January 20, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

     This week was filled with a lot of laughter. Every week I love serving in Aracruz with Elder Capelletti more. We started teaching a new pool of investigators, and they´re a really fun group. We´ve got Mauro--a classic Brazilian grandpa. He´s hard to teach a quick lesson to because he always cuts us off with endless rantings about his perceptions and stories about life. Then there´s Alex. He´s always laughing. It´s a little hard to have a serious moment with him, because he´s just so joyful and happy to have us around, and his nephew, Fernando, just likes to sit in on the lessons and listen to us talk about the gospel. We´ve got Andriele, who´s just a teenager, but she truly believes in old fashioned respect for others, in being a truly decent person, and loves asking us questions about missionary life. The fact that we leave home for two years to serve really fascinates her. Also, we added a pair of sisters, Isla and Amanda. Isla doesn´t show as much interest as Amanda but she´s just 16 years old. Amanda is 18 and lives in her own separate house on the other end of town because she married really young and then separated from her husband. She definitely has real intent to learn about our beliefs, too. Most of our old investigators either asked us not to come back, or were dropped due to lack of lasting interest. 

     So, there are only two things that Elder Capelletti doesn´t like to eat. Just two. First: Pasta. Which is hilarious, because capelletti is the name of a certain type of pasta here in Brazil. Everyone gets a kick out of that. He gets more guff about his name than I do.Secondly: Bananas. I don´t know how this is possible, but he really can´t manage to even touch a banana. He hates the way the peel feels, the texture, the taste--he just can´t stand it. We had some pretty funny moments where a member or investigator would give us fruit salad with plenty of banana or a banana smoothie or something like that, and I´d hurry and eat a bunch of mine, and then switch bowls or cups when the person leaves the room or isn´t looking, because I love banana--to make it look like we´re both eating. 

     Well, we´ve made it to the last week of another transfer! It´s been two transfers here in Aracruz, so everyone is expecting me to head out. To be honest, I´d be awfully sad to leave. Aracruz has been the closest thing to home I´ve had in Brazil, and I´ll probably die from saudade if I´m transferred. We´ll have to wait and see. I love you all very much, and I´ll see you soon!

-Elder Crapo

January 13, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

     This past week was a roller coaster ride! We marked two dates for the 18th: Maria and Geraldo, but neither of them made it to church yesterday. ``Que raiva!!´´ 

     Maria is a little velhinha we found while making contacts on the street. She lives on a lot similar to Valdesir, only all the houses on the lot are seperate, while Valdesir´s is all connected. She lives with her daughter and her husband, her son, and a few grandkids (I haven´t met them all yet). The reason she didn´t make it to church is because of her daughter. Her daughter doesn´t approve of us teaching and baptizing her mom. We´ve caught her lying to us about several things to keep us from talking to Maria, including the lie that she had another commitment Sunday morning. 

     Gerlado is another velhinho we found living above another one of our investigators. He has a friend who started telling him lies about our church, as well, but the good thing is that he´s actually willing to talk to us about these doubts instead of just shutting us out like most people do. Someone told him that we don´t believe in the Bible, and that we don´t believe Christ was ressurrected. However, as we´ve taught him he has realized that we use the Bible in our teaching, and that our lessons imply that Christ lives, and that He has atoned for our sins, and has been resurrected to fulfil the prophecies given concerning Him. He still seems a little defensive while we teach him, though, and we´re working on softening him up to us. Attending church would have helped, but when we called to confirm with him, he told us that he would be travelling to Linhares on Sunday morning after the 8:00 session at his church.

     Right now, our biggest obstacle is usually family members or friends who try to stop the progression of our investigators. It´s really frustrating, and I hope we can start softening their hearts, as well. 

     Other than that, I don´t really have any other news from this week. I love you all, and I´ll see you soon!

 

Elder Crapo

E UM FELIZ ANO NOVO!!! January 6, 2014

Dear Family and Friends!

     I feel especially excited to write an e-mail to you all today, but I really don´t have any exciting news. Honesty. I have nothing, ha ha. SO...

     New Years, we taught practically nobody. Everybody was either out of town, at the bar, or at church (Brazil...love it!). In the evening, we went to Washington´s house for dinner (He´s our Branch Mission Leader, and best friend, too!). They told us the day-of that everyone had to be inside at 7, but since we had this appointment set before they told us anything, they allowed us an extra hour. The extra hour still wasn´t enough to eat the giant feast of food that had been prepared, so we ended up taking some of it home with us. I felt kind of bad leaving so early, because so much preparation had been made, but we weren´t the ones who neglected to tell the missionaries what time to be home until 5:00 in the afternoon...

anyway...

 

     Both my companion and I have been having trouble sleeping since the 30th, and on Friday, we both woke up sick. *yay!* We started out with similar symptoms, but in the end, we both took a turn for the worse--but in different directions. I ended up with a high fever and the works that come with that, and my companion ended up with pretty bad body aches (that sounds mellow, but he really couldn´t move) that made it hard for him to leave bed. Yup...noooo work got done. Sorry I don´t have something more exciting to tell you than that, but missions are awesome! I love you all, and I´ll talk to you soon.

-Elder Crapo

p.s. To make up for the boring e-mail, here are some pictures! One is of the Christmas feast we had at the Branch President´s house, another of the contents of my Christmas package, and another of a plate of happiness that I made for the missionaries in the apartment using the peanut butter I received!

December 30,2013

Dear Family and Friends,

 **Happy New Year, Gente!**

     We´ve had a slow work week due to the holiday, and it is predicted that this upcoming work week will be even slower (because in Brazil, New Years is a bigger party than Christmas, haha). Everyone has already started leaving town and heading for bigger cities and families to welcome the new year there, thus making the rodoviária a zoo, and leaving the little city of Aracruz looking like a ghost town. And it´ll only get more bare until the end of the week. 

     We spent Christmas Eve at the Branch President´s house with his wife and our Branch mission leader. It´s was nice to sit and visit and watch Christmas messages from the church website while we stuffed ourselves with delicious food. Then that night I got to play ``Santa Claus´´ by waking up in the middle of the night while everyone was sleeping in order to place presents at the foot of everyone´s beds. It was neat to see the looks on their faces as they woke up to find a surprise waiting for them on Christmas morning. They still don´t know it was me, and I still believe it was really `Papai Noel´. 

     We were allowed to take Christmas as a sort of a second P-day. I loved seeing the faces of my family, and taking a look into what Christmas was like back at home this year. After the skype home, we spent the evening visiting members and avoiding the crazy drunks. Two days later, I received my Christmas Package from home at our Zone Meeting!!! As usual, mom went completely overboard, and seriously earned the award for best Christmas package in the mission. I saw a lot of Christmas packages these past few weeks, and mine topped them all! 

     Today, we received an e-mail with the announcement of our new Mission President!!!! His name will be President Young, and he´s from Salt Lake City, UTAH!!!! He and his wife will be arriving on July 1, 2014 (right in the middle of the World Cup, haha. No progress will be getting made). I´m excited to meet him and see what changes will be made in the mission.

     That´s it for the news this week. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas holiday, and that you have a happy new year, too! I love you all, and I´ll see you soon!

Com Carinho,

-Elder Crapo

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