The Haka at the CTM Dec 2017

"...the gospel is like a thanksgiving dinner with everything you could imagine."

OLA MEUS AMIGOS!!

This week went by so fast!! It is absolutely insane that it is already December. I remember when it was Halloween, and I had that weird red eye thing that made me look like a vampire haha. 

This week in the CTM, we got to go proselyting again!! Last time we went, we got 8 contacts, and this time we got a big fat 0, but we did have an awesome experience. We talked to this one lady in the middle of Sao Paulo, Angelica, and she was the nicest person ever. We starting talking to her and she told us right off the bat that she knew who we were and that she LOVES the Book of Mormon. She said it brings her closer to Christ, makes her want to be a better person, and have more love for her family and friends. Me and Elder Oldham gave each other a look like "Well huh, that's AMAZING". 

We chatted more about the Book of Mormon and I asked her if she had a testimony of Joseph Smith like she had of the Book of Mormon, and she said no. I told her that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by the power of God, and that no regular man could have written such a holy book. She also had a question about why she needed to get baptized again, and we answered that one as well. It was so cool because the words just flowed out of my mouth and when I needed to say something to get it through to her heart, I could say whatever I needed to. The gift of tongues is real. But we couldn't get her contact because she already gave her contact to the sisters. Those sisters man, they are something else, they know how to work.

Nothing else really happened this week, Elder Whatcott ate 15 pieces of bread. So there's that. Just the same old stuff, that's why our district is itching to get to Fortaleza.

Something I learned this week, is that we must have a hunger in order to learn. For example, the gospel is like a thanksgiving dinner with everything you could imagine. When we have a desire and a hunger to learn the gospel, we have access to all of the stuffing, rolls, turkey (light and dark meat), and pumpkin pie, and we are edified. On the other hand, if we aren't hungry enough to learn and no desire, we barely eat this amazing thanksgiving dinner. We miss out on the pie, the sweet pumpkin pie. We need to be humble enough and motivated enough to learn from EVERYBODY. Everybody has different trials they've gone through. The more we want to learn, the more humble we will be, and the more blessed we will be.

FORTALEZA NEXT WEEK. I'm so excited. I fly out early AM on the 5th. I'm super excited to meet my trainer and all the people in the best mission on the planet.

EU AMO VOCÊS!!

- Elder Eliason

"We had an American Thanksgiving in Brazil!!"

OI!!!

This week was so great!! 

We had an American Thanksgiving in Brazil!! For lunch on Thursday, we had a huge assembly line of different ice cream flavors, sugar straws, sprinkles, and other candies. Just to give you a reference on how excited we were, we eat the exact same panini sandwich with bananas every day for breakfast, always. We have the same rice and beans with some type of Brazilian meat for lunch and dinner as well, so you can imagine we started to tear up at the sight of the ice cream and turkey. I don't know how they found a turkey in Brazil but they found it. We had some really good pumpkin pie as well. What a meal.

I'm about to start my last week in the MTC!!! I'm so excited to get to work up in Fortaleza, but I know I need to keep my head down and work hard these next 10 days. I'm going to miss my instructors a lot and all of my buddies in the district. Good thing all of us are going to Fortaleza, cause those guys have become my second family. Another thing, the Brasileros in our room went to the field on Tuesday. It was sad to say goodbye, but the'yre gonna do so great. All of the Brazilian missionaries are so loving and caring, they are the best.

After the feast we had, we got to listen to a Thanksgiving MTC Devotional from Elder Bednar. It was absolutely amazing, I've never received so much personal revelation in my life!! One of my favorite things that I learned from this devotional is that..

"Perfection doesn't equal performance without mistakes, it means being complete."

That spoke to my heart so much because when I am teaching, I make a lot of mistakes. We all make a lot of mistakes, but that's okay. When we strive to the best that we can do every single day and try to be a little more "complete" than we were yesterday, we start to become more like the Savior. When we become more like Christ, all of our problems and burdens start to become lighter.

