Dear Family and Friends,
I am really sorry about not writing my blog post, I really did not have anything to write about and I also was not feeling up for it. I just wanted to relax more than anything.
This week has been, different. I have been playing private investigator, because my last companion may have proposed to one of the girls that he baptized, and my companion and I found out about it and we have been asking her, and people that she told that they are going to get married come December, and who knows what else. I am a little upset by this because, they managed to do this under my noise. I had my suspicions about them liking each other, but nothing to suggest that anything would happen after the mission. I am really really trying to keep my works clean. It is also funny, because our mission president also said something about how he gets sick when he sees missionaries flirting with girls and also he said that "Your wife is not in the limits of this mission, that is just Satan trying to get you to move away from what you need to be doing."
My companion and I are getting along really well. We are getting better at speaking Portuguese, and I am learning a lot from him. I am grateful for his example, and just simply he is a good guy. He is chill and easy going. He still wants to work but does not mind having a good time while doing it. It is a nice change of pass. It is kind of funny, we make bread and pizza and all sorts of other foods; we are like a regular Ozzy and Harriett.
Yesterday was the first day of Fall, and it come in with a bang. My companion and I work up at 1:30 last night to a great big thunder storm last night. It was kind of wild, all of our windows and doors were open in our apartment because it is usually hotter than the sun here, but we had to make a mad dash around the apartment to close the windows and doors which were slamming shut and opening again. It was crazy. It was kind of exciting.
This story is also true, and my companion said that I could copy it from his email. I can testify that this is true, and it happened this week in our area. In a letter from Elder Griffin to his family, " so we have had some investigators going through some pretty interesting experiences this week, and none of them good ones. We had one that almost killed his neighbor because he threatened a seven year old that lives next door, whose mother then threatened him and called the father to come bust a cap!! We had one whose brother got arrested in a drug bust, one of our members mothers, who is also an investigator, was almost killed by her brother, than almost killed her brother, who was then almost killed by her neighbors dad. And another investigator was almost murdered by her boyfriend who is three times her age, and already has a huge criminal record. Fun week huh!! Talk about exciting!! There was also a drug bust in an apartment complex where they got eight drug traffickers. Talk about adventure!! And last week me and my companion walked by a gunfight, it was pretty interesting!! " Elder K. Brooks Griffin companion of one Elder Caleb S. Carriere
That is me for this week. I have pictures but I forgot to bring my camera and cable again, so I will send them next week. I hope.
Com Amor para sempre,
Elder Caleb S. Carriere
Nothing to Report
Hello family and friends,
Nothing much to report. I have been working a lot. My companion and I have been teaching a lot of people and I am getting over myself and talking more. I have discovered that if I want to learn I have to talk and just take the hit when I cannot say what I want to say. Everyone seems to respect that. I have also been speaking more Portuguese with him everyday. It is a work in progress.
I am also sad to report that we did not have any baptisms last week. We had one marked down but do to outside forces (i.e. his parents getting into a fight and his father not wanting to go to the baptism) put the kibosh on that. He will, however, be baptized this next week and with another person as well. I am really excited about the work here. We have found so many good people to teach.
I was on divisions last week again. I really do not care for them. I would have rather stayed here and taught with my companion, who I am accustomed to and not another guys.
Well, I have nothing to report. I will have photos and more excitement for you all next week.
Love,
Elder Caleb S. Carriere.
Nothing much to report. I have been working a lot. My companion and I have been teaching a lot of people and I am getting over myself and talking more. I have discovered that if I want to learn I have to talk and just take the hit when I cannot say what I want to say. Everyone seems to respect that. I have also been speaking more Portuguese with him everyday. It is a work in progress.
I am also sad to report that we did not have any baptisms last week. We had one marked down but do to outside forces (i.e. his parents getting into a fight and his father not wanting to go to the baptism) put the kibosh on that. He will, however, be baptized this next week and with another person as well. I am really excited about the work here. We have found so many good people to teach.
