Monday, March 25, 2013

Crazy Week!!!


March 25, 2013

Hey Family,

I´m excited to be able to come home, it´s just that it´s coming up so fast! I hit the 1 year six month mark this week, how crazy! It kind of snuck up on me.

It sounds like you guys had a crazy week too, with the move, picking dorms, and everything. Haha, I had to laugh when you said that you are neighbors with the Bishop. Be careful, the Bishop is watching you! And wow, 12 missionaries serving in the ward!? It must be a Utah Ward. I´m excited to get to know everyone.

I did get some letters off last week, I wrote you guys a letter, and also I sent a letter to Aaron, but I’m sure it still hasn´t arrived, I sent it too late to get to him on his birthday.

My week here was pretty neat, Elder Vighetto and I were running everywhere. We had the training in Curitiba for new missionaries, and I had to do a few interviews in other areas. The training was great, and I got to see Elder Little again, which was fun. Elder Little hit the one year mark a few days ago. Ahhh!!!! I trained Elder Little, how does he have 1 year already!

On Saturday, I interviewed couple for baptism. They were really polite, but what caught my attention was their wedding. So they´ve been taught by the missionaries for like 6 months, and it was only this Saturday that they got married, so they had their marriage party at the Chapel. They are a young couple, about 25 years old, and you´re going to love the theme of their wedding--rock and roll!! :) haha, in the Chapel, they had tables set up with black table cloth, and had little foam guitars and bats hanging from the ceiling. I think that they played Rock and Metal music during the party, I’m not sure, I left before. But it was kind of funny, all of this rock and roll stuff in the Chapel. But they are way ready for baptism, both of them have really strong testimonies.

Elder Vighetto and I are doing great, we´re working a lot. We´re starting to have a strong teaching group, so lately we´ve been teaching a lot in houses (which is nice, better than being out in the rain!).

Well, the Church is true. I´m learning a lot. I feel like every week, every day, the Lord is blessing us so much. Sure the mission isn´t perfect, and there are things that aren´t so great, but it helps when the Lord has helped me out so much. Like I said before, I think you guys won´t even recognize me when I get back. One thing I’m learning now is being organized. I´m organizing everything--even my money! I´m starting to keep a little notebook to keep track of everything I spend (like you do mom). I want to learn all of these little skills on the mission, so that when i get back, I can succeed. The most important thing, however, will be getting help from the Lord, through study and prayer. I promise that all of our problems and questions can be responded by the scriptures and asking the Lord.

Stay strong everyone!!! Good luck with School, Autumn

LOVE

Elder Twitchell

Monday, March 18, 2013

Absolutely LOVE Curitiba


March 18, 2013

Hey family!

Well now I’m worried about the letter that I sent you, I hope you still get it. I sent it to your address in Erda!

But yeah, I talked about going to BYU in my letter to the President today, he should be able to tell me a bit more about registering for classes. In my letter, I asked him to send me home a week early, on the 26th of August. I also asked him about registering for classes. I`m not really sure what´s the mission´s policy with registering for classes, but I think that I should be able to here on the mission.

That´s weird about Autumns hair! Haha, she looks completely different!

Also, that´s amazing about Grandpa, he truly is an amazing man! I look up to Grandpa a lot, maybe it´s hard physically, but he´s still well spiritually.

The mission is going well; we have a lot of work to do still! The ward is really supporting us a lot, and they´re giving us a lot of referrals, so we´re having a lot of people to teach. Elder Vighetto is doing well, he´s a good companion. It´s never boring when I’m with him.

We had a really funny experience this week, Elder Vighetto and I went to visit a family, but we made the mistake of visiting them Saturday night. They were basically having a family reunion, and everyone was really drunk. We tried to leave quickly, but one of them, who was especially drunk, wanted us to stay. We marked for another day, during the afternoon when it wasn´t so busy. He let us go, but before we left, he started telling us how good we were. He was saying stuff like ´You guys are Saints!` and ´you guys are way way holy, bro´ and other such things. Then he grabbed Elder Vighetto´s hand, and kissed him like three times on the hand. I was already running to get away, but he also snuck a kiss on my hand :P haha, it was way funny, Elder Vighetto and I were dying from laughter. Then we quickly went to wash our hands :)

Ok, I gotta go, but I’ll write a letter to you guys today. And I’ll send it to the new address.

LOVE

Elder Twitchell

PS I´m super excited to meet Lisa Barker. She´s going to absolutely LOVE Curitiba.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Released Sept 2nd - BYU Sept 3rd


March 11, 2013

Hey family,

Here in Bom Pastor, the Lan House is right by our house, so we start writing E-mails earlier. Today I started writing about 10:30 AM, just so you know. I`m not sure what time it is for you guys.

Hey, important, so I had the interviews with President Cordon last week, and I asked him what I should do with college, and coming home early and everything. He told me that as of right now, he has it set that I come home September 2. So, that´s like right in time for BYU, isn´t it? It starts September 3, right? So I asked him if I should go home early or not, and he told me that he saw no reason for me to lose a semester of College to stay one more week on the mission. So I was thinking about it, and I think President Cordon is right. He told me that his son started studying the week he ended his mission, and it turned out great for him. He said that right now, I’m in a really focused state of mind, so it´s a good transition from the mission to studying at BYU, because I’m already really focused.
So I think I’m going to go ahead and come home early (or at the normal time, I’m not sure) so that I can study.

