My Crazy Week

Below is a picture from a long time ago! It is of Elders Cornwell, Clements and Sant when they were together at the Brazil MTC.
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BEFORE I FORGET! Mom, if you could do me a favor, look on the internet for a ´book´called Day of Defense by A. Melvin McDonald. You should be able to find a copy or pdf for free. But if you could print it out, and give it to the Elder´s in our ward, I would really appreciate it. What it is is two elders who had a mock trial with some 10 preachers/ministers of other churches and they respond to questions about the truth of the church only using the bible. It is something that they have to have! Its cool enough to just read it, but it is of great value for missionaries! Also, whenever you send the next package, send shoe goo. I can make some good use of it!

ANYWAYS! This week was crazy! At the end of P-day, we got a call from the Exec. Secretary and he said that Elder Smith and I needed to go to Aldeota AFAP because there was something with our VISAS that needed to be taken care of immediately. So we went, and our whole group was there at the Secretary´s house and it was just a giant party. Anyways, we get up way early the next morning and go to Policia Federal. Turns out that our addresses didn´t get changed when we came here from São Paulo, so we had to do that pronto because each day over 30 days that we don´t, you have to pay R$8. We were already 55 days over and for all of us, it would´ve cost the Church R$7,000. The Secretary was really sweating bullets here. It turned out that he just showed our ID´s, talked to a guy and he just changed it without us having to do anything... or having to pay. He was so excited about that. So everything turned out good. Afterwards, Elder Smith and I did an exchange and went to Horizonte for lunch and some appointments. The member we had lunch with has a neighbor with some serious health issues (liver problems associated with drinking). He asked the neighbor for a blessing, so we went with him, blessed him and then started to just talk about the church since he wasn´t a member. Too bad it´s not my area!

Wednesday, we went and taught our two baptisms and just continued to prepare them. It was all pretty normal. After we taught a cousin of a member and that went smooth too. Nothing crazy happened that day.

Thursday we did the baptismal interviews and everything went well. Again, nothing I can remember happened.

Friday, we went to Aracatí to do an interview for the sisters. The interview was for a 19 year old girl who is dating a member. While she was being interviewed we talked with the member. He is 4 months away from 19, so of course we were talking about going on a mission. He said he still wasn´t sure, that he wanted to go through College, than go. He also said that he needed to help his mom out financially through working and what not. Now if there was ever an opportunity to bear testimony about the mission, that was it! I told him how I left on the mission and Dad was out the door at work, and had a bit of time without work, than he found new work that was significantly better. I told him things like that just happen, because the windows of heaven are opened to us. I asked him if he knew a lot of people who went on missions, to which he said he knew a few. I asked him if any of them had told them they regretted going on a mission, to which he said none. Then I asked if he knew anyone that regretted not going on a mission, or putting off a mission, to which he said yes. He really thought about that. After, the conversation went normal because the Dad of the girl came in and talked to us. After the interview was over, Elder Johnny came back and was talking to him, asked how old he was and all that business. He said ´oh, I´m turning 19 in 4 months´ and Elder Johnny asked if he was thinking about going on a mission. He said ´I have been thinking about it, and I wasn´t sure 15 minutes ago, but now, I know I´m going on a mission.´ Wow. That´s all I can say.

After that, we passed by a family that´s getting ready to be baptised, but they have to wait on getting married. I thought ´Her mom lives next door, can´t they just sleep in separate houses until March 16th?´ So we asked them if they were ready to do all that they needed to be baptised to which they said YES. So we told them and the husband liked the idea. He said ´I get a house all to myself and my own bed? I think I can handle this ´sacrifice´ thing´. So they are going to be baptised next week!

Saturday, we had our two baptisms. We got to watch a little bit of the worldwide training while we were filling up the font. It was pretty awesome. Then we had the baptism service which went smooth. Afterwards, we cleaned up and then taught an Uncle of one our more helpful members. AS we were talking to him he said he had a lot of problems and he really wanted to change. He already wants to be baptised just because he knows it will change everything. I was really impressed with him because he is really humble and has a real desire to turn his life around for the better.

