July 17, 2012

So this 24th of July activity has turned into a little on down the road activity! haha it's been rough to plan a time to get with the other Elders to plan this out because there are 3 duplas....um....companionships. yeah....forgot that word...sorry about that. but yeah there are three of us and 3 schedules and it's been rough, so we're thinking we're still gonna do a pioneer day activity...just not on the 24th cuz we don't have time enough to make it super well done. We don't want to do an activity half way, so we're working on planning within the elders and then asking the wards to get on board. We’ve talked to a few of the members about the idea of an activity, and for the most part, they're super excited, então ainda bem! so we'll get this whole thing planned out. Pioneer stuff is a little hard to come by here in Portugal, but Elder Bond and I are brainstorming up some pretty cool stuff! We want to have a campfire and pioneer stories and stuff like that, and then maybe watch legacy or something. And then we want to see if it's at all possible to build a handcart...we'll see how that goes, but i wanted to make some of the kids haul a handcart around the church 3 times to see how the pioneers felt and the sacrifice that they made...we'll see how that works out. Some of the members used to be carpenters...so I want to see if they can build on. A lot of work, but I'm super pumped!

Elder Bond is awesome! I love this kid! We have a few run ins sometimes, but that's normal....he's a greeny and he gets SUPER frustrated with the language....which I understand. So I'm learning love, patience, and trying to remember my Portuguese! (Sometimes I find myself saying the little things wrong that he says! NOOOOOO!!! hahaha :) ) He struggles a little with the conjugations, but he's working super hard, and he's getting over the fear of making a mistake and talking more in the lessons, so that's super good! I hope I haven't promised anymore visions!! I'm not gonna lie though; I still don't understand everything, so some of these lessons I could be agreeing to something that could be wrong...but yeah. No one's been mad because they didn't get a vision, so that's good! :)

2 weeks ago we had a REALLY hard time finding new investigators. We do a LOT of tracting here, until now. We're trying to use the members more and get references from them, but i never knew how and the only thing I’ve learned is tracting, but we've learned a lot from our new president. Even our ZL's did a lot of tracting, so we're working on changing that. But yeah Elder Bond got really down, because a lot of the Catholics have been saying, "I know Catholism isn't true, but I’ve been catholic my whole life, so I won't change." It's been hard because Elder Bond has been getting down because they won't change. We just talk about how it takes time to move traditions. And how we're planting the seeds. A little later on down the road, the Lord will put something in their path, and they'll remember when the 2 Americans who couldn't speak Portuguese said something about prophets and gold plates and they'll let the next Elders in. We've also talked a lot about the importance of smiling! When’s he's getting down, I'll push him in to the wall or something so he will punch me, and then we laugh and joke and it's all good! It’s so fun! I love this kid! The other day he pushed me into the middle of the street. I wasn't paying attention so I FREAKED! cuz I was in the middle of the street! I about died cuz I was so scared! Then I realized that there wasn't a car for like 17 miles. I seriously about killed him! He laughed really hard. Don't worry Elder, I don't get mad, I just get even. (evil-yet-righteous-desired-chuckle) :)

