Looks like Tahoe was an adventure!! I'm looking forward to all the letters. And hoping that some new pictures will be included.
So Milton's family is doing great. The two kids are more than likely going to be baptized this next weekend. At least that's the idea. Also his wife (who works one sunday and has the other off) is progressing too. Also we are going to get two couples married here pretty soon, and once they are married, só agua. (just water, missionary thing)
So you could say that the work is going really well. The ward is really starting to get more and more excited. Also we are planning two activities for this next month, a talent show, and an American Day for our english class students. They are going to be really great. We are working really hard on reactivating people too.
So we have a goal of having an average attendance of 220 people, so that we can split the ward. In March of next year all the wards in Mauá that are ready will be split, two other wards already are ready, another one is close, and ours is the farthest. Our average attendance is apparently 135, but I have yet to see that many people at church. Yesterday was probably the best Sunday yet and it was only 125. But we still have 8 months to get the ward ready. Totally possible.
The camera is awesome, it works just perfectally. So for the next package, I have two requests and they are actually for other people. If it wasn't too expensive, another pedometer would be nice, and also a mini hymnal. If possible that would be great. Other than that I don't have any requests. The rain jacket, I'll keep looking around a little. But if I don't find one soon I'll let you know.
So are you paying for the 3G through verizon? Or can you do it through AT&T too? And I already have heard of many companionships in the US testing iPads out. They would be incredibly useful.
Well I'm doing great, things with Elder Simpson are really going well, this is kind of turning into the peak of my mission so far. I'm really excited.
Oh and we are going to have interviews with President this week. He is coming to our house, so we have been cleaning up and doing some little upgrades, so also I am now living in the best house I have been in, too.
Well until next week. Eu amo todos vocês.
com amor,
Elder Cameron Bruce
Sao Paulo
My Home For the Next Two Years
Monday, July 30, 2012
July 23, 2012
Well, every once and awhile on P-day I get to take a nap. But not always, not as often as I would like. Like today I am dead tired, from a service project that we did on Saturday. We helped the Elder's quorum president move some bricks around so he can do some construction. The bricks are very different here. It's not like American bricks. Maybe you can look them up online. Pretty much all of the houses here are made of this weird brick that has like 6 hollow holes that go through them. It was exhausting. My back is killing me. But it was fun and nice to help out.
Elder Simpson is great. He was companions with Elder Perrell too. It's funny, Elder Perrell is in the same zone as four of his companions. And two of his companions are companions right now. There is a strange companionship circle going on here. Today Elder Simpson and I stopped by the office to pick up Elder Simpson's suit coat which he left in his last area, then we left in search of a Subway. After about 45 minutes of wandering and asking directions we found one (almost no one actually knows what a Subway is). It was quite delicious. You would probably be surprised that now I eat all my sandwiches loaded up with vegetables and such. I've finally grown up. And we also discovered a Starbucks in São Paulo, it was the first one I have seen. I took a picture. It made me think of home and Seattle.
Great news!! Milton was baptized and it was great!! The ward mission leader actually baptized him, but I ran the meeting and Simpson gave the message so we were still involved. It was funny when the ward mission leader was actually performing the baptism, he forgot the words and just tried to make them up. I had to stop him and correct him. He is a little more experienced in terms of years. He is a really funny guy though. Milton also took the oppurtunity to bear his testimony and to encourage his children to really look into the gospel with more intent. Now our focus is the rest of his family.
So all the packages arrived. Thank you very much. The camera is perfect. Unfortunately I couldn't get the ball to Elder Kolb because he got transferred. But we'll figure something out. The sudoku in the newspaper was a diabolical level. A little beyond me, especially out of practice like I am. I also had no chance against the crossword puzzle. The article about the Manaus temple was really cool.
Someone told me about the incident with the Batman movie. It's really shocking news, and really unfortunate. I only heard from members though, nothing in the newspapers or anything, but then again I don't really read them, just look at the covers as I pass and the covers are always full of stuff about soccer.
'Mountain of the Lord' is a good one. I like it a lot. I have used pretty much all of the movies except the ones that are only in English. They are great for family nights and recent converts. So a huge bummer is that in our apartment someone lost the charging cord for the DVD player, so we can't listen to CD's or watch DVDs. I have asked for a new one or some other solution about a million times. But the DVD players were kind of a gift from president and aren't actually mission material so they aren't so easy to replace.
Recently the weather here has warmed up. It has been sunny and around 70 degrees recently. Although I am thinking about buying a light rain jacket or something. My coat is a little to heavy and warm to wear around when its raining, I start sweating underneath. But then I get really wet in just a sweater. So I'll keep an eye out for a good deal, which is almost impossible in this country. You would think things here are cheap, but they're not. Everything seems more expensive. Especially if it is American, or looks American.
