Milagres! 9 de Março 2015

A miracle happened this week!

     During the first weeks of our first transfer in Teófilo Otoni, we had felt prompted to search out a less active member named Claudia that Elder Barroso had baptized his first time here in 2013. We passed  by her house several times and at different hours of the day, but we never managed to catch her at home. Months passed by, and we had forgotten about Claudia. We didn´t even know if she still lived here. Then last week, as we were headed home after the church meetings, Elder Barroso saw a woman walking on the street, and he said to me, ``She looks like Claudia!´´

     The woman saw us, and crossed to the other side of the street. I found that a little strange. She then stopped and pulled out her phone and started texting someone. As we passed on the other side of the street, Elder Barroso stopped and shouted, ``Claudia???´´ She looked up, startled. Seeing that it was us, she said, ``hey...´´. Yup, it was Claudia! We went over to talk to her, and she told us about some difficulties that she passed through after Elder Barroso and his companion were transferred, which resulted in her inactivity after only a few short weeks. She also told us that she had read the Book of Mormon that same morning after having not read for a long time, and had prayed for help. She received her answer when we found her later that day! We have been working with her this week, taking her to visit other members and to activities at the church. She made it to church yesterday, and with the help of some new member friends, she has recommited to fully living the gospel!

     Another miracle this week: After the baptism of Julio Cesar last Sunday, I expressed to my companion, Elder Barroso, that I wanted to baptize just one more time before I went home, but the possibility of finding someone to prepare and baptize so quickly was pretty low. We decided to just keep working, and the Lord would do the rest. Thursday night, we received a call from the Sister missionaries here in Teófilo. They told us that they had planned the baptism of their investigator, Maycom, for Friday. When they asked him if he would like the branch president to perform his baptism, he said that he wanted me to baptize him! At first, I was really confused because I had never met Maycom, becasue the Sisters are from a different branch. How on earth did he know who I was??? They told me that Maycom was at Julio Cesar´s baptism last Sunday, and felt the spirit strongly when I performed the baptism. He wanted ``the same guy who baptized that one kid.´´ ha ha ha. They also asked me to sing (of course), and I agreed. It was one of the most beautiful baptismal services I´ve seen on my mission. It was such an honor to perform the baptism of Maycom!


I hope you all have a great week! Love you all and see you soon!


Elder Crapo

BAPTISMO!!!! 2 de MARÇO 2015

Hey! 

Yup, you guessed it, we had a baptism yesterday! WAHOO!!!! Julio Cesar has been doing really well this week! We went and bought a remote for their DVD player (the joys of the Brazilian market...you can find anything!) so that they could watch some of the church´s films in Portuguese. We watched The Restoration, Finding Faith In Christ, and The Lamb of God. It´s been a great way to help Julio understand about the Atonement and the Restoration, and he loves it! We heard that he drives his mom crazy watching them over and over again, and he really understands!! On Saturday, he explained to us how Christ was baptized (complete with actions, crossing his hands and falling onto the couch.) He´s also been really great in Primary. He always volunteers to say the prayer, and he prays really well!!! On Sunday, he was so excited to be baptized, and we had A LOT of support from the branch. It was good to fill the room with people to watch. The baptism happened without complications and Julio Cesar went in and out of the font with a grin from ear to ear. Other than that, we´ve been trying to find a good teaching group. We´re getting creative and looking in places we´ve never been, talking more about family history (a challenge from President Young), and following the spirit. We also received some referrals yesterday who seem to have a lot of potential, so well be rooting for things to go well! I hope you all are well and happy.

 I love you, and see you soon!

 Elder Crapo  

Baptism!

More Baptism!!

We decided to run to the chapel (on the other side of the city) on p-day...

...and it rained.

The District!

P-day lunch! (it´s our free day...we eat what we want, and suffer the rest of the week as we exercise.)

More flowers...because we´re creative like that.

Yeah, sorry!

We had lunch with a member family...and their parrots.