And we’ve honestly seen the hand of the Lord SOO much this week. I talked to you about Orlanda a little last week, so I’ll tell you about her real quick. Orlanda is about 35 years old. She lives alone but she works a lot and her mom is with her a lot. She loves Jesus Christ so much and wants to follow Him and learn all she can about Him. Lately she's been studying a lot to know how to follow him and to learn more about His life. Then one day she saw the Elders of Funchal 2, the other area next to ours. And she thought, ya know I'd like to talk to them one day. Maybe they can help me. And then that night....we knocked on her door, and asked her if we could share a message about Jesus Christ. She was so excited and she let us talk to her. She says she never answers the door for anybody that she doesn't know, but she wanted to know about Jesus Christ. (we told her through the door that we were disciples of Christ and wanted to share the message. So then she opened the door!!) So then we talked about the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ and left her with 3 Nephi 11 to read, and then said a prayer with her. We came back the next appointment, and she had read the chapter, had questions, read the testimony of Joseph Smith and wanted more! so we responded to her questions, talked about Joseph Smith just a little bit before we had to leave. Then we were leaving and we said, "we're going to teach you tonight how to pray." When we said that her face was interesting.....and then afterwards we found out that after the first visit, when we invited her to pray, she wasn't sure how. She know that the Catholic way of praying wasn't really how to pray, and she wanted to know how to do it. And then she said the way that we worded it was exactly the way she wanted to hear it. And the cool thing is, neither of remember why we said "We're going to teach you how to pray" because we NEVER word it like that. The Spirit gave us in the exact moment what Orlanda needed to hear. And then we had a meeting with Pres. Fluckiger at the same time as our last appointment, so we just stopped by super quick to apologize and mark another time to come by and she told us that she had a dream that somebody with an "American name that started with a J" and the Lord appeared to her and told her to believe in Jesus Christ. She said some other things about the American name, It sounded like Jared to me. So a Jared appeared to her and told her to believe in Christ.....we decided we should leave Ether 3 with her. Where the brother of Jared sees the Lord. It was so cool! we have another appointment with her this week. We're SOOO excited! It's gonna be great! we still haven't been able to teach the whole restoration or anyting because we're answering her questions and stuff and it's GREAT! we're so so so excited to be teaching her! and the Lord has prepared her, and has guided us to her, and He's doing everything! It's SO incredible! I'm so grateful for the hand of the Lord in our lives. I know He prepares things from the beginning, and He's guiding us through them. I know it! I love being a missionary!!

July 9, 2012

So is Logan in Hungary yet??? Man I love that kid!! he's gonna be the best missionary in the world....without a shadow of a doubt. I feel really bad that i haven't written him yet....but last week i didn't write anyone.....sooooooo.....yeah. I'm a putz. But i love you all and him too and everyone so yeah. No stress! :) Man everyone’s taking off!! On Wednesday all the grace kids will be gone!! and William leaves here in a week or two.

Mom thanks so much for sharing Alma 7:11-13 with me. It's been a long time since I’ve read that in English, and I love it so much. Some of those words just mean more to me in English...and I really needed to hear those. Thanks so much. And you're so right. The Savior has such a personal and deep love for all of his brothers and sisters. It's been such a privilege and honor to have the chance to work with some of them very personally here in Portugal. I've started to see that so literally. As I’ve tried to change my point of view of people, and been doing what it says in Moroni 7:48....and praying with all the energy of heart for this love....and the Lord has blessed me enough to be able to feel just a tiny portion of what He feels for us. As we look at people not just as people, but as people that were with us in the Pre-mortal life, as people that we knew and loved and worked side by side together, we start to look at them differently, and we start to feel differently about them and the scary part of sharing the gospel starts to go away, because they already heard it once, and we loved them once, so let's love them enough here to get them back with us again. I challenge everyone to think of a person that they know, that isn't a member of the church....and think about them as a person that you knew and loved before this life, and then to pray and ask Heavenly Father how it is that you can help them get back. Pray for missionary experiences and the Lord will give them to you 100% and He'll fulfill all of the missionary promises. "Take no thought beforehand what ye shall say". "Treasure up continually the words of life". I also want to bear testimony of the power of member missionary work. We've been working a TON with our new branch president...and miracles are happening. The members have such a strong influence and example and testimony that as missionaries, we can't bring on our own because we're not "normal people". we work hard to gain the trust of the investigators and we succeed, but it's not the same as a friend they've had for a long time. I invite you all to offer to have the missionaries in your home, and ask them how you can help. Invite a friend to church or to an FHE or a dinner with the missionaries, and don't be afraid to share what you know. Sharing the gospel can be scary, but when we get over it and we feel the Spirit testify of what we're saying, our testimonies grow, and so do those of the investigators. It's an incredible experience, and lasting, eternity changing experience. I invite everyone to participate in this "great and marvelous work!"

So this week, we've still been working with Eliza. Slowly but surely she's progressing..And with the help of Irmão Ornelas, she's starting to be ok with praying about stuff....so that's great!! and Susana finally got her own testimony about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith!!!! The Book of Mormon is so incredible! There’s such a power there, it's ridiculous! So the next step with Susana is her family. They're all Catholic so she's a little bit nervous, but with the help of the Lord, she'll make it there!

