December 28, 2015 - Ipatinga

I see a belo horizonte,
 

Well, so this is Christmas, at least on a mission. It was good, but a little weird to wake up Christmas morning with just me and my companion. We turned to each other and decided we still had to do studies.
 

But, I´m way out of order. the first thing that happened this week was a noiter familiar. It was really good and we even ad a few investigators there. People need to feel comfortable with the other people in the ward. They can feel that the church is true, but if they feel uncomfortable there they won´t attend. NF is a great way to help with this.
 

That night I got really sick, which caused me not to be able to eat red meat, dairy, or candies for 3 days including Christmas. I am recovered now, but the timing was horrible.
 

Christmas day I was able to skype the family. That is the real gift of Christmas for missionaries. It was fun to talk with the family and simply to talk in English. It just felt really natural and really quick. It was a little weird when I had difficulty saying the word difficult in English.
 

This week we made a contact that wouldn´t give us his address. So, we didn´t think too much about it. The ward was having a baptism this Saturday and he was walking by and decided to walk in. He was able to watch part of it and then came to church the next day with his daughter. That was our miracle for the week.
 

Randoms:

*They don´t have Mexican food for Christmas eve here.

*My companion talked in Creole for his call home.

*I can understand parts of Creole.

*To say you in Creole you say boo, so they call everyone their boo.
 

Elder Quain

Elder Quain & Elder Goncalves skying :)

December 21, 2015 - Ipatinga

I see a Belo Horizonte. (I noticed I never explained what it means, it´s Beautiful Horizon)

Well this week we had a Conferencia de Natal. It was really fun. We left mid day on p-day in a van with the whole district. That meant there were 3 other English speakers. We had a half Portuguese mostly English conversation. I felt kind of bad that the others couldn´t understand, but I guess that´s pay back for the first three months of my mission. It was a five hour drive, but it felt a lot shorter. We then got to stay in a hotel overnight. I love a good shower and air conditioning. 

The next day we had a continental breakfast, on a different continent and headed to the conference. There were some good talks and it was fun to talk with Elders Karren, Hollingshouas and Nelson from the MTC again. They gave us a big lunch and packages. Then we watched meet the Mormons in Portuguese. I ate a lot of candy from one of my packages during the movie. After that we headed home. This time the ride was a long 5 hours as I had a headache and the roads are rather bumpy. We ended up getting to bed about 12:30.

Nothing else really happened until my Birthday. I bought myself an orange cake that I had for breakfast and the ward had a party. Really it was for Christmas, but it was on my birthday, so it´s kind of like a birthday party. The food was good and they invited us to sing in the choir, which was fun.

Yes, the packages came. Thanks a ton. The only bad part was that I had to give one stocking to Elder Gonçalves. Very tempting to keep it! Both my past companions were jealous, and the guys thought I should split it up in between the MTC district. Thanks for the music. Right now we have a dvd player. It doesn´t work on it, but I looked on the computer and it´s there, so I´ll buy a different speaker to play it.

Randoms:

* I think I ate too much candy this week

* People here adore peanut butter

* One pair of shoes died this week

* I wonder if the mission president will let us watch Star Wars?

Thanks a Bunch, lots of love,

Elder Quain

Elder Quain - Elder Goncalves - & coconuts

Merry Christmas!

 Can you find Elder Quain? He's 2nd row from the top just off center from the Christmas tree.

   

December 14, 2015 - Ipatinga

It´s a Belo Horizonte.

This week was interesting. Every week here is interesting, but somehow normal.

The first thing that happened this week is that we were sitting in a FHE (family home evening) and they had a non-member present. He came over to us and told us that he wanted to be baptized this Saturday. We were super excited. He is in a part member family and when we asked him what made him decide that he wants to be baptized now, he said that he had prayed about the Book of Mormon last week and knew it was true. We do have the rule that a person has to attend church twice before baptism, so he couldn't be baptized this Saturday, but he did come this Sunday. Half way there!

We had a guy get really angry at us. We have been visiting and giving the lessons to his wife and he hasn´t really wanted them. We were talking with him and he kept saying that his wife didn´t want anymore lessons, but seemed really nervous. He kept messing up on conjugations and saying more or less, she doesn´t I want more. We said that we would talk to her as she still had our book. When we all got there he spent about 20 minutes yelling, "why can´t you go to a closer church?" and "It´s that church or me. We will divorce." We are only trying to bless your entire family. Marriage is very important, but salvation is more important.

There was a Christmas activity this Sunday. So my Companion and I decided to try and invite everyone that lived near the chapel. We knocked on over 30 doors, and talked with over 30 families, but none of the came. We did give out some of the churches Christmas cards, so maybe someone will visit the sight.

Randoms:

* The fruit salad here is really good and even better when covered in honey

* A bird pooped in my hand this week

* You can literally pick mangoes up off the street as they fall off the trees when they are ripe

* Yesterday I had 4 mangoes and a coconut

Elder Quain

December 7, 2015 - Ipatinga

Well, I still see a Belo Horizonte.

First things first, I got a new companion. His name Is Elder Gonçalves and he is from Cape Verde. Most people don´t know where that is, so he has to explain it a lot. This means that I can already explain where it is in Portuguese rather well. They do speak Portuguese there, so he is almost a native speaker, but definitely has a different accent. He´s good and he is different from my other companions, which is good. It will help me. Everyone here says that you learn something different from each companion.

