May 25, 2010

family,

this week was so good. we had conference and i learned so much about
what i need to do to be a better missionary. im so grateful to have a
president that is inspired by god. im truly going to miss him. however
im excited for the change of presidents to be able to learn more from
a different perspective. this week we baptized 3. we had success
because we changed what we were doing and tried something new and the
lord blessed our efforts. we have a family that we are going to
baptized in a month, i hope i can be here to baptized them but i think
i will be transfered. its going to take awhile to baptize them because
they have to get married. but whether or not im here when they get
baptized i will be happy.

i learned alot this week about the importance of my calling and how i
need to always try to be better everyday to be worthy of this amazing
work.

oh will someone let me know what is going on with az and the mexcians??

im going to send pics..

oh mom you are going to like this... i bought protein powder and i
already gained couple pounds. i am doing exerises in the morning and
its helping alot...

so this week we are going to baptize a guy that couldnt be baptized 4
weeks ago because of something that he had done in his past.. but he
will be baptized this week because president is coming to sousa and he
will be able to be interviewed by president.. so he will be baptized.
i feel like we are helping more people and helping them truly
understand what this gospel means. im so grateful to be here. thanks
everyone for the love and support!!!


love

elder fletcher

the first one is the first vision. im the black joe smith

the second is s sign in a church here that says that all the peopke
must pay more than 50dollars of tithing.. apostasy

third is me on a bridge

the fourth is a crazy man that we saw at a dinasour park

and the last is the baptism of this week..

7/13/09

family!

Okay so this week was different. we had a good week of work. then friday night we found out that we are no longer having sacrament meetings here in goianinha. because its taking to long to grow. so sundays we have to bring all our members and investigators to another city for sunday meetings. wait it gets worse.... they have to pay 4 reais(more or less 2 dollars) to go to church every week. and they dont have money. wait it gets worse.... they have to travel 40 minutes too. and its a sacrifice that many are willing to make. but its going to be hard when we teach people about the gospel and then say ``okay this sunday we have a meeting you have to travel 40 minutes and pay to attend.´´

so tuesday me and elder de oliveira are going to have a meeting with the mission president. we are thinking that he is going to close the area. which is sad. this area is good.

so on friday we found all this out and they said next sunday this starts. so yesterday was going to be the final sacrament meeting here in goianinha. me and my comp prepared talks on the blessings of sacrifice and it was going to be a beautiful final meeting. but then the lady that has the key to the school where we have meetings left for the weekend. so we had to travel 40 minutes to the other chapel at the last minute. wait it gets worse... we had 6 investigators who were going to be baptized. but they didnt have money to go. so we used our money and were able to bring people to church. 3!! was not good. so we are going to plead with president for the mission to pay for a bus to travel every week. that would be perfect.

anyway i dont think you care about that. but its whats on my mind.

wow almost 5 months here on the mission. time is passing fast. yet slow also.

mom i still havent got the card. so tomorrow we have interviews with the president and he brings the letters that arrived in the mission home. so next letter i will let you know wheter to cancel or not.

oh before i forget. next week is transfers so i wont email until wednesday of next week.

other than that im doing great, being blessed beyond belief. and portuguese rocks. i cant wait to be 100% fluent because its such an interesting language. you guys are going to like it. well i dont know what else to say. the next time i write ill probably will be in another city.
Im happy for the things i learned here in Goianinha.

well i love you all. keep rocking in the USA!

love
elder fletcher

p.s. john 16:33 rocks

p.p.s. are they still going crazy about micheal jackson? because here its non stop!!

7/8/2009

family!!

so im writing now cuz we had pday with 4 zones on monday!! so i didnt have time to write. well thats good you guys are out of the house, im sure you wont be completly settled in for a while, but it will happen. Whats with the cats? im so glad you guys have cats, but i wanna know what brought this on? haha. im so glad to hear that everything is good. it makes the week that much better.

now with an experience. remember that kid that was in Lauras ward and he had the same bday, same mission call, same day, same birthday, same airplane.. all these things the same as me? well his name is Elder Leseur and he has been in my district. and on friday we did divisions and me and him got to teach together. we are both the exact same age, our famlies live 5 minutes away from eachother, and we have been on the mission for the exact same amount of time. and we got to teach alot of people together. it was so awesome.

okay and so pday with the zones. 4 of the 10 zones had pday together. we played soccer, ate alot of candy, and played a ton of games. The president had prizes for the winners of all of them and it was a blast!! so much fun!!! then me and my companion got to spend the night at the house of other missionaries. so much fun too. then tuesday morning we had zone conference. it was amazing. i learned so much and president taught us things that are going to help so much. these past two days have been so much fun. but now its time to get back to work. im excited.

