The blessings of Janaúba‏ - July 29, 2013

Baptism of  ?  the son of a member in Januaba.

Here is an update, finally after 2 weeks of waiting.

I´m still here in Janaúba. My comp. Elder F. Vargas is from Curitiba, Brasil. He doesn´t speak english, (for now) and he´s been in the field since november. I am senior companion. 

Elder F. Vargas is short, but super funny. He´s really helping my portugues, It is really hard to think in english now. I am teaching him english, but he is really awful. it is super funny.  but he will get better.

Here the work is moving forward. we baptized a son of a member this week. which was super great

Time is also short today, but i will send a cheney´s letter this week with more info

Love you all

Local Scenery

Elder Craig

NOTES :

Craig is full time Portuguese and is thinking and dreaming in the language.  His vocabulary is expanding too.  He received his birthday package, but is not opening most of it until his birthday in August.  He was surprised by the CD player and the CD's of General Conference.  He says he didn't notice that the GA's had accents until now 

lots to say, super slow internet‏ - July 22, 2013

Mission Conference July 2013

So we had a tech disaster here in janauba. there is only 2 lan houses.
and the internet in one was turned off and now is supeeeeer sloow and
the other is closed. so not really much time to say stuff because p
day is almost over now. 

 
here is the news.
Elder Allphin was transfered, i stayed here
My new comp is Elder F. Vargas and he is brazilian he has one more
transfer than i do in the field. we came to CTM the same day.
and i am senior companion. 

 We went to BH we left thursday night at midnight got there 7:30 in BH.
had conference and returned to Janauba at 7 pm that same night. 

Love you 

 
ps i got the package already :)

Note from Mom:

We sent his Birthday package on July 5th and it normally takes about 6-8 weeks for a package to arrive at the mission home in Belo Horizonte.  Then the package waits to be delivered to the missionary either by someone traveling to the area or when the missionary travels to BH for a conference or some other reason.  So it can be months for a missionary to receive a package from home.  This is a tender mercy and quite a miracle that his package arrived there in less than 2 weeks in order for him to be able to pick it up at the conference.

The mission held a Mission Conference this past week and Elder Jairo Mazzagardi spoke to them. Elder Applegate is normally 11 hours by bus from the mission home, so his travels were not a small thing. They must have driven straight through to make it in less than 8 hours. That would be 2 nights in a row sleeping on a bus.... not too fun.   Can't wait to get more details next week!

A roça. (the ranch) July 15, 2013

What a wonderful week here on the farm

Fr....a - our miracle baptism - had a very wonderful week full of trials and blessings. We took the trip to her house two times this week. and it is a trip. She literally lives out in the middle of farm land. We were surrounded by banana trees and other farm land. There in the little city she had people saying all sorts of things horrible to her about the church, even two pastors from her old church showed up there to "talk to her" but she remained true to her testemony and was baptized on sunday. she is one of the best human beings i have ever met. she cares for the poor, visits the sick, gives people free vegetables from her garden and loves the book of mormon. People like her just don´t exist anymore. It was a wonderful experience for her. It also excited the branch here too.

Elder Allphin, Fr....a, Elder Applegate

The ranch is a wonderful place full of bananas and fruit and vegetables and animals. i took a bunch of pictures that i´ll send soon.  We were surely the first americans to ever set foot in that little town, but there are people prepared to hear the gospel there too. as well as the falsehoods of the church being a sect of the devil, but good people there.

We also had a zone conference with Presidente Fortunato and it was awesome. He is a great man and helps us sooooo much. We also had lunch at a rodizio. (tucanos style) which was super good. The meat here in brazil is awesome. 

On sunday i taught in elderes quorum about the Relief society (the weirdest lesson ever).

Anyway things are going really well here in Janaúba, and we´re in for a great week, even though we will be traveling to Belo Horizonte this week. But it will be a great week anyway. 

God loves us, and miracles happen.