Other than that the week has been pretty normal. We had some really good lessons, but none of our investigators showed up to church. I kind of just want to drag them there, but need to remember that people have their agency. Feels kind of like trying to feed a little kid fruits and vegetables, they´re good for you and it will help you grow stronger.

I like to think that I have learned to be more patient on my mission, but as you can see I still have a little ways to go.

 

Randoms:

We got to ride the train again. this time with almost out whole zone. I think we contacted nearly every person is our car.

 

Elder Quain

November 30 - Ipatinga

It´s a Belo Horizonte.

This week was actually pretty eventful. I hope I don´t forget anything important.

 

The first big thing that happened this week happened while we were knocking doors. We barely ever do that, but we had a little unplanned time. One of the doors we knocked on was interested to hear what we had to say. Unfortunately, like what normally happens, it was only girls. But while we were talking at the door step some members were walking by. We talked with them and they had time to go in and do a visit with us. I thought that was pretty cool.

 

The next day we had a split. I enjoy splits because they make you grow and realize how much you actually know. I still don´t know all the streets yet though. I was paired up with Elder Agiar who was being persistent in wanting to know exactly how we were going to get to the next location. Finally I just told him, it´s in about this direction and we will walk this direction until I feel wee need to turn. We only had to do a little backtracking.

 

We had 6 people staying in the apartment one night for zone conference. The conference was really good and I learned a lot, like being more confident in our invitations to act. After the conference we had interviews. This took about 4 hours and I was the last person to go out of 36. I took less then ten minuets. It was pretty much, how are you feeling? Good. Any problems right now? no. Anything you need to tell me? no. Are you happy? Yes. Well, if you´re happy I´m happy.

 

We also had a talent show this week and Barbosa and I did a duet of the song Glorious. It went really well until I forgot the words. I also forgot that only about 2 other people understand any English, so I should have just kept blabbing. I was able to jump back in and it ended up pretty well. There were quite a few singing acts and they were all in English. I was told by one of the girls that I was not allowed to comment on her pronunciation. 

 

Randoms:

* Elder Barbosa is getting transferred, but I don´t know who will be my new companion yet

* Elder Barbosa got Glasses this week

* Two other people I know have also gotten glasses while here - I don´t want glasses

* For Thanksgiving here they have rice, beans and meat 

* I found in the Portuguese English dictionary Benjamin means favorite son in Portuguese. The book has a lot of errors though.

 

Elder Quain

November 23, 2015 - Ipatinga

It´s a Belo Horizonte

Good news, Valadares has water again, but the Rio Doce is still contaminated.

This week Elder Barbosa and I went on a split to João Molavade.  We were able to take the train, which was really cool. Literally, because it had air conditioning, I was actually a little cold. The ride was smooth and it was intresting to see more of the jungle area of brasil. The veiw of the mountains covered in jungle and fog was awesome.

While in Molavade I was partnered up with Elder Agiar. He´s really nice and only has one transfer left. I am really the junior of the group as I am the only one with more than 3 transfers left. While there we had a noite familiar (FHE) with one of the families that went really well. Also, while we were there a thunder storm started up. luckily, the family lent us some umbrellas to use.

So, our biggest success has been with a less-active convert of less than a year. She is an elderly lady and is really nice. Barbosa and I were just figuring out were to go next and happened to be in front of her house and she came out and started talking to us and shared her conversion story. She ended up coming to church the next week and we continued to visit her and she kept coming to church. She is now called as a counselor in the releif society presidency and we even had a noite familiar at her house. She is doing well and trying to figure out how to get the rest of her family interested in the gospel.

Randoms:

The ward had another baptism. That makes 2 for the ward and one for the missionaries.

When it rains here it really rains and afterwards it is even hotter.

We made some pizza pastels this week  

Questions from the Kimbler kids:

Benjamin (age 13) Do you spend a lot of time knocking doors? How do you find people to teach?

We do knock some doors, but not that many. Generally to find people to teach we just talk with people on the street, but the best way is through the members. This is because then they help us teach and are friends with the investigator.

Emma (age 10) Is it fun being a missionary?

It is fun, but it is also hard work. I guess a better word for it would be enjoyable and it is definitely worth it.

Matthew (age 7) Do you like the food? What's your favorite?

All the food is really good here. The fruit is better here. One thing I really miss is salsa. I did get pico de gallo one time. My favorite things are pastels and caldo de cana.

Henry (age 5) Do you get to eat candy- if so, what kind?

Yes, we eat candy. At times probably too much. They have a lot of Oreo variations here and all the packages are covered in minions and sponge-bob. My favorite treat is called goiobada and is a fruit paste.

Love you guys,

Elder Quain

November 16, 2015 - Ipatinga

It´s kind of a Belo Horizonte?

 

Well, if you know the news about Minas Gerais you´ll know that it´s not good right now. So, a dam that was holding back a bunch of mercury contaminated water has burst, killing quite a few people and contaminating the entire water supply of a city bigger than the one I am in and my city has about 270,000 people. Since the mercury turned the water red people are comparing it to the plagues of Egypt and a couple of our investigators were talking about how Brasil is not being righteous and it will get worse. There is actually a possibility, sadly. There is another dam with 3 times the mercury and they say it already has a crack in it.

Want to hear something happier? We made pastels last p-day. they are kind of like fried hot pockets filled with meat and cheese. I really like them and like every Brazilian meal we had them with ketchup and coke... You thought I was going to say rice and beans, right? Well, generally it is one of the two sets. 

