Dec. 29, 2014 Christmas miracles!

Week 28

Christmas week! Everything went as planned. Talking with my family was really fun!

So, while playing with water with my companions, I had a nice encounter with the fridge. I had turned around to run away, and I smashed my face into the corner of the fridge. My nose was bleeding a ton. My companion called several members to take me to the hospital to see if it was broken, but all of the members were busy, so he asked some man on the road and he gave us a lift. There is nothing wrong with my nose. It just went a little swolen, but Sister Canuto was not happy...

Christmas miracles:

I don't know if Christmas was a cause of the miracles, but we had 3 miracles! 

1&2 miracles were two baptism dates marked. They are cousins that we met a few weeks back, but we couldn't get any contact with them recently. We made contact with them and leando asked to be baptised, but his cousin wanted more time, so we have scheduled for this Sunday!

Miracle #3. Antonio, who has been giving us some tea and crackers every visit, decided that he would propose to his woman. Now he is one step closer to baptism!

There was a man that my companion knew in a different area that moved to pirassununga. Well, this man has a brother that is studying in the states, so he had some American candy. There was salt water taffy, peanut butter, peanut butter m&ms, airheads, starbursts, tootsierolls, and he gave it all to us! Awesome!

This Week was amazing

Love

Elder Koby Sullivan

Dec. 25, 2014 skype day!

Christmas Day Skype with brothers in Brazil!

 In the MTC together for 4 weeks. This is the first time they have seen each other for 6 months.

Here is the older brother asking about the souvenir cup with a bear in it that the younger brother sent him.

Closer up of older brother saying, "What in the Heck is THIS?"
                      and the younger brother's reaction.

Another attempt at a family picture with grandma not knowing how to run a camera. :)

Seriously, had no idea this was going on behing me while I was trying to take a selfie!!!!!

NEVER would have guessed this coming from this one of my kids.....

what has happened to my sheltered child?

I still have no idea this is going on.....

Someone clued me in, so he stopped clowning around....

Dec, 22, 2014 christmas party pics

Week 27

So, I have been trying a bunch of foods. I bought a hamburgur here for 6...That was a mistake. It was like a hamburger off of the dollar menu at mcdonalds. I also tried the lengandary Caldo de Cana which looks like bamboo juice, but it is actually juice from sugarcane. It was good, but different. I made peanut butter with little peanut candies and condensed milk. It turned out pretty close! That is an excitement. I have also just gained a big container of protein powder!

We had our Christmas party this week. It was the really fun to talk with my friends, meet new friends, to gift our secret gifts away, and to get a letter from home :). We traveled about an hour to the party which was at Rio Claro.

Elder Contini. My best friend from the other zone.

Elder Cutter David. My friend from 2nd grade.

Elder Domingos. I am teaching him English

The pianist didn't come to church on Sunday, so guess who got to play :)

Here in brazil, they have some knatts. These knatts are very quick and extremely hard to kill and they bite.... I am getting more skilled at killing the knatts, but they still get the better of me and it makes it hard to sleep when the bottom of your feet are bitten. Creme doesn't help the bottom of your feet.:(  I have come with a solution to kill them faster. I will buy a bug zapper. And, if I am lucky, it will be reimbursable, because it is my health. I don't want to get dangue.

The baptism was canceled because our investigator went on a vacation. We don't know when he will return, or if he will return, but we are praying. 

There was an emergency transfer today and now I am senior companion! 

I am really excited for christmas!

Love

Elder Koby Sullivan



My area and companion

Barbaque and My companion

More water fights!

Putting up a roof at a house.

Orange flower that sleeps at night. They are normally red.

Dog that smells us a block away

Park

Tereré

I drank that.....

stormy Christ.

(This is not the real one, the huge one, in Rio. This is a replica.)

Dec. 15, 2014 Christ statue

Week 26

I got a chance to visit the Christ statue this week. It was a mimic, but it was still pretty cool. It sits at the entrance of the city, so we walked pretty far. Photos are really hard on this computer. It will only allow the strange format that I have been sending. 

My companions and I decided to do our own barbaque. It was really fun. Especially because they didn't know how to start a fire and got burned a few times in the process. They didn't like the way I was going to start it, so I stayed out of it. It ended with only a few 2nd degree burns and some really good meat :)

Six months has come and gone. As a tradition, Elders burn their ties. Well, I had received a tie several months ago that was so ugly that when I tried to give it away, I was denied by every elder. Nobody wanted the tie! As I went to burn it, it didn't burn.... The fire only melted the edges, so I gave up. 

My knee has been acting up again lately, so I was forced to stay at home for a day. 

Boa semana para vocês

Elder Koby Sullivan

Dec. 8, 2014 w pics trees +birds

Week 20

         Almost 6 months....

This week was awesome. 