And we found this awesome lady named Orlanda!! i'm not going to tell you the complete story until next week....keepin' you on the edge of your seat! hahahaha so don't let me forget to tell you about that miracle ok? k :)

So I just need to apologize. I didn't get a letter in the mail last week. It was a little bit rough on timing. Elder Bond has been super into cleaning up the Hobbit Hole, so we spent a little more time deep cleaning! haha! He's way in to fixing things up and stuff like that, so that's been kinda cool. We haven't embarked on anything deeper than just scrubbing the scum that's been there since before we were born, and getting the nasty butter that the other elders left behind the oven, that i didn't even know was there the entire last transfer....so....yeah. we decided to clean that up. It's super cool to have a clean house! haha. I had to remember this morning to quite whining about stuff like that and just do it. I just wanted to leave and do emails. Like, I washed the dishes and cleaned up the study area a little so the kitchen and the study room were as clean as they have ever been in my 9 weeks here in Funchal, so i was content. And then as Elder Bond was continuing scrubbing the baseboards and stuff, I was like ok, fine, your right, let's do it. And now, it's amazingly beautiful. And i just got thinking, how many times do we leave our lives like that. We wash the recent stuff, or the stuff that we need to do every day. Like we'll read our scriptures, and we'll repent of the really big things every week, but how many times do we forget to do the deep cleaning of our lives, so the spirit can be with us more and more. It made me think about my attitude too. Lately i've been a little bit selfish, and not real accepting of rough things, or accepting a ton of help that the Lord has been trying to give me, through your letters, my incredible zone leaders, Elder Gunter and Elder Jensen, or through my young new companion, that i need to do a deep cleaning of my life. And I've come to learn, that yeah sometimes life is rough, but that's the Lord leading us to the Atonement. As we have rough days or weeks, and stuff like that, that's just the Lord's invitation to use the Atonement. To "always remember Him". And that's what i've done this weekend. As I've been evaluating my life, with sincere and honest prayer, Heavenly Father has shown me some of the "baseboards" that need to be cleaned in my life. And so i've manned up and cleaned them. And it was kinda scary at first, to see how much scum had been underneath the cracks, but as i've finally decided to change them. Full on change them, and make the sincere effort to change things, i've felt the Spirit in my life more. I've felt more of the energy and excitement that i've been lacking a little bit, and i'm just completely filled with love and gratitude for my Savior, for giving me the opportunity to "Deep Clean" my life. It's awesome.

But yeah, i'm sorry i didn't write you last week!! I love you so much and every single one of your letters has helped me so much! and they were perfectly timed and honestly inspired. In the letter I got this morning you talked about maybe having a 24th of July party. And yesterday I talked with the zone leaders about maybe having a combined activity with our 2 branches and watching a movie about the pioneers or something, but i didn't make the connecton to pioneer day!! and so now the Student Body President button kicked in. I've already made a brainstorming list on the bus to the library with Elder Bond about what it is that we can do. I've called the other 4 elders of the other branch (ZL's and the other elders in my district) and told them to brainstorm for district meeting tomorrow. I've identified the members of the Branch that I'm gonna call today to get them fired up and on board, and we're gonna make this the most amazing, (and probably 1st) Pioneer Day here in Madeira!!! I'm SOOOOO excited!! thanks for the help dad!!
Haha ok....quick random thought, I have been thinking about MASH lately....i dont even know why, but i have...and you've been watching it lately.....i think there's something in my brain that just knows when somebody is watching that show! haha :)

Anyways, dad, i'm sorry i've got to go real quick. Gotta write mom and steph....but i love you so  much. Thanks for the help, support, friendship and prayers. I pray for you so much and I love you tons! I honestly can't believe 6 months have almost come and gone. It blows my mind. Its going so fast. it makes me a little nervous to think i onlyl have 3 more of these 6 months periods and i'm done. Just all the more incentive to work harder every day right? Right. Love you dad!! thanks for everything!!

Love,

Jordan (Elder Brady)

Note from Jeri Kay

so I am a huge slacker and had to put a month of emails on today. my apologies...
also, in the interest of getting it done, I just copied and pasted and did not edit, so some of the stuff may not interest the 12 of you who follow this. again, my apologies!
however, hurray that all the posts are on and we are now up to date!

