June 22, 2015 "American's don't like to clean..." LOL

          Week 53

I have my new companion! He is way cool. He is from Rio de Janeiro and he has all of the accent from Rio. He is my most dedicated and efficient companion so far. That makes me happy. He is 10 months into the mission. 

We have been having some success here recently. Our most progressive investigator is Juli. He has been going to church for several months now and the only thing he needs to do is get married. He is getting married Friday, then he will be baptized on the 4th of July. His wife, Pat, went to church for the first time yesterday which is really good news. I think that she knows that she will be baptized, but she doesn´t want to be baptized right now. Her words were, "I´m not ready to jump into the water tomorrow even though I liked the church." Haha.

Our week was focused on visiting ex-investigatores. Gual and his family are way cool, and they are the most rich investigators that I´ve had. We invited them to chruch, but Gual denied. However, his wife said that their kids would like to go! They went! Mat and Vic. I don´t know if they will be baptized soon, but we need to catch Vic before he goes back to the U.S. in August.

I had one of the worst experiences the other day. I was walking down the road and out of nowhere, I feel this really warm sensation run down my arm. I flipped out. When I looked, I saw a red grime. I looked up to see that a bird had pooped on me..... to make it worse, we were nowhere near anybody, so we went looking for the closest investigator, but instead, we found bishop on the side of the road and he took us home to get washed. I'm glad that it didn´t stain.

Last week, Sister Canuto came to our house again. She racistly called me out saying, "I know that Americans don't like to clean. You have to do your part!" I humbly agreed. When she entered into our kitchen and saw the stove clean she asked who cleaned it. I kept quiet while the other elders told her that it was me. Her jaw dropped and said, "Wow! You get a point E. Sullivan." To make it better, they explained that I cleaned the fridge and the microwave. I racked up my points like crazy. She said that she has never seen a clean microwave on the mission. I then taught her what "brownie points". She really liked the idea. haha

Elder Sullivan

June 15, 2015 ONE YEAR in Brazil!!!

          52 weeks      #1year!

This week was nice.

​I should fire the Photographer....Lopes.

There is a recent-convert, Ju,  that is always talking with us and last p-day, he took us to McDonalds! Think of an expensive restaurant and times it by four. He is way cool. Each monday, we go to the church and study Jesus the Christ with him. He speaks 8 languages....and he is the official translator for the government of São Paulo.

We had a surprise this week. We had an Elder be emergency transferred to stay with my companion and I. He is from my group of missionaries. It trumped our work because we had to make several trips to the Secretary´s office. However, we did find several bridges that make the trip to the center of the city half of the size. It is a pedestrian/tourist bridge. Way cool pictures if I remembered my camera....I have a random desire to learn another language, so I asked the secretaries which languages of the Book of Mormon they had and they gave me a French BoM! I have no idea where to start, I´ll ask Ju for help.

On my one year day, I went to McDonalds to get some Ice cream. Well, when I was waiting, I heard some guys speaking in English very poorly behind me. I turned around to talk with them. One is a Brazilian and the other was a Korean. What? It was a strange moment, but it was cool to talk with a Korean :)

We had party for the Junina. It is like a hill-billy holliday for Brazil. It was way fun to eat all of the food. Free food is always delicious :)

Transfers have come and I will stay, but my companion will go. I will have another companion named Elder Nunes. I have no idea who he is. However, Elder Figu has returned to come and live with me and Elder Lopes. This will be fun.

Elder Koby Sullivan

June 9, 2015 One Year in BRAZIL!!! and tons of pics

          51 weeks

In three days is the one year mark. I still don´t know what I will do. 

This week was actually extremely different. It started out with one new investigator whose eyes lit up when we invited her to baptism. Sadly she works most Sundays, but I am not too worried about that with her. She has visited so many churches and she is not attending any of them right now. I think that we will have her baptized in a month or two.

Thursday was really tough. It was a holiday here and nobody was home. We went to talk with a pastor to invite him to help our church and several other churches do a helping hands project. Well, the Pastor is really good friends with this pastor and he invited us to watch a meeting with them. We did. This was the first time I had entered into another church in my life and it did not have a good impression on me. (We had permission from Prezident). The church is called the four square church and the person speaking was some lady and she yelled and tried to claim that she was having a vision and stuff. After her yell, the pastor invited us to the front and presented us to everyone in the church! He told everyone that I was from LV.....because I live 2 hours from there. We did not have to talk or anything, but it was interesting.

Saturday, we had a group of girls called, "Daughters of Job", come and visit our church. The group is a bunch of girls who are daughters of a mason. We gave them a tour of the church and taught them about the Restoration. They all seemed really interested. 

Today, we went to a tourist place by the river. It was really cool and I have some cool pictures. that I will send. 

Love,

Elder Koby Sullivan

June 1, 2015 dissed the Prez! accidentally

          50 weeks!

I finally hit "hump day!" It was on Wednesday. I was counting the days. Due to the visa, I will be here exactly 700 days and I have 344 days left. Haha! Final sprint!

This week had several Stake activities. I happen to have the Stake Center for my chapel. I saw my first bishop here, Bispo Lyra. I called out his name and when I went over there to shake his hand, another hand popped out of the blue. I ignored it with plans on going back. After I gave him a hug, I looked at who was offering me the hand and wo unto me because it was President! AHH!! I had an awkward moment and I guess I paniced because I brought him in to have a group hug.... I hope he didn't take it personally.

We all watched with the stake Meet the Mormons. It was cool. I only shed a few tears while the missionary on my side was having a rain storm. 

I really don't have much from this week..

 

Love,

Elder Koby Sullivan