Monday, February 17, 2014
New Pictures Posted!
I have finally found time to update the blog. Sorry for the delays in posting the letters the last few weeks. As I was going through some old letters, I discovered that there were several pictures that had not been posted. There are now pictures added to posts in August, September and November. This was when I was having computer issues and couldn't post pictures. Hope you enjoy them!
February 17, 2014
Dear Family and Friends
I hope you all had a great Valentine´s Day! I remember I had to work at the Elementary School last year...and I remember how impossible it was to teach that day. Luckily, I was able to teach this year. ;)
We managed to...uh...
can someone tell me what ``levar´´ is in English? ...
Ah! It means to take.
Yeesh...
Anyway, we managed to take some investigators to church this week!!!! Wahoo! Hopefully this means the church drought is over, and it can start raining baptisms again. Perhaps it´s because daylight savings time ended here on Saturday, and everyone got an extra hour of sleep on Sunday morning. That was really nice, but our investigators won´t get that next week, so pray for consistency...please.
The people who came to church (and others who had legitimate intent and excuses for not going) were surprisingly all new people we found this past week. Let me tell you about them:
- Juliana: is a referral from a sister named Iara here in the branch who really has been a help picking up Juliana for church and staying with her through all the meetings because we had a dozen investigators to pick up and take care of. Juliana is a young mom--married, with one kid, and really enjoyed attending church. She felt the spirit pretty strong during Gospel Principles where we discussed our spiritual experiences concerning the Holy Ghost. Many recent converts bore their testimony of the truthfulness of this church. It was really neat. We´ll be visiting her throughout this week to prepare her for baptism.
- Denise: is the mother of a street contact we made last week (funny how things work out that way) who also attended church, and also felt the spirit strongly during Gospel Principles. She commented after sacrament meeting that she enjoyed the meetings, and that she´ll have to practice the hymns so that she can keep up with everyone when we sing, ha ha. We already shared The Word of Wisdom with her, and she´s been...(gah...I don´t speak English any more!)... she´s been...lessening? the amount of coffee she drinks? I don´t know. You get the picture. She´s improving with the coffee.
-Sabrina: is a referral from a branch missionary named Rodrigo. He called us on Friday, and told us he has a friend who accepted his invitation to meet with the missionaries, after she related to him some of the struggles she´s facing in life right now. Her name is Sabrina, and she lives with her boyfriend, Eduardo. We had the opportunity to visit with her that same day (Friday) and share the message of the Restoration with her. She really accepted it well, and was pretty excited for us to come back again (before we even left) and to attend church with us on Sunday. Eduardo was working when we stopped by, but he´ll be there next time. Unfortunately, he was really sick yesterday, and Sabrina didn´t want to leave him by himself, so she´ll go to church with us next week.
Bruno: is a street contact (thank heavens for successful street contacting) who was really excited to hear our message when we showed up at his house on Saturday. He accepted what we taught completely, and was really sad when we invited him to church because he had another commitment on Sunday morning. Bruno is really honest, and I can always feel the spirit when we talk to him, so I believed him when he said he wouldn´t have scheduled the other commitment if he had known we´d invite him to church. I´m really excited to see him at church next week.
Those were the main developments for this week. Other than that, we had a really good zone meeting this past week about being a Preach My Gospel missionary. It seems like all the other zones are receiving the same training, as well. President Araujo is trying to get this mission in really good shape for President Young in July. After the zone meeting, we had some time before we had to catch the bus, and we had been awake since 3:30 in the morning without eating anything, so we took advantage of the civilization in Vitória and bought salgados and the best milkshake in the state of Espirito Santo from a restaurant named ``Bob´s´´. That was awesome.
On Tuesday or Wednesday (I don´t remember which it was) there was a power outage throughout the whole state. It was dark, and almost time to go home as we were sitting at the home of our recent convert, Valdesir, when the whole city shut down. Of course, immediately became aware of how much easier it just got for criminals to get away with whatever. Fortunately, everyone who had cars decided to drive around to provide light and more security, and we were able to make it home safe and sound.
Anyway, that´s all I have for this week! I love you all, and I´ll see you soon!
Elder Crapo
Our ward mission leader asked us to take some pictures of us for a fireside for missionary work, and here´s what we ended up with. Enjoy!