You win some and you lose some. We lost some of our investigators this week due to them not wanting, not caring, or not being willing to act. The great thing is that We also gained some new investigators that have the desire, care about it, and want to change their lives. One of our investigators is really interesting and always has another random scripture in the bible that he wants us to try to explain. The problem is they are often taken out of context. It´s really hard to try to explain a random verse in revelation without sighting nearly every chapter before it.

 

So, we had our first real lightning storm and they were awesome. The lightning was giant and ran across the entire sky. One of the thunders was so big it sounded like a gun shot. The coolest part is that I even saw purple lighting. Is that normal? Half way thru I remembered that I left the window above my bed open. Luckily the rain was coming down in the other direction and didn´t come in through the window.

 

Randoms:

* A lot of people yell, "seguidores de Joseph Smith" at us

* Someone caught me off guard when they yelled, African!

Elder Quain

making pastels

 

 Elders Barbosa, Campelo, & Agiar

 

November 9, 2015 - Ipatinga

 I see a Belo Horizonte

 

We had one day this week were a recent convert actually went out and taught lessons with us. He´s a younger guy and actually wants to serve a mission. We had a few good lessons with him and one that ended in an interesting way. We were teaching one of our best families when suddenly the lights all went out. We looked outside and noticed it was the whole street. We ended up teaching the rest of the lesson by flashlight. It was our last one for the day and we started heading back to the apartment in almost pitch blackness. The entire area had lost power. Our entire proselyting area had lost power. All the hills around us normally have little dots of light, but they were all out. We had to take care on our walk back because the sidewalks are not even here and we were trying not to fall. When we got back to the apartment I remembered that no power equals no fan and that day was up at 37 degrees Celsius. Luckily the power came back on and we were not totally miserable that night with my two fans on full blast.

 

So, we finally had some investigators come to church. It was the family that we were teaching when the power went out. They are doing great and are super receptive. They read the book of Mormon, pray and come to church and we´ve only been teaching them for a week. 

After Church we had lunch at a members house that lived really far. We were able to get a ride there, which was great, but we had to walk back. To understand the rest of the story you need to know that we are trying to function without a map right now as is got put through the wash. Well, we got lost (it turns out that neither of us are emperors and born with an innate sense of direction)and in trying to find out where we were we asked for direction which I actually understood and called another set of missionaries. We found out that we had somehow ended up in the sister´s area and had a long walk ahead of us. 

 

Things I´ve learned to do on my mission so far:

* Iron my clothes

* Keep track of how much clean clothes I have left

* Make my bed without being told

* Try to keep a house clean 

* ...and a little bit of Portuguese
 

Elder Quain

November 3, 2015 - Ipatinga

I see a Belo Horizonte.

Well, this week it rained. We have divisoes with the zone leaders this week and I was paired up with Elder Nunes. He´s Honduran and is really nice. As we were walking to to the area to switch companions it was raining lightly and I was doing just fine in my rain jacket. After we switched off the rain really started to pour and we hid under an overhang for about 15 minutes when I broke down and bought an umbrella. When we got to the apartment to begin studies Elder Nunes and I were completely soaked. Luckily the rain let up and We were able to have a normal day the rest of that day.
 

We were in my area for the split and it really helped me learn a lot. I have really let Elder Barbosa take the lead in planning and directions, while I was focusing on the language and how to be a missionary. I had to do the planning and most of the directions as Elder Nunes did not know the area. It was a good growing experience.
 

Just so you don´t get bored reading my letters I have another interesting story. Well, Like what happens every once and awhile on a mission our lessons fell through and we had to decide what to do next. We were both really tired and decided to sit down and look at the map. As we were looking at the map I guess somebody was spraying off their yard and pushed the water under the gate. Upon standing I found the backside of my pants very wet. It was very noticeable too because I was wearing my light brown pants. Luckily, it is hot in Brasil and it dried out rather quickly.

 

Randoms:

* I had my first fresh coconut this week and a member gave us some mangos

* There is a woman in the ward that tells me I´m too skinny about every time she sees me and another guy overheard it, now he does it also as a joke. 

 

Elder Quain

Me and my coconut

 

Me - Elder Nunes - Elder Marcedo - Elder Barbosa

 

 

Proving to Mom that I have washed my sheets, though rarely make my bed

 

 

October 26, 2015 - Ipatinga

I can see a belo Horizonte

So this week flew by for me. It was almost a normal week; no splits and no travel.

Well, last p-day we were invited to do churrasco at the zone leaders apartment. it was pretty fun. The zone leaders are Elder Marcedo and Nunes. They also invited Elder Nelson and Wies. Not surprisingly Elder Nelson and I spent most of the time talking to each other in English and trying to regain some sanity. Elder Barbosa and I were a little late and the others tried to drop water balloons on us from the 4th floor. Luckily we noticed at the last second and escaped most of the water.

 

I ended up doing a lot of studying yesterday, because Barbosa wasn´t feeling good. We were able to go out for a little time and decided to try and visit one of our investigators. They weren´t home, but their family was, so we taught them the first lesson and got two new investigators.

 

The rest of the days kind of meshed together, but we had a lot of good lessons and the work is progressing. The mosquito population has at least doubled this week. I am always using bug spray and am hiding beneath 2 fans and a sheet at night. There was one night when the wind was really strong and it was blowing a bunch of dirt into my face. I was getting annoyed, but then thought to myself to look on the bright side of life, it blew a lot of the mosquitos away.