July 2, 2012

Olá mãe!! a semana foi muito muito boa! aprendemos MUITA coisa! haha a infestação realmente, não é tão mal. Eu acho que não temos...sinceramente...eu não tenho nehum outro...bite....i don't know how to say that yet. But anyways...i haven't been bitten in like 2 weeks...so i'm thinking maybe it wasn't too bad....idk. we'll see i guess! haha

oh man!! 3 on 3 tourneys ROCK! I love them! except that i'm pretty sure all of my tiny little miniscule talent already left. totally gone. It's been like 3 and a half months since ive done anything basketball related....triste. haha but i bet dad is SUPER glad to get to watch that tourney! that'll be super fun! so are you gonna wake up and leave at like 5 in the morning or are you gonna go up the night before?

Rattlesnakes?? man that's rough. I don't ever remember there being rattlesnakes that bad at home. What's going on there? don't freak out mom...."just walk nice, they won't getcha!!" ok....that was apostate...i'm sorry. but i couldn't resist. (for those of you who didn't catch that...yes, that was a reference to the runaway bride.)

Mom thanks so much for sharing what Braden said. That really really helped this week. We had an experience with that kind of a thing and that actually really made me feel a TON better. that is really true though. When we think about the priesthood, that's the same power that Jesus Christ used to create the world. It's the power that governs the heavens and the earth, and it's the power that Christ used to perform all of the miracles. It's an incredible honor and responsibility that Heavenly Father has given us. And our responsibility as holders of this priesthood, is to bless the lives of other people. I've already seen amazing miracles with the power of the priesthood. It's a comfort, a protection and a life changing power. super increidlbe.

So Eliza....she's been having a rough time. We had to tell her that unless she was willing to accept Jesus Christ as her Savior, and follow His example, we couldn't keep meeting with her. (the appointments with her were like 2 hours long each.) But we left a reading with her and invited her to come back to church on sunday, and she did! so that was SUCH a miracle! so we talked with her a little bit after church and we're finally being able to help her understand WHY she keeps coming to church. She feels good and we're trying to help her realize that that's the Holy Ghost. She just doesn't quite understand how it works i guess....idk. We keep finding out more and more. little by little. and she keeps surprising us...little by little. I think her biggest problem is confidence. Confidence in herself, in us, and in the Lord. She hasn't been 100% honest with us and she said that she's understood things, but then it turns out that she hasn't, but as the Spirit has been touching her, little by little, we've been able to find out more. and now we're able to plan how to keep helpng her. Please keep praying for her! and us that we can be patient with her. She makes us a little frustrated sometimes...that's why she's been through missionaries for about 8 years. literally. But pray that we can love her and be patient with her enough that we can keep helping her ok? thanks!

Sorry this is short and INCREDIBLY unorganized. i'm ridiculously tired. We had to wake up at 5:30 to take the zone leaders to the airport so they could meet the new President!!! YEAH! but anyways, i'm super tired today, so don't judge my random rambling :) hahaha

I love you all so much and just want to thank you for everything that everyone has done for me. I thank Heavenly Father constantly for the opportunity He gave me to grow up in Grace. To meet the people I met. To have been able to go to BYU and be touched by so many people there. To have such great friends and family in so many places. You are all amazing and I love you all! I just want to bear my testimony to you all that I know, without a doubt, that the gospel of Jesus Christ is perfect. It was restored through Joseph Smith. I know that it is perfect because it was created by a loving, perfect Heavenly Father. And I know without a shadow of a doubt, that Jesus Christ is our Savior, and through Him, and through doing our best, one day at a time, we'll be able to return to live with them again. This is real. It's true. I know it because the Spirit has testified of it to me 1001 times as amissionary. I know it's true, and i'm so grateful for it in my life. in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I LOVE YOU MOM!!!!

Love,

Elder Brady

PS HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH!!!

PPS HAPPY FATHER?S DAY DAD!!!

I'm a putz i forgot. I'«m sorry!!!!!!!

love you!

