Parada Pinto Week 1

Well I'm clocking in for the first time from Parada Pinto (translation - "Pinto Stop"). The internet here is PAINFULLY slow but I'll do my best here. 

I'm living with four missionaries for the first time in my mission which is pretty sweet. My companion Elder Noleto is from the Northern Brazil and was a salesman before the mission which always helps as a missionary. He's pretty cool, the first week has been an adventure. The other companionship that lives with us is pretty cool as well - Elder Ihasz from Oregon is a very patriotic american that will go home a little before me and Elder J. Lopes is from Curitiba and served in the military before the mission. It's been pretty fun so far.

Work hard

The wark here in São Paulo is very different from the people in Sorocaba. For a missionary it's great because the people live at a faster pace and are really receptive. This week my companion and I were walkinga and talking and we were so excited that I stopped in the middle of a frase to do a contact. He let us in and we met his family -- 4 siblings and a cousin that all accepted to go to church and are now preparing to be baptized. It's a cool family because they grew up in an orphanage and are starting their lives now and are all working together to start a new life. We coordinated for their sister to go to the relief society activity on Saturday and she went there and had so much fun that she ended up going to institute and the YSA dance before she even went to Sacrament meeting for the first time. It was great to have members that made them feel so welcome. We gave them some white shirts and ties and they all went with white shirts and ties which was super cool. 

Play Hard

We went to "Vinte-Cinco de Março" today for p-day which is one of the biggest marketplaces in Brazil. I got to buy some souveneirs that I've wanted for a little while. My companion likes to say "a vida é feita de business" which means "life is made of business" and so it was pretty funny to see him go to work on the bargains. A guy stopped us selling a watch and he worked him down from R$70 to R$30 and went away talking about how he would have been able to get him down to R$25.

It's so amazing to be able to serve full-time only worrying about helping others return to the presence of our Heavenly Father. As I've studied the last week of the savior these last few days I've learned a lot. I loved what Christ taught the apostles about how we can be united in Christ

John 17:

 21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

 22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

As we take upon ourselves the name of Christ through baptism we unite ourselves with Christ in our purpose to save the whole human race. What a marvalous work to participate in. 

Have a great week peeps,

Elder DP

Why Stop Now?

Well I kept my transfer streak going.... COMPANION NUMBER 19 HERE I COME!!

Haha this time I'm the one on the transfer bus and I'm headed to São Paulo. I'll get to serve with Elder Noleto, one of the best missionaries in the mission. I'm pretty excited but at the same time it's hard to say bye to everyone here, I thought I'd stick around for longer. I'm stoked though because I'll be in the same zone as Elder Dallto (my companion from before this last transfer). 

 Zona Barcelona! All missionaries from our zone

 ... Porque Batizar é Bom Demais

Mauro's baptism - fun fact: In portuguese
the literal translation of the word for the baptismal
clothes means "Big Monkey"  oh louco! 

"Pastor Mauro" was baptised this week. The first time we met him I didn't even mark to go back and visit him I thought it was so unlikely that he would be baptized. The next day he called us in the street to go back to his house and we marked his baptism. He presented himself as "Pastor" because he was a pastor a long time ago in another church. His baptism was right after Stake Conference and so there was a pretty good turnout which was cool. 

The boy in the striped suit

The young man with a suit and purple tie and shirt is a friend of ours that went to church for the first time last week. He went with a suit and everything and I thought he was a member from another ward but it turned out he had already been to church in another ward but isn't baptised and was visiting our ward for the first time. We went there this week and he had a strong desire to keep going to church and be dedicated to following Christ. I'm bummed that I won't be here for his baptism next weekend.

Well I'm pretty stoked for a new adventure in the Capital. I'll be serving in the same zone with several of my friends from the mission and so I'm pretty stoked to be there.

Recent Converts and Youth again

Have a great week!

Até já,

Elder DP

"I like to look for rainbows, whenever there is rain"

Rafael is gunna get baptized

Saying Goodbye to recent converts
and other youth from the ward, 

Youth activity with Stake Conference

Service Project

Barcelona Weekly

We had some fun happenings this week. I practically didn't work with my companion the whole week which was pretty crazy. The AP's came to our zone and did exchanges with us and with other missionaries and so we had two companionships in our area two days in a row, then with leadership counsel, exchanges with members and another exchange for baptismal interviews we basically only worked Saturday and Sunday together. At the same time lots of great things happened this week.

Reactivation Miracles

We decided to crank through the list of members to see if there were any part-member families we could work with and we had some cool sucess with that this week. We found one family that the husband isn't a member. He showed interest in the church and commited to go to church. With a simple invite the whole family went to church! During Gospel Principles the teacher challenged those in the room to commit to read daily the Book of Mormon and those who committed would receive a new Triple Combination and Bible as a present for the challenge and to our surprise (and the surprise of his wife) his hand shot up and he seemed excited for the challenge.

