October 5, 2012

Oí Família!! Well I have to say that when I saw these pictures I couldn´t believe my eyes! Derek looks like they took Joshua, cut off his head and took dereks head and put on Joshua´s body! hahaha Don´t tell them that I said that, though. :) Looks like you guys had fun at Silverwood. Oh and I hadn´t realized that Krystine had come home to see Joshua go through the temple, that´s why I didn´t understand when you said that there were 5 Jolsteads there. Oh and mother you look a lot slimmer. Not that you weren´t slim before, but you look a lot slimmer. :) That is very sad about Kurtis. He´s fine though right? I mean with the sickness that he caught. That is one of the risks that we have here. But its not as bad as you think. And even more important is that even if the food could give us some disease the Lord won´t let that happen unless its suppose to and its for our good. The Lord wouldn´t have let Kurtis get sick if it wasn´t what was suppose to happen and what the Lord wanted to happen. It is sad though. I forgot to tell you that a missionary came home here in Santa Maria who knew Kurtis in the mission. An Elder Hammer I think. Anyway this week was very different. The President sent us both, me and my companion to work with 2 different companionships of Zone Leaders. So basically we left our area with no one working here for 2 days. Something interesting is that the President said that if we did this we shouldn´t worry about our area here because the Lord would bless us. So we left Tuesday. I stayed here in Santa Maria to help the ZL´s here. It was a pretty awesome experience. The first day it was raining a lot and they had the whole day planed. We prayed before left asking the Lord to help us find a family too. Then at one point after lunch one of the elders lost his planner and with it all the addresses of the people that we´d visit that day. So we were a little sad about that so we said a prayer and asked the Lord to help us find his planner. Then we searched for a long time and decided to just let it go for now and try to find new investigators. So we spent most of the afternoon doing that. Then at night we were walking and we saw a woman walking with her daughter with a ton of grocieres in the rain. So we went up to her and offered help and gave her our umbrella. So we walked with her to her house and we talked with her about her family. She has 8 children and she said that she going to a church but doesn´t like it anymore because of all the ridiculous rules that they have there and how she is looking for a church to join. Well you can guess how happy we were: 8 children, looking for a new church to join; we knew from the beginning that this family was prepared to hear the gospel. So we arrived at her house and we taught the Restoration and at the end we invited them to be baptized and they accepted and when we invited them come to church she looked at her husband and said, ´´I don´t know about you but I´m going this Sunday.`` So anyway if you think that this experience is cool guess what happened after we left their house...We found the planner that had been lost with all those addresses. Something that I realized after was that all this was so that we could find that family, because if that Elder hadn´t have lost his planner we would have gone to all these other plans and we never would have found that family and even cooler was the fact that the Lord answered both prayers: Find a family and find the planner. Everything worked out perfectly, just how the Lord wanted it. And even better was when we came back to our area to work yesterday, the Lord really did bless me and my companion like the president said. We found 3 people who were also prepared to hear the gospel and were able to teach more lessons then we usually can in one day. We taught them and they accepted to baptized as well. So anyway that was a cool experience. If we´re obedient and do our part the Lord will do his part and everything will work out, even when we aren´t able to see how it could work out as perfectly as it does. That´s what Moroni means when he talks about the trial of our faith. That´s crazy that Joshua is leaving this week. He shouldn´t worry though the MTC is awesome. He´d better learn to like it too because he´ll be there for 3 months haha. Anyway so I´m excited about conference. It´ll give me that extra boost. So anyway that´s about it. We should be having another baptism here soon. The problem is we need to marry her first and that´s proving to be a lot harder then it should be. It seems like there´s everything going against her and we haven´t been able to start the marriage process yet, but today we´ll try again. Have a great week. love you guys Elder Jolstead

