April 10, 2017: I AM SAM!

Well hello hello all.

First of all, Thanks everyone for all the birthday wishes!! I am having a great birthday. We played some great games of basketball this morning! haha

SO this week was great... But, this week, being my birthday, I really don´t feel like writing this letter. So just know, this is taking all of my strength and willpower. 

So Monday was good. I cut my hand though... So that kinda sucked. I was walking and my hand hit a metal thing in the back of a truck. It wasn´t like one of those arm twitching attacks. I just walked into it... I honestly don´t know how it happened. Pretty embarrassing. But, at first I didn´t see any cut so I kept walking. But, after 2 minutes I looked down and realized that my hand was covered in blood... It was really bad. SO I had to walk into the supermarket and get it cleaned up. It looked like I got stabbed by someone. It´s all good though. It´s better now. 

Salvador!

On Tuesday we had training with the President. It was training for all of the Zone Leaders. I attended the meeting though. It was very cool. It was interesting to see how everything worked in the mission according to numbers. After I went on splits with Elder Johnson. He is a black american Elder from Texas. He is one of the coolest guys ever. I love that guy. He is studying at BYU too. He is going home really soon though so he will probably be married before I even get home. But, he is awesome. It was a fun time. We were walking back home and speaking in English. We passed by a lady and told her "Boa Noite" She answered back "Good night guys" hahah We freaked out and started talking with her. She is fluent in English because she lived in Italy and London for ten years. She has a funny accent though. But we went into her house and we talked with her some more. We talked to her about the word of wisdom because she said she wanted help quitting. So I taught her about it quickly in english. It was REALLY weird to teach in english. Didn't feel right. Then I said the prayer in english. It was weird to say a prayer in english out loud. But anyways we visited her two more times and gave her a Book of Mormon. She loves to read so she said she will read all of it. We will have to see what happens. OH, and her name is Edna. 

So the rest of the week we taught people but this one elder was with us. He usually travels to help out struggling elders but he was getting some exams done at the hospital. So he sayed with us. He is a really different guy. Him and my companion are really great friends. They are both like 5´1. So it was weird walking around in a trio. He got pretty annoying though at the end of the week. He just didn´t want to work as hard as we did. So it just got in the way of our work. But, I was basically just third wheeling this whole week. I realized that I was just like Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings... Yep. I was with Frodo and Gollum. But he left on Sunday. So I am free. I don´t need to third wheel anymore. 

Third wheeling it with Frodo and Gollum...

BUT that was my week. OH we also committed one of our investigators to baptism! His name is Paulo César. He is way cool. So his baptism will be this Saturday. But Pray for him to help him have the strength to go through with it, no matter the opposition.  Anyways I love you guys. I also have one thought that my companion shared with me. Nephi, when he is tied up on the boat,  he prays for strength to break the bonds, according to his strength. It then says that the bonds were 'loosed' . He didn´t break them, but instead they were loosened and he got out. There is a really cool principle in there. Let me know what you guys think about that!  But, remember to ALWAYS depend on the Lord. He will deliver us through his way and will. But first, we must Remember him.

(Whelp...The camera isn't showing up on the computer...lol. But I think I might have an opportunity to send pictures to ya this week.  I will try my hardest.  HaHa Sorry.)

Love you all,

Elder Davis

April 3, 2017: My worst ENEMY Stairs!

ARE YOU READY KIDS??

Hey guys! How´s it going? This was a good week! There unfortunatleawskjsly wasn´t a ton to talk about. But it´s all good. I will explain it all to you guys.

So Monday Night I said goodbye to everyone and left at 10 at night. I got in Salvador way early in the morning. Then we went to president´s house to see the training. He gave the training for all the new trainers. I went too because my companion had to help with the training. It was good but, just really long. It was a long day with little sleep. We then got home way late at night and I just crashed into the bed. haha It was bad. 