Sunday, I got to give a talk on Commitments. I talked about how missionaries use commitments to help others build faith and get closer to Christ. Then I talked about how our most important commitment was the commitment we made with God in baptism. I talked about how we needed to be acting as representatives of Jesus Christ, because that is what we committed to do when we took his name upon us. I said if we do this, we will be numbered as the family of Christ himself in the Celestial Kingdom. I can promise that because that is God´s part, and he will complete all that he has said. I used the scriptures

Moroni 7:13
Mosiah 2:41
Alma 37:16-17
Luke 14:16-18, 21-24
Luke 8:15, 21
Mosiah 18:9

The beauty of it was, I used for the most part Preach my Gospel and the thoughts that popped into my head as I studied the topic. I was really grateful for the opportunity.

That was my week! Pretty much normal for the life of a missionary! I love you all!

Elder Cornwell

P.S. Mom, also send some Piano and guitar music, like that sonatina book and other classical stuff just so I have something I can play ;).

Answers to questions:

1. Have you received any DearElder.com letters since you have been in the mission?
Answer: I have, for the most part from you. I haven´t gotten any for about a month though... i think.

2. Are there sights to see on your P-day?
Answer: There are a few big Catholic churches, some other historical things, but so far, my companions just don´t want to do anything of that sort.

3. What kind of tourist-y things are there to do/see in the Fortaleza area?
Answer: There is the central market, the whole Center district and the beaches, but at the moment we aren´t allowed to walk on the beach (they used to be able to)

4. What do you do on your P-day, besides read my emails and answer my questions?
Answer:Sleep, watch a movie, eat. Just normal stuff.

5. What sports are banned in your mission (for example: full-court basketball is off limits in some missions)?
Answer: Right now, soccer is banned, which kind of sucks, but it was a smart thing. The president had to send home 6 Elders in one day because of injured knees playing soccer.

Bora! Bora! Pacajus!

Before the letter, here is a clarification on almost getting bit by a snake last week:
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Elder Cornwell writes: I forgot to clarify the term ´snake´. Here on the mission, its a young woman who goes after the American missionaries to have a future. So I already recounted the story of the near snake bite for you hehehe.

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Ó la meus queridões! Como vão?

So, just to start off with a little basic missionary vocabulary that we use pretty much every day

Snake- Girl that talks to the missionaries to try to marry them

Sorry for the confusion there! I forget that only the Brasilian missionaries know what that means! Anyways, my area is one of the biggest in the entire mission. I think it is the biggest, but I´m not sure, so I won´t say it. Anyways, we walk probably 20 minutes to get to where all of our members/investigators are, and it’s all way spread out. I think we are responsible for about 110 km^2. So we usually leave about 11:30, head to our area, and come back at around 8:30 to be in the apartment (which is the normal 2 companionship setup) at 9. I´m sure Drew can sympathize with me here. We are still pretty close to the beach, so we get a good amount of wind here.

So, Elder Johnny is from Ribeiro Preto, São Paulo (about 4 hours from the actual city). He is 20, the 4th of 5 in his family, and his whole family are members. He really likes anime, which all teenage boys in Brasil do, and he´s a Corinthian´s fan too (Vai Corinthian!). He is the first one in his family to go on a mission (his parents joined before he was born, and has 4 sisters) and he has 10 months on the mission.

SO, I did a LOT of travelling this week (Elder Johnny is a DL and is responsible for a LOT of area, plus our area includes all outlying cities to the east of Pacajus until Aracatí).

So Tuesday, my companion had to go to a training meeting in Pedras, so I went with Elder Smith to Horizonte for lunch, which is in his area. We walked soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long to get there (about 30 minutes) after we had taken a bus 15 minutes there. Plus it was hot. After, we went back and waited for our companions, and headed out at 3, and just taught the normal things. Not much memorable that day.

Wednesday, we had district meeting with our whole zone, which is huge geographically... only 2 districts. WE had to go to Pedras, which is about an hour away, and then walk 30 minutes to the church for the meeting. Found out that Elder Pili is in my zone again which I was happy for (he was one of my first ZL´s in Zona Castelão). Afterwards, we came back and taught a less active member, who has a son who wants to be baptised. So we go there, and the oldest son I recognized. Then I realized he had been living in my last area. Turns out, we are teaching/reactivating the daughter of a sister in my last area. I thought that was neat! Taught a few more lessons and went home for the day.

