July 20, 2014 My First Baptism!

Monday, July 20, 2014

Yes its true!!! We had 2 baptisms this week and im way happy for it! I was able to baptize little "M". He is 8 years old and is really smart! It was a fun experience and i didnt even mess up the baptism prayer in portuguese! Such a good experience for me. And no I wasnt trying to look like a superhero in the picture. Its just how it turned out. haha. His moms name is "R".

So i would like to explain a little about the pizza here. ITS AWFUL. They havent found out how to put sauce on it so it like eating straight cheese. or straight meat. I really miss american. haha. But its all good. They make up for it by putting chocolate in the crust. Kinda like we put cheese in the crust. It makes for a weird twist but something to look forward to at the end of the pizza!

We had a divisão this week. or a companion exchange. I was with the district leader cause he needed to interview the 2 people for baptisms. I learned a lot from him and he is a way chill guy. The only problem with the exchange is that i was now the senior companion cause its my area. so... i had this map and addresses and tried my best not to get lost. Fortunately we did pretty good. Marked a baptism date and got 2 new investigators. He also broke my window. haha. He had an umbrella but didnt know that it extended when you push the button.. so.. he was pointing it at the window and it broke. Thanks to duck tape its fixed ;)

Feijoada. look it up. Had it twice this week and its the heaviest food i have eaten. Its almost like uncooked but cooked meat (all sorts) with beans and rice. Its not bad but if i have more of it i will explode haha.

beans with beef and pork

This week was pretty hard for me. i am way home sick. Which didnt happen in the CTM or last week. Only this week. I hear music, or people ask about home and its just hard. I know that satan beats on us most when something good is going to happen so i just need to buckle up and take the hits. I am trying my hardest to work hard.

My thought for this week: in the book, as a man thinketh, there are many ideas. One of the ideas is that whatever you think, you are. Your thoughts lead to your actions. (proverbs 23:7) Well because we are all trying to be like Christ we also need to try to think like christ would. Something that I  have been working on this week. I also challenge you to do as well. 

with love and thanks,

Elder Sullivan 

My address: 

Rua Rui Batista Pereira, 165

Jardim Caxingui

São Paulo - SP

CEP: 05517-080

Brazil

July 14, 2014

Opa família e amigos. eu espera tudo é bem e vocês é feliz. 

So this week and a half were a little crazy cause of the WC. When i was still in the CTM there were about 6 Bolivians who ran into my room with a flag, radio and a lot of energy trying to watch the game from my window. They werent really invited they just did it haha. Pretty crazy how important futebol is down here. I was able to watch the game against Alemanha (germany) and that was great cause we lost 7-1 haha. The only game i got to watch lol. Everyone here now refers to me as the Alemão cause im white lol. Todos os pessoas, "hey alemão! como sentir ganhar? " muito engraçado. But germany won and now its over and now we can really get our proselyting going cause it was suffering cause of the games going on.

Before I left the CTM there was 8 hours of oreintation. All in portugues. I gave up after hour 3 and just nodded my head. I do that a lot out here in the field haha. I dont really understand a whole ton but i do understand the jist of what they are saying. Like if they are talking about food or cities or people but i dont really know all of what is happening. My portuguese is improving though. dia a dia. I am trying to do 15 words a day and i only speak portuguese all day so that comes pretty easy. The hardest part is subjunctive and sentence order.

I'm in Chora Menino which translates to crying boy.

My trainer is Elder Cinezzio (pictures to come hopefully next week). He is from Brazil and is 20 years old.
He knows how to do things like speak português. haha We have a lot of fun joking and learning. I am teaching him English as he helps me with Portuguese. A good little trade we have. He has been in the field for 3 months now so he is pretty new but he knows what he is doing. A lot of our talking is slow and he is always asking if i know what words mean. When i dont its either the dictionary or a game of charades or a really good description in words i do know. The only bad part of this is that we cant really do it in lessons. So a lot of lessons are nodding when he is nodding and laughing when other laugh haha. I see improvement though and i keep a prayer in my heart for understanding. 

So my first day in the field i unpacked a little. and we went to this ladies house. Her name is rute. (hoo-chi) we invited her to be baptized and she accepted. Way cool for day 1!

A couple days later we went and visited another pesquisador named "R". She is really sweet and is really interested in the church. She has a son and he is also investigating. On my 3rd visit to her we showed her a video of the atonement for missionary work. Which is mostly for missionaries but we showed her so she could better understand it. Its a compilation of 2 talks by Harrold B Eiring and Jeffrey R Holland. Very cool and spiritual. After the talks she said she wanted to be baptized on the 19. We were way shocked cause we didnt ask her. I know she is being taught by ther spirit.

