Happy Ground Hogs Day

January 28, 2013

Heeeeeyy family!

Wow, I can´t believe how fast time is going. I feel like the day doesn´t even happen. I wake up, study, eat, teach the gospel, and before I even know it I’m already lying down to sleep again. It´s a weird feeling. It´s weird to think it´s already Ground Hogs day again.

Alright, Best two Years and RM are great movies, for sure I’ll watch them right when I get back, especially RM. As I’m sure you know, the mission isn´t EXACTLY like in the movies. Now that I think back, the missionaries in the Best Two Years were Fubecas! (which means they don´t choose the right. break rules). It seems like they were always in their apartment, they taught an investigator in their house (can´t do that!), left their companions alone, spoke English at home, and don´t know that in Matthew 3 it talks about the baptism of Jesus. Come on guys!

But yeah, we do call each of our four district leaders, 3 times a week. One time is just to get the numbers from their district, like how many lessons they taught, etc (this one takes all Sunday night and a bit of Monday morning. Getting the numbers from 15 different areas takes a while). We also call each of them during the week, just to talk to them, see how they´re doing, how the district is doing, problems, etc.. And then we call a third time to see if they need us to interview anyone. I like talking to the district leaders and see how they´re doing. We have great leaders here in Ponta Grossa.

Yes, we do go grocery shopping on Monday. P-day is basically three things: e-mail, grocery shopping, and clean the house. Sometimes we do something fun, but normally it´s just these three things. Food here is actually cheaper. Well, depends, some things are more expensive. The fruit is waaay cheap. But American-ish foods are usually expensive, because they´re imported.

I´ll have to send you pictures of our apartment. The apartment here is way better than my other houses I’ve been to. It´s bigger than the house in Bairro Novo, but smaller than the one in Guaraituba. However, it has cooler things here. We got a microwave last week, so that was neat. The first thing I did was buy a bunch of popcorn! Oh yeeeah! We also have basketball courts close to our house. It´s neat.

That´s cool about Neto, he´s awesome! Tell him I have saudades for him! He was studying English when I was at Bairro Novo, but that´s great he´s still studying.

The family we´re teaching is doing well, the mom is smoking a lot less now. They didn´t go to church this Sunday though. We did have a few other families come to Church, though, and the ward got really excited, I never saw the ward get excited like they were yesterday. Also, a young woman named Roberta visited out of nowhere, and the Relief Society women were going crazy about her.

Ok, funny story, so yesterday we had lunch with a family that has a kid named Arthur, who is 5 years old. This family has xbox and computer games and everything. Well it was funny, because while his parents were preparing lunch, Arthur was with us, talking to us. Then he went over to get his dad´s laptop, because he wanted to play games on it. But then he saw that we were watching him, so he whispered ´You guys won´t tell my dad if I play games on his computer?´ we told him that if his dad told him he couldn´t, he shouldn´t do that, but then he just looked around to see if his dad was near, and then said again ´You won´t tell him, right?´ Elder Hobbs and I were laughing so hard, it was so funny. Just the way he said it was so mischievous. I don´t know if this story will be funny for you, but it was funny for us.

Ok, I gotta go! Love you lots, hope Autumn gets into BYU!

Happy Groundhogs day!

Love,

Elder Twitchell

Loving it in Ponta Grossa!!!

January 21, 2013

Hey Family!

Just another crazy week in Ponta Grossa! I´m loving it here, things are going great. The blessings of the Lord are everything, and we´re having a good time in His service.

So I’ll answer some of these questions real quick.

How are the Spiders?
Well, there are spiders here, but not a ton. There is a normal amount of spiders, it just depends on where you go, and if you´re house is clean. When we helped out the Sisters in 31 de Março, there were a ton of spiders, because it hadn´t been cleaned in months. But not too bad. The most dangerous spider here is the aranha marrom, which I think is the brown recluse spider. It´s a small spider, but it´s pretty dangerous. I´ve already seen them, but I haven´t heard of any missionary having problems with them since I got here.

How is it with Elder Hobbs?

Things are going great! It’s a lot of fun being with someone I already knew, and Elder Hobbs is always way excited to work, which is good. Everyday we´re seeing miracles here, it´s amazing. We´re already working well together, which is good, because there is a lot of work to be done. We´re always busy with something. But the zone is going well, we had a lot of baptisms in Ponta Grossa this week. Oh and Elder Hobb´s first name is Jake.

How is our apartment now?  
Our apartment is feeling more like home, we cleaned it a ton, so now the spirit is more present. Also, today we received a Microwave as a donation, so we´re pretty excited for that. I think we´re going to start making Popcorn :) I´m pretty excited. Also, today, I’m going to make brownies with white chocolate bits inside, and brigadeiro on top. It´s going to be great!

How are the sisters?  

Well, they´re doing well, but they still haven´t received their fridge, sink, washing machine, etc. It´s kind of tough, and it´s taking way too long for these appliances to arrive. But we´re hoping it gets better soon.

When is that couple going to the Temple?  

So they sent me a quick letter and a present (two cans of ´Nescau´, which is the equivalent of Nesquik here. It´s way good) and they said that their sealing would be in April, but still don´t know the exact date. I´m excited for it, I hope I’m in Curitiba for the sealing so that I can see it.