Okay mom the card didnt arrive so i when i write on monday i will tell you whether or not to cancel okay?

well all is well here and im glad to hear from you guys every week. keep doing whats right and the Lord will bless you all. i love this work and the gospel. its true.

Love

Elder Fletcher

6/29/09

family!

okay to start mom i didnt get the card yet. i only recieve letters once a month so if it doesnt come by the end of june then ill tell you to cancel it.

okay so the big news is michael jackson. wow. hes dead. People here are nuts about him, so i cant imagine there. Dad that brazil v usa game makes me crazy. Im getting reamed here because usa was up 2 nothing. everyone here is giving me crap. its way funny. the teaching is good. we have zone conference in a week and president told us to study chapter 10 in preach my gospel which is teaching skills so i think were going to learn alot of new things. im excited.

im glad to hear about the house and about how everything there is good.things are good here. We had a lot of baptisms this week and good success. we worked our butts off. im so tired. pday is like heaven.

im still in shock about micheal jackson. but at least tons of children are now safe. one thing weird about here is that everyone listens to the same music as us. they have no idea what they are listening to. its way funny. and all the kids ask me to translate...

remember that women i talked about that hid from us. well we talked to her during the week and she said she is ready for baptism, so the zone leaders came again... and guess what? she wasnt there. they got mad. we got more mad. so we went to her house yesterday and told her if were not going to teach here anymore. kinda sad.

i dont have many details. i remember when devin was on his mission he sent a lot of letters without details and i was mad. but i understand now. not that things dont happen but its not like crazy exciting things every week.

oh i just remembered a thing that happened... haha... so we taught this girl the 1st lesson and she loved it. so on saturday we went to her house and we clapped at her door but no one answered. so i looked in the window and here entire family was there. they didnt want to let us in. so we basically forced our way in and we asked her parents if they would like to hear our message. they said no because the are christians. i said so are we. they laughed. so i asked if we can teach her daughter. so we started reading with her in 2nd nephi 31.. about baptism of Jesus and that we need to follow his example and be baptized the same way he was. (1. proper age 2. Immersion 3. proper authority). and they laughed some more. it was ugly. then my comp stopped and asked the her are you going to follow the example of Christ abd be baptized by someone who has authority. she looked at her parents and they were laughing. so she said no. we were upset because her parents influenced her. so after this the were laughing and said our church has problems. then my comp just bore sincere testimony that this is the only true church and then i followed. when we did this the spirit entered the room and they became silent. dead silent. they knew we knew. it was awesome. this made my testimony grow. we entered there house thinking that she would be baptized, left knowing that she probably wont, but yet we were happy. this is what the knowledge of the truth does. HAPPINESS.

okay well i gotta run. my comp has been done writing for ten minutes!! haha. well i love you all so much. until next time.


Elder fletcher

p.s. RIP MJ

6/22/09

Family!!

Im seriously so stoked about Davids mission call. When i read it, i had the EXACT same feelings when i opened my call... basically this (overcome by the spirit) 创yeah that makes sense创 i really felt like i already knew it. its so perfect.. i cant really explain it. but wow thats so awesome and he will joining me in 2 and a half months.

So this week was okay... to answer your questions mom yes we are keeping ours spirits up. its difficult to do so. but we are. we had 6 baptisms scheduled for this week and we had 2. it was way depressing to see that the people we have been teaching werent truly ready or wanted to be baptized. but i thought to myself that we did all we could. we served them taught them the gospel and loved them. the rest is up to them. its still difficult though. but whatever.

I only get to call home on mothers day and christmas. but happy fathers day!!

so one of the ladys that we were teaching and she was excited to be a member had an interesting expericence. before baptism our investigators need to be interviewed by the zone leaders. they live 1 hour away. so they arrived to interview here but she wasnt at home like she promised she would be. so then saturday night we talked to her and she said im sorry and she really wants to be baptized. so then we called the ZL and begged him to come on sunday to interview her right befor baptism. so he came and... you guessed it. she wasnt home.... well actually she was but here sister said she wasnt. we knew she was. so we went to the back of her house to see and we saw her run to the front. then we went to the front and she ran to the back... it was ridiculous. and truly sad. but whatever haha.

