#97 July 16, 2016 The Best Two Years

Well this is it... the last time I will be emailing as a full time missionary. I feel like yesterday I was on a 12 hour bus ride going to Pato Branco, Paraná! And now my parents are in São Paulo waiting to catch a flight down to Florianópolis. Weird how things end so fast. 

I have been trying to think about what I would write in my last letter but there are so many things that I could write right now that I gave up on planning. So I am just going to write what I feel.

Just to update really quickly, Daniel and Deborah are absolutely awesome! I love those guys! They made a goal to try to read the Book of Mormon before their baptism without us there haha. And they are reading and loving it all! 

James is doing super good as well! He helped the sisters in a neighboring ward baptize another haitian. He basically taught the guy everything in Creole. He is going wild with missionary work! He tells everyone about the gospel! I think i already wrote this but we went by the place where he works and his nickname is "shepherd" / "pastor". He is doing awesome and goes on visits with us all the time! I feel like the Lord left him so much time without the Gospel in his life just so that he could know what life is like without it. He isn't afraid to tell anyone that this is Christ's only church. He tells everyone about the answer he got about that. He is a great example of what a converted person is like. He felt the song of redeeming love and sometimes i ask myself after seeing james, can i feel so now? Am I that excited about the Gospel, about making sure that everyone on the face of the planet knows that we have a living prophet, that the Book of Mormon is true? 

We also found another awesome guy named Joelsio who is awesome! He is 19 and just like Daniel and Deborah. He is hungry for the truth! 

After finding him I was talking to Elder Sierras and we both concluded that one of the best feelings you can have in this life is the feeling you get when you see that someone discovered the truth! When the Spirit teaches someone that this is the truth, the joy that comes from that is immeasurable! And I think that is why missions are so amazing. Because that is your constant goal! I am going to miss all this time we have to immerse ourselves in this work and just teach the Gospel!

Anyways this week as always was awesome! We learned a really good lesson yesterday. We woke up and found our house flooded. Everything was soaked! I had just picked up my suit from the dry clean the day before and it was totally filled with dirty rain water. Same thing with all of our clothes, lots of books, letters, study desks, shoes, etc... The roof had caved in on a part of the house and so it basically rained inside just as much as it did outside. And of course we were all pretty angry. 

But we cleaned up the mess and went on with the day. We ran home last night in the rain, and it was pouring! When we got home the leak had started again so we started grabbing everything and trying to put it all in dry parts of the house. 

Again we were all pretty frusterated! 

Then out of the blue, Elder Salomão, white shirt, tie and all, jumped in the 2 inch pool of water and started pretending he was swimming! In this gross water that was seeping in from the attic. So we all jumped in with him! Then we started playing soccer with missionaries, we set up a desk as the goal and then you had to get a missionary in the goal. And it turned out being a super fun night! It reminded me of all the fun days I had back home in the irrigation water. Just this time we had white shirts and church pants! 

But thinking about it, our missions, well not just our missions, our entire lives are full of moments like that! Moments where we can see the cup as half empty or half full. But sometimes it is hard to see that it is half full! Really hard! Like last night, no one was thinking that our house being flooded would be something really fun. But it turned out being awesome! And Salomão decided to make the most out of it in that moment and that is what we gotta do with everything in our lives! 

The scripture that I believe I most used on my mission with people that I taught was Mosiah 2:41.

 "...ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual." 

So many people in my life have been such amazing examples of that, especially my parents. Before my mission I knew that was true because I saw how it happened with my parents, through their experiences. But now I know that scripture is true for myself. 

It is impossible for us to be truly happy in this life if we are not striving to always keep the commandments of God. ALWAYS. But if we keep them, we are blessed in ALL THINGS. That is pretty awesome! He is going to bless us in everything! 

Sometimes when the problems and challenges come we forget about that. We start to murmur and lose track of whats going on because we think God stopped blessing us but that is a lie! We have to go through challenges but we can be happy while they happen. Just like the water became a fun thing yesterday. 