Quick question, did you get the iPad 4 or 3 or 2 or 1? I saw an iPad 4 the other day. The stake president has one (which means he is LOADED, they are NOT cheap here, like 3 times the price) and it was super cool. He took a picture of an elder and sent it to his mom on the spot to just show off.
Oh by the way, Elder Simpson is from Ellensburg, not Puyallup. Whoops.
Well that's all the news for this week. This transfer has started off super well. I hope it continues that way. Have fun in California. Até mais.
com amor,
Elder Cameron Bruce
Elder Simpson is great. He was companions with Elder Perrell too. It's funny, Elder Perrell is in the same zone as four of his companions. And two of his companions are companions right now. There is a strange companionship circle going on here. Today Elder Simpson and I stopped by the office to pick up Elder Simpson's suit coat which he left in his last area, then we left in search of a Subway. After about 45 minutes of wandering and asking directions we found one (almost no one actually knows what a Subway is). It was quite delicious. You would probably be surprised that now I eat all my sandwiches loaded up with vegetables and such. I've finally grown up. And we also discovered a Starbucks in São Paulo, it was the first one I have seen. I took a picture. It made me think of home and Seattle.
Great news!! Milton was baptized and it was great!! The ward mission leader actually baptized him, but I ran the meeting and Simpson gave the message so we were still involved. It was funny when the ward mission leader was actually performing the baptism, he forgot the words and just tried to make them up. I had to stop him and correct him. He is a little more experienced in terms of years. He is a really funny guy though. Milton also took the oppurtunity to bear his testimony and to encourage his children to really look into the gospel with more intent. Now our focus is the rest of his family.
So all the packages arrived. Thank you very much. The camera is perfect. Unfortunately I couldn't get the ball to Elder Kolb because he got transferred. But we'll figure something out. The sudoku in the newspaper was a diabolical level. A little beyond me, especially out of practice like I am. I also had no chance against the crossword puzzle. The article about the Manaus temple was really cool.
Someone told me about the incident with the Batman movie. It's really shocking news, and really unfortunate. I only heard from members though, nothing in the newspapers or anything, but then again I don't really read them, just look at the covers as I pass and the covers are always full of stuff about soccer.
'Mountain of the Lord' is a good one. I like it a lot. I have used pretty much all of the movies except the ones that are only in English. They are great for family nights and recent converts. So a huge bummer is that in our apartment someone lost the charging cord for the DVD player, so we can't listen to CD's or watch DVDs. I have asked for a new one or some other solution about a million times. But the DVD players were kind of a gift from president and aren't actually mission material so they aren't so easy to replace.
Recently the weather here has warmed up. It has been sunny and around 70 degrees recently. Although I am thinking about buying a light rain jacket or something. My coat is a little to heavy and warm to wear around when its raining, I start sweating underneath. But then I get really wet in just a sweater. So I'll keep an eye out for a good deal, which is almost impossible in this country. You would think things here are cheap, but they're not. Everything seems more expensive. Especially if it is American, or looks American.
Quick question, did you get the iPad 4 or 3 or 2 or 1? I saw an iPad 4 the other day. The stake president has one (which means he is LOADED, they are NOT cheap here, like 3 times the price) and it was super cool. He took a picture of an elder and sent it to his mom on the spot to just show off.
Oh by the way, Elder Simpson is from Ellensburg, not Puyallup. Whoops.
Well that's all the news for this week. This transfer has started off super well. I hope it continues that way. Have fun in California. Até mais.
com amor,
Elder Cameron Bruce
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
July 16, 2012
REPLY TO DAD:
I was never really that sick, no reason to worry. I just felt crummy for a while. The only reason it kind of stunk was because I was still working and couldn't just lay around like I normally do when I don't feel good. I'm fine now though. No problems.
Does the senior Bishop get paid more? You should look into that.
Oh, about writing letters back, the issue is I don't have an address (and I seem to forget every week). I'll just send the letters to the home address and you can pass them along. They're going to be sent this week though.
Tell the ward Hi.
Well off to Mom's email.
Elder Bruce
Does the senior Bishop get paid more? You should look into that.
Oh, about writing letters back, the issue is I don't have an address (and I seem to forget every week). I'll just send the letters to the home address and you can pass them along. They're going to be sent this week though.
Tell the ward Hi.
Well off to Mom's email.
