Pics from this week

8520 is of the Halloween 2 poster. Rob Zombie didnt know how right he was.

8521 is me and the Branch Pres here in Jacarezinho. He is awesome, I love this man.

8533 is of Elder Lima cooking me lunch.

 

 "Hey, Elder Lima, this is awesome, what is this?"

 "Figado"

 "What´s that?"

 "Liver"

 "Oh..."

 

8540 - So this little mini hurricane came out of nowhere when we were talking back to our apt. We were in the farthest part of our area, and it just starts pouring on us. So we ran to this little bus stop awning thing, and it was completely open on both sides, so it didnt help much. It was cold, we were wet, and it was awesome. I seriously think there is nothing better than sharing a crappy situation with someone you love.

 

8541- Ok, maybe I´m smiling a little too big. Actually it looks like I´m friggin crazy, but he caught me mid laughter, whatever. When the rain stopped we started walking back and in the middle of the park I stepped into a puddle up to my shin, so the entire time back to the apt my shoe was making a squishing noise.

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I can feel it in my nuggets

Whaddup people! Sorry for not writing last week, I´m a slacker, I know. There´s been alot happened these past couple of weeks, everything from being chased by gay hookers to being crapped on. We´ve been real busy, and we´ve got a few families that are preparing to be baptized. It´s so cool to watch people change their lives and turn unto the Lord. That´s the cool thing about missionary work, all we need is 10 minutes, and if you´ve got an open mind and heart, this message will change your life. I know this is the true gospel of Jesus Christ, restored again on the earth. I´m so glad I get to share this message with everyone that I can. A mission is such a blessing and a privilage. Thanks to all of you that have helped me get here. So, in order to improve myself, I need your help. I need everyone to reply back with what you think my strengths are, and what my weaknesses are. I need you to be brutally honest. I will not hold this against you. If I get mad it´s because I´ve got pride. But, I promise I wont get mad, unless it´s some kinda bullcrap that isnt true ;) I need to be the best I can be for these people here in Brasil, so I need as much feedback on this as possible. You´ve got a week to think of something and report back.

 

So, this week has also been really hard for me, Elder Lima is getting kinda trunky and it´s making me homesick. Plus, I used to ALWAYS have music playing, where ever I was, whatever I was doing, or...whatever. And now, being here out on a mish, I hardly ever hear any kind of music, unless the neighbors are blaring their music, or we go to church and I hear hymns (yay..).

Which reminds me, weeee siiiiinnggg soooooo sllloooowwww in church. What the F people? Now, this gets kinda funny, because most times I just kinda zone out and since I´m used to a quicker pace I´m always off time. And, since I dont pronounce everything like a native, It´s really noticable when I do it. So yeah, I´m always off, on..everything. It´s great. S.O.P. now is when someone starts talking crap, usually some punk kid, I just switch to english. Then everyone else is the one with the dumb look, even my comp. Just yesterday we stopped at a members work to drop off some Book Of Mormons for him. Well there were some customers in there and when they realized who we were they started to bible bash. Now, I still cant really understand folks, so I´m just hanging out, watching the second hand tick on the clock. Then one of the dudes comes up to me because Elder Lima wont talk to him, and starts trying to do it to me. I told him a few times that I cant understand him, and one of the times he says - "it´s ok, the Holy Spirit will translate for us". And persists and talking to me. I still have no clue what he´s saying, and his friend is trying to pull him away and tell him that I cant understand. I start talking in english to him, to prove a point that I cant understand him, but he persists. Eventually they left, after the Member turned on the radio super loud and nobody could hear each other. So yeah, I cant understand other people that well, but I´m starting to be able to kinda barely almost understand Elder Lima (I said KINDA, Higgins).