23 de Fevereiro 2015

Ei, Galeira! So, I really don´t have too much to say today since I feel like I JUST sent an e-mail home. Here´s a quick update: Julio Cesar is really progressing well! One day, as we were passing by their house on the way to another appointment, we heared Julio saying, ``The missionaries said that it´s not good to use Tobacco, alcohol, illegal drugs, tea, and coffee!´´ I think he was teaching his 5 year old sister about the Word of Wisdom, haha. It´s good to know that some things we teach are sticking! We found a family of four boys, all with the ages of priesthood holders! It´s getting a little repetitive, though, because we can only catch one brother at home at a time, so every day we have to teach the same thing to a different brother to catch him up with the others, haha. The other missionaries also passed us a great referral that they contacted on the street. His name is Alex! (I know, I can´t believe it either! A normal name!) He´s 17 years old and lives alone in a really nice condominium because his parents live in another city, and he´s here in Teófilo to study. He received us really well in our first visit, and accepted a baptismal date! He also made it to church with us yesterday, but while we were walking to the church with him, he told us that he would suddenly move back home for about a month to help out with a family crisis there. SO CLOSE!!!! That´s okay, though. When he gets back, the missionaries here will keep working with him and he´ll be baptized, which is what really matters. I´ll have to hunt him down on facebook when I get home. I hope you all are hanging in there! Have a good safe week, y´all! Love you and see you soon! (Like...really soon.) :) Elder Crapo

``That´s why we love Carnaval!´´... ``Só que não´´ (only, not...) 19 de Fevereiro 2015

SO...let me explain... Remember when I said that the city would completely shut down during Carnaval? That´s what happened on Monday when we were supposed to send our e-mails...and everything was still closed on Tuesday, and Wednesday we spent all day travelling to zone conference, having zone conference, and travelling back. It was like driving to Cedar City for a meeting and coming back the same day. We arrived pretty beat... But the conference was great. President Young is really focusing on how we´re using the Book of Mormon, and I remembered a lot of things I learned earlier in my mission that I need to do better. Also because of Carnaval, we really had a hard time finding anyone to teach. Actually, we were having a hard time finding anyone to look at. Really... I´ve never seen Brazil so quiet. We did find a 15 year old boy named Isaac who seemed a little shy, but receptive. His parents told us that he creates chores for himself to do around the house, and completes them without his parents telling him anything. THAT´S the kind of men we want in the church, haha. Isaac said that he´d like to make a visit to the church, and his parents said he could go if we went to pick him up (we would have gone to pick him up anyway, haha). Also, our recent convert, Juneia´s son is home from his trip to his grandma´s house, and has started to receive the discussions. It´s great because you can tell that Juneia has been taking time to teach him everything ahead of our visits, so he already knows all the answers to the questions we ask. It´s reallt funny when he starts showing some of the traditions from other churches and Juneia quickly and desperately corrects him, haha. For example, in our last visit, we let Julio say the closing prayer by himself. Everything went great until he got to the end, and started to say, ``in the name of the Father, and the Son, and th--´´ after which, Juneia was like: ``NO NO NO!!!`` hahaha. She then told him ``In the name of Jesus Christ...`` It was pretty funny. That´s all for this week! I love you all and see you soon! Elder Crapo

9 de Fevereiro 2015

BOM DIA!!!

     We´ve had a really great week! It´s been so great to be able to get back to working hard after being stuck at home feeling pain for so long! This week we found a really great family of 6! There are four girls, one boy and they live with their single Mom. Our lessons with them are really entertaining but also spiritual. The little 8 year-old, Leticia, is a little fire ball and asks lots of questions, haha. The last lesson, as we were teaching about the Holy Ghost, I gave the example of the comforter and told them that where I live, it gets really cold and snows. That led to all sorts of questions, and the girls started singing ``Do you want to build a snowmaaaaan???´´ haha. Yes, Frozen is a world-wide epidemic. They really like the lessons, though. The mom, too. They didn´t make it to church yesterday, but we´ll get all six of them there next time.