This was an important lesson that I learned on my mission but the most important lesson that I learned of all is that Jesus Christ lives and his Atonement was real. If Moroni decided to end the Book of Mormon, the truest book on the face of this earth, talking about this sacred Doctrine with the powerful verses that he wrote in Moroni 10:32-33 than I think there is no better way to end an email than to talk about the Savior's Atonement.

I learned on my mission that we must CONSTANTLY depend on Christ's Atonement. If we don't we begin to fall. Even in the little aspects of our lives. That is why the dumb little primary answers that we all gave our whole lives are so important! Prayer, scripture study, going to church, etc... We all know the answers but we don't all really do them. 

The keys to getting access to the power of the Atonement are the ordinances and the commandents of the Lord's Gospel. And that is why we have to follow them. And when we follow them we will be extremely blessed! 

I have seen  that time and time again on my mission! Every day we see that out here! Every day we can see that in our lives. You can see the difference between people who are using the Atonement and people who aren't. There is a different light! 

I am going to miss my Mission so much! I have learned more in these past two years than I ever imagined could be possible! And I was scared to come home because it is going to be different. But the Atonement isn't just for missionaries. It's for members to. In fact it's for everyone that wants it! And really we are all missionaries. We can all feel that warm spirit that accompanies us so constantly on our missions. But I know that I have to keep doing what I do out here so that I can have that right. 

I love my mission. I love the friends that I gained on my mission! I love so much my Mission President, President Silva and his wife Sister Silva. They helped me to go through such a big transformation and taught me so much. But most of all I love Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I am so thankful to be able to know that God loves me and that Christ suffered for all of us so that we could return to our Heavenly Father. 

I know that He loves us. I know that Jesus is the Christ. The only one that could save us and he Atoned for each one of us. I know the Holy Ghost is the greatest teacher that exists. He can teach us the truth of absolutely anything if we seek to know for ourselves. I know this is Christ's church. His ONLY church. I know that he calls imperfect men to lead this church so that they can learn and grow. But it is His Church, and He is in control. When we follow those leaders, especially the Prophet, we will be happy. And that joy is greater than any other joy we can possibly experience in this life.

I love you all so much and thank you all for your love and support! I hope you have an awesome life and that all can constantly strive to come unto christ through the ordinances and the commandments that the Lord has established! 

See you all in a few days! 

With love for the last time, 

Elder Ian Ward Keller 

p.s. Go Huskies! 

#96 July 9, 2016 Family Letter Can't find General?

Alright I saw a few questions. Yeah you are going to want adapters. Not the big energy converters but just the simple plug ones because most apple products can adjust. There are those little ones just to be able to plug into the wall. But there are a ton here for pretty cheap if you need to buy them here. 

About the MTC, i spent most of last p-day looking all into that. It sounds super awesome but REALLY difficult as well. It isnt like a normal application process. They give you tons of material to teach you how they want you to teach and then you get only ten minutes to teach two people live, in my case being far away i have to make a video teaching two people. And it isnt a role play. The videos that they give you as examples are amazing! The guys teach really well. You have to teach the two instructors as they are, members with kids, or students at BYU. And you only have ten minutes to invite them to listen to the Spirit and find for themselves something that they need to do to get closer to the Savior. Man they are awesome! And the example videos arent set up. They are live and the instructors being taught dont know what the other is going to teach. 

But you only get those ten minutes. And you can only apply twice in a one year period. Next entering cycle would be november and after that April. I would absolutely love to work there! There is a Sister here in the District in Rio Tavares, the ward and chapel that you guys will be right next to, who went to BYU for a year before the mish and she said everyone loves the MTC job and they are super flexible so I would absolutely love to work there! 

But my question is if i should apply now in july with the little time and preparation i will have and take my chances or wait till november? They have a bunch of things you can study to better your teaching abilities and a ton of awesome teaching videos. They even say at the beginning many applicants think that they teach well and that way of teaching will be enough, but it usually isnt. So they literally give you everything they look for in a teacher there and tell you the more you practice and study, the better your 10 minutes lesson will be. But I dont know if a have sufficient time right now. What would probably have to happen is i would have to make the video teaching you guys. I cant tell you what i am going to teach but i have ten minutes to try to teach you guys something. And they can tell if it is planned out or fake. They want a very sincere lesson. Then i have to make this video, put it on youtube or something and then send them the link and they evaluate there. 