Elder Bruce
REPLY TO MOM:
So as I told Dad, I am doing just fine. No more sickness. I'm not sure what it was. Honestly I'm probably taking care of my body the best I have in my life, and I seem to get sick more often now? Weird. Oh well. But no worries, I'm fine. If I had to go the hospital it would have been no problem. We all have medical insurance, we just flash the card and they will take care of us. Everyone says its like the best insurance in Brasil.
I don't know what happened to the email last week. I sent it right after the other one. We had to use a computer at a member's house, because all the lan houses were closed because it was a holiday last Monday.
Jordon Helmer, is that Breanna's boyfriend? Are they still dating?
Umm our next zone conference should be soon. I didn't look at the sulcessinho (newsletter & schedule) yet.
Oh I forgot, tomorrow is transfers, Elder Kolb is leaving and going to Parque Bristol. My companion will be Elder Simspon, I already met him a few times. He is from Puyallup. He has to have about 1 year and 3 months or so. I'm not sure.
Yeah, it's kind of hard to forget when you hit milestones like that. DOUBLE DIGITS. I still feel like I just left the MTC, like I'm still a kid in the mission.
Parabens pra você, parabens pra você, nesse data querida, parabens pra você. The happy birthday song is really similar. But different. It's also always accompanied by clapping.
Katie is not allowed to use my room. It's just not right. And if she does, no girl-ifying it.
So Milton was interviewed and will be baptized this next Sunday. His son also went to church with him on Sunday. His family is really our focus right now. We are really going to try and use his baptism to get the rest of his family more interested and going to church. Other than him it is just a few other people that aren't really close to baptism yet. Lots of people are just nice enough to let you in one time and teach them, but then they really don't want more. But they usually won't just tell you, so you have to try and catch them in the house and give them what I call the DTR lesson. DTR is something I stole from Utah dating, known as Defining the relationship. It's basically the lesson, where you have to be a little blunt and to the point and see if the person really wants to hear more or not. I actually love those types of lessons. I don't know why. I think it's because they end up being a lot more serious, and you can really find the people who are interested.
We knock doors pretty much everyday. Lot's of appointments fall through and we usually knock doors or visit old investigators when the appoinment falls through. Also the mission goal is 140 contacts for every companionship every week. So we usually try and do 20 a day. Which is sometimes harder than you would think. Contacts are both fun and annoying. It really depends on who you end up talking to. They really are helping me with my patience though. Sometimes people just try to argue. Also a lot of churches here have people kind of brainwashed. I can already tell what church the person goes to when they walk up and say their first sentence to me. They have lots of empty sayings that their pastors tell them, but they don't even really know what they are saying. Sometimes I have to really bite my lip.
Well that's all for this week. Next week another transfer will have already started.
Woot
Love
Elder Cameron Bruce
I don't know what happened to the email last week. I sent it right after the other one. We had to use a computer at a member's house, because all the lan houses were closed because it was a holiday last Monday.
Jordon Helmer, is that Breanna's boyfriend? Are they still dating?
Umm our next zone conference should be soon. I didn't look at the sulcessinho (newsletter & schedule) yet.
Oh I forgot, tomorrow is transfers, Elder Kolb is leaving and going to Parque Bristol. My companion will be Elder Simspon, I already met him a few times. He is from Puyallup. He has to have about 1 year and 3 months or so. I'm not sure.
Yeah, it's kind of hard to forget when you hit milestones like that. DOUBLE DIGITS. I still feel like I just left the MTC, like I'm still a kid in the mission.
Parabens pra você, parabens pra você, nesse data querida, parabens pra você. The happy birthday song is really similar. But different. It's also always accompanied by clapping.
Katie is not allowed to use my room. It's just not right. And if she does, no girl-ifying it.
So Milton was interviewed and will be baptized this next Sunday. His son also went to church with him on Sunday. His family is really our focus right now. We are really going to try and use his baptism to get the rest of his family more interested and going to church. Other than him it is just a few other people that aren't really close to baptism yet. Lots of people are just nice enough to let you in one time and teach them, but then they really don't want more. But they usually won't just tell you, so you have to try and catch them in the house and give them what I call the DTR lesson. DTR is something I stole from Utah dating, known as Defining the relationship. It's basically the lesson, where you have to be a little blunt and to the point and see if the person really wants to hear more or not. I actually love those types of lessons. I don't know why. I think it's because they end up being a lot more serious, and you can really find the people who are interested.
We knock doors pretty much everyday. Lot's of appointments fall through and we usually knock doors or visit old investigators when the appoinment falls through. Also the mission goal is 140 contacts for every companionship every week. So we usually try and do 20 a day. Which is sometimes harder than you would think. Contacts are both fun and annoying. It really depends on who you end up talking to. They really are helping me with my patience though. Sometimes people just try to argue. Also a lot of churches here have people kind of brainwashed. I can already tell what church the person goes to when they walk up and say their first sentence to me. They have lots of empty sayings that their pastors tell them, but they don't even really know what they are saying. Sometimes I have to really bite my lip.
