BRAZILLLLL!!!

Ummmmm... Wow. Where to begin? How about, this keyboard is super hard to write on, because it's a Portuguese keyboard instead of English? Well Saturday and Sunday weren't too eventful, except for saying goodbye to people that were leaving, which stunk. And packing. Lots and lots of packing. But my adventure started Monday, when I went down in the morning to board the bus to the train to the plane to the bus to the plane. Got all that? The shuttle bus dropped us at the train station which we finally figured out how to ride to the airport. It was me, one other Brazilian going to Florinopolis, and a ton of Argentinians. We eventually found the airport and our planes, but it was crazy. I got to talk to my family twice while at airports which was super amazing! I thought I was going to be alone to Brazil on both my flights, but as it turned out, there were two Elders from reassignments flying with me on both my flights! Awesome right? We didn't sit next to each other and I didn't have anyone sitting next to me, so no plane ride conversions. Getting off at JFK airport, a one year convert who had recently gotten cancer stopped me and asked for a blessing. So Elder Carney and I literally gave a Priesthood healing blessing inside of JFK airport with all its noise and craziness. Super cool. Then we hopped on our flight to São Paulo. That's where things really started going berserk.

Pretty much everyone on the plane spoke Portuguese which was fun. So was the 10 hour plane ride. Hear the sarcasm? I managed to sleep a little bit, but not much. I got lots of scripture reading done. Eventually we landed the next morning and I was in a new continent. Forget the country, I was in a new continent. And yes, the toilets do flush the opposite way this side of the equator. One fun fact down. The other one? Brazilians speak verrrry fast. It's hard to understand a lot of the time. It's crazy.

 Anyways, I dealt with passport and visa and got picked up and taken through São Paulo to the house of President Martins, who, in fact, while looking intimidating, is actually SUPER nice. He's hilarious and full of all sorts of wisdom and knowledge. Upon entering the apartment, guess who I see? My dear old companion Elder Youd of course! Sitting on one of the couches. We hugged as everyone looked at us awkward like, why are these two random Elders hugging? Anyways, super awesome, and then we ate. Also super awesome!

The new missionaries stayed the night in the mission house until the next day when we got sent to our first assignments. After being interviewed, he told us each where we would go and who we would be with. My companion's name is Elder Marciano, which translates to Elder Martian. We are in the Amador Bueno Ward of the Barueri Stake in the town of Itapevi, São Paulo, Brazil, which was previously occupied by Elder Santos and Elder Paredes, which translates to Elder Walls. Elder Marciano is from Rio de Janeiro and knows very little English. The English he does know is from American songs he listens to. American music is EXTREMELY prevelant in Brazil. Tons of people listen to it. But he speaks Portuguese perfectly! He's super patient though, and we are now terrific friends. We practice Portuguese all the time obviously, and he helps me with words and translating people's words. He is amazing. He teaches really well and knows what he's doing. Just another sign that God puts us in certain places for certain reasons. This is the exact type of companion I needed.]

For right now, Elder Marciano does most of the teaching and I do smaller portions. My Portuguese is already getting tons better. It's seriously a miracle. For all of you waiting to come here, study hard. You'll need it. The people here do a lot of talking with their hands. They use the thumbs up sign for everything. Hello, goodbye, how are you, I'm doing well, everything. Just be prepared. Also, Brazilians really do use that finger snap thing all the time. And it doesn't mean let's go faster like the MTC video says. It's their expression of excitement of happiness.

The houses here are tiny and scrunched. They have no yards, and lots of people live in Fundos, which is housing behind houses. You have to go down an alley to get the them. And there are tons of super steep hills. We walk miles every day teaching people and telling people our message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Being a missionary just has the coolest feeling about it. It's indescribable. Seeing the faces of people as they hear the message we spread is priceless. After all, the worth of souls is great in the eyes of God. It's an amazing thing I'm glad I get to do. And I haven't even been here a week!!