 

Randoms:

* We were given some jabuticaba fruit and tried to make some juice out of it. It tasted really bad.

* The next day we had some really good juice and we asked what kind it was. It was jabuticaba. We did something wrong.

 

Elder Quain

Elders: Barbosa, Quain, Nunes, Wies

A jabuticaba tree

October 19, 2015 - Ipatinga

I see a belo horizonte

...but I feel a heavy sun.

 

It has gotten even hotter here as it is approaching summer, It´s not there yet though. I had a pretty good week, but my mom has been asking for an outline of my normal day, so I´ll start with that:

 

1. 6:30am = wake up, pray, do really wimpy exercises, shower, shave, iron my shirt for the day and eat a grilled ham and cheese sandwich

 

2. 8:00am =  pray, personal study for 1 hour, pray, companion study for 1 hour, training for one hour, pray, language study for one hour, put on my white shirt

 

3. 12:00pm = pray, walk to lunch, sweat, eat, get told to eat more, go out and teach lessons and try to find people

 

4. sometime we have a noite familiar with a member and their friend, or noite de integração

 

5. 9-9:30pm = arrive at home, pray, plan(if Barbosa has to do some District Leader stuff we do it in the morning), pray, change clothes, eat a grilled ham and cheese, read some of a book in English(I just finished Jesus the Christ and started The History of Hakan Anderson)

 

6. 10:30pm = pray, go to sleep

Well, that´s a normal day for me right now. As you can see, I´m living on a prayer and some grilled ham & cheese. This week I didn´t really have many normal days though.

 

Last p-day we had Elders Cunha and Campelo over and our laundry room was filled with smoke. We made some churrasco bar-b-que. It was good, I really liked the linguisa sausage, but the other meat was too salty for me. Of course, since we are in Brasil we had some rice with it.

 

The next day was zone meeting. It's very similar to zone conference, only without the mission President and AP´s. It went well and I understood almost all of it. Elder Barbosa and I were asked to do the first lesson in 4 minutes. We got close, but they cut us off before we were able to finish. Because of the meeting we had two other missionaries from the U.S. staying with us, that made a total of 6 elders.

 

 

This week we had splits with the zone leaders that went well and gave me a funny story to tell. There was a guy on the side walk that stopped us, said something unintelligible to us and held out a cup. I was drinking a sprite at the time so I acted on impulse and poured some in. We walked away. I think he was a little stunned and only later did I realize he was asking for money.

Randoms:

* We lost a promising looking family, but gained another. One door opens when another another door closes.

* We got pizza one night which was a nice change from sandwiches.

* Transfers came in and Elder Barbosa and I are with each other for 6 more weeks.

*I like caldo de cana; juiced sugar cane

 

 Elder Quain                                                     

Pizza & a new couch with Elder Barbosa

October 12, 2015 - Ipatinga

I can see a belo horizonte.

Well this week was a lot different than what I´ve had so far. It started out normal enough. We had district meeting and Elder Cunha and Campelo stayed in our apartment. They ended up going out to a lunch appointment with us. It was with one of my favorite families in the ward. A funny thing that happened though was that I apparently was zoned out for a second looking at the salt shaker. The mom of the house asked me if I wanted some. I told her no.  She then asked me if I knew what salt was and if we had it in the U.S. I told here that I knew what it was and yes, we do have it in the U.S. The other elders then returned to their area and we had a normal day for what remained.

The next day we had a divisão, splits. It was in João Monlavade which is about 2 and a half hours away. We tried to catch a train, but that didn´t work and we had to wait for a bus. While waiting we ended up playing some dama, or lady. It is basically the Brasilian version of checkers. We utilized that for proselyting and talked with the people about the church as we played. When we caught the bus it took us to another bus. Unfortunately, we had just missed it, but so had another lady and we all got into a taxi car and he drove us to the next stop for the bus. We got to João Monlavade and were able to take another bus to the elders. We did a short split that night and I visited some people with Elder Campelo.

 

The next day I was with Elder Cunha and we visited quite a few people. The most interesting one was a recent convert that didn't´t have any electricity and we had the lesson with him after the sun was down,  so we ended up teaching him by candle light.

 

The day after that we were supposed to go back to our area. That didn´t quite work out as planned. They don´t let you reserve spots on the long distance busses here and we were not able to get on a bus all day, so we ended up staying another night with the other elders. This is probably a good thing because I was the only non-brasilato and I think it helped quite a bit with my language.

We were finally able to catch a bus the next day. It was an old bus, that didn´t give me enough room and didn´t have any air condioning, but it got us back to Ipatinga where we were finally able to meet with our investigators again.

 

Sunday was different. I'll start of with the best thing, I was able to participate in my first confirmation. It´s never dull at church here though. One of the kids was being brought back to his seat be his mom and was holding high a large, plastic sword.
 

Randoms:

* Trying to catch a bus can be really annoying.

* I really like diamonte negro and this thing called goibinha. It´s king of really thick fruit leather of  guava

* A random woman came up to me and asked me were I was from, she then tried to hug me which I was really awkward about. (That gave me companion a good laugh)
 

Élder Quain

 Elder Campelo & Elder Quain

 

Elder Cunha & Elder Barbosa

October 5, 2015 - Ipatinga

There´s a Belo Horizonte

 

Well, lets start out with the biggest news. I had a baptism, it was the first time have baptized someone and it was really cool. I really enjoyed seeing the mix of excited and a little nervous in the little girl I baptized. I ended up having to do it twice because she didn´t go under all the way. I was surprised because I thought I would have to do it twice because I would say it wrong.

