Monday December 12, 2011

So, this week was good. And Sunday especially. We had some great investigators come to church and they loved it. So they will definitely be going to church next week. Also though I got to see a promise I made fulfilled. One of our investigators felt for much of her life that God didn´t love her. And I promised her that she would feel the Love of God that he had for her at church on Sunday. She came to church and she absolutely loved it. She came up and hugged me after sacrament meeting. It was great to see the joy and happiness she felt being there. I love seeing the happiness the gospel brings to the lives of those that open their hearts and let it into their lives. It brings me great joy in my service. And it is because of this that I am in the service of the Lord. I love helping others. I love being an instrument for good in the hand of the Lord. 

This last sunday, I had the great privilege of returning to my last area to baptize a young girl that was a great friend of mine. The meeting was very spiritual and a great moment for me in my mission. Also a great moment for her in her life and also for her family and friends. I know she will never forget her baptism and I know she will be an amazing person and example of the believers. She already is. I was a great pleasure and privilege to be there and be a part of such a significant event of her life. I´m also very happy because I got to see the effect that my service made in that area and in the lives of people there. I have a great love for many there in the Trindade ward and I am happy that I was able to help in any way that I did. 

Elder Bender

Monday, December 5, 2011

So this week was interesting. Worked really hard and talked to alot of people. We got to visit this one lady who has had a really hard life and she truly felt that God didn´t love her. But we taught her and testified to her that God does love her and that he wants the best for her, he doesnt want her to be sad and that he wants to help her with all of her troubles and sadness, and that through the atonement of Jesus Christ she can be happy again, and all the wrongs in her life can be made right, and she can have peace and happiness in this life and in the life to come. Twas a great visit with her. We also talked to and taught some others and they all were doing really well. But, Sadly when sunday morning came nobody kept their word and came to church. Well all except one. She was sick. And we actually went over to her house later sunday and confirmed it. Not merely to comfirm it but because we had been invited by her father to eat some churrascu (barbeque) and because one of the biggest games of the year was on and nobody was in the streets, nor did anyone want to talk with us. So we went there and taught her a little bit and then ate churrascu as the game was on. Twas a good end to a kind of depressing day. Yesterday during Testimony meeting, I was about ready to punch everyone and their kids in the face. So loud in the chapel. I was so annoyed. Flippin ridiculous. After being in a singles branch I really don´t like family wards. It´s so loud during the meeting. I hate it. Anyways, so there´s a reason to never get married. JK nah it´s a reason to always attend a singles ward as well as family ward. That way you actually get something out of sacrament meeting and you can feel and hear the spirit. Anyways, should be getting my Authentic Brasil selection soccer jersey today. So I´m pretty stoked about that. And also we will be working with some pretty cool families and people this week so, that should be really cool too. Well until next week, 

Love,

Elder Bender

I have attached two pictures one of me with a runaway goat in the road, and also a turtle or tortoise that I saw. 

Monday, November 28, 2011

SO, this last week was good, lots of stuff happened. Alot of walking and sweating and drinking of many gallons of water, and guarana, (i´m addicted) and working really hard. We didn´t have much success this week though. Everyone and their dog was never home when when we went to their homes. Very discouraging. But we continued to work hard. I wish I could recount all the crazy things that happened. One thing I will talk about because I thoguht it was funny was I saw a mocoomba animal sacrifice in the road. I think it was a black chicken. So that was funny. But other than that we had a few blessings from the Lord on sunday. Actually they are nothing less than miracles. And now we have a very god perspective baptism for next sunday and an amazing family to teach tonight. So I am very excited for this next week. Also my birthday was good. The members threw me a little surprise birthday party with a cake and stuff. Twas good. Was a great day. It´s been raining here lately. Which is weird. I thought it was supposed to be really hot duiring these months. But aparently here it rains alot. I don´t know why. Anyways, thanksgiving was totally lame. Nobody celebrated it at all. Twas sad for me and I missed all the delicious seasonal foods that we normally have hardcore. Anyways, love you all and miss you tons. 