Well that's all for this week. Next week another transfer will have already started.
Woot
Love
Elder Cameron Bruce
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
July 9, 2012
FROM MOM:
On
Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 12:52 AM, Lyle and Jerralyn Bruce <gljhbruce@yahoo.com> wrote:
|
Dear
Elder Bruce,
Yes, I got an iPad for my birthday . .
Elder Bruce replies:
|
That's soooooooo
sweet!!!!!!!
Well, this week hasn't been so great,
I've been sick all week. I woke up one morning with a bad stomach ache and we
didn't even leave the house that day. I threw up a few times too. WHOOT. Fun
stuff. Then I felt better the next day and we went out to work. But since then
my stomach has been giving me some issues. It's just kind of upset constantly.
I also haven't been able to eat as much. So much for the weight I was starting
to put on. I had gotten up to almost 150 lbs.
Other than that though I am doing fine. We are teaching a few people but the only one really progressing is Milton, and he is progressing slowly. We can't figure out why he doesn't want to be baptized yet. We have taught him everything. He goes to church every week. He helped in a service project with a less active. And on Sunday we had little meetings about how we can help less actives come back to church and he was probably the most involved and excited. It was strange because he really understands the difference that the gospel is making in his life, but for some reason he keeps pushing back his baptism. We'll have to figure that out. We are going by there tomorrow. Also I forgot to say that last week I blessed the sacrament for the first time in Portugues. It went fine. No problems, even though the blessings use very old and formal Portugues. I guess that's what I'm always reading in the scriptures though. Quite a few people that we talk to ask if I'm Brazilian now. I don't know if it's because Elder Kolb has blond hair and really blue eyes, and then they look at me, and I'm not quite as American looking or whatever. But it does make me feel good about my Portugues.
Ummm. The package hasn't arrived yet. It should be getting here soon though.
I had already heard about the Tahoe trip from a few people. I approve the trip. As long as the family cruise waits for me to be back. Ok?
Well I can't think of much more to say. I don't have any big exciting stories from this week.
So until next time. Tchau tchau, te amo.
Elder Cameron Wayne Bruce
Other than that though I am doing fine. We are teaching a few people but the only one really progressing is Milton, and he is progressing slowly. We can't figure out why he doesn't want to be baptized yet. We have taught him everything. He goes to church every week. He helped in a service project with a less active. And on Sunday we had little meetings about how we can help less actives come back to church and he was probably the most involved and excited. It was strange because he really understands the difference that the gospel is making in his life, but for some reason he keeps pushing back his baptism. We'll have to figure that out. We are going by there tomorrow. Also I forgot to say that last week I blessed the sacrament for the first time in Portugues. It went fine. No problems, even though the blessings use very old and formal Portugues. I guess that's what I'm always reading in the scriptures though. Quite a few people that we talk to ask if I'm Brazilian now. I don't know if it's because Elder Kolb has blond hair and really blue eyes, and then they look at me, and I'm not quite as American looking or whatever. But it does make me feel good about my Portugues.
Ummm. The package hasn't arrived yet. It should be getting here soon though.
I had already heard about the Tahoe trip from a few people. I approve the trip. As long as the family cruise waits for me to be back. Ok?
Well I can't think of much more to say. I don't have any big exciting stories from this week.
So until next time. Tchau tchau, te amo.
Elder Cameron Wayne Bruce
Monday, July 2, 2012
July 2, 2012
I might need to find those talks that say the constitution and declaration of independence were inspired to show to some Brazilians that like to mess with me about the US. Haha. There are some really cool members in the ward. They really help us, and lunches with some of them are the best. Next Monday we planned a family night at the house of one of them and invited the rest over. That should be a really cool night. There should be a few less activies there that we are trying to get re-integrated in the ward.
Yes one night we did sleep up on the veranda, it is actually the fourth floor of our apartment. It was waaayyyyy cooler out there. I slept out there every once and a while on P days during the day too.
The picture with a bunch of missionaries is a Zone Meeting in Diadema. The difference between Zone meeting and conference is that conferences usually have a couple of zones that meet together with President. Zone meetings are just your zone and are much more common, like one every other week or so. Actually here in Mauá it's every week because the zone is so small we just all meet together.