But also mom argentina side is better. I cant remember if i told you. That member Ariane knows a little. 

Also i need a recipe for really good cinamon rolls for a sister in the ward here! You can bring it next week if you want. 

Also Sister Silva said that she wants the ear muff things for her two sons. And I thinks she wants some for herself but she just doesnt wanna be inpolite and ask for too much. 

But i gotta get off for a little bit. But i love you guys!

#95 July 2, 2016 Last Zone Conferences

Well this week we finished up the last zone conferences! These last 3 weeks have been really tiring! President said we travelled over 1,500 km's! Every time we got home we would just crash!

This week we went to the Tubarão Zone on Wednesday. Tubarão isn't too far but for some reason that day was super tiring! President was totally falling asleep on the way home and sister was always trying to get him to let her drive but we ended up making it back in one piece! That night Elder Stahn had to call him for some reason and he said President answered the phone and sounded like he was totally out of it! haha we crashed when we got home.

The trips have been super fun! We would always stop to eat at these really cool restuarants on the freeways here. Brazil wins when it comes to restaurants that are at the gas stations. They are super nice here! In fact usually nicer than the ones in the cities. Why? I dont know.

But the trainings have been way fun. We had the Rocky trainings and it was pretty legit because President went out and got a real pair of boxing gloves for us to use! We wanted to have real fights but that probably wouldnt have gone down super well.

Anyways we started off the training with one outside of the chapel dressed up as Rocky and then the other was at the Mic. We made a big presentation with rocky music and parts of the movies to go along with each part of the training.

So the one at the mic would tell everyone that Rocky came to visit us in the mission and then did the whole pre-fight presentation saying the weight and all the things he has accomplished and then introducing him. Then we turn a clip on and the music from "gonna fly now" starts playing and then "rocky" would come running into the chapel and do a whole warm up.

The opponent were a bunch of wrong ideas/lies that are going around the mission right now that President wanted to get rid of. There were five being:

We don't need to invite people to be baptized in the first visit.

It is impossible to find new people to teach every day. 

70 contacts in the week is good enough. 

Here is too difficult to bring people to church. 

We don't need to obey all the rules.

So we would get to each topic in the presentation and talk about it with the missionaries and discuss the dificulties they were having with each subject and what we needed to do to change it. Then when everyone was decided that we had "defeated" that bad idea one person had to come up with the gloves and beat the heck out of a homemade punching bag with the face of one of rocky's opponents on it and the words of the lie on it as well. Then we would pass a knockout video after each one showing that Rocky took it out as well.

I think everyone is going to get home and watch Rocky again when they get home haha. I will bring the presentation with me when i get home. I have in on my external drive here.

So we had the morning part of each training and President had the afternoon part. Presidents part was passing a video of Elder Bednar that has completely changed the way I teach here on the mission. President showed Elder Fernandez and I the video back in Dezember and always talked about a training he would like to do with it.

The video is Elder Bednar doing a worldwide CES training. And it is awesome! He talks about, "jumping out of the boat" which seems to be a reoccuring theme in a lot of the trainings he has done. There are a ton of things that we learn from the training. But the biggest thing is how to jump out of the ship, or get out of the comfort zone when we teach. Do things things that we have never done before, or things that we have fear of doing to let the Holy Ghost be the true teacher.

He says that Christ as the teacher invited his students, being Peter, to jump out of the boat and participate in the classes. And we have to be like Peter and be willing to get out of our comfort zones following the Spirit and letting him guide the lessons. The church is really trying to change the way that we teach because it has really been a "show" as President likes to say for a long time. People just create a class that they know will fill up the time. Sometimes we are afraid to really let the students guide the class and use their questions and opinions and input to make a great class because we dont know what it is going to be before hand.

