Porigot de Souza is a blessing!!!

July 29, 2013

Heeey family,

  Well, I guess I lost three more days of my mission.  I can´t even believe it. I really am excited to get back, and see the whole family again and get back to studying, but I’m sad to have to leave Brasil.  It´s funny, because I took for granted brazil and the people since I’ve been here, but lately I’m starting to value it all more.  It´s like what everyone says, you don´t know what you´ve got til it´s gone!  Oh well, what can you do.

  About seeing Alicia at Atlanta, I’d be fine with it, but it seems like a great Hassle on Alicia’s part.  I´m sure I’ll see Alicia soon enough.  I´d love to see her, but I think it´d be easier not to.  She´d have to get up like 3 in the morning!  haha, I love you Alicia!

  About who to invite, you can invite whoever to the homecoming.  I don´t know, I think it´d be cool to have just family at the airport.  At the home, you can invite whoever you feel comfortable inviting.  The day of the homecoming can be whichever.  You can leave my homecoming day the same day, if you´d like.  Or you can mark it on the 25th.  Maybe I’ll be tired from the flight and the mission, but it´ll be good to see everyone again, and have my mission fresh in the mind.

  One thing I DO want to leave marked is a visit to the Temple, soon after I get back.  I´m probably not going to be able to go to the Temple here in Curitiba, but I need to go at some point.  I need to account to the Lord.  Preferably the week after I get back (because I imagine that on that Saturday, I’m going to be way tired)

  Ok, lets leave this topic for now!

  Parigot de Souza is a blessing!  It´s been a crazy week.  So the Elders that were here before baptized everyone that they were teaching, so now we´re kind of starting from scratch again.  We found a LOT of new investigators, like 7 different families.  The Lord blessed us a lot this week.

  It´s weird beyond belief, returning to this place.  I´ve seen a LOT of familiar faces this week.  I saw several recent converts that I taught more than a year ago, including Amanda, Thiago, Felipe, and Vera.  Everyone that was pregnant when I left all of a sudden have a baby.  Everyone that had a baby while I was in Bairro novo all of a sudden have a toddler.  It´s been so strange.  Everyone was really excited to see me this week.  It´s fun to see everyone, but then again, I feel bad for Elder Morales, because we end up losing time at activities and at Church!  haha, I’m trying to avoid catching up with all of these friends for TOO long, but it´s fun to see them.

  Elder Morales is great!  he´s a funny Chilean, and is a great teacher.  He´s being an amazing companion, I’m sad that I’m not going to stay with him for that long.

  Well, I gotta go (it´s hard getting used to the 45 minutes again).

  LOVE YOU LOTS!

  Elder Twitchell

  PS Autumn should be expecting a letter, and I’ll send one more letter to the family.

 

Amanda, Danio and Danny

 

Amanda, Danio, Danny, Elder Twitchell

Avram taught Amanda when he first got to Brazil, Amanda and Danio and Danny were sealed in the temple in April, they were able to see Avram a couple of weeks ago at church. 

 

Elder Little, Amanda, Danio, Danny, Elder Twitchell, Netro

2 Baptisms and Transferred

July 22, 2013

Hey family!

  That’s neat that you got to go to their homecoming!!!  President and Sister Cordon were so great to me.  And yes, I recognize everyone that you took pictures with.  I can´t believe how long I’ve been out on the mission, it feels like it hasn´t been that much time. 

  So today, I’m kind of short on time, I think I’ll send a bunch of pictures so that you can see what I’ve been up to.  Today, I got TRANSFERRED.  I got transferred to Parigot de Souza, as a Zone Leader.  It´s the area next to Bairro Novo, so I pretty much know everything here already.  And I’ll be seeing Amanda and Danilo, along with everyone from Bairro Novo, every Sunday.  So that´s neat!  I´m with Elder Morales here.  He’s a Chilean, and great, although he´s kind of hard to understand, with his Chilean accent.  But I’m really excited here!  I´m not sure exactly when I’m coming home, they haven´t told me yet, but I THOUGHT that it was on the 26th.  Oh well, we´ll see.  For me, I hope it´s on the 26th, and not the 22.

  Emanuele and Wallison got baptized yesterday!!!!   Wow, it was one of the best Baptismal meetings I’ve had on the mission, the ward helped out a ton!  There was a special singing number, sung by the ward, there was cake, there was food, there was drinks.  Emanuele and Wallison liked it a lot.  Also, at the Baptismal, the ward already had chosen their Home Teachers and Visiting teachers, so they got to meet them already.  It was soooo neat.  I was pretty sad to have to leave Tatuquara, but I’m sure that Elder Rex will take care of everyone there.  Also, Elder Woodruff got called to Tatuquara.  So they´re in good hands.

  Congrats on the new callings!  I´m sure you´ll love it.  I want to do something with scouting when I get back, I think it´ll be fun.