 

The families that we have are awesome That same member that I talked about above gave us a referral to another family. Well, they turned out to be a dud, but their neighbors didnt, so we´ve been coming back and teaching them. It´s sooo cool because they honestly want to know the truth. They have a ton of questions, which I personally love. Because when people have questions, or doubts, it´s because they´re thinking. When people dont have anything, it´s because they´re not thinking. I´d rather someone drop a bomb of a question on us that stumps us than have someone just be spoonfed. It´s kinda dissapointing to me when I go in, teach someone, ask them if they have any questions, they say no, and then that´s it. Are you kidding me? We just told you something that is so completely different than anything you´ve ever heard, and you´re cool with that? You dont have a single question? I know with me, if someone told me something about firearms that is completely different than the current mantra at the time, I would listen, ask a ton of questions, try it if it made sense, and see if it works. Whatever, I guess.

That´s the bad thing about Brazilians, getting in their house isnt the problem, it´s getting them to commit to anything, because they want to. They dont want to make you mad, they want to be your friend, so they just say yes to everything, and never do it. So it´s rare when you actually have someone like the families that we have that actually think about what we´re saying. You cant be blunt with them, otherwise they get their feelings hurt, and if you´re too nice then they dont understand how important it is that they listen. That´s the hard part about missionary work, you´ve got to find the middle ground on everything. That´s why having the Spirit is so important. If it was left to Elder Mate P. Standard nothin would get done.

 

 Anyways folks, I´m outtie for this week. Please reply back with what you think my strengths and weaknesses are so I can work on them, kapeesh?

 

Forty Six and Two,

The Church is True,

Elder Standard

 

(Ha, pretty clever isnt it, it rhymes and everything)

 

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Pictures

First one is of my little breakfast. The yogurt tastes like a friggin liquid fruit roll up.

 

Ok, here´s my little q-tips. Does anyone else think of that Lil Wayne song? I do, every morning when I get up.

 

This one is of our chapel. I love it. It´s fantastic.

 

This one is of district meeting.

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"The kid´s a square Benny! The kid´s a square!"

 

So, I´m going to print a retraction for last week´s email. Little did I know that when I typed out "Yeah, and I can already understand my companion" was I alerting headquarters that I was actually getting somewhere. I can picture Heaven like the CTU control room. God´s walking around with a bluetooth on His Ear, there´s angels in white robes sitting in front of computers with headsets on, there´s printers spitting out papers. Angels are running around with folders. I imagine last wednesday night went something like this -

 

Angel Higgins - Uh, oh, Sir!

God - Hey Isaiah, I liked that part about the fiery flying serpents, sssss, ouch! heh heh

Angel Higgins - Uh....Sir

God - Yes Higgins?

Angel Higgins - We´ve got a comfortable one.

God - Well you know what to do.

Angel Higgins - Yes Sir!

 

Angel Higgins places his finger on the "humble" key, which has been used so many times the key only says "hu  le". This is not to be confused with the "smite" key, which is right next to it, and has a drop of cheese from last night´s $0.99 nacho supreme from TacoFriend. I hope my investigators never ask me what I personally think Heaven is like, mainly because I dont know how to say "control panel" in portuguese, and because I dont want them to think the only thing that happens when you get to Heaven is you´re handed a goody bag with one free flying lesson, an eternal lifetime supply of ibuprofen and malox, and a "Managing Mortals for Dummies" guide book.

 

"Forever´s gunna start tonight, forever´s gunna start tonight"

 

