Feb 15, 2016 a great week!

          87 weeks

This week was really great.

Carnaval was on Tuesday, but that didn´t stop us from working, but it made it a lot harder to work. We knocked on doors, but out of the 50 doors, 11 were home...With those 11, we found a few people to accept us another day. For example, Vin. Vin let us visit his house. When we got there, the whole family entered into the room to hear the lesson (That is not very common). While we were explaining what we do, his grandma said, "You know, I have already been baptized at your church." That suprized us. Then, without missing a beat, his mom said, "me too!" I thought that it would just be a less-active family, but then Vin said, "That was before my time, because I had no idea." .....Sweet. Reactivate a family and baptize their kids :)

The other night had some difficulties with the padlock. I had forgotten my keys inside the house. My house is closed, so I couldn´t jump the gate or anything, so there were only two options: Pick the lock, or cut the lock and buy a new one. It was night, so we would sleep in the house without it being locked.... I asked a neighbor for two bobby pins just to play around with it. I played for a about a half an hour. I was just about to give up when the lock turned and shot open \o/\o/! We slept safely that night :)

Guil and Ay were baptized! Ay showed up late because I had forgotten to arrange a ride for her, so we sent people to go get her, but she was baptized successfully :) The hardest part was finding a jumpsuit that fit everyone.

(Davi (ward mission leader/father-in-law), Guil, Di (wife))

 Rom

There were a lot of people. Who wanted to watch.

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​Elder Sullivan

Feb 8, 2016 PICTURES from Koby!!!

         Week 86

This week was such a great success. 

I got help from my good friend Junior to make some chicken stroganof. It turned out really well along with my rice that I made for the first time as well. I will definitely make it many more times. I also learned how to make pancakes. Now the syrup that Kyson sent me won´t go to waste :)

Don´t forget the Maracujá juice :)

We went to finalize Aya to be baptized. We asked her which church she wanted to be a part of and she said, "I choose....uh....the Elders´ Church." Haha! Toma Pentecostal! She had an interview and will be baptized on Wednesday night.

We took a member on a day with us because he is going on a mission tomorrow. That day, we were unable to enter into any houses. We decided to visit Guil, but the problem was that nobody knew okay we were supposed to teach him... We were thinking about that all day. A thought came into my head that it was the day to invite him to be baptized. We read a chapter in the BOM with him then I invited him to be baptized. He said, "Yes". His wife gave me a funny surprised look like, "How did you do that?" He´s been taught by missionaries for 10 years. I guess I got lucky :)

I gave him an option of 3 different days to be baptized and he chose the same day as Aya. Now we have 2 Baptisms for Wednesday. It will be awesome!

​This is Pamonha..... Some type of corn food. They cook it in a Banana leaf or a corn leaf.

​The pond/lake where I´m at.

​some cool clouds.

Elder Koby Sullivan

Feb. 1, 2016 taught a Buddhist about Christ

          Week 85

We had a decent week. We were able to set a baptismal date for Aya. She will be baptized next week on Wednesday. It would have been sooner, but she will be going on a camp out for the youth because of Carnaval. She has been going to our church and another church, but she does´t like the other church because they speak an unknown language... Nobody knows what is being said, even the pastors.

It is finally Passion fruit season. I have not had so much juice on my mission.  When I enter into a house, they ask if I like passion fruit. I tell them that I do and then they send me home with a sack full of passion fruits that they grew in their yard. I´m not complaining ;)

This week, I taught a Buddhist. She was born Buddhist and stopped following Buddhism for a few months. It was unique to teach her because she has no idea who God and Jesus are. She never visited a Christian church before. She plans on visiting our church this week. We taught her from zero. It was way cool.

Sunday, I basically ran the whole Sacrament meeting. I played the piano and then I gave a talk. Everyone went to take an important test similar to the ACT and it is only on Sundays that they give the test. I feel like the talk went really well. I was able to fill my 10 minutes without a problem. I think that being a missionary helps a ton on being able to talk about the gospel to a bunch of people.