Our housing is actually under a house. I'll try to attach pictures. We have to go through the non-member's garage, down the side of the house, to the back porch, and down some steps to our little hobbit house. It's seriously tiny. Smaller than most dorms. Heck, a lot of people's houses here are smaller than dorms. A lot of people we've taught only have one bedroom houses with a small bathroom. And that's with like 4 or 5 people living there. The drivers are crazy here. but the sights are absolutely beautiful. I had my first church meeting yesterday, and they do it backwards! Sacrament is the last hour here. The church building is super nice in comparison. It's the only building that doesn't look completely torn down. But it still doesn't compare to houses in America. Consider yourself lucky to live in the USA.

I have tons more I wish I could say, but I have no time. I hope everyone is doing well. I don't have time to even look at personal emails, but hopefully next week. I love everyone and can't wait to tell you more. Stay safe, work hard, and have fun! And those of you waiting to come to Brazil, hurry up!

Sincerely,

Elder Michael Ashford

PS. Of course I have the one computer with a problem and can't send photos, Super sorry y'all. Next week hopefully. =(

Here is a picture of his area and the Amador Bueno Ward that he is assigned to. The church icon in the middle of the picture denotes the church building. The blue lines indicates the edge of the mission. The green line the edge of the stake, and the purple line the edge of the ward. You gotta love technology. So awesome.

Checking In

I´m here!! I made it safely and I am headed to my first assignment in Amador Bueno! My first companion in the field is named Elder Marciano. It is awesome here and I'm super excited! President Martins is super nice and will be very good. Off I go! Wish me luck! 

Love,

Elder Ashford

9/20/13--The Most Eventful Week Ever

Hellllllooooooo everyone!!! And welcome to another weekly episode of the Awesome Adventures of Elder Ashford!

So this week has seriously just been all over the place. So much stuff happened, so be prepared for a rather long post this time around! I'm going to go chronologically through the week so that there is some semblance of organization, that way I don't go crazy and just mix up everything. First off: Friday! Normally I would include anything interesting on that day on the previous weeks letter, but this happened after I emailed and has lead in to stuff that happened later. So Friday we did what is known as TRC (Training Resource Center), which is essentially the MTC just gathering people in the area that speak your language and having you go in and talk to them and share a short gospel message. So my companions, Elder Marchant and Elder Jacobs, and I were determined to do super well. So had prepared a little something about Jesus Christ and his role and importance in our lives. We walked in and started talking with a man in his early 20's who was attending BYU. We talked to him about school and life and got to know him. Then we tied in Christ and how he can help us in life. We could tell he really felt something and had a desire to change. We got a feedback note from him saying that he just had a really powerful experience and wanted to start putting God and Jesus Christ first in his life. It was super amazing and I kinda stole that slip of paper and put it in my journal without my companions noticing. Anyways, super cool. Saturday wasn't very exciting, but we started making a mural of the people in our district that we worked on to completion, including little pictures about each person or the state they come from. Sunday was cooler. I just felt really good and focused. It was a wonderful feeling and it's been sticking with me since. We had an accountant turned movie producer come and speak to us Sunday night about sacrifice. He and his cousin had produced the movie "17 Miracles" about the Martin Handcart company and their struggles getting to Utah to join the Saints away from the persecution in the East. He also recently came out with another movie a couple months called "Ephraim's Rescue" about a man who carried mail to and from Salt Lake and was asked to help the Martin Handcart company when they were stuck in the middle of deep snow. We saw clips of the movie and it was extremely moving. I think we're all hoping to see the movie this Sunday when though show church films.

Then came Monday. Remember how I said that my companions and I had a really good lesson last Friday? Yeah. Whenever you do something good and learn the things you need to, things change so you can learn new things. There was an Elder Johnson from a district in our zone. His entire district had left Monday morning, but he didn't leave until Tuesday morning. So he hung out with me and I finally had my own companion again, which was really nice. The picture of us is not pretty though. We both weren't looking too great between being tired and just bad timing. We had fun, but what I didn't know was that I would not be going to my old companionship. Unfortunately, we lost one of our own early Tuesday morning. Elder Howard had to go home to take care of some stuff. We love him though and know he'll be out again soon enough.

