Monday, April 30, 2018
Monday, April 23, 2018
No Speak English and Bus Rides
Another week gone by. It seems like yesterday that Ty couldn't speak Portuguese, now he can't speak English! Sounds like he really likes to spend time on the bus as well;)
Monday, April 16, 2018
Audio Letter!
Ty is doing great! He got moved to a new area by the coast with a new greenie, or 'kid' as they evidently call them. Here is his voice letter for this week!
Thursday, April 12, 2018
Transfer to Beira Mar, city by the sea!
April 9th
Another transfer down!
This transfer went by really fast. I feel like it just barely started, but now it's over. This new transfer also is bringing some change. I'm going to be transfered to Beira Mar, which is a place that's close to the sea. The name literally means sea shore. I don't know anything about this area, so this'll be interesting. At least i'll have a real church to go to! First time in 8 months! I think i'll have to get used to working in the main city again. Canindé is like a different mission. It'll be sad to leave the elders that are here in Canindé. And the members here. Elder Silva is awesome, and it was sweet to be living with Elder Williams. Maybe one day we'll be companions again. Not very likely, but hey, I can hope. Leaving this place will be hard. Even though it has been really tough, I have learned a lot here. And there's always a bit of fear that comes with change. It'll be a new everything in the new area. I've been in the same zone for the entire mission but i'll even be moving zones. Just have to keep going. That's pretty much the theme of my mission so far. This week was great. We almost hit all of our goals, and exceeded a few of them. I'm pretty happy with the work that we have put in this transfer. Just not super happy with the results that came from our work. But we can't control what happens, only what we do. So i'm happy with the transfer overall. This week we found a bunch of new people to teach, and cut practically every old investigator we had, cause none of them were progressing. We managed to confirm 11 people Sunday morning to go to church, but even though they said they would go THAT MORNING, only one person went. It was pretty sad. But at least that one person is really awesome. He also went to the english class on Saturday, and after church he told us he really enjoyed it. I have hope that he'll be baptized! But i'll have to leave him in the hands of Elder Silva and his new comp. Speaking of new comp, I'll have to go pick up my new comp on wednesday, cause I get the opportunity to train another newbie. Hopefully he's awesome like Elder Silva has been! Though I am already getting tired of the first 12 weeks training program that you have to give as a trainer. It's one hour every day, and I would rather spend the time teaching. Oh well, seems like i'll be training a lot during my mission. And it's very likely that i'll be able to finish my new companion's training this time, so that'll be nice. Or maybe it won't be nice if he's annoying or something. Guess we'll see. This next transference will be just 5 weeks cause that's always the case with the transfer that has mother's day. Not entirely sure why. I think that's pretty much it. I think I have to start using the alphasmart more, cause i seem to forget everything specific that has happened during the week. We do pretty much the same things every day, so the days blur together. Hope everyone is doing well. I'm doing great still!
Love you guys.
Elder Odom
Another transfer down!
This transfer went by really fast. I feel like it just barely started, but now it's over. This new transfer also is bringing some change. I'm going to be transfered to Beira Mar, which is a place that's close to the sea. The name literally means sea shore. I don't know anything about this area, so this'll be interesting. At least i'll have a real church to go to! First time in 8 months! I think i'll have to get used to working in the main city again. Canindé is like a different mission. It'll be sad to leave the elders that are here in Canindé. And the members here. Elder Silva is awesome, and it was sweet to be living with Elder Williams. Maybe one day we'll be companions again. Not very likely, but hey, I can hope. Leaving this place will be hard. Even though it has been really tough, I have learned a lot here. And there's always a bit of fear that comes with change. It'll be a new everything in the new area. I've been in the same zone for the entire mission but i'll even be moving zones. Just have to keep going. That's pretty much the theme of my mission so far. This week was great. We almost hit all of our goals, and exceeded a few of them. I'm pretty happy with the work that we have put in this transfer. Just not super happy with the results that came from our work. But we can't control what happens, only what we do. So i'm happy with the transfer overall. This week we found a bunch of new people to teach, and cut practically every old investigator we had, cause none of them were progressing. We managed to confirm 11 people Sunday morning to go to church, but even though they said they would go THAT MORNING, only one person went. It was pretty sad. But at least that one person is really awesome. He also went to the english class on Saturday, and after church he told us he really enjoyed it. I have hope that he'll be baptized! But i'll have to leave him in the hands of Elder Silva and his new comp. Speaking of new comp, I'll have to go pick up my new comp on wednesday, cause I get the opportunity to train another newbie. Hopefully he's awesome like Elder Silva has been! Though I am already getting tired of the first 12 weeks training program that you have to give as a trainer. It's one hour every day, and I would rather spend the time teaching. Oh well, seems like i'll be training a lot during my mission. And it's very likely that i'll be able to finish my new companion's training this time, so that'll be nice. Or maybe it won't be nice if he's annoying or something. Guess we'll see. This next transference will be just 5 weeks cause that's always the case with the transfer that has mother's day. Not entirely sure why. I think that's pretty much it. I think I have to start using the alphasmart more, cause i seem to forget everything specific that has happened during the week. We do pretty much the same things every day, so the days blur together. Hope everyone is doing well. I'm doing great still!
