December 23, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

     My new companion is Elder Capelletti! He´s from Rondônia, at the very top of Brasil right next to Bolivia (so, yeah. He has an accent). He has one year and three months on the mission, so he has about as much time left as I have experience. He´s very humble, though, and has a genuine love for people. He´s pretty gentle and polite when he meets new people, which is refreshing in a world of anxious, demanding, and often pushy missionaries. At the same time, his sense of humor and his laugh remind me a lot of Zac (Cook). Not a day has passed by that I haven´t thought, ´´ Whoa! That´s totally something Zac would do/ say/ that sounded just like Zac!´´ So, needless to say, we get along pretty well, and we´re expecting an emergency transfer any day now. ;) Just kidding.

     On Tuesday, we had our big Christmas celebration with the whole mission, at which I sang an arrangement of ´´Hark the Herald Angels Sing´´ in Portuguese in the talent show they held. The other missionaries liked it so much that they all chanted for me to sing one more, so I handed my hymn book to the President and had him pick a hymn. My piano player was the one and only, amazingly talented Elder Gonzalez. He just needs to look at the hymn for a second, and then he starts playing a beautiful arrangement. We were really good at just following each other, and it felt like I was living inside of a musical where the piano player just plays, and the singer just sings, and everything turns out well. It was pretty cool.

     I also participated in the program for the Christmas dinner here in Aracruz. The program got off to a rough start due to technical difficulties, and we had a hard time hearing some of the singers. My song was at the end, and I knew I was going to have to fill up this big space without a mic. Luckily, I was assigned a powerful song that allowed for some improvisational liberties. It was good to give my lungs a good workout after such a long time, and the audience went crazy at the end. 

      Other than that, we´ve just been working to re-open this area, and counting down the days until Christmas. Only 2 MORE DAYS! I love you all, and I´ll talk to you soon!

 Com Carinho,

-Elder Crapo

December 16, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

     Yet another strange week here in Aracruz! I´m starting to realize that there is no such thing as ´normal´ in missionary life. Anyway, to start off this week, I´ll announce what we know about transfers. 

 

     My companion, Elder Johnson, will be transferred on the 17th (tomorrow), and I will bring home a new companion with me to Aracruz. Elder Bueno and Elder Knudsen will be staying in Aracruz, as well. We also have been told that 4 more missionaries (two more companionships) will be added to Aracruz, too. It´s going to be crazy! Everybody is telling me that I´m going to get a greenie and train for the next two transfers. Usually, American missionaries don´t train until later in their missions, while Brazilians usually train pretty soon because they don´t have to learn the language -- according to Elder Bueno, who is from Brazil (I know, his name is Spanish. Just go with it.) He also says that I already speak like a Brazilian, so I´ll train for sure, especially since President announced in his e-mail today that we´ll receive 21 new missionaries tomorrow. That´s a huge influx, and they all need trainers! We´ll have to see what happens. We do know that I get to stay in Aracruz for Christmas! Wahoo! The branch here is really awesome.

 

     We had some pretty interesting things happen this past week. For instance: An old lady tried to give us alcohol, thinking it was soda, we did a lot of searching for houses that don´t exist, we met tons of crazies (one of which, Elder Johnson asked if he could use her bathroom--despite my objections.), we took Elder Johnson to a super shady hospital because he was having unusual pain on the left side of his body, and we saw a man get rolled out of the emergency room covered in a white sheet, I was super sore all week because we played soccer last Monday, and then I gave my first full-length discourse in Portuguese in Sacrament meeting yesterday. It went pretty well, and many people told me they really liked it -- particularly because they could understand everything I was saying. (* Gift of Tongues Level Up! *) We definitely sent off this past transfer with a bang. I really love it here in Aracruz, and I´m really glad I´m not being transferred. I´m excited to see what happens next transfer. Until next time...just one more week until Christmas!!! I love you all, and I´ll talk to you soon!

               Com Carinho,

- Elder Crapo

December 9, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

     Only 16 more days until Christmas!! That´s just barely over 2 weeks! I´m super excited! The only thing that worries me is that we have transfers on the 17th. Firstly because I´ve heard it´s less fun to spend Christmas in a new area with a new companion, and secondly because the branch here asked me to sing a solo in the Christmas program at the Christmas party, and that´ll be after transfers. We´ll see what happens.

     This past week started out really well, and then ended pretty poorly. We had six or seven baptisms lined up for this weekend and the following weekend. By Saturday, for one reason or another, they all fell through--sucking us dry of progressing investigators. pook...