This sunday i was asked to bear my testimony in church. That was fun and way sketch. I think the ward is accepting of me and I hope I can help them in anyway possible. Should be fun.

Every day we have lunch provided for us by a member. Its way nice. Lunch is the big meal here and ward members are nice to let us come join them. The food is way good. My favorite fruit so far is a mango. But there have been other close ones that are really strange and only found here..

I am out of time now but i want you to know of my love for you guys and my prayers are always for you!

I know this church is true and the lord watches out for his missionaries! 

Vai Brasil even though we suck now. and tchau!

Elder Kyson Sullivan

July 4, 2014

I remember when i was first getting here and not believing i could continue on for another 6 weeks. It dragged. Well.... its over and i cant believe it haha.

Not a lot happened this week that was notable and worthy. Other than i got a hair cut... yay. 

We took a test on our language skills... i think i passed cuz they didnt send me home yet haha. Well thats basically it. OH! its 4th of july! And i could have been at a barbeque! haha jk I am enjoying it here and the lunch ladies are giving us a "american" meal today. We can hope its good! The food has been pretty good but dont trust the desserts... thats all for that. 

Sorry for the meshed up together (mom edited a lot of it) but my enter button isnt working today. 

So about grandma's passing. Thats super sad. President called us in and sat us down and told us that she had passed away. I'm glad that it was him that was able to tell me and not my next president cuz i dont know my other president like i know President Swenson. He is one powerful man and has been there when i grew the most. I was also way blessed to have Koby there with me. Man is that a blessing. At the time i didnt really have a testimony of the plan of salvation. But when President said how great is it that we know of the plan i got on it and studied like crazy. I now have a testimony of the plan and the happiness that grandma is in with her husband. I had a letter written to her but i never got it sent off. I'm kicking myself cuz of it but its all good. I'm glad that she was able to hear of my growth here. Thanks mom :) 

Something cool that happened about 1 hour after the news was we were in class and the teacher ( the next prophet ) was teaching us and he told us a story. He thought about not telling us though. He said that his president told him at his last interview before he went home to smile everyday. He got home Wednesday and his dad died on Friday. Super sad. I know he was prompted to tell me that when i needed it. So ...  smile everyday everyone :) 

Also we got new revelation. Brazil baptizes the most people every year. Sadly, only 4% stay active. So now we have new revelation. not sure if its for just Brazil or for the world. But we now teach all 5 lessons BEFORE and AFTER. not just 4 before. And we also stay in contact with the investigators for the next 3 or 4 months afterwards too. 

Alright I'm out of time. and thats really all that happened. 

I hope you didnt have a hard time decifering this haha. 

I have a testimony of this gospel and I know that God loves all of us and knows what we need when we need it! 

I love you all and thank you for the support you have been giving me. I can feel it all the way over here! 

Vai Brazil! 

Love, Elder Sullivan (Kyson)

June 27, 2014

So i've hit the month mark and i feel like its the 2nd week. I was told it goes by exponentially but i didnt believe them. haha.

I played the piano on Sunday and it was sketch but i got people singing and thats all that matters right? haha. I also blessed the sacrament which was fun cause its in Portuguese and you dont want to mess it up haha. Elder Willden is now our district leader and we are all doing well.

One of the hardest parts of being in the MTC is having all of your friends leave you. We meet a lot of good Brasileiros and they are only here for 2 weeks. Its a sad time when they leave but the new ones that just arrived are going to my same mission so that pretty exciting :)

Oh and i was asked to play the piano for the next group of people leaving when they do their choir thing on Sunday. Still dont know what song haha. Silly hispanicos

Alright so on wednesday there were some other silly hispanicos who were having a pushup contest. Well my companion volunteered me to go against this other hispanic (at night time) well he didnt have a shirt on and looked huge. I was wearing my gymnastics shirt and representing.  We both started and he was done at 79.. I did 109 and showed them that america is the best ;) Only joking :) but im soooooo sore. like im still sore! to where it hurts to move and stuff. My companions used to call me Sully like on monsters inc. (all the Brazillians do) and this week they changed it to swolly so i guess thats cool :)

(Mom's note: I looked up what swolly was on google, and it had this swolly mammoth with all these muscles. I think that is what the reference to swolly is.)