Actually Bonnie, it started last thursday morning. I wake up, go about getting ready for the day, and I cant understand anything Elder Lima is saying. I catch little words here and there, just enough to know the gist of what he´s saying. I´m completely friggin lost. We go out, do contacts, and I have no clue what these people are saying. Apparentely they have no clue what I´m saying either, because I´ll say all of the right words, and they just stare at me. Then, Elder Lima (God bless him) says the exact same thing, and it clicks for them. "oh yeah, you can come over". Rock on. So I think my job here right now, is just to get peoples attention with my strange accent and looks. Little kids stare and point, old people just look and spit. It´s awesome. I love being in Brasil. There´s certainly no missing a 6´2 white guy walking next to a 5´9 brown guy, both of which are in white shirts and ties when everyone else is in shorts and flip flops. We go about teaching lessons, I stumble through my 0.036% of the lesson, Elder Lima picks up the rest. We´re a heck of a team. Sunday was fun, it was fast and testimony, thank goodness, so I´d be able to throw out a blanket of who I am, where I´m from, all that jazz w/o being asked 26 times those same questions. I lay it down, and we go to class. These people talk sooooo friggin fast. And I´m not even in São Paulo! The teachers ask me to read, so I read, (which I can read better than I speak, and I can speak better than I understand), and then ask me to comment. I say something that was so far off in left field everyone just nods and then they move on to the next person. For the record, these members are awesome. During testimony meeting everyone got up, and bore the most powerful testimonies. Its not hard to understand the Spirit. It´s a small branch, with about 26 active people. The members arent able to feed us alot here, so we´re left to fend for ourselves most of the time. I´ve gotten really good at making bacon and eggs. The bacon here is a little different from the states. Here, it´s just a block of bacon, and you cut off what you want. I´m a thick-cut kinda guy, so I go through the bacon pretty quick. Everything´s cool though, and we always have enough to eat (that´s for you Mom).

 

When we teach lessons, I can just say enough to get through my shpeel, and then I´m outtie for the rest of the lesson. I might was well be part of the couch. When people ask me questions, I just pull a dumb grin, go "mhm..." and turn to my comp, hoping he heard what they asked. This, more often than not, brings this fun little question - "Ele não entende?" No, I cant understand, yet. But, most people here are cool with it. They just smile, kinda chuckle, say something to you again just to extract that dumb little grin, and then move on to what they were asking. Last Friday, we went to members house for some water because we were tracting in the area. They had a few kids, with the oldest being around 13ish. We were all playing around, talking smack, and after he said something that I didnt understand, he asked that same question - "ele não entende?" So Elder Lima explained that I was still learning. This gives the kid free reign, so the thinks. He just goes off, calling me every name in the book. I can understand what´s going on, and bust out in english.

 

1. It feels really good to speak english once in a while

2. It´s incredibly weird when you speak english and nobody understands.

 

With the tables now thoroughly turned, I start going off on the kid, and he´s now the one with the dumb look on his face. Just to rub salt in the wound, I ask him "Voce não entende?"

 

Oh, sweet justice.

 

So yeah, that´s been my week so far. Everything is going good. I´m sick again, with something, I have no clue. I hear gunfire 2-3 times a day. And by gunfire, I mean automatic weapons. I can tell there´s m16´s because of the three-round burst. This is a town of 36,000 people. I didnt hear this much gunfire in Houston. So yeah, gun control works great down here ;p

 

For the record, the next person that says Americans are arrogant is getting judo-chopped in the throat.....  And that´s all I´ve got to say about that.

 

We had district meeting this week. It was awesome, the parts that I understood. I´m so blessed to be working with awesome people down here. Everyday I can teach a little more, say a little more, understand a little more. The Lord is with me, and He´s guiding me through this process. I know that He lives, that He is our Savior. I know that he is very much interested in everyone´s lives. He loves us, and is doing everything possible to help us return to Heavenly Father. The more I learn about this Gospel, and about this whole plan, I realize just how perfect it is. There´s not a chink or a glitch anywhere. I defy anyone to find one. This is the true Church of Jesus Christ, restored again on the earth because God loves us. It was restored through Joseph Smith, who was called of God to bring to pass this last dispensation. I know these things to be true by the power of the Holy Ghost. Nothing can take this testmony away from me, and I will speak it to the entire world if I could. God Lives, Jesus Christ lives. And they will carry us through if we allow them. I am so grateful for the knowledge that I´ve been given, and I want to share it with everyone. I love all of you, and pray that all of you can have the same joy that I have. Please stay strong, pray for strength to withstand satan and the world, and you will make it.

 

Elder Mate Standard

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Did you not tell him they were the Lord´s cheeps?

