Transfers!....that don´t effect me for the first time!

So today is the start of yet another new transfer. Me and Elder Hepworth stayed in the same area together. It´s pretty exciting to finally experience a transfer without any changes. But over half of our zone was taken out and we will have newbies. It looks like we are going to have 3 people being trained in the zone. One sister that already got here two weeks ago and two more new ones that will come tomorrow. It´s pretty exciting. There are a bunch of new sisters coming in and almost all of the sisters that were already here are training, even the really young sisters that have less time than me on the mission. But I´m really glad to stay because the work is finally starting to come together better here. We finally have more promising investigators to work with.

Unfortunately we had some big dissapointment yesterday. We had two baptisms scheduled for right after the Church meetings but they fell through. It was the two kids I had talked about a couple of week ago that were so excited. We´re not really sure either why they didn´t want to go through with it. They didn´t even go to Church. But oh well, the mission is full of these kind of expereinces unfortunately.

But it was also a great week. We are teaching some others that are very excited and are even more dedicated to following and keeping the commitments we are laying out for them. We are teaching a young man, 18 years old, who told us that he had praying hard before he met us to find the true Church he should follow. He had gone to some others but never felt quite right with any of them. He is very sincerely seeking to find if this is the true Church for him to follow. I´m super excited for him. We also have a woman named Daniela who is SUPER excited to have us around. She is a very devout Catholic but already has marked for us to come teach her every Wednesday night at 7:00. She told us some really neat experiences about prayer that she has had. We invited her to pray and get an answer for herself. Being Catholic our way of prayer was very different than what she was used to. She said she was nervous to say a specific and personal prayer. But she said that she already feels so much different and better, She said she hasn´t ever felt closer to God before. It was really neat to see that changes. Now we have to wait for the Book of Mormon to it´s job.

Well I better get going soon. We are going to meet the new missionaries in our zone at the bus terminal pretty soon. I hope you all have a good week. Next monday I will be talking to you all no longer as a teenager! So crazy.

Love

Elder McLelland

The last week of the transfer!!

This transfer has past by sooo fast! I can´t believe that next monday is already the start of a new transfer. Time goes by so fast on the mission. It has been a great transfer and hope for another great one...whatever happens. 

This last week was super busy. We had zone conference last wednesday so we had to wake up super early to get to Ribeirão Preto. But it was a fantastic conference. We learned a lot and had a great time. The focus was on our use of the Book of Mormon. It wasn´t any new material but reenforced our emphasis on the Book of Mormon in our teaching. It really strengthened my testimony. And the President has challenged us to all read the Book of Mormon completely next transfer. I´m super excited to do it. I love the Book of Mormon sooo much.

We also had to do a bunch of divisions as well. Elder Hepworth, being a district leader is involved with doing divisions to train the other companionship in our district. We also had to do divisions with our zone leaders to get baptismal interviews done. So I was on division for 3 of the days last week. It was pretty fun but I spent a lot of money on bus fares(fairs?....can´t spell English anymore). At least the buses here aren´t anything like Mike´s bus stories. No fish juice dripping on me. I spent one of the days with Elder Barnes, one of our zone leaders. He is hilarious and it was a super fun day. I also spent a day with Elder Shelley who is also a hoot. He is such a quiet and humble guy but when he speaks I´m always laughing. He is awesome.And the other day was with Elder Peterson from my group. I am still convinced that we are the best group to have entered into this mission. The rest of my group is a bunch of amazing missionaries. I hope to be as good as them some day.

I guess that about sums it up for the week. It was fantastic. A lot of ``correria´´, basically running around a lot. It always makes you feel good. And it looks like the week will be full of baptisms in the Zone. I hope you all have a good week. And Happy Easter yesterday! I hope you all were able to enjoy and use the time to reflect on the Savior. Here in Brazil being very Catholic, Thursday and Friday were also holidays that everyone had off. Unfortunately Brazil uses Easter to get drunk and for a lot of members of other faiths to do their twice yearly Church visits. No one wanted to let us in to teach but it was a good time to reflect on all that the Savior has done for us. 

I love you all!

Tchauzinho!

Elder McLelland 

Cheers!

Hey Everyone!

So why is the subjest line cheers? We met a foreign exchange student here in my area that is from New Zealand. He lives in a small twon outside of Wellington the capital. It was a lot of fun to teach in English (not to mention really hard). The kid is turning 18 this week. He was explaining to us that the two main reasons he decided to come to Brazil as a foreign exchange student was to learn a language and learn about religion. He told us that the religious atmosphere in New Zealand was a lot more low key and he wanted to come here to experience it more. I bet he didn´t think he would run into two American missionaries did he? 