Until next week,

Love Elder Bender

Members in Spencer's ward threw him a surprise birthday party last Friday!

Birthday Wishes: Spencer's surprise birthday party from some members in his ward.

 

Monday, November 21, 2011

**Spencer's Birthday is Friday, November 25!!**


Here is alright. My companion and I went to Rio today. I was sad that my package hadn´t arrived yet. I was hoping to get it before my birthday but sadly it wasn´t there. But we went to a pizza rodizio and I got hooked up with free OJ and soda. So that was cool. I think it was a mix up though. Oh well. I didn´t know until afterward. Anyways, Things are good. A bit slow but good. We are probably going to be cutting of a bunch of our investigators this week. Because they just aren´t progressing. When I say progressing I mean they arent doing the things they need to do to get answers and testimonies. We´ve told them time and time again and they just don´t do it. Tis sad. But we hope to be meeting alot of really cool people this next week and helping our investigators that we are keeping. Anyways, I don´t know if we are going to be able to get that other house until after the new year. But, I hope that we can. So there at home sounds like things are pretty interesting. Mother of 10 with cancer? Dang that sucks. Hope the family is cool and can get baptized. Thats a major find there in the mission of those sisters. They´ve gotta be doin something right to be finding families like that. The mother sounds like an elect. And if her kids are anything like her then that is totally legit. Oh yes we are walking alot still. No my pants aren't to big yet. they are still normal. We will never have bikes here. And same thing with cars. it´s too dangerous. Way too dangerous. Everyone drives like they are on crack here. Which they probably are. But thats beside the point. I find it kind of funny because they all have to go to a driving school to get a license. Yet everyone still drives like psychos? Makes no sense. So Crack is the only logical explanation. Um water here is apparently bad......but I use that stuff you gave me. Also, our faucet broke last night. So.......it´s kind of hard to get water now. But we always drink water at members houses and stuff and I don´t know if they always filter it so I´ll probably get some kind of worms or a parasite. That´ll be legit. Not. Most of the black people here look at me like I have a gaping wound on my face. Or they ask me dumb questions. It´s kind of annoying sometimes. But it´s funny when they ask my companion instead if he´s from a different country. He gets irritated. Hahaha. Have I told you about makoomba stuff yet? So it´s like voodoo devil worship stuff. it´s all over the place here. People arent afraid to show that they are practicing either. Kind of crazy. They do all sorts of sexual rituals and animal sacrifices and weird crap to invite evil spirits and junk. It´s psycho. But anyways......yeah 6 months went by really fast. Alot has happened in this short period of time but it´s been really good. Oh did I tell you we had a special conference with Elder David A. Bednar of the quorum of the twelve apostles. That was really awesome. I learned a ton. Tell dad to find the two talks by him and read them they are really really good. ``Learning by Faith´´, ``Ask in Faith´´ learned alot during the conference. it was really cool to see him so close and listen to him speak. He truly teaches like the Savior. Simply and yet spiritually. Letting the spirit teach the most. It´s so cool. I know without a doubt He is an Apostle of God. The spirit that he brings with him everywhere is powerful and you can feel that he is the Lord´s chosen servant. Just amazing. Anyways, things are really good. Got alot of work to do and alot to study and learn. And with lots to do there is much to be gained. And so until next week I love you mom, and I love and miss all of the family and friends that will be reading this letter.
Elder Bender