My camera spazzed out, so that is the only photo for today. a little taste of Brazil.

Elder Koby Sullivan
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Jan. 25, 2016 not an easy area

        84 weeks

I decided that my area isn't the easiest. The whole week we looked for new people, but nobody accepted us in their houses. The only lessons that we had this week were lessons with members. This shows me that the only thing that will work in this area are the referrals that we receive. Our focus is to get lots of referrals during our lunch visits, church, and basically anywhere we can get them.

Aya is a girl who has been visiting church for a little while. We went to her house the other day and she really wants to be baptized. We are planning on next Saturday. It will be awesome. 

We have several investigators that could be baptized in a few weeks if they were married. The culture here is that a man and a woman live together without being married. Marriage is a little expensive, so they just have a mutual agreement. To be baptized, they either have to split or get married. Many don´t split and decide to wait for the marriage. 

What´s worse, is when one is trying to separate from the old marriage and is living with someone else, because you have to wait for the separation process to end, then they can get married. Now, imagine both of them in the same process. This is the situation of Ga. He is living with a less-active member. Now they want to go to church and they have this horrible situation. They will take a while to baptize. I don´t think that I will still be here when it happens.

I sure hope we can find some cool people this week.

Elder Koby Sullivan

Jan. 18, 2016 Pictures!

         1 year and 7 months...

It turns out that I knew my companion before he came here. I met him at the mission Christmas gathering. Elder T. Silva is from Paraíba. He is actually from the same ward as Elder Tomaz! (One of my first companions). 

All week it has been raining. Now that it has stopped, both of my shoes are finally dry :) 

My week has been going by without credits on my phone. My other companion used them up.... Yesterday, I had someone call me and hang up. He did this 3 times, so normally that means to call back, but I didn´t have credits to call back. I went to use the church phone and called him. I asked who I was speaking with and he got upset with me. He said, "You called me and you want to know who you are speaking with?" I explained the situation, but he just started calling me names... It was an interesting phone call.

I am loving this ward. It seems that every week we always have a new referral. This week, we have a family home evening for every single day! Each one with a new investigator. It´s the missionary dream! I don´t even have to do contacts to find the people. (Of course I still do contacts, but it is less effective).

Elder Koby Sullivan

Favela

New Years 

Cool clouds over the streets of Brazil

Decorations! thanks, Aunt Kristin!

Jan. 11, 2016 I bought some acai, it's like ice cream or sorbet

         82 weeks

I have been craving a bunch of foods here. First, a maracujá (passion fruit). Their was a member that must have discovered because she gave me one. I made some amazing juice and I have never felt so great drinking passion fruit juice.

Second, açaí. I bought 1 liter for R$ 15!! Ha! Beat that Kyson! I fight not to eat it all in one sitting.

Now that Walmart has closed, we have to walk 20 minutes to get to the next closest supermarket, so we are buying a lot at each trip to avoid walking so far, but it puts a lot of weight on our travel back. I hear that they are going to open a different supermarket where walmart was, but until then, we have to go a long way.

My companion, E. Mesquita, will be transferred tomorrow to Piracicaba. I will receive E. P. Silva. Just by the name, I know that he is a Brazilian :) I know nothing else.

Our ward is helping us out a lot with investigators. We had 5 investigators at church and we only taught one of the five. We have just earned 4 more investigators!! We will see a bunch of results here in a few weeks :)

I forgot my camera again, but next time I will have pics...

Elder Koby Sullivan

Jan. 4, 2016 I tried liver; I am not a fan

         81 weeks

Happy New Year!

I made more cookies for the New Year and the family has been begging me to return and teach them how to make them. The husband of the family opened up a bottle that looked like apple cider and started serving it to everyone (He isn´t a member). He gave me and my companion some and my companion immediately told me not to drink it. It tuned out to have alchohol, but I didn´t notice the smell. Everyone in the family was noticing the smell and started throwing it on the ground. That was a close one. The husband was the only one drinking it. We'll have to teach him about that.

