Hey mom, and Dad!
Thank you both for your letters. Mom was right, about
your example of what i was talking about the baptisms happening so quickly and
feeling like they werent ready. Dad I really appreciate your examples and
explination of the spirit world being such a incredible tool that Heavenly
Father uses to make all things that are unfair here fair in the world to come.
I was pondering about how unfair it really is here. The way that I grew up, I
had it so easy and thats why I can live the gospel the way that I am. I had the
gospel from day one, and had leaders in the church who were in the church from day
one, I have you both and my grandparents who have had the gospel since day one.
All of my family and most of my friends have been strong good examples of the
gospel. Yet here it is rough, and the gospel is new and not fully devoloped as
the United states is. They have enough and still have great leaders, but not
the amount of help I received. They just don´t have the kind of experience that
allows them to live the gospel to its fullest. So my point is, your
explianation of the spirit world helped me understand that even if they dont
understand how to live the gospel to the fullest in this life they will have at
least made the covenants here and then have the potential and capability to
live it more fully there in the spirit world. So yeah, thank you so much. And I
really love hearing about your missions mom and dad. If you ever think of an
experience of your mission. I would always love to hear about it! I recognized
in my mission that I feel like I dont really know much at all about yalls
missions! haha
And thanks for the package in advance! haha. sorry i
wasn´t able to give suggestions, I totally forgot until afterwards becuase I
was trying to answer all the other questions yall had about my area. Yall are
pretty good about reading my mind anyway. haha
And mom to your questions:
The mission home is pretty close to us, because we are
in one of the Manaus City areas...we have to take a bus to get there, but we
didn´t end up getting to go to the temple this week,,so for sure this week and
if so...depending on when we go, I might get the letter. But Im not really sure
how often we get mail distributed out. But it will get to me soon enough! haha
Thanks again.
And yes we are supposed to still have an hour of
language study each day, but we are only getting regular studies in like 5 days
a week. Which I really don´t like but my comp says that 5 days is pretty good
in his experience. I need my personal study though, to get me through the day.
So if I can help it, we have it. But our language studies have been reading in
the Book of mormon in portuguese to english and it is to help me and also my
comp learn some english. He wants to learn.
And on avagage we teach like 3-4 lessons a day...but
my comp says this is pretty low. He talks a lot with people before the lesson
so we are usually doing a lesson for over an hour....I have a hard time
starting and ending lessons becuase I am not fully involved in the
conversations yet and its hard to know when a good time is to start when you
don´t fully understand what they are saying. But I am going to work on that.
Because we need to be teaching like 7-8 lessons a day. It wouldn´t be hard here
if we have shorter lessons.
And on avarage how many miles do I walk a day....i
dont really know.....a lot? haha Im sure it seems like a lot more because of
how much we sweat and there are so many hills but probably at least 6-8 miles
on avarage. I really don´t know. I wish I had one of those trackers on me to
know how much I walked each day...it would be interesting to know for sure!
haha
The
chapel is like 1 and a half miles away from our place I think (all
approximation and there is a big hill to get there so maybe its only a mile)
and the place we email from is this like computer room that is open to the
public for like 50cents (in US money) an hour. (or R$5 for 5 hours) You have
like a litte account and sign in everytime so you can just add more time to
your account by paying them a little more. And this place is inbetween our
house and the chapel. So its not too bad. And no laundry mats don´t exist here.
haha I was so spoiled in the states. But we do have this washer like thing that
everyone has. It looks like a washed but it really just sokes our cloeths with
soap and spins and then rinces them again for us to then take out and dry. If
we want our collers to look desent we need to scrup them by hand and them
wash them. But we have it here in our appartment so thats nice. But yeah that
is how everyone does it here.
Ah and to help yall understand how the meals work,
every day for each month we have a meal except for p-day. But sometimes (like
last week) we do. But here, they dont really have dinner. They sometimes have
breakfast....like bread and some juice, coffee, or a chocolate like drink, and
then at 12:00 they have Almoço (lunch) and this is their big meal to sit down
as a family and eat together, and dinner like I said they dont really have they
are still full from almoço until like 7 or 8, they have lanche which means a
snack. So we have Almoço with a member every day of the week and they are
surprising way easy going about vegetarianism. I am really glad because of the
switch over to meat and meat in a country like this I think could have really
negetively effected my health. But I always have pletty to eat. We normally
have rice and beans at every meal, and a speghetti dish called Macarrão. And
often a salad or some other dish I can eat. OH and I cant forget Guarana! I
probably have had Guarana every day sometimes 2-3 times a day since I got here!
Its like the soda that everyone drinks and wants all the time. So many elders
are like addicted to it! Everyone offers it to us so I havent been able to keep
up my no soda goal that I had going for like 3 years, but its a sacrifice for
the culture and people here! haha I like it though! haha
well I think thats it, and I don´t have time to send
out a email to everyone else again. Sorry. I think next week I will try. But
because everything is so new I just have too much to share every week. But I
hope yall feel like you are getting to know a the things you want to know about
my mission here. I am sad that I wont be able to send my sd card home as often
as I used to, but I am still taking pictures and videos that I hope yall will
enjoy. Here are a few that I took this past week.
Pictures:
The first one was of me after we took a 15 minute
walk to the bus an 45 minute wiat for the bus, where after we road for 20
minutes to a stop where we walked down another 10 minutes to a river bank where
a son of the family we were having lunch with picked us up in their large
canoe/boat thing you can see part of it. And yeah the 11 year old boy made me
get on this stiraphome thing to take a picture. haha it was fun
the second was while on exchange and there was a great
view of the river! ]
the third is of a tree.....with a sloth in it! hahaha
you cant really see it but it was just like 1 minute walk from our house in the
tree. We saw it there the next day too! It was pretty sweet!
And lastly we had a baptism this saturday that went a
lot better than the previous week. his name is Daniel and he looks like 18 but
is only 13! haha but was so prepared. we met him like my 2nd day her through a
member of our branch. Our ward mission leader actaully. (our wml is only 20
years old and was baptized 5months ago. haha) But yeah, he wants to be a
missionary some day too. He went out and bought new pants, white shirt, tie and
shoes for church! he looked great yesterday and was confirmed. So it was super
fast, but I will do everything I can to help these recent converts receive the
lessons a second time and then help them stay active. I know this was something
I did a lot in my other mission that I think this mission lacks. There focus is
Baptism baptism BAPTISM! and there isnt really a lot of talk about less actives
and only a little of recent converts. President Klien i think really drilled
this into every missionary that they need to baptize every week! And if they
don´t they are successful missionaries. And so this one of the biggest reasons
toooonnns of children are baptized here and get lost because the families
aren´t there to support them! So yeah, I hope that I can help get a consistant
and immediate plan for helping RCs receive the lessons again and get taken care
of. (btw the home teaching and visiting teaching sucks here. like 2 families do
it, and that is another reason there are so many lost members here.) But anyway
I didnt mean to get off track with this picture....but yeah Daniel is pretty
sweet and asked me to baptism. first one in portuguese. It went well. :)
Well I think thats all I can share this week! I hope
to share more and in a more organized manner like usual next week.
But I sure love you both and thank you for all your
prayers. It is still really tough here and I miss my other mission and home
like crazy but I am really trying my best to be happy to be here and help as
much as i can. It was a real treat to hear from yall today. Thank you for your
advice and encouragement, It really means everything to me, and I apply
it.
Until next week!
love your son,
-Elder Swalberg
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