Monday, November 14, 2011

So this week has been really long. I thought it would never come to an end. And I felt like it had been forever since I was able to email. Crazy. So this thursday we get to have a special mission conference with Elder David A. Bednar. So that should be way cool. Looking forward to that. Gonna get schooled. Oh so here in Caxias our ward mission leader is obcessed with Family History. Everything is about Family History with him. But it´s good because he´s getting alot of younger people educated. Hey you should learn how to do all that stuff on the new family search website. Talk with Cheryle Vore about it. I´m sure she´d be able to help you out. It´s actually way easy. You´d have no problems with it at all. Um, Also it´s flippin hot here. And there are so many hills. Trindade was really flat. Here it´s really hilly. I walk up some of the steepest hills I´ve ever been on here. I´m surprised that cars even can drive up them without flipping over and sliding down the hill. But anyways, my new companion is cool. He´s really nice and mellow. He speaks alot of english too because he lived in the States for like 3 years or something with his Uncle or uncles. HE has many that live in Utah. But anyways, we live with the zone leaders at the moment, but we are waiting on approval to move into our own place and in our own area. Yup we live in a completely different area. So we have to walk or take the bus to our area everyday. Which sucks. Because it´s either pay money which we don´t have much of, or walk in the really hot sun a long way to our area. But oh well. We get plenty of water. I am recognized as an american everyday here, whereas in Trindade people thought I was a brazillian from the south. Sucks because people ask me dumb questions all the time just to get me to speak. It´s annoying. Because they arent interested in the gospel, they just want to know for sure if I am american or not. Lame. I think it´s because there are so many black people here. There really aren´t many light skinned people here. There in Trindade there were alot more. But here it´s alot of dark people. But, this new area should be cool. We already have alot of work to do each day and we got like 3 new investigators for free on sunday. they just showed up. Twas legit. Anyways, things are good. I´m a bit sad that I won´t be getting my package before my birthday, but I guess I will get everything on christmas. If anyone is going to write or send me anything make sure they send it all early so that it gets here in time. And tell them not to worry I won´t get it before christmas, we don´t have a conference where we´ll get mail until then. Anyways, well I don´t have a ton of time today because the LZ´s want to play soccer at the church otherwise I would send photos of me and my new comp. But thank you for all the photos and stuff, love you all and miss you.

Monday, October 31, 2011

As far as things here, things are goin alright. Things have been way better with my comp. I had situation arise that made it really easy to talk to him about all that stuff and this last week was really good. We worked really hard and he didn´t have any trouble with his health. I prayed that he would be blessed with health if we worked hard. And he hasn´t had any problems so definitely an answer to my prayers. 

We almost had a baptism yesterday but it fell through because the guy hurt his leg or foot playing soccer, so he was unable to be there, but this next week we´ll baptize him for sure. And this next sunday we have another possible. A 16 year old girl that we found through one of our previous investigators. It´s a pretty cool story. So because we were working hard and pounding the pavement we were in the right place at the right time and we crosssed paths with two guys we had talked to and taught before. They were on their way to go skate with their friends at their friend´s house. They invited us to come along so we did. When we got there there were three other people there skateboarding in the street. We introduced ourselves and one of our buddies told the other three that I skateboard. They then wanted to see me skate. So I did. They were thoroughly impressed. And a little bit later my comp arranged for a lesson right then with 4 of them. Was sweet! so we taught the four of them. And one in particular Joice, really wanted to go to church on sunday. And she did. We went and got her and brought her to church and we even got two young women to befriend her and help her out and she really liked church and now the young women even have some things planned this we. So things should move along fairly quickly now. It´s going to be a great week. We got alot of work to do and it´s going to be good.  

Love ya, Elder Bender

Monday, October 24, 2011

Much has been happening. My comp had some tests done today at the hospital. He´s been having headaches everyday that don´t seem to go away, sleeping problems because of them and also frequent mood swings. It´s really weird. It could be effect of the medications he´s using or something else we don´t know right now but hopefully we´ll know soon. Anyways, so we haven´t done much this week. He´s been taking it easy because Sister Lima said he needs to. If it´s effects of the medication or something worse, if he works too hard out in the hot sun he could have serious medical issues. So we´ve been taking it easy. Which sucks because everything is better when we have lots to do. Alot more to think about and alot less things to focus on specifically. Like people and their faults and other stuff that just brings you down. Like President Hinkley said, ``the secret to missionary work and a great mission is work´´. I´ve come to really understand this in it´s truest sense. I can see the effects of it in all that I do everyday. I am always happier when I´ve been teaching lessons and helping people. And when I´m not doing much of anything it´s really easy to feel discouraged. But anyways, things are good. We've got plenty of work to do this week and we have some members that are going to help us out too so thats cool. We might have a baptism next sunday if this guy we taught last week does everything we taught him. He loved church too so thats good. He´s progressing. Anyways, I love you all and miss everyone (family and friends).