Preach my Gospel was the first sign of the change. Now the Sunday School presidency is talking about the new manual, (i think i am translating it wrong but something like this and its purple) "Teaching in the Savior's Way". We have to teach people. That is something that Presdident has always taught us.

But anwyays found out that Daniel and Leilane here in the ward are the Brazilians that Tyler was telling me about when I was in Pato Branco! What a small world! They are a cool couple here in the ward and loved Tyler so much! I told Leilane the other day that I was Elder McCreadies cousin and she went nuts! haha she said how awesome of a missionary that Tyler was. Way to go TY Ty!!

But love you all so much and hope you have an awesome week!

Love,
Elder Keller 

#94 June 25, 2016 James

Man this week has been a blast! We are in Videira right now which is about 6 hours out of Florianópolis by car so we went and found a Lan House to send our e-mails.

So run down of the week...

Monday and tuesday were awesome! James is doing super good and actually totally changed the attitude of the Leaders here. They all thought we were just trying to throw some Haitian guy in the water but after getting to know him better they all got pretty excited and even designated a member to give him the lessons after baptism. I havent ever seen that on my whole mission.

James is super excited. He is telling everyone about the church! And he is super sad that Fly wont go to church with him. Fly's GF is pregnant so he has to work sundays because she was working too before.

But James is doing great.

So Wednesday we left Floripa at 5:30 to head out to Lages' zone conference. Lages is about a 3 and a half hour drive. Then after that conference we drove about another 5 hours out to Chapecó! It has been a year and 5 months since I have been there! We got there at around 9 Wednesday night and stayed with the Zone Leaders then the next day we had the Zone conference there.

Then Thursday night we drove about 3 hours back to Videira for the Ipomeia Zone conference and now we are going to stay here till Sunday night. We will probably have another 5 hour drive back to Floripa tomorrow. We are staying for the District conference of Ipoméia which I believe was the first District of Brazil and is still a District today. And it has been about 70 years. Ipoméia is where the church started and the city is famous because they have a blue church building! But Videira is where the Disctrict Center building is at and Ipomeia doesnt even have missionaries.

But the conferences have been going great! I am already out of time and I would like to write more but things are going awesome! I will try to get more details out next week. But i love you all and hope you have a fantastic week!

Love,

Elder Keller

#93 June 18, 2016 James Baptism/ Rocky Training Memories Boppa & Gma

This week has just been super fun! Saturday night James was Baptized and it was so awesome! We took him on wednesday to an interview with the Bishop for the Aaronic preisthood and when they came out the Bishop said he should be getting the Melchezidek already haha. The guy is amazing! 

His portuguese is pretty good. know that he has the Holy Ghost and is reading the Book of Mormon every day in Portuguese he is going to get better. 

Fly is a great friend of his and he really wants him to join him but he works every Sunday is it is a lot more difficult.

We haven't really had a lot of contact with any one this week because monday tuesday and wednesday we had to plan the zone conferences and then thursday and friday we were in Itajaí and Joinville. It was way fun and I just love going with President and Sister Silva! They are so great! The doctrine mobile (the name that Elder Mendes gave their car) is super great.

Thursday morning we left Floripa at 6:30 to get to Itajaí for the conference. There we did the Rocky Balboa training and it has been way fun. We have to do some "mythbusting" or take out some lies that are commonly believed amongst the missionaries so we did a Rocky themed training to do it. President went and bought some super sweet professional boxing gloves to do it as well haha. 

So Salomão and I switch off the Rocky part but we play a little video of Rocky training from the movies and then one announces the other doing the whole, "weighing 190 pounds, 5 time champion of the world,.. etc.." then we come out dressed as a boxer and we use the time to talk about the various myths that we need to bust in the mission and what difficulties we are having in doing so such as finding at least one new person to teach every day, inviting to be baptized in the first visit, obedience, etc... Then after each one a missionary has to come out and beat up a little thing representing the myth. So far it has been going well!

Next week we will go back west. Wednesday will be Lages, Thursday Chapecó, and Friday will be Ipoméia. Then we will stay there till Sunday night with the Missionaries because President will be presiding the Conference of the District there. So I have no idea if I will write next week or if we will have Preparation Day. I think next Saturday we will get a little bit of time to go find a Lan House to go write Saturday morning. 

