10-26-2009 Letter Home

My First Area!

It's been CRAZY here in Juazeiro. It has very few members and no chapel, though one is being built and will be completed next February. As I've learned more about the area, it turns out that this area around Cratos, Barbalha and Juazeiro at the southern edge of Ceara is the President´s most favored area. He has made it a goal to establish a stake here by the time he leaves and he sends the best missionaries here. I don't want to brag about any of this, just give the facts and how astounded and grateful it made ME feel. My trainer would be Elder Carvalho.

We were the last ones to leave the office. Some of the assistants to the president helped me take all my stuff onto a taxi and we rode through Fortaleza to a huge bus station under this cool concrete dome. Waited for our bus. Got on the bus. It was very comfortable, actually. Great air conditioning and big comfy seats. We were going to ride in style. I sat by Elder Pereira and we rode into the night, out of the city and into the big inky wilderness. Elder Pereira and I talked for a long time, we are both really excited about being in Juazeiro. He is my only connection with what I knew before... he was a Brazilian Elder I hung out with in the CTM and I like him a lot. Very spiritual and determined guy, like me, I think. 25 years old and used to work at a bank. Is trying to learn English.

Anyway, I fell asleep. Woke up several times when the bus was stopped in these strange little towns and it got more and more crazy as we went. Just... you know, poor countryside. I'm starting to think... what have I gotten myself into... Oh man. I slept through the night and woke up at about five. Arrived at a bus station in Juazeiro at about six thirty. Elder Pereira and I moved our stuff out, intent on finding our trainers... nothing. Waited by the taxi pick-up spot for two and a half hours. I talked to some taxi drivers on their break there, talked more to Elder Pereira. Finally our trainers got there and said that they had heard we would be there at 9. Whatever, no biggie. So we drove off to our new home.
Saw a lot of the city. Really crazy... its just slightly more modern than towns in northern Mexico here and has a very similar feel to it. Paved roads, yes, but there is still that kind of chaotic feeling in the air.

Our home seems like a crack in the wall. Much less comfortable, much more dirty and disorganized than at the CTM. I'll send pictures. I unpacked my stuff and got to know my trainer Elder Carvalho. He is supposed to be some kind of legendary missionary that is President Batt's favorite. I like him. You'll see pictures of him.

Showers here are all cold water and to flush the toilet you need to dump a bucket of water into it. There's cockroaches that come out at night on the floors and the walls and ants at all times. But I am getting used to it.

Oh man. What can I tell you about my first few days here and what it's like...?
I spend most of my time deferring to Elder Carvalho because I can understand extremely little here... I can pick out words in every sentence but the people in Fortaleza speak very quickly, even to Brazilians from Sao Paulo. It's the stuff in between that gets me confused. I can bear my testimony and give lessons but they are slow. There's been spiritual things but right now I feel I am just having trouble adapting and Heavenly Father is trying to stretch me a bit. Don't worry about me, its very natural for new American elders here. Once I get the language and have a month of experience of squalid conditions its going to be fine.

This is a great area and the Spirit is really strong here, trying to build up the Church here. The food is excellent as well. They drink this cashew soda, made out of the part of the cashew plant you don't eat in the United States.

Everyone's sink and shower water goes into the gutters in the streets, so there is always water flowing there. Which also makes it stink quite a bit. There are also these tiny monkeys that hang on the electric lines.

Ran out of time!

I love you guys!
Bye!
- Elder Carpenter

10-23-2009 Letter Home

Family!

The plane ride was great. I took so much video and many pictures of the experience that Ill be sending soon if my camera doesn't get robbed.

Fortaleza is something like Arizona mixed with Sao Paulo, a little bit more of a Mexico feeling, with beaches and the whole coastal feel thrown in as well. President Batt is a way cool guy and I feel so lucky to be in this mission.
I'm getting my trainer tonight and heading out immediately, I don´t know where. Just wanted you guys to know that I am safe, they are letting us all e-mail our parents in the mission office while the Brazilians are getting some short mission-specific training in Portuguese.

