Dear Family,

It was good to talk to you guys yesterday!

This week has been pretty good, we will be making lots of contacts this week and so I'm pretty excited about that,

Nothing too new haha but tell everyone i said hi, 

love you guys

Elder Toma

May 8, 2017 Hard to dry your clothes with all of this rain!

Dear Family,

This week went very well, we had an activity on Saturday and all the missionaries near our area and all the members help us do contacts and lessons for an entire day so this week we have been working on contacting all the references that we received.

This week it looks like we will be having a baptism on the 13th, of a lady that is about 25 or 26 years old. 

The weather has been a little bit cooler because of the rain, last week I was actually getting a little frustrated because we dry our clothes on clothes lines and it kept raining so I couldn’t dry my clothes hahaha. 

It looks like on Sunday about 4 o clock to 5 I will be getting on to skype with you guys.

It sounds like everything is going well down there, Savior of the World finished up right.  My companion he had the Savior of the World music and I told him that my dad was directing it in the DC Temple,  He got pretty excited to hear that ha-ha.

But I’m excited for Hunter and Michelle, tell them I said hi and everyone else

Everything is going well here, I’m staying busy with all these references that we have to contact ha-ha and with our investigators,

5 of our investigators are progressing really well but lack marriage so that’s a little complicated but we are trying to get them married,  Here the culture is a little bit different with marriage.

I’m excited to talk this week, I hope I won’t talk weird ha-ha like Hunter did.

Love you guys

Elder Toma

April 30, 2017 Visit by Elder Christofferson

Dear Family,

This week has been great!

I’m still in Tobias Barretto but I have a new companion, his name is Elder Ferreira and he is a Brazilian, he is from São Paulo interior and he is super super cool. He has about 1 year and 3 months in the mission and is super excited to work and is very determined with his goal of 10 baptisms this month. He grew up in the Church but it is very common for Brazilians to be converts here. Yes, Elder Christofferson came to visit Maceio’ when I was in Maceió two transfers ago.  We had an opportunity as the mission to hear from him but also, I was serving in the Barra De São Miguel which was part of the stake that he spoke in the following day on Sunday so I got to hear from him twice. It was so amazing to be able to talk to him and ask questions and hear from him.  He is really someone that knows that our Savior lives. Two things that he said that I thought were interesting is he said that Jesus is the Kings of Kings but Joseph Smith is the prophets of all prophets and the other thing he when he said that if we saw God right now we would instantly recognize him because we once knew him very well.

But this week went super well, we went to McDonalds when I went to pick up my companion Elder Ferriera and it was soooo good but here McDonalds is like super high end ha-ha also subway is super high end its crazy. Our investigators are doing well and we found new investigators that are soo good but all 4 of them lack marriage but they already accepted the invite to be married so I think we will help with that.

But how is everything back at home?

Miss you guys

Love

Elder Toma

April 27, 2017 New Companion!

Dear familia, 

Sorry that i didn't get the opportunity to write this week, I'm in the secretary office right now getting a cell phone and key to our house,

I got my new companion, his name is Elder Ferreira and he is a Brazilian, he is super cool already and I'm pretty excited to work with him

I'll explain more when i get more time this Monday.

Love you ALL

Elder Toma

April 17, 2017 Baptism of Nene'

Querida Família,

This week was super good, with our investigators and less actives,

Tuesday, we brought Cevada (barley) I think, to Nenês house and we watched the restoration of the gospel video with her as like a little Family home evening, and she didn’t like the cevada very much but she still drinks it instead of coffee ha-ha. but this Saturday we baptized her and confirmed her on Easter. On the way to the baptism my companion and I were walking with Nene and another less active to the baptismal meeting and my companion walked into this pole and somehow his pants got caught on it and when he kept walking his pants completely Split down the middle all the way down to his ankles, I couldn’t help to laugh but it was so terrible ha-ha, I had to give him my name tag that had a safety pin on the back of it to close his pants up and then we walked Nene and her friend to the church and then we had to go home really fast to change pants ha-ha.

But all went well, she was very happy at the meeting and excited to be baptized. It’s so crazy though that she was an investigator 4 years ago and finally she was baptized. I don’t think it was just luck that we found her the very same day she finished the Book of Mormon. It was also a miracle that she gave up drinking coffee, I could really see Gods hand helping and working with her.