     We finally got rain!!! We started getting some promising clouds on Wednesday, and we got rain from Thursday until Sunday. We´ve really been needing it. We´re grateful for the moisture, but the mud makes it a little hard to climb some of the hills. Sometimes it seems like we´re just walking on a treadmilll as we try to climb. We laughed pretty hard when I decided to try harder and almost fell on my face after running in place for a good minute.


     We´re gearing up for Carnaval, which will start on the 17th, I think. It seems like the partying here in the city will be minimal, which is good, but that also means that everyone will go elsewhere to celebrate. We´ll start teaching cats and dogs if things get too deserted. They listen pretty well for the most part. The hardest part will be getting the cats to enter the baptismal font. Not sure what we´ll do about that...


      I hope you all are well! Love you so much! Have a great week, and see you soon!


Elder Crapo

The promised pictures!

Monday: Pointing to the mission on our map! We were searching for creativity, as it was the first day... yeah, sorry.

Tuesday: Still searching for creativity. We found these pretty flowers!

Wednesday: The closest thing we got to a rain cloud for over a month!

Thursday: It finally rained! You can see by our nervous smiles that we were about to get pounded by that rain cloud...which we were.

Friday: Found this coke bottle with Livie´s name on it!

Saturday: What happens when the members leave the room during lunch...

Sunday: More Rain!!! Love you so much! More to come next week!

No Pain No Gain!!! 26 de Janeiro 2015

What a week!



     Our district is full of troopers!!! I´ve never seen a group of missionaries so afflicted yet so determined and successful! Our district leader has a really painful ingrown toenail, his companion is suffering from an inflamed knee, Elder Dos Santos still suffers from shoulder pains, my companion, Elder Barroso´s back problems continue to worsen (the two keep me busy as I give massages that I learned from Julie each night before we sleep), and although my ankle is perfectly fine, I had a fun night on Friday fighting some pretty intense jaw pain that could be caused by an ear infection. I slept a total of about 3 hours trading hot rags to help with the pain. No pain killer we had in the house was doing the job. We called Sister Young the next morning, and waited for three hours at a ``ready help´´ center (which was on strike) becasue no other hospital in the city accepts our health plan. In the end, we just went to the pharmacy and asked for help there, because nobody was going to help us. After receiving some medicine at about noon the next day, I finally managed to get some sleep. Elder Barroso said that he had to make quite a bit of a rukus to wake me up to eat lunch, hahaha. Even shaking me like a crazy person wasn´t pulling me out of my trance. He thought I had died. :)


     All that being said, I have an announcement:



WE HAD A BAPTISM!!!!


     Our investigator, Juneia, has been reading and praying every day since our first visit, and said that she was excited to go to church again, that she traded her coffee for juice in the morning, and that she received an answer and knows the church is true. The only thing holding her back was the Law of Chastity, which we thought she broke with her boyfriend during the weekends. We discovered on Thursday that they don´t do any of that at all!!! SURPRISE! That same visit, we invited her to be baptized on Sunday, and she accepted. In the following visits, she told us that she wasn´t going to let anything stop her from getting baptized!!! It was incredible to see her so confident, because in the first visit, she seemed pretty squishy about everything. The Gospel changes people!


     We also had a great work week and found several people with much potential!  The district has baptized at least one person each week this transfer, even thought we´re all dying! he he. We´re looking forward to this last week of the transfer. It´s been really spiritual to see everyone helping each other in some way. Even though we´re suffering, we´re not suffering alone. :) But really, this is getting good! I love you all, and see you soon!


Elder Crapo

We want some more! We want some more! 19 de Janeiro 2015

We have some good news and some bad news this week.

     We´ve had an interesting week. We woke up in the middle of the night on Tuesday to travel the 3 hours to Nanuque for our zone meeting, then travel back again after. Wednesday, we helped out at a service project for some inactive members where your´s truly ever so gracefully sprained his ankle. That kept us in house arrest for the rest of the day, and the work went...slowly until I fully recovered yesterday. However, one of the inactives came back to church yesterday, so it was all worth it!