Love you guys.
Elder Odom
Our CTM District is Killing It
April 2nd
This week was pretty exciting! It passed by really fast, too. Another pday has arrived! Let's see... The first big thing this week that happened was a play put on by the church called Jesus the Christ. So Friday we took the bus to Fortaleza at 7 am and met up with the zone leaders in their house. From there we went to the house of one of the members in their area to eat lunch. Which is crazy, cause there were 10 missionaries in total. One thing I miss about serving in the city is the members. The couple that provided lunch for us was awesome. They told us that they had some plans for that Friday, but they decided that they were just going to take the day off to relax. Then the zone leaders called and asked if they could provide lunch for all the missionaries. They were working early in the morning to make enough food for us, and it was amazing. They bore their testimonies that the decision to take the day off was guided by the spirit, so that they could have the time to make lunch for us. The members here in Brazil are seriously amazing. Anyways, from there we all took the bus to go to the theatre to watch the play. The play was pretty cool, but the best part for me was just getting to see everyone again. And Fortaleza east was there too so Elder Williams and I got to see Elder White, Sister Walker, and Sister Lemon which was really really great. I don't know if i've told you guys but our CTM district is killing it. Literally every member of the district is doing great things. Everyone is training, some are district leader trainers, and Elder Bangerter is a zone leader. Everyone works hard, we don't have any slackers in district 31B. We all made a goal to have wing night when we're all back, and i'm already looking forward to it. Saturday and Sunday, of course, was conference! One thing that I thought was pretty funny is how smoothly the conference ran in our little house-church here. Back in the states, we have nice everything, but still manage to have technical difficulties. There were no problems, and i'm proud to say that I understood the conference, glad it was only one time that I had to suffer through a conference that I couldn't understand. Though conference is still much much better in english. The translators don't have the same energy that the apostles and prophet have. Especially people like Elder Holland. I'll definitely download some of the talks in english to listen to again. But, even in portuguese, it was awesome. Pretty crazy that they're changing the way home teaching will work! Though it is a needed change. Elder Uchtdorf's talk was pretty sweet. I think it was my favorite this conference, but I need to read the talks still to know for sure. I also loved the message pres. nelson gave about revelation. God is so willing to guide us! Just ask! All the people here are pumped that a brazilian was called as a prophet. I think it's great too. Also, one thing that Elder Williams and I were laughing about is the name of one of the general authorities that spoke, Elder Massimo De Feo. In portuguese, máximo de feio, which you pronounce the same way, means maximum ugly. Pretty great name. With the play and general conference, we didn't have too much time to actually work this week. And the investigators that we have are not progressing much. This area sure is tricky. But i've gotta make the best of it. I've only got one more week left in the transfer after all. Though i'm not sure if i'll be transfered. Pres. Chamberlain doesn't like to split up missionaries and their trainers. Guess we'll see. Even with only one baptism this transfer, I really feel like I put in a lot of work. My biggest worry right now is that I need to find out what to do better. I obviously need to do SOMETHING better, but i'm not sure what to work on. Luckly we've got a whole new set of scripture to study (general conference) so i'll get to work on that. So grateful to be here in Brazil, serving god. So grateful to be a part of this restored church, so grateful for all of my many, many blessings. This mission has already changed me and continues to change me, making me a better person every day. Don't want to be anywhere else right now.
That's it for me today, folks. Until next week! The new transfer!
Elder Odom
little o
big ty
the big T
Questions and Answers with mom:
mom:Tell me about what you do on P-Day:
Ty:yeah we still work on pday. from 6 until 9. But we start off the day with 30 mins of personal study, 1 hour of 12 semanas (training for the new missionaries) and then we head out to the LAN House. After that we buy groceries, eat, and clean the house. By the time we're done with all of this it's usually 3:00 so we have 3 hours to cut hair or sleep or something. But I don't actually like to sleep during pday. I feel like the day is wasted
mom:I told him a little what it's like for his cousin Nick to be home...