Ah man, leaving Connor was so hard this morning. I am going to miss him so much.
It was super emotional. For me it takes things like these a while to boil over inside of me.
But I love him so much.

And could you put my new address here on Fortaleza up on the blog and start passing around?

Elder Carpenter
Missão Brasil Fortaleza
Av. Santos Dumont 1789 Sala 1612
Ed. Potenza, Aldeota
Fortaleza-CE
60150-160


Fortaleza is awesome! More on Monday, my new P-Day.

I love you all so much! Wish I could type more! Have a great weekend!

Your son,
Elder Brendon Carpenter

10-20-2009 Letter Home

Dear Family,

Thanks so much for your prayers. Ah man, I am so excited to get out into the campo. I am dying to get out of here. Its been great, but I am done with the CTM and I want to start working as soon as I can. By the time I read your next e-mail it'll be from Fortaleza and after my first few days with my likely-to-be-Brazilian trainer. Cool, huh? I am so glad that I worked as hard as I did and I was prepared for the CTM... it seems some people didn´t really and they are paying for it now in fears and tears. I have a few regrets but I feel like I did a pretty good job. Now I just need to get started!

It has definitely sunk in that I am on my mission, and before feels like a whole different life. Kind of like when I was at Santa Cruz but even more so. I am thinking about home life and college life a lot lately, though I try not too. Can't believe that was a year ago! Time really flies by... this mission isn't going to be very long for me, though it might be for you guys. I want to make the most of it as much as possible.

You guys are doing great, I really don't need anything from home other than letters and e-mails and prayers. Not yet, any way.

Hey Dad! Great Portuguese! You trying to learn the lingua too?
Thank you so much for your kind words. Connor and I are praying for you and the family.

I love hearing from you! Thanks so much for everything, Dad, you are the benefactor of so much in my life.

Your son,
Elder Brendon Carpenter

Hey Mom!
Don´t worry about me, I have o Espirito Santo as my companheiro and Jesus Cristo as my lider. I´m not going to be sad my first night, I think I´ll just be very excited to begin my first full day. I am so excited to get to Fortaleza! Work becomes so fun when you give your whole self to it and when it is so important. I´m so lucky to be here and I am so blessed with the opportunity. Its going to be awesome.

Will one of you take Kaitlin to the Library some time this week, if you have the time and you haven´t already? She liked that a lot when we went with her, just casually strolling through the aisles of books and finding something she liked... I´d be really grateful if someone took her to go pick up some library books, its so close too. Thanks in advance.

Read the New Testament! Connor just finished it here and I wanted real bad to read it too. Even better... if you have Jesus the Christ somewhere, read that. That´s such an awesome book, and if the First Presidency suggests that the missionaries to read it, you know there´s something important about it. It's helped me get to know Jesus Christ a lot better and that´s important.

Hmm, going to have to wrap this up. But, I will tell you that I did go proselyting. You´ll get my last written letter all about it. It was very fun, we went to the center of Sao Paulo and we talked to so many people! Placed three OLDMs into the hands of three people I liked a lot. I love you guys so much and I´d love to write more but I gotta get off of the computer. Everything is great here, just really antsy to get to Fortaleza finally and start the work.

Much love!
Your son,
Elder Brendon Carpenter


--------------------

written letter from later that day


10-20-2009
Hey Family, Friends!
Today has been busy and this letter is going to be short. Sorry! Thanks for checking Facebook for me, Mom and updating PV. That must take some time. Do you have my mailing address at Fortaleza? If not, I’ll email you later. Thanks for doing a great job, Mom! Get Lynsey to help you out too.

Sigh

Five minutes left. Shoot, guys. I have good stories about proselyting, but they’ll have to wait. I’ll have so much to tell you anyway in my next letter about Fortaleza. I love you all and am thinking about everyone of you. I love this gospel and my fantastic missionary calling. This is a blast. You won’t get a letter from me for a while, but they’ll probably be longer. Don’t’ miss me too much!
I love you all so much! Sorry this letter was so short! Lots of news via email next week and maybe video and pictures!