September 28, 2012

Oí minha família amada! So how´s everyone doing? Back in school now? Can you believe its almost October? I think we´ll buy a pumpkin and carve it for Halloween. haha The only problem is that the pumkins here are small and green. :) It´ll have to do I guess. I´m also excited for General Conference. Its like two days of trainings from the apostles and the Prophet. That´s good that Derek is doing better in football. That´s cool about everyone in the temple too. But wait who went? I only counted 5 people. Imiss the temple. If it´s possible I want to go there before I´m released as a misionary. I don´t know if that´ll work out but I think it would great to go before they suck the ´´missionary power`` from me. haha So this week was Zone conference week again. My companion traveled with President this time though. I got to stay in our area with another companionship that works in our same ward. It was good, but nothing really special happened this week. The Zone conference was good though. (like always) Our President talked about faith as a principle of power. It was very good. He also talked about the Book of Mormon and how we should use it in the work. So not much else happened. Right now we don´t have to many investigators, but we do have this woman who we are helping to get married. She´s the daughter of one of our recent converts (Joelma who was baptized in August) Little by little we hope to baptize her whole family, because there´s still 3 others who haven´t been baptized yet. In think one is coming around, but still don´t understand what´s stopping her because she always participates in our lessons. She just doesn´t come to church. Oh well everyone has their time. You can´t force conversion; it doesn´t work that way. So yeah that´s about it. Have an awesome week. Love you guys Elder Jolstead

Oí Família! I can´t believe that Joshua will be going in teh next 3 weeks. That went by really fast. I hope he´s ready. So I got your letter and well yes I did get a little dizzy reading it. haha That´s very sad about the Cornelius family. I´m going to miss Bro. Cornelius. Say good bye to them for me ok? So you can probably tell by the fotos that the couple was baptized! Jeferson and Elenita were baptized last Friday and she had her baby tuesday. It may seem weird to you that we prayed and fasted so that the baby wouldn´t be born until after the baptism but the Lord answered our prayer. So this last week it was that same running around that happens every transfer. We went to Porto Alegre again to drop off the dead and pick up the new missionaries. Something unique about this time is that I took my ´´Father`` to the airport. My trainer finally died. (He´s been dieing for a long time now haha) There were a ton of new missionaries, it reminded me of when I came here. My group had about 22 missionaries that arrived. So this transfer will be my last with my companion, Elder A. Santos :( . President already told him he´d be transfered after this one. It´ll be sad, but that´s the way of the mission. No one stays with you forever. Oh and we ate at Subway again today. Oh so I don´t know when you guys will send another package, (probably Christmas right?) But could you send me more eye solution, because the solution I have will expire in November. I didn´t know that eye solution expired but I guess it does. :) Oh and also some scar medicine. I don´t know why but about 2 months ago 2 zits appeared on my nose and for some reason they left scars. ( I didn´t do anything to them too, just washed my face with soap) So anyway it would be great if you could send me some medicine to get rid of scars because they left some pretty long scars on my face. So anyway have a great week everyone! Love you guys. Elder Jolstead

September 14, 2012

Oí!
How´s school going? You ate beets? You know the first time in my life that I ate beets was here in the mission. They´re alright but I have to say that I was a little scared the day after when I used the bathroom. :) If you didn´t understand what I meant, that´s ok. haha Tell Derek not to worry about being on JV. He just needs to work harder and practice more and he will be moved up. So I don´t think I´ve gotten fat, but I think I´ve gotten bigger. When I left I weighed 175lbs. Now I weigh about 190lbs. 15lbs is quite a bit. I think Joshua shouldn´t worry about staying skinny on the mission. :) So the baby hasn´t been born yet! And they´ll be baptized tonight! I´m still praying very hard, but it seems until now that the Lord has answered our prayer and our fast! hahaha So this week has been ok. I got a little sick tuesday, but I´m good now. Today we did a deep cleaning of our apartment. With 4 missionaries it gets pretty messy (especially when the other companionship doesn´t wash there dishes>:( ) So about 3 weeks ago a sister from the ward gave us the leftovers from the lunch we had there and for these passed weeks its been sitting in the refrigerator...well today I was the lucky one (or really the only one willing) to clean the fridge. Its not that we let things rot in the fridge. My companion and I have very little time to do anything p-days so until now we haven´t been able to clean a lot, the other companionship has had time to clean... Anyway so we cleaned our apartment and now its a lot cleaner (and it smells better too) So another transfer will start next monday. The same routine again. I like it though. You learn a lot at the Zone Conferences and all the trainings that we need to do every transfer. The work is going well though. The hard thing about this area is that its extremely hard to find new investigators, but this is also a blessing, because those who we find are the Lord´s elect: those who are prepared by the Lord and who understand our message and are willing to follow the gospel. We do have to walk a lot though, because it takes awhile to find these people:)Well anyway that´s it for this week. Love you guys!
Elder Jolstead

