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

June 9, 2015 Zone Leadership in Caucaia and good pics

          New Light

So this week we had.. 2 transfers. We got Elder Bingham who is from cali and Elder Jeronymo went home to prepare for his real mission. So thats fun. we have 3 americans in the same house. so thats chill. I mean its a lot of english but dont tell president ;)

A little about our investigators. 1 is a woman named Fab. She was a jehovas witness (i took her "bible" from her) but the rest of her family is Mormon less active. So we are trying to reactivate the family and bring her with them. So thats fun. We spent a whole lesson clearing up that Jehova is Jesus and that God is Heavenly father. Freaking apostate JW´s. 

the other one is Ka and her husband Gi. Gi is still way interested in the gospel and is reading the BoM like crazy. Ka decided that she would listen to other people and look up the mormons online which is just fire. so we had a fun time clearing all that up too. luckily she didnt find anything too out of control on there. we are workin on their marraige and the hardest part is getting them to actually do it. they dont want to do it fast. they want to do it "just like its supposed to be" (direitinho"). So thats kinda annoying but they are really interested so we keep going back. 

We had an exchange this week and it was way nuts. this guy could take gold for speed walking and also mountain climbing cause this area was just done for. They had appointments all over the place so we had to basically run from one to the other and i was just dead the whole next day. They had an interview for a baptism and she passed so they were able to baptize :) that was really cool!

Yesterday i didnt email cause we were going to a Zone Leader training. usually its at the chapel next to the temple but this time they surprised us saying, "get to the mission office sunday night" so that we would sleep there. We left way early and went to the Sítio da Igreja. Or like the church forest. haha. but i was so happy cause it was out in Caucaia where i had spent 3 transfers. So i was really really really happy and way excited and i just loved all of it. we played some games and had some spiritual experiences. I´m pretty happy with how it all turned out. 

these 2 other guys are from my group in the MTC. We are all Zone Leaders now. yup. we rock.

Elders: Sullivan, Willden, Carr

(Mom's note: This is a picture from a year ago in the CTM.

Elders: Sullivan, Willden, ?, and Carr)

sisters who photo bomb...

our leadership meeting

my lunch. i dont have insta (instagram) so i guess it has to go here right? (churrasco with guaraná :) )

normal clothes + rice and beans = happy missionaries :) 

that brick thing is what you call a churrasqueiro. or like a grill. they put some special wood under it and they cook your meat. its pretty great :)

enjoying the sun :)

Elder B got emergency transfered so thats a really good thing. He was giving us a lot of problems and so finally he got out of this area. We are getting Elder Ccanto (yes with 2 c´s) today and he is cool. I've already lived with him in Caucaia and it was good. so it should be picking up here shortly. :) 

Yup so thats the week. It was full of happy experiences but im so dead tired from running around all week. i need some serious rest. 

your tired and first,

Elder Sullivan

June 1, 2015 chore charts in Brazil

          Downhill slope

Well.. this week i hit a year! yay! i celebrated with ice cream from burger king and it sucked... so i got an ice cream cone from McDonalds to make up for it. it was good :) 

Good news! we got our big boy pants back on and went back to ka's house to see what happened and why she didnt like church. she said we could come back and we chose the right night. we met her husband! If you know Jesse White he´d look small compared to this dude.

(Jesse's the one with the phone.)

He is MASSIVE. that is kinda funny cause his wife is really tiny. haha. Anyway we taught them and it was really good and he was really interested and will read the BoM and we are going back tomorrow. so it should be really good. We were able to get rid of a bunch of doubts and that helped a lot.


me and elder stanbury from england. our 5R$ of ice cream for  successful baptism interview :)

We also went to bishops storehouse and that was really neat. there are some really cool buildings that are in that part of town and its also outside of our mission boundaries so that makes it even more fun :)

welcome to são paulo...

a sick bridge with a cool support system.

this is gonna be a mono rail. its pretty sick. 

We have a less active family and they have quite a few arguements about cleaning. so... i took my childhood experiences and i took my moms weekly cleaning assignment calendar and put it into effect with this family. when i went back everything was clean and this mom was really happy and even made us dinner for this list to work out so well. Yup mom. it even works in brazil! :)

This week is transfers and i will be staying one more with Elder Williams. it will make it 15 weeks that i will be with him. but hes american so its chill. 

loves and hugs,

Elder Kyson Sullivan


The Zone!

May 25, 2015 prayed for a miracle contact

         back to square one.

