Week 56

October 27, 2014

Dear Family & Friends,

This week was pretty good, mostly because we had a baptism! I think I've talked about her before, her name is Lidia. She is the investigator who watched General Conference at home, started reading the Book of Mormon by herself (she is somewhere in Mosiah right now) and basically taught herself all of the lessons as well. We gave her the pamphlets, and she would explain them to us in our next visit. She was baptized yesterday and it was actually her first time at church. she works/lives in the house of an older lady, and she only gets every other weekend off, so she hasn't been able to go until yesterday. 

We have a few other people we´re teaching who have baptismal dates scheduled. One of them, Manuel, would have been baptized on Sunday the 2nd, but this last Saturday night he went out drinking...so we´ll work with him on that. We have several others who are scheduled to be baptized on the 9th of November. Edikesia, who we found just knocking on doors, is one of them. She is very interested and does all the reading assignments we give her, so she has already read parts of the Book of Mormon, prayed, and received an answer that the book is true. Her neighbor Gregory, who we met at her house, also is planning on being baptized the 9th. 

Last night, we went to Leila´s birthday party. We are teaching her, her mom Irisneida, her sister Keila, and her aunt Raquel. We helped out a little bit with serving the food and getting things ready. Some of the people there probably thought we were waiters because we were the only guys there with ties and name tags.

Today we ate lunch at Carla´s house. She was baptized about 6 or 7 months ago, and she actually feeds us about 3 times a week. We are really good friends with her and her family. In fact, Neto who was baptized last week, is her cousin, and Webson, is her daughter Victoria´s boyfriend. Sometimes we do family home evening activities at her house as well.

Everything is going pretty good for me! I am loving it!

Love,

Elder Poulson

Week 55

 October 20, 2014


Hey mom! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! I hope it was a great one! I got my whole zone to sing happy birthday in Portuguese for you, i am uploading it onto 4shared right now! is about 30 seconds long, so I will have just enough time to send it! haha. 

This week was really good, we had two baptisms, Webson and Neto. They were super happy, even though they aren't smiling in the picture....I promise!! haha We went to visit them later that night, and Neto was almost a completely different person! He has been pretty reserved the whole time that we have known him, but last night he was laughing and joking around like I've never seen before! 

We started working in a new neighborhood where I don't think there have ever been missionaries, so we are finding lots of new people to teach. 

I had to go to the doctor to get an ingrown toenail taken care of...and then he told me I had to use flip flops AGAIN. So I have been in flip flops since Friday, but I'll be back to shoes tomorrow. 

Well, I don´t really have any cool stories this week, I'm just going along and teaching people. It's going great! Its hard to believe I have less than a year left. It really does go by fast!  It's crazy how much I miss the simple things that I always took for granted....I really miss Sundays at home. 

I love you! Talk to you next week!

um abraço,

Elder Pouls

Week 54

October 13, 2014

Dear Family & Friends,

It was a pretty crazy week for me, I taught more lessons this week than any other on my mission, I think...I haven't had a chance to write Grandma Billie, but I will soon.  Please send her my love.  I wish I could have been there to go with y'all to Grandpa Randy's funeral. We´ll have to go visit some other time after I get home. 

This week was really good, I am learning so much every week! I feel like I am gaining a new understanding of the gospel the more I teach it. That is definitely a great thing about serving here, there are so many opportunities to teach. It has been cool to see my ability to communicate ideas and concepts improve over time. Sometimes when I look back to my first couple of transfers (which really don't seem too long ago) it's crazy to see how far I've come! 

This week was great, we taught a lot of lessons and found a lot of new people. But our baptism scheduled for this week didn't work out. Her name is Lidia, and she is one of the best people I've ever taught! She watched General Conference at home, and she is already in 2 Nephi in the Book of Mormon, and we found her like two weeks ago. We have two other people who will get baptized this week, Neto and Webson. They are both solid guys. They have already been to church a few times, and they are ready for baptism! 

I am running short on time again, but I would just like to say how much I am loving it here! I have come to such a greater appreciation of life, what a gift it is, what great opportunities we all have. I am amazed at the love that God and Jesus Christ have for us. I know that they live, God is our Heavenly Father, and Jesus Christ is our Savior. He paid the price for our sins, so that we can become clean through sincere repentance. I love having the honor to represent them these two years in Brazil.

Thank you for all of your thoughts, prayers, and support!

um forte abraço,

Elder Poulson

Week 53

October 6, 2014

Dear family & Friends,

This last week was a pretty memorable one! On Tuesday, we had a mission conference, which happens every couple months. Basically, all the missionaries from the mission get together in one chapel, there are a bunch of talks, training, lunch, more training, and then we played a huge game of jeopardy. I really enjoy it because I get to see all my buddies from the MTC and other missionaries I have gotten to know the past year. 

On Thursday, it was my one year mark from the day I arrived in the MTC! I started the day off burning one of my not-so-white-anymore shirts, which was pretty fun. Then I introduced my companion, Elder Da Mata, to french toast for lunch. I found cinnamon, but syrup and powdered sugar were nowhere to be found, so we improvised with some condensed milk, which was actually pretty good. Condensed milk is pretty popular down here. So after lunch, we did a companion exchange with the zone leaders, one of which was with me in the MTC, Elder Kennedy.  He came to my area, and we worked our butts off all day, and ordered a pizza to celebrate one year when we go home. 

My 20th birthday was Friday, which was pretty weird. I don't feel very different - haha but it was a good day. Pretty normal, but good. 