But going back to Joinville was so awesome! That was my favorite ward by far! It was like coming home. I saw Lucas there! The dad that was learning to walk again! I found him in a room in the Chapel on thursday night. He was having one on one lessons for his preparation to receive the Melchezidek Priesthood in a few weeks! I was so happy to find him like that! He was really bummed because Eli wasnt in the chapel at that time but i told him that Moore and I would be back in a month to see them. 

I saw the Bishop there as well as a few other awesome members that helped us out a lot and it was way cool! That ward was awesome. You can see because they are totally taking care of those recent converts. They assigned a Brother in the ward to take care of Lucas in his Preparation to receive the Priesthood. Unfortunately you dont see that a lot here. But I really missed Joinville a lot! I think it was my favorite area because of the members combined with amazing comps that i had there. 

But we got back in Floripa last night. We came back by bus because President had to stay there for a conference. It has been 8 months since I have used a bus to travel long distances. It was weird. 

But to answer a few questions, Mom the limeade they make here is amazing. I dont know if it is the same as Dougs but it is really good here so it probably is. But I will try to get a few recipes! My favorite thing is the Stroganoff here but to make it you need creme de leite, or milk cream which i dont think they have it there. Its not heavy whipping cream. 

Also nice work on the Portuguese Mom! You are a champ! Your writing is really good! You asked about conjugations, you usually dont conjugate verbs if they are right next to each other. That follows English pretty well. Usually if you cant put "to" in front of the verb in english that that means that you are going to need to conjugate it. Dont know if that made any sense... Sorry! 

But things are going great here! I love you all and hope you have an amazing week! 

Elder Keller 

Alright memories of Bops and Gramma Keller! 

Some of my favorite memories of Gramma Keller come from the fact that she always made sure that her grandkids were being fed well. And I really mean well! I love waking up at Grammas house because I know she is always going to offer to make some amazing, delicious eggs, bacon and sausage breakfast. And if we arent in the mood there are always 5 different kinds of Cereal in the pantry as well. I love how she always was making sure that we were taken care of. 

Another memory that wasn't as happy but taught me an important lesson was when she hired me to pick weeds in the front yard. I was used to them just handing us money like they do all the time but this time she said she would pay me 5 dollars to pick the weeds. And i just thought, "Pick weeds? For money?" But she made me get down and do it. I probably didnt do it very well at all and did it screaming and kicking but i tried doing it. But it taught me that I had to pay the price for what I wanted in life. And I hope that that lesson will always stick with me. 

Another memory is going to pick the rasberries with her out in the old rasberry patch they had by the swingset before the flood. That made Rasberries my favorite fruit and it hasnt changed until today! It has been almost 2 years since I havent eaten any and I am going crazy! 

Memories of Bops.

A great memory of Boppa, well actually two that portray the same principle that I learned from him had to do with the .357 Magnum and a chainsaw. I think i was probably 12 years old and we went shooting. Bops went to shoot the .357 and it gave a pretty good kick and put him back a few steps. After shooting it he just looked back and asked, "who's up?" Then he gave the 12 year old kid a handgun to shoot! 

The other was when i was probably 13 and bops was cutting down a tree. He had a huge chainsaw and was showing Ty and I how to do it. Ty was always bigger than I was so it was easier for him. Then I got the chainsaw and almost killed myself a couple times. But i learned how to use a chainsaw. 

But bops has always taught by example. He shows how things need to be done. And I love having his name because I can always just think, "how did ward do it?" Helaman wanted Nephi and Lehi to always remember and I can always remember as well. 

I also remember many times when Boppa bore his testimony, whether at family reunions, church or just with us. He always bore with such a simple power that there was no way to deny it. 

One of the best stories is when we went to see Ty go through the temple for the first time. And Boppa had left his Iphone in his shirt pocket walking into the waiting room for the session. I asked him what he was planning on doing and he said so quickly without even thinking, "I am going to take pictures of my grandson!" Whether he really wanted to or if he had just forgotten to leave the cell phone in the locker i dont know. But he went up to the door and a temple worker asked for his cell phone. He then tried to tell her that his Grandson would be going through the temple for the first time and he just wanted to get a few pictures. She took the phone from him... 