 

June 18, 2012

Oi mãe!! como estás?? opá! parece que esta semana foi tão incrivel! mesmo como tu :)

Wow....Damian went through the temple and you and Kendal and Dad and everyone was there. I bet that was AMAZING! I've been thinking a ton about the temple lately. I was thinking last sunday, not yesterday but the other day, about covenants and ordinances. I would really love to go through the temple again, just as a little reminder and spiritual booster, but hey, i'll just appreciate it more after a 2 year drought right? :) but seriously, that sounds like the temple was an incredible moment mom. I'm so glad that you got to be a part of that. You're such an amazing person and an amazing example to me, and all of my friends. I hope you know how much we all love you, but me more than any of them, and i'm luckier than them all, because you're mine :) And I thought about when we all get back too. Patrick, Damian, Kendal, me, Ryan, Sam, Jacob, Chase, Logan. Man I'm so pumped for these guys!! and one thing i've realized, is that time on the mission FLIES!! today is transfer P-Day. Turns out i'm staying here in Madeira, and Elder Faias is taking off tomorrow. I'll be getting somebody new, I just don't know who yet :) But  yeah, anyways, this time is going to pass SO much faster than I ever thought. It makes me think about every day that i have, because i don't have very much left. Then I got thinking about how thats the same in life. We don't have very much time to perform our labors, and to create friendships and to help our neighbors and our brothers and sisters. And soon enough, that's it. It made me think about the times when i feel lazy or when things are rough, we just gotta remember, that the Lord only asks for our best for this short little space of time on Earth. We only need to quote unquote, "sacrifice" to keep his commandments for this short little 80 years on earth, and then after that we're promised an eternity full of happiness and joy and peace, with our families and friends. For ETERNITY....i don't know how many 80 years are in an eternity, but i know that this life isn't very much! :) so whenever we're worried about life, or we get down, or we feel like life's hard, just remember, yeah it is sometimes, but it's short...and the promises are sure, and they are more amazing than we can imagine.

Just real quick this brings me to an investigator of ours that is really starting to progress, and she's the reason that i've been thinking about this lately. Her name is Eliza and she's from England. She speaks portuguese perfectly, but she likes to speak English better, so i've been speaking a lot with her. Basically, Eliza is about 32  years old ish (she won't say, so i'm just guessing :) ) She's the only child and she lives with her mom. her parents seperated just a few weeks ago. Her dad has been horribly controling and even abusive to her and it has really caused emotional problems. She's always been talking about the time that she's lost and how hard her problems are and nobody knows what it's like to have problems like her. She's been coming to church and we've had some lessons with her but she's just super nervous and talks super fast and stutters a little bit, and she gets nervous around the members and she's scared to stay out past 7 at night because of what her dad has done to her, and she's afraid her dad is gonna be in the area. And she calls her mom to ask permission to stay out and all of this. She has just really been damaged emotionally because of her past. And she finally said something the other day that really really made me sad. She said, "I never got anywhere with God!!" She said that all of her friends who followed Satan were better off than her. they had their lives organized and they had a family, and jobs, and all of the things she wanted. She's tried to follow God and never got her anywhere. It made me cry to hear her say that. She was shouting this after church and everyone had left. She was like breaking down. We offered to give her a blessing to calm her down, and so she could feel the love the Lord has for her personally, but she just didn't want it. She was just nervous and just wanted to leave. Finally she said i'm out of here. And she was walking down the hall of the church, and there was a member there. And he just calmly said hi how are you? how are the lessons going? and have you had a chance to pray and ask Heavenly Father if these things are true? and that's when we said....Eliza, these things. We want you to ask Heavenly Father if THESE things are true, and if THIS is the path the Lord wants for you. We don't want you to waste anymore of your time by looking back on the past. Heavenly Father wants you to come to Him and follow him, now. Because this is the path that He created for His children. She calmed down....but then got a little nervous and left. But the Spirit was SO strong. and it made me realize what blessings had come to my life because of the Gospel. And because of my Heavenly Father. It was such an incredible experience. and THEN....she called us today, and apologized for all of the things she had said, and done, and she's starting to calm down. I think we're gonna talk about Alma the Younger with her. I'm SO excited!!! pray for her, that she can be calm and that she can feel the spirit and the Savior's love ok? Thanks :)