     The good news is that yesterday, we found a family that has already been taught, already been to church, and used to have baptismal dates, but weren´t baptized because the missionaries that taught them were both transferred at the same time, and they never put the family in the area book, so they were lost until now. That was probably really confusing, but you get the picture. 

     Also, we found out that our recent convert has been having a hard time kicking the coffee habit. My companion likes to throw me under the bus a lot. In this case, he promised our recent convert that if she could go the next day without drinking coffee, that I would sing to her and her family. Well, she didn´t drink coffee the next morning of afternoon, but gave in that evening shortly before we showed up because she had been feeling sick (probably because of the coffee addiction). The next day, however, when we showed up to talk to her, she told us that it had been a really hard day...but she didn´t drink coffee. Yup, so she called about 10 of the 17 people that live in that house to the porch, and I sang a Christmas song for them using my Portuguese hymn book. They really liked it.

     That´s about all I have this week. Sorry it´s such a boring letter this time ( do I say that a lot?). But I´ll talk to you guys soon. Love you!

                                                        com carinho,

                                                       - Elder Crapo

December 2, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

     We have had a really wet week! It rained every day this week (except for yesterday), and some days it rained all day without stopping. I usually have my umbrella in my bag at all times, but one day I set it out to dry on the balcony, and left it there when we went out to work again. Big mistake. That night we got hit by a huge wave of heavy rainclouds and by the time we got home, I couldn´t have been more wet if I had jumped into the ocean. It got to the point where we just stopped trying to avoid the rain, and laughed at how ridiculous we must have looked. 

     Although I didn´t celebrate Thanksgiving this year, I took some time on Thursday to think about some of the lessons I´ve learned from being on a mission, and how grateful I am to be able to serve the Lord in this manner. I created a simple list of 15 things I´ve learned so far, and I´d like to share it with you guys this week:

  1. If you never ask, the answer is already, ´´no´´.

  2. Don´t beat around the bush. Many times, people already have an idea of why you´re there, and what you´re going to try to explain.

  3. Appreciate this moment of your life--right now. No matter how tough your life seems at the time, there is something about today that you´ll miss or wish you´d appreciated more.

  4. Be BOLD. And loving. Simultaneoulsy.

  5. When the lady of the house tells you to eat, you eat. When the lady of the house tells you to eat more, you eat more! You can always add a few extra crunches to your morning workout.

  6. Nothing breaks the ice faster than a firm handshake and a warm smile.

  7. Getting along with another person is not about searching for their similarities, it´s about appreciating and learning to love their differences.

  8. Love: Say it. Show it. Make sure they know it.

  9.There is no bad day that a hot shower, a hot meal, and a long prayer can´t fix.

  10. The Lord already knows everything, but He always wants to hear you tell your side of the story.

  11.No earthly, material thing should ever take precedence over your family. Ever.

  12. It´s better to have character than to be one.

  13. Usually, momma really does know best.

  14. If it´s sunny, go and enjoy it. If it´s rainy, go and enjoy it. If there´s a giant blizzard raging on outside -- see number 9.

  15. Your success as an individual is not measured against the ´success´ of the other people around you. Your success as a human being is measured by your dedication to continually become the best person you can be.

     Happy Holidays, y´all! I love you very very much and I´ll talk to you soon!

Com carinho,

-Elder Crapo

Novembro 24 2013

Dear Family & Friends,

     We had a really eventful week! Tuesday we had our zone leaders come do a division with us, so we got to talk to them about our areas and get some feedback and advise on how we can help our area grow. On Wednesday we got a call from a member who told us that her non-member friend is sick and would like a blessing. Yes. In Portuguese. No, of course I wasn´t nervous, I don´t know what you´re talking about. The lady´s name is Maria ( which is the name that over 40% of women over the age of 50 have. Everybody is Maria!), and she has an illness that has to do with her skin. It´s supposedly pretty painful, and it´s keeping her from working or being too active so she´s at home all day. She made a visit to the doctors, and they told her that they can´t figure out what it is, but they do know that it isn´t contagious. They kinda just left her to fight it out--whatever it is. I think she said it´s been a while since she contracted it, so she´s pretty discouraged. We gave her a blessing and talked about why we go through trials in this life, and the member who was with us cried the whole visit through. Maria really liked our visit, and told us we were welcome to come back and talk more about the church any time we wanted.