I hope you all had a great Valentine´s Day! I remember I had to work at the Elementary School last year...and I remember how impossible it was to teach that day. Luckily, I was able to teach this year. ;)
We managed to...uh...
can someone tell me what ``levar´´ is in English? ...
Ah! It means to take.
Yeesh...
Anyway, we managed to take some investigators to church this week!!!! Wahoo! Hopefully this means the church drought is over, and it can start raining baptisms again. Perhaps it´s because daylight savings time ended here on Saturday, and everyone got an extra hour of sleep on Sunday morning. That was really nice, but our investigators won´t get that next week, so pray for consistency...please.
The people who came to church (and others who had legitimate intent and excuses for not going) were surprisingly all new people we found this past week. Let me tell you about them:
- Juliana: is a referral from a sister named Iara here in the branch who really has been a help picking up Juliana for church and staying with her through all the meetings because we had a dozen investigators to pick up and take care of. Juliana is a young mom--married, with one kid, and really enjoyed attending church. She felt the spirit pretty strong during Gospel Principles where we discussed our spiritual experiences concerning the Holy Ghost. Many recent converts bore their testimony of the truthfulness of this church. It was really neat. We´ll be visiting her throughout this week to prepare her for baptism.
- Denise: is the mother of a street contact we made last week (funny how things work out that way) who also attended church, and also felt the spirit strongly during Gospel Principles. She commented after sacrament meeting that she enjoyed the meetings, and that she´ll have to practice the hymns so that she can keep up with everyone when we sing, ha ha. We already shared The Word of Wisdom with her, and she´s been...(gah...I don´t speak English any more!)... she´s been...lessening? the amount of coffee she drinks? I don´t know. You get the picture. She´s improving with the coffee.
-Sabrina: is a referral from a branch missionary named Rodrigo. He called us on Friday, and told us he has a friend who accepted his invitation to meet with the missionaries, after she related to him some of the struggles she´s facing in life right now. Her name is Sabrina, and she lives with her boyfriend, Eduardo. We had the opportunity to visit with her that same day (Friday) and share the message of the Restoration with her. She really accepted it well, and was pretty excited for us to come back again (before we even left) and to attend church with us on Sunday. Eduardo was working when we stopped by, but he´ll be there next time. Unfortunately, he was really sick yesterday, and Sabrina didn´t want to leave him by himself, so she´ll go to church with us next week.
Bruno: is a street contact (thank heavens for successful street contacting) who was really excited to hear our message when we showed up at his house on Saturday. He accepted what we taught completely, and was really sad when we invited him to church because he had another commitment on Sunday morning. Bruno is really honest, and I can always feel the spirit when we talk to him, so I believed him when he said he wouldn´t have scheduled the other commitment if he had known we´d invite him to church. I´m really excited to see him at church next week.
Those were the main developments for this week. Other than that, we had a really good zone meeting this past week about being a Preach My Gospel missionary. It seems like all the other zones are receiving the same training, as well. President Araujo is trying to get this mission in really good shape for President Young in July. After the zone meeting, we had some time before we had to catch the bus, and we had been awake since 3:30 in the morning without eating anything, so we took advantage of the civilization in Vitória and bought salgados and the best milkshake in the state of Espirito Santo from a restaurant named ``Bob´s´´. That was awesome.
On Tuesday or Wednesday (I don´t remember which it was) there was a power outage throughout the whole state. It was dark, and almost time to go home as we were sitting at the home of our recent convert, Valdesir, when the whole city shut down. Of course, immediately became aware of how much easier it just got for criminals to get away with whatever. Fortunately, everyone who had cars decided to drive around to provide light and more security, and we were able to make it home safe and sound.
Anyway, that´s all I have for this week! I love you all, and I´ll see you soon!
Elder Crapo
Our ward mission leader asked us to take some pictures of us for a fireside for missionary work, and here´s what we ended up with. Enjoy!