We had some neat experiences here. This week we found a family with the mom and her four kids. Two of her daughters were baptized like two years ago, but the mom and other children weren´t baptize. Anyway, when we first visited them, we invited them to be baptized, but the mom kind of closed off to that. So for our second visit, we were trying to find another, less threatening way of helping her get baptized. Elder Hobbs and I planned a special lesson about the Plan of Salvation, and brought members with us to help out. In the lesson, we used Alma 34:32, and asked her how she thought she could prepare to meet with God in this life. And, out of nowhere, she started talking about baptism! She asked us when the next baptismal service would be, and then she said ´I´m going to get baptized! For sure I’ll get baptized´ It was way neat. To baptize her it might take a while because she smokes, but we´re going to help her out. But it was neat to see how the Spirit was helping us out in the lesson, and helped soften her heart a bit.

But yeah, things are going great here. That’s neat to hear about my cousin (is she a second cousin or something?) coming to Curitiba, it´s going to be neat. Hope you aren´t freezing too much out there!

But, I gotta go, love you all Lots!!!!

Love,

Elder Twitchell

Zone leader Council was neat

January 14, 2013

Hey Family!

Hey, so I basically don´t have any time today, but I’ll just say a few things real quick

Things are going great! Elder Hobbs and I are way excited to baptize everyone here in Ponta Grossa. We´re jumping for joy and we know that the Lord will help us out. It´s good to have Elder Hobbs here to help me out. He was assistant for more than 7 months!! We have an enormous Zone to take care of, with 30 missionaries, so we need all the help we can get. But we´re both learning to deal with so many missionaries, and it´s going to be great.

The sisters are kind of settled in, their still waiting for a fridge, sink, washing machine, wardrobe, etc. But they´re happy and excited and we´re trying to help out the best we can!!!

Zone leader Council was neat, we learned a TON. Presidente Cordon wants us all to focus on finding families and baptizing families, so Elder Hobbs and I are just talking to families on the street. Certainly we´re going to see a lot of success with this! We also learned about being a Leader Like Jesus Christ, and being a good example. It was really neat.

That´s crazy about the snow! Man, it´s so different in Utah, I’m excited to see what it´s like out there. I´m sure it´s being rough on the cars. So what are you and Autumn doing all day every day?

Hey, that´s kind of weird you keep watching my video :P haha, ok, but I do sing pretty well, so I can understand a bit.

I´ll try to get a letter off today, but we have to do a thorough cleaning at our own house, so we´ll see.

LOVE YOU LOTS!

Elder Twitchell

Sorry I’m so rushed today!

Welcome 2013!! New companion Elder Hobbs

January 8, 2013

Hey family!

Sorry I didn´t write yesterday, it way busy for us here. So, first off, it was way sad saying good-bye to Elder Windous yesterday morning. We worked until the last hour of his mission on Sunday night. 7 Am Monday morning, he got on the bus home. It was pretty sad. I think he´s still traveling at this moment; he had to stay in Sao Paulo for 8 hours, Texas for two hours and Salt Lake City for 5 hours.  It´s a lot of waiting!!

But, I wasn´t sad for two long, because a lot of exciting things were happening. So I helped all of the missionaries leaving get on the bus, and waited until 10 am for my new companion. My new companion is Elder Hobbs!!! haha, I got surprised that Elder Hobbs was sent as my companion, but it´s going to be great. I’m way excited. I couldn´t believe it, because he´s from my group in the MTC. We´re both excited to baptize a ton. Also, two new areas opened up in our Zone, so two companionships of Sisters arrived yesterday. Our zone now totals in 30 missionaries, the biggest zone in the mission. ahhh, it´s a lot of missionaries.

So two of the sisters are going to live with another dupla of Sisters in downtown Ponta Grossa, but the other two went to another area.   There were missionaries there more than 6 months ago, but the area closed, so no one was living in the house there. Elder Hobbs and I went to the house, and it was a mess! It was so dirty, and there was like nothing in the house. There was a broken stove and a broken bed frame. and spiders and dirt and stuff. So Elder Hobbs and I, along with some very generous members from 31 de Março, cleaned the house and made it a bit more habitable for the sisters. We swept down the whole house, and threw soapy water all over, mopping up the nasty floor. We brought bed frames, mattresses, and study desks from other areas, and set them up for the sisters. We passed all of p-day yesterday helping out, but it still was lacking a lot of thing--fridge, sink, washing machine, plates, cups, forks, oven, stove, wardrobe. The mission bought these things and are going to send them later in the week. I felt a bit bad when we had to leave to go work, because I’m sure the sisters were a bit discouraged with the way their house was. But we´re going to pass by again when all of the furniture gets there, and help out. The sisters were being good sports about it. So yeah, that´s why i couldn´t write yesterday.

So I’m still here in Ala II, but I’m way excited to work with Elder Hobbs. We both are going to work a ton, and baptize a lot of people! We didn´t have zone leader council last week, but we´re going to have it this Thursday.

But hey I’ve gotta run, I’ll try sending a letter next week!!!

Love

Elder Twitchell