I was on divisions last week again. I really do not care for them. I would have rather stayed here and taught with my companion, who I am accustomed to and not another guys.
Well, I have nothing to report. I will have photos and more excitement for you all next week.
Love,
Elder Caleb S. Carriere.
Oh Canada....
Dear Family and Friends,
I am glad to hear that everyone is doing so well and is in high spirits. I am doing really fine myself, especially since the Canadians have the most gold metals and to top it all off, they also won both men and woman's Hockey. I actually was fortunate to see the first half of the woman's game. They kicked butt. It was great, because my companion is a good old American boy and I am a Canuck, and we are really into the game. It was so great to see that we had won.
My birthday was really good to. I eat so much cake. Oh my goodness. Everywhere we went everyone knew that it was my birthday and they had cake. It was really good cake too, and then we spent the night with a member family and did Family Home Evening with them and there I made Chicago style pizza which turned out pretty good. The dough could have used a little more salt and the sauce could have used some sugar but all in all it was really good and the mother of the house hold said that I could now have her permission to get married after the mission. Not because I am a good guy, or the handsome devil that I am, only because I can make pizza. Who knew?
I have not been good at sticking to the Portuguese only rule. We have been slowly getting better, but it is still a problem and we know it. We are coming up with a method of how to keep each other on track. I think punching will be involved, which is bad for me because I am a weak guy and he is an ex- football and lacrosse player who is 190 cm which is like 6 feet and 4 inches. I am going to have a lot of bruises I think.
I did not have any baptisms this week, but we did get lost a lot. Boy Howdy, did we ever get lost. I have terrible memory. It takes us a couple of hours to find lunch ( if we find it) because we have a list of the member addresses and it is really old and most of the time they have changed. So we get there and they are not there and then we cannot call them because our cell phone we can only make calls to other missionaries and mission presidency. Public phones here you need a phone card which is difficult to come between the hours 12 and 2 because all the stores are closed. All of them. Then on Thursday I think it was we were trying to get to an area of the city called Planalto, so we grabbed a bus which said Planalto on the front. The mistake was we needed to listen to the guy yelling out the window like all the other buses in the city. So instead of going to Planalto, which is on one side of the city we went to the completely opposite side of the city and had no more money on us to get another bus ride so we walked almost 2 hours getting to Planalto. Oh the fun times we have, but we did learn our lesson.
I hope you all are going well. Have a great March and I will talk to you guys next week.
Com Amor,
Elder Caleb S. Carriere
I am glad to hear that everyone is doing so well and is in high spirits. I am doing really fine myself, especially since the Canadians have the most gold metals and to top it all off, they also won both men and woman's Hockey. I actually was fortunate to see the first half of the woman's game. They kicked butt. It was great, because my companion is a good old American boy and I am a Canuck, and we are really into the game. It was so great to see that we had won.
My birthday was really good to. I eat so much cake. Oh my goodness. Everywhere we went everyone knew that it was my birthday and they had cake. It was really good cake too, and then we spent the night with a member family and did Family Home Evening with them and there I made Chicago style pizza which turned out pretty good. The dough could have used a little more salt and the sauce could have used some sugar but all in all it was really good and the mother of the house hold said that I could now have her permission to get married after the mission. Not because I am a good guy, or the handsome devil that I am, only because I can make pizza. Who knew?
I have not been good at sticking to the Portuguese only rule. We have been slowly getting better, but it is still a problem and we know it. We are coming up with a method of how to keep each other on track. I think punching will be involved, which is bad for me because I am a weak guy and he is an ex- football and lacrosse player who is 190 cm which is like 6 feet and 4 inches. I am going to have a lot of bruises I think.