Whaddup people

 

I am finally, finally in MY area, with MY trainer, starting MY mission in Londrina. No more waiting, no more busrides, no more airplanes, I am freakin here. It seems like it´s taken forever to get here. Nevermind the fact that I started my mish two years later than most, but I´ve waited on visas, waited on transfers, waited on people to arrive. I know the clock starts tickin when you arrive at the MTC, but I havent felt like my mission really started until I got here. And now I´m here, and now it´s time to rock out. I´ve got to be better than I have been, I´ve got to do anything I possibly can to feel the spirit, so that I can more effecttively teach my brothers and sisters. Anything less is a disgrace to my Father, my brothers and sisters, my family and lastly, to me. Everything in my life has happened for this reason. I´ve been prepared since I was born to do this, and I cant even entertain the thought of slacking off, or wasting time. If I slough off, then everything was for nothing. All the pain, all the waiting. So I´m here, and I´m going to work as hard as I possibly can, and then I´m going to push past it, and work harder. The Lord has blessed me soooo much. I can understand my companion already, and I´m just being blessed right and left with the language. All of the language rules, all of the grammar, is just coming to me as fast as I can speak it. I want to show everyone how grateful I am, by how hard I work. Every single one of you that I´m writing, has helped me in some form or another. Thank you, tao muito, for everything that you´ve done for me. Dad, thanks for all that hard work. I´ve always been grateful for it, but here out on the mish, it´s going to really pay off. Mom, thanks for all the love. Miles, Ashley, thanks for being the best brother and sister anyone could ask for. Bishop, thanks for sticking with me, and not giving up on me. To the rest of you, thank you, for even the smallest amount of time that I spent with you. I am so grateful for my life. I know the best people. I am so blessed. I am so grateful for this opportunity to serve a mission for my Heavenly Father. This is such a blessing. One of the main reasons I came on a mish is to "give back" to meu Pai Celestial, but now Í just dug the pit deeper :) I´ve learned sooo much, about Him, about myself, about families, and about life. This is the best decision I´ve ever made.

 

Well, I guess I´ll tell you about my week.

 

I´ve been staying with the secretarys until the other novo missionarios arrived. Weeell, they finally arrived. It was awesome staying with Elder Miller, he is the friggin man. He´s from Lumberton, which is about 45 minutes from Tomball, meis ou menos. I hope we become comps later in the mish, but prob not, because we get along too well. So we pack up all of our stuff, and we head out to meet up with the other missionarios. We all head to the mission home, and have a welcome...meeting with Presidente Leal and his wife, Sister Leal. We all get new sheets, new pillows, and other stuff, eat lunch, and take off. I love that man so much, and I am so glad he will be my mission president for at least a little while. We head to the bus station, and I take off. I´ve been led to believe that I will be meeting my comp that day, but alas, it was not so. We stayed with some other missionaries, and me and Elders Piano and Timothy took off to teach some lessons that night. We taught about the restoration, and my part of the lesson was on the actual restoration. Now, I´ve had trouble with this section more than the others, I dunno why, it´s just the way it is. When it became my turn, the words just flowed. Most other times I still suck at portugues, but when we´re doing contacts, or teaching lessons, I can speak just fine. The lesson went really well, and we ended up teaching 3 more people other than the 1 that we came to teach. So we head back to the apartment, and when I was unpacking for the night, I realized that in my hurry to leave the other apartment, I had left half of my clothes there. So life 1, Elder Standard 0. Tudo bem, I´ll be able to do laundry in the morning. We got to sleep, wake up, and take off. This was quite awesome.We had to walk about 3 miles to the bus station, with all of our belongings, down the streets (see pictures in the other email). After crossing a highway, we arrive, I meet my comp, and we take yet another bus to our area. We arrive, I unpack, and we come to find that we dont have any laundry detergent. Life 2, Elder Standard 0. Tudo bem, we´ll just go to the store and buy some. We do, I finally am able to do laundry, and we take a breather. Elder shows me his family, which includes his hot sister, and then I show him all of my pics. There is now no doubt in Elder Lima´s mind if I like guns or not. BTW, I´ve got a ton of pics on my memory card, but not all of them show up when I try to play them on my camera. If any of you know how to fix this, please let me know. Otherwise nobody knows what my family looks like. So yeah, we head off to write emails, which brings me to.....now.