Love,
Your son, brother, friend, or relative,
Elder Brendon Carpenter
 

10-13-2009 Letter Home

Dear Friends and Family,

This is my second-to-last P-day at the CTM! I’ve been here for about 50 days. As of today my district has become the oldest in our hallway. Strange to be the “Seniors” here. It finally happened, and in the last few days it really started to hit me that I’d be in the field very shortly. Ten days left here. Ten days to do everything I can to prepare myself for the challenges an emissary of Jesus Christ will face. It’s a lot of responsibility… I’m in awe that Jesus Christ trusts me enough to preach His gospel. Can I do what He wants me to do? Can I help in some way to bring salvation to a handful of souls? Can we, an army of nineteen and twenty-something year-olds DO THIS? Crazy crazy crazy. And despite my awe, I do not have a doubt that I can. This is all going to work and it’s going to work well, because the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true. Heavenly Father will answer our prayers, the Atonement of Jesus Christ will make up for our weaknesses, and the Holy Ghost will buoy up our efforts with His power as long as we are working our hardest, being obedient, and keeping our eyes single to the glory of God.

Elder Connor, Elder Lima and Elder Brendon

I’ve been using a lot of time studying the scriptures, Preach My Gospel, and watching instructional videos in the computer labs. I don’t feel as urgent to learn Portuguese as I used to. I feel that with the Portuguese I do know now, that learning the language will be very manageable when I’m spending every day with a Brazilian companion and talking to Brazilians on the street. I’m going to be fluent, I know I can do it with the help of the Holy Ghost! But I’m going to have much less time to study the Gospel. That’s where my priorities are right now. After that, I want to just finish my time here in the CTM strong, and lift up my companion, Elder Clay, and our district, as much as possible.

Shall I tell what happened this week?

Remember how I said I bought that sugarcane juice from that street vendor? Well, I actually bought a liter bottle because it was so good. I kept the bottle in my closet overnight because I wanted to drink a little every night, draw it out over the week. So, I wake up Wednesday morning, open up my closet to get dressed and…. something’s wrong with this sugarcane juice. Yes, it had gone bad. The usually delicious cool froth had turned into what looked like a layer of pond scum on top and there were chunks of green throughout the juice. No! I had spent the equivalent of four dollars on that thing. So I took it to the cafeteria and asked the kind workers there in simple Portuguese, if they had a strainer (corador/filtro). No luck. Hmmm… I couldn’t give up. I couldn’t throw four dollars down the drain. Luckily, I had washed my shirts the day before. So I took one of my white shirts and fashioned a crude filter with a spare plastic cup. (I can just imagine Dad putting his face in his hands right now). But, I’ll tell you, it worked! It took half an hour and my white shirt had gunk all over it and a huge lime green stain, but I hand-washed it in a sink with soap, threw it in the dryer, and for all I know I am wearing it now, it looks like all the rest (except for a faint lime hue….no, I’m kidding).
So the sugarcane juice was saved! But it really wasn’t, because I suspect the juice itself had been spoiled overnight, didn’t taste very good, but I still drank it all out of stubbornness to accept defeat. At least I didn’t get sick (unless deadly, sugary bacteria are building up in my stomach as we speak, biding their time).

Have had a great series of volleyball games. I’m becoming quite good. I’m going to miss daily volleyball when I’m in the field.

We just had an interesting Brazilian holiday a couple of days ago called “The Day of the Children”. We don’t know how it’s normally celebrated amongst the people, but apparently it involves giving candy to children. No candy for us, though, but I did get to eat some ice cream at lunch. It was funny… the cafeteria staff all dressed up as clowns and there were balloons all over being used as decorations. Probably a thousand. Interesting divergence from the routine here.

Did you know that I am one of about 4,100 LDS missionaries in Brazil? 60% American, 40% Brazileiro. Not too many people get to experience this. I’m lucky.

Our Brazilian roommates left this morning. Elder Neves Dos Santos and Elder Souza. I will miss them a lot. We bonded. They were cool people.

Hey Lynsey, how are those CD’s you are recording with Wyatt going? Some good stuff, I hope? What are you most interested in the Gospel, right now, or what are you studying? I’d like to send you some scripture references.