After he left, I became companions with Elder Nissinen, the redhead in our group. We work really well together as we focus on the people we teach and the other missionaries in our district. He's district leader, so I adopted some of his responsibility. Wednesday we celebrated Elder Jacobs' birthday. It actually wasn't until Thursday, but since we were busy then, we celebrated on Wednesday. His sister had sent him cake and Martinelli's sparkling apple cider, so we had  a party as a class and  sang Happy Birthday in Portuguese, which is wayyyy cooler than the English version. It's a lot peppier and exciting. We also hosted new people coming in to the MTC. I hosted three Elders, one of which was really cool. Well, they were all really cool, but I got to know this one a lot better. He was from Alabama and had a thick southern accent. I told him I was from Texas and we started talking a ton. He was headed to the Japan Tokyo South mission, which I thought was really neat. After hosting, I got a two slips of paper. One package slip and one pink slip of paper. The package was amazing and had a bunch of fresh homemade cookies from home that everyone thought were completely delicious. The pink slip I'll talk more about in a minute. :)

This brings us to Thursday! Also known as reassignment day! And In-Field Orientation day! We sat in one giant class pretty much all day, for 9 hours, only breaking for lunch. But it was super fun! We had activities and learned soooo  much stuff about what was going to happen out in the field. It really made us feel a heck of a lot more prepared. After that fun stuff, we ran to the mailbox after dinner. In the mailbox were a bunch of papers and travel plans for everyone that contained our fate. We handed out the papers one by one to everyone and had them read out what their new mission was to be while they waited for their visa to get processed. People are going to Oklahoma, Las Vegas, California, Oregon, and Arizona. Everyone got a reassignment, except for me. I looked through everyone's reassignment and handed them out so that no one could cheat and find out early. Why you ask, did I not get a reassignment? Remember that little pink slip of paper I mentioned? It was the best part of my week. Wednesday when I got it, it said to head down to the travel office. Everyone was super excited with anticipation and followed me into the building that the travel office is in. Waiting behind me, I walked up and showed them my pink slip. In exchange, I got a packet of papers with a travel itinerary. If you haven't guessed yet, let me erase all doubt from your minds. I GOT MY VISA!!!!!!!!!! As of Tuesday at 7:40 AM Texas Time (Central Time), I will be in São Paulo, Brazil!!!!!!! Everyone was so excited, especially me. I'm sad that no one is going with me. I'm the only person to get theirs who is going to São Paulo, so I'll be traveling to New York with some Argentina people, and some Florinopolis, Brazil people, but on my way to São Paulo I'll be alone. I'm EXTREMELY excited about going. I'm kinda freaking out at the prospect. I can't wait!!

That's pretty much my week. Pretty exciting in my opinion. I leave Monday morning, but not super early. Most missionaries leave at 2 or 3 AM, but I don't have to leave until 8:30, so I get my sleep! I'm super excited to call home on Monday as well. Not sure how I feel about the hours and hours I'll be on a plane. I love planes, but maybe not that much. Oh well! Maybe I'll get some teaching experience in, maybe in Portuguese! I find myself thinking in Portuguese a lot, which is a good sign for the most part. It's just trying to keep the two languages separate that's hard. By the way, now would not be a good time to send me mail or packages, as I won't receive them before I leave. Everyone make sure to email though if you feel like talking!

I love the work I've been doing so far, and I'm excited to do more important work in Brazil. The MTC is just growing, but out in the field is where the real work happens. When I can talk to people and tell them the message of the restored gospel that Jesus Christ reinstated on the Earth, through his prophet Joseph Smith. Jesus Christ lived and died for us, and now he lives, leading His church through his modern prophet Thomas S. Monson. I know this gospel is truer than anything else on the Earth. I know that the Book of Mormon is the work of God, as is the Bible, and that when you read it, the Holy Spirit of God will enter you and testify of it's truth through your thoughts and feelings. I know that the Book of Mormon testifies of Christ and his divinity. I know that by reading that book, I have gained a better understanding of my Savior and how I should live my life in preparation to live with God and his son Jesus Christ forever in the Kingdom of God. I know that I am asked to serve in a sacred calling, to preach the word and bring souls unto Christ so that they can have the same opportunities and experiences I have had with religion. I love this gospel so much, and I know that through it I can be together forever with my family. I wish everyone well. Stay safe, have fun, keep learning! I love you all!

Sincerely,

Elder Michael Ashford

More MTC Fun

Hello everyone!!

This is week four done at the Provo MTC! We don't have much longer to go. In fact, as far as Portuguese speakers go, we're pretty much the oldest ones here now. Most people who have been here longer have gotten reassignments and are headed outMonday for their new temporary mission locations! Brazil visas just take forever. No one else in our district has gotten a visa as far as we know. If no one else gets visas, we'll all get our reassignments next week like Thursday or Friday. We'll see! We're all eager to get to our mission locations!

At this point in training, it's a lot of practicing teaching, fine tuning, some new grammar, and learning about Brazilian culture. Irmão Pinho gives us all sorts of cool advice on the culture. He gave everyone places in Brazil that they can pretend to be from, so the Brazilians don't think we're from America. Except for me of course. And Elder Nissinen. Pinho said that my blue eyes and blonde hair just stick out too much, and the same goes for his bright red hair. Oh well! I'll have to try to suck up to them and just make it really apparent that, yes, I am American, but no, that doesn't mean I don't care about Brazil. I'll have to make sure my Portuguese is really good and just show them that I care! I found out though, that I can't say my "R"s in Portuguese. You have to essentially say them like an English letter "D", but it's super hard for me. I'm always trying to practice and get it right. Gah. Go figure. This is definitely why I didn't take Spanish though. Oh well.

This place is still super amazing though! Except laundry time. It's awful. People just leave their missionary standards outside of the laundry room. It's like Laundry Games, just fighting to get an open machine. But everything else is fun! The people in the temple always need help, so we help fold missionary clothes for them, which always feels good. I still haven't had to clean toilets for Tuesday service assignments, but I've heard they're the easiest thing to clean. Normally I just vacuum and sweep and mop empty bedrooms and bathrooms for the next wave of missionaries coming in. It's not bad. The food here is crazy though. The unlimited food can be bad on meals where everything is super delicious. Plus, they don't give us a ton of time to exercise, which isn't a great combination. I usually play soccer though for gym time, if we aren't running and doing push ups and stuff. 

I've included a picture of what my desk looks like. It's pretty standard besides the Texas flag. Tools of the trade! That's everyday life!

For last Tuesday's devotional, we had James B. Martino of the 70 come in and talk to us. He read some from the Book of Alma about the missionary work Alma and Amulek did. It was really cool to see the things he could do. His wife talked about having a good attitude and gave us some advice. She said to obey with exactness, work harder than you ever have in your life, and to always teach with the Spirit of God with you. Also to be confident and positive, because attitude is everything when it comes to this work. Smile and have fun with it! It's cool. This is a lot of the same things we hear in class, but coming from another person makes it really sink in. You just really know that everyone here is on the same page. It's an amazing place to be!

Last Wednesday, my district signed up to be Hosts for new missionaries coming in. We got to pick up people form the curb and get to know them as we got them settled in. First, I got chosen to take an Elder from the Philippines from his temporary residence to his permanent residence. He didn't speak much English, but it was cool getting to know them! My other two were from the states going to St. Louis and Argentina, which is super cool! I loved getting to know them. I can't wait to do it again this week! 

This week we also started teaching a new "investigator" which was actually our teacher. He decided to mess with us and pretend to be someone who was super religious. We walked in and he was super happy to see us. Then we started talking to us and shooting down everything we said, and pulled out random scriptures to say that we were wrong. We didn't totally get what the scriptures said, so we couldn't refute any of it either. And he wasn't allowed to pray with people from another religion. It was crazy. And partway through, just to make things better, one of my companions wanted to say something while I was talking, AND HE RAISED HIS HAND. Just like if we were in class. We all just kind of stared at him, so he just started talking, halfway through my sentence. It was hilarious. We couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous we looked. Oh well! That's life!