Other Reactivation Miracle

We taught another less-active this week that I mentioned in my email last week. He went to church just like he said he would and he brought his neighbor that loved church and accepted baptism when we passed by his house later that day. It was cool to see another example of someone bringing a friend along coming back to church.

Checklist and Check-Mate

We've got some cool new programs going on in the mission that we recieved more instructions on at Leadership Council. We have a new checklist so that our progressing investigators have daily contact either with us or with a member and so that whenever we teach them we have planned to go with a member. The other one is Check-Mate which we use to make sure that everyone that accepts a baptismal date is baptized on that day using stuff like a refrigerater magnet to remind them of the date, taking pictures beforehand of them trying on baptismal clothes and having them send out invitations to all their friends letting them know about the date. We're really excited about these new ideas. Leadership counsel was really cool.

Atividade de Zona

We played volleyball in the rain and ate some breakfast foods from Portugal and Argentina to celebrate our Elder vs.Sister competition that we used to excite the zone and reward them for having a great month in February. 

Have a great week e'rybody! 

Elder Della-Piana

ps. the pictures are from the activity, leadership council and "a pilar of light... which descended gradually until it fell upon [Sorocaba]" last Sunday. The sun hitting the rain was way cooler to see in person but the picture came out pretty cool

Doing Work

I love being a missionary. It's hard but it's worth it. This week had its ups and downs. Lots of exchanges and interviews. Lots of miracles and lots of plans that fell through.

We started working a lot this week with less active families and some families that not all are members of the church. It was cool to be able to hear their stories and remind them of their testimonies. There was one Sunday night when we were really tired and decided to try one more street at 8:30 at night and my companion stopped in a doorway and greeted the man that was sitting there. It turned out that he was less active and had been thinking this weekend about how he wanted to be able to go back to church and was thinking about how he wished the Élders had passed by his house. He committed to go to church next sunday :)

Our mission president gave us a challenge starting this week until Easter for us to study the last week of Christ's earthly ministry using the 4 Gospels as well as Jesus the Christ and any references in the Book of Mormon. As we study he asked us to ponder three questions

      1) In His last week, how did He treat others?

      2) In his last week, how did He act before judgement, suffering and betrayal?

      3) How did he finish?

I got stoked when I saw this invite, I think it's going to not only be a fascinating study but also an inspiring experience. (I guess it's my dad's fault I became a scripture nerd...)

Have a great week! Do great things!

Elder DP

20 Years and Counting (it's his birthday this week)

Yet another wild week. We got to go to the temple in Campinas which was a huge highlight of the week. It was cool to be around all the other missionaries and even better to be in the house of the Lord. It is such a special thing to be in a Temple. I wish I could go more frequently.

Irmão Ary

This week we had one of the coolest baptisms of my mission. Our good friend Ary was baptized. We found him knocking doors and the second visit he tried to desist saying he heard we would baptize him in the name of a dead person. After my companion said that the only dead person in whose name we baptize has already ressurected he was impressed and has been going to church since. For a while he didn't accept the baptismal dates we tried to mark with him and eventually he marked his own baptismal date for his 80th birthday. A sister in the ward even made cupcakes for him for his birthday and we gave him a new bible. Nearly 20 members of his family came to support him, all from different denominations, including his son who is a catholic minister and his daughter that lives at least 2 hours away in São Paulo. It was a special experience.

New area, new friends

We started to work in a new part of our area that is more humble. It was cool because this was the first sunday and we already had a good number of people that went to church. There was a little girl this week that's 8 years old and she stopped us in the street and asked "Do you guys do prayers for people?" And we responded that we do and she asked us to say a prayer for her mom. It turned out

that her sister has already visited the church many times in the past. We prayed with the family and the sister that had already been to church had a soccer game this sunday but the little girl went to church with us and some of the other people from the neighborhood. It was cool.

Surprise baptism

We also had a surprise baptism in the neighboring city that the sisters called us when the baptism was supposed to start because they didn't have enough priesthood at the baptism and there wasn't anyone else in their ward that could make it. We ran over to the baptism and I got to baptize which is always fun. Even the guy we baptized looks kind of surprised (see picture of the man with the white beard and the jumpsuit for someone a foot taller)

I listened this week to the story of the hatchet cover by Elder Allan F. Packer and saw today the video the church made of the story. It's a great growing opportunity for each one of us to think about what hatchet covers might be keeping us back. Check out the video: 

Adam (3) - picture was in my
wallet for over 10 years.