Kaitlin, what’s up with your Indian princess costume? Halloween is so close! Do you have it already? I think it’s going to look great. Remember when you dressed up as a “bandita” with that big Mexican hat and we went trick-or-treating, just you and me, at your old school? That was so fun! You always have the best costumes.

Hey, uncle Kevin, thank you so much for your kind and encouraging email. General Conference was great and the notes I took are going to be looked at frequently. I loved hearing President Monson, it was so cool to be given advice by a prophet of God.

I can’t wait for the field and when I can get in the swing of things, just focusing on people all day. I hope I can lose myself out there. I really want to. Cool stuff about studying the Book of Mormon and geography. I wish I could have the resources to do the same, I forgot so much about where everything was, but I guess I should focus on missionary work, though.

Congrats again with Jonah! Good name! Can’t wait to see him in two years. I love you guys so much! Thanks for keeping in touch.

South American people are awesome!

Well, I gotta wrap this up…. Hopefully more next week. I hope things are going well in the United States and elsewhere! Have a great seven days everybody!

Love,
Your friend, brother, relative, and son,

Elder Brendon Carpenter

--------- short email received earlier that day

Hey everybody! Elder Carpenter here.

Lynsey, that drawing/painting is incredible! ' some really good perspective there and I love the colors. Great job! I hope art class is fun and you are learning some cool new skills. That Young Women´s award thing is pretty sweet, too, I bet you worked hard to get it.

Hey Kaitlin! No, haven't baptized anyone yet, I am still in training, but in two weeks I'll start baptizing people. Hundreds of people! The kids in Brazil are a lot like American kids, from what I've seen. Some are just a little bit poorer than us. I just saw a little boy kicking a soccer ball made out of a bunch of rolled up garbage bags in the street. Neat, huh? One time when we were walking on the streets, looking for people to talk to, we passed a gate and inside were four little boys with no shirts on playing tag. We said "Oi! Tudo Bem!" to them and they all looked at us and stopped playing because they didn't know who we are. I just told them to have a good day and gave them a big smile and they waved goodbye to me. So yes, Brazilian kids are friendly! Good job on learning stuff in school, that must be so fun!

More interesting stuff included in my letter. I want to send some photos to you and read some other letters, so I apologize if this is very short. Thank you so much for the pictures! I loved seeing all of you. :) They dont take much time to load, only to send.

Much love! I am thinking of you all! Fifty day mark today, by the way!

Your son, brother and friend,
Elder Brendon Carpenter
--------

10-6-2009 Letter Home

Hey Mom, Dad, Family!

P-Day has been great. Went to the Sao Paulo Temple again and it was great. On another note, there is this guy outside of the CTM, a vendor that works outside of his van, that sells this sugarcane juice that is delicious. He puts a whole fresh, green sugarcane into this machine that crunches it up and lets the nectar seep into this funnel... its really cool to watch. He puts the sugarcane through it about six times and adds some lime and you drink the liquid straight after its been strained. I love the stuff, but I've heard sometimes there are parasites in it. Whatever. I haven't gotten sick yet... but if I start losing weight and feeling pain in my abdomen I'll tell ya. Only costs two reals here, which is about a dollar.

(Street Outside the CTM)


Yes, we watched conference, for the last time in English. Awesome.

All of my letters are pretty stream-of-consciousness, so I hope you aren't disappointed by the content. I'm telling you everything I think is interesting but who knows, some of the more mundane stuff might be interesting to everyone back home. Tsunami in Samoa, huh? Yeah, I've heard a little bit about that through the grapevine but no huge details.

I'll tell you one cool experience I had when I went proselyting on Friday. It was a bright, sunshiney day and there were lots of Brazilians on the streets! But there were also many Elders and Sisters groundpounding this way and that way, and we ran into a couple of people that just waved us on because they had already talked with other missionaries. Anyway, at one point we were on this very busy street. Full of shops, busy traffic, the sidewalk thick with people, these guys selling bottles of alcohol from alley-ways. It was very loud and I got the impression we had to get out of there, because we couldn’t have the Spirit when there was so much noise.

