Na pé do Castelão

Hello everybody! So this week was a little lackluster  because of a cold I got, as well as getting to know a new BIG area. In answer to Mom´s question, there is a poor part and a super rich part... but they are very divided... a lot of undeveloped space being used for new houses. We are also very close to the stadium that will be used for various Confederations Cup and World Cup games. They will start having big teams coming here the 15th of June... and there will be a Mexico Brazil match during the World Cup... so this area will be kind of crazy when the time comes.

So, we got to know  Vanuza and Naldo on Monday night (they would be members but are waiting for a divorce process to finish). They showed us around a little in their part, and we met Franklin and Lucicleide. We ended up marking their wedding on Friday, which also took a lot of time.

Tuesday, we got a call from an ex-investigator who wanted to receive the lessons again. We had already planned on finding him, since he was already in the area book. We talked a little with him and the discussion turned to how the Gospel can help in all aspects of life. Christ gave us the Gospel to apply his Atonement in our lives... so if we do what the scriptures and the prophets say, we can be happy!

The rest of the week, we tried to get a feel for the area. This first week, we already had lunch with the Bishop, Stake President and one of his counselors, so we pretty much know a lot of the people e need to. 

Sunday, my companion and I both spoke in sacrament meeting (a catastrophe occurred and yeah...) so Elder F. Silva spoke on the Scriptures, and I spoke about Preaching the Gospel through Service (continuing on the lesson during priesthood form Elder Holland’s talk about Peter). We pleased the leadership with well-thought out talks on short notice. That will be our biggest challenge here in Veneza. GETTING THE MEMBERS TO WORK WITH US! It’s a problem in the whole stake, but I think we can manage it with activities and other things to excite/activate people.

Well that was my week... so until next week!

Elder Cornwell

View out the apartment window towards the soccer stadium where several World Cup games will be played

Tá puxado!

Hello everybody! So I have about no time, so I´m just sending this off to let you know that I´m alive!

This week went pretty fast, and we ended with Ronald´s baptism. It was a big service and Ronald was super happy to be able to finally live the commandments!

Other than that, transfers were today, and we were surprised, and I was transferred (I would have loved to finish my mission in Novo Oriente) and so know I am in Veneza (Serrinha on Google maps) in Estaca Castelão, with Elder F.Silva from Guarulhos São Paulo. He is the only member in his family, so I think we will have good experiences sharing the gospel together. We are opening up the area, and I am the DL of the elders that live below us in the apartment complex. So I´ve got a lot of work to do today! My old comp Elder Gonçalves was here last transfer, so he filled me in on the details of what was coming up... sounds like we have a lot to do this transfer (the next 2 and a half for me I´m hoping)

Welp, that’s it for this week. Love you all!

Elder Cornwell

A friend of Kyle's posted this on Facebook...and I stole it.

Cansado cansado cansado!

Hello everybody! So our week was pretty busy (I feel like I say that every week). Our first part was kind of slow, but the end of the week was just brutal!

So Tuesday, we were able to catch Expedito at home since he had been sick. He said that he now feels that he needs to be baptized, but he still wants a little more confidence in himself.  The rest of the afternoon, we had little luck, but at night, we did some visits with Erijohnson. We visited Ronald and his family, and his mother said she would let him be baptized if his father approved. The only problem is that is dad works far away and would only be home on Sunday. Afterwards, we talked with a young man named Moises, and we gave a Book of Mormon that we had promised, and marked to meet with him again.

Wednesday, we had a zone training that talked a lot about planning and the area book. Afterwards, I had a division with Elder Whitby (from Pasco) and we tried to find new people to te4ach, but most of our references were busy or just weren´t interested. But we did contact one reference with great success. We were contacting a reference from Gleice, who didn´t actually live at the address we were given, so we went to talk to her just to make sure we weren´t mixed up. So we go and she says ´´Elders! How good it is you´re here! My friend asked me to bring you to her house as soon as possible!´´ So obviously, we went! We got to know Monique, who was generally disappointed with her religion and decided she would no longer go for the friendship she had there. She prayed for guidance, and remembered the time she had spoken with missionaries before, so asked Gleice to send us over. She said she had prayed for guidance and we had gotten there the same day, when Gleice said she had no way to communicate with us. Monique was overcome by the feeling that she was doing the right thing listening to us.

Thursday, we taught Julianna again, but she had forgotten most of what we had taught the first time, and seemed disinterested in our message. At night we talked with Ronald again to see if he was able to talk to his dad.

Friday was when we started into the grind.  We went to about 10 houses and we only managed to talk to Monique again. 