A few things from devotionals this week. We get them broadcast and we heard from 2 apostles this week.

Elder Ballard: The gospel is the most important news we can talk about in this noisy world.

Elder Christofferson - live:

No one should feel like repentance is futile.

Doing great work makes you great but do so by making yourself the least.

You have never talked to a mere mortal - only potential gods and goddesses.

The savior LIKES me and knows me. (made me think that he is my BEST friend and i was able to relate better.

They were both way good and you can probably tell which was my favorite. :)

I've been praying for gma myrtle too. I dont know why but i felt like i needed to. Well there is my answer haha. Thats a good way of knowing i have the spirit :)

Koby is blonde as ever and his companions love it haha. We see each other at night mostly and not a lot during the day but he is doing a lot better than what he used to.

Language is coming. Im starting to plateau but i know when i hit the field it will be crazy improvement.

I want to thank you for the support and love i've felt since being out here. i can feel your prayers and your love.

Elder Sullivan

June 20, 2014

Hi everyone. its hump day here in the mtc. We only have 3 more weeks of training til the real training starts lol. Its been a good week. well.. good enough week. When i have a good day I will get a bad one the next day. Maybe its cause im hoping for good days like that everyday.

 

Anyway last friday after emailing we went out and looked around the boundaries of our mtc. Elder taylor was yelling boa tarde to everyone we saw and some workers called us over and we went and 'talked' to them. We dont really know a ton of Portuguese still. They offered us JACA. Its a Brazilian fruit and is really sweet and has a weird texture. I'm assuming you can look it up so i wont try to explain it haha.

 

Koby played the piano at the devotional on Tuesday. Mom you'll be happy to know i played prelude it ;) It was fun cause koby had just arrived and couldnt understand the Portuguese people were saying so i went and sat by him and translated haha. Its fun seeing how far i've come. I'm playing sunday though and should be a lot of fun. I get to pick 5 or 6 songs and play for the congregation.

 

Wednesday we went proselyting(?) at a "park". It really wasnt a park just a big area between buildings. We all were given 2 BoM and told you gotta get them all out in 2 hours. Well to get to the park we had to take the bus. If crazy could explain it i would use it but it doesn't even come close. I talked to a family on the bus and tried to make out what they said over the loudness and the getting thrown all over the place. I was able to give them a book of Mormon though and was way excited about that. We then continued to go look for people. We were there when there was a fan fest for a soccer game though so not a lot of people wanted to come talk to us. Well not come, have us come to them haha. We ended up getting the rest of our bom out to 9 lucky people and was a way cool experience. There was one man named George who i would like to talk about for a second. I wasnt going to talk to him cause he was smoking and i didnt want to talk to someone WHILE they were smoking. i dont mind the fact that they do it just around me. Anyway we made eye contact and that was it. We walked over and he was way happy. He didnt believe in god, had 2 kids, worked IT and spoke some english. He even helped us out a little bit by telling us how to say 'for free' cause everyone always is wondering how much a BoM is haha. All of the Brazilians who i have talked to are way patient and way helpful. They will kinda root for us while we are talking haha. While we were there we got 2 references from members. On the way home i tried to talk to another guy but its hard. my Portuguese isnt all that good.

 

Companions stink. i cant get them to follow the rules or hurry up or anything. Its way annoying and no matter what i say they just wont. Really frustrating.

 

Ya koby has pday on wednesday but i see him at desjejum and the end of almoco and jantar. (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) I go to his room at night and see how he's doing. He seems to be enjoying himself.

 

I hope you are all doing well and i pray for you everyday. I'm unfortunately out of time but just know that i'm not sure if this visa is a blessing or not. haha. I love you all and cant wait for next week!

 

Tchau! ate' mais!

 

Elder Sullivan

 

ps... Vai Brasil! ;) its nuts with the world cup here!

June 13, 2014

Oi familia e amigos.

I thought i knew a lot of portuguese last week but that was before this week went around. i started studying the language more and preach my gospel more now cuz I FINISHED THE BOOK OF MORMON for the first time. now i can testify with all my heart that i know that it is the word of God.

Something that might be helpful for some people is the mtc address. it's

Brasil MTC

Rua padre antonio D'angelo, 121

Casa Verde

02516-040 Sao Paulo -SP

Brazil

I dont know which i have on FB.

This week flew by compared to the last week. Although all we do is eat and sit and eat and sit haha. We do however have actividade fisica where we play speed and volley ball and can lift weights.