 

This week was one of conferences. Early in the week we had zone conference with the mission president. It was really good and I understood a lot of it. The funny part is I understood nearly all of it until they started giving instructions for an activity. I seem to do that a lot. I´ll be understanding someone just fine, until they ask me a question, then I can´t identify what words they are saying. For this conference we had 8 elders in our house one night and it was right after we had cleaned. It got dirty pretty fast.

 

Then we had general conference. Barbosa said in his other area they had a room that broadcast in English, we weren´t so lucky here. I understood next to nothing, except for the songs. We were able to watch 4 sessions, all of them except priesthood. I guess I´ll just have to wait for the liahona to be released.

 

We had a fun little event this week. We had not had a good day and our last appointment had fallen though. We didn´t have much time left so Elder Barbosa decided that he wanted ice cream. We got some and it´s really cheap here. It was only 3 reais for 2 scoops a cone and topping, a little less than 1 dollar.As we were walking out a man stopped us and asked us if we were Mormons. We told him yes and he said (obviously this is a translation) I have been to your church a few times, I like it and want to learn more. Needless to say we wrote down his name and address.

 

Randoms:

* We see that neon covered bus a bunch

* It is really hard to teach a lesson when their next door neighbor is blasting funky

* I heard a funky song in English and am glad I don´t understand the other ones yet

* Did I mention that in Portuguese Quain is the sound a duck makes?

 

Élder Quain 

 Zone Conference

                  with Nunes family                                                                          Baptism!

 

with Elder Barbosa & Brother Marzinho

 

September 28, 2015 - Ipatinga

I just need to keep esperança.

 

This week was just okay for the work. We definitely had some highs and lows. This past p-day was just Elder Barbosa and I. We actually cleaned our apartment. It´s a lot better now. A little info on the apartment. First off, we don´t have a dryer. This means we have to plan more about when to wash our clothes. I forgot to wash my lights soon enough and was forced to wear a long sleeve shirt. I´ve actually done this twice, I´m wearing one right now. We then have to hang our clothes to dry. I´m going to be really good at ironing after staying here because when I hang the shirts out to dry they get all wrinkled and I have to iron everything.

We have lots of walking to do and the hills here feel endless. Also, we had some extremely hot days this week. It was so bad that I had to hold my plate out in front of me to keep sweat from dripping on to my food. All this and it´s only spring right now.

 

We have a few rays of sunshine with a few investigators and ward activities, but we also had a bunch of fake contacts this week. They make you walk for a mile to an address that dosen´t exist. I would rather they just say that they're not interested.

 

About Elder Barbosa. He´s a nice guy and loves ketchup. He puts it on his sandwiches and on his pizza. Apparently it´s a normal thing to put ketchup on your pizza here. I can kind of understand it because there is next to no sauce on them. Also, the strangest type of pizza I´ve heard about is mozzarella and chocolate.

 

Elder Barbosa had a migraine one day, so I just studied for a long time. I am now in Mosiah in my reading of the Portuguese Book of Mormon

Randoms:

* As we were walking home one night we were passed by a double decker bus completely covered in neon and blasting music.

* Last night there were fireworks and an eclipse. It was pretty fun to watch.

* We are supposed to have 8 missionaries staying in our house tonight in preparation for zone conference.

* The are quite a few fires here (nearly every day), but they are all rather small. I feel like I´m back in Vacaville.

 

Elder Quain

Ward Activities

 

September 21, 2015 - Ipatinga

All I can see is a Belo Horizonte

 

Things are going good and the ward members are great. Last p-day we were able to play soccer with some of the members and I actually wasn´t that bad. I know I surprised myself too. This p-day activity is cleaning the Apartment, which it is in need of. I have actually cleaned it on my own a little, that´s how you know it´s not good. Hopefully I´ll also get a nap in.

 

We teach a lot of people one lesson. Either they say they are not interested or we can never find them home again, or last of all they just don´t answer the door. What is almost harder than not knowing the language is knowing that we have a great message that could bless their lives and families, but they don´t want it. One of the hardest things this week was a guy that we have been teaching only needed to come to church to qualify for baptism and he actually was at a church. We know this because as we walked to church we passed him. We stopped and talked (I didn´t talk much, mostly my companion), but he just didn´t want to go.

 

This mission is full of hills. The motto is "called to serve a mission in the hills," translation to English. About half of the hills are so steep I wouldn´t ride a bike down them. Quite a few turn suddenly and would send you flying over a ledge. I´m going to have calves of steal by the time I´m done here.

 

My trainer, Elder Barbosa has been on his mission for 18 months and this is only his third area. He says that the last mission president didn´t like moving people a lot, but President Fernandes does. He has actually never watched the Pirates of the Caribbean and really likes music. He said the last president didn´t allow any music, but I´m glad the current one does. Elder Barbosa is always hungry, he really likes pizza.

 

Randoms:

* A guy said that he loved Christ and wanted to become Jewish. I don´t think he believed me when I told him that Jews don´t accept Jesus as the Christ.

* We visit the ward mission leader a lot - he´s really nice and his name is Mazinho.

* We attend noite familiar (FHE) whenever a person invites a non member.

* We were taken to an all you can eat Brazilian BBQ by a return missionary that is a computer programmer.

