Nov. 23, 2015 I made it.

          75 weeks

We had some interesting things happen this week. We were doing contacts way late at night one day and we contacted a girl on the road. She said that she would visit our church if we visited her church. Of course that is a great trade. So we went to her church. Well, her mom is a pastor and the church was at her house. It was more like a family home evening. In the middle of the meeting, the pastor thanked us for coming, then said, "My daughter was planning on going alone to your church, but she will not be alone. She will go, I will go, My family will go, and my congregation will go..."  I was stunned. She also told us her story on why she made the church. I think that we have a chance with her, but it will have to be different. She couldn´t come to church on Sunday, but she called us and explained why. She invited us to her daughter´s birthday party next week. It´s all just really interesting...

Sunday, a lady showed up to church out of nowhere. She looked at me with big smile and said, "I made it!" I was so confused. I asked her what her name was and she told me that I invited her to church the other week, but she couldn´t come last week, so she came this week. I still could not remember her and I told my companion. He couldn´t remember at first either. After some thinking, we remembered that we contacted her over a week ago. She didn´t give us her address and said that she would go visit the church. We didn´t believe it, but she went :) I think that it will end really well :)

elder Sullivan

Nov. 16, 2015 tmi about the stove

           

         74 weeks.

So how you can tell if you´ve had a successful week is by the amount of people that come to church. This week, we thought that we did really well. There were many who promised to come to church the night before, but nobody came... My companion was really sad about that. I am a bit stressed out about it too. We have gotten to our last hope which is "treinamento de poder" It is supposed to work miracles. We´ll find out.

We have been having a problem with our stove for a little while. One of the fires was leaving some oily substance on all of the pans.... Somebody got smart and decided to clean out the airway for the gas. He lifted up the cap where the fire comes out and underneath the cap was a....half......burnt.... cockroach.......I think the oily substance was from the cockroach.....The house wasn´t even dirty! How did it get there?! That was a sad day...

Our area is divided with two sets of missionaries. E. Nunes and his companion work on one side of the main road and we work on the other side. Well, we discovered that their were other missionaries that were working in a part of Nunes´ area. We called the assistances to see what was going on. It turns out that the area that we have, isn´t our area... that takes a good part of our ward. That could easily knock us down to a branch. It is a huge confusion and now us four are just doing a free-for-all in the area. There is no more division. I hope it doesn´t go wrong. This place is a mess right now...

Elder Sullivan

Nov. 10, 2015 bbq crashers

          Week 73

We had a busy week. Sadly, Thiago, who was our investigator most likely to baptize, started to look up things on the internet about the church. He found a bunch of crap. When we visited him, he started telling us all of the crap that he read. We were able to prove all of it wrong and he understood what we told him. A few days later, I called him and he told us that he read the book and wasn´t feeling anything and that it was against his beliefs... I knew at that moment that he was letting other people talk bad about the church and he believed it all. He doesn´t want our visits anymore...It was hard to accept.

Last night, we went to visit some investigators. They were in the middle of a barbaque with a ton of people. They saw us and invited us to join in on the barbaque. It was fun. We were the highlight of the Barbaque. They have never seen americans before. They wanted to talk about Beer the whole time... 

Our other investigator, Daniel, has been to church several times. Well, he went to a church activity and stayed out really late. Now his parents have grounded him from going to church....Great. That is the worst punishment ever! There is only one other place to go that isn´t church; The ROAD!!! Where it's normal to smoke weed on a walk to the supermarket. Now we have to hunt down the parents to be able to convince them that we aren´t trying to sabotage his life, but trying to help it. Wish me luck.

Elder Koby Sullivan

Nov 3, 2015 crazy week

          Week 72

This week was a little crazy. Thursday night, the assistances called me to tell me that there was going to be an emergency transfer. My companion was sent to Hortolandia and I stayed here. I had to go to Piracicaba to get my new companion, so that took up the whole day. My new companion is and american. His name is Elder Bush and he is from Syracuse, Utah. He is my first American companion. He´s cool. The bad smell from our house went away with E. Maia, so we are de boa!

The next day, the Zone Leaders got mad with us because we weren´t able to do very much that day... They are being ridiculus on the numbers. They want us to focus on numbers, but when we are focused on satisfying the ZLs, we can´t seem to make progress with our work. It´s basically ineffective work. It´s getting to a point where I might have to start talking with President.

We´ve only been having some success in our part of Campinas. We found a man who seems really interested. When we invited him to be baptized, he said, "I have already been baptized and I believe that it was valid. But if what you guys said was true, then I would have to be baptized again." He is looking sincerely for an answer. Sadly, it was a holliday weekend, so he was not able to come to church...

Elder Koby Sullivan

Oct. 26, 2015 disappearing investigators and a rat

          Week 71

This week was rather frustrating. We had so much planned and scheduled, but all of our plans had fallen through. All of the people who we thought would let us come back weren´t at home to accept us. We called and scheduled and confirmed, but nothing. Our only investigators that were going to chuch dissappeared all of the sudden. We haven´t been able to get ahold of them for several weeks... 

One night, E. Nunes yelled really lot shouting, "rat!" We went to see, but we couldn´t find it. We soon found it inside the oven that we never use. It ran out of the oven and everyone was in a battle with the rat until we could capture it. While the rat was running, it ran right under Nunes´ foot and he stepped on it. He stepped a little too hard and it died under his foot... That was a first rat that I´ve encountered alive.