This has been an awesome week all around. Last week´s district meeting, my companion Elder Hepworth made a challenge to focus a lot more on marking baptismal dates. We decided that even though we hadn´t had any investigators in Church these past few weeks we would still mark dates with people. We met our goal of 5 marked dates for the week and we were blessed to get four of those 5 to Church on Sunday. We were so blessed this week. We met a group of kids that are all super excited to get to know the Church. I don´t think I´ve ever encountered so much desire in youth before. There is an 18 year old kid Marcelinho who is already baptized but was inactive that told his friends about the Church. We met Rodrigo and his sister Raiane. They are truly elect children of God. Rodrigo is the kind of guy you wouldn´t expect to care about anything we have to say. He is all tattoed up and has gauged ears. But he completely accepted the commitments even of baptism in the first day we taught him. His sister Raiane is amazing as well. She was already participating just like everyone else in Church on Sunday and said a prayer inour lesson Sunday afternoon exactly like youth kids do. She learned super fast. We are planning to baptize them next Friday or Saturday. There are also some little kids that are relatives of Marcelinho that we took to Church as well.

I really learned this week how the Spirit can touch people and influence them to seek the right path. Raiane told us an interesting experience of how she felt that the Church was true. She said her alarm clock failed to go off but her dad woke her up to get to Church on time. This came as an answer to her that the Church is true because her dad usually wouldn´t be up at that time of day and wouldn´t usually care about them going to Church. Rodrigo was asking alot of questions about needing to take out his ear gauges. We also were think about how we would need to ease them into the idea throughout the week of walking themselves to Church. We were a little nervous about that, but out of the blue yesterday afternoon he was asked if they could go alone. He didn´t want to take up car space for other people. Me and my companion just looked at each other and were rather stunned. It was an awesome experience. And we just barely met these kids on Friday of last week. We just need to focus this week on teaching the parents of all these kids and hopefully bringing the whole families into the Church.

We helped one of our ward members this week practice English for a job interview. He wants to work in the garment factory in São Paulo and they require that he knows basic English. We taught him some of the lessons in ENglish which was a major chore. It´s so weird how teaching only in Portuguese makes it difficult to teach in English. It was kind of fun too. We were mixing our phrases in English Portuguese like crazy. it had to be funny to watch. And the good news, he passed his interview. It was fun to be of help to him.

So, to sum up the week. The more we show our faith in doing everything in our power to further this work, the more the Lord will bless us. We dedicated ourselves to marking baptismal dates, and not only did we mark the dates, we got people to CHurch for the first time this transfer. We went from being the only companionship in the Zone not getting anyone to Church to the companionship´with the most investigators at Church. We were so blessed this week. I hope all goes well for everyone of you this week as well. Do everything in your power to do the Lord´s will and He will see your readiness for the blessings and give them to you.

Until next week!

Elder McLelland

1/3!!

Well Everyone, today is the 11th of April. Which means I have been exactly 8 months on the mission. Can you believe that I'm already 1/3 of the way done? I can't believe how much time has already passed. Elder Hepworth hit his one year mark last week. Today we are gonna party it up. Not really, we're just gonna browse around the street vendors in the Centro of the city. But it's amazing how fast the time goes. I wish I could start my two years over again right now with the experience I have now. I wish I could get the time not understanding Portuguese back. I also wish I could get back the wasted time that unfortunately happened in past transfers. But oh well, I just need to work as hard as I can for the time I have left.

Last week the President of the mission made some changes in the way we work. He always set weekly goals for us to work toward as companionships. He has changed it now to a daily standard. It's to fix the unfortunate trend of working hard one day, or for one week and using the next day or week as a rest week. Now that we have to report on our work everyday we are working a lot more efficiently. It's amazing to see how just the President making us this promise has increased our oppurtunities to teach. We are in a really tough area right now and it's been waring down on us. But this last week was a lot better. We taught a lot more people, even though we still didn't get any investigators to church. We haven't been able to get anyone to Church yet this transfer. It's a very difficult area. Everyone promises to go but Sunday morning ``something创 happens and they don't go. But it's improving, every week we are getting a little closer.

Yesterday we went out to make a couple of visits and got caught in the middle of a gnarly hail(hale?) storm. The hail was about the size of a nickel. The storm came out of no where and only lasted about 5 minutes. But it took down some trees and powerlines. And all the Brazilians were out playing in the hail afterwards like it was snow. It was kind of funny. I took a video of the storm so soon you will all be able to see it.

Not much else is new. just plugging along like usual. I'm still super excited for this transfer with Hepworth. We are working together really well. But I have a feeling we won't stay together becasue next transfer we will be getting 18 new missionaries! We finaly are getting more than are leaving. So I have a feeling we will be split up to accomodate. Probably one of us will train (I hope it's Hepworth....I'm not ready for that yet). I guess that's about it. Until next week folks!

Elder McLelland

General Conference is amazing!