Saturday and Sunday was General Conference, which was awesome!  The parts I saw, anyway. I missed a few hours in total because of internet problems in the church (us Americans tried to watch on the computer in English, but it didn't turn out so good) and we were trying to get people to go to the church and watch. I did manage to see a good bit of the conference. I think my favorite talk was President Monson´s talk on Sunday morning. He spoke about the life of Christ, and how we can follow his paths better in our lives. On Sunday, we also had the baptism of Raynara. She is 13, and she is really great, she had already been taught by the missionaries, but she randomly came to church last week with her friends who are members, and said that she wanted to get baptized. So that was great to see that happen! Next week we should have the baptism of Lidia, who is absolutely amazing. She has already read almost all of 1 Nephi in the Book of Mormon, and we have only been teaching her for about a week!

I am seriously loving every minute of being here in Brazil. Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers as always!

um abraço,

Elder Poulson

Week 52

Dear Family & Friends,

My week was awesome! I am loving being a missionary more than ever before. We had two baptisms this week, Anderson and Wanderson. The W in Wanderson makes a V sound - haha. Portuguese is weird like that, half the time W is normal, the other half makes a V sound, but V always makes a V sound. so Whatever...anyway, they are brothers, 16 and 17 years old, and they are awesome! They were super excited to be baptized. My companion, Elder Da Mata had been teaching them about a week or two before I got to the area. Their mom and sister both came to their baptism, and church before the baptism, and they really liked it. They even invited us over to eat today, so we are pretty excited about that because cash is low and the fridge is empty!

This week, we also met a woman named Graça. She stopped us in the street one day, and told us her son served a mission, that he is a bishop in Fortaleza right now, and how she loves missionaries. She told us we were always welcome at her house. In fact, she fed us lunch last Thursday. It was a miracle, because our lunch appointment for that day fell through, and we didn't have money or food haha.

So this weekend is General Conference, and I am so excited! I love telling people about what conference is, and explaining about modern day prophets. There are a few people we are teaching who are super excited to go and watch!

Well, like I said, I am loving being a missionary, and everything is going great! Thank you all so much for the thoughts, prayers, and support!

Um abraço,

Elder Poulson

the smallest watermelon i've ever seen

baptism of Anderson and Wanderson! yes, they are brothers. and the W makes a V sound. because Portuguese.

we got a little extra money to buy a thing of gas for our kitchen. i cant remember the english word haha but anyway, we got the extra money for that. probably the first and last time that i'll touch 100 reais on my mission!

Week 51

Holy cow!!! Gracie sounds so different in the video you sent me! She sounds five years older instead of one! I still cant believe I've been gone for almost a year.  I made a video to send to y,all today, but I am back in a normal lan house instead of the speedy mission office Internet, so it wasn't able to load in time. I was transferred! I sent dad my address - I am in a town called Eusébio, outside Fortaleza. It's pretty good here, I am liking my companion, and I am a district leader, so I am having a lot of new learning experiences! 

I did get the box you sent that had the bracelets, thanks so much! Those missionary mints were funny, I liked them! I got the shirts from Grandpa & Grandma Hales!  The only thing I want to request for my Christmas package is a jar of peanut butter - it's hard to find anything with peanuts here. They don't have lemons, just limes, in Brazil. weird, huh?

My feet are doing great, with no signs of another breakout as of yet.

Sometimes when I think of all the things I need to improve on, I feel a little overwhelmed. I try to focus on just improving Little things. I agree with the quote you sent about most of our problems being in our heads haha! I have definitely noticed that I do that sometimes. I get way stressed about things and make it worse in my head than it really is. That's something I am trying to improve on, especially because I have some more responsibility now.  It will be good practice for me.  This first week in Eusebio was really good, there are lots of awesome people here that we are teaching. The hard part about working here is that it is a bit of a trip to get to church each Sunday, so it's hard to get visitors there.  We should still be having baptisms this week! There are still people who are really great, and will make the sacrifices to be at church, and change their lives. 

um abraço,

Elder Poulson

ps,

could you send me the recipe for that banana bread you make??

post-district meeting snack...melted ice cream haha

We have some lizards that live under our washing machine, and sometimes they make an appearance

Week 48

Dear Family & Friends,

This week was pretty good! We spent a lot of time last week trying to find new investigators, and this week we have a lot more people to teach which is great. It means less knocking on doors and more teaching! (here we do more clapping than knocking....everyone has outer walls around their houses, so we usually stand in the gate and clap)  We had 4 people come to church, and we should have at least one baptism next week! Randall, who I talked about last week, is still struggling with drugs. We are doing everything we can to help him out, but ultimately, it´s up to him to make the change. The temptation is really strong for him because most of his friends use drugs as well. We are planning on taking Randall to every single one of the activities they have at church this week to help him out! He is such a good guy, and he wants to get rid of this addiction so bad.

I'm still in the office, and I am the secretary of referrals. I take all the referrals that people send us, and put them into the computer on one of the church´s websites, and I find out the area where the person lives, and send it to the missionaries who work in that area. It's pretty cool, and I have gotten to know the geography of our mission and Fortaleza a lot better. I spend a lot of time on google maps! haha. 

Other than that, the work in our area is going pretty good! I am learning more and more about what seems like everything, every day. If that makes sense....basically, I am always finding out how little I actually know haha. I love being here in Brazil having all these great experiences that help me to learn and grow! I know that Jesus Christ lives, and that He loves us, that He is our Savior, and I love being able to represent him here. Thank you so much for the love, support, and prayers!

um forte abraço,

Elder Poulson