Aug. 17, 2015 comp got wisdom teeth out, Kyson called it p week

         Week 61

Wow. This week was interesting. 

I watched my companion get his teeth pulled. That was my first time and my last time I will stay to watch that. It was gross...bleh. 

I tried to get someone to work with me while my companion was down, but I nobody could come with me, so I had to stay with my companion. 

We received a referral from some other missionaries on the mission and they passed to the secretaries the address, then it went to another group of elders to us. When it got to us, it was all messed up. The house did not exist. The assistants called us asking why we didn´t visit the guy, because the guy called the office. Then we explained everything and we finally have the correct address. His name is Bruno and he is way cool. We showed up to his house and he was extremely curious about the church. I have never taught the Restoration so easily on the mission before. Só ouro.

We took Adi to a Family Home evening with Euri (iri). However, his wife couldn´t go because she is really sick from cancer in the liver. She is really weak and we have given her a blessing. She is way nice and everytime we go to their house, she is calling us angels and we just want to help her. 

We were with Julio one night and he offered us a ride home. Well, his car has a sun roof and my companion had never looked out while the car was moving, so we both looked out at the same time. While we were out, Julio was clever enough to wash his window....We got really wet. Nice one Julio :)

Have a Boa Semana!

Love,

Elder Koby Sullivan

Hey! It's Koby! Just sending this quick email from Julio's house/email. I love you guys :) talk to ya monday.

P. S. Awesome food!

Aug. 10, 2105 a lost contact agreed to baptism

         Week 60

We started our week kind of bad. We taught a lady named Eliz who seemed like she would progress if we could just taught her a few more times, but she has so many Catholic friends that they messed with her head and now she doesn´t want any more lessons. That was really sad for me...

Junior is way cool and took my companion and I to McD´s and got us a giant big mac. It was huge and delicious! I really felt the hamburger for the next couple of days...haha. Worth it.

We are teaching a lady named Nic. She has a different background about God. She thinks that God is a spirit and dwells in everything around us. So, she uses everything natural to get closer to God. I am not quite sure about her view on our lessons, but she went to church on Sunday :) 

We have ran out of doors to knock on in our area, so now, we have started to knock on them all over again, but with more creativity in our words. 

Remember Adil? The one who said that we were the answer to his prayers? Well, we lost contact with him for a while and now he has a break and we can teach him a lot. We taught him the Plan of Salvation, then the Gospel of Christ. He is asking fewer questions each day and listens more. We invited him to baptism and he accepted!!! We have planned for the 5th of September! 

Pat is still going strong and has agreed to give up the coffee. I sure hope she can do it. 

This week my companion will take out his wisdom teeth, so I don´t know how this week will turn out....

Love,

Elder Koby Sullivan

Aug. 3, 2015 saints and idols, but what about Christ?

          Week 59

Our meeting with Elder Costa was canceled at the last minute, so they moved it to this week. 

We met a man who has just began to look to put Christ in his life. We taught him the Restoration, but we have a huge competition against the Four Square Church. He had never heard of the Church of Jesus Christ, but he has a ton of friends in the FSC. It will have to be a miracle to get him to come to our church, but we believe in miracles :)

We had a little argument with a Catholic the other day. We were teaching her and she tried to convince us that the Pope is a prophet and that we have to worship idols and saints. I used the bible and explained everything to here and she replied, "Well, you are in the wrong place because I will not give up my saints and idols. This is what the Pope said." She was pointing to all sorts of statues in the house. We left right then. I almost said to her, "And Christ or God? I see that you have pictures and statues of everybody who wanted to follow Christ, but you don´t even have Christ." I was really upset.

However, we do have some amazing news. Pat, who is Ju´s wife, has accepted baptism for the 22! It is way better teaching her because I feel like I am teaching her and not trying to convince her. She believes a lot in the Reincarnation, but after the Plan of Salvation, she understood the need to be baptized and marry in the temple! The most excited person is Ju. He was telling everyone at church that she was going to get baptized.

Elder Koby Sullivan

July 28, 2015 "engraven images!"

          Week 58

This week was a little chaotic. It was E. Lopes´ last week here, so while he was with Prezident most of the time, E. Figueira, E. Nunes, and I worked together as a three-sum. 

I never ran into so many people against the church. The other day, I tried to give a little card with a picture of Christ on it and he almost ran away shouting, "engraven images!".... I was a little stressed that day and so I asked, "Sir, have to taken a picture of your son? When you have taken that picture, you have made an engraven image of your son. Therefore, you are in sin in the sight of your eyes." He sat quietly, then said that he had to leave.

Others just say, "come back another day and lets hit it off." If that isn´t calling for a Bible bash, I don´t know what is. I haven´t visited those people yet.

One lady, as we were knocking on doors, let us in. She said that she knew a bit about our church because the pastor of her church has taught her. When we taught her the restauration, she sat and looked as if she was deceived. She did not expect our message to be like that. I think that she is in doubt right now about her church. We will visit her this week.

Not much this week. Transfers are the same. I stayed here. Piracicaba para vida.

Elder Koby Sullivan

July 20, 2015 knockin and talkin

          Week 57

We had our multi-zone conference this week which was really fun. We learned a ton. Next week, Elder Costa will come to speak to us. That will be fun.

This week did not have very many results. We had over 90 doors knocked on, and 3 people let us in (that is not including people who weren´t home). It was pretty tiring and the people that accepted us didn´t really want anything...