Saturday, we got back at it, and we started off talking with Lucas and Jonaton about the gift of the Holy Ghost and the priesthood to prepare them for Sunday. We spent the rest of the day fighting for new people to teach, but we had much difficulty! I think we tried to visit at least 20 different people this day. But we did talk to Luiz, a 91 year old man, whose son is coming back from the mission next week. Luiz is just waiting for him to get back to be baptized, so we just talked a little about the preparation until then.

Sunday, we had fast and testimony meeting, and a sister from Ala 2 shared an experience from the night before that impressed me. We had ran into her the night before and she put it this way ´´I went to rent a movie and was heading home to watch it. When I got to my street, I saw some people going to a birthday party, some teenagers on the sidewalk chatting, other people drinking, and I saw the Elders, obviously very tired. I greeted them with a ´´How is everything?´´ and they said ´´We´re hanging in there... but no one has time for God anymore´. I kept thinking about what they had said, and when I got home, I threw the movie far away, put on a church CD and read the lesson for tomorrow´s class´´ I was impressed that by something we had said (that we normally never say!) we were able to help someone come a little closer to God. The whole point of the ´´Real Growth´´ the church leaders are emphasizing is that a drug-addict and a bishop both need to come closer to God in every moment. It is by the little things we do (visits, preparing lessons, following up on assignments) that we do that. We can´t expect to do big things if we aren´t willing to do the small things!

Welp, that was our week. Pretty beefy, but we´re hoping next will be better!

Love, Elder Cornwell

Conferência!

Hello everybody! So another super quick week, with much less interruptions than normal, which went well for us!

Tuesday, we did our weekly planning to try some new things with the ward to see if we could get things to jump start here. So we started off talking with the bishops asking them for two kinds of references... actually three. New investigators, less actives and members who have lots of potential references! So we started applying the whole ´´Ask everyone for a reference´´ thing, since contacts are a lot easier to do when you are looking for a friend or neighbor. But during the afternoon, we went and talked to Michele and Ribamar again, and Michele discovered that her mother had taken her Book of Mormon to read, so we gladly gave her a new one so her mother could have one as well.

Wednesday, we had district meeting and I gave the training on revelation through prayer. I talked a lot about our preparation to help our investigators have real intent when praying for a confirmation of our message. We can plan a lot on how and what we will teach to help touch what is really needed by our listeners. We talked with Ribamar and Michele again, as well as Lucas and his brother Rodrigues. We are working with them little by little to get to the point Rodrigues will actually sit down and listen to us. We ran after a bunch of other people, but we didn´t manage to talk to most the references we got.

Thursday we had an awesome experience with our new efforts. We received a reference from a member (Mila) who said she had dreamed about a friend of hers that morning. So she gave us her address and we went there. So we went to Julianna´s house, and she was at the door already, and was very surprised to see us. So, we talked a bit about her life and religious background, and we began to gave a message of the restoration. At the end when we invited her to pray about our message, she told us that she didn´t actually live at that house, but she was feeling really down and felt she should go to her mother´s house, and when she did, we showed up. She had told us earlier that God answers her prayers, many times, through words of other people. We affirmed that what had happened was exactly that, and we were there to help her find joy in the Restored Gospel. Afterwards, we told Mila, and she was so excited, that she gave us another reference to see what could happen.

Friday was less eventful, since we had to go to the Federal Police for Elder Curl to get his ID. Then we hit traffic and we spent maybe 4 hours on the bus going home.

Then Saturday and Sunday, we watched conference and we went after a ton of people to try to let them hear the voice of the prophet! But most people just didn´t seem too interested in something like that. But we did have some very good talks. I actually thought Saturday Afternoon flew very well. Elder Cardon spoke about the way of the Lord and Elder Bednar completed his talk about the Law of Chastity. Those two together made me think that God is kind of like a GPS. We can follow him and His set path, but some people don´t want to be ´limited´ by his path, and would rather go right instead of left. So instead of having an easy and fast path, we many times enter into a street labeled ´Do not Enter´ and BAM, we run into a garbage truck. So we should just follow with faith that the path God has given us is the right one. Even though there may appear obstacles, just trust that it is the way we should go.

So that was my week!

Love Elder Cornwell

Street during rainstorm

Red Shirt is Erijohnson, our Ward Mission Leader, the guy next to me is Andre, a Young Men President.  The one wearing Elder Curl's tag is Alexandre

Gleice, who just returned from her mission, me, Eri Johnson, Alexandre and Elder Curl