Elder Koby Sullivan

Oct. 19, 2015 15 minute notice to speak in church

          70 weeks

We have found some people who have potential to progress. I don´t have too much faith in them, but my companion is begging me to go back to them. I don´t want to go back because the father flat out said, "I disagree." But my companion thinks that he persuaded him otherwise.... Investigators that don´t want anything are not worth teaching. (That is what I told my companion).

We found one that was really cool. He was the only one who came to English class on Saturday. He is Baptist, but we just spoke in English for a little bit, then I taught him the Restoration. After I said the first vision, he asked me, "Who was that?" with astonishment. I drew everything out in detail and I taught in English :) I think that he will want more.

Well, last week, Elder Nunes was asked to give a talk in church. He was with another Elder in a different ward because his companion went home. So he told my companion to do it. My companion likes attention, so he gladly accepted it. However, he had already given a talk a few weeks before. When we got to church, the bishop asked why I didn´t give the talk, then asked me to give the talk. I couldn´t say no. So, I had to prepare a 15 minute talk at church... talk about nervous. In the end, it went pretty well. I was able to fill the time.

Elder Koby Sullivan

Oct. 13, 2015 one year and 4 months completed

          69 weeks... 1 year and 4 months

Our P-day was switched because of the holiday that they have here in Brazil. It is "Kid Day". there were a bunch of festivals and bouncy houses all over town. It was a little inconvenient becasue they told us that our p-day was switched to tuesday monday morning. So, we had nothing scheduled on monday, but we have a ton scheduled for today.... We basically don´t have a P-day.

We had a Multi-Zone conference this week. It went really well. It is always fun to hear the president give advice. It helps us understand how we need to work better and we get excited again about the work. 

Valkiria and Eduardo are going to be married in December. They don´t work, so they are going to get married for free, so that takes a lot of work off of our shoulders. 

We are still looking for people to teach. Everyone that we teach doesn´t do what we ask, so they can´t progress as an investigator. We have to let the those people on their way. President is starting to push everyone to do 500 contacts per week. We are already struggling with 300. It isn´t a rule yet, but I think in the future he will put it into play.

Elder Sullivan

Oct. 5, 2015 why shut off the water before you fix a sink?

         Week 68

Well. This week didn´t happen as planned. The only thing that seemed to go right was the English Class. (I have to thank Junior for helping me be able to teach english and learn all of the rules. Now I can have effective classes that won´t bore everyone out.) We had nobody the first week, then we had two people the second week, and now on the third week, we had 15! Maybe we can get something out of it :)

We literally found nobody this week. When I was giving up, I saw an old lady sweeping the sidewalk. I offered to help. After I was done I went to talk to her. What does she do? She tries to bible bash with me! She was at least 80 years old....I was thinking, "What are you trying to do? You have no idea what you´re saying." I didn´t even stay to bible bash. #Servicefail....

Our house is falling apart. I believe that our washing machine will break here in one week. Then, we will start washing our clothes by hand.... Our Kitchen sink broke, but we were able to fix it. We didn´t know where the water shut-off valve was, so there was a ton of water everywhere.

Elder Koby Sullivan

Sept. 29, 2015 lots of tracting

         Week 67

Well, this week didn´t have too much that when on.

We had an investigator who went to church. Her name is Valkiria. She is basically married to a member right now, so he took her to church. He is less active and he doesn´t want to go back unless she goes with him. It´ll be fun to bring her into the church.

We tried to do an open house with the church, but it didn´t turn out as planned. We had very few people enter. Maybe it was poorly advertized. I wish that it could´ve done better. 

My former companion, E. Nunes, is teaching me capoeira. Just on P-days because our house is really small. We have to move everything in the house just to do a little bit. It is a great work-out. I am basically just on the defensive side while he thows all sorts of things at me... folgado....

Other than that, tracting, and lot of it.

Elder Koby Sullivan

Sept. 21, 2015 a fruit getting baptized

         Week 66

This week went really well for me other than it was extremely hot and I felt dehydrated all day, even if I was drinking two cups of water at each house we knocked on. (I don´t know if that sentence made sense, but you get the idea.)

I went on splits with the DL and I learned a lot with him. He is on his last transfer, so he knows quite a bit. We found one lady who was curious about the baptisms for the dead. She called us crazy. A couple of days later, I went there with my normal companion and taught her why we do the baptisms. She understood pretty well. At the end, I asked, "Did that answer your question?" and she said, "yes, but now I have a lot more questions because I believed in one thing, but now...." I told her that the next time we would answer all of her questions. It was clear to me that she was doubting what she was taught all of her life. I felt really good with that lesson.

We have been teaching a girl who is 14. We invited her to baptism, but she doesn't want to follow our church because it is different. She said that even if it were the true church, she wouldn't follow. I have let her go as an investigator, but all of the members keep telling us to go back, so I guess I will go back in the future.

My English class didn't go well because nobody showed up....

We are teaching a really cool family that understood our message  well (which is really rare because the people aren't too educated here.). However, it is a family that is very unprepared for the baptism. They are not married, the father smokes a lot and the daughters have a horrible problem with the 7th commandment...We'll try our best.

I just heard from my other area that Nicole (the one who smokes weed) will be baptized this week! Elder Nunes and I are really excited because she is our "fruit"!

Sweet.

Elder Koby Sullivan