So im glad to hear that all is well there. i miss you all. today i was studying in alma and i came across alma 39:14 which talks more about not setting our hearts on riches. (dont worry im not starting with that again) haha but i want to clarify what i meant. i want a nice house, i want really nice things, and i want a 2010 range rover. there is nothing wrong with wanting these things. its just when we put these things ahead of what really matters is the problem. so sorry if i made someone mad about calling americans idiots. i love americans!! haha

So all is well here. life is good. OH yeah. me and my comp got pink eye this week. when we entered peoples homes they thought we were on drugs. it was way funny. but it sucked cuz it hurt like crap and these past few days i have had a headache.

the language is going good. i feel comfortable in almost all situations now. im blessed cuz there is no way i could learn a new language in 4 months without the help of the Lord. 4 months? wow now that i think of it time is passing way fast. wow.

well i love you all and i cant wait to here from you all again. keep living the gospel and youll keep being blessed.

love yall

Elder Fletcher

ps sorry about my closet mom. ill make up for it someday. i know its a disaster.

6/15/2009

Family and friends,

So these past 4 days were good. i dont know why only kendal wrote me. did i not send a letter on wednesday?? anyway its all good. i had a good week. although we had crap results. we have about 25 active members. and with the people we bring to church that are investigating the church and friends of member usually we have 45 people. yesterday we had 20 people total. and we gave talks, mine was about the importance of member in missionary work. i had quotes from prophets scriptures the whole deal. but no one was there!!! ughh. the people here are awesome but they have problems coming to church. i think its cuz its in a house and not a beautiful building. other areas have these unbeliveable chapels, more beautiful then the new ones there in the usa. but we dont have one and it makes it more difficult. but this shouldnt be a problem, they should want to come to church to learn about the savior, not for the beautiful buildings. i guess it falls on us and we need to stress the importance of sunday worship.

this week i have realized how unbealivably rich we are in the USA. wow. here the people have nothing. the rich families have a bike. the really rich families have a motorcycle and the loaded families have one car. people have one bedroom for 8 people. some families have no refigrator, no one has a dish washer, washing machine, or dryer. no one has a computer, no one has a tv more the 24 inches, no has more than 2 pairs of shoes, no one has carpeted floors, no one has 2 stories, or a basement, no one has more than 3 couches..... etc etc etc

whats my point? we are so unbeliveably blessed to live in the USA and to have what we have.. but americans are the people who complain the most, most selfish and greedy, most envious, most depressed, most rude... why? because money truly does not bring happiness. family, friends, the gospel, and love bring happiness. truly thank the Lord everyday for what we have.

in the Book of Mormon we all know the pattern of humility, blessings, wealth, pride, trangression, destuction,... then humilty, blessings....etc etc. Well the BOM is the record of the people on the american continent. this pattern hasnt stopped. we are ripe for destuction again. Be humble.

i have no idea why im talking about this. haha. but we need to be more thankful because we truly are blessed!

well all is well here. i look forward to hearing from you all again, and to hear where david is going. i love you all so much!!

Elder Fletcher

6/10/09

ok to start off i didnt write moday cuz this week is transfers. so pday is today. every 6 weeks one pday is wednesday. but yeah. so me and my comp are staying in goianinha for 6 more weeks. i thought he was going to be transfered for sure, but no. im glad. i still need a little more training. haha. but before i forget Devin F., scott jensens little brother is in my mission. i saw him at interviews and he was like is ´´is your brother devin? he was excited. he had 7 months on the mission and he is already a trainer. he rocks. any way mom i havent recieved the card yet but its still all good. i think i will next zone conference. and the weather is crazy! i have never seen it rain this hard. its unreal. and after it gets way hot. food is still way good. way good. oh and the man stopped his drinking binge and in church he bore his testimony and apologized to his family and everyone. it was good. so this week was good. we also had a training with a member of the seventy Elder.... i dont remember but it was good. he talked about alot of things. so im glad im staying here for another transfer. we have alot more investigators. and the language has come so fast, i feel like i will be fluent in a month or so. its crazy. thats good about the house and continue to adjust. itll take time, just be patient.


ok name the cat after me!!


umm ill be writing you on monday again. i feel like im forgetting something... oh well i love you all sorry i dont have anything interesting! continue to do whats right and the Lord will bless all of you!!

love yall

elder fletcher


ps read the book of mormon already!!!!