      Later in the week, as we were walking to an appointment, we passed by a man sitting on the street curb who appeared to be pretty worn out and tired. As we passed, he asked us, ``Where can I find a church here?´´ We decided to take advantage of the situation and jump right into teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He told us that he´ll be here in the city for about 6 months working on a home reformation, and that was why he was so tired. He humbly stated that the work was hard, and that he was far from his wife and son (he´s legally married!!!). He invited us to see the house he was working on, and it was easy to see that there was much to be done. He accepted both an invitation to church and for baptism, and thanked us for stopping by.

     That seems to be the most of the news for this week. We´re hoping for a more eventful, and less painful work week. :) Love you all and see you soon!

Elder Crapo

12 de Janeiro 2015

Bom dia, pessoal!

     Everyone is praying for rain here in Teófilo. We´ve been getting hit with quite a bit of sun, and it´s drying everything up and making us all lose our marbles. Really. There are days when we get home and I can´t think or speak right, so everyone says I´m going crazy and that I shouldn´t spend as much time in the sun. It has led to some pretty funny language mix-ups, though. Nothing new for the Crapo family, right? (see also: lanes in the store, stop it off, rolled oats, etc...)

     We miraculously managed to get several investigators and less-actives to church yestarday! Four of which were two couples who need to be married. (surprise? No.) I´ll save you all from the ususal ``just get married!´´ rant this week, you already know how I fell about this. The work is going well, and we´ve been going crazy still trying to find people to teach while the whole city is travelling. It´s seems like things are finally getting back tho normal now.

     We also had President and Sister Young visit the city this weekend along with his couselor, President Aguirres. It was a weekend filled with meetings, interviews, and lots of running around. The two branches here met together in sacrament meeting and also in the third hour with the Quorum and the Relief Society. About half way through the third hour, Presdent Young stood up from the stand and started walking to the back of the chapel where I was sitting. I sat there thinking, ``not me, not me, not me...´´ but to my dismay, he stopped in front of me and started whispering something in my ear. He told me that he would be the next to speak, and that he would talk about the sacrment and asked me if I would sing a sacrament hymn solo before he spoke. I thought, ``oh, just that?´´ haha. It went well and many thanked me for bringing such a strong spirit to the meeting. 

     That´s about all the news for this week. I love you all, and see you soon!

Elder Crapo

Happy New Years! 5 de Janeiro 2015

Can You believe it´s 2015!?!?

     This week, many of our investigators were traveling, so we had a long week of knocking doors and making street contacts as we tried to find someone to teach. After one particularly difficult day, in talking with my district leader, Elder Willett, I realized that maybe I could be doing more to find someone prepared to receive the gospel. The next day, Elder Barroso suggested that we knock doors in another neighborhood, since we weren´t having much success where we were. Even though it was a longer walk, we decided to go street by street, door by door, in search for that one investigator who was waiting for us to arrive. We actually found a lady named Vanessa who is incredibly receptive and has passed through many many hardships this year. We felt guided by the spirit as we unfolded the gospel of Christ for her and her family, and they have accepted baptismal invitations! My testimony grew stronger and I remembered how the Lord is the head of this work, and the Spirit is our help and guide. I´m very grateful to be part of it all.

     New Years was good. Everyone in the city was letting off fireworks, and we sat up at the top of the house to watch everyone celebrate. I thought about the year, and I´m grateful for all the blessings and experience I gained. I´m also grateful for a fresh new start, and I have many hopes and goals for 2015. For now, we´ll keep on keepin´ on here in the mission field. I love you all, and I´ll see you soon!

Elder Crapo

The importance of Family Home Evening 29 de Dezembro 2014

Good morning!

     I hope all of you are happy and satisfied with your Christmas holiday this last week. I know I am! It was so good to see, talk, and laugh with my family again. All the missionaries had to be home at 7, so we spent the rest of the night playing scum, which got to be pretty funny. There were a few rounds where I went from scum to king then back to scum in just 3 or 4 plays. I guess it was just luck... or lack of it.