Ty: Yeah, I don't know what it'll be like to be home again. But i'm at the point now that the mission seems like my life. I've been here long enough and have enough time ahead of me to feel like i've always been here and i'll never leave. Returning home would be really really weird at this point. Can't imagine what it'll be like to actually be home again. But don't have to worry about that for a bit
This week was pretty exciting! It passed by really fast, too. Another pday has arrived! Let's see... The first big thing this week that happened was a play put on by the church called Jesus the Christ. So Friday we took the bus to Fortaleza at 7 am and met up with the zone leaders in their house. From there we went to the house of one of the members in their area to eat lunch. Which is crazy, cause there were 10 missionaries in total. One thing I miss about serving in the city is the members. The couple that provided lunch for us was awesome. They told us that they had some plans for that Friday, but they decided that they were just going to take the day off to relax. Then the zone leaders called and asked if they could provide lunch for all the missionaries. They were working early in the morning to make enough food for us, and it was amazing. They bore their testimonies that the decision to take the day off was guided by the spirit, so that they could have the time to make lunch for us. The members here in Brazil are seriously amazing. Anyways, from there we all took the bus to go to the theatre to watch the play. The play was pretty cool, but the best part for me was just getting to see everyone again. And Fortaleza east was there too so Elder Williams and I got to see Elder White, Sister Walker, and Sister Lemon which was really really great. I don't know if i've told you guys but our CTM district is killing it. Literally every member of the district is doing great things. Everyone is training, some are district leader trainers, and Elder Bangerter is a zone leader. Everyone works hard, we don't have any slackers in district 31B. We all made a goal to have wing night when we're all back, and i'm already looking forward to it. Saturday and Sunday, of course, was conference! One thing that I thought was pretty funny is how smoothly the conference ran in our little house-church here. Back in the states, we have nice everything, but still manage to have technical difficulties. There were no problems, and i'm proud to say that I understood the conference, glad it was only one time that I had to suffer through a conference that I couldn't understand. Though conference is still much much better in english. The translators don't have the same energy that the apostles and prophet have. Especially people like Elder Holland. I'll definitely download some of the talks in english to listen to again. But, even in portuguese, it was awesome. Pretty crazy that they're changing the way home teaching will work! Though it is a needed change. Elder Uchtdorf's talk was pretty sweet. I think it was my favorite this conference, but I need to read the talks still to know for sure. I also loved the message pres. nelson gave about revelation. God is so willing to guide us! Just ask! All the people here are pumped that a brazilian was called as a prophet. I think it's great too. Also, one thing that Elder Williams and I were laughing about is the name of one of the general authorities that spoke, Elder Massimo De Feo. In portuguese, máximo de feio, which you pronounce the same way, means maximum ugly. Pretty great name. With the play and general conference, we didn't have too much time to actually work this week. And the investigators that we have are not progressing much. This area sure is tricky. But i've gotta make the best of it. I've only got one more week left in the transfer after all. Though i'm not sure if i'll be transfered. Pres. Chamberlain doesn't like to split up missionaries and their trainers. Guess we'll see. Even with only one baptism this transfer, I really feel like I put in a lot of work. My biggest worry right now is that I need to find out what to do better. I obviously need to do SOMETHING better, but i'm not sure what to work on. Luckly we've got a whole new set of scripture to study (general conference) so i'll get to work on that. So grateful to be here in Brazil, serving god. So grateful to be a part of this restored church, so grateful for all of my many, many blessings. This mission has already changed me and continues to change me, making me a better person every day. Don't want to be anywhere else right now.
That's it for me today, folks. Until next week! The new transfer!
Elder Odom
little o
big ty
the big T
Questions and Answers with mom:
mom:Tell me about what you do on P-Day:
Ty:yeah we still work on pday. from 6 until 9. But we start off the day with 30 mins of personal study, 1 hour of 12 semanas (training for the new missionaries) and then we head out to the LAN House. After that we buy groceries, eat, and clean the house. By the time we're done with all of this it's usually 3:00 so we have 3 hours to cut hair or sleep or something. But I don't actually like to sleep during pday. I feel like the day is wasted
mom:I told him a little what it's like for his cousin Nick to be home...
Ty: Yeah, I don't know what it'll be like to be home again. But i'm at the point now that the mission seems like my life. I've been here long enough and have enough time ahead of me to feel like i've always been here and i'll never leave. Returning home would be really really weird at this point. Can't imagine what it'll be like to actually be home again. But don't have to worry about that for a bit
Another great companion
March 26th
2 weeks down! Didn't get to email last week again cause of some holiday here in Ceará. It seems that all of the holidays are on Monday. President says that he wants us to email every week, but the ZLs don't let us email the next day. Oh well.
These past few weeks have been great! We managed to find pretty much the perfect investigator last week, Rosa. She wanted to be baptized since the first lesson and went from smoking every 10 minutes to nothing at all. She also stopped drinking coffee. It's pretty insane what people are capable of doing with enough faith. She was baptized last Saturday! It's so amazing to have another baptism after so much time working with no results. The baptism was pretty sweet too. The normal baptism font we use was really dirty cause no one had cleaned it since last year so we had to do the baptism in a nearby lake. It was awesome. It was like the picture of the Nephites getting baptized by Alma in all of the Book of Mormons we give to investigators. Elder Silva preformed the ordinance but i'm pretty jealous.
We also had a miracle happen on Sunday. We went out to bring our investigators to church, but no one was home or didn't want to go. This last week was important, because if our investigators didn't go this last Sunday, they wouldn't have time to be confirmed this transfer. We started heading back to church empty handed, and ran into someone that we had contacted who was looking for the church. He asked us where the church was, because he hadn't been able to find it. Elder Silva and I just looked at each other in shock and told him we were going there now. The first president of the mission was at the church this Sunday, and he invited him to be baptized in the middle of one of the classes. He accepted the invition. We're going to teach him (Richardo) tonight, so i'm hoping everything continues going well with him. It was seriously a miracle.
Elder Silva is still doing great! He's a hard worker and he's learning really fast still. It'll be sad if I get transferred and can't finish his training. No complaints with him. Also we do get to watch conference this week at church! It'll be awesome to hear from our leaders!
And an update on the language: I feel like I can speak and understand well now! Obviously I still have a lot to learn, but the language isn't something that I worry about anymore. The main thing that I need to work on is just my accent. It really is awful, but I can't seem to improve it much. Not sure what to do about the sotaque, but oh well. Vai dar certo.
I think that's about all that has happened these past weeks. We tend to do pretty much the same thing every day, so not too much to write about.
Love you guys!
Elder Odom JR
2 weeks down! Didn't get to email last week again cause of some holiday here in Ceará. It seems that all of the holidays are on Monday. President says that he wants us to email every week, but the ZLs don't let us email the next day. Oh well.
These past few weeks have been great! We managed to find pretty much the perfect investigator last week, Rosa. She wanted to be baptized since the first lesson and went from smoking every 10 minutes to nothing at all. She also stopped drinking coffee. It's pretty insane what people are capable of doing with enough faith. She was baptized last Saturday! It's so amazing to have another baptism after so much time working with no results. The baptism was pretty sweet too. The normal baptism font we use was really dirty cause no one had cleaned it since last year so we had to do the baptism in a nearby lake. It was awesome. It was like the picture of the Nephites getting baptized by Alma in all of the Book of Mormons we give to investigators. Elder Silva preformed the ordinance but i'm pretty jealous.
We also had a miracle happen on Sunday. We went out to bring our investigators to church, but no one was home or didn't want to go. This last week was important, because if our investigators didn't go this last Sunday, they wouldn't have time to be confirmed this transfer. We started heading back to church empty handed, and ran into someone that we had contacted who was looking for the church. He asked us where the church was, because he hadn't been able to find it. Elder Silva and I just looked at each other in shock and told him we were going there now. The first president of the mission was at the church this Sunday, and he invited him to be baptized in the middle of one of the classes. He accepted the invition. We're going to teach him (Richardo) tonight, so i'm hoping everything continues going well with him. It was seriously a miracle.
Elder Silva is still doing great! He's a hard worker and he's learning really fast still. It'll be sad if I get transferred and can't finish his training. No complaints with him. Also we do get to watch conference this week at church! It'll be awesome to hear from our leaders!
And an update on the language: I feel like I can speak and understand well now! Obviously I still have a lot to learn, but the language isn't something that I worry about anymore. The main thing that I need to work on is just my accent. It really is awful, but I can't seem to improve it much. Not sure what to do about the sotaque, but oh well. Vai dar certo.
I think that's about all that has happened these past weeks. We tend to do pretty much the same thing every day, so not too much to write about.
Love you guys!
Elder Odom JR
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
6-24-19 - Last official pday before Ty comes home!
We talked to Ty for the last time before we see him in person today! He didn't have time to go to the LAN house, so he got permission ...