February 10, 2014
Dear Family and Friends,
First I have to say that I´m a little sad to be missing it, but happy Olympics 2014!!! I found out that Brazil doesn´t really care about the winter Olympics. I didn´t even really realize that it was this year--or this week even, until we walked into a member´s house and they were mentioning it briefly on the news. It´s not as big of a deal here as it is in the States. Nobody talks about it or really watches what´s happening. That´s probably why the teams from Brazil are so small. There´s no winter here anyway, so why bother? hahaha. Eveyone´s too excited about the World cup in June to worry about the Olympics. I heard that the Summer games get more attention...anyway, I´ll stop ranting about it.
Also, I hit 10 months old today! I´m growing up so fast!!! Let me tell you about this week:
We passed by an old man who was sitting against the wall on the street the other day. We decided to talk to him about his family and his life here in Aracruz (possibly note his address and pass by to share a message another day). His name is Antônio, and he´s lived in Vitória for most of his life, but he likes it better in Aracruz because it´s quieter, more tranquil. He has 10 kids, is separated from his wife, and lives with his son and his son´s wife. He used to drink--a lot. He told us he never ate. He woke up in the morning, and went straight for the alcohol, and stayed there until he fell asleep at night. Because of this, he lost all his weight bit by bit until one of his kids hauled him to the pharmacy one day and weighed him. You couldn´t call what he was as ´living´ . After some time in the hospital, he resolved never to drink alcohol again. He´s gotten his weight back to healthy, stopped smoking, and now spends his days sitting outside his house thinking about Christ and life and how he could have died in the condition he was in. He also told us that all his kids study religion and philosophy, but he doesn´t know much. He just has his belief in God and Christ, and is trying to live the rest of his life right. He loves visiting with the missionaries almost as much as the missionaries love visiting with him. He receives the lessons really well (he quit drinking coffee immediately after we taught the Word of Wisdom), and is hilarious. I end up laughing really hard at least once every time we go to teach him. Unfortunately, most of the hilarity would get lost in translation from Portuguese to English, so you´ll just have to take my word for it. He accepted the invitation to make a visit to the church on Sunday and to be baptized! Unfortunately, he had to travel to Vitória this weekend to solve some family problems that are happening over there. Hopefully he can get it resolved by next Sunday so he can attend church with us.
We also accidentally knocked on the door of Mara, a mother of 6, separated from her husband. We were looking for a different family, but we took advantage of the situation and asked her if she´d like to hear a message, as well. She accepted, and we got to talking about her and her life, and what we do as missionaries and our lives away from home, and our beliefs as members of this church. She started asking a lot of really good questions. She asked why we chose this church to serve, what we believe about baptism and life after death, and about the churches qualifications for baptism. We hadn´t even mentioned baptism yet, and she brought it up for us! We decided to teach the Third lesson (The Gospel of Jesus Christ) and the Word of Wisdom. We set some goals to get her going with stopping coffee ( she drinks a lot of it) and to stop smoking. She also accepted our invitation to make a visit to the church, but woke up yesterday without a voice, and feeling pretty sick. Her and two of her daughters accepted to be baptised, as well, so we´ll get going on that. She asked if we believe in life after death, and we told her yes, and that we´d teach a lesson all about that next time. I´m pretty stoked.
Other than that, it´s missionary life as usual. I don´t know if I mentioned this last week, but one of Elder Capelletti´s greatest fears is rats. Now, we don´t have rats in our apartment--nor will we. Ever. But you do see them in poorer areas. They´re pretty big here, but usually they disappear as fast at you catch a glimpse of them. For some reason, Elder Capelletti fears that one day, he´ll get attacked and die or something like that. It´s a pretty big deal for him. That being said...the other day, we were alone in the apartment (the other companionship went to fill the baptismal font for their baptism), and Elder Capelletti thought he heard something like a rat in the study room of the other missionaries. I didn´t hear anything, so when he stood up and peaked his head around the corner to see if his worst fears had come true, I wondered what he was doing. While he was staring into the other room, I walked up behind him (innocently--I swear) to see what was going on. Mom knows how I don´t make noise when I enter a room (it drives my companion crazy, too), so when I arrived behind him, he didn´t know I was there. There was silence in the apartment, until he decided it was probably nothing and turned to sit back down in the other room--running right into me. Now, I made a noise in preparation of being run over. That, and the fact that he ran into something he didn´t know was there while he was already spooked was just right for giving Elder Capelletti a heart attack. I´ve never seen him jump so severely. It looked like someone tazered him. I´m not kidding. The apartment went from silence to instantaneous chaos. First a grunt from me for being run over, then the screams of terrified Capelletti, then me--dying of laughter. It´s definitely something I wish I could have seen from a third person´s perspective. Priceless.