     This week, it was a challenge because everybody is travelling or on vacation for the Holidays, so knocking doors didn´t reap much success for us. We did, however, meet a lady who had received the missionaries at her house many many years ago, and told us that she wanted us to stop by her mom´s house to visit (because she lives really far away, but spends most days at her mom´s). We managed to stop by on Christmas eve and talk about the gospel over some delicious home made bread. She agreed to stop by the church on Saturday to attend the Christmas activity, but Sunday, unfortunately, she had another commitment. She actually made it to the activity and watched a baptismal service with her boyfriend, who is also receiving the missionaries in another area. 

     We also held a family home evening with a less active family this week. We showed the movie: ``Only A Stonecutter´´ and discussed the importance of enduring to the end no matter what the circumstances. It was really neat to see the home be filled with the spirit, and to see the understanding light up in the eyes of the children and parents. On Sunday, every member of the family made it to church! It was so good to see them all there, smiling and happy to be in attendance. Family Home Evening gives us strength during the week that will help us make better decisions and unite us as a family!

     Other than that, the work continues on. I hope you all have a great New Years. I love you, and see you soon!

Elder Crapo

Telefone Tony 22 de Dezembro 2104

Family and Friends! Merry Christmas!

     There is so much to say and so little time to say it! I´ve been transferred to another state entirely! I´m now in the city of Teófilo Otoni in the state of Minas Gerais. The name is really weird and hard to pronounce, so when the greenies try to say it, it just comes out something like ``Telefone Tony´´, which I find hilarious. It´s found in the interior of the state, north of Espirito Santo, which means that if you thought it was hot in my other area...welcome to the devil´s oven. And we´re not at all close to the ocean, so there´s no breeze, and there are lots and lots of hills.  It´s weight losing time!!! What saves us from wasting away is the food. Mineiro seasoning is so so so good! We end up eating quite a bit.The area is actually really beautiful with all the green hills, too. There´s a ton of German and Italian influence here,  so it´s like a blend of the three cultures: Brazilian, German, and Italian.  I love it!

 

     I´m with a new companion, Elder Barroso! He´s from Manaus, which is a really developed city located in the middle of the Amazons! How cool is that? I really like working with him, he´s a great missionary and helps me out so much! In short, I´m incredibly blessed and happy with how transfers turned out.

  

     We have an investigator named Ibis who has a baptismal date marked for Sunday, so wish us luck. Or just wish us the spirit. That´s much more effective. Love you all, and see you soon!

Elder Crapo

Rainy days and Mondays...15 de Dezembro 2014

Good Morning!

    ``Iiiiiiits thaaaaaaaat time of year, when the world falls in...´´

...puddles of mud, because it´s the rainy season here in Brazil.

 I think I remember sending a similar e-mail exactly one year ago, which said something like, ``Either it´s blazing hot, or it´s raining it´s guts out.´´ Some things never change.

     I hope you all had a great week full of happy christmas preparations! This week, we had our branch christmas dinner, and they asked me to choose a song to sing a few days before. I decided to use Josh Groban´s version of ``I´ll be home for christmas´´, and in the parts where the soldiers give shout-outs to their family and friends, I read selections from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland´s talk: Christmas Within You. Go read it, it´s good! https://www.lds.org/liahona/2012/12/christmas-within-you?lang=eng

     So, I guess I left out some important information in the last e-mail. I didn´t put the date I would be going home! I only realized this after we finished e-mailing, but when I remembered, I thought, ``My family is going to go crazy.´´ Sorry! I´ll be leaving from Vitória on March 17, and probably won´t arrive in Salt Lake until the 18th. The exact times, I don´t know yet, but I´ll probably receive all the itty-bitty info here in a few weeks. I´ll keep y´all posted. Now to go hunting for a green tie...

     In other news...I´ll be transferred tomorrow! This transfer was only 5 weeks because the church doesn´t buy plane tickets within a week of christmas, so they cut this transfer short, and the next transfer will be 7 weeks long. So...I have no idea where I´ll be spending my christmas.

     That´s it for this week, folks! Love you all, and see you real soon!

Elder Crapo

Regrets and Decisions: 8 de Dezembro 2014

Feliz Natal!

