Mar. 28, 2016 they forgot about me (travel plans)

          92 weeks

The week went pretty well. We are teaching a referral who is almost ready to be baptized. I give her two weeks. It´s good that she lives really close to a member with a car, so there is no excuse to not go to church, but she likes it anyways.

We are having some problems with the youth wanting to leave the church. We visited several of them to see why, and they all had the same excuse. They don´t like people being false. At least one came to their senses and came to church, but the others didn´t want to come. We´ll see what we can do with them.

We used the primary to do contacts with us. They literally talked with everyone that they saw. They entered into restaurants, talked to people in cars, and knocked on doors. It was really funny to watch.

Not too much happened this week other than that. 

Feliz Pascoa ontem!

muddyjob wrote:

Do the missionaries in your mission get their travel plans okay?

Your mission president is slow with getting this done?

I hope there are still flights left to choose from by the time he gets your date to the church travel office.

Koby Sullivan wrote:

I don´t know anything. I plan on calling them later today to see what happened. My group has already gotten their call, but I haven´t.... It isn´t the president who calls, it´s the missionaries in the mission office.

muddyjob wrote: When did your group get their calls? How long ago?   

Koby Sullivan wrote:  When I was in Piracicaba, they were telling me that they got their call.

muddyjob wrote: That was 2 weeks ago. I think you need to call them right now. They have obviously forgotten you. The church travel can't pick your flights till they get the info from your mission office. The travel office usually has that 3 MONTHS before a missionary comes home. Can you call them right now? 

Koby Sullivan wrote: Sure. I´ll call them.   

Koby Sullivan wrote: They didn´t answer, but I will call again later.

 
muddyjob wrote: What is the travel date of your group?

Koby Sullivan  wrote:  9th of May

Koby Sullivan wrote: They forgot about me.....

muddyjob wrote:  We already knew that!!!! Now, what?

Koby Sullivan wrote:   They will buy it right now

muddyjob wrote:  What does that mean, buy it? they don't buy it, the travel office in Provo buys it.

Did they call you back? or did you call them again?

Koby wrote: I called again.

Mar. 21, 2016 7 weeks to go--maybe--have not heard from church travel yet

          91 weeks

This week we worked really hard to find new people. We are working with a rescue list for the ward. It is a list of people who have been inactive for such a long time that ward doesn´t have them on their account. While we were looking for this names, we found a lady who still lived at the address and she got really excited that we came. Her daughter wanted to learn more about the church, so now we have some more investigators! 

The week was a lot more difficult than we wanted. We knocked on over 100 door and only one person let us in. They didn´t even want anything with the church. They just let us in to be nice.....ugh...

We´re going to start working with Aya´s sister, but we have a huge problem. She doesn´t even look at my face. She is apparently really shy and she refuses to receive lessons from me, but she will let a member teach her. We are hoping for the best.

I´m hoping to learn how to make coxinha this week :) That will make me super happy if it goes right.

Elder Koby Sullivan


Photos sent to me by Koby's friend, Rayanne!

Mar. 14, 2016 8 weeks left, saw a good friend, tooth mishap

My companion had a wonderful surprise on Monday. We were eating pastel and then my companion left saying, "My tooth broke". I thought that he was lying because there was no way that he broke his tooth on a pastel. It´s like breaking your tooth on pie. It just doesn´t happen. Well, he returned and showed me. His moler was gone. There was just a little stubble left. He acted like it was normal. I had to convince him that he had to take the tooth out. So, we went to the dentist and they had to do a surgery to take the tooth out. He was not allowed to work in the sun for a couple of days...Our leaders were really upset about it. It was almost as if they didn´t believe us...

I had a chance to go to Piracicaba this week. A lot of americans went and we all got a CPF which is basically saying that I am a Brazilian Citizen! Hehe :) I also got to see my old friend Junior!

It was a fun trip, but I got way tired from this trip. It made working a little bit more difficult.

​The grafitti where I live...

​Those were the only ones with pictures. The rest are words that nobody understands...

This week is going to be well done.

Elder Koby Sullivan

Mar. 7, 2016 you, me and a tree? oh, yeah, and 9 weeks!

          90 Weeks

This week was really slow. We didn´t have too much that went on. 

One day, I was feeling down and fought myself to get to work. Well, the first door that I knocked on, just had to be some crazy guy who wanted to talk a bunch about nothing. I told him that I had to go and I shook his hand, but he didn´t let go and kept talking....ugh... after about five minutes holding my hand he says, "Look! Our hands are still touching! That is a connection between you, me, and this tree." HUH!? The tree? Then he wanted me to touch the tree with him... I told him that I didn´t want to touch the tree. He implied even more and said that I was scared to touch the tree. I told him that I wasn´t scared, I just didn´t want to get my hand dirty. He pulled my hand anyway to touch the tree with him. I pulled it away from the tree. I looked at him sternly and said, "Let go of my hand." He looked at me extremely afraid and told me that he has respect for me and would let go of my hand.... That did not help my day...

We helped a member move to some apartments which were amazingly small. It was almost too small for one person. I am really sore because I was the biggest person to help her move, so I had to help carry all of the super heavy items up three floors.

This week will be a lot of searching for new investigators because we have basically cut every one out of our teaching pool. 

Elder Koby Sullivan

Feb 29, 2016 pancakes aka enchiladas and 10 weeks

          89 weeks.

This week, we spent a good amount of time looking for people. We had little success, but there were some good results. The other night I knocked on a door and some lady came to the window. I presented myself, but usually when somebody stays in the window, they don´t accept. I asked if she would be interested in the message that we were bringing and she said yes. It caught me off guard, but she really did want to know. She said that she is looking for a path to follow. Now we just have to stay with her or she will fall away.

We also received a referral from a member, but this referral was a little different. She really liked the message and is reading the book of mormon, but she has schizophrenia...(I don´t know how to spell that). We are still in the process to discover if she needs to be baptized or not.. I called President, but he will call SLC to see if she can or not.

I learned how to make what they call Pancakes. They are basically enchiladas :) It turned out really well. I am the cook for our house. 

​It took my companion 5 tries to get this picture... I had to put it on motion picture haha. We´re practicing.

Elder Koby Sullivan

I just found out that she can be baptized :)

Feb. 22, 2016 Mais 11 cpinhos..... (11 more sacrament cups! it's the way they count down)

          88 Weeks Mais 11 copinhos....

This week was rather fun. We´ve been receiving a ton of referrals. Even if the referral doesn´t accept a message, it is still really good to receive. I had come up with an idea about making a box to put in the church where the people put a little paper with the information of the referral. It was an idea on the spot in our meeting with the leaders, but I didn´t think that it was that great of an idea. The past two weeks, they have been on my tail so that I would make the box, so I did. I used a ton of hot glue.... 

I put it on a table in the church and there was already a referral :) I didn´t even tell anybody about it. It wasn´t completely finished, so I didn´t announce it. This week I will have several things on the desk to help them fill out forms and give us referrals. I sure hope that the box becomes something big in this ward. (I still think that it was an awful idea. Why don´t they just give the referral to me?)

We found a bunch of new investigators this week, but not too many good ones. They couldn´t go to church on Sunday because they were all busy working or traveling. 

Transfers were today. I stayed here with my companion E. T. Silva. We are going to kick butt this transfer :)

I learned how to make tapioca! It´s just a snake that we make here. It is really fast and I really like it. Okay. I can´t make it from scratch, but I can buy a bag of it and cook it on the frying pan.

I forgot that it was the end of daylight savings here. We got to church at 7:30 thinking that it was 8:30..... Now we know.

Elder Sullivan

My box :)

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.

​
​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
​

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