September 7, 2012

Olã!
How´s everyone doing now that there back in school? That´s cool about Joshua practicing with the missionaries. That´ll help him a lot. He has only 5 weeks! Time seems to be flying by! That is awesome about the foreign exchange student. I can imagine how excited Jared is to speak portuguese with her. Ask her what part she´s from because my companion is from São Paulo, in the capital in Interlagos. Maybe she´s from there, but it would be very hard if she knows him because the city of São Paulo is huge. So anyway that´s cool. So this week was alright. It´s getting pretty hot here. And because the city is surrounded by hills its like a pan here. The air is really heavy. Its terrible. :) So today we played basketball with the bishop and some members. Its been awhile and I´m out of shape so I felt like I was dieing haha. We´re going to start playing Mondays and Thursdays really early in the morning to get in shape. The first week will be rough but after that I´ll be used to it. So this next week we will have another baptism of a couple, if all goes well. She´s pregnant and she already passed the due date :( It should be anytime now. If its born normal we´re all good, but if its a C section.... well she´ll be baptized in October. Our fast last week and our daily prayers are asking the Lord to hold that baby until after the baptism! hahaha I hope I have faith enough to delay that baby from coming. haha Anyway so that´s about it for me. Have a great week. I love you guys
Elder Jolstead

Oí Família,
Wow, there´s nothing like family pics to make you trunky! haha I´m just kidding! It looks like you guys had a great time. How tall is Joshua now? He looks pretty tall, really skinny too, but don´t tell him that I said that. He shouldn´t worry though, he´ll get fat on the mission. haha I think I´ve gained about 10 pounds. Its been going up and then down my whole mission though. Its not fat though. I´ve been doing excercises every morning since I´ve been out so I haven´t gotten fat. haha Anyway so this week has been great. We had a baptism this last Sunday: Joelma and her daughter, Raquel. They´re the family that we´ve been teaching awhile now. They have a grown a lot during this time. At the beginning They said that there was no way that they´d wear a skirt to church, but then yesterday when we talked to them they said that they had been looking for skirts in the stores. :) I´ll send you some photos. We are still working with the family though. There is one daughter who needs to get married and we´ve already started the process of marriage for them. She´ll probably get married this month, because it takes awhile to get married here. There´s also one other son that said he will go to church this Sunday. His problem is that he works a lot so its hard to teach him, but he´s cool. Then there´s Camila...the other daughter who listens to all our messages and participates, but doesn´t want to got church, pray, or get baptzed...I really don´t understand why, but we´ll see. The Lord is very good at changing people´s hearts, I´ve seen it more then once. We also found another family this week: a mom and her daughter. They excepted baptism in the first visit without thinking twice. She said that when we talked to her in the street she didn´t want to stop to talk to us, but something told her stop and then after we taught her she said she knew why. It was very awesome. The Lord really is blessing us with a ton of awesome families here. Well anyway that´s about it. thanks for telling me about Jaren, Mother. I hope he´s doing good. Have a great week. Love you guys.
Elder Jolstead