I did not have any baptisms this week, but we did get lost a lot. Boy Howdy, did we ever get lost. I have terrible memory. It takes us a couple of hours to find lunch ( if we find it) because we have a list of the member addresses and it is really old and most of the time they have changed. So we get there and they are not there and then we cannot call them because our cell phone we can only make calls to other missionaries and mission presidency. Public phones here you need a phone card which is difficult to come between the hours 12 and 2 because all the stores are closed. All of them. Then on Thursday I think it was we were trying to get to an area of the city called Planalto, so we grabbed a bus which said Planalto on the front. The mistake was we needed to listen to the guy yelling out the window like all the other buses in the city. So instead of going to Planalto, which is on one side of the city we went to the completely opposite side of the city and had no more money on us to get another bus ride so we walked almost 2 hours getting to Planalto. Oh the fun times we have, but we did learn our lesson.
I hope you all are going well. Have a great March and I will talk to you guys next week.
Com Amor,
Elder Caleb S. Carriere
They say it's your Birthday... Well it's my Birthday too, yeah!
Dear Family and Friends,
Thanks for all your lovely emails and the letters which I am sure that I will get. I am looking forward to those. I am doing really well. I am in good spirits and my new companion and I get along great in the same city of Santa Rosa.
His name is Elder Griffin. He is from Cache Valley Utah. Which seems to be a common trend in my time as a missionary. He is the second companion from Cache Valley I have had. The first was my companion in the CTM. I like the guy a lot and he speaks Portuguese like a Brazilian. The only worry that I have is that we speak English too much. We have a goal of only talking Portuguese in the mornings and on the streets when we do the work, but as of now we have not been doing so well on that. It is just so easy to speak English. I mean I have been doing it for the last 22 years. Mas agora, vou escrever só no português. Porque eu preciso melhorar meu português cada dia, dia inteiro. I can write and think in Portuguese, more or less, but I still am struggling with speaking it. But it will come with time.
I hope the Winter Olympics are really sweet. I know they are in Vancouver, which is a pretty great city if I do say so myself. I want highlights. I have not been able to see the games. They are not on television here, because Carnaval just got over and no one could care less about the Olympics in Winter.
I laughed to when I heard that Dad bought an air riffle, not to mention that it has a scope and a muzzle velocity of 1700 feet per second. This air riffle is to shoot woodland creators in our attic and back yard. That is funny.
Well I am good. I hope you all are too. I am looking forward to the packages I will receive in the mail coming up in Zone Conference. (fingers crossed) I hope you all are doing well and I wish Seth a late happy birthday and Amy a early one.
Com Amor,
Tchau!
Elder Caleb S. Carriere
Thanks for all your lovely emails and the letters which I am sure that I will get. I am looking forward to those. I am doing really well. I am in good spirits and my new companion and I get along great in the same city of Santa Rosa.
His name is Elder Griffin. He is from Cache Valley Utah. Which seems to be a common trend in my time as a missionary. He is the second companion from Cache Valley I have had. The first was my companion in the CTM. I like the guy a lot and he speaks Portuguese like a Brazilian. The only worry that I have is that we speak English too much. We have a goal of only talking Portuguese in the mornings and on the streets when we do the work, but as of now we have not been doing so well on that. It is just so easy to speak English. I mean I have been doing it for the last 22 years. Mas agora, vou escrever só no português. Porque eu preciso melhorar meu português cada dia, dia inteiro. I can write and think in Portuguese, more or less, but I still am struggling with speaking it. But it will come with time.
I hope the Winter Olympics are really sweet. I know they are in Vancouver, which is a pretty great city if I do say so myself. I want highlights. I have not been able to see the games. They are not on television here, because Carnaval just got over and no one could care less about the Olympics in Winter.
I laughed to when I heard that Dad bought an air riffle, not to mention that it has a scope and a muzzle velocity of 1700 feet per second. This air riffle is to shoot woodland creators in our attic and back yard. That is funny.
Well I am good. I hope you all are too. I am looking forward to the packages I will receive in the mail coming up in Zone Conference. (fingers crossed) I hope you all are doing well and I wish Seth a late happy birthday and Amy a early one.
Com Amor,
Tchau!