 

If anyone has

 

Brother Wake´s email

Ngoc´s email

Fernando´s email

 

And could remember to send those to me, that would be kinda awesome. I´ve gotta go now, so remember that I love you, and we´ll see each other soon enough.

 

Elder Standard

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Here´s me addy

Elder Mate Standard
Av. higienòpolis, 1100 - sala 61
86020-911 - Londrina, PR, Brasil

If you´re going to send stuff, tape pictures of Jesus to it so nobody will open the package. It´s kinda hard to break a commandment when you have about 10 little Jesus´ staring at you.

Stay classy America,
Elder Standard

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Shaving cream woes and first impressions

OMG, I just had like, 3 paragraph written up and then since I´m not used to this friggin keyboard I accidentely erased everything. So, here´s what I said -

So here I am in Brasil. I´ve been here about 3 dias now, and so much has happened that I´ll only be able to write a little bit of what I´ve done.

Oh, and BTW, if there´s alot of typos in my emails, forgive me. This keyboard is slightly different than the American one. The apostraphe is in a different place and the shift key is itty-bitty. I keep fat fingering everything and it´s drivin me nuts.

So, the flight/s were uneventful. I met 3 other Elders in Dallas, and one of them was in my branch at the MTC, even though now I cant remember his name. Sis Richardson, he was in your district. One of them, Elder Lee, was heading to my mission, so we became comps for the time-being. It was sooo nice because once we got to the São Paulo airport we got friggin lost and since we couldnt really understand people, we would get the directions wrong on where to go. It was all fun though, and we were merrily sweating all the way. Once we finally made it to our gate, a member comes up to us and introduces himself to us. Turns out it´s the Stake President of where we would eventually end up. So that was cool. We finally made it to Londrina, as did our luggage (thank goodness) and found the Mission President, Presidente Leal, and the executive secretary, Elder Miller, and the treasury Elder, Elder Cavalheiro. Presidente Leal had to take off, so me and the three other Elders jumped in a cab and took off to the apartment. That was an experience. If you´ve ever ridden in a cab in Mexico, or somewhere similar you know what I´m talking about. This dude is just flying through the streets, and we dont stop for anything. I feel like I´m in a convoy in Iraq. The little horn is blaring at the cyclic rate. Heaven forbid if you´re a small animal. So here we are, there´s not an inch of empty space in this cab, flying through the streets of Londrina at the speed of Peugot. We finally arrive at the apartment, offload our stuff, and then we´re off to teach some lessons. Me and Elder Miller, who is also from Texas, Beaumont to be exact, went one way, and Elders Lee and Cavalheiro went the other. We taught...well, Elder Miller taught the lesson, and I was able to understand just about everything. The people here talk soooo much slower than those from Rio or São Paulo, so I actually have a chance now. We get back the apt, eat some Brasilian hotdogs, and go to immediately to trading ties. Ties are a very personal thing, and everybody has their individual taste. I cant stand striped ties. Every missionary I´ve ever seen has a striped tie. Well, that´s all Elder Miller has, but he actually had at least one that I liked, with this old school poly paisley, so I snatched those up pretty quick. He wanted a couple of my favorites, so he offered me a mini portuguese preach my gospel to sweeten the deal. I accepted, and now we are both happy. It was time for bed, so we went to sleep, which wasnt hard. I had really slept in about 2 days. I firmly believe that like cars, they design airplanes to be as uncomfortable as possible when you try to sleep. We´ve got two fans blowing, with interlocking courses of fire, so we´re always in the breeze. For the record, Elder Lee snores so fast, it sounds like he´s running a marathon in his sleep. All of the windows are open, there´s bugs everywhere, and I couldnt be happier. I´m finally in Brasil, trying to speak portuguese, and having the time of my life. I am so grateful to be here. A mission is such an amazing experience, and it´s such a privilage to work side by side with the Lord in His work.