I know I´m a missionary, but I just have to say, I hate dumb people....

First person: A lady whose door I knocked on let us in. We taught the restoration and she said that she had already read the Book of Mormon and she also said that she didn´t want to switch religions. We asked if she believed the book to be true, and she said yes. We explained a little more and I asked, "Do you believe that Joseph Smith was called a prophet of God?" Her response, "Clearly! But I´m happy where I am and I don´t want to switch religions..." Wow... It is the true church of God! What more could you ask?...

Second Person: We visited someone that we talked with on the road. We taught the Restauration and pulled out the BoM and testified. We told them that they would receive an answer. Well, the lady asked the most ridiculous question, "If I know that the book is true, do I have to go to your church?" What kind of question is that? You don´t want to go to the true church? She said, "I´ve always been Catholic, and I don´t want to change." Even the old man that was bed-ridden lifted up his arm and said, "I´ve been catholic for 76 years and I will die Catholic." Ugh. that made me mad. 

I hate ignorant people....

Anyways, Jul was baptized!!! We had a barbaque at his house. Everything was good there minus the pig´s stomach. That was the strangest texture ever. He tried offering me more, but I had to deny. It was really fun. Jul was so big (6'4" 250lbs), that he had to kneel down so that he could be baptized. It was funny. Now we just need to teach his wife. I think that she wants to, but she is afraid of her 5 year old son running around in the church and misbehaving. Other than that, I think that she will come.

Love,

Elder Koby Sullivan

Koby went to the zoo with a man who is good friends with him and the other missionaries, and he sent me these pictures of Koby at the zoo. (Koby was feeling bad that he didn't have any pics from the zoo since he didn't have his camera.)

Koby in front of his apartment.

Koby before he got his hair cut.

Koby after his haircut. haha. not much difference.

.

July 13, 2015 interviewing an assassin for baptism

          56 weeks

This week had a major change on the mission. We had the rule to do at least 14 contacts as a companionship each day. They have now changed it to 50 contacts each day. 50 takes quite a bit of effort. 

Jul married on Tuesday!!! He said something that was way funny. He has already passed the baptismal interview once, but the second time, they discovered that he wasn´t married and he got really angry. Now, at the signing of the paper, he held up another paper to us and said, "Do you see this? This is a stable agreement between us, so basically we were married, but the church doesn´t accept this paper. With this paper, we are in fornication! Try stopping me from being baptized now!"

On Sunday, we did his interview. Well, we had planned on joking around with the interviewer, "Elder Figueira". Jul pretended that he had killed a man, but that it didn´t matter because he was going to get baptized anyway. Figueira got really scared. He didn´t know what to do because he couldn´t let an assasin get baptized nor did he want to get killed. We messed with him a bit. It was really fun. After, we told him the truth and he got really upset. It was hillarious.

This week was the first week that someone didn´t accept the free Book of Mormon. It was really frustrating. It happened twice.

I had a first experience Sunday. We had plans to go to a new part of our area that required the bus to get there. Well, we ran into Julio and we started talking. While we were talking, we missed the bus.... So, we decided to stay close to our house. While we were knocking on doors, there was one man who let us in. We taught him about the restoration and he had a lot of difficult questions that we managed to answer. We pulled out the Book of Mormon and started to explain it. He looked at it and while my companion was explaining it, and asked if he could hold it. We gave it to him and he looked at it and marveled. We invited him and his wife to read and he said, "I want to read it." (that is a rare response). After the message, the man (Adil) said that last night as he was going to bed, he said a prayer and asked God to show him which path to follow. They believe that we are the answer! Oh, how happy we were after!

Só Sucesso

Elder Koby Sullivan

July 6, 2015 marijuana n missionaries

Update on Juli... there was another problem at the cartorio (the place to get married). They did not accept his wife´s picture because it was too old. They updated the picture and the cartorio said that it will take at least ten days to process it....Now he can´t be baptized until the 18...

We have a new investigator who smokes a ton of marajuana. It seems like he will put in some effort to change this problem. He is going to bring his sister too so that we can help :)

This week we have knocked on so many doors and have been rejected so many times. Now, we are trying up our motivation and creating fancy way on knocking on doors.....no, ringing the interphone...that is about all we do day after day. Results are few. We found some people who were baptized 40 years ago as a kid and now they want to know about the church, and some old investigators of some other missionaries who did not leave a form that said that they existed.

Remember when I went to the four square church? Well, we have his address and have planned to meet with him this friday. We going to prepare all week.

4th of July didn´t really exist for me...

Elder Koby Sullivan

June 29, 2015 "Kid, I have no idea what you just said"

          54 weeks

I had a cool experience the other day knocking on doors (or interfones). I was so upset that nobody would come to the door that I did a contact in English. His response, "Kid, I have no idea what you just said". Anyway, he let us in! We´ll see how he does as an investigator. He is way cool right now :)

However, I did try the English again and nobody let us in...

We had interviews with Prez. It was really fun. We threw a barbaque that is basically cook the meat over the fire. No fancy sauces or anything. just rice. Prez. told my companion and I that we need to change this ward because it is the richest ward on the mission and knocking on doors will not work. He said to go and change the culture of the ward. We´ll see what we can do. 

We were passing by the zoo the other day and decided to go look. Unfortunately, I didn´t have my camera..... It was full of tropical birds which was way cool. They had a few monkeys and a tiger. It was a decent size, but I liked it.

Elder Koby Sullivan

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