Picture of Brotas Salvador (from the web)

On Wednesday I got a taste of the Hills.... So first off, in Salvador the whole land is really hilly. It´s full of hills. There is nooo flat roads. Its just a ton of really steep down hills or up hills... I dont know if that makes any sense. But anyways the two APs had to go to a meeting all day, so they told me and the other companion of the AP to find a lot of new investigators and less actives. It was funny. We had no idea what we were doing. We tried to follow some addresses to find less active members. BUT, the addresses here SUCK. They are terrible. There´s #1087 and the house right next to it is #32. So we just walked up and down hills all day and didn´t find very many people. It was really tiring. I felt like Poe the Panda... There is so many hills. And the houses are built really randomly and on top of each other. It is really cool. I will have to take a picture. A lot of the 'roads' are super tiny alleyways. You can´t fit two people side by side. Anyways that was the day.. haha The rest of the few days it was tough to work because my companion was in meetings.

I felt like Poe the Panda...

We had a cool experience where we found a family of investigators. When we were teaching the lesson my companion started. I did the part about Joseph Smith. My companion later said that the spirit was very strong. He wanted me to invite them to be baptized. So he pulled out a pamphlet and wrote "invite them to be baptized" He was slyly holding the pamphlet right in front of me.. But I still didn´t see it. I finished bearing my testimony and then looked to my companion to let him do the invites. So he just handed me the pamphlet. But I had no idea what to do with it. I just looked at it blankly.... it was an awkward moment in the lesson. Then he finally pointed at the sentence. haha And I said "Oh, so we have some invites for you guys..." haha They told us that they aren´t prepared at the moment but when they are, they will be. It was awesome though. Really really funny. We got out laughing. So that was basically it during the week. 

General Conference was sooooooo awesome!! I loved it! It was a little tougher to pay attention in Portuguese. I had to focus to make sure I got everything. Because the speaker in the chapel wasn´t very good so the voice 

didn´t come out clearly. Also, when you walk around all day, and dont get a lot of sleep, and eat lunch right before the session, It is VERY VERY hard to stay awake. I didn´t sleep through it but it was tough. One of the elders slept in every single one. I don´t know how... I think my favorite talk was Elder Uchtdorf´s in the priesthood session. It was way good. 

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/04/the-greatest-among-you?lang=eng

Another really cool moment was on Sunday night I think... yeah sunday night. Me and my companion got home and we had a Freestyle rap. It was way funny. He was rapping and I was doing the beat. I basically just said "yeah" a lot of times. It´s nice to talk in english sometimes. My companion is Brazillian but he is completely fluent in english. He was studying at LDS business school.

WHELP that is pretty much it for the week. I love you guys!!! Have a great week! I hope you all can remember the teachings we received in conference and utilize it in your lives.

(I won't be able to send pictures because the computer I have doesn't have a USB port...really weird!)

Love,

Elder Davis

March 27, 2017: Salvador!

HEY EVERYBODY!

So I hope you are all doing great! The transfer calls came in... and I am going to serve in Brotas, Salvador. My companion will be Elder Prado. It will be a really cool experience. The only bad part is that I have to pack everything up and hop on a bus tonight! So that will be crazy.

My Comp and I

But, this last week in Teotonio Vilela was a great one.

To start off the week we unfortunately didn´t do much on P-day. Our cell phone was broken, so we couldnt get in touch with the other Elders. We went to the center to try and find them.... But it didn´t work. So we just went home and chilled in the Vilela. The only problem is that there isn´t much to do there. That was basically it for our dear p-day. 

Gru

This week was great. We didn't get a baptism. But it was all good. It didn't really matter. When we taught Maria she told us she doesn't wanna be baptized and Elder Cuevas tried to get her to still accept. But I just bore my testimony and told her to not forget that God loves her. It seemed to help her out.

Family Night with Maria and some members.

I got a member to make me brownies and ice cream!!! This doesn't exist in Brasil!