So.... Weve got some sad news....

after a whole day of planning on marking a wedding and trying to contact Ka she told us that she liked her church better. Its the Bola de Neve. translating to the snow ball. It has a surf board as a pulpit and is based off of regae. really dumb. so she wont get married now. we have cut her and she cut us.... so there goes our only person in this area. we have moved our focus to less actives and recent converts. the saving part of missionary work haha. oh and by the way this area hasnt baptized for over 7 months...

On friday we were invited to paint a house. that was well needed service project and normal clothes helped us keep going. 

On saturday we were really sad. a lot of our appointments have fallen through but we were still walking. following our plan and doing the things like we always do. At about 6:30 our DL called us and asked us if we were alright. i said our day was crap but we were still going. He invited us to say a prayer. So we did and we asked for a miracle. When we did this we went inside our next 2 lessons and taught them both! we even got them marked for baptism which we thought probably wouldnt have happened. 

We took an investigator to church. she wont progress but she went. she gives us lots of references cause she talks to all her neighbors about us so we get into a lot of houses cause of her :)

Thats about all that happened this week. it really sucked for the first part but in the end it all turned out fine. just goes to show that the lord blesses with the miracle after you have done all that you can huh? :)

anyway have a good week! love you all!

Elder Kyson Sullivan

a little of my area. it goes back a lot more than this. this is at the train station. pretty legit stuff :)

This is Kyson's cheer team. A lot of the ones he cheered with are graduating! :(
He will miss them.

This is the press box at Utah State that is getting torn down. So many changes happening right now that will rock Kyson's world when he gets back!

One of Kyson's good friends, Shiloh,  from the cheer team got married!
This stuff makes Kyson happy!

May 18, 2015 Been in Brazil almost a year!

          Week 51 

Well.. im coming up on being a year here in brazil. its kinda weird to think that its been so long away that it doesnt really feel real. 

this week picked up a ton from the last one. we found a bunch of people to teach and we are hoping that a few will be good and that we can progress with them. 

Kari is doing really good. she went to church this week and really enjoyed it. she said next week she wanted her family to go with her :) so that should be pretty chill. we are going to mark her wedding on wednesday so i hope everything runs smoothly.

One day we took a member over to her house and she basically taught the lesson herself. the spirit was really strong and she had a friend the whole day in church. she even participated in the classes. She really is pretty special to us. 

One day we challenged our zone to a double rainbow day. that means that you do 30 contacts that day. Our numbers were pretty weak but ya after that day everyone did it so we got back on track :)

One day we had a family home evening and we made a scripture puzzle from scripture mastery where you have to put the words in the right spot and make the scripture. then we talked about this scripture and how it applies to our lives. it was pretty cool :)

oh and this week someone made us fried chicken. tasted like bacon but it was some of the most delicious food ive had :) 

weve taught a lot this week and set up this week to be equally as good. i sure hope so! :)

have a good week everyone! até próximo!

Elder Kyson Sullivan

May 11, 2015 skyped with family and Koby

          Mothers Day / 50 Weeks

Well i hope you all had a great mothers day. I did for sure. it was so nice to be able to see my family and get to talk for them for a little time.

This week... well. Eh it had its ups and downs. 

It started with a leadership councel and going to the temple on tuesday. That was really good and really spiritual and im learning how to be a better leader. We have a couple things going on this month that should be pretty cool. First President challenged us to baptize one person for every missionary. and if you wont get that chance then you should be able to participate in teaching and helping someone who will be baptized. The second thing is that this month is the month of consegration. so we are giving all our time, efforts, and talents to the lord. President said that we dont live by the law of tithing so we have to live by some sort of law.. which is the law of consagration haha. So on pday we stay home and clean and update the area book and we dont leave our areas. a little different but it makes my job a little easier haha.

The next day we had a surprise exchange. Elder Nissenin who is a secretary came with us and helped us out a little. he trained us how to make trainings and that was pretty helpful considering i havent done much of that. 

Also we have a pretty awesome Elder here. Elder Jeronymo. who is a short time missionary. Just for this transfer. We had this broken shower for over 6 weeks. He got the part we needed and fixed it really fast. we now have hot ish showers from a shower head and not a pipe in the wall. this guy is awesome! (all showers have gone from 5 minutes to 15 -20 haha)

We are having a really hard time connecting with the members here for some reason. I dont know why but we are trying to be friends with them and they are a little shut off to us. So we made a family night calendar for this month. weve had a few people sign up so we can get to know them and also so we can teach them and their friends. We have a few activities that would be cool but if you guys have any others id love to hear them. 

Also on mothers day we went to craigs house. he is that american guy i think ive mentioned before. He made us chicken bbq pizza. that was freaking amazing. that is something that  you dont find here in brazil. i think its pretty safe to say you dont find that south of america haha. 