I absolutely love General Conference! I got to watch all of the sessions...and in English too! They always set up an english room for the missionaries to watch at the stake centers. I only didn´t get to watch the Priesthood session live, but I did see it early sunday morning. I had to wake up at 5am to see the re-broadcast. I loved all the talks. Elder Holland´s declaration ``God´s word will be heard`` was one of the most chilling testimonies I have ever heard. Also the testimony he bore about President Monson was amazing. Another of my favorite talks, though hard to understand the with just one hear was Elder Pratt´s talk about the ``to be´´ and ´´to do´´. Many of us have to do list lists, but do we have to be lists? It was a fantastic talk. I´m just glad I didn´t have to try and translate that one. Another favorite was Elder Samuelson´s (BYU President) talk about the steps of gaining a personal testimony. ALso closely related with Bednar´s talk comparing light to the gaining of a testimony. Sometimes it is immediate and intense, others it is gradual like the sunrise. I absolutely love conference. None of us could believe it was already over. 

Conference Sunday was marvelous. One of the closed areas in our zone had a baptism and it was done in between the two sessions. The second picture is a group of us from the zone that were involved in the baptism of the girl. It was a real neat experience having it right in between the sessions. The First picture is my district. Starting on the left, Elder Peterson, Elder Shelley, Elder Hepworth and me (notice the tie I´m wearing?). Conference on the mission is so awesome!  The last picture is the last baptism I did while in Birigui before I was transferred. The picture is me and Batista, Sisters Lewis and dos Anjos and the familly of Layana that was baptised.

Last week before conference was probably one of the most difficult weeks of work I´ve experienced so far. We have really hit a slump in the work. We went two days without getting into a single house to teach...which is pretty drastic for the normal Brazilian mission atmosphere. But at the same time I´m about the happiest I´ve ever been on the mission. Elder Hepworth and I are working as hard as we can and we know we are doing our part. I would much rather be giving it my all and having little success than having a little success without giving it my all. It´s definitely been a week of trials but I have grown a lot.

Well I hope everyone enjoyed conference as much I did. I can´t wait to get the Liahona to reread all of them. The notes I took will have to do for now. Até semana que vem!

Elder McLelland

First week in Franca

Howdy everyone!

Well this week has been great. It's been a long time since I've worked so hard. I went through a stretch of companions that didn't want to work super hard. Now with Elder Hepworth we are working a ton again. WE both just had companions that didn't want to work super hard and we are pumped up. The work in this area is a little tough right now but is already improving. The area has gone through quite a few missionaries that were here more to ``make friendship" than to work hard, according as the ward members put it. But they already recognize our desire to change this pattern and work hard. I'm super excited to be here with Elder Hepworth. And so far it has worked out that every transfer I have been close to one of the elders from my CTM group. First transfer with Elder Britton, 2rd and 3rd with Elder Antone, fourth with Britton again, and now with Elder Peterson in my same district. It's been pretty cool.

We did a super p-day today with our zone. Super p-day meaning that our whole zone gets together. We met at the stake center and played soccer for a few hours. I'm not that great at it but I absolutely love playing soccer. I could play for hours on end. But for being a clumsy American I do decently well. Afterwards we went to a member's house to eat. She absolutely loves the missionaries and her home is always available to us on p-days. She made paste (pastels) filled with meat. It was super delicious. I really like my zone. Our zone leaders are a couple of goof balls, I'm going to really like this transfer here.

Well I hope all is going well with all of you. I love you all. I have really learned this week the difference in the spirit you feel when you are more obedient and make sure that your environment is in accordance with the Lord. It truly brings blessings.

Elder McLelland

Transfarências!

Who would have thought? After near certainty that Elder Batista was getting transferred and that I would stay, it turns out we were both transferred. My last area, Pérola was closed, but it should be closed for only one transfer. I am now in Franca, a different zone in the mission. My new companion is Elder Hepworth, he is from West Valley, Utah. I´m super excited to work with him. We are both fed up with slacker missionaries and I know this is going to be an amazing transfer.

Last week turned out great. I told you all a few weeks ago about a girl in the Sisters´ area that had specifically asked that I baptize her. Well it didn´t work out the first time we went there to baptize her because of a bunch of problems in her family. But last week it worked out. I went on Saturday and baptized her. It waz quite and amazing experience.

I was really sad to leave my last area. I really liked the people there a lot. But as soon as I found out I was leaving I also got really excited to get to know a new area. I spent Sunday visiting people for the last time. I had a nice visit with the recent convert family that I have been talking about a lot. I know I had a big impact on them. We still weren´t able to reactivate the mom of these two girls, but I know I helped in some way. I hope that one day it will all work out.

Well I´m a bit rushed on time today so I have to cut it a little short. Next week I´ll send some pictures, I forgot to bring my camera with me. I hope you all have a great week, I´m certain this will be a great one for me too. Até Segunda-Feira! (until next monday)

Elder McLelland