So another really cool thing that happened yesterday!! AMAZING! we were sitting down to pray cuz a lesson fell through, and we only had about 30 minutes before we had to get to the house and we didn't have time to go anywhere, but we really wanted to do the Lord's work. So we prayed and asked Him to show us what we needed to do. And we said amen, and then looked up and there was a lady walking down the road to our right. we both felt it. So we got up from the bench we were on and walked over to her. We introduced ourselves and asked if she had 10 minutes to talk with us. She said yeah of course! so we sat down on a bench, talked with her, gave her a book of mormon and she said she would read it and pray about it before our next appointment on wednesday! it was AMAZING!! we felt so good about it and Heavenly Father answered our prayers...right on the spot. Tender mercy. It was an amazing thing. Especially cuz this week was really rough for us. WE hadn't found many people, but then the Lord blessed us in the last 30 minutes of the night. And so please please please pray that Angelina will be in the park this wednesday at 430 ok? thanks so much! :) But this week has really strengthened my testimony of the fact that Heavenly Father guides and directs us. I've felt the Spirit in the work these last few days. And I want to say one more thing. On Saturday, I started a more serious study of the Book of Mormon than I ever had in my life. It's the corner stone of our religion, it's the most correct book on earth, and a man will come closer to our Heavenly Father by abiding to it's precepts than by any other book. I felt like I needed to be close to Heavenly Father. And so I started. And I promise you, that the power of the Book of Mormon is real. That the Lord will enter our lives with more power and directness as we study the Book of Mormon. As we study to understand and study to become, not just to read. It's the promise of the Prophet Joseph Smith and it's the promise of the Lord, and He keeps His promises. I've seen it.

Anyways, so yeah, I just got a call from the ZL's my new companion is named Elder Bond. I don't know anything about him yet. I just know that he's coming in this week! I hope he doesn't have a problem with bed bugs....cuz it turns out that literally, we have bed bugs. I have like 97.5 gazillion bites on my legs and arms.....obnoxious buggers. Have any ideas about how to get rid of this obnoxiousness??? :) yep and Elder fais is off to the continent again. He's pretty excited about that cuz he gets to get away from them!! haha :)

Well mom, i'm sorry i dind't get to reply to all of what you said. I really really REALLY enjoyed reading it and i hope you keep telling me everything that's going on at home, i just wanted to tell you that stuff :) I hope you all know that I love you all, and i'm praying for you everyday. and I know that the Lord is watching out for you and I promise you that the Lord loves you. and I do too!! Love you and thanks for everything!!

Love,

Elder Jordan Brady

June 11, 2012

Bom dia mãe!! Eu peço descuplas, eu não sei quanto eu vou conseguir escrever hoje porque i não tenho muito tempo neste momento porque eu já escrevi pai um pouco e também Presidente Christensen. Desculpa!!!

Man I love sam so much!! he's a stud! I' miss that kid. I miss all those kids, but i'm SO pumped that they are all on missoins. How awesome! PS....tell ryan I say Hi and I love him and miss him and i'm thinking/praying for him. pode ser?

But yeah, real quick, Alage. THis has been super interesting. Because he went to chruch the other week, and then the next day he finally got some work, which he hasn't had. So that was a HUGE blessing from the Lord. But now because of this blessing he has been working on sundays and has been INCREDIBLY difficult to get a hold of because he works from 9 in the morning until like 10:30 at night, and we have to be in the house at )9;30 or 10. So that's been rough. But we've been teaching his family, and they are so great!! I love them so much. Tatiana has just been so fun to get to know. She didn't realize that God was actually her Heavenly Father. We said that, but she didn't really understand, so the Spirit told us to talk about taht a little bit more, and it was amazing to feel the Spirit testify to her that she really was a daughter of God. SO COOL! and we showed them Finding Faith in Christ and she couldn't believe that they would do that to our Savior. She just keept talking about the injustice and how horrible it was. We talked about how He did that just for her. And if there was no one else in the world, He would have done it again just for her, because it's true. Jesus Christ would have suffered exactly what He did, all of it, just for one of us. That's the love He has for us. It was amazing to see her. But then she didn't come to church!!!!!! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!! but she promised she would next week. So please please please pray that Tatiana will come to chruch. She's 17 and we trying to help her become friends with the Branch Presidents daughter, whos 14 and totally awesome! She's Brazilian and her mom invited us over for FHE next week. This is cool cuz their family is awesome and super spiritual and also, Brazilian, and that means that the food with be AMAZING!! hahaha :)