Elder Caleb S. Carriere
Transfer Time
Dear Family, and Friends
This week was pretty good. I was on splits for most of it. I was with my new zone leader Elder Monteiro. It was a good time away from my actual companion. Although he is kind of a robot. He uses the phrase "a gente" in place of eu or nos. Which is like saying one can do this or one will visit your house. It is weird to say the very least.
The good news is, Tere, the woman with TB was baptized, and so was her son Maicon, and another guy who has skipped out on his baptism 3 other times before. It was a good week, to say the very least, and I did not get my leg victimized by a dog like last week.
Her baptism was somewhat strange because half her body has paralyzed and she cannot stand up or move, for that matter, so my companion, being the big and strong guy that he is, carried her into the font where he had a chair waiting for her to sit on and then said the baptismal prayer. After the prayer, he and a member removed the chair and they dipped her in the water. It was a little unorthodox, but the situation was a bit different.
I will be getting a new companion soon. An American also, which is a bit of a godsend because I have been going a little crazy, because I am speaking better and better every day, but it is still difficult to completely relate to someone who does not know completely what your culture is like and visa versa. So I am looking forward to that. My only worry is that we will spend more time speaking English to one another and our Portuguese will worsen, but I doubt that will happen.
I want to say, Happy Late Birthday Mom, and Happy Birthday to Seth, and Amy. I send you my love. Also Seth your birthday is the last day of Carnival. You learned something new. Congrats.
Com Amor,
Elder Caleb S. Carriere
This week was pretty good. I was on splits for most of it. I was with my new zone leader Elder Monteiro. It was a good time away from my actual companion. Although he is kind of a robot. He uses the phrase "a gente" in place of eu or nos. Which is like saying one can do this or one will visit your house. It is weird to say the very least.
The good news is, Tere, the woman with TB was baptized, and so was her son Maicon, and another guy who has skipped out on his baptism 3 other times before. It was a good week, to say the very least, and I did not get my leg victimized by a dog like last week.
Her baptism was somewhat strange because half her body has paralyzed and she cannot stand up or move, for that matter, so my companion, being the big and strong guy that he is, carried her into the font where he had a chair waiting for her to sit on and then said the baptismal prayer. After the prayer, he and a member removed the chair and they dipped her in the water. It was a little unorthodox, but the situation was a bit different.
I will be getting a new companion soon. An American also, which is a bit of a godsend because I have been going a little crazy, because I am speaking better and better every day, but it is still difficult to completely relate to someone who does not know completely what your culture is like and visa versa. So I am looking forward to that. My only worry is that we will spend more time speaking English to one another and our Portuguese will worsen, but I doubt that will happen.
I want to say, Happy Late Birthday Mom, and Happy Birthday to Seth, and Amy. I send you my love. Also Seth your birthday is the last day of Carnival. You learned something new. Congrats.
Com Amor,
Elder Caleb S. Carriere
Its HOT HOT HOT
Santa Rosa
Dear Family and Friends,It was kind of a bad week. We did not accomplish much. My companion has had 6 months here and he is kind of tired of working. So we didn't do much, nor did we have baptisms, well sort of, allow me to explain.
The woman with T.B., as it turned out, does not have a tumor but did in fact have a stroke. She is now out of the hospital and is eager to be baptized. So what happened? There is a great lack of communication between the branch leadership and the missionaries here. They all left on Saturday and did tell us. So we could not baptize her and her son.
But they will be baptized on Wednesday, fingers crossed, or Saturday, again fingers crossed.
Other than that I am doing well. I have not really slept in more than a week because, save for today, it has been hot. How hot was it one might ask? Well let me tell you. It was 41 C, which is 105.8 F. All week long. I sweat all day, and I drink literally 8 to 9 liters of water daily, and my pee is still bright yellow. It is terrible. But such is life.