The rest of the week was good though! We did a lot of finding. Here in Brasil you don´t have to knock on nearly as much doors as you would in like Holland. But we decided to start knocking. We found a lot of really cool people. The hard part about knocking doors is that everyone will let you in. They all are really open to hear "A Boa Palavra" as they call it. But it´s hard to find the elects of the Lord. It is like sifting for Gold. Luckily, we found some gold this week. The best guy that we found is named Igor. He´s 21 years old. When we knocked on his door he came out of the shower in just a towel. He opened up the door for us and then went to change clothes. Kinda weird. So we sat down for a bit. After 5 minutes he came out of his room with a Book of Mormon in his hands! He told us that he has been studying this book. He wanted to know how we were interpreting the book.  He told us that he had his own interpretations and that maybe we were interpreting it wrong. I told him that we will answer all his questions but first we have a message for him. So we shared the lesson and he had a lot of deep questions. At one part of the lesson, he asked us what we thought about the Gathering of Israel, and who is part of the twelve tribes. All in all, it went really well. He is a great guy. I think the weirdest part was when he told us about the dreams that he has had about how the Lord showed him the end of the world... He said that in 2020 a lot of crazy stuff is gonna go down. He said that Hillary will be the president. So if all that happens... I´m gonna freak out!  It´s weird because it is quite normal for Brazilians to get dreams with Christ in it. Some of the stuff that they dream goes hand in hand with the plan of salvation though. Really cool.

I also found a kid that is like Colton. He loves me. I think he´s 9. But he doesn't want me to leave. He cried and put a picture of me as his background photo on his phone. Then he wrote me a letter. haha It was really funny. So I took some pictures with him. It was interesting though. I got such a strong relationship with him because I was patient with him and showed love. I don´t know how to explain it, but here the parents just yell at their kids and hit them. 

This kid loves me. He put some gel in my hair.... it looked pretty cool. haha

So one funny story. We were doing home teaching visits with a member. He had to visit a lot of inactive people that he didn´t even know. We found one member who was playing soccer in the road. He is twelve years old. We talked to him and invited him to church. Then out of nowhere another tiny kid comes up to us. The first kid tells us "Oh, he is baptized too!" So we start talking to the two of them when another inactive 10 year old shows up. haha So we invited them to the activities and to church. Pretty nuts. 

Whelp I hope you are all excited for General Conference. It is such an amazing opportunity that we have to listen to teachings from God. I love you all!  Remember Him always!

LOVE,

Elder Davis

March 20, 2017: Intestines!

OPA!! BELEZA??

Helllloooooo!

Hey everyone! How are you all doing? Well, my week was great! There was a few hiccups here and there but it was great.

Awesome Views!

First off,

On Monday we went and saw some awesome views. I also met another american Elder! They are pretty rare here. haha His name is Elder Hilton, he´s from Idaho and he´s a way cool guy. Anyways we went to this Christ statue. It is like the one in Rio but is a lot smaller... still cool though. I took a couple pics so I will send them to you guys. 

Christ Statue

Tuesday was also really good. Suprisingly, I don´t really remember what happened. It was good though. I do remember that I had a little debate/argument with my companion about Star Trek. He said he doesn´t like Star Trek because it´s a copy of Star Wars. BUT, any Real nerd would know that it isn´t. I guess he isn´t a real nerd. I tried to tell him why he was very wrong but, he just shut me off and walked away... frustrating. I sometimes can´t even get my opinion in with the guy. Geez haha So that happens every once in a while with him. 

Wednesday we had a district meeting that went very well. We got some good training. After, we bought some candy and taught some good lessons. This whole week we were fighting to get a baptism committment from some of our investigators. The end of the transfer is in a week and we were fighting for a baptism before then. We have 2 investigators that are completely ready for baptism, they have been taught EVERYTHING. But, they are scared to make the step.

On Thursday, we had interviews with President Bangerter. That was good. It was quick, but we learned good stuff. This time my planner was wayy good. Super Organized. EVEN color-coded. Then we had some good lessons again.

Tired Me

Friday was really good. AND a little disappointing. So President showed us this new way to teach the restoration. We draw it out for the people. It is really cool. We just hadn´t done it yet. Finally on Friday I got my companion to try it out with me. It went very well. The lady understood it all very well. Then we taught the restoration three more times to our best investigators. They understood a lot more. They finally understood the importance of the restored priesthood, and how the church of Jesus Christ is different than all the other churches. The sad part is that Felipe and Maria still didn´t accept a date for baptism. Maria is a 47 year old lady and she has been taught all the lessons. She is just scared to be baptized. I gave her the invite in different convincing forms like 5 times that day! But, she still said no. With Felipe, he plays the guitar for a different church, so he wants to be certain before he is baptized. So on Saturday we decided to fast. We have been praying a lot for them. On Sunday, Maria didn´t come to church. So she won´t be able to be baptized before the end of the transfer. It´s sad because I really was hoping to baptize her. She is the aunt of one of my favorite members here. Felipe went to church though! It was wayyyyy awesome. He loved it. This time he integrated with the members a lot better. So pray for him to receive his answer!!!