  Ok, I’m going to send you pictures, sorry for being in a rush today!!!

  LOVE YOU LOTS!

  Elder Twitchell

Fun Week

July 15, 2013

Heeeey,

  So we didn´t end up having the baptism yesterday.  Wallison´s work called him Saturday and asked him to work on Sunday.  This was the first time they called him to work on Sunday, so we weren´t even expecting it.  Emanuele didn´t want to get baptized without her husband.  So, we remarked the baptism for this next Sunday.  I´m just hoping that they don´t call him to work again.  We´re feeling pretty good about it, they both want to get baptized.  

  This week we had a ward activity for missionary work.  We got a long rope, and put it throughout the chapel.  At the end of the rope was the ´´Celestial Kingdom´´, and along the way were several temptations.  There was a room with a lot of food, a room with video games, one with a movie playing, etc..  We blindfolded them, and they had to hold on to the Rope.  When they got to one of these temptations, we let them take a peek at the temptation, and see what was there.  If they wanted, they could go, leaving the rope, but once they left, they couldn´t come back.  It was pretty funny, and a lot of ward members, and investigators ended up coming.  It actually turned out great.  I didn´t take any pictures (which is too bad!) but it was fun.

  So I thought you knew, but Elder Little is going to the same Chapel as I do!  There are two wards in our chapel, Tatuquara and Rio Bonito.  Elder Little and Elder Ritchie are assigned to Rio Bonito.

  Our week this week was fun, we found a lot of new investigators, so we´re excited.  Also, today, we´re going to go have an activity with Elder Little´s district, so that should be fun.

  It´s been a while since I’ve spoken at church, but Bishop Nascimento told me yesterday that in a couple of weeks we´d probably give a talk at church.  I love giving talks on the mission, it´s something different, and I always have something to talk about with the ward.

  Here in Curitiba, it isn´t REALLY cold, I just use the sweater for morning and at night.  I don´t know, I’m starting to think that everyone has been lying to me this whole time.  Curitiba doesn´t get all that cold.

  We had interviews with President Fernandes this week.  It was neat to talk to him.  My interview lasted like 10-15 minutes.  He asked me a bit about my family, my weak and strong points, accomplishments that I reached before the mission.  Then he wrote down the things I said.  He´s really intelligent.  He studies the scriptures like two hours per day.  Que crazy.

  I did get an E-mail from Halie, so that was nice!

  Ok, I’ve gotta run already.  I´m taking more pictures!!!

  LOVE YOU LOTS

  ELDER TWITCHELL

New President Fernandes

July 8, 2013

Bom Dia!

  This was a fun week, we got to meet the new mission president!  President Fernandes!  He´s the man, I’m way excited to serve with him, I think that there are going to be a lot of changes here on the mission.  President Fernandes is the second youngest mission president to be called in this wave, so he´s got all of this youthful vigor.  Not that president Cordon is old!  I feel like anything good that I say about President Fernandes is taking away from President Cordon!  What inner conflict.  But I’m super happy to be here in the Curitiba South mission, because besides having the best mission president in the world (President Cordon and President Fernandes being exactly tied for first), Elder Barkdull is still our assistant to the president.  It´s fun having him as a leader.

  President Fernandes dated sister Fernandes for like 3 months by mail, how weird!  Haha, I don´t think I could do it.  He served in the Manaus mission, and he baptized like a crazy man there, and he´s wanting to do the same here.  It´ll be interesting.  It´s kind of hard to tell right now what´s it going to be like with him, and maybe I’ll never see a lot of the changes he´ll bring.  But it´ll be neat to see.

  Transfers are coming up, but I seriously doubt that I’ll get transferred, I’ve got a lot more to do here.  We´re preparing Wallisson and Emanoeli to get baptized this week, and for sure it´ll be great, I’ll send pictures.  wallisson came to Church yesterday, after getting home at 3 in the morning from work.  He was pretty tired, but he was there, so that was great to see.  Our area is going well, too, the ward is helping us out a ton.  Especially the bishop here, he likes me a lot.  He basically obligated the whole Elders Quorum to go on visits with us.  Also, the members are starting to give us a lot of referrals.  Some members brought friends to church this week, and we marked with them to go visit them.  I feel like the work is starting to get some momentum here.  I think i have another 9 or 10 baptisms before i get home.

  Elder Rex is doing great, he´s pretty new on the mission, so he hasn´t gotten all tired or lazy like some missionaries get when they´ve been on the mission for a while.  (not me, I’m still going.  I´m in a sort of frantic, feverish state of diligence right now  :)  )  I´m enduring until the end, but unfortunately a lot of my clothes are not.  I think I’m going to come home with like two pairs of garments (and the rest are going to be burned).  My ´white´ shirts are becoming parchment yellow.  Don´t worry about my shoes.  I discovered this week that a lot of my clothes are getting mildew, because of the humidity.  Don´t worry, I’m being cleaner than I ever have been in my life, but there’s some things that laundry detergent can´t solve.  So yeah, the apartment is good, it´s just the climate here.