     Since beginning my misssion, I´ve been impressed several times with how serving a mission is like living another mini ``life´´. Everything that applies to life applies to the mission. The day you enter the field, you are born. For those who serve in foreign countries and different cultures, ``Birth´´ is very much like starting again from actual birth. You have to learn how to speak, how to talk, how to work, etc. Then you continue through the ups and downs of life, learning as you go, until the day you return home, which is ``death´´. As you start to arrive near the end of your ``life´´, you start to thinl about everything you´ve gone through, everything you´ve done, all your mistakes, and your moments of triumph.

     This past week, I received ``The Call´´ from the mission secretary confirming the date and airport to which I´ll be going home. To other missionaries, when you get ``The Call´´, you are really really old in the mission. It´s like turning 70 years old in a life span of 80 years (or 88 years in a span of 100, to help those who have already turned 70 feel better).

     In language study recently, I´ve been studying conference talks in Portuguese from the November 2012 issue of ``The Liahona´´. Interestingly enough, I came upon President Uchtdorf´s talk entitled ``Regrets and Decisions´´ (all this will be a rough translation from portuguese to english, so bear with me) in which he talks about three common regrets that people have in life. I won´t give a complete and extensive review of the discourse, but I encourage you all to go and look it up yourselves and read it because it´s really good and ... I´ve forgotten the word in english...uhhh...it´s...enlightening? I wanted to say something like that. Just go with it. It´s great.

 

     The universal regrets are:

1. ``I would like to have spent more time witht the people I love.´´

2. ``I would like to have lived to my highest potential.´´

3. ``I would like to have allowed myself to be happier.´´

     Just as these regrets apply so well to each of us in our mortal lives, these regrets are also very real in mission life. I know I´ve come a long way, and that I have just a few short months left to take advantage of my missionary experience. I´ve already felt each one of these regrets at one point or another during my mission, but I want to be ble to ``die´´ knowing I lived this last part of my ``life´´ with no regrets!

     I know that Christ lives! I know we are cared for by a loving Father in Heaven. I know that the Book of Mormon is not just a book full of fairy tales, fables, and war stories. These people actually lived and their words are true. I love the gospel, and I love my mission. I love all of you and thank you for all your love, support and prayers. I´ll see y´all soon!

Elder Crapo

1 de Dezembro, 2014

Hello!

     I wanted to change the way I start these e-mails, but I´m lacking creativity today, so the ``hello´´ will have to do for now. :)

     This week was full of surprises! President Young showed up at our door one morning to interview my companion, and then asked to speak with me for a bit after. He asked me how everything´s going at home, with my companion, in the work, etc. It was good to just sit and talk and learn for a few minutes. President Young is really a great teacher.

     Thankfully, we got a break from the sun this week and got a little rain intead. A blessing and a curse, as it cooled everything down, but hurt our church attendance big time. Brazilians hate doing anything but sleep when it rains. Me, too, but you know...missionary life.

     It was also Elder F. Lima´s birthday on Friday, but we got surprise cakes on Wednesday, Friday, two on Saturday, and one more yesterday. I´ve had enough cake to last me a long while.

     We found a man named Paulo the other day, who recognized us as ``The Mormons´´, but admited that he doesn´t know anything about our religeon. We taught him about the restoration, and he said he liked it and agrees with a lot that we taught. He told us that he´d pray, and we´ll see what happens.

     Love you all so much, and I´ll see you soon!

Elder Crapo

24 de Novembro 2014

Family and Friends!

     Now I know why this area is called ``Terra Vermelha´´. Terra (which means earth or dirt) because of all the dirt roads, and Vermelha (which is red) because of the color you turn after one day´s work here. The sun is HOT!!! Y´all are receiving an e-mail from a human tomato today. Okay, let´s get going on our week:

     The people in our area are really receptive. Really, though. One day we managed to get in 10 visits! That was just one day, and we got tons of addresses, too! Even if it´s just for a few minutes, we´re getting more ´yes´s than ´no´s these days. We found one 13 year old (who seems 17 years old. Seriously, the kids here grow so fast!) named Jenilson at his house, and his friend who was there is a member of our church. He let us in, and has been receiving the lessons really well, and his parents are really receptive, too. He couldn´t make it to church yesterday because they had family over from São Paulo, and they don´t get to see each other very often, but next Sunday the whole family wants to make a visit.

