"Chá da Panela"

Hey everyone,

Life is great. My companion and I have been on fire this past week.  We taught 38 lessons this week which is a lot.  Although our goal was not met by two lessons. We wanted to teach 40, but because we both got sick one with Montazuma's revenge and the other because of to much sun.  My companion suffers from heart pressure problems and so when he get too much sun, or it is extremely hot sometime he gets lower heart pressure, and has little to no energy to work.  There were a couple of days that we only taught two to three lessons because of that. 

We were rewarded with some good things because of our efforts.  This coming up Sunday there will be a baptism.  The last week of the transfer and we made it.  The great part is that the woman that we are going to baptize is a former Nun.  Yes catholic, Mary Cathrine, mother superior nun. She is great. A little bit off her rocker, but great.  She's always giving us stuff.  It was kind of funny.  The first time that we taught her. she gave us soap.  Two gigantic bars of soap.  them this last time she asked us " Are you two married?" We told her no, that we were not married.  Then she asked if we were engaged with someone.  My companion said that he has a girlfriend waiting for him and I said I have no one. She then said wait here.  These are for you and your future wives.  She gave us two dish towels.  In Brazil they have a tradition called "Chá da Panela," which translates to tea of the pan or pot.  It is a bridal shower, and one of the standard gifts for this are dish towels.  Very pretty and hand made dish towels.  She painted  and embroidered the towel by hand.  The even funnier part was that we taught her with her neighbor who is a member.  Pâmela, who is 16 years old. When she found out that I am single she said that I should date Pâmela.  That got awkward really fast.  Although there was a good laugh afterwards about the whole thing.  

That was my week family. I love you all and I am excited to talk to you all on Christmas.  

Love,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

Montazuma's Revenge

Hey everyone,

 

It was so good to hear from you all. I am doing quite well. I am sorry to say that I did not climb the mountain today. I had a bad case of montazuma's revenge last night and really I am not up for it, also one of the families that we are teaching wants to take us out and see some of the more touristy things that are around here, so we decided that would be better. 

 

I am fine. This week was kind of a race for us. We are teaching a lot.  Thank goodness, and we are finding some great people to teaching. For instance we were knocking doors and we did not enter a single one, until the second to last house.  Them we meet José Henique, he also did not let us in, but he said " Hey I really want to hear what you have to say, come back tomorrow, and you guys really need to come back tomorrow."  With such an invitation who can resist.  We went back around two o'clock in the afternoon.  He really was excited to see us,and we taught the first lesson, up until the book of mormon, we marked to teach that part with him, and his wife who was working at the time.  I am very excited for this family.  I will keep you all posted about what happens with this man.

 

I am happy to say that my hands are alot better. I remembered something that Dad once said, that maybe it has something to do with my nail bitting habit.  I stopped bitting my nails, and my hands are much better.  They are not yet 100% but compared with what they had been there is a night and day difference.

 

My camera is broken.  There is something wrong with the zoom. Evidently that is a common defect with the camera.  I had a companion that had the same camera and the same problem.  I had it sent to a place to be fixed. They fixed the problem, and shortly their after it broke again, when I tried to use the zoom.  They will fixed it again free of charge, but I am not sure how long that will last.  I am also having one of my suits trailored. I lost 32 pounds and it is really big on me and one of the sisters in the ward is a seamstress.  I hope that everything turns out alright. 

 

Well gang, I really do not have much else to say other than I love you and I will talk to you guys soon on Christmas.  I will have more stuff to say to you all when that time get closer. Also please send me my partiarical blessing. I would really like to read it.