I hope everyone is doing well, because I'm having so much fun! It's an amazing experience that I'm glad I can share with everyone. And I'm not even teaching actual people yet! But I do get to Skype with Brazilian volunteers tomorrow which should be awesome!!! Thanks for everyone who reads, please continue to do so! I know this gospel that I'm sharing is true, and that Jesus lives and died for us! I get so much joy from reading the Book of Mormon every single day. I'm close to finishing it again, and I'm thrilled! It's a great work. Until next week!

Sincerely,

Elder Ashford

3 Weeks Down!

So I'm officially half way done with my MTC training!! This week was pretty exciting! As is every week at this place. First, I'll clear up any concerns people have about my sleeping patterns. I was sleeping bad, but after prayer and fasting and a Priesthood blessing from one my my companions, Elder Jacobs, I'm sleeping fantastic and feeling refreshed in the mornings. Truly miraculous! Such a good feeling to be able to sleep. Also, I finished up getting my shots yesterday with receiving my Hepatitis A 2nd shot. $71 dollars later and I'm now completely immunized. Hopefully. And I'm also proud to say that despite the food here and the malicious amounts of sweets we share as a district, I've managed to keep off from gaining weight. Now to just work on losing all the weight I gained this summer before going into the MTC...

Anyways. This week we had to have a teacher swap. Because of some scheduling problems with incoming missionaries, Irmã (Sister) Hart had to move to another class. Luckily, we still have Irmão (Brother) Hirschi. Our other teacher is now Irmão Pinho. He's from Brasilia, Brazil and talks super fast Portuguese, obviously because he's a native. But that's super helpful. I feel like my fluidity with the language is advancing in leaps and bounds. That, and he's been giving us all sorts of super helpful tips about the country and the culture and everything. I'm finally becoming comfortable with a lot of this. In other churchy terms, we had some really good talks and testimonies given this week. Elder David F. Evans of the Quorum of the 70 came and talked to us about missionary work this past Tuesday. He talked about the relationship between Heavenly Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. They always refer to each other in loving terms, like Beloved. And when Jesus suffered for our sins and later died on the cross for us, he did not only for us, but mostly because His Father asked Him to. And Christ knew that his Father's love was so perfect for him, that He would never ask Him to do something that would hurt that wasn't absolutely necessary. So to go along with all the talk of having charity for people, I hope that I can have that same relationship both as a son, and eventually as a father. The other thing that really hit home with me, is that what I'm teaching is MY gospel. Like Moses 1:39 says, "this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." Heavenly Father says that, but I can change it to make it more personal to my job as a missionary. This is MY work, and the FATHER'S glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. I believe in this gospel and know it's true, so I take it personally.

This week has definitely been fun. One of the Elders in my district received revelation in the shower. There are now 7 elders in our district, and there are 7 dwarfs. So we split up names according to things that have happened during our stay here and then took a picture trying to act out our character. From front to back in our picture, there's Elder Marchant (Doc; wants to be a doctor), Elder Verhaaren (Bashful; is kinda shy and awkward), Elder Howard (Happy; more of a big teddy bear than anything), Elder Ashford (Sleepy; because I couldn't sleep for weeks), Elder Nissinen (Sneezy; had a sneeze fit for a day), Elder Jacobsen (Grumpy; we took a picture once and he had a super serious face and we never let him live it down), and Elder Jacobs (Dopey; he's silly and hyper and fun). So those are the guys in my district! Along with us, there's 4 girls in our district that are super fun and really know their stuff. 

All in all there were 12 of us, now 11. From left to right, there's Sister Basham, Sister Archibald, Elder Youd (now in Brazil), Elder Jacobsen, Elder Howard, Elder Nissinen, Elder Verharren, Elder Ashford, Elder Marchant, Elder Jacobs, Sister Burch, and Sister Tait. Together we make up a pretty great crew of missionaries, out to learn Portuguese! We're split half and half, with half the guys and and half the girls going to Sao Paulo North, and the other half to Sao Paulo West. It's super fun with them and we try to spend lots of time together as a district.

So, I think that's my life for this week! I'll have more next week. Everyone stay safe and work hard! I sure will be! Make sure to keep in touch and let me know how you're doing!

Sincerely,

Elder Michael Ashford