First, our house is big, but how big? Big enough to have a water fight!!! One of the Elders in the house bought little 50 cent squirt guns. My companion grabbed one and squirt me a bit. I ignored it at first, but then he got me really wet a second time, so I ran into our room to grab the other one and started wailing on him. When I had stopped and rested for a bit, he snuck behind me and dumped a bottle of water on my head. (The houses don't have carpet, so it is okay to throw water around:). I stole the water bottle from him and started chasing him. He hid in a nice little corner behind a sink and the washing machine, so he was trapped and I dumped the entire 2 liter bottle on his head! Haha, he was helpless. He then hid in the bathroom for a bit. Little did I know that he was creating a squirt gun with the 2 liter bottle. After chasing me for a bit, I went to bigger weapons as well. For example, a big glass cup that throws a bunch of water at one time. Clearly, I was winning, so another elder teamed up with my companion. They were equiped with mattresses for sheilds and giant pans of water! The final blow is when I went to throw water on my companion and the glass cup slipped and broke on the ground and the gaint pan hit me on the head, but I wasn't hurt at all. It was really fun!

We are teaching a young boy, Cle, around 15 years old. He is scheduled for a baptism on the 20 and he is really excited. One day, we had an appointment with him, but he passed us on the road. We found that he was on his way to play soccer with some of his friends. My companion looked depressed because our appointment was about to be canceled, so I said, "let's go play with them." You should have seen the face of my companion light up. My companion loves soccer, in fact, he plays soccer professionaly. We played with them for a bit and when everyone was tired, we all rested and talked with these kids. They got interested in our message and taught them about our church. One of them is Cle's cousin, Luan. He accepted to be baptized with his cousin and his grandma on the same day! The only problem is is that we have to have permission from his parents first, and they are both catholic. Wish us luck!

Ant is a great investigator as well. He has given us 5 referals. They are all really interested in the church now. We really want Ant to be baptized, but he is afraid to get married. I don't know why, but he is. 

Last thing. The other day I learned something new. I went and bought an ice cream bar from a place called,  Aquele Beijo which means "that Kiss" They call it that because the way that you eat the ice cream is the same way you kiss... I can't eat ice cream the same ever again....

Love\

Elder Koby Sullivan

 After the water fight

After the water fight

DisneyLand!

Zone

Tank!

More cool trees

(boy dogs and girl dogs: teach your owners to catch your crap when you make it.)

Tree with a bunch of parrots. I find 4

My District from the other area

The broken Iron

A road ( if you zoom in, you will see a big water tower. That is about 30 minutes away from where I am. I live about 20 minutes farther. )

Cool tree that I found :)

Anti-social tree

Owl

Parrot

companion

Dec. 1, 2014 new transfer + new companion

Week 19

Tranfers :)

I have fallen in love with Pirassununga. Everything here is so much better, other than the fact that we live about an hour away from our ward.... yeah, imagine having to walk an hour to enter into the prosilyting boundaries. My companion and I are drained from that. 

The bus ride here was nice. It took two hours to get here, and I almost missed the bus with some other elders because we read the ticket wrong.... but we made it!

My companion (Elder Portilho) is really cool. We are really good friends right now. He is from Bethlehem, Brazil :). He only has ten months on the field. 

Here in Pirassununga, it rains, a lot. One of the pairs of shoes I have has a whole, so.... the first day when I wore them, I had wet feet the entire day. It isn't too easy to return to the house to change shoes, because the house is over an hour away. 

Pirassununga is a lot more rich than Piracicaba, so the people are a little bit more difficult. We spent our first day knocking on doors and walked into 0 houses. Four hours of knocking on doors....rich people.....:). It is a good thing that we already have investigators, or we would not have taught anybody that day. 

We have one really nice investigator. His name is Ant. He has a small garden by his house and every night we visit him and every night, he gives us tea from his garden. It is amazing. Right now, he just needs to get married, then he will be baptized. 

Thanksgiving... we kind of forgot about it. Later that night we remembered, so we went and got some ice cream :)

We had a Christmas dinner with the ward on Saturday. It was almost exactly the same as at home. The only thing different was the food, but even then, they were pretty close. Rice, Beans, creamed corn, turkey, and salads. 

Sundays are really cool. The pianist in the ward was having troubles with a song, so she came and asked me to play it during sacrament. It caught me off-gaurd, but I could do it. 

Every Sunday, we visit a little old lady and give her sacrament, and every Sunday, she gives us snacks. Normally the snack is bread with Nutella. I will tell you something about Nutella. Nutella is basically gold here on the mission. It is something that everybody wants, but cost to much to pay for it. Your day is successful if you have eaten Nutella.

Pictures to come when I remember my cord...

Elder Koby Sullivan

Nov. 24, 2014

Week 18

So, this week was a bit difficult. 

As we were walking to one of our appointments, some elders were walking in the same direction. When they stopped at the door they were teaching, we were in shock because it was next door to our investigator. It turns out that we were working in the wrong area and we ended up giving five investigators over to the other elders. My companion was heart-broken.

We moved houses the other day. There are some good things and bad things. The good is that I don't have to walk to the 6th floor to get to our apartment, but the bad is that we run out of water according to the weather.... The other day I didn't get to take a shower. Now, with the new house, there are six elders on the same lot. It is basically a party everynight. 