Man those guys are just so awesome huh? I love there example! 

Other answers you usually dont conjugate the verbs when they come one after the other. But if you change subjects in a sentance then you have to conjugate. Eu preciso praticar falar mais porque eu so falo comigo mesmo. But you are writing super well! Keep it up! 

The rocky presentation is going great! We got a few kinks to work it out but we have 9 zones 6 more zones to visit. We dont have any competitions going on at this zone conference. We travel by car with president expect for this week coming home. 

Also i wanted to know what the plans are with me getting released? I dont want to get released before talking to President Anderson. Is that possible to do? Can I stay a missionary here? 

Anyways i love you so much! Have an awesome week! 

Love, Elder Keller 

#92 June 11, 2016 James Baptism/ Be Bold

Things with James are going great! He had his baptismal interview yesterday and passed with flying colors!

Dad asked what the qualifications in the mission are for baptism. There is no set number here that people have to go to church before they get baptized but it usually takes 3 months. President wants them going usually for a while before Baptism. So we were worried about that with James because he asked to be baptized this fast. But President said that sometimes we find the elect and Sister Silva said to just throw him in the water haha! This was after the Gospel Principles class last week which he got totally into. President and Sister when they go to this ward always stay in the class and it is awesome to see how President teaches. And it was extra cool to have James there because he loves getting into it and asks awesome questions!

The class was about the gift of the Holy Ghost. James after a few minutes just raised his hand and said, "I want the gift, how do I get it?" We hadn't gotten to that point in the lessons yet... So it was great to have that class! Then at the end James asked if he could say the closing prayer, his second week at church. In the prayer he said how thankful he was for finding the true Church of Jesus Christ and for the opportunity to be baptized.

So if everything goes as planned the baptism is tonight at 7, so in 4 hours. Super happy for him! He is going to get baptized with another Haitian named Marcelus who Stahn and Machin were teaching. It is really good because there is one other Haitian member here and so they have become good friends really quickly. Thanks for all the prayers!

But this week the new missionaries arrived and the old ones all went home. Buck went home! It was definitely a wake up moment! We ended up not being able to take him to the airport because we were in apresentation for the new missionaries and their trainers still but he was with us for a few days before. We finally got a bigger group again. The last few groups were 2 or 3 missionaries but this one was a group of ten. With only one american. Brazil is taking over!

Elder Cárdenas and Sáenz went home as well. I have been with them here for about 7 months as well. Crazy how things come to and end so fast.

Aidukaitis' secretary called President on Monday and told him the Mission Tour was cancelled which as strangely as it sounds made me super excited! that means that the zone conferences are back on and the training that is planned sounds really fun. So we will se how it went next week.

One thing I have learned with Elder Salomão is never be afraid or ashamed of our testimonies. One of his favorite scriptures is Matthew 10:32 and he is very good at it. And it is making the mission a lot more exciting and bold! We had lunch with a member the other day and their non member mom was there and Solamão just asked her in a super like he couldnt understand it way, "why arent you a member of the church yet? This is the only true church of Jesus Christ on the earth and you have to be baptized in this one or you won't be saved." Yeah she was pretty taken back by that one but the Lunch message ended up being awesome and she accepted visits from the sisters in her city.

I love what Elder Callister says in his Consecrated Missionary talk. "Sometimes we are so worried about offending people that we forget about saving them!" That is so true. We don't pass through a first lesson without telling people that this is the only true church on the earth and they have to get baptized or they wont enter into the kingdom of God. And obviously you gotta do it the warmest way possible but we gotta warn everyone! This is the only true church. Christ said so in the first Section of Doctrine and Covenants! And it weeds out the elect from the prideful very quickly!

As we have been putting Presidents invite to the test, God has been working miracles for us out here! He gives new people to teach daily and out of the blue! 6 months ago none of us here believed we could find new people to teach daily here in the center but know its happening! As soon as we show our faith, God works miracles.