Thursday, we went out with members (young men) and visited less actives because we can always help them return, and then find people in their family who aren’t members. Two of them came to church with another friend, so we were super excited about that.

Friday was a good day. We taught two Jane´s (pronounced Jonnie) and both of them have been going to church for a while, but never talked to the missionaries (their extended families are members). Pretty much we just gave them the lessons for it all to come together. They already have those good feelings from church, but they didn´t really know where it all came from. I guess we were just there to quench that spiritual thirst. After I met an investigator named Edeson. He is a BIG guy, he’s got a goatee going, long ponytail and tattoos on his arm. I wasn´t really sure what to expect, but I just went with it. As we were teaching him, he hung on our every word. We were teaching about commandments and he knew they were important. He is one of the most humble people I´ve met out here too. As we talked to him, he told us about his desire to go to church and do all this, but his wife just drags her heels, and it’s hard for him. We talked to her later on that day and she recognized that she should be going to church too and pretty much told us she would stop being lazy. I just thought that was a cool thing. After, we had dinner with an investigator who is going to be baptized in about 2 weeks (Her and her husband are getting married TODAY! in Fortaleza, and they will both join the church here pretty soon). Their names are Renato and Tuane, and they are practically members already. They are so excited about the church and everything. So we had dinner and shared a message with Tuane and her mother, who we are all trying to start missionary lessons with. So I really enjoyed that.

Saturday was a burn day pretty much. We had to go to Aracatí to do interviews for the sisters there (really neat town... crazy during Carnival). It´s about 2 hours away, so we left at 11, got there at 1, ate, did the interviews, left there at 4 and got back at 6. Then we had to go to Horizonte and do an interview there. Came back and that was our day.

Sunday, we went to the very end of Pacajus for lunch. It was like a 40 minute walk in the blazing heat along a freeway-ish thing. Crazy. After we rounded up people for church. Church was pretty good too. The only problem was sacrament meeting was SO LOUD. It wasn´t the youth either (the young men in our ward are AWESOME. Stripling warrior status, and there are about 15 of them). All the sisters talked with each other the whole time! It was ridiculous! They had the pulpit mic turned up way loud so you could hear. That was definitely different for me. Then we went back home (church is 4-7) and closed our week, then Played Risk Imperial Rome Edition, which I won! Whoo!

And today... we haven´t really done anything. We´re going to watch a movie later and then... I don´t know after that haha. But that was my crazy busy super long week! Hopefully I answered all of your questions Mom/Dad!

That´s all for this week. Love you all!

Elder Cornwell

Happy Transfers!

Hello everybody!

So, surprise! Transfers were this week (today) so now Dad knows where that falls! Elder Baltazar went somewhere else to be an LZ and I left too. Now I´m in Pacajus, about an hour outside of Fortaleza and I´m companions with Elder Johnny. Don´t let the name fool you, he is from Ribeiro Preto (São Paulo) and thank goodness he is Cornthiano too! He has 10 months out in the field, and our area is HUGE. We are in Pacajus 1 (or A) and it is about half of a city of 50,000, so its pretty big.

Anyways, this week... I don´t even remember what happened this week! I think it was pretty much normal as in we taught the usual people more and more lessons, just that it got overshadowed by leaving the area and coming to a new one.

This week, pretty much all that I remember is the following.

We taught Erick, Erika, Francisco and Sandra all the lessons, and Erika will be baptized this week. We found this family through soccer, and we would have baptized her on Sunday, but she drank coffee on friday night, so we had to wait. We ended up leaving about 5 other people for the next Elders to baptize, Elder Baltazar wasn´t excited about that. We had quite a bit of troubles in that area, but the last two weeks went pretty well for us.

We visited Dona Bia, Carlos and Iago a bunch too. We just stop by to make sure everything is good (Since we baptized Carlos) and we usually just talk a bit with Iago, he is 16, and Dona Bia just makes us food.
Definitely will miss them a lot.