I was recently asked to play the piano for a devocional. I dont know why cuz i said i was a beginner haha. I told them i needed to practice and told them that they had the wrong sullivan haha. She said she would ask koby and i told her that this week i could play prelude but not ready to play for the congregation. I just made a purchase today of a hymns made easy in portuguese. I practice during my personal study time.

So i have had a few questions on how you learn a language from someone who doesnt speak english. the answer is.... charades. It is seriously for the first few days a person jumping around acting out his sentences. Also dictionaries are your friend and i have mine with me where ever i go. The teachers are REALLY good though. They are really strong with the spirit and are actually fairly recent return missionaries. Irmao benatti is 20 years old and has only been home for 4 months. He is way funny. Irma deborah is really nice too. She will mostly just talk to us in portuguese which is really a help cuz we can learn how to understand people talking fast. They are both more friends than they are teachers and they are always praying for us.

So i still have a little time so i have a funny story to tell you. Everyone here is in the choir. and sometimes they like to mix it up and have one verse in portuguese then one in english then one in spanish that way everyone gets to sing in their native tongue. whats funny is when the hispanics sing in english. Oh my me and my companions are just busting up in the back cuz we know what its like to have to practice certain sounds over and over again cuz they are so unique to brazil.

World cup..... started yesterday and there was no doubt that it started. fireworks, horns, yelling all of it and it was nuts. the first day of the world cup here is a holiday (go figure) so all the businesses were closed and no one was on the streets. brazil won 3-1 so it was a happy day in the mtc. Vai Brazil ;)

So that all i have for this week. I hope all is well at home and that you guys are staying healthy busy and full of faith. I love you all and appreciate every bit of support you give me.

Oh ya one more thing... Koby is here ;) haha but seriously i had waited for days for him to come. Im glad he's here cuz im happier now and have someone i can talk to. I help him out when i can and i love talking to him in portuguese cuz he is really bad and it reminds me of where i was when i first got here.

I know this church is true and everything is possible when we have faith. even learning a language! i have a testimony of prayer and how God answers everyone. I know it cuz i have seen it happen. If you guys want a really good inspirational movie look up. The atonement: the work of missionaries. so bom.

Thats all for now.

Love you lots!

Elder (Kyson) Sullivan

My Brother Arrived at the CTM in Brazil!

two weeks after I did!

Back row, right. The blonde one.

June 6, 2014

June 6  

(mother's side note: the shift key is really small

and way over in the corner of the keyboard of 

their computer in the MTC, so there's not a lot 

of capitalizing. Mom has fixed as much as she cares to.)

Oi familia e amigos

O ctm es bom. Eu aprendo muito portugues no rapido. Nos aprendemos encinar lições e oramos e fallamos português. Muito loco esse estou no brasil.

{google translation (hi loved ones the mtc is good. I learn very quickly in Portuguese. lessons learned in encinar and pray and Portuguese fallamos. I'm in Brazil)}

For sake of time the rest will be in english. So the ctm is a lot like the prison. A lot of rules in bed at a certain time and they wont let you outside the gates unless its your pday. But its ok cuz the spirit is here and god is on our side.

I am trying to follow the rules with exactness like it says in alma 57,21. Right now Im in a trio and its hard. At first it was good but now i am having a hard time with them. They like to be rebels and not really that into the rules. They look most forward to p day which is great but really distracting. We have fun and laugh a lot.. .maybe too much but its good.

Right now im in 3 nephi reading about christ its the greatest. We went to the temple today and it was so good. Its about an hour drive but they send us out there on tour bus that have reclining seats and its so great.

We have brazillians in our room and they are helping us speak our portuguese. They are very helpful. The latinos on the other hand... they just confuse us cuz we dont know if they are speaking portuguese or spanish haha. Im learning fast and praying hard everyday. A lot of time in portuguese.

I shared my testimony on sunday. i found moms note and ya i started bawling. I didnt even find it til sunday and it was right when i needed it. I shared a paragraph out of it and was bawling the whole time. The mission presidents wife said that she wrote my testimony down and really enjoyed it so i guess it was good.

The food is good for the most part. I try everything and am finding out what i dont like. You can count on one thing though.. rice and beans. muito bom ;).

We had a devocional on tuesday and it was about being representatives of jesus christ and how thats how everyone sees us. I will try my hardest to act like Jesus is my companion and is always next to me and helping me along the way.

Thats all for this week. Love you guys with all my heart and miss you lots.

Elder Sullivan.

ps the teachers only speak portuguese. thats one way to do it i guess haha