One day we went to walmart to buy a few things. It was packed. It turns out that they put everything for less than half price. The next day, it was closed. They closed Walmart here in our area. It happened so fast and they didn´t tell anyone about it. I heard that it happened with about 30 in Brazil on the same day.

I tried liver the other day. I don´t think that I have eaten such a horrible food. It is now my least favorite food of all times. I grabbed a few pieces at lunch. I couldn´t just leave it on the plate, so I was eating a bunch of food at the same time, but it didn´t work....I wasn´t able to finish it...

Elder Koby Sullivan

Dec 28, 2015 I made choc chip cookies, they don't have those in Brazil

          Week 80

Christmas week was a good one, and it rained the whole week.

We visited our ward mission leader on Wednesday and he told us some great news. His daughter has been a member for years, but her husband, who is from Portugal, told her a "secret" that he wants to be baptized. We received that secret and we will be working with him. I don´t think that his baptism is too long from now.

We had a zone meeting the other day that was really interesting/startling.... The assistance came over and asked what our "zone" needed to be the best zone. One Elder said that he was the problem because he is tired (he only has 7 months on the mission). Another Elder said that he didn´t care at all if an investigator shows up to church or not. He said that he just doesn´t love the people.... Another said that he just didn´t have the faith to baptize anyone this month. (Two of these elders were already my companions). I became a little worried. I can only imagine what President will think...

I made some chocolate-chip cookies for Christmas. They all loved them even though I burnt them. The oven got too hot, and it was on the lowest setting. 

For Christmas, we had a dinner and played "Truco" It´s a card game. In Brazil, they celebrate Christmas at midnight, but we couldn´t stay until midnight, so we just stayed for the dinner.

Elder Koby Sullivan

Dec 21, 2015 I picked a banana off the tree

          79 weeks

This week was fun. We had our christmas conference on Tuesday. We went to a city kind of far away called Rio Claro. We did a small play, and I played the piano with various songs for each character on the stage. I really enjoyed that.

We ate lunch with a family here that works with a meat company. Well, he told us that the hot dogs here are made with newspaper.....It´s a little bit startling, but I haven´t gotten sick, so I think that I will continue to eat them ;)

I had a chance to put a check on my bucket list this week. When I got in Brazil, it was always a dream to take and eat a banana directly off of the tree. It was such a great moment. The stash of bananas was really heavy. I didn't expect it to be so heavy...

My companion and I stopped by the church one day and the Christmas choir was singing. They told us to come sing with them in front of a supermarket that day. We weren´t too prepared with the songs, but it was fun mouthing the words in the back of the group ;)

The next day, we had a ward Christmas party at a cabin. The cabin had a pool and a soccer field, but we couldn´t participate in any of those activities... but we still had a fun time.

Feliz Natal!

Elder Sullivan

My experience with the banana

You have to cut down the tree to reach the bananas



There are a ton of Bananas



Choose the most yellow :)

Dec. 14, 2015 1 year and 6 months.

         1 year and 6 months. (78 weeks)

This week, we spent a long time doing service projects, we painted a house and it took us two days. It looks way better, but the house will never look good.... imagine painting a poorly built brick house... it´s bad.

We had a problem one day. We were going to eat lunch with a member and she told us to ride on a bus. We went on the bus that she told us, but at the wrong bus stop... about 20 minutes later, I asked my companion where we were. He didn´t know. He said that we are going in the direction to campinas. Yes, the bus took us to campinas.... We had to stay on the bus until it took us back where we wanted to go. The bus driver told us that it was the correct bus as well.

We took on a bunch of rain again the other day. It flooded the roads, so we had a hard time crossing... Here is a picture of my shoes.

that is a puddle of water in my shoes after taking them off.

boa semana!

Elder Sullivan