 

      As for Scarlet, she still doesn´t want to be baptized yet. She´s been reading and praying, but there´s still something holding her back. We also found another 14 year old boy named Gabriel who´s mom received the missionaries a long time ago, and even made it to church a few times, but wasn´t baptized. We haven´t met her yet, but Gabriel really liked learning more about the Restoration. It made him think about a lot of things he´d never thought about before.

 

     Just plugging along as usual. We had zone meeting this week, and the zone leaders asked me to pull a Crapo and sing a solo the day of. It went well. I´ll send you the zone picture. We´ll see if y´all can manage to recognize me. Love you tons, and see you soon!

Elder Crapo

Terra Vermelha 17 de Novembro 2014

Family and Friends,

     The first week in a new area always seems longer, and it seems like forever since I´ve heared from home.

     I´ve been transfered to the Vila Velha zone (everyone´s favorite zone in the mission, and I don´t mean that sarcastically.) serving with Elder F. Lima (I know, another Elder Lima. I think I´ll give my first son the middle name Lima.) in Terra Vermelha. It´s a growing branch right next to the ocean. But really, you can see the ocean from our balcony. Any time we have to catch the bus we get to see some pretty incredible views. The branch members are really animated, and I can tell it´s going to be a great transfer! Yestrday, we managed to bring 17 year old Scarlet to church, and we found a man named Marcos who was contacted by the missionaries 15 years ago in Vitória, but disappeared. 

     My studies have ended up on the topic of humility a lot these days. I always thought the first step to spiritual development was faith, but in studying this week, I learned that the first element for spiritual growth is actually humility, and to have something as basic and simple as even faith, we have to first humble ourselves to beleive and act in Christ, accept the words of the prophets, repent, and so on and so forth. It´s through humility that God prepares the hearts of men to receive His word and be converted. Whether men will humble themselves or be compelled by God to be humble is up to the individual. Alma teaches us, ``...Blessed are they who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble; or rather, in other words, blessed is he that believeth in the word of God (...) without being brought to know the word, or even compelled to know, before they will believe.´´ [Alma 32:16]

     I´ve been compelled many many times on my mission to be humble. and I know it´s because the Lord loves me and wants me to have humility that I might grow. However, I know it would have been better to learn from others and humble myself instead of waiting for the Lord to compel me. That´s what I´m trying to apply in my work now. I invite you all to apply it, too! Love you all and see you soon!

love,

Elder Crapo

Leaving Home 10 de Novembro 2014

Family and Friends,

     A lot of the same feelings I felt as I left home 19 months ago, and as I left Texas are being felt again this week. I'm being transferred tomorrow after 6 months in one of the greatest areas with one of the greatest Elders in this mission. I have a lot of mixed feelings. I really want to go and meet new people and see new places, but this area has been so good for me, so it's strange to leave. We'll see how things will turn out tomorrow at the transfer meeting.

     Unfortunately, this week all three of our baptismal dates fell through, and we were informed that the bishop (who owns the house we live in) will be asking for the house because his daughter will get married soon, and will move in. We did find a decent house to rent, though. Right next to a member who is like a mom to all the missionaries who pass through. We'll go close the contract today to have everything all ready for the new missionaries, because all four of us were transferred!

      In other news, after several months of pestering, begging, pleading, and crying, we finally went to see the national park here in Vitória: A Fonte Grande. I took lots of pictures, and I'm really sorry that my camera doesn't do justice to the view we had. We saw all of Grande Vitória from the top of the highest mountain on the island. It was so beautiful, I felt like it wasn't even real. Anyway, I'll send the pictures. Have a great week, love you, and see you soon!

Elder Crapo

 

Raining Surprises!

