Rio is my Neverland
Letter 2-9-09
MOM-thanks for the help with byu. I sure hope I get in. I will tell president about e-mailing it. Actually i will tell the executive secretary, elder hill, a good friend of mine (from my mtc group). He really wants me to go to byu with him, so i bet he’ll get it done right. :-)
Hey you didn’t end the email with one of those “i love you more than [...]” i bet you are running out of new and creative sayings after all this time, but if you reuse the first ones i won’t even notice (b/c “return with honor” makes me sad. I don’t want to return. So if we could just act like that won’t happen for a really long time, that would be great. I feel like peter pan - don’t wanna grow up, don’t wanna go home. Rio is my neverland. Because this same oppotunity can never happen again.)
Maybe you could share some of the cool comparisons that you learned. The truth is that even though i am not a zone leader now, i have to do even MORE trainings. So send the cool ideas. One of the things that we do is try and “focus on the one” missionary. I have a district of 6 and i feel like what i have to do is be close enough to them to know their problems and have them be willing to accept ideas to make things better.
[regarding me asking if he is using his piano “talents”] In nova iguaçu i used to play the piano for sacrament meeting until the organ broke - pretty much just the upper hand, and sometimes just the melody. I played in almost every ward at one time or another. I did prelude at a madureira stake conference (just the hymns that i had memorized :) and i played for the primary in petropolis for a few weeks when they were getting ready for their primary presentation.
ALYCE- hey, keep your chin up. Remember the stake dances? : “work [stinks], i know” (all the small things) man, those were the days. They would turn down the volume for that song and every one would yell it anyway. [sigh...] i guess now you know...
It is really good that YOU didn’t get fired. I guess it is that more obvious why is is so important to always be 100% honest. Integrity could cost a lot more than a job if lost. Maybe you could just suck up to the new boss(es) and maybe share the gospel with them. That is a GREAT idea.
DAD- I spell badly bc i almost never use inglês. I spend all day thinking, writing and speaking another language- that is my excuse. PLUS, these dumb old computadors only have spell check in portuguese. the only funny thing that happened this week was that we taught a man from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I guess i have learned a lot on the mission bc i dont get angry anymore when people say dumb stuff and want to fight with us. This guy was REALLY annoying. Anyway, when i saw that he wasn’t going to let us talk or explain, i calmly told him that we would have to end the lesson. It took a while but finally i got control over the lesson and i said, “well let’s say a closing prayer.” the man got up and was leaving the room, when my dear comp, the greenie that he is, asked the man if he wanted to stay and he said he would IF he could say the prayer. We let him. He said a ridiculous prayer, to which no one was inclined to say amen. I think that was his plan. I opened my eyes and my companion was visibly ticked. The man asked why he didn’t say amen, and my comp gave him a really intense smile. I almost laughed. My comp is a REALLY calm and caring person. But he was NOT happy, and it was pretty funny to see how one annoying man really ruffled his feathers. We got out of there and i calmed him down. I told him some funny stories about other encounters with j-dubs, and when we got home i showed him good scriptures he could use to defend the docrines of the church if he wanted. He got kind of excited. I think it is funny bc i remember early on the mission getting mad when this kind of stuff happened. And now i kind of like being able to stay calm and be honest with the person and tell them that this is not the way that we teach and then invite them to church.
I got the package from gma and gpa! THANKS! My comp thinks that those cookies are the best in the world. The problem was that they open the box in “alfandeges” (forgot the word in english...) dang, i really can’t remember it....oh well, it got here and we are eating everything. The sisters thought that it was cute that i got a teddybear, and said the texture was really neat.
Well, wish i could write more, but there are other things that i also want to do today.
Love you guys,
elder helland
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