     The next day (Thursday), we held a division with the other companionship in our house (our district) so that Elder Johnson could go give a baptismal interview to an investigator, while working our area at the same time. I was with my district leader, Elder Bueno from Curitiba Brasil (I know, his name is Spanish, but he´s Brazilian), and we made it a goal to beat out Elder Johnson and Elder Knudsen in street contacts. Yeah...we smashed them with 20 contacts in one day. Our weekly goal is 35. Needless to say, we definitely hit our goal this week.

     Friday was the day we had marked for Geraldo´s baptism. During the week, we got some unexpected results from our lessons and visits with him. His mom, Valdesir, has been taught by missionaries for years, and has always said the same thing that she said to us on my first visit to the house: that she knows the church is true, she´s attending church and doing everything she needs to do, but she wants to wait for the ´right time´. We asked her if she´s ever prayed specifically about baptism, and her answer was no. Our invitation to her was to devote a very specific prayer to God, asking about her baptism. In the following visits with Geraldo, we always ask her each time if she had prayed yet. She always responded with no, and some wishy-washy excuse.

     One day, as we were re-visiting Joseph Smith and the first vision with Geraldo, and re-commiting him to be baptised, his mom walked in from the kitchen to listen in for a moment. As Geraldo re-accepted his baptismal date, the spirit spoke to Valdesir, and she said, ´´Okay. If my son can be baptized, I will be baptized, too,´´ and she accepted a date for the 22nd. After this lesson, we began weeding out all of Valdesir´s fears and doubts about baptism. We discovered a lot of things, including a fear of water. As we discussed each of these things with her, we could always feel the spirit working on her--and she could feel it, too! Unfortunately, due to several issues with the Word of Wisdom and a discouraging family member, Geraldo´s baptismal date has been postponed. 

     However, it was my immense pleasure to escort Valdesir to the font and perform her baptismal ordinance on Friday, November 22, after many long years and tireless efforts from several missionaries. I know we were able to help this woman only with the help of the spirit, and we touched her heart through teaching her son.

     Now I have some less-good news. Yesterday was the Conference of the district Colatina. Unfortunately, I woke up yesterday morning with a really nasty illness (yay, Brasil!), that left me out of commision for the whole day, and caused me to miss the conference. Both of the companionships in our district had investigators who would be attending, so Elder Knudsen kindly volunteered to stay with me so Elder Johnson and Elder Bueno could go. My entire system was cleaning itself out with every method in the books, so I spent the first part my morning vomiting and dry heaving, and the rest of my day getting on and off the toilet with severe diarrhea. 

                            ...I´ve had better days...

     The good news is that it only lasted 24 hours, and I´m much better now. Plus, my system is all cleaned out now, and I probably lost those few extra pounds. ;) 

     Thanks to the Relief Society back at home for sending me the letter with the Christmas message! I received it yesterday, and I really enjoyed what it said! 

                 I love you all, and I´ll talk to you soon!

                                             Com carinho,

-Elder Crapo

I´ve been...what?? Novembro 18 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

     To start off this week´s letter, I thought a bit of a plot twist would be fun. I know you´re expecting to hear all about my adventures in Cobilândia with Elders M. Silva and Stilson, but I have a different topic to discuss this week. Last Tuesday (one day after I sent my last letter), we received a call from the assistants to the President. They told us that I was being emergency transferred that day, and we needed to go home and pack my bags and travel to the bus station in Vitória as soon as possible.Needless to say, that is not exactly what we thought we´d be doing with our Tuesday, but nevertheless, that´s what we did. We arrived at the ´Rodoviária´(bus station), I said goodbye to my awesome companions, and met my new one. As we sat there waiting for the bus that would take us to our new area, Aracruz, my new companion, Elder Johnson (from Ogden, Utah), told me that I was emergency transferred because his old companion decided to go home after just one week in the field. It was a while before the bus showed up, so we got to get to know each other a little bit, and he´s a good guy. By the time we got to Aracruz and to our apartment and to our beds, it was around midnight, and I was so completely drained.

     This week, I learned that they have a really good branch here in Aracruz. The members are really awesome about helping with the missionary work, and every time they hear about Elder Johnson´s old companion, they ask me if I´m doing okay and reassure me that this is a good area, ha ha ha. They´re a really sweet group of people.