The big white building is the church. It is divided into two buildings with just a little corridor connecting them. The building on the left used to be the old chapel, but they remodeled it, expanded it, and turned it all into classrooms, and the other building has the chapel and the cultural hall. Also there is a soccer quart outside that doubles as parking. The Chapel here in Mauá is enormous though. I'll send some pictures soon.
NOOO I did not touch that dog. It was pretty gross and I was sure it was dying but it was there the whole time I was. There are definitely no leash laws here. At least not outdoors. There aren't as many dogs here in Mauá as there were in Diadema. But there are still a ton.
That large family is actually two families. There is Patrick who is a young convert that always helped us out, and his mom Magna, she also is a recent convert. Also Magna's sister was there with her daughter, and also another family that Magna works with was there. The other missionaries were J. Santos, and Souza who we lived with. It was kind of on the way home and they stopped by just to pick up the snacks.
I think the cup picture is the one where I'm hiding what's on the cup with a napkin, correct? If so, that was at that same family night, I was hiding the Corinthians logo, which is a soccer team here which is a rival of my team, Santos.
I live right across the street from a big catholic church. But it doesn't look like a cathedral or anything. It actually kind of looks like they used bathroom tile to cover the outside. We all have our own tastes right?
So when you get transferred what happens is you need to get to Jabaquara. Which is where the main metro line starts and where a ton of buses leave to go to the baixada. So if you look up the Sao Paulo metro system or something and find a map, you should see about 15 lines all crossing each other and going all over the place. There are three types of transports in the Metro system; a subway, a light rail (train), and bus. To get from Mauá to anywhere we just grab the train and meet up with the metro. That's how we got to the temple too. Technically the temple is outside our mission. But it's so close that President lets us go every once and a while.
So in the mission you burn a tie at 6 months. I was going to burn one I stained pretty bad, but another Elder wanted it for some reason so he gave me an ugly zip up one to burn. At one year you burn a shirt and you are supposed to burn a suit at a year, but that one is a stretch. Oh and pants at 18 months.
Well that's all for this week. Not much special happened this week. I guess that's good and bad. Até semana que vem. Tchau tchau
Elder Cameron Bruce
Yes one night we did sleep up on the veranda, it is actually the fourth floor of our apartment. It was waaayyyyy cooler out there. I slept out there every once and a while on P days during the day too.
The picture with a bunch of missionaries is a Zone Meeting in Diadema. The difference between Zone meeting and conference is that conferences usually have a couple of zones that meet together with President. Zone meetings are just your zone and are much more common, like one every other week or so. Actually here in Mauá it's every week because the zone is so small we just all meet together.
The big white building is the church. It is divided into two buildings with just a little corridor connecting them. The building on the left used to be the old chapel, but they remodeled it, expanded it, and turned it all into classrooms, and the other building has the chapel and the cultural hall. Also there is a soccer quart outside that doubles as parking. The Chapel here in Mauá is enormous though. I'll send some pictures soon.
NOOO I did not touch that dog. It was pretty gross and I was sure it was dying but it was there the whole time I was. There are definitely no leash laws here. At least not outdoors. There aren't as many dogs here in Mauá as there were in Diadema. But there are still a ton.
That large family is actually two families. There is Patrick who is a young convert that always helped us out, and his mom Magna, she also is a recent convert. Also Magna's sister was there with her daughter, and also another family that Magna works with was there. The other missionaries were J. Santos, and Souza who we lived with. It was kind of on the way home and they stopped by just to pick up the snacks.
I think the cup picture is the one where I'm hiding what's on the cup with a napkin, correct? If so, that was at that same family night, I was hiding the Corinthians logo, which is a soccer team here which is a rival of my team, Santos.
I live right across the street from a big catholic church. But it doesn't look like a cathedral or anything. It actually kind of looks like they used bathroom tile to cover the outside. We all have our own tastes right?
So when you get transferred what happens is you need to get to Jabaquara. Which is where the main metro line starts and where a ton of buses leave to go to the baixada. So if you look up the Sao Paulo metro system or something and find a map, you should see about 15 lines all crossing each other and going all over the place. There are three types of transports in the Metro system; a subway, a light rail (train), and bus. To get from Mauá to anywhere we just grab the train and meet up with the metro. That's how we got to the temple too. Technically the temple is outside our mission. But it's so close that President lets us go every once and a while.
So in the mission you burn a tie at 6 months. I was going to burn one I stained pretty bad, but another Elder wanted it for some reason so he gave me an ugly zip up one to burn. At one year you burn a shirt and you are supposed to burn a suit at a year, but that one is a stretch. Oh and pants at 18 months.
Well that's all for this week. Not much special happened this week. I guess that's good and bad. Até semana que vem. Tchau tchau
Elder Cameron Bruce
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)