* One of the questions I get asked the most often is, Estados Unidos?
 

Elder Quain

 

We also got to see our fist baptism this week. It was kind of funny for the interview. The Missionaries weren´t in our area, but we have the closest chapel, so they came to ours for the interview. They needed us there to unlock the chapel. They came with the investigator and they needed their district leader to give the interview. There ended up being 3 sets of missionaries there for the interview. It was fun and I got to see Elder Nelson. We kind of hove our own language right now. A mixture of English and Portuguese. The Baptism was two days latter and there were a lot of people. That should be happening every week. At least that´s the goal.

September 14, 2015 -Ipatinga

I can see Belo Horizonte in every direction.

 

Well, the city I am in is called Ipatinga. For those of you that don´t know Portuguese pronunciations it is Ipachinga phonetically. It has a population of around 1 million people and 7 missionaries (one tripanionship), and it's in the Guinness book of world records for having the most churches in one city in the world. I walked down (up really) one street for 4 minutes and passed 3 churches. There are hills everywhere. They call them morros and I die is said eu morro(rr equals an h sound). I can´t tell if I´m going to gain weight or loose weight. We walk up and down a ton of hills every day, but the people feed us a ton. They eat more than me, if that´s possible. I eat 3 platefuls and they tell me to eat more. One person said I don´t eat enough so I bring them shame. I thought that was funny. The food is really good here though.

 

The people are awesome, few in number, but awesome. They are supper patient with me, especially with the language. They do something on Wednesday night similar to youth activities, but with entire families. I think it´s pretty fun. They also do two Family home evenings a week. One for family and one for the ward. They play games at the event, but I´m at a loss when they try to explain them. There was one where they repeatedly chanted "crack." I got a laugh from my companion when I told him it was a name for a drug in the U.S. One of the guys at noite familiar (FHE) was wearing an Oakland Athletics shirt and I was talking with him. I then told him Oakland was my favorite team and he tried to give me the shirt. I told him that I already had some and he could keep his. The people here are happy with so little.

 

My companion is really nice. To learn the language we kind of talk in this weird mixture of Portuguese and English. It´s annoying when neither of us know a word, or how to explain it. During language study I read the book of Mormon in Portuguese and he reads it in English. He thinks I am a strange American because I am not enamored with McDonalds and I don´t watch professional fútibol Americano (only college). I told him I like watching baseball, but I don´t think that convinced him of my normality.

 

So, I was taking showers and they have the water heater in the shower head. One side says inverno(winter) and the other side says verão(summer). Thinking summer -hot, I set it there. The water didn´t really get warm. It was actually pretty cold, but I though it was just not a good heater. After 3 days I decided to try inverno, just to check. Turns out you´re supposed to put it to the season you are in. I finally got a warm shower.

 

Randoms:

*Two other elders stayed with us last night, but other then that it just us. 

*They have a bunch of ceiling fans installed in the sacrament meeting room.

*McDonalds is better here then in the states.

*My companion has a player and some church music.(life saver)

 

Elder Quain

View from our Apartment in Ipatinga

With ward members

 

 

September 9, 2015 - Arrived in Belo Horizonte!

So, I got my companion, but I´m guessing that you already received the picture. His name is Elder Barbosa. My first thought when I heard his name was the Pirates of the Caribbean. Our area is about 5 hours outside of Belo Horizonte by bus. I´m almost getting used to these long travel days. From what I can understand Barbosa is the district leader. He´s a pretty cool guy, a Brosilato and is trying to learn English. He is pretty good at some of it too. I hope my Portuguese overtakes his English soon, but it is nice that he can explain some things in English. 

New companion - Elder Barbosa!

 

We had a flight yesterday and met the President and his wife. The Fernandes´ are very young. Their oldest child is younger then me. That could be Nate in a few years. They fed us some really good food and Elder Barbosa and I ended up staying in a hotel overnight. We had a long commute time today and I lived off of a loaf of banana bread Sister Fernandes gave me. I ate the whole loaf!

 

I´ve met two people from the ward and they have a ward activity tonight. I guess it´s trial by fire. I can understand as long as people talk slowly and I can hear them clearly, so this is going to be interesting. I just need to remember that as long as I put my trust in the Lord I will be able to learn all I need.

 

Randoms:

*Sorry I don't have my camera, so I´ll give you pictures in my next letter

*This keyboard is in Portuguese so it underlines everything in red and it looks like I have horrible spelling

*After writing the last letter the guys from our district got 17 big cookies and 2 liters of ice cream and ate it all

*We had and in-field orientation and it was about 12 hours long and they spoke only Portuguese.

*They have a parrot at this computer lab

 

Elder Quain

 

Arrived in Belo Horizonte

At the mission home

 

The whole group with new companions.

 

Sister & President Fernandes

September 4, 2015 - São Paulo CTM

Well I´m down to less than one week in the CTM and I'm super excited and a little nervous, but I´m confident the Lord will strengthen me as I work on the language. I still don´t really have a personality in Portuguese, but I feel almost functional in the language, at least on gospel topics. We have the joke that we will be the most obedient missionaries ever because all we know how to talk about well is the gospel. 

My companion, Elder Nelson, and I had some of our best lessons ever this week. He already has a good grasp on the language, but I was able to talk a lot more and express some of my ideas. They decided to throw all three subjunctive tenses at us this week and I think I might understand maybe one. They don't exist in English, there's something like a hypothetical tense in there.