Now, I’m not sure exactly how it works out with choosing classes and all of that? When is it that I choose classes? I think I can do that while I’m on the mission... But yeah, what I need you to do, mom, is find out if I need to come home a bit earlier for school, or if September 2 is fine. President Cordon said it´s not a problem for me to come a week or two early, but I need to tell him as soon as possible, so that the mission can buy tickets cheaper. So it´d be good to know by next week already, so that I can tell him.

For what I’m going to study, I think I’ll study something with Economy, I really liked that class when I was at BYU. I´m not exactly sure what I’ll do with that... but I guess I’ll find out! :)

I’m going to live with Spencer, Ben and Mitch and them, right? That´ll be neat. Hey, sorry, I’ve got to run!! But I love you a ton, I know that today was not that much, but I sent you a letter last week!! I`m a bit worried, I sent it to your address in Erda!? I hope you get it!

LOVE ELDER TWITCHELL

 

PS what’s the name of my 2nd cousin that´s going to come to Curitiba? I forgot.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Short but sweet letter


March 4, 2013

Hey Mom,
I’ve been terrible with letters, I promise I’ll write one today!!!! I think it´s been like three months since I’ve written one. It´s just that time is passing by so fast, I don´t even realize that it´s been sooooo long.

I pretty much get letters at the same rate that I got them before, because we only have Zone meetings once a month. I did get a letter from Autumn this last week. I´ll send off some letters today.

My new area and companion are wonderful. Elder Vighetto is like me, which is nice, we talk about Avatar: The Last Airbender sometimes. I had to make a rule with him, though, that he can´t talk to me about the new Avatars. It´s almost been two years, I won´t let him spoil Avatar for me now! I teach him a few things in English, not a lot. He already knows a bit. I mostly teach him slang, like ´That’s how I roll´. He´s pretty young, he´s only 18 years old. Wow, it´s weird to think, but 18 seems young to me.

It´s neat working with Elder Barkdull, too, because we´re already friends. He knows I’m not going to mess around, so he trusts me.

Yeah, so we have interviews with the President tomorrow, I’ll ask him about BYU, because I’m still not sure what to do. But I also don´t think he´ll ask me to stay longer on the mission, just because of the Visas. Maybe he´ll ask Brazilians to stay longer, but Americans, I don´t think so.

Ok, I’ve gotta go, I’ll write a letter today!!!

LOVE

ELDER Twitchell!!

Lettter from March 04, 2013


March 4, 2013  (letter)

Hey Family!!

I lost the other notepad I had for writing letters so I’m going to use this one from now on.  I know that I haven’t written in like three months.  Sorry!  To me, it doesn’t even seem that long.  Time keeps hurrying by.  It’s good to be in the Lord’s service, because I keep myself occupied doing good.

I think I’ll be able to write more, now that I’m here in Bom Paster.  In Ponta Grossa, our Lan house and supermarket were far from our house, so we ended up losing a lot of time on P-day.  Also if we had some sort of activity with the Zone, we lost almost the whole P-day.

Our area here, however, is a lot more convenient.  The supermarket is just two blocks away, and the Lan House is on the way.  Today, between writing e-mail and buying groceries, we spent a little over an hour.  Those tasks in Ponta Grossa drained almost three hours.  Blehhh…

But I really did love it there in Ponta Grossa.  I feel like I really learned a lot, especially being a Zone Leader.  I loved and worried about the missionaries there.  Even the problematic ones!!  Pretty much the whole Zone was together on transfer day, at the bus station.  It was one of the strangest feelings.  I almost started crying as the bus started going, and I waved Good-bye to all of the missionaries I had been serving.  The mission has kind of turned me into a baby.  You saw me during Skype at Christmas.  I get emotional about anything. 

The mission is such an adventure.  I’ve never had so many things to do, so many worries disappointments, accomplishments, victories. 

 But, Elder Barkdull helped us get to our area, giving us directions through the cellular, and also the Bishop from Bom Pastor helped out.  It was a bit rough going by bus with all my suitcases and Elder Vighetto’s suitcases, but it all worked out.

Our house was a complete mess, moldy bread, ultra dusty floors, spiders and cobwebs, and a broken door. It was like a house from hoarders!  We threw out all of the possibly toxic waste in our house, and throughout the week we cleaned bit by bit.

Even harder was starting to work.  The last elders that worked here left a list of families that they were teaching so that helped out.  Also, the Bishop came by one morning at 5:50 am our door was broken, so he just entered into the house and woke us up!  Haha, it was one of the weirdest experience I had on the mission, getting woken up b the bishop.  He drove us around the area, showing us where the members and investigators live.

It was a lot of help, but still the first few days we got lost quite a few times.  But now we’re getting to know the area, so it’s not too bad.

Elder Vighetto and I are jumping with excitement to be working here.  There are a lot of good families we’re finding and teaching.  The ward is amazing.  Also, I’m the District Leader of two other areas, and we’re going to get them working too.  WE’RE all excited to baptized a lot here.

It’s so weird to think that I’m going to hit the 1 year 6 months mark in less than three weeks.  The mission has passed by faster than anything in my life.  At the beginning of my mission, each month seemed to be such a big step, but now, they are flying by like nothing else.  I’m excited to come home but when I start to get sad.  I start thinking “what do you mean that I have just 6 months left?” It’s strange.

I want to know everyone is doing.  How’s dad with his new job?  How’s Erda?  How’s the ward?  What’s something funny that’s happened?  Who’s leaving on missions?  I’m way excited to have a 2nd cousin on the mission, by the way.  I’m telling everybody to watch out for her.

Ok, time for the weird thing in Brazil