And we're teaching this incredibly lady named Maria. She's the daughter of a recent convert who is so sweet. Irmã Bemvinda is like 75 years old and doesn't know how to read, but her testimony is so sweet and she wants to share it with everyone, and now we're helpiung her daughter. Maria knows the Restoration happenend. She knows taht Joseph Smith saw Heavenly FAther and Jesus Christ. We watched the movie the Restoration, and the Spirit was SO strong and she told us she felt it. She is just scared to go to church because of the experience she had with the Jehovah's Witnesses. So pray that she'll be able to get over taht fear ok?

Ok well mom, I'm super sorry this is oober short, but i'm out of time.... I love you so much. I'm so glad that swimming lessons are going so good. I told you you'd do great!! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Jordan Brady.

~

PS yeah i got nikki«s letter. Sorry I haven't written back!!! I love her tons!!!

June 6, 2012

Olá mãe!! eu te amo mais!!

That sounds like such a great day!! naps are always good! that's one thing that we don't really have here. I'm not gonna lie...i'm always tired! but i always seem to have energy. We get home at night, we plan, then i call the other elders, and then i eat :) and then it's hit the sack. But it's always incredible that when i force myself to exercise, and then take a shower, i have energy again. I am SO grateful for just the little boosts during the day. I'll find myself getting tired, or getting down, and then we'll meet somebody who's super funny, or i'll think of a cool scripture, or i'll start singing primary hymns (those are the coolest btw, they teach such awesome messages!!) and then i'll have the energy to keep going. It is seriously such an amazing blessing. But yeah primary hymns, "I'm trying to be like Jesus", "I Feel my Savior's Love", man they are so cool!! I really do love to sing those. They're so simple and so peaceful, but honestly, that's all there is to it. that's what the gospel is. I'm trying to be like Jesus, I'm following in His ways. I'm trying to love as He did. It doesn't say, "I'm as perfect as Jesus was" or anything like that. We're trying, and learning and growing, and when we try, we can feel our Savior's love. The love He freely gives me. It's so true.

But yeah, so your Sunday was awesome!! Todo mundo estava lá!! Everyone was there!! that's super cool! ANd you guys were apparently a little bit hard core on the SF!! haha :) That's super cool that matthew is Buckskin! He would do a great job! hahaha watch out for those saddle sores! that made me laugh super hard!! Have you been up there to Jackson this summer yet? And it is a bummer that he's not interacting with the people as much, cuz he's way good at it! I'm still learning how to interact with people in portuguese. The sense of humor here is a little bit different, and i don't understand a lot of their jokes, so i feel like sometimes my sense of humor is lame....but then i talk with one of the elders in my district, and i realize that i'm still a little bit funny in english, so that's good! :)
Dave and Aubri are having a baby???? That's so cool!!! man i'm so excited for them!! I miss them tons. Tell them hi from me ok? and tell Dave...."eu recebi tua carta, e eu quero dizer que realmente, este sotaque é um pouco estranho, e eu provávelmente vou mudar para a sotaque de Brasil quando chegar em casa!! haha eu gosto muito de presidente do ramo aqui. Ele é de Brasil e a sotaque da família dele é mesmo incrível!! mais, não julgues o sotaque que tenho!! E parabéns Dav!!! mais um filho em tua família!! que bom!!! parabéns!" yeah he should understand that, but maybe you should have him read it, cuz i'm pretty sure you'll slaughter the pronunciation ;) haha just kidding mom :)

Cody's done already?!?! that's ridiculous. Time flies in the mission field. I was thinking today, that i have more time in the field now then i did in the MTC. super crazy. ANd the church history stuff would be so sweet! I want to do that when I get back. I think that would be a sweet thing to do. Im pumped for them. And Lacey Ackerman is going on a mission??? that's so sweet!! I didn't know she was even thinking about it! she'll be a stellar missionary! Wait where did chase get his call to? I already forgot.