Another thing that I learned in that devotional, is how God delivers us from our trials. God gives us trials to rise above them and become better, but its hard to see it this way. We shouldn't pray and ask to "Get me out of here" or   "Take this away from me", but rather we need to ask for strength. We should ask God to give us strength to overcome this temptation, trial, or problem. He requires us to WORK.

EU AMO VOCÊS!! TCHAU.

- Elder Eliason

"In terms of the MTC, we are finding new ways to keep ourselves entertained."

I'll get to the subject line in a minute haha.

So this week in the MTC was full of fun times with our district and even more hard work. My favorite thing that we get to do in the MTC is go proselyting in the middle of Sao Paulo, it's basically the Times Square of Brazil. It took an hour to get there and once we got there, we did some REAL missionary work. The dynamic duo, (Me and Elder Oldham) went out with some cards about Jesus and got to work. We talked to probably 15 people in an hour and got 8 contacts!!! It was so cool to speak with Brazilians about the gospel and we had this one experience with a girl in a star wars shirt. We walked past her and E. Oldham said "Yo, she was wearing a Star Wars shirt" so obviously we go over there and start chatting her up and she was super interested in the gospel!!! Such a cool experience.

In terms of the MTC, we are finding new ways to keep ourselves entertained. Every night, someone calls someone out and then they have a "Scripture Roast Battle". Its during our free time so we're still being obedient haha. We have also started doing English fasts, which means no English for the whole day. Holy hannah that is difficult. But my Portuguese is coming along so strong because of it. I can speak with the Brazilians easier, and I have been trying to write down every single word that I don't know, down on a piece of paper. I'm at 150 right now, as of this week. #grind

On Sunday, we had a huge power outage. We didn't have any lights in any of the rooms or anywhere in the building for that matter from 2 pm to 8. We tried to study for most of that time, and we did for a couple of hours. But it was the perfect time to tell some ghost stories, but after that we prayed for the lights to turn back on so we could watch Russell M Nelson's devotional and 10 min later they did and we got to watch the devotional!! God answers prayers!!

Right, back to the subject line. So you know, I'm casually playing some bball during Atividad Fisica and I hit one of the 6'5 Brazilians with a "Dream Shake" and he tried to swat me and fell and sprained his ankle and broke a small bone as well. BUT. He'll be back in the field in 2 weeks!! I feel bad, I didn't mean to put that man in a wheelchair. No, we're really good buddies and he assured me it wasn't my fault. He even said my move was "muito bom" hahahaha.

Me and my district also tied our ties halfway up since we're halfway done with the CTM, which lasted for 10 minutes until one of the irmãs came and said we had to retie our ties. Worth.

I'm learning so much in the MTC!! I've really noticed that we are training to be a missionary, but more importantly we are training to be more like Christ in everything that we do. I know that God is watching over me and has already shown me so many miracles which I am eternally grateful for.

Love you all, TCHAU!!!

-Elder Eliason

P.S. I saw a "Texas Motel" on the way back from the Campinas temple. Brazil knows whats up.

Mission Life from the CTM

No Empty Chairs

Hello Family!!!

I was devastated to hear about Grandpa Eliason's passing on Wednesday. I got taken out of language class on Wednesday and the secretary took me to the MTC President´s office and sat me and Elder Oldham down. He then let me read the email that Dad sent to the MTC office and I was completely shaken. But when I read that letter, I felt an overwhelming peace come over me, and I knew that Grandpa was going to watch over me and my entire mission. I am so grateful for the opportunities I had to spend time with my beloved Grandpa. Going on Heritage Tours, talking about how awesome he was at baseball as a kid, and always stressing to me how important family was. 