So Elder Clay and I trudged for five minutes downhill to a different direction. I thought we had wasted a lot of time but then I saw this teenager, a little taller than me but probably younger, who was wearing this red shirt and had braces. He looked kind of aloof and was walking quickly but I felt like I should talk to him. So I went up to him and started talking, introducing myself and he wouldn’t stop so I just kept on walking right along side of him. I asked him if he went to Church and he said he did, I said it was important to believe in God because He loves us, and that God shows his love for us by calling prophets. I went into more detail into the Book of Mormon than I usually do… where it comes from and what it's about. I bore my testimony seriously three or four times because he asked questions I couldn’t understand, I didn't know what else to do. I felt prompted to give him my Livro de Mormon, which I had written my testimony in Portuguese in the front. I felt really good about it and I said "ciao" to him with a smile on my face.

Elder Foust and Elder Cusick said that they saw him in the doorway of a shop at one point reading the Livro de Mormon, about half an hour later! Awesome, huh? I can't wait to do that every day.

I love you, Mom, Lynsey, and Kaitlin! I'm glad life is continuing normally and you are all doing well. I hope you are doing great at school and friends and everything else that you are worrying about. Thanks so much for keeping up an awesome home front! I love you guys!

I'll have more cool stories in my next letter. I love you all, bye!

Elder B

-------Handwritten letter from later that day -------

Obrigado!
10-06-2009

Hello my family and friends, this is coming to you from the Land of the Southern Cross, half a world away in the fair country of Brasil!

I have to tell you, I’m getting antsy to get to the field (o campo).
Only seventeen days left as of the day I am writing, October 6, and then I’ll get twenty-two months to devote all my time solely to the advancement of the Kingdom of God, instead of simply preparing for it. It’s finally starting to warm up here in Sao Paulo so I feel Heavenly Father is thawing me out before shipping me put to one of the hottest missions in Brazil. The year with no winter for me, and it may not be the last.

The language is coming along nicely and I’ve been very healthy this week. Besides the routine of language classes (each of them interminable it seems), meals in the cafeteria, and volleyball and personal study time, this week had two exciting events; proselyting for the first time in Portugais on the streets surrounding the CTM, and General Conference.

There’s so much to tell about both of these wonderful anomalies in my schedule. First of all, I hope everyone back home was as excited as my district and I, when the (building of a) Fortaleza Brazil Temple was announced. Oh man, that is awesome! I probably won’t see it finished during my mission, but the fact that the people I teach and help bring into the Church will eventually be blessed by a nearby temple is thrilling. It gives me a reason to make a return trip at some point AFTER my mission. Mark my words. Anyway, northern Brazil definitely needs more temples. Outside of the one in Recife’ and the one being built in Manaus (middle of the Amazon), the rest are far down in the south. Northern Brazil also has higher rates of baptism. My conclusion? I’m not heading to a cushy mission, I’m going to one of the major frontiers of the church! It’s very exciting.

I loved General Conference. We got to see all of it live, via satellite, all of the American Elders and Sisters in the auditorium watching two large projector screens. I got sit by the "other" Elder Carpenter every session and that was great, to spend time with him. It seemed they talked a lot about gaining spiritual knowledge, didn’t it? I liked that focus. I loved Elder Uchtdorf’s stories as a refugee and his encouragement for everyone to be educated and hardworking. I loved that one story from one of the Seventy who went on his mission to Finland and prayed for the Soviet Union to open up… and it finally did for his son. Did you connect that talk to President Monson’s request for us to pray for countries to open their borders to missionaries? I’m going to do so every night now. There were so many good talks….  Elder Holland’s fiery testimony of the Book of Mormon… Brother Satati’s overview of the church in Africa. That great talk directed to and about the rising generation…. We were all very pumped by conference. My last one in English for awhile!

By the way, we went to the Sao Paulo temple again today. A member of the Branch Presidency was there and took pictures of our district. He said he’d send them to you via email, family. Be looking for it, I hope they turn out to be good pics!

