WHAT??? 9-29-14

yeah did anyone think that this week would have something crazy happening because of the subject of this email.. well sorry!! haha 

this week was really awesome though! we had 2 baptisms this week! that ends a pretty long drought! so im pretty thrilled about that! we baptized Patric and Felipe, they are brothers. they live in a really tought situation, their mom died and their Dad is a drug addict, tehy are cared for by their grandma! but the church has been a real safe haven for them! it was cool to see them chagne over these last 2 weeks and see their determination to over come the obstacles that were in their way! saturday they were baptized, and sunday they were already taking their friends to church! it was awesome!

i think that last week i talked about Aparecida, the JW lady. but we had an awesome experience with here this week, we had been teaching her and always inviting here to be baptized. this whole week she was telling us how she couldnt give us the answer yet.. well this week at church she came up to us and said that she wanted to be baptized on the 17 of October! it was awesome! agian it has been awesome to see the changes that the gospel has done for her in her life! she is full of hope and purpose for her life! 

this week was the transfer and everyone who was here in sergipe and was transferred to alagoas, stayed in our chapel until 3 in the morning when the Bus got here to pick them up! that was an adventure seeing as we had to stay there all night to make sure that nothing crazy happened.. and in the middle of it all a Sister had a nervous attack and passed out and stopped breathing.. yeah it was pretty intense!! we called the ambulance and all and it was all good, but it was intense and exhausting! 

Things with Elder Lima are going well, we are really working well together! im really liking him and the focus that we have had these last couple weeks! It has been really fun!

well i think that is about it from me! i hope that everyone is doing well and that everyone is missing me tons!;) ahaha love you all! boa semana pra todos! 

Elder Ryan

Elder Ryan and Elder Lima

"I BROKE THE SINK"

"MY CAR" 

the weekly shindig 9-22-14

so this week was a really good one! it was the last week of the transfer and we really killed it together! 

i stayed here in Aracaju, and im still companions with Elder Lima, we are really working well together and are really good freinds! easily he is my favorite companion so far! really glad that we stayed togetehr for one more transfer! 

so this week we have been working lots with Aparecida, she is a Jehovahs witness that we have been teaching. it has been a really cool experience to see the changes that are happening in her life these last two weeks! she told us how she felt that it was so true and she didnt know why because it is so contrairy to what is taught at the JW's. she went to church this sunday and that was an awesome experince! we are working to baptize her on the 4th.

we help some one move this week, it was a 2 hour planned activity.. it ended up being 6.. seeing as we were the only ones there helping, we didnt leave until it was done! haha and i worked musceles in my body that i had forgotten exsisted! haha 

we are also working with Felipe and Patrick and their dad Adriano. Adriano struggles with drug addictions but has been really looking to stop, havent had much progress leaving the drugs but he did make it to church this week, which was a huge step for him! his two sons Patrick and Felipe and planned to be baptized this week! super excited about that! they have been going to church and to all the activities during the week! really pumped for this saturday! 

we planned an activity for our investigators with the ward this week and it was a hit! i taught the ward how to play ninja and do the human knot! it was a blast i was dying laughing! i think it was the spark that this ward was needing! 

We talked to Pres Gomes about opening a group, like i wrote about last week, and he was pretty hesitant, but all hope is not lost! i think we can get the stake pres to apporve it!! im really excited that i stayed in the area, i feel like we are gonna make some real miracels happen this transfer! 

well that is about it! thanks everyone for writing! love hearing from everyone! 

Love 

Elder Ryan

the weeks news! 9-15-14

alrighty so let the excitement be read! i know that all of you have been desperately waiting for my email, so here it is! ;)

so we had another really good week this week! me and Elder Lima are really running on all cylinders here! we had this briliant idea this week that we started putting into action and it has been a huge success! but more details on that in a bit! 

so we started out the week by doing a trainning with all of our district leaders in our zone on tuesday morning, and it went really well, we talked about how to have a district meeting more efficiant and effective! we talked about teaching techniques and how to help the districts baptize! it was fun! one thing that i have like about being Zone Leader is preparing the trainnings, its a lot of work and tiring, but it is worth it when it all goes smoothly! 

so back to our brilliant idea that we had! so in this area we are having a really hard time getting the people to go to church so we created the "Church Today" theory. (that is trademarked!) many of the investigators that we teach say that they will go to church on sunday, when sunday roles around, they dont want to go, or they create lame excuses as to why they cant go... so to help us decided who really will progress and not we started challenging people to go and visit the chapel with us that day! if they couldnt, we would try and mark for another.. until they would go with us, or they told us how they really felt and told us that they didnt want to go to church! it worked extremely well! we were able to take 3 people to church this week before sunday, which helped that 2 of them went to sacrement meeting on sunday! it was awesome! 

had my first zone meeting as zone leader, that was intense, sometimes it is hard to pass the vision of what you know they other missionaries can accomplish! but it went well! this week ourzone doupled the baptisms! so looks like it had some effect! 