Elder Applegate

Notes from other emails:

The mission did a group fast so that the missionaries could get their visa. out of 10 elders that should be in our mission. at least 7 got their visas and are coming here this week. Presidente thinks that the other 3 should be getting theirs soon also. This was the day after the fast that this happened. Miracle!

We get to travel to BH to hear Elder Jairo Mazzagardi this week.  2 hours to Montes Claros and 8 more hours to BH. It´ll be great.

Dynamite kinda disappeared. he is never in his house, but we´ll find him one day :) just keep on praying. and pray for rain here in janaúba, it is super dusty and a little hot here. :)

Wind, Dust, and Miracles - July 8, 2013

July 8, 2013

Its been super windy this week and i´ve eaten a lot of dirt, but all is well.

We had a great week of finding new investigators, but none of them came to church. That jonathan dissappeared and his family is anti-mormon, very anti mormon, but he´s not there anymore  (its in God´s hand now, and i trust his hands) 

We made contact with this guy on the street, his name was Dynamite. When we taught him we found out he is a professional fighter. He´s fought 36 fights and only lost 1, he is super big, but he got the crap beat out of him by the spirit. We taught  a very spiritual lesson and he looked tired after it. He accepted to continue. we´ll be teaching him this week, lets see how it turns out. :) i feel weird when i pray for Dynamite, mas tudo bem.   but okay

Last night i saw a star. it was a 5 point star like this literally, it was pretty sweet. 

and now for the miracle:
Sunday we had none of our investigators of the week go to church, only a couple who still need to get married, but this woman, Francisca. came alone. She lives 20  miles out of the city. She tried to kill herself this week, she was going to drink poison, she tilted the cup to drink when she saw the front of the church with the plaque of the church in the bottom of the glass and felt the spirit tell her to go there. she came to the city a few times this week searching for the church by name and couldn´t find it. When she found it it was closed, she came back 3 times in the week to see if someone was there. The third time the branch presidente was there and told her to come back on sunday. On sunday she asked if she could bear her testamony. She told us all this story and said that she has been looking for God her whole life but never found him in any church. But that today she had found him. She loved church and wants to be baptized next week. So we´re going to be making this 20 mile trek to her house a few times this week to teach her and her family. We had been working out butts off this week to have someone to be baptized. nobody we found came,but God lead someone to us. As pessoas que buscam a verdade sempre vão encontrá-la. oops that was portuguese. The people who search the truth will always find it. God loves his children and he hears our prayers. 

Miracles happen, after the trial of our faith. 
remember With faith comes works and after our works comes the miracles. 
Jesus Cristo é nosso salvador, e esta é a Sua Igreja. Sei disso. 
Jesus Christ is our savior, and this is His Church. I know that.
Love you
Elder Applegate

São João‏ - July 1, 2013

This is the Lan house I am using the computer at today!  

Familia Querida

first off i have to tell you about the cliché story. My comp and I helped get a cat out of a tree. Very cliché. i laughed. 

People we taught: A reformed drug dealer, who is changing his life, (he accepted to be baptised, but he still has 23 years of parole to complete before anything could even happen.)
Lots of people who are not married legally
Jonathan - a 23 year old who is going to the states to study, he leaves july 14th, his baptism is marked for july 7 and confirmation july 13. We don´t know how it will all work out, he goes to rio this week to work out his travel plans, but we´re hoping for a miracle. 

Our baptism for this week didn´t want to be baptised, because of fear of family rejection, sad that some people don´t want to follow the truth.

It was really a normal week, nothing super extraordinary.

The catholics have been partying every night this week in celebration of JOhn the Baptist. crazy stuff.

Love ya´ll
Elder Applegate

Q & A email:

I have some questions that people have asked.  How many members in your branch there? 

 i think about 70 that still live here. 

How many active members? Very few, last sunday had 35 people there.  

Do you still tract? Yes, still quite a bit, but we are working on changing that.  

Are any of the demonstrations going on around Brazil in  your area? In janaúba, no, it is way to quiet here. In Belo Horizonte there have been some, but here no. 

 And why are the Catholics you are teaching angry? Because if they change churches they have to obey the commandments