 

Some info on the district; everyone in the group loves to sing and we do it a lot. One of the frequently sung songs for the guys is "Let's Get Down to Business" from Mulan. We have four other people from Texas in our district and no one from Utah. Elder Bowcutt is our district lead and enjoys country music, fishing, and wants to go into medicine. His companion is Elder Freeze and he is really good at piano and likes the band 21 Pilots. Elder Karren is from Ogden and his main talent is knowing everybody. Elder Nelson is from Maryland and is a movie star. (made a movie in college and some how Elder Karren saw it) The favorite movie of our district is Nacho Libre. I have never seen it, but they quote it so much I have started to quote it also.

 

Me weekly randoms:

* I had a dream I went to Disneyland with my family and rode the haunted mansion, but I skipped the corpse bride room in my dream (guess my subconscious doesn´t like it)

* I started ironing this week and got my dry cleaning done.

* I talked with a Brasilato while at the temple and understood him, so there´s hope.

* The guys in the district got shakes and they were really good because I haven't had ice cream since the first day at Provo (July 29)

 

Elder Quain

Elder Hollingshauos & Me

 

August 28, 2015 - São Paulo CTM

First off they don´t allow us to send pictures from the CTM, but I can still receive.

 

The time at the CTM is going really slowly. I want so bad to be out in the field, but I also know this will help me teach more effectively.

 

We did a lot of practice lessons this week. We had two TRC sessions, which is where you teach a member for 30 minutes about a gospel topic. This week was Revelation through the Book of Mormon. They´re always a little interesting, because most of the time we have enough material for about 20 min. and we are so happy when we get a guy that will elaborate on a subject and eat away time. They film these lessons and have us watch them. We end up just laughing at ourselves. I misunderstood one of the guys and handed him the wrong scripture to read. We just all ended up staring at each other in silence for 30 seconds(we counted). We also had two mock first visits and one of them went extremely well. Then we also kept teaching our other mock investigator.

We had an area authority of Brasil come and speak to us. They give us headphones to listen to and translator, but the system doesn't work so well and we get a lot of static. The seventy told us that we need to multiply and replenish the earth and not just one or two. As an example he talked about his grandfather who had 22 children. I guess he means to multiply by 11.

Today we had the chance to go to the São Paulo temple. It is just beautiful on the inside. It's cool to be able to say that I got to go to both temples.

 

Portuguese is coming along pretty well. I like some of the ways they phrase things. One example of this is that instead of asking someone to say a prayer you ask someone to make a prayer. It adds so much more meaning to it. It requires thought and effort to be put into it. One way that Portuguese is bad is it's ruining my spelling of everything.

 

Well I only have one more p-day left in the CTM!

Elder Quain

August 21, 2015 - Saõ Paulo, Brazil CTM

Well, most of this week has been a blur so I'll be using my journal to write this.

On p-days we are allowed to go out and explore a little piece of São Paulo after the temple visit. It is so different from home. None of the streets around us are level at all so you have to pay attention to where you are walking, and the drivers are crazy.

 

Happy Birthday Casey!! August 16th right? I hope I'm right. (almost, it's the 14th)

 

The mission president made a special visit to our district on Monday. He ended up just talking to us, saying how we were special and that we needed to ramp up the use of our language. I don´t think he knew that we had planned an English fast for the next day. The English fast was way harder then any food fast. I was so tempted to say or sing things in English. I have seen an improvement in our districts ability to speak the language since we got here.

 

During a devotional that was given this week I had the thought of the importance of the intent behind an action. after thinking about it for a while it hit me, even Laman and Lemuel were obedient to their father, the prophet. That just reinforced the importance of intent of an action.

 

We were able to go out and proselyte this week and it was really cool. Funny thing, three of the people we ended up talking with spoke English. Made me think of the best two years. Some of the people seemed really interested and started reading the Book of Mormon as we walked away. We recommended for them to read the introduction and Alma chapter 32.

 

The bus ride getting there was an adventure. People here have a different perception of personal space with people and with cars. You're standing up in the bus the whole time, never get over about 45km/h, but it made me jump a little. One of the guys made the joke that he couldn't believe the bus driver left a whole 5 inches in-between the two cars.

 

Random things:

• We are all able to understand the Brasilian roommates a lot better now
• "Our Search for Happiness" is a great book
• It turns out Elder Karren´s brother brought the family of one of our roommates back into the church.
• The track here is tiny, one lap probably wouldn't even reach from my house to the Carrs or Wittes, but I'm having a lot of fun playing volleyball.
• I´m getting used to sleeping with a fan on.

 

Elder Quain

August 14, 2015 - Saõ Paulo, Brazil CTM

Touched down in Saõ Paulo, and there´s a little different feel to Brasil, but hasn´t really hit me that I´m in another country yet. We have a few different rules here. One is that you only get 45 minutes for email. not super exciting. The other one is that we are allowed to go out into a little area of SP on P-day! I´m really excited to explore the area. The food here is so much better then the food at the Provo MTC, that's probably because they only have to cook for about 250 people instead of 2700. Also, they have places for you to study outside surrounded by palm trees and exotic plants. I feel like I´m at a resort, with a strict schedual and a lot of studying.