Family and Friends,

     Truly, it has been an very eventful week. We got rained out again on Thursday, and we had to walk home at night with water up to our knees, and the water that entered in through the back door was fun to clean up. Luckily the flooding didn't ruin anything...just annoying. Halloween was good, thanks to Elder Capawana's mom who sent waffle mix, maple syrup, candy corn, brownies, peanut butter, and other american goods last week. We had waffles for breakfast, and then at night, we made brownines with white chocolate chips and ate come candy. Other than that, it was a normal day.

     Three big miracles happened this week: One man named Tiago asked us more about our beliefs after overhearing a doctrinal conversation my compánion and I were having on the street, and another woman searched us out through her recent-convert sister, and told us, `` I intend to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ, what do I have to do to make this happen?´´ Her name is Marina, and she came to church by herself yesterday!

     We also passed by Eva and her husband, Fidelcino's house yesterday to take them to church, and they were all ready and said that they had been waiting for us to show up! They said that they loved church, and intend to visit again next week.

     I hope y'all are well, and that you have a great week. Love you tons, and see you soon!

carinhosamente,

Elder Crapo

27 de Outubro, 2014

Bom dia, meus queridos!

     Estava pensando muito esta semana, e eu acho que seria melhor se todos vocês aprendessem português, pois não falo mais inglês!

      No, just kidding, but really. Life would be so much easier if the whole world spoke the same language. 

     We´ve had a great week. Unfortunately, every time we went to visit Bruna and her family this week, Bruna wasn´t home, and they didn´t make it to church yesterday. Hopefully we´ll have better luck this week. However, we found another family of 7. The grandmother, Zuma, really has all the right questions and is loving finally getting some answers to those questions. She had a doctor´s appointment scheduled the same time as church yesterday, so she´ll take her family to make a visit at church this week.

     We had an interesting experience the other day as we were leaving from a lesson. We were proselyting in an area a little more...shady. As we were stepping out the door, we heared a ``pssst´´ from the other side of the alley, and I turned to see a police women flanked by two or three other police officers with a gun pointed right at us. She motioned for us to get out of the way, and we hopped back into the house and waited for them to stop looking for where the drugs were hidden. They didn´t find anything, but I guess there´s been some drug traffic reports. Oh the joy. I find it a little funny that wherever the missionaries are working, the police are usually working there, too.

     We are also getting swamped and flooded by rain. November and December are usually the rainiest months here, but I guess nature decided to get a good head start this week. We weren´t expecting this yesterday, and made the mistake of leaving home without umbrellas. You probably can imagine how we ended up.

     I hope you all are well and more dry than we are! Have a great week, love you and see you soon!

Elder Crapo

Miracles

Dear family and friends,

     We've had a really great and humbling week! We were called to the mission office to have our interviews with President Young, and it was really good to talk about everything that's going on in the mission, with the family and receive a confirmation that he's really pleased with the work we're doing. We also found an awesome family of three: Camila (11), Pedro (12), and their mom, Bruna. They accepted us at home so willingly and understood everything so clearly, and they'll make a visit to church on Sunday. The spirit was really strong in that first lesson, and we feel pretty confident that they'll join the church soon.

     We had ward conference yesterday, and we had about 280 people all crammed in our little chapel, but the spirit was definitely present. Our work now is visiting all the friends the members brought! We also were asked to give a blessing to a little girl who had been having abdominal pains since the day before. Her mom asked us to bless her that the pains would pass so that they could watch the rest of the conference without having to go home. After the conference, we asked the girl how she was feeling, and she said that she was all better! 

     Finally, yesterday we held the baptismal service of Renan! His sister, Ayla, didn't want to go through with her's yet, but we'll keep working with her. We actually had four baptisms in the ward, and it was cool so many people dressed in white. I sang ``If the Savior stood beside me´´ in Portuguese with two other members, and it was a really nice meeting. 

     Other than that, we're still running as usual. Summer really is starting to hit hard and we've had some really hot days, so we can't manage to sleep with the covers any more. I hope you all have a fantastic week! Love you, and see you soon!

Elder Crapo