Woah guys! Hello there! Lots of mail to answer! Thanks so much! Actually, my camera picked up a virus from one of these freaking LANhouse computers, so I'm going to have to get it reformatted sometime this week at a members house. But, I am very glad you got my birthday pictures from Milena, hopefully that'll satisfy some media hunger, hehe. She was so nice, she not only received those pictures from the house and got them on her laptop for my birthday, but she also sent you guys my pictures and put all of the pictures on my camera on a CD, which I will send to you soon with my journal. I'm only twenty or so pages away from the end! That'll be a fun treat for all of ya.
We had another baptism this week! We found Marcilo through Amanda, who was reactivated only two months ago. Marcilo is her boyfriend and he was really interested in the Church when Amanda started going to church again. Then he joined her at Seminary and he got really interested, started going to Seminary every night (its held at a member's house at 6:00 here) and when we got to him finally, he was this close to having a testimony. A few questions answered and a few powerful testimonies later (the Spirit was really strong during our first lesson with him), he knew the Gospel was true. He prayed, received a response from God that the Livro de Mormon and the Igreja de Jesus Cristo dos Santos dos Ultimos Dias was true, we taught him a few more times and this Saturday he entered the waters of baptism! He is a great guy, we've definitely been blessed by being there for his conversion experience.
"Marcilo"
So on Saturday, we got the chapel early to clean everything and fill the font, only to find that the baptismal font had been left filled for the past MONTH and no one had emptied it, which meant it was really dirty, mucky. We tried to figure out how to drain the baptismal font automatically, but, we figured out the pump was broken. So how did we spend most of our Saturday, before Marcilo's baptism? Eeehhh... that's right, we emptied the baptismal font one bucketful at a time, pouring each into the bathroom toilets adjacent to the font. Oh man, Elder Peres and I were dripping wet, with dirty mucky water and sweat both, by the end of it, just exhausted after hours of work. We just layed stretched out on the pews in the chapel for an hour, completely wet and tired... we had to earn that baptism, I guess, with backbreaking labor.
Another thing funny about Marcilo's story... on Sunday he was confirmed and he received the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Who do you think confirmed him? That's right, yours truly. I was sitting in Sacrament, just expecting a nice three stress-free hours of learning, when suddenly I hear my name called out. So I go up there in front of the whole ward, tell the first counselor I hadn't ever done this before in Portuguese, but he just told me that I could repeat after him. So I have my hands on Marcilo's head, and the first counselor, Irmao Antonia, speaks so softly and quickly, and he already has a kind of thick Cearense accent... and I can't understand anything. Oh man, I was sweating bullets. I was praying for the Gift of Tongues and just repeated what I could hear into the microphone. Apparently it worked though, I don't know what happened, I thought they were going to call me down off the stand and get a Brazilian to do it, but I just kept on repeating these sounds I was hearing and not understanding and, well, the confirmation went through ok. I'm thinking, either I had the Gift of Tongues and everyone was understanding what I was saying through a miracle, or everyone was too embarassed for me to make me stop. I felt pretty embarassed regardless afterwards, just looked at my hands through the rest of the Sacrament Service, hah, I felt like a big idiot.
We had conference this week the morning of my Birthday! Cool huh? I got my package on the DAY OF my Birthday! Conference was good. The package was better! Haha, I love all the things you guys put in. The shirts are awesome!! We haven't made tacos or brownies yet because all of us in the house are strapped for cash and I want to make a big Missionary Dinner out of it with lots of other food. We've already devoured all the candy, hah. Thanks so much guys! I'm listening to the CDs for the first time right now on the computer, they are really awesome! I'll get them on my iPod soon. I love packages!!! Hehe.
Winter started finally! Its raining every day here, and we've gotten soaked pretty badly already. Rain starts FAST here. Its just a little bit cloudy, and the next moment, its raining buckets and buckets. The streets here don't have very effective drains, so when it starts raining hard, the streets become lakes and rivers, it makes moving around the city a little crazy. But, at least its gotten a lot cooler. Not much sun, and the nights are actually pretty cold now. Still humid like crazy though and nothing will stop me from sweating when we're marching to an appointment during the day.
The shower water is freezing in the mornings! I don't know if I told you guys... I've been showering with cold water since October 23rd, water heaters don't exist here. I've gotten kind of used to it, but lately the water has just been ice-cold, hah. I kind of just leap in, get wet, and dart out again, soap up my hair and then rinse it really quickly. Hey, Connor, are you showering with hot water? I miss a nice warm shower...
Alright, I guess I'll get to some responses.
I got Ashley's big stack of letters! Those were awesome, thanks Ashley! Awesome to hear about your perspectives on your mission in Denmark and hear a little about how things are goin in your life. Meant a lot to me.
I got John Church's letter too! That was cute.
Got a letter from Grandma as well, thank you so much for your letters Grandma, you've sent me the most, I think at least one every transfer, maybe more.
I love you guys! Thank you so much Aunt Karen, Aunt Jody and Ron for your e-mails! Thanks for showin that ya care about me, I love you guys so much. Haha, I liked the poem, Aunt Karen, and the spiritual
thoughts too, those were awesome.