Yesterday was an ok Easter ha-ha. It rained very very hard in the morning when we were going to the less actives and investigators houses to bring them to church. So, when we went to church I had to give a talk and my comp after said that he could see everything through my shirt because I was so soaked ha-ha so that was embarrassing but I think the talk went well. After church, our lunch fell through so we went home and ate plain rice and plain noodles ha-ha it wasn’t the best meal I have eaten here, but they have huge chocolate eggs here that are just amazing and we got one as a present so at least we got some chocolate to eat ha-ha.

Sounds like everything is going well back at home, I’m glad to hear about the SOTW going well,

tell Conner that I didn’t get his email, I would love to write him too,

Miss, you guys!

Love Elder Toma

April 10, 2017 Highlights of the week

This week was good, the highlight of the week was probably seeing this super tiny car in front of this store and then this midget came out and he drives it! I’ll send some pictures hahaha. 

But it’s been good with all the investigators and member. we have an investigator Nené and she is the one that finished the Book of Mormon and then the day later we showed up at her door. She has an addiction with coffee but she hasn’t drunken it in a while and she is preparing to be baptized this Saturday so pray for her. We have lots of other baptisms that we have prepared for next Saturday also so it’s been busy trying to accompany them every day but also visiting all the less actives and as well the actives making sure they stay strong. 

Other than the busy week nothing too new happened. 

The transfer is passing really fast, we only have this week and the next and then its transfers again.

My guess is that I will stay here with my companion, the mission president told me that he wants to try something new with this area and he felt to place me there with my companion and I don’t know what we have been doing different but the area seems to be progressing. This week I ate this weird meal to and for the first time I didn’t like the food too much ha-ha it was like slop that was brown and it was weird hahaha but for the most part the food has been great.

It sounds like everything there is going good. I wish I could watch the Savior of the World production it sounds very good this year. Also, every Saturday we teach English classes hahaha it’s so funny to teach English but at first I was dying with speaking, like I can read it and I know what it means but then I try to say it and I can’t ha-ha but after a little I was able to speak English perfectly. My companion is even worse ha-ha he had to call home one time for some banking thing and he couldn’t communicate hahaha he just didn’t know what to say and he completely froze. 

Also, we have family nights with the me members and investigators and that’s super fun and good for them to connect more.

The branch is super small, I already have to give a talk and it’s the first normal Sunday since I’ve got here hahaha. But I like giving talks here, I don’t know why I disliked it so much back at home but here it’s something I like.

Hope everyone had a good week,

Love you guys

Elder Toma

April 3, 2017 Finding More

This week we had a little bit of more success by praying and fasting to help this area grow better.

On Friday we looked in the area book to find a less active so that we could maybe reactivate him. But the address written on the paper was wrong and it lead us to this house with a woman named Nei Nei and she was an investigator 4 years ago and never got baptized but when we came to the door we just had a normal conversation.  We asked for directions to the house of the inactive and also asked her if she has already talked to missionaries. She said yes and told us that she finished the Book of Mormon yesterday. I was very surprised, after 4 years she finally decided to read the Book of Mormon and we end up on her door step the next day that she finishes it, and also if the paper wasn’t wrong we would have never have found her. We then sat down with her and asked about the Book of Mormon and then we committed her and her daughter to baptism. 

This week was also good because we had the opportunity to watch General Conference, my favorite talk was of President Thomas S. Monson.  I liked how he talked about the power of charity, kindness, and love.

Conference was very good but the Sunday session was hard to get investigators because it rained sooo much that the roads flooded completely to the point where water was entering houses ha-ha. It was like a legit current and we were stuck in the church until 2nd session so we spent 6 hours in the church ha-ha.

But this week we also have had success with finding more baptisms, Silvãnia who has a super strong testimony of this church and she is moving from the boyfriend of her because she doesn’t want to live in sin anymore and he doesn’t want to marry. Also, Angelica is super cool, she is progressing a lot and has no problems yet and we are marking baptism here in the next visit and I’m sure she will get baptized here. 

Sounds like everything is good down there at home,

miss you all

Love

Elder Toma