I was thinking of Dad during the whole Priesthood session. Connor and I were missing you a lot, Dad… but at least we got to have a shared experience in watching it. I’ve been thinking of all of our trips lately, how fun they were, and the classic scene of Dad piloting the RV by himself late into the night. I am so thankful for you, Dad. You are my best friend. Thinking of jumping those sand dunes or even just going to a movie with you or chopping wood in the backyard and all of the various things we did together. We definitely have a lot more to do together in the future.

Elder Clay and I

Sooo… First day of proselyting to Brazilians! That’s right, every day Brazilian people on their way to work or home or whatever they do. They really are just normal people like us, even fashion-wise. That might be because we are in Sao Paulo but who knows? I was more comfortable with the language and with strangers so I did the majority of the talking. It was hot out and there were Elders and Sisters everywhere! Elder Clay and  I had two Livro de Mormon and a lot of little pieces of paper with the # for missionaries on it. We talked to a lot of people and they seemed to understand us but they spoke so fast we could barely understand them!

“Ola! Como foi sun dia!” I would begin, asking them how their day was. I’d introduce ourselves: “Nos somos missionarios da Inreja de Jesus Cristo dos Santos dos Utlimos Dias! Meu nome e’ Elder Carpenter. Qaul e’ sua nome?” And who knew what happened after that. We prayed a lot and got rejected half of the time, but everyone was very nice.

At one point we talked to an old Asian lady who told us she couldn’t speak Portuguese. Hah! Ironic…. But it’s interesting how many Asian people are here, actually. So far way from Asia, yet there is quite a noticeably large Asian minority, here in Sao Paulo. By Asian, I mean East Asian, of course.

We talked to a family of five at another point, giving a message to them all at once. The grandmother was the spokeswoman of the group and despite a good twenty minutes of testimony and explanation of the Livro de Mormon, she continued to assert that they were Catholic and weren’t interested. Ah well…. I hate to be annoyingly persistent like that but Brazilians are so nice and relaxed it’s hard to feel like you aren’t making progress!

Another cool story: we were talking to this mechanic who didn’t seem very interested when all of the sudden this short, middle-aged Brasileira (woman) energetically came up to the three of us. She said she was a membra da Ingreja (member of the Church) and she started chatting at a machine-gun pace with the mechanic. Out of the blue, right? She started testifying of the Livro de Mormon right in front of us! Answer to our prayers, to have this native speaker back us up. The mechanic took a number and seemed more interested.

We gave our second and last Livro de Mormon out with only minutes left for our four hours to be up. Elder Clay and I prayed in this small park and when we finished, Elder Clay pointed to a mother and a daughter at this outside café. It seemed kind of rude to barge into someone’s meal, but we did. We spoke quickly but got the message across. At the very end the mother kept on saying, “We don’t have any money.” But I just told her that the word of God was always free and that she could have it right then. I told her to call that number to talk to other missionaries, and then thanked for her time and left.

Nothing extremely amazing like a few others, but I thought we did well. Ah! It was so fun. I love the noise and smells of the city. It felt great to be outdoors for so long just looking for people to talk to. Elder Clay and I had a great time.

I’ve got to finish up so I’ll ask a few quick questions:
Could someone in our immediate family or among the family in the next few weeks, type me up a quick story about how tithing has blessed their lives, in a specific way? I don’t have any experiences with tithing of the caliber I would like out in the field. Don’t feel like I need it immediately, but I hope someone has a good story I could tell when I’m bearing testimony about tithing.

Did I mention Elder Clay, Matthew Olsen Clay, is a descendant of Newell Knight? Cool, huh? Can anyone find out if he is a distant relative, and how close he is? That’d be cool if you could just run a search and find out.

For the missionary plaque: Alma 29:2, por favor.

Ask Nick & Zach & whoever else to send me an email about the last month and to tell me a little about the Halo ODST

Included is the Brazilian National Anthem, which the whole CTM sings every Sunday. It sounds really cool …. I wish I could get you the tune.

Well, that’s all for now everybody!
I hope life is going well outside the missionary world,
Much Love!

Elder B. Carpinteiro