 

Love,

 

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

Wedding Bells

Blog time,

Hey everyone, I am doing great.  I am still in Santa Maria and loving every minute of it.  My companion and I are getting along just great, and we are teaching a good number of people. Once more we paid for a wedding.  It is really expensive to get hitch in Brazil.  It is a 160 plus reais.  Which does not seem like a lot to you and me , but to a people who are lucky to make 500 reais a month it is a lot.  I understand now why people do not get married here. It is a long and annoying process.  First there is the whole dating thing, then getting the engagment. After the engagment the people have to get their birth certificates, which has to be from the city of birth and a new copy.  So for instance if you are no longer living in the city of your birth  you have to call up the "Cartório" which is the centralized records for that city.  Give them your name and date of birth and the name and date of birth of your parents.  Wait a day or two and you got yourself and new updated birth certificate.  Then after that you enter in to the marrige at the Cartório in the city which you are curently living.  Then give them those things plus a couple of documents and they put you in line to be married, which means that they  will announce in the in the city news paper about the wedding so that someone could says, "wait a minute! That is my wife!" or something one those lines.  Wait 15-30 days after that when a Justice of the Peace is availible and poof, Wedding Brazilian style.  Therefore I doubt that I will ever marry a Brazilian. It is too much of a process.

I am fine, my companion and I went and climbed the mountain once more. I think that it might turn into a weekly thing for us. I feel good about it.  I am not as tired as I was last time, although I think that the sun took more out of me than the climb. I am a little red. Not a whole lot I used sun screen.  By the way if someone would like to send me more sun block, preferably one that is sweat proof, that would be  great.  I have one tube left.

Well family I hope you all are doing really well, and a getting ready for Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  I will talk to you guys soon.

Love,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

Loving every minute of it!!!

Hey everyone,

I am in Santa Maria. I am loving every minute of it. My companion and I and with a few people from our zone, and the ward  climbed a mountain.  Yes I climbed a mountain.  There is a mountain in our area and they have radio antennas we climbed to the tip top and took some pictures, I would send you the pictures but my camera started acting up these last couple of days, and I sent it to be repaired, it should be done by next week.  All things hoping.  But it is a very beuaful climb.  We took some pictures from way up high and you could see the entire city from that vantage point.  It is very pretty.  I will send you the pictures once I copy them from my companion.  We are planning on going back up next week, as well with some of the other zone leaders.

I am very happy here.  I think I will stay in the city a long time.  It has a lot to offer. My companion and I are helping a family of 4 get married.  They want to be baptized, but the only real hold back is marriage.  This place is difficult to find people who are legally married.  Most of the people do not have the money simply to get married and so they just say hey be mine until you get tired of me, and they get together for a while, have a crap ton of children and something eventually will happen and they will split up.  It is the sad, but actual truth.  This family is great though. They are showing real progress.  They will be baptized around thanksgivings day.

I do not know if you guys know, but Brazil just elected a woman president.  Dilma.  She is Brazil's woman presdinte, and as I am gathering it is pretty mixed feelings about the whole thing, but we will see what will happen to her in the next couple of weeks.

I am great, and healthy, and I will talk to you guys later.

Love,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

Salty Son

Hello Family and Friends,

This was my first week in Santa Maria, the headquarters of my beloved mission.  It is a very pretty city.  It is surrounded by mountains which are covered with green trees, and it is my first area which is almost completely flat.  Which is a nice change of pace, although my worry is that I will become chubby once more because I have become lazy in my work outs. I figure that walking up hill everyday, all day would keep me skinny and it has, but now I am in a valley, and a flat one at that. I will just have to break out the jump rope.

Right now I am loving my new area.  It is called Salgado Filho which translates to Salty Son or Salted Son.  I really do not know why it is called that, but once I figure out why they call it that I will let you know. Right now my companion is Elder Rafael.  He is from Santos which is a city on the beach of São Paulo.  For those who have lost count that makes 4 our of my 7 companions up until now are from São Paulo.  The Chruch is very strong there.  He is a good guy and always willing to work so that is a plus.  He is really funny as well. I think that he and I will get along really well this transfer.

