Tuesday, July 21, 2015

July 21, 2015 a wealth of people to teach in a not-so-wealthy area

          Transfers


Yup i got here. its awesome. the area is fantastic. Ive always wanted to go to an area where there was always a lot of work done and lots of people to teach. and well.. i got here :)

we have about 15 recent converts on our side of the area. so we are constantly over at a house and working on going to the temple. the other thing is that this area is so great that we have 8 baptisms planned in the zone. so really its a complete turn around from vila yara. Im loving it here.

We had a talent show and me and my companion played the spirit of god on our guitars and everyone loved it. It was pretty chill and we practiced a lot. 

My companion is Elder Phair. He is really cool and teaches really well. ill be killing him in this area cause hes going home in 2 transfers. So ill be in this area for a while now :) im alright with that. He is from Chicago area and served in wisconsin fro 10 months before he got to brazil. 

not a ton happened this week. we went to the temple today and thats why im emailing today. :)
(Tuesday)

with love,
Elder Sullivan

July 13, 2015 cheap all-you-can-eat doesn't mean "good" or "safe".

          transfers!!!


Yup! Im getting outta here! I got transfered to Zona Campo Limpo! Só que.... i didnt ever want to go to this zone haha. Its got a lot of favela and a lot of funk in there so it was a place i wanted to avoid. But Its a zone that baptizes thats for sure! Ill be continuing as a Zone Leader and i have made some pacts with myself that im going to be a better leader and a better example to those around me. Also i am going to start speaking more portuguese (Which will be hard cause my companion will be american again). My companion will be Elder Phair!!! He was in my zone 1 transfer ago as a District Leader when he turned into a Zone Leader. Now we will be working together better. So it should be a fun experience. Im stoked to get out of this area im in now. 



We have a pretty big problem in our ward that really shouldnt be a problem. Our members are marking our investigators for baptism. That is usually good but when the investigators arent ready for it its a big problem. So we have now lost 2 investigators thanks to our members "marking them" for baptism. Its a lot of pressure and they werent expecting it. So that sucks. Ive talked to bishop about it and he said he´d talk to everyone. 

We found a really good man this week. I wont say golden cause everytime that turns out not happening. He is really cool and went to church this week. Only problem he has is the Word of Wisdom. He is 31 and lives with his parents and just has had problems with drugs. He is trying to change is life and his parents are supporting us going over there 100% haha. 

This week President Del Guerso told us to start studying about the atonement. Thats some serious power right there. We are getting ready to get another apostle in our mission and he told us to start preparing. (We think President is going to go 70 haha) Ive been using true to the faith and marking all the scriptures and ill be going to the TG here shortly. I invite you to do this too :)

I had a split with Elder Cinezio this week that was way cool. Its way more fun being his companion when you can understand everything haha (he was the missionary that trained me). That was a really good experience and i learned a lot from him still. 

Oh and just so you know.. cheap all you can eat food doesnt mean that it will be good. or safe. so be careful ;)

love,
Elder Sullivan

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

July 6, 2015 "it's too true to deny so keep with it."

          hitting the wall



This week was really eventful but i dont have a lot of time to say all i want. So really brief and cut short here we go....

We took a member to one of our lessons and he said its not worth going to church if shes not going to be baptized. so she didnt go this week. Trust me we tried to fix that but it stuck with her. what did i learn? its not worth a member lesson. haha

We had conselho. That was fun and a lot of fire haha

we had a few family nights this week where we had to unwrap BIS with a knife and fork. that was fun and really competitive. That is how we celebrated our 4th of July.. really we didnt do anything...  but on the 5th we did have an american breakfast for lunch :)

Today i finished O Livro de Mórmon for the first time in portuguese. i started on the new year and i finished a year from the day that i left the CTM. So that was pretty specail. By the way its too true to deny so keep with it. :)

That about all i got for this week. sorry it was short. Have a good week!

Elder Sullivan



June 29, 2015 she kissed our hands and some sweet pics

          Weeks cant go by faster



This week was really hard to keep going. like REALLY hard. Think of a time that no one ever wants to talk to you and put that as a week. Youll be in my area haha. We really had 5 lessons this week (which is bad) and we resorted to less active members. 

