Brasil vs Chile June 28, 2014

June 28, 2014

There is a game going on right now between brasil and Chile here in BH. Opa.

 Brasil fez Gol!  BRAAAAASILLLLL!!!

anyway. this week has been full of divisions. ( i learned that divisão in english would be exchange in missionary terms, but i will stick with divisions) Tuesday i divided for 24 hours with a district leader. Thursday i divided with Elder Dunford and Friday i divided with Elder Dunford again.We were going to go on another but we had some unexpected things come up. We had just gotten back from our division in Sevilha e Ribeirão das Neves when president told us that we were getting a missionary from the Salvador South Mission. There were some problems and he was permanently reassigned to our mission. so i went with Elder Dunford to go get him in the airport. When we got him he was just as surprised as he was. We knew before he did that he was reassigned. He only knew when his old Mission President dropped him off at the airport.

 We are not sure exactly what happend, but he will be staying with us until next tuesday when we will have a transfer. he has 1 year and 5 months on the mission. He seems just fine, but president said to be careful with looks and to keep an eye on him. It´ll be good for him to have a new beginning. 

I dont really have much to write this week, so i think i´ll write a letter and send it scanned next week. or later today, i dont know. 

There is a lot of noise when brasil makes a goal that it is really distracting. 

Here are some things I have learned recently from President

     - We need to know how to find new investigators so that we can find a future wife

     - We need to know how to ask for referrals so that we can find a future wife

and most importantly

     - We need to know how to help someone make and keep commitments so that we can help our          future wife get married to us

President talks alot about marriage with us. I guess it must be important

Well i love you all

Elder Applegate

Questions and Answers June 28, 2014

June 28, 2014

I´m now from Texas, it just lacks the cowboy hat.

Dear Craigory!

Mother dearest, 

So you want questions?  

Yes i do.

I have many, but I didn't know if you would want to answer, so here goes... remember you asked....  lol

How old is this mission?

well it started around 1970 then it split, but it was reformed into one mission about 5 years ago. 

What year did the Fortunato's come to the mission?

July 2012

Where are they from and what did he do for a job before?

They are from São Paulo and he is an entrepenuer, he works with graphic advertising and other stuff. 

Tell me about their family, how many kids, ages.

They have 3 daughters...i dont know the ages, but the youngest is 16, she will finish high school in utah this year, up in Lehi. 

How many zones in the mission?

10 for now and soon to be 11

Zona BH

BH Oeste

BH Leste

Pampulha

Contagem

Interlagos

Sete Lagoas

Ipatinga

Montes Claros

Divinopolis

Pampulha will divide into 2 zones really soon.

How many elders? 167

How many sisters? 48

How many US missionaries?

How many from Utah? 12 from utah 

Any from Utah Valley? Sister Batemen is from Goshen. she went to payson high school. A bunch of them came from BYU so i guess you could call it UTah Valley 

Any planning on attending BYU? Only about 50 or so. 

How many visa waiters are still waiting to come to your mission? about 18

What day are you scheduled to come home?  wouldn´t you like to know. :)

What percentage of missionaries are from Brazil? more than half

Will you and most of the office staff all leave at the same time?  They were in your group at the CTM, right?

Elder Dunford will go back to the feild next month, Elder Sonnefeld will probably go back in the field in august. So the offic will not all leave at once. :)

How much weight have you gained in the last couple of months, since you came into the office? I am at 70 kilos (153 lbs)

What is your favorite food these days? that is a really good question. brasilian food. :)

Are you really cold at 70 degrees? not really cold, but it is a little chilly. 

What is the best story of faith you have experienced on the mission?.... so far.

this is a hard question, because the best story of faith are the ones that happen everyday, did you want faith of the missionaries or faith from the members or faith from the investigators?

Which is the coolest conversion story so far?

All of them, every one is really awesome, but the most current one is from an investigator. We haven´t really taught him much, but he´s been reading the BoM and he is seeing his faith grow. He watch the joseph smith movie and other church movies online without us even asking, he is traveling this week, but he has a date for next saturday. His name is Icaro

What advice would you give a missionary about to leave,   ie:  Chase Dietz?

just get out there and do it. Leave everything else behind. Put all your thoughts, actions, and feelings into the work. Disconnect yourself from home and connect yourself to your area. PDAY is the only day you can think a little bit more about home. Dont worry about anything else except for the Mission. You cannot wait until the end of your mission and ask the Lord, in prayer, to accept your mission; you have to work everyday so that the Lord accepts. THE FEILD IS WHITE ALL READY TO HARVEST! you dont need a sickle anymore, you need a freakin combine. 

Enough questions?

You can keep them coming i am liking them.  Haha!!    I challenge you to answer all of them!!

So I found this article and thought you might find it interesting/ helpful. 