The area is hard. really hard. hardest that ive had. im having a hard time staying motivated to keep going and its all just tearing pretty hard on me. On top of having to be  a leader and be an example and have an example area its not working out too well. We have 2 investigators that are doing anything to learn more and they will still take a lot of work til they can be baptized.

This week was a good week but on the work end it was just crap. we didnt have very good numbers and even though we tried it looked like we didnt work at all. 

with love,

Elder Sullivan

skype time!

This sign that says: "não alimente o macaco" means dont feed the monkey. we didnt see a monkey... so we made one. thanks elder Williams haha

This is Elder Jeronymo. He is the best! Also my cool guitar. my fingers hurt all the time cause i play so much at night and in the morning.

this cat... i just couldnt help but laugh.. hahahaha i had to get a picture haha.

SKYPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is before Kyson got on Skype with us and Koby.

All of Koby's roommates that passed by the computer would stop and count the heads on the screen. Other countries don't have such big families as we do in the US.

An inside joke is Section 139 of D&C that has not been translated into Portuguese yet. That's why American's have more than 4 kids and Brasilian's don't. Section 139 tells you to have more than 4 kids. lol

In this picture, Carl is talking on the phone with Kyson while he tries to figure out his password to get onto Skype with us. Carl got a phone call from Florida, but answered it anyway. It was Kyson calling on an American's cell phone he had gotten in LA before he moved to Brazil with his Brasilian wife and baby.

They finally get to see each other and exchange greetings in Portuguese.

Kyson is showing us the view from the 16th story he is on. He is trying to let us see the lightning.

The zone leader, Kyson, had to take several phone calls while we were on our Skype call...

FAMILY PIC!

Kyson's host gave him the same candy that I got today from church...

Brady Bunch!

Kyson needs to know if that's a bald spot.

No, it's blonde hair and is invisible when it is short.

Chicken BBQ pizza.

He turned off the video while he ate it, but he ate his chocolate cake in front of all of us!!!!!

Kyson says he will be home before the next Mother's Day,
and Koby says he will be home 3 days AFTER Mother's Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

May 4, 2015 Counting down: 364 days left! haha

          364 days

well that can be a little trunky right? well if im not wrong and i did my math right, about the 3rd of may i should be home. that means this mothers day will be the first and last one on the mission. but who knows right?

So this week a lot of stuff happened. We got a short time missionary in our ward like a trial time. He will only be here for 1 or 2 transfers to see if he wants to serve full time. 

I got a package from koby with a bunch of stuff in it so that was a good birthday surprise :)

One day we were doing contacts and EVERYONE was telling me no. I was getting really sick of it and i just wanted a yes. I talked with this one lady and she gave me a thumbs down and said "im atheist and i dont like God", as she walked past me. I turned around and yelled after her, "Well then GOOD LUCK!!!" it was kinda nice and helped me feel better. but she isnt going anywhere nice after this life. 

We did however have 1 investigator who is progressing. Her name is Karina. She is married and has a daughter. We taught her the restoration and she understood the first time. Like thats is hard to find. Also when we came back she was asking us more about joesph smith and what happened. We showed her a video and she was a lot happier with the response we gave. She said she would like to go to church so we are still working closely with her. (the last church she was in is called the ´snowball´ church.... Go Brazil!)

On friday we had a devocional with Elder Christofferson. That was really cool :) We were able to shake his hand and ask him questions and he taught us about D&C 6:9. Say nothing but repentance. Also some other things but most of it was based out of this scripture. It was really cool and really spiritual :) 

Good news! After the devocional we came back to our house and we had energy again! that was a miracle only an apostle could have done ;) haha. 

We ended the week good. On saturday we had a member from heaven take us to Outback. Now.. i know outback in the states isnt too fancy. but here its like a big deal. They had the same break with butter, buffalo wings with hot sauce, cheesy fries with bacon on top, and RANCH!!!!! that beautiful white dipping sauce that doesnt exist here. Also we got some ribs smothered in BBQ sauce and it was so freaking delicious :) Also we each drank about 1.5 liters of coke so that just made us all happy. i didnt want to leave cause it reminded me so much of home. Also the member that took us is an american so we just spake english. Man that was the best lunch ive had here in Brazil. 

anyway i hope this week goes by smoothly for you guys and that you have success with whatever you are doing. 

Com amor,

Elder Kyson Sullivan

They are trying to "bring more water to the city of Osasco" so they destroyed all the sidewalks and leave them looking a lot like this. but its alright cause theres a pipe in there now. How do you like that dad? haha

A really cool picture i got of the temple after the devotional with Elder Christofferson

The very first lawn mower ive seen in Brazil. Usually they use a weed wacker to cut the grass.

and my cool little package and letters i got :) thanks fam!