     There is one part-member family here that is really cool. They live in what is like 4 houses built around what began as just one little house. Now they have 3 generations living in one giant home. It was a little confusing my first visit as I was meeting cousins, siblings, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, and where they all are in relation to each other. I still don´t have everything straight, and need clarification with each visit. There´s one member of the family (a brother to one member, and cousin to another) by the name of Geraldo who we started teaching last week. He has an interesting life,. and he´s not super religious, but he knows his stuff. He can teach us as well as we can teach him! He´s really interested and has a lot of desire to hear our message and do the challenges we give him. He´s been to church with the LDS members of hi family before, and he came to church yesterday, so his baptismal date for this Friday, the 22nd, is still solid. Now if I can stick around just that long...

     This upcoming weekend, we have District Conference where all the saints (and some friends and family of the saints) from Aracruz to São Mateus will gather at the chapel in Coltina (the biggest and nicest chapel in the state of Espirito Santo). I´m really excited to see some old friends from the branch in São Mateus again. It´ll be a great event with so many people. The members here are pretty excited, too.

     I have to admit, I was pretty sad to leave Cobilândia and my friends behind so quickly and with such short notice, but I still believe the Lord has a work for me to do here in Aracruz, as well.Tenho absoluta certeza que no final da minha missão, vou agradecer e aprender com essas experiencias. I love you all very much, and I´ll talk to you soon!

Com carinho,

-Elder Crapo

November 11, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

     I have so much that I could talk about, and so little time! Transfers were held last Tuesday, and I´ve been sent to the Zone Vila Velha in the area Cobilândia. It´s only two short ônibus rides (graças a ceus!) from the Mission Home in Vitória, just on the mainland. Now for some unexpected news: I´ve been placed in yet another trio! I wonder what the Lord is trying to tell me, because this is my third permanent trio now. More surprising yet are my companions: Elder M. Silva from Fortaleza, Brazil, and Elder Stilson! Yup, you read that correctly. The same Elder Stilson from before. I think our area is the biggest in the mission, because it used to be two areas worked by two companionships, and now it´s one giant area worked by a trio. We´re not sure if we´ll be receiving a fourth some time in the near future to help with the large area, so for now we´re just playing the hand we get. The area looks exactly like all the pictures you see in photos of Brazil with huge green hills, lots of tropical trees, and lots and lots of small differently colored houses. You get quite the spectacular view in some parts of our area, and my only regret is that the camera I have could never ever do it justice. 

     One of the first things I noticed after arriving in this new area is how incredibly awesome the ward (I´m in a ward!) is here. I´ve never met a more embracing, genuinely loving and accepting people in my life. The second you walk into the church building or into one of their homes, you are automatically a part of a family, and instantly smothered with love, no matter who you are: missionary, investigator, member, child, senior, everybody gets the same treatment. And there are a lot of fun people who have that certain kind of silly that reminds me of my own family, and feels like home. ´´I think I´m gonna like it here!´´

     My new companion, Elder M. (for ´Mike´) Silva is really really great, as well. He has a lot of characteristics that remind me a little bit of Papai Elder Jones. It´s a breath of fresh air to have someone to work with that has the same commitment to following the rules and working hard as I do. He actually just finished his training and has just 3 months on his mission, and (for understandable reasons such as already knowing the language and the area and the culture, while Elder Stilson and I are still learning) is the senior companion and district leader.

     Our district is comprised of 5 missionaries, our trio and a dupla of Sisters: Sister Andreá from São Paulo, Brasil (of course), and Sister Piris from Bueno Aires, Argentina. Not to be prideful or anything, but we seriously have the best district in the mission. I have no doubt. From our first district meeting, I saw that we all have the same set of standards, the same ideas of how the work should be done, and the same determination to actually get it done. I didn´t have to worry about conflict among the missionaries about the work. That was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. 

     Just like my first week in São Mateus, we had a marriage and a baptism in the same day this weekend! Iran and Analia have been investigating the church for about 9 months now, and Iran finally decided to get married and baptized. Analia attends church every week, and loves everything about it, but is a very independent woman, and wants a firm affirmation for herself before she gets baptized. They are really happy, though, and it´s cool to be able to be a part of their experience.

     Things are really speeding up with the language now a days. I´m having an easier time just talking every day. I´m really grateful for the opportunity I´ve had to have Brazilian companions so that I have to speak the language at all times. You can see the difference in the missionaries who speak English with their companions all the time. 

      I love you all so much! I´ll talk to you soon!

Abraço grande!

- Elder Crapo

                                                       A  teeny tiny portion of our area.

Our District