On Friday, we did splits again with Elder Heath, and I went in his area, and we ended up going around the whole day with a guy named Toni who is leaving on his mission here in about 2 weeks. It reminded me of my time before the mission. But it was fun, we taught a bunch but he told us a cool experience. So he was waiting for us, thinking that he wouldn´t go with us, and then we showed up. When we showed up he thought to himself ´´Só vai´´ or ´´Just go!´´. I thought about how true that is with things in the church. We just don´t want to do things sometimes, but we should just suck it up and go to it. That is especially true here on the mission. Its hard to get motivated and go sometimes, but in the end, you just have to get up and go!

That night, we got the call on transfers (Elder Baltazar had been called the night before and knew that he was leaving) so I was just waiting to hear who my new companion would be. I was really surprised to hear that I would be going to Pacajus. All I knew about it was that it was about an hour into the interior! The rest of the week, we passed by investigators and members and talked, taught and said our goodbyes. The ward about cried when we left, since we were their first missionaries just for them, and we were both leaving.

On Sunday, Elder Baltazar gave a talk on the importance of missionary work, and he said ´´Awesome, now that I´m leaving, I´ll be able to straight up tell these people what they need to be doing that they haven´t been doing!´´ The word he used was ´´Quemar´´ which means ´to burn´. After church we said our goodbyes, and I almost got bitten by a snake. One of the young women that we got references from was saying goodbye and tried to give me a hug. I literally had to stop her and tell her that wasn´t allowed hahahaha. The best part is, she said ´´oops, I forgot!´´ and then went and did the same thing to Elder Baltazar. Its funny how different the members are with missionaries here!

So today, we got up early, and finished packing our stuff, and headed to the mission office. We talked with all the other missionaries for a bit, and I met Elder Johnny and we headed out. We had to take a taxi to the terminal, and then a bus to Pacajus, then walk to our house. We got there about 2:30 in the afternoon. After that, we just relaxed until Elder Smith and Batista got here, then we went to go use the internet! Elder Smith was in my group in the CTM, so we´re excited to be living in the same house.

I have no idea what we are going to do for the rest of today or any of that, so I´ll have to fill you in on that next week!

That´s really all I got now, so I´ll close with that!

Love you all!

Elder Cornwell

A Chuva Chegou!

Hello everybody!

So weatherwise, this week has been great/horrible. In the mornings, it has been raining just about everyday and a good amount too. It stays overcast until about 3, and then its like I'm walking in a hot tub. It is soooo humid... its just miserable! But then at night, it gets pretty cool again... which I like!

So this week wasn't super eventful again. Lots of walking and beginning to teach people... so I guess I'll just skip t the good parts.

So, one of those kids we taught at the church invited us to teach his family, so we went and taught them (obviously). The father was very excited... he kept on saying "up to this point, I've been catholic, but I will go to church from here on out!. We taught him with the Bishop and as we were leaving the Bishop said "Until next time!" and he replied "No, until Sunday!" The only problem is he works nights every other day, so he can only come to church every other week, and this week was his work day. But this kid has a sister, who is 16, and she had already gone to church a few times somewhere else in the city, but when she went back home she kept going with her family. She came to church on sunday and LOVED it. She liked it when she went before, but she was excited this time even more. She said her Dad would love it, so we can't wait!

On Friday night, we ran into someone on the street who had been at a member's house for lunch on time. She was with a friend and they invited us in to teach. We taught them all together and she said that when we went to lunch at that members hous, she no longer had the desire to attend her church. We had left a Book of Mormon for her with the member, but we never had an opportunity to contact her. Anyways, afterwards, she had us go to her house and teach her husband and daughter. They were so excited about it, especially the husband. He said he had gone to other churches, but the way the people were and how church was, he didn't like. So we taught them all together again, and invited them to church. So Sunday comes and they are all there together (they went with that member) and the husband was sitting there in Priesthood with a huge grin on his face. They loved all the learning and the talks and such. We were really lucky to find contact with her again.

Heres a bit of funniness for you. So, there were two girls who graduated from primary up to young women. Yesterday, the young women president (she and her husband are like our best friends) found out that one of the girls hadn't been baptised. She yanked us over and introduced her saying "This is Lara. She has been going to church for FOUR years and just graduated from Primary. And she hasn't been baptized yet!" Her siblings have all been baptised and come to church every sunday, but she says she just doesn't want to. We're going to talk to her more this week, but Elder Baltazar was beside himself because we have had an investigator at church this whole time. Go figure!