Anyway, I hope you all take advantage of the fact that you live in a country that fully supports the winter Olympics, and that you have a happy Valentine´s Day! (Surprise! It doesn´t exist here). I love you all, and I´ll see you soon!
-Elder Crapo
First I have to say that I´m a little sad to be missing it, but happy Olympics 2014!!! I found out that Brazil doesn´t really care about the winter Olympics. I didn´t even really realize that it was this year--or this week even, until we walked into a member´s house and they were mentioning it briefly on the news. It´s not as big of a deal here as it is in the States. Nobody talks about it or really watches what´s happening. That´s probably why the teams from Brazil are so small. There´s no winter here anyway, so why bother? hahaha. Eveyone´s too excited about the World cup in June to worry about the Olympics. I heard that the Summer games get more attention...anyway, I´ll stop ranting about it.
Also, I hit 10 months old today! I´m growing up so fast!!! Let me tell you about this week:
We passed by an old man who was sitting against the wall on the street the other day. We decided to talk to him about his family and his life here in Aracruz (possibly note his address and pass by to share a message another day). His name is Antônio, and he´s lived in Vitória for most of his life, but he likes it better in Aracruz because it´s quieter, more tranquil. He has 10 kids, is separated from his wife, and lives with his son and his son´s wife. He used to drink--a lot. He told us he never ate. He woke up in the morning, and went straight for the alcohol, and stayed there until he fell asleep at night. Because of this, he lost all his weight bit by bit until one of his kids hauled him to the pharmacy one day and weighed him. You couldn´t call what he was as ´living´ . After some time in the hospital, he resolved never to drink alcohol again. He´s gotten his weight back to healthy, stopped smoking, and now spends his days sitting outside his house thinking about Christ and life and how he could have died in the condition he was in. He also told us that all his kids study religion and philosophy, but he doesn´t know much. He just has his belief in God and Christ, and is trying to live the rest of his life right. He loves visiting with the missionaries almost as much as the missionaries love visiting with him. He receives the lessons really well (he quit drinking coffee immediately after we taught the Word of Wisdom), and is hilarious. I end up laughing really hard at least once every time we go to teach him. Unfortunately, most of the hilarity would get lost in translation from Portuguese to English, so you´ll just have to take my word for it. He accepted the invitation to make a visit to the church on Sunday and to be baptized! Unfortunately, he had to travel to Vitória this weekend to solve some family problems that are happening over there. Hopefully he can get it resolved by next Sunday so he can attend church with us.
We also accidentally knocked on the door of Mara, a mother of 6, separated from her husband. We were looking for a different family, but we took advantage of the situation and asked her if she´d like to hear a message, as well. She accepted, and we got to talking about her and her life, and what we do as missionaries and our lives away from home, and our beliefs as members of this church. She started asking a lot of really good questions. She asked why we chose this church to serve, what we believe about baptism and life after death, and about the churches qualifications for baptism. We hadn´t even mentioned baptism yet, and she brought it up for us! We decided to teach the Third lesson (The Gospel of Jesus Christ) and the Word of Wisdom. We set some goals to get her going with stopping coffee ( she drinks a lot of it) and to stop smoking. She also accepted our invitation to make a visit to the church, but woke up yesterday without a voice, and feeling pretty sick. Her and two of her daughters accepted to be baptised, as well, so we´ll get going on that. She asked if we believe in life after death, and we told her yes, and that we´d teach a lesson all about that next time. I´m pretty stoked.
Other than that, it´s missionary life as usual. I don´t know if I mentioned this last week, but one of Elder Capelletti´s greatest fears is rats. Now, we don´t have rats in our apartment--nor will we. Ever. But you do see them in poorer areas. They´re pretty big here, but usually they disappear as fast at you catch a glimpse of them. For some reason, Elder Capelletti fears that one day, he´ll get attacked and die or something like that. It´s a pretty big deal for him. That being said...the other day, we were alone in the apartment (the other companionship went to fill the baptismal font for their baptism), and Elder Capelletti thought he heard something like a rat in the study room of the other missionaries. I didn´t hear anything, so when he stood up and peaked his head around the corner to see if his worst fears had come true, I wondered what he was doing. While he was staring into the other room, I walked up behind him (innocently--I swear) to see what was going on. Mom knows how I don´t make noise when I enter a room (it drives my companion crazy, too), so when I arrived behind him, he didn´t know I was there. There was silence in the apartment, until he decided it was probably nothing and turned to sit back down in the other room--running right into me. Now, I made a noise in preparation of being run over. That, and the fact that he ran into something he didn´t know was there while he was already spooked was just right for giving Elder Capelletti a heart attack. I´ve never seen him jump so severely. It looked like someone tazered him. I´m not kidding. The apartment went from silence to instantaneous chaos. First a grunt from me for being run over, then the screams of terrified Capelletti, then me--dying of laughter. It´s definitely something I wish I could have seen from a third person´s perspective. Priceless.
Anyway, I hope you all take advantage of the fact that you live in a country that fully supports the winter Olympics, and that you have a happy Valentine´s Day! (Surprise! It doesn´t exist here). I love you all, and I´ll see you soon!
-Elder Crapo
February 3, 2014
Dear Family and Friends,
This past week turned out to be pretty entertaining, but first, here´s the news about the transfers:
Elder Bueno became zone leader in Nanuque, the zone farthest north in the mission. Elder Knudson was sent to the Vitória zone. As our new district leader, we received Elder Araujo, who passed through Aracruz already at the beginning of his mission, and his his companion, Elder Hansen, who is from Ohio and will finish up his training this transfer.
This past week feels like it´s been a month because so much has changed. Even my relationship with Elder Capelletti has changed a little. We had a couple days where we were able to really have some deep conversations and talk about how the mission has changes us thus far. We´ve gotten to the point where we feel comfortable opening up and sharing some of the real difficulties that we´ve passed through, and because of this, there´s a lot of confidence that´s been built. We´re getting really good at figuring out what gets the other to jump out of their skin, and what makes the other completely lose it with laughter, too. Elder Capelletti always gets a kick out of the faces I pull when something goes wrong (like knocking down the clothes rack as I´m trying to grab my towel--sending hangers flying all over the veranda), and how high I jump when we both turn a corner at the same time and almost run into each other. The other day, as we were stopping by at a less active member´s house (Luis Carlos--he´s less active because he has a disease in his legs, and is without a wheel chair at the moment. We´re working on that) anyway, we were sitting on the floor, visiting with Luis, and I noticed that Elder Capelletti was spacing out a little (he was tired, we had to walk a long way to get there). So I casually took my pen out of my pocket, and tossed it onto the spot of ground where he was staring, and he jumped pretty bad, Muahaha.
This same day, Elder Capelletti and I were standing at the sink doing dishes, when Elder Capelletti accidentally knocked over a glass cup. We both almost cracked our heads open on the ceiling because we jumped so hard when it fell and broke into pieces! We both stood there for a second--shocked--and then I couldn´t help but bursting into laughter. I noticed that he wasn´t too happy about the broken cup, so I ran to a safe distance to laugh at the hilarity (Mom, you know how it is. Laugh from a distance to be safe from retaliation, he he he). I was trying to tell him to breathe ( the word for breathe is ´respira´), but I was laughing so hard I wasn´t able to say the whole word without busting up again. Now, I´ve been teaching Elder Capelletti English, and we have a goal to get him at least capable of basic conversation by the end of this transfer. Because of this, (and the impediment of my laughter), Elder Capelletti thought I was trying to say ´´speak´´. So he stood there, thinking ``wha--....what do I say?´´ So he was just standing there wondering what to say as I was having a laugh attack. It was a pretty funny picture.
Anyway, those are a few of the funny things that happened this week. We´re pretty good at cracking each other up. Things are still a little slow on the work front, but I feel like we´re going to start seeing some real progress soon. I love you all so much, and I´ll see you soon!
Tchau, gente!