One of those lessons we were able to present the Book of Mormon to Mar and read a little with her. she doesnt know how to read. So we read with her. :)

Another one of those lessons was with Ros. She is 76 and knows how to read so we taught her the Plan of Salvation and she loved our visit. She even kissed our hands so take that! I have a 76 year old snake ;) But really she might be a golden. Just getting her to church will be a little hard haha. 

We had stake conference this weekend and Elder Fernandez of the seventy was there. He did a lot of burning. one of my favorite lines he said was while telling a story about the missionaries... "the missionaries were knocking doors, because the members didnt open their mouths." That really put my work into perspective and something i want to do more this week is ask for more help from the members. 
Another good line from conference was from a recent return missionary whose Mission President said this "You can go to heaven poor and stupid but you cant get in if youre not married." So.... thats just something to think about haha. 

today we went to 25 de março. Its like a strip mall of 2 million people. really the streets are packed and i went on a monday haha. I bought some ties, a memory card, and some brazil memories. so pretty cool stuff :) we also went to the tallest building in são paulo and met some colombians from florida haha. they work for delta so they went to rio to be tourists for free haha. lets see if i cant get some pictures....

thats all for this week! hope yours was better than mine.

love,

Elder Sullivan

a cool sunset in a pink tree



the bank of são paulo



1/4 of the city. (the other 3/4 my camera couldnt get haha)



nothing better than coming home to a sweet dr. pepper :)


our friends :)



the building





June 22, 2015 fighting off death

          life as a líder (leader)


wow this whole Zone Leader thing is turning out to be a whole nother thing. Just others problems that you are responsible for. and its sooooo awkward to be there saying hey... ya you gotta change. No one likes hearing that. But lets get going and youll understand a little more. 

This week we had a multizona. We went to the chapel next door to the temple and had a cool meeting about planning, teaching, and inviting. We also all had to get a vaccine (flu shot) cause i think Sister Del Guerso is a little paranoid. She definitely wants us all healthy so thats good. That basically took up our whole day cause the rest of our appointments fell through..

The next day we got BURNED for our numbers. Like really just flamethrower status. And like.. its not really our fault. I feel like these missionaries who  have a lot of time on the mission already should know what they need to do and just do it. But apparently the fire has to keep going through us and to the others that we lead. So... we were suggested to pray a lot and ask the lord what we should do. so we did that. The next 3 days we were praying really hard and asking for inspiration on what we could do for our zone. The prompting came to talk about planning so this week we are going to be right on top of everyone to make sure they are all planning well. 

Everyone is getting sick here. Like at least 4 of the 10 missionaries in my zone are basically fighting off death. its getting a little out of control but it was pday for a few of them this week. I dont like it when they have to stay home cause it makes it more likely that we get burned. but hey... faz parte haha.

This week m got in a fight with the man she is living with. he came home drunk and was saying stuff to her about how he doesnt want religion in his home.... so she is moving out. so that makes it so we can baptize her :) Whoooo!!!! This week we should be having a FHE with a 70. Elder Fernandes. should be chill.

Thats about it for this week. Thanks for the support and the love!

Elder Kyson Sullivan

June 15, 2015 a number 2 day

          week by week


Hello everyone. This week went by fairly slow but we still survived until pday haha. 

Not much happened this week. we were still trying to keep up with losing our pday last week to email and buy things so it took a little for the week to get going. but we were still able to visit our investigators. They are doing well but its getting hard for them to keep the commitments we are leaving with them. 

This week we both fell sick. my stomach was churning and elder williams had a pretty bad head ache and a sore throat. so we stayed home one day and rested and caught up on sleep and energy. really that pday nap makes a diffence in the week. also its getting really cold here so that makes the work more fun. People here in brazil have 3 temperatures. 1. too hot to go outside. 2. too cold to go outside. 3. just right so everyone is outside. haha today is one of the number 2 days!

today lunch will be mcdonalds. man i really love this area for the amercanism that it has. bunch of fast food and a lot of people speak english. Like even my ward has an american in it haha. (yes we are planning something for the 4th of July with him :) ) 

really thats all for this week. maybe next week ill do something cooler :)

Elder Sullivan