Monday, December 30, 2013

December 30, 2013

FAMILY!!!  Holy cow it was so amazing talking to you guys on Christmas!!  I miss and love you all like crazy!!  Sorry I was havin a hard time with my English ;) hahaha

This week was a great one!!  We are teaching a girl named Maiara who is 16 years old and is getting baptized this thursday, one day after her 17th birthday!  So dope!  She asked me to baptize her and for Maldonado to confirm her.  We are super excited.  She has showed a lot of faith and is stoked for her baptism.

Also, we have been working with this less active named Tereza who has been less active for years.  She came to church this week!!!!  How crazy is that???  There were members that said that they have been members for over 20 years and have never seen her in the church!!! hahah it was way good to see her there.  We were stoked for her!

We are teaching this couple named Danielle and Joben.  They are a great couple but are having some difficulties in their marriage.  The last visit, we were only able to visit with JOben.  We taught him about faith and he asked us about the baptism process.  It was way cool!  Then sunday rolled around and we went to pick them up for church and they werent home... It was a little strange.  We will try to visit them tonight to see whats up.

We are visiting this 10 year old named John who has gone to church for months now.  We are teaching his mom too.  We taught them the first lesson and it went really well.  John wants to get baptized, we just need to get him and his mom firmly going every week.  We will visit them this week as well.

Well I love you all and hope you all have a great week!!!  Feliz Ano Novo!!!

Elder Howard

Monday, December 16, 2013

December 16, 2013

FAMILY!!!!   How are you all doin??  Sounds like it was a good week for you all!  This week was a great one!  the Christmas conference was great and I got my package from you guys!  I loved it so much!!!  Thank you all so much for your letters as well.

Well at conference, President announced that I was going to be a zone leader.  So after a 4 hour bus ride I am currently in Lages where I will be serving.  My new comp is Elder Maldonado.  He is from Argentina.  I will try to learn a little bit of Spanish with him ;) haha.  I am excited to work in Lages.  It is a bigger city.  Joaçaba was great tho.  It was tough saying goodbye to everyone!

I love you all and hope you have a great week!!  I will write more next week!  I love you all!!!

Elder Howard

December 9, 2013

FAMILY!!!  I am glad that you guys had a great night for moms birthday, but I am sorry about all the sickness!! That is so rough!  I hope that everyone can get over it soon!!!  I love you all!! 

This week was a great one!!  We had Maria and Pedros baptism on Saturday and it was so dope!!  I got to baptize Maria and Burton baptized Pedro.  It was awesome.  Also, we sang the primary song "Childs Prayer" during the baptismal service and it brought a fantastic spirit, even with my crappy singing voice.  On Sunday, I confirmed Pedro and Burton confirmed Maria. They said they liked the confirmation better than the baptism. Not sure why, they just said they felt great during it.  We visited them after church on Sunday and their non member mom called us the kids's "godfathers" from the baptism! haha it was funny. She is catholic, but is a great lady!!

Also, we started teaching a guy named João again, that me and Elder Guimaraes taught a while ago.  He is a members dad and we marked his baptism for this SAturday.  WE will meet with them tonight, and maybe we will have a baptism on Saturday :)

Friday is the Christmas conference with half the mission in Lages.  Each district had to prepare an act, a song or a poem.  Well we interpreted "song or poem" as being a "rap", so thats what my district is planning on doing! haha we wrote a Christmas rap that should be pretty dope.I will send you guys a video!

I love you all and hope that you have a great week!  Shout out to Laur, the best sister in the world, this week!!!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!  Wish that Ic ould be there for it!!  LOVE YOU LAUR AND LOVE YOU ALL!!

Elder Howard

December 2, 2013

FAMILY!!!!  How are you all doin??  This week was a good one here in Brasil!  I hope that you had a great thanksgiving!  I sure did.... hahahah.  We ordered pizza tho so that was good!

So we met with Maria and Pedro again this week and taught them the rest of the lessons.  They are such great kids!  They listen well and always have answers to our questions.  The other elders did their baptism interview and it is lined up for friday night at 7:30.  We are way stoked about it!  I will get to baptize Maria and Pedro will be baptized by his brother.

We will be meeting with Claudia and Marcos this week.  Marcos gets back from his trip on Tuesday so we will see how that goes.

We had district conference (it isnt a stake here yet).  That was really good too!

We did lots of door contacts again.  We actually met some pretty dang cool people.  A couple peple who speak english really well too, which is always great!  We will go visit them this week!

I love you all and hope that you have a great week!  Special shout out to the best mom in the world for having her birthday this week!!!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!  I love you so much.  I could not have asked for a better mom.  I cant thank you enough for all that you have taught me and done for me.  I love you with my whole heart!  Have a great birthday, and next birthday that you have, I  will be there to celebrate it with you :)  Love you all!!!

Elder Howard

November 25, 2013

FAMILY!!!  How are you all doin??  This week was a good one!!!  We did tons of contacts again, but we had a lot more people actually let us into their houses! haha it caught us off guard how qucik we got into some houses.  A lot of people who didnt progress, but at least they got to hear about Joseph.

We taught Marcos and Claudia this week again and it went great!!  We taught them the second lesson about the plan of salvation.  They have tons of questions and have been truly searching for an answer.  They have been reading the BOM and been praying about it as well.  Marcos traveled this week and will be gone for about two weeks.  we gave him a BOM to take with him.  Claudia came to church this week and really enjoyed it.  We will visit her again this week.

This week at church was the primary program.  It is my favorite Sunday every year.  We got called to help the primary as well which was way dope.  I played two songs for them on the piano, and me and Burton sang "We'll Bring the World His Truth" with them.  It was so cool!  I love the little kids in our ward.  It was a great program.  The parents here are so grateful for how much we have reached out to their kids and made an impact in their lives.

I love you all and hope that you have a great week!!!  Have a great Thanksgiving and eat tons of turkey for me.  I will be back for the next Thanksgiving!!!  :)  LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Elder Howard