TRANSFER WEEK!!!!! I have finally been transferred. I am going to Piracununga (Peer-uh-sue-noon-guh). It is about 3 hours away. I will be with elder Portilho (porch-eel-yo). I will not increase in rank, but as I talk to my companions, they say that he is having troubles on the mission and that I should help him get excited about the mission again. 

That is this week. 

Love

Elder Koby Sullivan

Nov. 17, 2014 w selfies

Week 17

So, this week had a bit of a down hill.

Our investigator that promised to be baptized decided that she would want a little more time to know the church, so she canceled the baptism and didn't come to church. Therefore, I will not have a baptism this transfer. 

The same thing happened with several other families this week. They commit to baptism with enthusiam, but the next day when we visit them to see how they are doing, the just avoid us like there is somebody who follows right behind us telling them that we are a bunch of panzies on the road. 

It was about 4 families this week that it has happened.... They won't answer anything anymore.

Not much has happened other than that. My knee is a lot better. Occasionally I have a problem with the stairs, but other than that, it was a bland week.

but.... I took pictures :)

Love, 

Elder Koby Sullivan 

P.S. I am horrible with this "selfie" thing.

Zone in Piracicaba before transfers.

Nov. 10, 2014

Week 16

          Month 5 has arrived.

Yeah, I have finally made it to month five. I feel like I have been living here forever, but I can definitely tell a difference in the language. 

So, this week didn't have too much happen. It started with an a contact that we made close to the church. We visited this lady on Tuesday, and her grandson also came and listened to the lesson. The Lady's name is, Li (age 60), and the grandson, Guil (Age 11). During the lesson, we discovered that they weren't baptized, and after the lesson, we invited them to baptism on the 22. They accepted! They came to church on Sunday and they have been reading the BoM. Lid said that she had been thinking about baptism for the past little while. They are basically the golden investigators that everybody wants.

The next day (Wednesday) I ended up falling on my knee in my house. yeah, it hurt, but I didn't think much of it. I could still walk. Later that day, the pain became worse and worse. By the next day I couldn't even leave my bed because my knee hurt so bad. Sister Canuto said to buy a medicine called, "Flanax." This is a very strong pain-killer that also helps swelling. I noticed a huge difference from the first time I took it. I don't normally feel a difference after a medication. Sister Canuto also said that I couldn't leave the house to go to the "Helping Hands." Which is a service project that the church puts on. (Saturday). Today, however, I can walk normally. I have a little trouble with stairs, though. Sister called me today and told me that she is going to get me an appointment with a docter to see if it is really serious. 

Basically, I stayed in the house this week, but I plan on working this week. 

Love

Elder Koby Sullivan

Nov. 3, 2014 pics from blog

Week 15

This week was packed with all sorts of cool stuff. 

It started with the multi-zone conference. We were all lined up to shake the president's hand, and the Elder behind me asked me where I was from. I told him Utah, then he replied, "hey, me too! What part?" When I told him that I was from St. George, he responded, "Hey! Me too!" We were both stoked about this encounter. We asked eachother for the first name. His name is Cutter David. We were great friends in 2nd grade, but when I switched schools, I never saw him again. What are the odds of meeting him again on the same mission?! That made my week, but my camera ran out of batteries just when I was trying to get a picture with him...

One day, a man tried to bible bash with us. My companion won... more like destroyed him. My companion knows the bible better than anyone else I know.

We have a lot of crazy people on our mission. I had a unique experience with one. We were waiting in front of the chapel to get an interview, and a man pushed me a little bit and started yelling at me. He began to threaten me. My companion was talking with other people, so he had a smile on his face. When the guy saw the smile, he told my companion that he was going to kill him. He then said, "After I kill you, I am going to kill your companion, because he is German, and I don't like Germans!" ......Wow..... I didn't know how to respond. This man really wanted to kill us. We told him that we were missionaries of this church. He paused, then said that he was really sorry. By the end, we recieved his address :) 

I wasn't really scared, more like confused. I was thinking "Is he saying that he wants to kill me? Does he realize that he doesn't have any weapon with him and there are five of us? Do I tell him that I am American or will that make things worse?" It was exciting. 

After the man wanted to kill us, we went into an interview. This interview was for a blogsite. http://blognassif.blogspot.com. He interviewed us about the church. You guys should look at it. It has my picture with my companion and the bishop and a counsilor of the stake president. We talked with him for a good hour or so.

One lunch appointment we had was really funny, but sad at the same time. They have a little daughter about four years old. Her dad put her in the bathroom. She turned the key and took the key out, so she was locked in. Well, she doesn't know how to unlock it, and the parents didn't have a key to get in. The dad was saying, "If she wants to get out, then she will have to figure it out," while the mom was freaking out trying to direct the little girl on how to unlock the door. We left before we saw the solution, but I know that she got out! :)

Pretty eventful week.

Love 

Elder Koby Sullivan

These are the pictures that were on that blog: