Hurrah for Israel!!!!

Well we're finally getting to know the area better. It's been a neat experience to open an area. It's a great excuse to ask help from the members and offer to help them as well. This week we found a ton of new people to teach, in fact each of the companionships in our district did really well at finding this week, everyone had at least 24 new investigators which was sweet!!

Mariporã

On Tuesday I got to do an exchange in an area that is basically what I imagined the mission would be like when I got my call to Brazil. We left district meeting and we caught a bus for about an hour with a ton of forrest and landscape to get to another city where the missionaries cover one ward and it has a ton of other neighborhoods that they have to catch a bus to work in the different parts of their area. It was cool to be in an area with way less congestion and traffic, nice and calm, people were super-receptive. We found a ton of new people to teach that day that all had a good amount of interest. 

Growing Ward

Serving here is cool because in the last year there have been a lot of people baptized in this ward. There is one recent convert that showed up at the church on his own without ever having contact with the missionaries and was later baptized. He went to lessons with us twice this week and is super strong in the church. There's another that is recently returning to the church and is preparing to serve a mission that we got to meet and visit. It's cool to see the influence that the great missionaries that passed through this area have left. 

Well I love it here. We had interviews with President this week and he directed me to Matthew 25:30-46 about how Christ will seperate the sheep from the goats. The interesting thing that I found afterwards is that the sheep didn't see that they had done great service and the goats didn't see how many oppertunities they had missed to serve. I want to be a great sheep alongside the good shepherd.

Love you all!! 

Elder DP

VILLA MADEIROS

Well I'm sure glad the World Cup is over and we can get back to business. It was funny this week because everybody here think's I'm German which was great yesterday when they won the World Cup but a little less awesome on Tuesday when Brazil lost to them 7-1. We got to lunch one day this week and my companion intruduced me as being from Germany. The Irmã that fed us nearly kicked me out of the house before I clarified that I'm just a plain old 'Merican. 

Finding Home

So I know I mentioned that I was transfered this week but I don't think I mentioned that I am opening an area with my companion. In other words the two elders that were here went to the mission office, handed me the keys, cell phone and a sheet of paper with some instructions and headed off to catch a bus to their new areas. There was a brother from the ward that picked up our bags but we had to stay for a meeting with our President so we had to catch a bus home. The only trick was finding home. Long story short we waited until the game ended since the bus didn't pass during the Brazil Game, then our Zone Leaders caught a bus with us and left us to catch another bus to our area. We waited there for about an hour and it was getting late before we stopped a different bus and asked if ours would pass by and they told us that people were burning buses downtown and so our bus wouldn't pass that night. We finally got into contact with our Bishop and fortunately he was able to give us a ride. Turns out the bus we stopped would have brought us to the same spot... ahh

View from apartment window

New Companion 

So my new companion is Elder Lene. He's from New Zealand and his first name has 26 letters in it. He's hilarious and is always happy and talking to people in the streets. When we had our first meeting with our new ward mission leader he asked us, "Have you guys watched 'The Other Side of Heaven?' Because I can't look at you guys without wanting to call Elder Della-Piana 'Kolipoke'" hahaha

Elder Lene & Elder DP

It's really cool serving in this ward because I either served with or nearby nearly all of the missionaries that have served here in the last 8 months so I already know the missionaries that baptized the recent converts here and have already heard about some of the members. I am really looking forward to it here. We found a ton of new people to teach this week since we know nobody and just talk to everyone in the streets but it's been a great experience. 

Our president taught us to follow Christ's example when he multiplied the fish as we start this transfer:

1) What do we have? (6 loafs of bread, 2 fish)

2) Give thanks (Matthew 6:41)

3) Have miracles - (Fed thousands)

What a great formula for any situation. I'm thankful for all the blessings the Lord has given me and my family. 

Love you All,

Elder DP

Tchau São Bento

Well this morning I found out that tomorrow I will be leaving São Bento to go to Villa Madeiro in the City of São Paulo. After 6 months in an area it will be hard to say goodbye to a lot of people here.