Thank you so much Grandpa and Grandmere for the message! Hope you guys get better with the health issues. That temple experience in Mesa was awesome, definitely remember that clearly and longingly. I've gone to the Temple in Campinas, Brazil, and the Temple in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The nearest Temple to me here is in Recife, which unfortunately is too far away to visit during my mission. But, I'll get to a temple eventually! Thanks for the e-mail guys. :)
Thanks Aunt Becky for the long letter! Man, Jonah is going to be so big when I get back! Crazy! Thanks for your prayers and the letters you were GOING to send, haha. Love you and your family!
Did everyone like my videos, leaving comments on the YouTube page and everything? Haha, I want to do some more Frutas da Ceara videos, there's actually a lot of weird ones here, though the Jaca was definitely the biggest weirdest one around. We didn't eat it all, it wasn't something you could eat a lot of (imagine eating strong-flavored pear bubblegum with a fruit texture).
Hey Connor my bro, thanks so much for the scripture chain. Hey man, I had this dream that would totally make for an awesome indie video game! It's a side scroller, and it starts with this kid main character sitting on a roof, looking at the sun setting, but there is dark, almost blackish water that is level with the roof. This is the text that appears or there is some voice acting: "When the helicopters left that evening, I decided to look for someone out in the Waters." There's some graphic of black helicopters slowly moving in the horizon and some sound effect for them. So the kid gets into a grey rubber motorboat and he drives the thing out onto the water and the game starts. The environment gets really dark soon as the sun sets, but your motorboat has this old, bronze lantern that hangs above the character and it illuminates the nearby area. The game has some cool ambient background noises and some soft Explosions in the Sky kind of music, you know, soft, patient electric guitar and piano chords. You can move the kid into the dark water, and you can direct him to swim downwards. He has a flashlight too that he can illuminate the underwater world with. You discover that beneath the water is a whole suburban neighborhood. For some reason, its all underwater now. But some of the houses have the lights on, pouring out all orangey out of the windows. You can approach the houses and there are characters inside that will say stuff like "We're out of food! Bring us some food down here!" In text message bubbles that float out of the chimneys and up to the surface of the water. Or "We need fuel for our generators in here!" So you go and find these things for them around in the underwater environment, always returning frequently to the surface for air, and you drop it down their chimneys. But everytime you give them what they want, they start saying things like "Go away! Get out of here!" or "There's not enough food in here for you!" If you keep badgering them (knocking at their door) then the lights break in and the house fills with water and darkness. Creates a kind of emotion of not being wanted or being lonely, and the music could really amplify it. There's also these things in the water that are like shadows that are afraid of your flashlight, that grow bigger and more frequent as the game progresses. If they get to you they'll swallow you up and leave behind your flashlight. You've got to be strategic sometimes with your flashlight, which you have to find batteries for, or rechard at the electric poles that are the only things that rise up out of the water. You just have to drive your motorboat to an electric pole and it'll recharge your flashlight. You can also find other flashlights and leave them behind you, turned on, to create a kind of 'safe area' of light. You have to find so many houses and then the sun starts rising, and the main character always returns to his safehouse automatically during the daytime. Eventually you have to deal with these black helicopters, which have these big spotlights. They are looking for something in the waters, and if they see you or the light from the flashlight, they'll start shooting. So you've got to use that strategically. Sometimes they'll help you, though, accidentally, because their spotlights are much more powerful and they can keep the Dark Things at bay. I've got a secret reveal at the end that's cool but I'll keep it secret until we can make it. So that's what I've got so far, lots of room for improvement. Hope I didn't waste your whole P-Day with the explanation, hah.
Hey Dad, the transfer has been great. I discovered at the Conference from some other Elders that passed through here that Maracanau is one of the more difficult areas on the mission. So I'm not letting anything get me down, I'm just working hard with Elder Peres. I've actually learned so much and worked so hard this transfer, its awesome when you have a great companion and when you are committed to improving and being obedient to the rules and schedules with exactness. We have some great investigators and are working with inactive families a lot more than I ever have, and we are definitely going to leave this ward better and stronger, and hopefully there are some more baptisms on the horizon too!
Hey Mom! Yeah, there are some stories that circulate pretty frequently on the mission of Elders being mugged. It happens many times to some Elders, especially those who work in dangerous areas of Fortaleza.
With other Elders, nothing. I think it's pretty possible that I'll be held up at least once during my time here, but no Elder has ever gotten shot in Ceara or beat up, so that's a good thing. There are some funny stories about Elders teaching people that mugged them! I'll have to tell them at some point.
Awesome blessings that have happened in our family! The Lord is definitely looking out for us, we just need
to earn that protection with continued obedience to His Will and love for our brothers and sisters that
are around us every day. I love you so much!
I love you Lynsey and Kate! Sorry I didn't get to type much to ya this time. My companion is waiting
at the door for me, so I'm going to skidaddle. Anyway, Birthday was awesome, Package was awesome, I love
you guys so much, have a great week!
Tchau tchau!
- Elder Carpenter
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