There is this neighborhood that is really far away from the church building, like 30minutes by car, so we are going to try adn open a group there, seeing as there is already an active family living there! hoping that we can get it approved by the mission and stake pres for us to start working there next week! 

well i think that is about it for things here! i hope that everyone is doing well and that you are all missing me soo much ;) haha but love you all! Boa semana para todos! 

Elder Ryan

here is what we got for this week 9-8-14

so this week was all things that are good! to start things out we had a visit from one of the seventies, Marcos Adiukaitus.. (I think that is how you spell his name) he is like a legit general athourity, like from the first quorum and everything! ;) but it was good. he came on wednesday, started out with a leadership meeting, with all the zone leaders here in sergipe, so 6 of us, and he just opened up the time for questions.... it was just a, "get burned fest" because the other missionaries were asking some reall dumb questions.. needless to say i was way to afraid to ask him anything! hahha but after the leader ship meeting there was a meeting with all the missionaries and that was awesome! he talked about we can plan things better and set more challenging goals to push our selves and acheive a full potencial and working to reach the goals that we established! it was a really awesome meeting, helped out a ton, we starting applying the things that he taught us and it went really well! we had one of the most sucessful weeks of my whole mission! 

we were able to find lots of new people to start teaching which was good because our group of investigators was pretty full of people who werent making any progress! but things were looking really good during the week, we found 3 families to teach, which was awesome, and worked lots with referals of the members, teaching their friends and family members! by saturday things were looking real good for having people visit church and make progress for baptism... but the Big Sunday came around... and no one went to church... went to pick them up, get there and they just wouldnt go, even if they had nothing else to do!! haha it makes me laugh a bit becuase it is some thing that so many people have a hard time doing, and that is one of the big reasons why we stop teaching some people, is going to church... its funny because they can only gain from going to church, its not that long and its a really positive place focused on teaching is how to be better in our roles of the family (Dad, Mom, brother sister..) and how we can serve other people... but for some reason it is like the hardest thing fro people here! 

but its ok, we´ll figure out something we can do to get these people to church! 

Really liking working with Elder Lima, isa cool guy, we have really hit our stride working wise, teaching well together and really getting a lot accomplished every day! its been a lot of fun working with him! 

well i dont really know what else to write about this week, it was just a week of lots of work, nothing to crazy happened.. this transfer is passing by way to fast, its already been a month since i got here... time is just flyin by! 

Well that is it for this week! i hope that everyone is doing well! love and miss all of you! 

Até Mais!! 

Elder Ryan

the weeks news! 9-1-14

so this week was a tough one! 

So the week started off by doing a division with one of the district leaders of our zone! his companion has been having a hard time with stress lately, so weve been trying to help out there! but it was good! his name is elder Roper, he is from phoenix and he has like just 3 more months to go on his mish. he was fun to work with, their area was also huge and we had to do some serious walking which was just bundles of fun! ;) the only problem was that when i got there it was like walking into the dump... needless to say it was necessary to do a manditory pick of things. interesting how it is that it is impossible to think straight or have the spirit with you when things are really dirty! 

this week we had a problem with teaching people who didnt really want to do anything. they would listen to us because we were teaching the "word of God" and then when would get in there and throw down the baptismal challange, they all were like..  " oh i have another church" or some other excuse like that! so that was kind of rough for this week, really has been a struggle in this area to find people who are ready to act! pray, read, try living the commandments, going to church. its hard because i know that if the people just do these things, these little things like read the scriptures and pray, they can know its true.. funny how its so simple but the people have such a hard time with it! but its fine, Elder Lima is really good about this, he just keeps working no matter what the result! so we have been working lots trying to do our best! i know that we will find the right people soon, just got to keep on looking! 

this week ive been doing lots of baptismal interviews.. its something that is kind of intense actually! some times the people have hard questions or they need help getting over a fear or something like that! it has been a cool learning experience on how to put into action the whispers of the spirit of how to help these people move forward and choose to follow christ! 

sunday i had to give a talk... i dont think that i will ever like giving talks! hah but it was good, i gave it on missionary work. as i studied, i learned just how important the members are in helping the work move forth.. i reflected and realized that all the people that i had baptized on my mission were referals of the members! really the members do more of the work than we do! 

well i think that is about it as far as the update goes! hope that everyone is well and happy! Amo todos vocês e espero que vocês tem um ótimo semana! 

Elder Ryan

Elder Lima and Elder Ryan

Still has "the force" with him!