It is an article from the Church News about adjustments made for more effective teamwork between missionaries and local leaders; ( you may have to copy and paste the link)
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865605731/Adjustments-made-for-more-effective-team-work-between-missionaries-and-local-leaders.html?%20pg=all#LGziuvA0S97188EE.01

Yay more work for us! this will help a lot because most of us dont know how to teach lesson 5

In a week I am leaving for YW camp to cook..... this will be the ONLY time I ever do this!!  It is the most stressful thing I have been asked to do EVER!  Cooking and me are not on good terms anyway and now I have to go cook for not only the stake staff, but the Stake presidency and any "Special Guests" that are coming up to speak.  This could be Noelle Picus Pace (Winter Olympic Medalist) or the General YW President.... or who knows??  I am stressed.  Never again.  Never.

...and there is no electricity or refrigeration.  Stressed.

Special Guests.....GAs? One of the twelve? who knows. There is someone special coming to BH in august to have a stake conference, everyone is excited.  

Dad is going to go with me to help since the sister I asked to be called to help said no.  She is smarter than me.  Dad and I are a good team so it will be good.

We will stay in the trailer.  Just pray for me to get through this with sanity intact....as much as it can be for me that is.  ;)

its just food. :) make a big pan of rice and a big pot of beans and call it exotic. 

Well I hope you have a better week than I know is ahead of me!  Stay strong, be safe, floss, do 50 pushups, eat veggies, and know that I LOVE YOU!!

50 push ups? alright lets go. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50! I love vegetables. 

Love you ALWAYS!!!!!!

Mom

Any more questions?

Elder Applegate

Frio em Junho Cold in June June 21, 2014

June 21, 2014

Well we´ve hit brasilian winter

The weather hsa been a little chilly here with highs in the 70´s and lows at night in the 50´s....the sad thing is that i am cold. I´ve gotten out the sweater again. 

So here is the run through. Last sunday we had some special visiters. Elder Cruz of the area 70, Presidente Fortunato, and the stake president. When we got to The Gospel Principles class we realized that nobody had prepared the lesson, so it was my turn to wing the lesson. But wait, who came in....Elder Cruz, Presidente Fortunato, and the stake president. Talk about an intimidating crowd....Yesterday the bishop said that one of the few comments that Elder Cruz made about the ward was that he was preocuppied about the new members class, (not that i taught apostasy and false doctrine, but that we dont have a teacher) 

We also went to 7 lagoas to do a quick visit and a quick division. really its been a pretty chill week, we spent some more time in our own area, so the work is going, we´ve found a family where the children are giong to seminary every morning at 5;30, so its been a pretty good week. Our investigator is being a little bit difficult, but we´ll get him in the water. 

My legs hurt because we have gone up a lot of hills this week. alot of really BIG hills. 

We did a division with the ZLs here in BH and i hike up more hills, but it was pretty good. They will baptize a family of 4 today and it was good to get to know them and do their interview. 

This week President Showed us in D&C 4, 6, 10, 11, 12, 14 and pointed out some common themes to help strengthen the faith of the missionaries and we have talked with every ZL this week to put in action some new plans. 

Things are going well. I love the mission. I hope you are all great. I am doing wonderful. I love the mission. 

Love you all

Elder Applegate

PS send some questions you all would like answered. i would like that

Copa do Mundo 2014 and the airport June 14, 2014 World Cup 2014

June 14, 2014

Hey there Family, I´ve had a very different week this week

To start it off we had a regional conference broadcast from Salt Lake with Elder Ballard and Elder Scott, it was pretty cool they talked about prayer and the Law of Chastity. Elder Scott spoke in portuguese. 

Monday we prepared for the transfer that would happen and for the new missionaries that would come in. 

Tuesday we went to the airport to pick up the new missionaries, three hispanics and 1 brasileiro. I found out that the brasileiro has my same birthday. I made a new friend. We had lunch in the Mission Home (super good!) i ate three platefuls (a salad plate, a plate of lasagna and rice, and a plate of chicken and potatoes.) then i ate three peices of cake with chocolate sauce and ice cream. The new sister who was sitting next to me looked at me and said "you sure do eat alot, but you are still really skinny" I almost choked on my cake. Then that night we did a division with the two new elders....well that was an experience... I spent the whole night praying that we wouldn´t find someone who would reject us and be rude. We didn´t, we actually did some great contacts, found some nice people, then we tried to teach a first lesson to a guy on a bench...well that was an experience...i remembered that night how it wsa to be a missionary in the first week of the mission. It is incredible how much i have learned in such a short time. That night we got to do transfers.  I called the missionaries and told them they were transfered. The responses are pretty funny, here is one that happened. (me) "Hello Elder Kolhs, how are you?" (elder kolhs) "I was fine until you called."

(me) "Elder Kolhs you are being transfered! Pack your bags and come to the bus station tomorrow morning at 8:30! See ya tomorrow! Bye!" It was quite a fun thing to do. 