-Elder Crapo
This past week turned out to be pretty entertaining, but first, here´s the news about the transfers:
Elder Bueno became zone leader in Nanuque, the zone farthest north in the mission. Elder Knudson was sent to the Vitória zone. As our new district leader, we received Elder Araujo, who passed through Aracruz already at the beginning of his mission, and his his companion, Elder Hansen, who is from Ohio and will finish up his training this transfer.
This past week feels like it´s been a month because so much has changed. Even my relationship with Elder Capelletti has changed a little. We had a couple days where we were able to really have some deep conversations and talk about how the mission has changes us thus far. We´ve gotten to the point where we feel comfortable opening up and sharing some of the real difficulties that we´ve passed through, and because of this, there´s a lot of confidence that´s been built. We´re getting really good at figuring out what gets the other to jump out of their skin, and what makes the other completely lose it with laughter, too. Elder Capelletti always gets a kick out of the faces I pull when something goes wrong (like knocking down the clothes rack as I´m trying to grab my towel--sending hangers flying all over the veranda), and how high I jump when we both turn a corner at the same time and almost run into each other. The other day, as we were stopping by at a less active member´s house (Luis Carlos--he´s less active because he has a disease in his legs, and is without a wheel chair at the moment. We´re working on that) anyway, we were sitting on the floor, visiting with Luis, and I noticed that Elder Capelletti was spacing out a little (he was tired, we had to walk a long way to get there). So I casually took my pen out of my pocket, and tossed it onto the spot of ground where he was staring, and he jumped pretty bad, Muahaha.
This same day, Elder Capelletti and I were standing at the sink doing dishes, when Elder Capelletti accidentally knocked over a glass cup. We both almost cracked our heads open on the ceiling because we jumped so hard when it fell and broke into pieces! We both stood there for a second--shocked--and then I couldn´t help but bursting into laughter. I noticed that he wasn´t too happy about the broken cup, so I ran to a safe distance to laugh at the hilarity (Mom, you know how it is. Laugh from a distance to be safe from retaliation, he he he). I was trying to tell him to breathe ( the word for breathe is ´respira´), but I was laughing so hard I wasn´t able to say the whole word without busting up again. Now, I´ve been teaching Elder Capelletti English, and we have a goal to get him at least capable of basic conversation by the end of this transfer. Because of this, (and the impediment of my laughter), Elder Capelletti thought I was trying to say ´´speak´´. So he stood there, thinking ``wha--....what do I say?´´ So he was just standing there wondering what to say as I was having a laugh attack. It was a pretty funny picture.
Anyway, those are a few of the funny things that happened this week. We´re pretty good at cracking each other up. Things are still a little slow on the work front, but I feel like we´re going to start seeing some real progress soon. I love you all so much, and I´ll see you soon!
Tchau, gente!
-Elder Crapo
Monday, January 27, 2014
January 27, 2014
Dear Family and Friends,
I don´t have a whole lot to talk about for this week, so I´ll start with the announcement of transfers! Are you excited?
I´m staying!!! I´m so glad that I´ll get to work here in Aracruz for at least one more transfer! As for my companion, Elder Capelletti...
He´s staying, too! Woohoo! It´s going to be a really great transfer. We´ve really become the best of friends, and I was really worried that we´d get separated just when things started to get really good. We seemed to make it through this past transfer without any emergencies, and hopefully we´ll be able to make it through this one, as well.
This past week, we were trying to get the area to a really good spot with the investigators in case we were to be transferred. Things are still a little frustrating in this aspect because we´re still having a hard time getting people to church, but patience...*sigh*...patience.
Yesterday the branch held a fireside about missionary work, and they had me sing at it. When it was announced that I would sing, the room started buzzing, and everyone was really excited, ha ha ha. They´ve all been asking me when I would sing again, and since it was a possibility that I would be transferred, they´ve really been insisting on one more song. They liked the song I sang, a song called ´´Today is the day´´ about a missionary making the decision to open his mouth and preach the gospel boldly. Now they´re insisting on me making a cd of lds music and distributing it through the branch...yeah, I don´t know how possible that is...
Anyway, I´m super excited to be staying here in Aracruz. I love you all very much, and I´ll see you soon!
Much love,
Elder Crapo
Monday, January 20, 2014
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
Sunday, January 19, 2014
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
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