatobá.  The bus was practically empty.  The buses here are super different.  There is a person who takes your money and then you pass through a turnstile to get to the front part of the bus.  Well, the turnstile worker was completely hung over and passed out in her chair.  Elder "T" tapped her on the hand to try to wake her up and she wouldn’t wake up.  It took about 25 minutes until she woke up.  On the floor of the bus were many empty vodka bottles just rolling all around.  It appears that the bus driver didn’t have too much fun the night before with all the drunk people he had to drive.  Poor guy.

Yesterday, while at the office, I had to do repetitive work so I decided that I would put on a talk.  I listened to “Kings and Priests” by President Kimball.  Okay, hands down, best talk!  I love his message!  I need to read this talk a lot in my life.  As he talks about the funerals of the three different men, I thought back to all the funerals I have experienced in my life.  We truly are here to learn and grow, but life is a lot easier if we keep the commandments. 
I now have a testimony of that!

New Year's 2015

December 27, 2014

Happy Holidays!  Christmas day was spent with the zone doing a churrasco (bbq).  The zone leaders brought a huge chunk of meat (which was super good) but they hadn't thought to bring the stuff to season it and it was frozen.  Well, at least the final result was that it turned out really well.  I now know how to BBQ!  I can't wait to get home and make Brazilian Churrasco for you guys!  It will be good!

I got one of your letters this week!  I love the quote by Hugh Nibley!  I think it is really interesting.  He was asked once, "Who is righteous?"  He responded, "Anyone who is repenting. No matter how bad he has been, if he is repenting, he is a righteous man. There is hope for him.  And, no matter how good he has been all his life, if he is not repenting, he is a wicked man. The difference is which way he is facing. The man on the top of the stairs facing down is much worse off than the man on the bottom step who is facing up. The direction we are facing, that is repentance; and that is what determines whether we are good or bad.”

I think this is very interesting.  It is so true.  Life is grand staircase.  We are continually trying to progress.  Eternity doesn't stop that progression.  If we want to continue we must take one more step.  However, it is interesting how it all depends which way we are facing when we take that step.  If we are facing upward, we will take a step forward (it doesn't matter where on the staircase we are, we will still progress).  However, if we are facing downward, then our step will take us far away from progression.  We can change when we want to change.  The only thing we have to do is turn to face the right direction.  When we do this we can forget the stairs of the past and focus on the stairs of the present.  This is a quote that I am going to try to apply to my life forever.  We must always be facing upward and onward.

                                                                                                                                                                       

Christmas 2015

Christmas BBQ