Wednesday we did the transfer in the bus station. Everyone was together and then they learned where they would go and who they would be with. It is pretty exciting. Then we had lunch in the mission home again with the missionaries who were going home. ( another great lunch) and then we took them to the airport. This is the not so fun part of my job. Sitting around with 4 trunky missionaries waiting for them to get through security at the right time. Then we got home that night and went to sleep.

Thursday we had a normal morning of study and practice, then in the afternoon, right before the Opening of the World Cup we went to the airport again to take another missionary to catch his flight. While in the airport we ran into a member from Springville (he´s alright, we didn´t hit him that hard) He is brasilian but he is living in springville, his name is jefferson. Small world huh. We were in the airport during the game, and we could hear every goal that was made, The whole country explode in cheers and shouts when there was a goal. and then we also ran into a Carls Jr that is about to open in the airport, so i am super excited for the next time we will go there. 

During the games that brazil plays all the missionaries and to be in their houses studying, half an hour before and half an hour after as well as during the game.  It is just easier that way. 

Yesterday we were had a meeting with the District Leaders and then we just worked in our own area, we are teaching a 24 year old student named Icaro. He is making some great progress, he is almost ready to be baptized, he hasn´t accepted a date super strong yet, but he knows that our goal is the 21st. We are also teaching another student who is 19 name Lazaro. He went to church on sunday, he is a friend of a return missionary. He also is being prepared for the 21st, we are still looking for some more people. we have gotten some great referrals of some families who not everyone is a member. We´ve got some great work cut out for us. 

It is being really hard to write this email because i am answering calls from Sister Fortunato and some missionaries, the Police cars keep passing by on the street, people and using noise makers to celebrate the cup and there are a lot of distractions, but thats my life right now. and i am loving it. 

This week will be a little calmer, we have some divisions marked and nothing that will really cause a lot of stress. just a good week of work ahead of us.

Have a great week!

Love you All

Elder Applegate

Cold Water- June 7, 2014

June 7, 2014

Querida Familia,

Just to start off i just wanted to tell y´all what happened last saturday in the baptism. The water heater in the chapel is broken, so the water in the baptismal font was cold. so we boiled about 20 liters of water to put in the font to help (it did nothing). when João got in it was really cold and he got a little nervous, His son who is a recent convert was going to baptise him. He started and said the words wrong and had to repeat them again, then he wasn´t able to get his dad completely under the water, so he had to go again, in the cold water. By this time João was cold and still very nervous, they tried again and he still didn´t go under all the way, He was starting to hyperventilate  and i wasn´t about to let him get out of the water without being baptized. I couldn´t say that my investigator was in the water when he gave up. So I took off my shoes and cleared out my pockets and entered into the water (it wasn´t actually even that cold) with all my clothes on, socks and all and calmed him down and did the baptism. I just acted, after the baptism I felt back pocket and realized that my white bible was in there. soaking wet, along with my ID, my money, a receipt and my cards, all driping wet. When i got home i took them out and put them on the counter to dry. The next day the confirmation was alot simpler. :) Sometimes we have just got to go "all in" the work. After church he joked that he was super baptized, that he was baptized three times. He wasn´t sure if he had been baptized as a baby because the church caught on fire, but now he was absolutely sure. 

This week has also been quite busy. Monday we did our usually follow up on the mission and then we had a meeting with president at about 5:30 after our meeting we needed to prepare for the Zone Leaders Counsel that would be wednesday. We left the office, just to go home and go to bed, but we left well prepared for the counsel. Tuesday we did a division in a neighboring city with Elder Griffin and Elder Amendola (elder Griffin is from my CTM District) and on wednesday we had our ZLC. We talked about what the mission is acomplishing and how our weekly number report shows us what is happening. (I attached my slideshow that i used. ) We discussed how the mission can acheive a new standard of excelence and we learned how much time a missionary really has in his work week. President talked about faith and what kind of faith we need. He quoted the movie Predator and said "se sangre, morre" (if it bleeds, it can die.) and how he sees the areas in the missions "if there are people, then [the area] will baptize!" We established some goals and we are on our way to the mission goal of 202 baptisms. 1 baptism per missionary. 

Then on thursday I did some more running around at the airport to drop another missionary off who was going home early. and yesterday we did a surprise division with another dupla de LZs companionship of Zone Leaders

This morning we did an activity with a few members of the ward, we went to a square and handed out invitations and magazines to everyone. Elder Sonnefeld and I we started walking betweens cars at red lights to give the magazines out and it surprised me at how well it worked. We gave out 300 magazines in 1 hour. Our second to last contact was a catholic guy who asked us if the pope knew that this church existed and if the pope permitted its existence. luckily the light turned green so we didn't have to talk to him that much. Today we are going to have a stake conference adult session about missionary work and tomorrow is a regional conference broadcast from salt lake with two apostles presiding. so i am pretty excited. But yeah that was my week. I am so excited to get lost again in this week. Glad to know that all is going well.

Love you All

Abraço

Elder Applegate

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