  This week I’ve been studying David A. Bednar´s talk, converted unto the Lord.  It´s a great talk, and it has a lot of content and information about conversion and testimony.  I´m trying to deepen my own conversion, and become a truer disciple of Jesus Christ.  Ahhh, it´s hard, because there are so many things we need to better in ourselves!

  I´m jealous that Autumn is at BYU, and hiked the Y.  Ahhhh, BYU is such a great place.  Freshman year is such a great time.  You´ve got to tell her to take advantage of every moment, because the time goes by faaaast..  It sounds like the 4th of July was fun for everyone.  Here on our end, we didn´t do anything special.  To celebrate, I drew a little American flag on all of the Teaching records I updated that night.  It was nutz.

  Well, I love you all lots.  This is the Lords work.  I don´t have any doubt about it.  I feel the Holy Ghost through me, every time I testify that the Book of Mormon is true, and that Christ established his church again in our time.

  LOVE

  ELDER TWITCHELL

Curitiba South Mission

 

 

July 1, 2013

Hey Family!

  Well, we´re no long the Curitiba mission, with President Cordon.  We´re now the Curitiba South mission, with President Fernandes taking the wheel.  This last week, we had a last zone conference with President Cordon, where he gave us some last councils for the mission, and for life.  During his training, he focused on three things--

1) The importance of being Humble.  The Lord won´t work with us, and we won´t learn, if we´re not humble.

2)The importance of Families.  We should search for and teach families, and help them get sealed in the temple.  Build up families

3)The importance of the Book of Mormon.  It is through the Book of Mormon that conversion happens.

A lot of what he said was applied to Missionary work, but I thought that these three topics also apply to normal members, and our own lives, so I thought I’d share it with you.

 

We also got to learn a bit about our new mission president, and the new mission.  Our mission, before, was 15 stakes, and one district, with a total of 200 missionaries.  Our mission now has 7 stakes, two districts, and 100 missionaries.  President Fernandes is a young guy, 42 years old, and his wife is 40.  They have 5 kids (and they´re all small still!  wowow good luck).  President Fernandes is from Angola (in Africa) but lived in São Paulo most of his life, and served a mission in brazil.  His wife, Sister Fernandes, is from Portugal, and also served a mission, in Portugal.  I´m SUPER excited to get to know them.  It´ll be great.

  This week was great, Elder Rex and I found some new families, including one family which was a referral from the ward.  I like it when we teach referrals.  That Young Man is doing well, he came to Church again yesterday.  He´s preparing to go to the temple

  The family that was supposed to get baptized yesterday didn´t get baptized, but we remarked their baptismal date, and we´re helping them out to get prepared.  They´re a great couple, we´re hoping to see more progress from them.

  We´ve been forcing ourselves to work better with the members, so yesterday, we went out to visit some people with our ward Clerk, Cesar, and his 12 year old son, Renan.  Just to let you know, Cesar is my new hero.  He went with us, in the wind and the rain, without even complaining.  This, of course, being on his day off from work.  Certainly we got all wet, but he was still determined to help us out.  Way to go, Cesar!  It´s nice to see this from the members.  They´re great examples for me, after the mission.  Maybe I’ll feel like I’ve already done my part, I’ve already served my mission, when i get back, but members like Cesar inspire me to continue serving.

 

  A week ago, i thought I’d write a letter to Amanda and Danilo, because i knew the Elders from Bairro Novo would be at the Zone conference.  I gave it to these Elders, and they brought the letter to Amanda and Danilo.  Well, yesterday, before Church, we went to go get some investigators, and bring them to church.  The investigator´s didn´t end up coming with us, but when we got back to Church, guess who was there to visit me!?  Amanda, Danilo, they´re little son, Daniel, and Juvencio!  Ahhhh, it was so great to see them again, and catch up with them.  They’re doing great.  Daniel is way big already.  It´s hard to believe that when i got on the mission he wasn´t even born yet!  It was great to see them and catch up with them.  We took some pictures, and i told them to send these pictures to you.  Amanda likes you a lot, Mom, she said that you´re very dear!  :)

 

  That´s great that Autumn is loving BYU.  I remember the first few weeks were so crazy, little wonder she hasn´t called, I’m sure she´s having a blast.  Freshman year is the best year of life.  And wow, Autumn´s running into all kinds of General Authorities these days.  How fun to have the little sleepover as well.  Haha, and tell Austin and Elaina thanks for the invite to play, I'm super excited to play with dinosaurs when I get back, for sure.

  OK, I love you guys lots!  Stay true, firm, unmovable.  Keep praying for me, Elder Rex, my investigators, and President Fernandes.  I think he´ll need lots of prayers!

LOVE YOU LOTTTS!!

  ELDER TWITCHELL