So that was the major goings ons of this week. Our appliances and stuff for the new house haven't goten here yet, so we are going to some member's houses today to cook/socialize and whatnot.

Sorry this letter is short, but hopefully its sweet enough! I love you all and have a good week!

Love Elder Cornwell

P.S. How is the snow back home? It's so hot here, I was thinking about snow, but my thoughts melted. I guess I'll have to wait a bit before I experience it again!

Bruce asked Kyle: Lots of people have been asking about you. They usually say, "what do you here from Kyle?" So give me a line or two to use on them.

Kyle answered: If only I had a postcard pointing at the temperature saying its 85 degrees and 66% humidity! You can tell them I´m sweating from working in the vineyard ;)

Here We Go Again!

Hello everybody!

So this keyboard is really hard to type on, I´ll just say that right now. But it is about 4 o´clock right now and so far, I´ve had an AWESOME p-day, but I´ll talk about that more later.

So, this week was probably the best I´ve had on the mission and I´ll just go ahead and credit it to the help we got from the member´s (hint hint). We moved into our new house this week, but our furniture and appliances haven´t showed up yet, so we´ve been living in the stone age! But it is really nice. it was funny because all of our stuff was brought over in a little tiny truck piled about 8 feet high. I have a picture (but no way to send it... pois é).

Tuesday, we had interviews with the President. We waited about 4 hours until it was our turn, and he had been taking a while with the other elders. So Elder Baltazar went in and i was helping the secretaries out (because I was bored out of my mind!) and about 5 minutes after he went in, he came back out. He called me in, we chatted for a bit and he said ´´Well, I don´t have any questions for you, so if you don´t have any questions could you offer a prayer?´´ I won´t lie, I felt cheated! But then again, interviews aren´t really to chat for 30 minutes, so I counted my blessings for the other 25 minutes. After, we went to Burger King and headed back to our area. We had the baptismal interview for Carlos about an hour after we got back. Theres a cool story that goes with this too!

So, Carlos went to church on Sunday and really enjoyed it, and he had already gone a few times, so he could be baptised if he wanted. We set an appointment for the interview and headed on our way. During the day of the interview, he was having some doubts and he was just talking to himself, thinking what he would do. He at first thought he would just go down the street and forget about being baptised, but he thought about it more, and decided he would sit and wait 15 minutes, and then leave. So he made up his mind and sat down to wait. The instant he sat down, we called out to let him know that we were here. He told the elder interviewing him that he would never leave the church ever because of that.

It was just one of those things where it really wasn´t because of the missionaries that he was baptised. We were just doing what we were supposed to, and the Lord did the rest. It really amazed me. I was blessed with the honor of baptising him the next day. He was the only member of the family not baptised, so I hope they will be ready to go to the temple when the temple is ready for them!

But this week gets better! On Thursday, we set up an appointment with a member to teach some kids at the church before we played soccer. So we prepared the first lesson and we went to go teach them. The member shows up, and he had 7 teenaged boys with him. We were floored. We went in and taught, and every single one of them payed attention the whole time. 7 boys, waiting to play soccer, payed attention to us talk for 30 minutes. We were amazed. Every one of them passed on their addresses for us to talk to their families too. We taught some of them on Saturday and they were all excited about our message. We had five investigators at church on Sunday. We were very happy and the member I think was even happier than we were!

Today was awesome too! We went to the city center, which is actually by the beach. There is a big shopping center there, and we walked around for about 3 hours just looking at all the things they had (Think downtown el Paso times 10). Afterwards, we ate at a really good self service restaurant, and on our way back, we went to a HUGE Cathedral. It was all white on the inside and had the stained glass and everything. I took pictures and everything, but I´ll show them to you later. I ended up buying a Corinthians Jersey for R$15. It is super awesome! Its white with a red dragon and yeah... I´m excited about it!

All in all, that was our week. Lots of fun and lots of hard work! But that´s all I have today!

Vós amo muito! Sempre se lembre que Deus nos ama mais do que qual quer pessoa no mundo! Ou seja, como a gente fala aqui, Deus é fiel!