Oh, I also have some funny stories. In the say day I got kissed and had a dog hump my leg. I was at the home of a members house waiting for dinner to be ready. We were sitting outside and their dog keep humping my leg despite the fact that it's owner kept hitting it in the head with his flip flop and me kicking it off of me. Then the members nephew and his girlfriend show up. She is a nonmember and doesn't know that you cannot kiss missionaries. I was not aware that she would do that. I was sitting in the same chair and she walks up shakes my hand, while I am still sitting in the chair and then bends over and kisses my cheek. Kissing of the cheek is a common greeting here in Brazil. That is a little awkward to say the least.
Well, that is me.
Com Amor,
Elder Caleb S. Carriere
Indiara
My English Class
Minha Nossa Sinhora eu não gosto de quente. Bararidade Tche
Dear Family and Friends,
Things here are well. I am in good health, and the work is progressing better than ever before. We had another baptism on Saturday. Her name is Indiara. She is 19 years old and 5 months pregnant. It was something special with her. She lives with her sister and brother-in-law, who are members, and they have been praying for her to receive an answer about the Church. Then we came and taught her the first two lessons and asked that she pray about what we had said was true or not.
Well as it turned out, she did pray. That night she had a dream that she was baptized by Jesus Christ himself, and later went to Church with her entire family. The next day, which was Friday, she said I want to be baptized tomorrow. It was fortunate that she had visited the Church many times in the past so we could do that.
If you have been counting that makes 7 baptisms in total. I would have had 9 by now, but something really terrible happened to the other two. We were going to have 3 baptisms this past Saturday, Indiara, which you know about already, and the other two are Tere and Maicon. Tere and Maicon are mother and son. She is blind, has a brain tumor and TB. She has many many health problems, and what happened was on Saturday she either had a stroke or the tumor cause the left side of her body to stop working normally, so she was in the hospital. She is fine now, but the baptism is going to be moved to this coming Saturday.
She has such great faith, my goodness. I am envious of it. She has been going to Church with a member family for a while now, and she told us that her greatest desire is to be seal for time and all eternity to her family in the Temple. The thing about it is we hadn't taught her yet about Temples. She learned it in Church. OOOO.
Well that is me, I hope you all are doing well. The weather her is Hot. Hotsts, I tells ya, and it is only going to get hotter in February. Minha Nossa Sinhora eu não gosto de quente. Bararidade Tche. That is gaucho speak for its really hot.
Até Logo,
Elder Caleb S. Carriere
Things here are well. I am in good health, and the work is progressing better than ever before. We had another baptism on Saturday. Her name is Indiara. She is 19 years old and 5 months pregnant. It was something special with her. She lives with her sister and brother-in-law, who are members, and they have been praying for her to receive an answer about the Church. Then we came and taught her the first two lessons and asked that she pray about what we had said was true or not.
Well as it turned out, she did pray. That night she had a dream that she was baptized by Jesus Christ himself, and later went to Church with her entire family. The next day, which was Friday, she said I want to be baptized tomorrow. It was fortunate that she had visited the Church many times in the past so we could do that.
If you have been counting that makes 7 baptisms in total. I would have had 9 by now, but something really terrible happened to the other two. We were going to have 3 baptisms this past Saturday, Indiara, which you know about already, and the other two are Tere and Maicon. Tere and Maicon are mother and son. She is blind, has a brain tumor and TB. She has many many health problems, and what happened was on Saturday she either had a stroke or the tumor cause the left side of her body to stop working normally, so she was in the hospital. She is fine now, but the baptism is going to be moved to this coming Saturday.
She has such great faith, my goodness. I am envious of it. She has been going to Church with a member family for a while now, and she told us that her greatest desire is to be seal for time and all eternity to her family in the Temple. The thing about it is we hadn't taught her yet about Temples. She learned it in Church. OOOO.
Well that is me, I hope you all are doing well. The weather her is Hot. Hotsts, I tells ya, and it is only going to get hotter in February. Minha Nossa Sinhora eu não gosto de quente. Bararidade Tche. That is gaucho speak for its really hot.
Até Logo,
Elder Caleb S. Carriere
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