But I love you all so much and hope everything is going awesome! Have a great week!

Elder Keller

#91 June 4, 2016 Last Transfer

Well my last transfer starts on Monday. We got the transfer last tuesday and I am staying here till the end! Super excited! 

This week we have been working on the transport details for the transfers so we havent had as much time in the area but we have been visiting James every day and he is going well! He went to church last Sunday but he had to leave early. 

We have been trying to teach a ton of stuff to him and we knew that so we sat down with him and asked him if he really wanted to get baptized this fast and he said he was sure that he needed to be baptized. 

Satan has been doing everything he can to get James not to get baptized! But the good thing is that James is recognizing that none of this is from God but simply Lucifer trying to deter him. 

So keep praying for James and pray that he will be able to understand everything he needs to before his baptism and that he will desire to be baptized in the right time period. 

So Elder Aidukaitis is going to come on the 22nd and 23rd of June. He is from Rio Grande so Sul, the state right below us and everyone says he is awesome! I have met various members that had him as a Mission President and said the guy was just crazy awesome! But he is tough in the sense of not afraid to say what needs to be said so it will be interesting to see what happens when he gets here! 

But I am glad to have 6 more weeks here. I love President Silva! The guys just teaches us so much! He invited us the other day to study 3 Nephi 11 and find out how to only use that chapter to teach the Restoration. So I have been studying for a few days and I never realized it but it is awesome! You can teach every point from Preach My Gospel just using 3 Nephi 11. I never wanted to leave it with people because I thought, "oh everyone uses it". But now that I have studied it, I think it is the best chapter you could possibly use to teach the Restoration! 

But Mazzagardi came last week for a Stake Conference because they were changing the Stake President of a neighboring stake and it was a pretty cool meeting! Elder Fortunato was there as well. He was Rebecca's (President Silva's daughter) Mission President and is now an Area Seventy. 

Mazzagardi talked a lot about tithing. Tithing here isn't one of the most kept commandments unfortunately and so the Area Presidency which Mazzagardi pertains to has been trying to make it a focus in all of Brazil. To teach and to invite all the members to pay their tithing. 

He said that God has mountains bigger than the Himalayas of pure Diamond so why does he need our money? He doesn't but we need his blessings. 

Fortunato really got me thinking and I like his talk a lot! He talked about how we always have to put the Lord first in our life and then he will always help things to work out. He talked about the story of the mother and the son who were dying and the prophet came and asked to be fed. Even though they had practically nothing left of food they put God first and everything worked out for them in the end! 

It got me thinking about Sacrifice. I love the definition given for sacrifice in the Portuguese Scripture Study Guide. It probably is somewhere in English but I haven't found it yet so I am going to try translating, "In the Eternal perspective, the blessings obtained through sacrifice are greater than those which we renounce/give up". 

That phrase really got to me. Sometimes we pay the price, sometimes we work and deserve something and then God just asks us to give it up! And it is difficult! 

We went early to the Church Building to get good seats to see Mazzagardi cuz we knew it would be packed. Some other Elders got there late with some investigators and came and asked us if we could give up our seats 5 minutes before the meeting was going to start. And good old Elder Keller of course was just kind of ticked at first thinking, "but i got here early just to get these seats?!" And then it hit me how ridiculous that thought was! This was a chance to give someone investigating the church an opportunity to see a General Authority up close! I have learned a lot in this time out here but I can still be pretty dumb sometimes! haha. But we gave them the seats and everything went great! 

Sometimes we don't want to give that which we have up because we can't see what we will have in the future! I loved the talk by Elder Hallstrom in this last conference where he had quoted that Elder Holland said, "We can have what we want or we can have something much better." (I think that is right but I don't have my ensign with me..) 

But God knows us and loves us and knows what we need and what is going to make us happy. Proverbs 3:5 - Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. 

But everything is going awesome here and I can't believe how soon I will be seeing everyone! Thanks for all of your prayers! I can feel them out here! Love you all! 

Elder Keller