Elder Bender

Monday October 10, 2011

So this week was a bit slow. Having difficulties finding people to teach. But we are working hard to find people. We are trying different things to get references and also we are doing lots of contacts. It´s really hot here lately. It´s constantly about 80 degrees at night and close to, if not above 100 degrees everyday. Ridiculous. I have never sweat so much in my entire life. It´s like I´m sweating as soon as I get dried off after taking a shower and then I´m sweating all day after that. And also during the night too. Crazy! I never thought I´d be able to handle this kind of heat. But I think I have alot of help from the Lord. The girl that we baptized last week, her father loved the session of conference he watched. And now he really wants to continue to go to church. This week we will be inviting him to get baptized. Pretty sure he will accept. Then after him we´ll continue to work with the family. We are really trying to help Jessica with her dream of having an eternal family. It´s awesome. Love that family. We had a member give us a reference on sunday of one of his really good friends. He said the guy is practically mormon already in the way he lives his life he just needs to be taught the gospel. So we will hopefully be able to meet with him this week. It all depends on if the guy has time to meet with us. So I´m excited for that. Yesterday at Fast and Testimony meeting my Comp bore his testimony and threw down on the members. He told them aout how they need to stop judging the missionaries, because they arent with us all day everyday and they don´t know the amount of work we do to help others, it´s their responsibility to be missionaries too and to help their friends and neighbors accept the missionaries, also to give the missionaries references and to be present during lessons with the missionaries. It was legit! Hopefully we will get some more references soon. We really need the work. Anyways, that´s it for this week. Until next week.  

Elder Bender

Saw this on someone's bicycle.

Spencer wearing some RayBan knockoff's.

Monday, October 3, 2001

Hello all this week was awesome! First off, Conference anyone? Heck yes, twas glorious. Also, We had a Baptism! This girl Jessica finally got permission from her Parents to get baptized. Many prayers and sacrifices through fasting have been answered with great miracles here for us. The Lord really does answer the earnest prayers of his servants who seek his will. We had some very spiritual meetings with Jessica and her family. But they still wouldn´t go to church. But, after fasting and praying for Jessica, she developed the desire to know for herself if the book of mormon was true. And she got a powerful answer. Then after that we focused our prayers on helping Jessica to talk to her parents about baptism. She told us she wanted to but that she was afraid to argue and fight with her mom, because her mom didn´t want anything to do with the church. She just liked us missionaries. Anyways, We told her we wanted to fast and pray for her when she was going to talk to her mom, and that we needed her to tell us when she was going to do it. She agreed to tell us. The week passed on and no word from Jessica. But on Friday, I felt that I should fast after lunch until lunch the next day. So I did, and I prayed that Jessica would have the spirit with her and that she would speak boldly to her mother and that the spirit would testify to her mother that this was right. Saturday night, after breaking my fast Jessica came over to the member´s house we were at. She told us she´d talked to her mom. Not only that but she said a little the night before and then that morning. Exactly when I was fasting for her. She received help from the Lord when speaking to her mother. Because that next monday night we were over at the same member´s house, and Jessica and her mother came over. The mother was excited to tell us that she was going to church with us the next sunday. She told us like 5 or 6 times thoughout the visit. That next saturday I felt the need to pray that Jessica would invite her father to church the next day too. Sunday morning came and to my dismay both of her parents were not at church. Little did I know though that the Lord had been preparing to answer my prayer and there was a fireside that night as well as a baptism and choir practice. Jessica was in the Choir and she got her parents to come and watch her sing. After that she got her Father to watch the Baptism. And then after that she got them to stay for the Fireside, which was all about the savior. Her father cried 3 times during the meeting. It was very spiritual and the speakers bore powerful testimony. Was amazing. Then the next Thursday my companion did a division with one of our zone leaders. Visited the Family with the specific intent on getting permission for baptism. It was a very spiritual visit. The next day Jessica asked her father again if she could be baptized. He said he´d think about it and let her know later that night. He came back a few hours later and told her she could. And because of all of this Jessica was finally able to be baptized. Also yesterday her parents came to the sunday morning session of conference. Which was awesome. Perfect for them and their situation. Awesome. Our God really is a God of Miracles. I love this gospel and the true church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

Elder Bender

A baptism Spencer and his companion had a couple weeks ago.

Spencer and his companion with Jessica and her family on the day of her baptism.

September 26, 2011

So it was kind of a slow week this week. Had a lot of appointments fall through and stuff. But we had a Baptism on Friday! A woman that we have been working with finally was able to get baptized. She wasn´t able to get baptized last Sunday because she was really sick. But we got her baptized. And now her and her kids are a member family together. So that's really cool. Transfers were posted today and looks like I´m staying here with my comp Elder Pinheiro. Actually our whole zone stayed the same. I´m a little sad about that because one of my zone leaders is annoying. I don´t really like him very much and my Comp doesn´t either. Mostly because we don´t feel the love. The other zone leader in the companionship is amazing. Elder Nascimento is legit. Love that guy. He is what a leader should be. That guy really knows how to make others know that he cares about them. Awesome. Anyways, we had a bit of a miracle last night. Total answer to my prayers and fasting. We have been working with this family for a few weeks now. The daughter knows the church is true and wants to get baptized. But the mom didn´t really want anything to do with the church, didn´t want to change anything in her life, just liked our company. And the dad was kind of the same only he actually was reading the Book of Mormon. He said he would support the daughter whatever her decision was. Anyways, it´s been hard because the mom was keeping things from moving along. But the other day the mom told us she was going to go to church with us. She was really excited and she told us like 5 times. And afterwards I told the daughter because she has a testimony, she needs to be a light to her family, look for opportunities to bear testimony, and suggest wholesome things like family prayer and reading the scriptures together as a family. I shared some scriptures from 3 Nephi of things that the Savior told the people to do. Family Prayer being one of those things specifically, and also I told her to be praying for her family daily, and then shared the scripture that talks about anything asked of the Father in the name of Christ, if it is righteous and according to the will of God, shall be given you. She really liked all of it. Anyways Sunday came and the mom wasn´t there with her daughter. I asked the daughter and she said her mom wasn´t feeling well. So that was sad. I told the daughter to tell the mother that I was sad that she wasn´t there. But later that night after having started a fast and praying for the family, the mom and the Dad were both at the church for a choir practice that their daughter was a part of. And after that the other elders in the other ward had a baptism, so the parents went to that, and then after that there was an incredible fireside all about the savior and they stayed for that too. The Dad cried like 3 different times during the fireside. Twas awesome. So I think that the family is going to start progressing nicely. And now that we know we will be staying here for the next transfer we can continue to help them along the path. I´m excited for it. ~Elder Bender.

We got 3 pictures from Spencer this week...

Jesus performed miracles and wonders

and the next can be you

Campaign for Healing with the Little Missionary girl Alani  (7 years old.)

Material in various newspapers, magazines, and wolrdwide tv channels

Come and receive your miracle

 

 

 

 

So in this picture is a sign for a school. The School is called Urim Thummim in portuguese. Weird?

 

 

 

So this photo is of a church in our Area. They are crazy and it´s major apostasy. Anyways, says the following:

top middle
PENTECOSTAL CHURCH OF MIRACLES
CHURCH OF THE POWER OF GOD
THE MIRACLE THAT YOU NEED GOD HAS

Bottom Right
A MIRACLE WAITS FOR YOU