Ricky is so cool!! I love that kid so much!! Way to rock the missionary work man! That's where it's at! he just needs to go back and see if she read. One thing that we've found has worked really well, is to read with the investigators. That way we can help them understand what's going on, and we know they are reading. They are going to feel the spirit if the read, sometimes they just need a little bit of help to read it. So maybe one day he could go back and read a little with her. That would be awesome!

Britten's home!! That's so great! I love that kid. Turns out that he knows my trainer i think. Elder Weiss was in the MTC with him I think. But yeah anyways....that's so amazing that he's doing ok now. I love him so much!

Yes on the pictures!! i'm SO EXCITED!! haha :) pictures are my favorite! haha

That lesson in Relief Socitety sounds like it was great. That's something that's so important. Visiting Teachers and Home teachers are 2 of the most important things in the chruch, but i never really realized how important it was until i got out here. It's how the Lambs of our Heaven Father are watched over. All of His sheep are numbered, and it's our responsibility to make sure that eveyone of these incredible children of Heaven Father are taken care of. It's so so so important. Especially here where there aren't very many members, the members have to stick together and strengthen one another more than ever before with all that's going on in the world. And i'm really still trying to focus on the needs of the people. Sometimes i get caught up in just giving the lesson and then ok...sweet well we've got to get to another appointment so....tchau! and honestly that is one of the most ridiculous things i could ever be doing!! I have been called by God to help His children come closer to Him. And sometimes I just get caught up in thinking about getting to and from the appointments. And I can't. I've got to learn to think about their needs and how we can best help them. We're getting a little bit better at it. But just like you said mom...that's the amazing thing about the Atonement. And there's nothing sweeter, nothing in the world. Then true repentance. When we mess up, and when we sin, we feel this awful, heavy guilt on our shoulders....and it's horrible! and we don't have the spirit with us and we're just wandering around in the world of darkness. And satan has a hold of your mind, and your thoughts are negative, and the world seems so cold and sad. But as we repent, truly honestly and sincerely repent, and change. And become new people, and accept the Savior's sacrifice, and forgive ourselves, it's gone. The darkness is gone. The light and the warmth floods into our hearts minds and spirits, and We Feel our Savior's Love. It's such a beautiful feeling. Then there's nothing sad in the world. Only happiness. I'm so grateful that my older brother suffered for me, so that i can be happy again. The Atonement is such a beautiful thing.

So Alage....(ah-lah-je) he and his family are great! He's muslim and so we're still talking about Jesus Chirst as the Savior and not just a prophet. But Alage is really really accepting. He's so elect! and his kids are awesome! pedro is 8 and we gave him his own BoM the other day and he was reading it out loud to his mom and asked if he could read it everyday and I told him YES!!!! hahaha and we taught him how to pray and he loves it!! it was one of the coolest things ever! I really feel like he's going to help his parents and siblings more than anything else...just by his example. it's amazing.

So one more thing real quick before I go.....I just want to say one thing about prayer. Never, ever, take prayer for granted. Sometimes we find ourselves being caught in the routine of "Heavenly Father, please bless this, thank you for this, in the name of Jesus Christ amen." And that's better than not praying, but not by much. The thing is, sometimes we take it for granted. But prayer is such a beautiful gift that Heavenly Father has given us. The ability to acutally talk with Heavenly Father and have Him talk back. To be able to receive revelation and answers to prayers is so beautiful and so sacred, but sometimes we take it for granted. And that's what Satan wants. He doesn't want us to pray sincerely. He wants us to be repetative. Because when we don't pray with a sincere heart, we're not going to be full of the Spirit and we aren't going to receive revelatoin as clearly, and that's when Satan will be able to slip into our minds and hearts and cause us to do and say things that we shouldn't be doing. But honest and sincere pray is the greatest weapon we have against this. and coupled with scripture study, not reading, but study, Satan's out. Next batter up. But we cannot take it for granted.....don't let Satan get you into that routine. Prayer is communication with Heavenly Father.....talk with Him. Just like you talk with dad. and He'll talk back.

Mom I love you so much. Thank you for everything. I hope you all know that i love you and I'm praying for you and i think you're all incredible!!! :)

Love you!!

Elder Brady