Its been a rough week for me and I've been taking Grandpa's passing pretty hard but one thing that helped me was an experience I had that same day right after I left the MTC Presidents office. We had to teach a lesson right after I found out, and my companion told me he didn't expect me to be able to teach after hearing that. We had planned the lesson for our investigator 2 hours prior and we decided then I was going to teach on How Families Can Be together forever. I told my companion I was good and that I needed to teach this lesson even if it was just to my instructor posing as an investigator. We went in there and when I taught my lesson, I didn't need any notes, no translations, nothing. I spoke from my heart and I received the Gift of Tongues during that lesson. I bore my testimony with power, and my companion told me after, that he would never forget that experience we had together.

I know it can be hard to lose a loved one like Grandpa, but we know where he is. Because of the plan of salvation, we know how the game ends, we just need to decide which team we want to be on. There is no tragedy in death with the gospel, only in sin. I know that families can be together forever. This has been very hard for me, especially in week 2 of the MTC, but it has renewed my sense of purpose and why I am here. The best way that we can repay Grandpa for all of the love he has given everyone in his family is to "leave no empty chairs at our table". I know that because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, death can have no sting.

I LOVE YOU ALL

- Elder Eliason

P.s. - sorry about not having too much MTC stuff, no time :(

First Week in Sao Paulo Brazil

COMO VAI MEUS AMIGOS E FAMILIA!!!

These past two weeks have been a whirlwind. When we got to the MTC, we got our companions and got to meet our district of other 6 missionaries. Of the 6 elders (there are two sisters as well) we're all going to FORTALEZA together. We got into our room and got settled, we're on the sixth floor, which is the highest and we have to take the stairs always so its tough. But when we looked outside we realized that we were really in Brazil for 2 years. Brazil is weird, everyone on the streets wear soccer jerseys.

My companion is Elder Oldham and he's from Kaysville, UT and he knows my childhood friend Mckay Brown. #smallworld He is such a great companion and we get along super well together. He kinda looks like Syndrome from the Incredibles, that's kinda the joke within our district.

My first week was pretty hard because my body took a hit from all the different food and all the stuff in Brazil. I was sick the entire week, but I felt good enough to continue to go to all of my classes. I got some medication, and I had our District Leader, Elder Walker (Rugby player who is literally 6'4 and 280 pounds) give me a blessing. After he gave me a blessing, everything started to improve. I had some really bad bloodshot eyes (During Halloween haha, people thought I dressed up like a vampire) but that all got cleared up after the blessing. My sickness went away completely and I got to focus back on the work. Heavenly Father gave me this trial, in order for me to improve and to realize my purpose. The power of the priesthood is real!

The MTC is really cool because we get to talk to all the Brazilians but we understand 2 words of what they are saying. In fact yesterday, two new Brazilian elders moved into our room!!! Elder Lima e Elder Leu. Super cool guys, after a week and 1/2 of Portuguese it was super cool to see the gift of tongues working in my life. I've been able to teach 7 gospel lessons all in Portuguese!! The first one was pretty rough, but me and Elder Oldham are starting to become the teachers we want to be. The other guys in my district are the aforementioned giant of a person Elder Walker, Elder Welling (we all call him Dad because he looks 38 years old, its hilarious), Elder Whatcott (From Dallas heyooo) and Elder Wilking (we went to EFY together in San Antonio in 2014 #smallworld). 

One thing that I learned and tried to focus on this week was faith. Faith is so important in all of our lives because without it, we can't progress. I know that I wouldn't be able to speak so much Portuguese in a week and a 1/2 without faith. I know that if we are obedient and even act on a twig of faith, God will grow it. We don´t have to be perfect, but we have to try. Being able to spend time in the scriptures each day for an hour has helped me come closer to Christ. 

The book of Mormon is real. When I was really sick and didn't feel very well, I prayed and asked him for help and to show me how I can be a better teacher and he answered me through scripture. I was impressed to read Mosiah 8, which is all about Ammon looking for a "translator of languages" and that in order for them to translate, they needed the "power of God in them." I know I´m DEFINITELY not a perfect Portuguese speaker but if we believe in Jesus Christ and use his atonement to become better each and every single day, he will bless us without end. 

- Elder Eliason