Art Class

OH!!! I got a funny story... or experience... So for lunch one day, a member made us some strange food. Rice, beans, meatballs, aannnnnnd Cow Intestines.... Yeah. It looked so weird. It kinda smelled like poop or throw up.. I don´t really know which one. It was gross. I almost threw up. But, I had to pretend that I liked it. So I just ate it with a lot of beans, rice, and tomatoes. haha

Cow Intestines!

Anyways, I love you guys!! have an amazing week. Utilize the healing power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ in your lives!!! 

Love,

Elder Davis

Sent from a crappy computer in Brasil

March 13, 2017: A Semana de Milagres

Greetings my Fellowmen,

How is everyone? Well I am not doing so well at the moment... I am trying to type with a really bad keyboard. The space button doesn´t work very well. This letter could be really short, depending on how long my patience lasts.

Well well well, This week was a good week. 

Monday, it rained a bunch. BUT then we did a family night with a less active family and they made this HUGE cake!! It was sooooo good. I loved it. 

This cake is bigger than my head!

TUESDAY was pretty good, if you can´t tell by the capital letters. So we were  walking around. All of our marked lessons fell through... So that sucked. We stopped on the road to figure out what to do. I suggested that we say a prayer to be able to find someone. The spirit was very strong. We began walking and we stopped at a house to do a Gabriel Contact. The guy turned us down. Then we went farther down the road and did a contact with a man sitting  on the sidewalk. He didn´t seem very interested. Then a less active sister turned the corner. We talked with her and she told us that she is moving. We asked her if she needed  help and  her face lit up. So we helped her with the move. If we hadn´t helped them, she would have done it all alone. That was a cool experience of how we were guided by the spirit. 

Happy Birthday Colton!

Another really cool experience was on Wednesday, I think. SO we were teaching this investigator named Maria. We didn´t have any more lessons to teach her but she still was uneasy about baptism. So we began to ask the baptismal interview questions. She said that she wasn´t completely sure that Joseph Smith was a prophet. So we reviewed the first lesson, and bore our testimonies. The spirit was  very strong. I felt prompted that we should watch the 20 minute video about the first vision. We began watching it with her. There was a lot of distractions happening during the film. I was kinda nervous that she wasn´t getting the message out of it. But when the actual first vision part started, EVERYTHING quieted. A huge peace entered the room. It was very cool. After we bore our testimonies, prayed and left. As we were walking down the road we were both grinning. My companion even did a heel click. 

So I am approaching the end of my patience level... hahaha But I had an awesome week and we are working  hard to helppeople toCome  unto Christ. I have grown  so much inmytestimony of Joseph Smith and the First Vision. Elder Holland said that it is a experience we think about too little. If you guys have the time this week, reaad Joseph Smith History. Pray to know of its truthfulness. Also, you could watch the movie of Joseph Smith! Don´t take his experience for    granted!  I loveyouall!!  Ihatethiskeyboard.

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-06-01-joseph-smiths-first-vision?lang=eng

LOVE,

Elder Davis

March 6, 2017: BELEZA?

HI!

BELEZA?? How is everyones´ lives? haha Life in Big ol´ Brasil is great! The work is coming along just great! 

So my week was pretty sweet. Monday afternoon we went on a little hike thing that brought us really close to a rocky beach.  But, it was a really cool place. 

This was a failed selfie...I was the only one looking. Thought it was funny!

SO we were outside for a few hours... and my companion and I forgot sunscreen. WE GOT FRIED. I was WAY red. So the next few days hurt to wear a church shirt. haha 

A little Fried!

Tuesday was really cool. IT RAINED SOOOO MUCH. There were rivers in the roads! haha Also, we ate lunch at the church and the parking lot turned into a swimming pool. There was so much water... (And no mom, I didn´t take any pictures, my camera battery died) But so basically that whole day it was just pouring! 