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2015-01-001-our-eternal-potential?category=youth-media&lang=eng

Have a great week y'all,

Um abraço,

Elder DP

WooHoo!

My first week with Élder Emanuel was good. Everybody thinks that he's American. We did a contact this week and he didn't say a word but the lady said "Wait you're not american!? But why do you have a funny accent?" I give him a hard time because if he was in the Hill Cumorah pageant there is no way he wouldn't play Joseph Smith, he looks exactly like him. 

Progress!

This week we taught two girls that accepted the preparation to be baptized and they needed to stop smoking. We gave them the task to brush their teeth every time they were tempted to smoke and in two days one dropped from 15 per day to 1 and the other stopped after 3 days!! It was so cool to see the great progress they had so fast!

Another Senior Citizen

A few weeks ago we had a very special baptism of a lady that is 79 years old. We have another investigator coming to church every Sunday that is also 79 years old. Last sunday he didn't come and so we went to see what happened and pick him up if he still wanted to go. We got there and he wasn't feeling well so he didn't go to church but he had been praying about baptism and decided he wants to be baptized on his 80th birthday on the 22nd! Even better was that this week he started anouncing it to his whole entire family and inviting them to go see. He is a great guy.

A member of the Stake High Council spoke at church on Sunday and he cited a great quote from Albert Einstein about goals - "Lack of time is an excuse given by those who lack goals." It's so true that without goals we will look back on our lives and the things we've done and see that we accomplished only a part of our potential, whether those goals be physical, monetary, educational, spiritual or of any other sort, we've got to have them and go after them.

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder DP

Barcelona round two

Transfer news is in and.... (drumroll please) ...... I kept my streak going!! Elder Dallto was transfered and companion number 18 will be Elder Emanuel right here in Barcelona. He's from Espirito Santo which is a state in Brazil (yes, there is a state called "Holy Ghost" in Brazil). He's already serving in the same city as I am but in another Zone close by. I'll miss Elder Dallto, we had some great times and cool miracles together.

Completing Families

Three weeks ago we had a cool experience where we met a less-active family by a miracle. I was on exchange in my area and a couple passed by and called out "Hey Elders" but we were in a hurry and I thought they were from another ward and we kept going. Then on the way back we ran into the same couple AGAIN! We found out that they had fallen away from the church a few years ago and went to São Paulo and just now moved back to Sorocaba and they wanted to go back to church! I wrote down their address and marked to go there. The problem was that he accidentally passed us the wrong street name and we didn't find his house. The solution was that on the way home from District Meeting the next week other missionaries ran into him AGAIN!! This time they got the right address and were able to visit them. This week their son was baptized and confirmed. The baptism was even cooler because one of our recent converts did the baptism! It was amazing to see how the Lord truly guides his own work (2 Nephi 27:20). All we had to do was make the invitation and help them have a great experience going back to church.

Zone Activity

We had a zone activity today to celebrate a great transfer. We had breakfast together and played ping pong and volleyball. One of the Elders even brought a basketball and I got to play H-O-R-S-E for the first time in AGES! It was great.

Crazy Velhinos

This week I did a baptismal interview for a little old man that lives in very humble circumstances close by a chapel in another ward. It was kind of a crazy interview because in the middle of the opening prayer a little lady barged in and kicked us out and the old man got flustered and yelled back at her. After it calmed down he didn't want to be interviewed anymore and didn't want to go to the church to be interviewed. I had him take a few deep breaths and he still didn't want to go but finally I just said "Okay, that's fine. Lets go then" and started walking and he went with me haha. It was a great interview. Today I found out that at his baptism when they went to start the service they couldn't find him and the missionaries went looking for him and he was soaking wet already and said "I'm BAPTIZED!" He had baptized himself hahaha. The Elders were able to explain again about the whole being baptized by another person with authority and they started the meeting and he was baptized the right way. Gotta love little old guys.

One More

We had another cool baptism this weekend of a young man that has already been going to church for a while but his less-active and part-member parents didn't let him get baptized. A few weeks ago we had lunch with his grandparents and he showed a great desire to be baptized and through this we were able to get his parents permission and he was baptized. It was great because he gave his testimony about how happy he was to be baptized and then his 10 year old cousin got up there and said, "Every little kid looks forward to their baptism. I know that everyone needs to be baptized and stay firm." It was great to hear wisdom from the mouth of a child.

I hope you enjoy the stories, I figured that I probably won't get a chance to share all these when I get home and so I'd better start telling more of them now. I am so thankful that I get to participate and watch the Lord do his work. It's a pleasure to see the miracles that can happen in so many people's lives.

Have a great week!

Elder DP