March 19, 2017 My first transfer!

Dear Family,

Today will be a little bit shorter because I have to clean the house today and pack and leave the area early tomorrow morning.

SO, this week was really good. This week I traveled a lot. We traveled to Curoripi which is like 2 hours away and then the next day we went to São Miguel Dos Campos to interview the sisters’ investigators and then we had to travel there again the next day and then in the same day I went to Maceió to do division where we went to Curoripi that same and we slept in the patriarch’s house and then traveled back to our area and got our interviews with our investigators done. SO, this week was very very busy. But we were able to get 2 super beautiful baptisms performed.

So, the news is that I will be going to Topís or something like that, but it’s in Cerjibi which is not even Alagoas it’s a different state. And my companion will be an American once again ha-ha. I heard the area is pretty hard but its good. Also, its a branch there which is one upgrade from here which is a group ha-ha. But this week has been good, I’ll send more details next week when I get to the area. It will be a 10-hour drive, so wish me luck.

Love you Guys

Elder Toma

March 13, 2017 Hearing the testimony of an apostle

Oi família, 

Carnival is over but they are doing ´´blocks´´ which is basically mini carnivals. I just don’t understand why they can’t give up Carnival ha-ha. 

This week was crazy. Tuesday, we had our baptism and we made cookies mixed with brownies and everyone thought we were such amazing cooks but we just made it from the box ha-ha. and we almost screwed that up! 

Thursday, we got permission from the president to go to this city called Curopipe. It is pretty far away so when we got there it was already noon. We were trying to call the member that lives there but his phone wasn’t working so we just decided to ask the people on the bus. We asked the people on the bus which stop we should get off of to arrive to Curopipe, they told us what stop and we got off the bus. We then realized the road of this member isn’t in this city. We arrived in Pontal de Curopipe not the city of Curopipe. So, we had to take this mini Volkswagen bus to the city of curopipe where the only information that we had was a road and name of this investigator that we needed to teach to be baptized. SO, we arrived in the city and just asked everyone where she leaved. Finally, we arrived to her house and were able to teach the restoration and invite her and her 19-year-old daughter to baptism this Sunday because they have already gone a couple times to church in another city and also one time in our area A Barra de São Miguel. After that it was basically night time and so there weren’t any buses that were passing so we had to call a taxi and we finally arrived to the Patriarchs house were stayed there overnight.

The next day we woke up at 4:30 and left at 5, I fell asleep on the Bus and I had the cell phone in my pocket. I think while I was sleeping the cell phone fell out of my pocket and then when we came to our stop I woke up and got up really fast because we almost missed it and grabbed my bags and left. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to get our cell phone so the secretary took R$70 out of my funds. Today it poured rain and we had to travel miles asking people where the Work center or secretary office is and we finally found it and we got our new cell phone and then travel back in the rain and now I’m here ha-ha.

But also this week was super super good. Saturday all the missionaries got the opportunity to listen to Elder Basette, Elder Robins, and Elder D. Todd Christofferson. We got to shake all the hands and ask many questions. All three of them gave fantastic talks that were sooo amazing. I didn’t bring my notes with me so I can’t tell you guys everything but something that I thought was cool was Elder Christofferson’ s testimony is super simple yet very powerful and he is so sure about everything almost like he has seen it all. And then Sunday Our stake got the opportunity to listen to him again in church. it was very cool. So, that definitely made up for this week ha-ha.

Also we found some really good investigators. We brought lots of investigators to hear Elder Christofferson so that was really really cool. This week I’m excited because on Sunday we will baptize the two from Curopipe, one of a member’s friends, and maybe two others so it’s going very well. I think I will be transferred though this coming Tuesday. I want to be a part of all the new investigators we found but I’m also excited to serve in a new area.

Sounds life everything is going well back at home

tell everyone I said hi

Love 

Elder Toma

March 5, 2017 Baptisms scheduled

Dear Family,

This week has been a little bit more normal now that Carnival is over. This week we were able to work a little and get some new investigators. My companion and I are excited because we will have two baptisms tomorrow and also another one on Sunday. 

Also, we are super excited to get to see Elder D. Todd Christofferson, he will talk to all the missionaries in this mission and then we will have a stake conference on Sunday and the stake will be able to listen to him. So, we get to listen to him twice! 

This week has also still been kind of weird with carnival ending, like one night all the men dressed up like woman and the women like men and it was very very weird ha-ha. Last night was hard to sleep because our neighbors were blasting music soooo loud, and it was like American 80s music, sometimes Brazil drives me nuts ha-ha. But other than that, all is good. Our investigators are doing pretty well, I was kind of upset because a lot of our investigators didn’t go to church and we walked all the way across our area to bring them to church to find out they wouldn’t go. The investigators that we already baptized are doing well too though, they are going to church and really progressing. 

This month I think we will get a couple of people married. In Brazil, nobody gets married they just live together so its super hard to baptize but a few of our investigators are willing to get married and be baptized soon. I talked to my mission president a couple of weeks ago, and it sounds like I may be transferred soon because I have served here for over 4 months I think, and transfers is coming up this month. So, I just have a few weeks left here and then I might go work in another area.

Sounds like everyone is doing well.

I’m excited for Hunter to get married, He´ll have to send me pictures!

Hope you guys have a good week.

Love,

Elder Toma