New President

Timothy L. and Linsey A. Farnes

So we got to meet our new Mission President and his family this week. They are amazing people. As my companion and I were entering the church gate he pulled up in his car parked and ran right out to embrace us and tell us how excited he was. His wife and family speak very little portuguese and he is trying to remember but even in broken portuguese his love for us and for the Lord was very evident. He talked a lot about winning the daily victories. LiVE - Little Victories Everyday (forget the i because we need to be unselfish). We all came away super excited (and he's an athlete so it looks like he's going to liberate basketball!!)

Member Missionaries

We had an awesome miracle that has been happening this week. There is a young man in our ward that when I got here was not active in the church. He had a rough background and he went to church only every once in a while. Suddenly these last few weeks he started coming to church regularly and participating in the ward. This week he told us that he wants to serve a mission!!! The sweet part is that he is bringing his friend along to everything and we've been teaching his friend as well!

Baptism

This week we had a baptism that the day before the investigator told us that she showed up at her neighbor's house (where we were telling her member friend that she would pray at the baptism) and told us that she wasn't going to be baptised the next day because she felt like she was being pressured into it. We talked to her a bit, read scriptures and such trying to help her but she insisted on the baptism being another date. We left and went to dinner at a member's home and while we were there we got a call from her "Hey have you told everyone to cancel my baptism yet" "No why?" "Because I talked to my member friend a bit more and I'm going to be baptised tomorrow" *FISTPUMP*

There were even fireworks going on during her baptism to celebrate (it was just because of Brazil winning in the world cup but we'll credit the baptism)

I am going to miss this area, there are so many other families and miracles that I will share when I get home, the mission is amazing. It is such a blessing to be able to help people every day learn about the Gospel and how their family can be together forever.

Love you All,

~Elder Della-Piana

THE NEW MISSION PRESIDENT AND WIFE

Timothy Lowell Farnes, 44, and Linsey Anne Farnes, five children, Bridlewood Ward, Bountiful Utah Orchard Stake, succeeding President Marcus H. Martins and Sister Mirian B. Martins. Brother Farnes is a former counselor in a stake presidency, high councilor, bishop, counselor in a ward Young Men presidency, and missionary in the Brazil Porto Alegre Mission. Founder/CEO, Aspire Holdings. Born in Baltimore, Md., to Gary William and Mary Ellen Farnes.

Sister Farnes is a former ward Young Women president, counselor in a ward Relief Society presidency, counselor in a ward Primary presidency, Relief Society instructor, and Primary teacher. Born in Provo, Utah, to David Roos and Judith Lynn Skinner.

"só loucura" (JUST CRAZY)

What a week.

Well first of all our new misson president, President Farnes, showed up this week. The elders that have already met him say he is awesome! We're going to get to meet him on Wednesday this coming week so that should be sweet. He already started changing some of the rules after just a few days to let us play volleyball again and listen to a variety of church music during the week and such.

This week there were two World Cup games for Brazil and so it was just craziness here. Saturday the game was against Chile and that is where my companion is from so he was cheering pretty hard for them to win. For those who don't know, Chile lost and everybody that knows my companion is from Chile is giving him a hard time about it, he's even tried to introduce himself as being from Spain to make up for the accent but avoid the heckling haha.

This week was also really cool to see the members helping us meet and teach their friends. There was a ward activity Saturday Night and President let us go. Nearly everyone brought friends to the activity and we marked a bunch of appointments to teach them this week in the homes of those members.

Scripture of the week:

"Be thou humble and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand and give thee answers to thy prayers" I know that the Lord answers prayers and wants to hear from us. As a missionary we pray a ton every day for all the people we know and love here and back home.

Love you all,

~Elder DP

Last Conference with President & Sister Martins

Oi gente,

Great week although we didn't get out on the streets working much.

On Tuesday Brazil played Mexico in a high scoring thriller (Final 0-0). The people were bummed but not as mad as they would be if they'd lost. We also had a multi-zone conference to say goodbye to President Martins and his wife as President Farnes will be arriving on Saturday and will from then on be our new mission president. It was great to hear from him once again and receive instructions to boost our faith and excitement to do the work of the Lord. 

Last Zone Conference with President & Sister Martins

Because of that we only worked from Thursday to Sunday basically and even that was interrupted by baptismal interviews to do in other areas. 