Then, on Wednesday we had a Zone Conference. So we woke up early and went to the chapel in a different area at 8:00 and stayed there until around 4:00. It was way cool though. We got some new training, which was actually really interesting. Then one of the assistents came to our area and worked with us. It was fun. We taught some good lessons and learned good things from him. 

Elder cuevas

The rest of the week was good too. But like usual, I get bored of typing on these computers... I won´t go into huge detail of what happened. But we were inspired by the Zone Conference to work even harder and to be more dilligent in our work. So we made goals and began working harder. But as we worked harder, nobody seemed to be home. Our appointments that we marked with our investigators fell through. So on Friday we walked around a ton and didn´t get very much results. But it was still really good. We actually found one lady early in the morning that is really interested in our messages. And if we wouldn´t have been more diligent in leaving the house right at 10:00, we wouldn´t have found her. Because she is only home in the early mornings. So that was a really cool example of how we are definitely guided by the spirit when we pray and ask for help. Alrighty, love you guys!

More pictures from our Hike.

Love, 

Elder Davis

February 27, 2017: A POOPY Week!

Well Hello Hello My Wonderful Fans,

This week was great... and like the subject line states, "POOPY". But, allow me to explain.

OKay, so this was a great week. It started with Monday which was great. I got some good ping-pong playing in. I am getting pretty good at ping-pong. haha

Ping Pong!

After at 6 we decided to go back home and get to work. We didn´t have anyone marked down for that night but we decided to try one of our investigators named Felipe. He hasn´t been home recently, but he was Home!!! It was awesome. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation, and the spirit was very strong. We had invited him earlier to be baptized, but he said he didn´t want to at the moment. With this lesson we taught the importance of Baptism and we focused on the purpose of life here on this earth. We invited him again, he still didn´t have the desire to be baptized. However, he committed to pray and ask God if it is right for him. He said that if he recieved an answer will follow it. He closed the lesson with the prayer and he asked for guidance that he might know the correct path. SO cool. He hasn´t been home in our last few visits we made to his house, so we don´t know how he is doing at the moment. BUT pray for him that God may show him The Way!

Farm

So that was just a great start for the week. Another highlight of the week was on Tuesday. We had lunch at a member´s house. They live wayyy far away and they have like a farm. BUT, it´s not a farm like with vegetables, but with fruit! It was waaaayy cool. We tried a bunch of weird exotic fruits. And they showed us this hot pepper that they had. The guy said it was so hot that it makes you want to poop... So for that reason it is called Quero cagar. Or... "I want to poop" hahaha It was very funny. 

"I want to Poop" Peppers

Me eating exotic fruit:)

So I don´t remember how many days this was at our front porch, but a dog (or human, I´m not sure) POOPED in our entrance to our house. And then it rained... so it was mushy.... So we didn´t clean it up the first two days... But it was stinking up our whole house. So in the end we cleaned it up. haha

The rest of the week was good too. We taught a lot of good lessons and we have a lot of good investigators. We had a district meeting on Wednesday and it was raining SUPER hard, but we wanted to buy some food... for the meeting. haha So we sprinted to a padaria, and bought some food and sprinted back to the church. It was awesome. And we were so drenched.

Drawing of Kylo Ren

 The last highlight of the week was Yesterday. We went teaching with a member. We visited one of his friends and the lesson was going very well! The spirit was very strong and I invited him to baptism and he accepted. BUT during the lesson, a bird POOPED on my shirt! I felt something hit my shirt, I thought it was a water drop so I brushed it off, but it was dark gray and stinky poop. I didn´t actually see the bird... but I felt the poop. hahah Only my companion noticed though so it´s all good. haha It will probably come out in the wash. Well, I gotta say this week was great. Even though it involved a lot of poop! 

Star Wars Flip Flops

I have been studying Jesus the Christ and one thing that caught my eye was what Jesus said about the sacrament. He said that I am the Bread of Life. He explains the importance of the sacrament for all of us. I encourage all of you to study about the sacrament and to apply it to when you partake of it! It really makes a difference when we are focused on the purpose! I love you all!! Have an amazing week!!!

Love,

Elder Davis