Day 2

Not a whole lot happened today, because we were in the office most of the day. We did go apartment hunting though, so we got to get out and walk the streets for a little bit. We ate at this Brasilian buffet for lunch, which was awesome. I love Brasilian food. Presidente Leal came in, and we had interviews. He took care and spoke slowly, which I was grateful for, and I was able to understand most everything he said. Just the few minutes I´ve been able to spend with him are a blessing. He is such an amazing man, and I´m glad he´ll be my mission president for at least a few months. Next to our office is a little corner drugstore walgreens type thing. I needed some shaving cream in the worst way, so we went over there on the way back from lunch. I walk in, go the shaving section, and about die. Holy Moses riding a rocket this stuff is expensive. It was like, $22 reais for a little can. Forget the oil industry, the friggin shaving cream tycoons should be on the news. $22 reais is more or less $11 dollars. And the thing that really ticks me off, is that I had just bought a $2 econo-size can of gilette back in GA, but forgot to bring it. So, if you´re going to send a package, please send single or twin blade razors, shaving cream, and foot powder. It will be much appreciated.

Day 3
We went out with Elder Trindade, an Elder who goes home next week, and did some work. It was Elders Miller and Cavalheiros P-day, and Pres didnt want me and lee (hey that rhymed) to do nothing all day. So we get back in the taxi from hell and scream across Londrina. We arrive, only by the Grace of God, and start planning. We have about 10 people we are going to see, and we map out our day. The first person isnt home, so we go the next one, she´s home, and we teach her about the restoration. I started out the lesson, and suprised myself at how well I spoke. I´ve never spoken portuguese that good, everything just flowed. Lesson ended, and we move onto the next. It was a bright sunny day, and we were already sweating pretty good. We taught more people, walked everywhere, contacted people on the street, and I was just beaming. I love missionary work. And it helps that we were in the Antares area, which is known throughout the mission for people just accepting you without a second thought. By the time the day was over, we had taught 8 lessons, and walked about 8 miles. The last lesson we taught was a family that was going to be baptized on saturday. They are so awesome, and the kids just cracked me up. There was this little boy, about 2 years old, who was so fat everything jiggled when he ran. I could not stop laughing. All he had on were these blue briefs, and it was one of the funnier things I´ve seen since I´ve been out here. I love Brasil, I love the people, I love everything about it. I´m sorry to those that have served in other missions, but Londrina is where it´s at. This is the best mission in the world.


Well, it´s getting to be lunch time, and I´m morrendo com fome, so I´m going to head out.

Eu amo ya´ll,
Elder Standard


BTW, my P-day is wednesday now, and if anyone has Jarons Email, or can give him mine, please do so. I want to see how he´s doing.

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Pics and stuff

Hey everybody, here´s a few pics from my mission so far. The first one is me and Elder Trindade. He goes home next week, and since I dont have a comp yet (I will next week) they put us and Elder Lee (haha, get it- Elderly....) to together to go work. We taught about 8 lessons yesterday and walked about 8 miles. My feet are sore.

The next one is of a micro-van. These things are so cool. I will come back to Brasil and buy one of these when my mission is over.

The office that we go to sometimes for paperwork is right in the middle of town, so we see weird cars like this all the time. This is some kinda mini land rover.

This is the apartment for now, we´re moving out sometime this week, hopefully into a much bigger space. As it stands right now I have nowhere to hang my clothes. 0954 is another shot of the apartment.

And 0960 is just a pic of what I would look like with rapist glasses on. As soon as I find a pair that´s cheap I will buy some and wear them all around Brasil.

The last pic is of me and Elder Lee outside the mission office. I met Elder Lee in Dallas en route to here, so we´ve been quasi-comps since then.

I´ll send another email of my adventures here in a bit. Love ya´ll

Èlder Standard

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