Cool experience this week was that we met a family that was a reference we got just from asking someone in the street if they knew someone we could visit. It was way out of the way of where we usually work but we made time to go there since it was a reference. We got there and they let us in and explained that they had always wanted to go to our church but they lost contact with the Sisters when they lived in another area and never got the Address. We got the chance to give them the address of the Church and invite them to make a visit. 

This week I got to give a talk about member missionary work and invited the Members to invite their friends to Family Home Evenings and that we would go there to give the message so they could learn more about our beliefs. We didn't even get out of the chapel after Sacrament Meeting and a young woman in the ward had already come up to us and marked to have her friends over on Thursday to have an FHE there. Then at lunch the sister there said that the week after we'll have an FHE in here home with her neighbors as well!! What a blessing to see members working to help their friends come unto Christ.

I'm loving the mission, Brazil is crazy but great.

Love you all,

Elder Della-Piana

What a week!

The funny thing about having one hour to relate a week of experiences and reply to other emails is that there are so many things that have to be left out, I guess that's why the mission ends some day.

So wednesday the World Cup shut the club down. We were at home since we no one would attend us if we tried to go talk to people but when Brazil scored it felt like we were in the stadium. The entire city literally exploded in cheers and cars took off just to rev their engines and honk their horns and have a "bagunsa" (circus) in the streets. It was quite the experience. 

We found two awesome families this week that have true interest! One of them the wife had stopped us in the street about three weeks ago. She asked what we do since she'd always seen us in the neighborhood but she was waiting a bus and had to get on before we could get her information to visit her and her family. Then this week we asked someone in the street for a reference to visit and she indicated her sister which just so happened to be this lady I had talked to. When we finally got her at home with the family they were in the middle of the barbacue but they stopped everyone and pulled them into one room to have a prayer and a message. The lady explained to us that she had had a dream of our church when she had been praying to overcome depression and then that was when she talked to us!! She asked a ton of great questions and it looks like they'll be at church on sunday!

Fun experience of the week - SO this week I did an exchange with Elder Youd. The thing about when I'm with Elder Youd is that that is when all the excitement happens. So we were walking out of a lesson and the pregnant lady asked "Wow that's a coincidence, you're both named 'Elder'" so we explained that it's a title and she asked our names. After explaining that they could only call us Elder, not our first name, we told them our names. When she heard Adam she said "Wow that's a cool name" and then grabbed her stomach "ADAM!!! THAT'S THE NAME!!!" and looked at her friend and they got really excited. So yeah, I got a kid named after me. No big deal, there will now be a kid in São Bento with a name that not even he can pronounce correctly..

I love it here and I love you guys. Spiritual thought of the week is Moroni 7:45-48 - I've been pondering a lot lately how the worold would be different if people truly had charity one for another.

Love you all,

~Elder Della-Piana

World Cup Here We Go

Well the world cup is about to start this week and Brazil is an exciting place to be. We'll literally just be shut into our house during and after the game this week. 

Well the highlight of the week was a stake conference broadcast that we got to hear from Richard G. Scott and M. Russell Ballard. Elder Scott speaks Spanish and gave his talk in Portuñol (Spanish/Portuguese combo) and it was AMAZING. He talked about how God answers prayers and how we need to respond. The interesting thing I got was that sometimes we don't get an answer if he trusts us to work it out on our own because we're being obedient. Our investigator that was there loved it.

I also got to do my first Baptismal Interview this week. It went smoothly. The only trick was that we caught the hour-long bus home at 9, the time when we were already supposed to be home planning and finishing out our day that was a bit exhausting.

Other News:

- The Broken Key - well our key to the back door broke locked from the inside. Good news - we were inside, Bad news - there's no way to get to our washing machine or our laundry that's drying without leaving that door or climbing on the neighbor's roof to get in and out. Long story short - after several unsuccessful attempts to pick the lock (oh it's a dead bolt that locks with one of those ancient looking keys) I finally took a screwdriver and an exercise weight and went to work, busting out a piece of the lock to make a different key fit - oh what we go through to get to laundry.

- My Chilean companion always says "Aw Fetch" when something doesn't go well and it's hilarious because he doesn't speak English, his last companion corrupted him.