Com um embração,
Elder Cornwell.

I can´t remember if this week was busy or not...

Hello again!

So this week was a different week again. We had a bunch of things that weren't holidays kind of get in the way of the work, but all in all the week went on just normal! Also, I managed to borrow a card reader from another elder for today, so I sent some pictures of my area and other goings-on.

There weren’t any events of real significance this week. It was just the normal work work work. We have 4 investigators who are coming along, so I've taught the "hard" lessons a bunch of times (tithing, word of wisdom and chastity). It wasn't that rough for me because we had 2 straight weeks of nothing and I just wanted to get back in it. So this week was a lot better because we actually got a chance to talk to people!

On Thursday we had splits because of some training for the leaders, so Elder Heath and I had both of our areas (which was a lot of walking). We had lunch in his area, then went home and studied, back to my area, taught Aline and Silvana some commandments, then back to his area to teach a couple who had been together for 14 years but not married. We taught them chastity and it was funny because the wife was joking around and the husband was seemingly uncomfortable with her doing that. He didn't want to get married because "everyone gets married and divorced, I don't want to break apart" like marriage is going to make them separate. I said "You've been together for 14 years already... don't you think your relationship would last a lot longer with the promised blessings of marriage?" They didn't respond hehehe.

On Saturday we went to a member's house for lunch, but on the way we passed through the feira, which is basically a big outdoor market. It was cool to walk through because it was all fake stuff and fresh fruit. It was the kind of thing mom would LOVE. It was kind of like in El Paso, but they weren’t stores, just little stands. I ended up buying a Fortaleza jersey for R$10 or like $6... score! Definitely not an original, but I don’t care! They have a big central market here that we will probably go to next week that is all stores and stuff. There is just always something going on in this town.

The only other thing to really happen was Sunday, we brought a less active member and her husband to church, and afterwards her husband really liked it. It turns out he has already been before, so we started going forward with preparing for baptism. He is really excited about it. His family was baptised but he wasn’t, so it’s a cool chance for us. It was funny, in sacrament meeting, we were sitting there and Elder Baltazar tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to them. I looked over and he had a package of cookies and offered some to us with a big smile. It made me chuckle.

So that's really all I have this week! Hope you like the pictures I attached!

Love you all!

Elder Cornwell

P.S. Congrats to Drew and Chrissy for the arrival of Mason! Now Drew can torment someone other than me! Also for Mike, STEELERS LOST! PPPBBBBBBBLHLHLHLLTTLHLTHT ;)

Slow Week; Sick Missionary

So we got another uneventful week. Everyone in my area either left town or was in a state of drunkenness for about a week straight... that´s my mission! Also, my companion took it upon himself to share everything within the companionship so low and behold, I have a cold! Who would´ve known that was possible here? Its been 90 degrees everyday practically... which here is WAY hotter than 85.

This week was just slow in general. We went by member´s and investigator´s houses just hoping that someone was home so we would have 40 minutes less of wandering around the town. The only people we visited frequently were Aline and Aldênia. They´re both building a strong foundation with their testimonies, but still have some fears about baptism, so we´re just going one step at a time.

We are also teaching this family (Mom Dad and 2 daughters) and the two girls practically eat out of my palm. Its just ridiculous. Elder Baltazar will talk and invite them to do things and they will just be like ´eeeh, sure.´ But whenever I talk or invite them to do things, they are just straight smiles and giggling and they say they will do anything I ask. Saturday night, we were inviting EVERYONE to go to church and we stopped by there. Elder Baltazar invited them to Church and they thought it was kind of early and I said ´´Só acorda um pouco cedo, e nós vamos lá!´´ Which is basically ´´Get up early then you lazy bums!´´. They went for it. Of course they didn´t go to church, so I think that whole admiration thing won´t be a problem when it comes to joining the church.

Other than that, New Years, we stayed up and made food, and ate until midnight. Made noise and whatnot, then went to bed. It was LOUD because everyone was doing the same kind of fireworks (not even colored!).

In reality, that was my week. Nothing really of note. Also, I´m sick and have no desire to think at the moment.

Love you all!

Elder Cornwell.