 

The flight here was super long. Some surprising things happened. First off one of the elders saw his girlfriend from back home, crazy coincidence. their flight left from the terminal next to ours. Secondly, I somehow got the comfort class for the 10 hour leg of the flight along with two other missionaries. I am so thankful for the extra leg room. Lastly, I ended up sitting next to a Mormon woman that spoke both Portuguese and English, and had a niece serving in Belo Horizonte. Also, each of the seats had a touch screen so you could view a map of the world and your flight. It was cool and I tried to find the places where all the missionaries I know are serving. It also had games. There was one for learning languages and I did the entire one for Portuguese in like 20 minutes. Then, I played Sudoku and mahjong. I felt like I shouldn´t watch a movie, but then the person in front of me was watching the Book of Life with subtitles and I now know every thing that happens in that movie except how the voices sound.

 

There is a lot more immersion in the language here, but not total syl. The zone is trying to do a zone wide English fast on Monday though. I can already tell that I´m going to learn the language so much faster and better here.

 

We still have a very similar district, same companion and we only lost one of our old roommates. We now have two new Brasilian roommates that don´t speak any English. It has been interesting and we have had a lot of really slow, long and simple conversations. I think it is one of the ways they are trying to help us improve our Portuguese.

 

My companions favorite time is snack time. At 9 p.m. they come around to all the classrooms and hand out juice boxes and Brasilian candy. It´s pretty good. The fruit is so good here. On the first night they made pizza, it wasn´t at all like the ones we have at home, but it was really good. One of my favorites was the dessert pizza. It had chocolate, icing and super sweet bananas. And every breakfast they have fresh homemade bread rolls.

 

We were able to go to the Campinas temple today. It´s about 1.5 hours away, so I was able to get some studying in along with seeing the city and some sleep. The city is huge!!!! and filled with sky scrapers as far as the eye can see. The view from our room is amazing. It is especially beautiful at sunset. We are 5 stories up and there are two more above us. I have never done so many stairs in my life. And I´ve only been here three days.

 

The track here makes me laugh a little. I don´t think it can be more than 100 meters. I end up spending most of the time playing volleyball, because there are no Frisbees and we are not allowed to play soccer. They say it's because the Brasillians take it too seriously and things can get violent and people get hurt.

 

Elder Quain

 

P.S. I am writing this on a Portuguese key board, so it has all the accent marks on it and a few keys switched around.

Elders Nelson-Karren-Santos-Hollingshauos-Quain

 

August 12, 2015 - Brazil CTM - Centro de Treinamento Missionario

Hi,

They are letting us send an email saying we are alive and well. It was a long travel day. By the time we had arrived in our new room it had been 24 hours since we left our old room. Sao Paulo is giant. There are huge buildings rising up everywhere. We still have pretty much the same group in the residence as we had in Provo, minus Elder Nielson. Oh, I still have all my bags, I think I forgot one of my shampoos, but I'm doing fine. Was able to take a nap. The beds are a little small, but that's to be expected. I like the food here better then the Provo MTC so far. It is so much fresher and doesn´t weigh you down.

 

Well thats about all my new news,

Elder Quain

August 10, 2015 - Provo MTC

Well, this week has been a blur, but I'll try to write what I can remember. To start off we have had many more mock discussions and it kind of is a rollercoaster on how well I do with the language. It is difficult but I am seeing improvement. It was kind of fun to find out that our first mock investigator became our second teacher. The hard part about it was that I'm pretty sure he only said maybe 5 words in english the entire 3 hour lesson. Surprisingly I was able to understand most of it, saying anything was another matter. I have mixed feelings, I can't wait to get out in the field, but I'm happy I still have 4 weeks to learn the language, or as much as possible.

On Tuesday Elder Nelson gave a devotional here. We got there early, but didn't make it into the room and had to watch from a different room. You pretty much had to be in the choir to make it in, but it was still a good talk.

The most different day is Sunday. We are able to take a break from studying. We still hah more that 3 hours, but we also got to walk to the temple and go to church. It was fun walking the temple with all the guys in my district. It's the last big event we got to do as a whole district. At sacrament meeting they randomly call on two missionaries from our branch to speak in Portuguese. They expect everyone to prepare a lesson, which I did, but I am so glad I wasn't called on. The talk assignment was obedience and my vocab is limited to " God gave us commandments to protect us."

We went to a missionary travel seminar to prepare us to head out to SP. It wasn't supposed to be memorable, but there was around 400 people there and they asked people from the congregation to speak. The guy in front of me and my companion volunteered. They proceeded to put a camera on him which caught me and my companion in the view. Simply put neither of us know how to act naturally. We had quite a few people cracking up as we tried to hide from the camera. I guess we lightened the mood a little. After that we went to dinner and it was better then normal, tostadas. I saw Sister Carr and we said bye. She's heading up to the Kobe, Japan mission and I know she'll do great. Then we had a devotional and watched a talk from President Utchdorf. His talk was really good and talked about the long term affect of missionary work bringing families together. Me and my companion sat down and I noticed we were right next to Elder Abernethy. He is just super positive and seems to be loving the language (Russian), then I went to sleep.

Random thoughts:

• I'm getting used to shaving every day
• I'm not as tired as I was last week 
• About to leave the country for the first time
• I want to know more of the language to be a more effective servant of the Lord
• Apparently I am doing good scripture study, because my roommates caught me asking, how something came to pass? 
• And I'm not really used to being in a classroom this long, I was just sitting there and the Newsies song Santa Fe kept popping into my head "I want space, or just air. give me wind in my face I don't care." this kind of made me laugh.

Elder Quain

Elder Quain's Provo MTC district