My area is "friggin' great."  It is, as my companion puts it, "a model for Rio Grande do Sul."  In all fairness it really is.  The people here are really warm and recepting, and also they are doing really well in the ward.  They have a frequency of 150 to 175 member who go to church on Sunday.  They said that that had dropped however from last year which was 200 plus.  I cannot believe that because their chapel is tiny.  I do not know if you all remember our chapel in Ohio but it is smaller than that.  It is however the strongest ward in the mission.  I feel great here. I feel as if I am a part of the family.

I am also liking our apartement, which is actually a duplex.  It is just my companion and I in this huge place. It is really nice.  My last apartement in Cruz Alta was tiny and we could never keep it clean because there were four of us living there.  I feel much better now.

I really do not have much more to add to that.  Thank you so much for all that you guys did for me.  I hope that you all are doing well.

Love,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

Time to Move on

Hello family and friends,

I have very little to report this week.  I am sorry to say other than I am being transferred to Santa Maria the Salgado Filho zone.  I am very excited about that.  I was feeling somewhat out of place here.  Not that this city is bad or the people are not warm or inviting, just I did not feel like I belonged here, and the Lord though so as well.  I am glad to be moving on, but sad because I will not be her for the 6 or 8 baptisms which my companion and I marked for these next few weeks.  I and fine with that however.  I believe that I will make up for it.  

My new companion is Elder Rafael.  He is from São Paulo the States.  It is like New York.  There is the State of São Paulo and the City.  

This week was interesting for my companion and I. We had an experience which I would not like to relive.  We have been teaching this wonderful woman and her daughter.  They were going to be baptized this week, and something happened in our last visit.  They actually should have been baptized two weeks ago but something always seems to happen.  For instance we had marked to return two Fridays ago.  We get there and the woman and her niece are having a fight.  They were yelling and screaming and some colorful words were used.  She felt it best that she should not be baptized that week.  We remarked the baptism for this last Saturday.  We showed up to her home again the Friday before just to re-teach the Plan of Salvation and confirm with her the new date.  Then just as we invited her daughter to pray someone knocks on the door.  It is the father of her daughter.  Paulo.  Who is evil.  Pure Evil. I have never felt the Spirit of the Lord leave a room so quickly before.  I have meet the devil and his name is Paulo.  The sad thing about it, on our first visit, the daughter of this man was saying that she did like him and that he was a bad person, and we defended him saying, "Oh I am sure that he is just fine. He is your father you have to love him despite all these things. etc."  Never again will I make that mistake.  The man is not a good person.  Even our bishop's wife said that this man was sent by Old Scratch himself.  Anyway to make a long story short they were not baptized this week, but with hope and a lot of faith they will be this week. 

I have heard that there are some packages waiting for me in Santa Maria. I am super excited for that.  I will talk to you guys next week with more excitement and fun in the new area.  

Love,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

Just Time to Think...

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was a pretty uneventful week for me and my companion, although because of its uneventulness we were able to think of things that we were doing that we could improve to find new people to teach. It is amazing the things which God would have us learn.  

It was been a strange lesson for us. We have not had too much success having people prepare themselves for baptism like we had in the past.  Because of this we had some serious reflections about what we need to do to improve our standings.  

We did however mark some baptismal dates this week of a few really good people.  For instance we are teaching this man named Geraldo.  He is a great guy and one of the very few Gaúchos who is educated to a good degree.  He has been studying a lot about other religions and two in particular until we come along.  The first is Hinduism or ari krishnaism, and the other is Spiritism which is a religion that is really popular here in Cruz Alta which is the religion that Alan Kardec made.  I had never heard about it until I came to Brazil. Go figure.  Find a religion from the States in another country.  This religion believes in reincarnation by way of the Atonement of Christ, and not the resurrection which is somewhat strange because even the Bible in almost every version that I have read in any language says resurrection.  Geraldo has decide to be baptized in our church because of the things which he felt during our lessons.  It was a good feeling that I had when I invited him for baptism.  

Love,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere