#24 - "I'm a Disciple of Christ" 🎵 "Sou um discípulo de Cristo" (10/30/23)

 Boa tarde tudo mundo! Como vocês estão? Espero que está semana passada foi incrível e que cada um de vocês viram muito milagres em sua vida!

P-day breakfast

First things first: I FINALLY LISTENED TO ALL THE CONFERENCE TALKS FROM LAST CONFERENCE! WOOHOO! ONLY A MONTH LATE🤣🤣

In other news, I just hit 5 months on the mission and my comp just hit 1 year! ...only a 7 month difference!😆 We are going to have a churrasco tonight to celebrate his 1 year and we are also going to experiment with peach cobbler so, boa sorte pra nos! (Good luck to us)

[Mom note: here are pics Elder Fisher sent later of the churrasco on their back patio ]

 

In other news, here is a review of this past week in the life of Elder Fisher:

chocolate tea?

Monday - The Zone Leaders came over today so that they could join us for a division on Tuesday. It was awesome to have Elder Jenkins and Elder Araújo over. We actually ended up visiting a member family and all 6 of us went! Marilda was a little shocked at first but was happy to see all of us! I also got my second haircut of the mission and I gotta say, Im liking the brazilian cut! I think I need to find a barber after the mission (if anyone knows how to do hair, hit me up and also I would love to learn how to cut hair!)

6 missionaries, 1 house

Tuesday - DIVISION with Elder Araújo! Elder Hogge and I worked with him and it was a great learning experience! He is really good at listening to people and linking their needs to scriptures in both the Book of Mormon and Bible. We also invited Renan to be baptized along with another member, THE MAN, MYTH, AND LEGEND, CRIS!!! (I LOVE CRIS). While we were inviting Renan, Elder Araujo said something that stuck with me. Baptism is just accepting God in your life and it is just between you and God. People may have doubts about baptism and doubts even after baptism, but Alma 32:21 helps us know we don't need to have perfect knowledge but just faith. That was exactly what Renan needed to hear and he accepted the invite to follow our Savior, Jesus Christ, and be baptized!

Elder Araújo and Cris

Wednesday - For our mission devocional, we talked about prayer. We talked how prayers shouldn't be "robatic" and the same. Discussing 2 Nephi 32, we learn that we should pray before everything and act upon the promptings or things we desire to recieve. Before prayer, we should think about what our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ did for us and even when our prayers are answered or they aren't, always REMEMBER Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ (shoutout to my dad's favorite word!). We then met up with a member of the church for lunch who speaks english! His name is Tyrone and he asked for a gospel thought in english. So all 4 of us gave a lesson in english and let me say, english teaching is harder than portuguese for me! Later that night we had Institute and I taught about how personal revelation comes to us after feasting upon the words of Christ (2 Nephi 32) and then taught everyone how to play "Ninja" (I got out second😅)

Thursday - 2024 YOUTH ALBUM SONG CAME OUT! The song "Disciple of Christ" I believe is based on the scripture 3 Nephi 5:13 and I LOVE IT! Today I did a division with Elder Loertscher in his area. This time, we had a plan and knew the area better so we were able to visit a lot of people and invited Gabriela to be baptized and she accepted! (Please pray for her and her family) We were also knocking some doors when this truck full of pineapples passed by and this random person from the truck came up to us while we were talking with someone and they gave us pineapple. IT WAS REALLY GOOD and it helped us talk more with the person and plan a lesson for another day! Thanks pineapples!

Friday - Honestly today was a usual workday but the funny thing about today was the bathroom smelled like pipoca! (popcorn) Elder Hogge had some popcorn  and threw away the bag in the bathroom trash. So now when I go to the bathroom, I smell popcorn!

Desert for lunch?

Saturday - Saturday morning I was singing "Disciple of Christ" but trying to translate it to Portuguese. I then added a part while speaking portuguese saying "I will invite everyone in the world to be baptized!" right as a man was passing by on his bike. (I hope my portuguese was bad enough that he didn't understand😆) We also helped with a young mens activity by running in the rain to bring young men to the church to play some FIFA. Don't worry, as missionaries we weren't playing... I will confess I watched a little. We also had some really good pastels!

Sunday - Sunday was busy! I got up and immediately got ready to leave because I was going to work the van. We have a van to bring people to church and we have to give directions to the driver. For my first time though, it wasn't bad! I navegated the driver and got completely soaked because of the rain! We did arrive to the church a little late so we missed class but we made it on time for sacrament where I was immediately asked to play piano! Let's just say, playing piano with cold hands and wet clothes isn't easy🥶😆. Afterwords, we had the baptism of Renan and I got to help witness and confirm Renan a member of the Church and helped him recieve the Holy Ghost, a moment I will never forget!

Renan baptism (Renan in blue)

This last week was honestly full of lots of miracles and I feel like at times, we miss a lot of miracles in our lives. I like what my sister Chelsey told me, to write the miracles that happen because then I won't forget them! I hope everyone hear can do that to!

Scriptures:

D&C 66:6 (FULL SEND)

Helaman 15:5-6 (In the path of their duty)

Thought: Our mission presidents and their wives are here to help us become who our patriarchal blessing speaks of

This is all for now! I love you all and I hope you all know how great worth you have. You are a son or daughter of God with infinite potential and worth.

Ate mais!

-Elder Fisher (or 🐟er)

#23 - SAM'S CLUB!? MCDONALDS!? BURGER KING!? (10/23/23)

 E ai todos! Tudo bem? Espero que vocês tiveram uma semana incrível esta semana passada e que vocês vão ter uma semana marivilohsa esta semana!

6 Elders in our area now

This past week was a bit different from other weeks in regards to having a division for like 3 days in a row! Palmeira is a newer area in the mission and about an hour from Ponta Grossa where the majority of our district resides. So when Elder Hogge and Elder Loertscher went to Ponta Grossa, I stayed with Elder Cardoso and we were working 2 areas for a bit. It was honestly a really good division.

The smolder

In other news, heres the update for this week!

ELDER MORTENSON! [comp from the MTC...they arrived in Brazil together]

Monday - Got to visit some of the stores around the area and found a rubiks cube and nutella with a picture of a significant place in Brazil! (Also got trapped in a storm while trying to visit a member.... yep... I got drenched)

Tuesday - We met a lot of new people today to teach and also made some really good fried rice! For those that don't know me, I love making fried rice and it is usually a go to for me. Since being here, Elder Loertscher and I have been experimenting in the kitchen and it has been really fun to cook and try new recipes.

Fried Rice

Wednesday - We recieved a message from President Ribero (1st counselor in the Curitiba Presidency) that he would come and paint our house, so while Elder Hogge and Loertscher were leaving for Ponta Grossa, Elder Cardoso and I started cleaning up and moving all the stuff to the middle of the house. While cleaning, I found out we have 5 different languages of the Book of Mormon here! (And the only ones I understand are english and portuguese😅) After cleaning, we went over to Elder Cardosos area of Palmeira and kept on running into this one guy on a bike like 5 times. I'm not sure if he is interested in the church or just likes talking to us🤣 We also invited about 3 people to be baptized and 1 accepted! WOOHOO!

5 books of mormon (idk all the languages)

Thursday - We did a little bit of teaching today before we had to leave for Curitiba and during one of our lessons, a older lady kissed me on the cheek! I literally looked over at Elder Cardoso and he couldn't help but grin! We then got on the bus for 2 hours and headed to Curitiba. On the way I found out that Sam's Club exist here! Later that night we got some food at Burger King and it tasted pretty much the same as the one in the states! We then got to stay at the Staff house and it was super chique! (fancy in portuguese) It had 4 bathrooms, a giant living room, a huge kitchen... It was like a super nice New York apartment!

The force!

Friday - Went to the temple today and had Zone Conference where I was asked to play piano (shoutout to Sister Whittington, I did in fact need to play piano on my mission😆). Also, I am not sure how zone conference works for other missions but ours is only about 2 hours long where we recieve training from our Sister Training Leaders and our AP's and finally President will speak with us. My biggest take aways was the idea of teaching effective lessons which should 1. Break the ice and find a need 2. teach with the spirit 3. be simple 4. use the Book of Mormon 5. have the right invite 6. testify of Christ and promise blessings. As missionaries we never know how much time we have for a lesson so we try to teach as simple and clear as we can to meet the needs of people ("Teach people, not lessons"). Other take aways were Jacob 1:19 (showing the importance of working as a missionary) and how our mission president and their wife are here to help us become who is mentioned in our Patriarchal blessing. After Conference we then missed our bus getting back home so we stayed in Curitiba and got some Mcdonalds (also very good)

zone conference

Saturday - Had a baptism interview for Maiara and Jefferson (a mother and her son) and they passed! They then invited us over for a dinner that night and we may or may not have gotten home past 9:30 because of it... we messaged President!😅

Long day

Sunday - BAPTISM OF MAIARA AND JEFFERSON! Right after church we had an amazing baptism and I was also asked to play piano for it. It was awesome to see 2 more of God's children coming back into the embrace of God and make their first covenant with him. Alma 26:30, how great was my joy! We then went around visiting people with the President of the Branch, President John, and we found some members who hadn't been to church in about a year! We hope to see them next Sunday.

Baptism!

I have also had a lot more time to watch this last General Conference and here are some of my take aways...

- Reminder that in coming days, we need the Holy Ghost to survive spiritually (this is why I am serving a mission)

- Become a good and Faithful Servant, Matthew 25:21 (SHOUTOUT TO GARY B. SABIN HALLMARKS TALK!)

- "Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal" (Quentin L. Cook)

- "If you have not chosen the kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen" (Maxwell in christopher Waddell talk)

Lunch with the Ward Council

I hope that everyone is doing well and has had a chance to watch and rewatch the conference talks from this past conference. I truly testify that all the individuals that spoke in conference were directed by the Holy Ghost and God and that each one of us has potential beyond our comprehension. It is only through putting our faith in God that we will attain this potential and find the most joy we can in this life. Love you all! Ate Mais!

-Elder Fisher

#22 - A Dessert with 3 Names?! (10/16/23)

 Boa noite tudo mundo! Como vocês estão?

 

Sorry I am sending this so late. Elder Hogge and I went to go check on a member but got caught in a storm so now after a warm shower, I'm writing. I have officially completed my first week in Palmeira and I gotta admit, it is exactly how Elder Hogge says: "Palmeira is different". But a good different. Here is a recap of my week:

Me and Elder Hogge [pronounced like rogue]

Monday: Arrived in Palmeira after riding buses for like 4 hours and having a nice tourist view of the area (it actually looked like Nebraska ngl) met my new comp, Elder Hogge who is the district leader and kinda my trainer to help me be prepared to train next transfer. We then went to this restaurant called "The Secret of Chicken" where we met the owner who speaks really good english and the food was SUPER GOOD!

cooking

Tuesday: WE COOK FOR OURSELVES HERE! Because the church here is just a branch and still new, there arent many members. So we get the chance to cook ourselves! WOOHOO, College cooking days coming in handy! We all had some work done on one of the bathrooms and since we needed a companionship there, for my first day in the field we stayed at the house until 6pm. Then afterwards I was able to go meet some people and get to know the area. We ended up playing some dodgeball with some kids with some rules I didn't understand... It was still fun though!

early morning breakfast

Wednesday: We had our weekly mission devocional and the purpose of this week is Chapter 5 of Preach My Gospel: Book of Mormon. (I highly recommend this chapter to learn more about the location of ideas and topics in the book of mormon). The Book of Mormon holds power as the most true of any book in the world and is a keystone with the sole purpose to testify of Christ. President Nelson has promised that daily study will help you make better decisions everyday and I have seen that already in my life! Elder Hogge also mentioned this women who lives here that swears at people if you say "hi" to them and without knowing I was saying "boa tarde" to her, she immediately began yelling at me! (Apparentlly everyone knows her around here) We also invited Angelina to be baptized, had the branchs first Institute class, and I taught a dog!

Teaching a DOG [fortunately it didn't bite]

Thursday: Got to get to know a lot more members and investigators today and also learned about this pastry in Brazil that has 3 differnt names: "Cats Ear", "Ripped pants", and "Backwards Underwear". (orelha de gato in portuguese for cats ear) It's like a cinnamon and sugar donut in the shape of a churro. 10 for 10!

 

Cats ear                                                    

Friday: A LITERAL FLOOD TODAY! There was so much water that Elder Hogge and I spent like 10 minutes just walking and playing in puddles! I'll send one of my favorite videos we took. We also had an interesting experience with the Holy Ghost today. We went to the house of our friend Renan to teach him but his mother said he was sleeping so we started to walk away. Immediately when we turned away, I started feeling really weak and sick. Elder Hogge than spoke to me, "Dude I need to sit down" and I agreed. We both felt sick and just sat on the street for about 20 minutes. Once we were about ready, Renan walked outside and found us! We then taught him and his family, giving them all books of mormon! Elder Hogge and I both agreed that it was the Spirit that made us sick so... new way the Spirit prompts us.. By getting SICK!

SURFING!

Saturday: Did a division today with the other Elder that arrived with me: Elder Loertscher! We both are new to the area so while our comps were going around with some members in a car to confirm people to church, we just looked at the preach my gospel app for people to had been to church once and relied on the Spirit for the rest! We ended up meeting a return Sister missionary who served in California so we got to talk a little English! We then found 3 other people we could teach also! Overall, good division (even though neither of us knew the area)

Institute

Sunday: Got to meet the branch today and help in a youth class! Also found out that they ask the missionaries to play piano so one day I will probably be playing piano for church! WOOHOO! I also tried cooking beans which none of the other missionaries had done and considering we didn't have a pressure pot, it was pretty good! Fun to experiment (but I miss not having a pressure cooker) Also had a lesson today with a lady that had us do the french cheek kisses and I looked to Elder Hogge like "uhhhh". I ended up just kissing the air next to her.

That's about all that happened this week and I don't want to make this any more longer so as always, here are some scriptures I recommend and some pictures. Remember that "The worth of souls is great in the sight of God" and that you are all doing better than you think. Heavenly Father loves you and He and His son, Jesus Christ, know you perfectly. Ate mais!

- Elder Fisher

Alma 38:5

3 Nephi 9:13-14 (blessed are those that come to Christ)

#21 - Tchau Almirante Tamandaré, Olá Ponta Grossa Palmira (10/9/23)

 Bom dia todo mundo! Como tá indo? Espero que a semana passada foi ótima e todo mundo está bem!

Good lighting

As seen by the title of this email, I am in fact getting transferred to Ponta Grossa (rn actually!🤣) we got a call from president last night and apparently ill be the one to leave and Elder Hall will stay and train someone else. Apparently the area is a little far so ill be on a bus for like 2 hours to get there!

Oh the hills! [Mom note: I grew up on a hill at least that steep]

In other news, here are some highlights for the week:

Overall highlight: Rain💦

Monday - This was the third week that Elder Halls Credit card didnt work!😅 The whole mission got new cards and a lot of people have been having problems with them. So Elder Hall and I decided on the necessities and I bought what we needed (honestly some really good life experience). We then also went to play soccer with João and his friends but it was cut short because someone kicked the ball over the fence... it wasnt me😆 (Also apparently Walmart used to exist here!)

Dorito donut

Tuesday - Invited 3 people to be baptized! I'm not entirely sure what will happen since I wont be in the area anymore but out of the we invited, I ask that everyone can pray for Jurandir. He is this older gentleman who i can tell wants to be baptized but the adversary is fighting against it. I hope that one day I can find him again and have him say, "I did it, I entered the first covenant with our Father". (And to those who have read the book of mormon, we had a lot of 2 nephi 29:3 happening as well😅)

HORSE

Wednesday - DIVISION WITH ELDER BEACH! This man is awesome and kinda just does his own thing which is both good and bad as missionaries because missionaries work together😆. With the rain we didnt get a lot of responses but we ended up teaching a few lessons. One lesson we actually listened to President Nelsons talk from conference (first time hearing it!... in portuguese too!)

Brazilian cereal

Thursday - had lunch with a family today and i found out they listen to this american radio station. I realized it was english when I heard "Isnt She Lovely" (shoutout to Metea Valley High School Vocal Jazz Off the Record!) I then had that song stuck in my head all week

District

Friday - FIREFLIES EXIST!!! We were posting on Facebook real quick and I saw a small flash of light. I then looked over towards this field and saw a LOT of Fireflies! It was awesome! We also went to the temple today and taught a lesson to this couple. Something that stuck out to me is how the wife mentioned that she is listening to us because we speak from the heart and with the power of the spirit. It was a good reminder of the importance of speaking with your heart and truly internalzing the gospel into your life. (Also got a friend request from someone who knew my brother on his mission, shout out to Luciane!)

Gonna miss these guys

Saturday - Lots of rain and I learned how much I LOVE SHOE DRYERS! If anyone is going to Brazil, I highly recommend buying some!

Shoe bags

Sunday - No running around for conference today but I was walking around with bags on my socks to keep them dry😆 Today we had a few miracles occur. We originally thought we stayed too long at lunch but it ended up being a blessing! We had a former member of the church ask us if we needed a ride and he agreed to meet with us again! Hopefully we can reactivate him in the church. We also met this lady at the bus stop who stopped going to church and was smoking again because she thought God didnt care for her. We were able to show her that God always cares! We then spent the rest of the night saying goodbye to some of our close friends. I think about the quote "you never know you love something until its gone" and I can say with 100% certainy, I love and am going to miss Almirante Tamandaré!🥹

bus ride to new area, Palmeira, State of Paraná

Some spiritual thoughts from the week:

Elder Bednars talk about "In the Path of Their Duty" - everyone is needed and important in this work

From the conference in April "Finding Personal Peace" - Henry B. Eyering (we must come to find this peace first and share it with others including those of our home)

Mosiah 5:15 - always abound in good works

~Elder Fisher

p.s.  Learned a new word for the cobblestone streets: paralelepípedosp

#20 - The General Conference 5K (10/2/23)

 

Bom dia todos! Como vocês estão?! Espero que vocês tiveram uma semana maravilhosa especialmente com Conferência Geral!

Geral Conference work be like...

To first explain the title of this email, General Conference works a little bit differently here on the Brazil Curitiba mission. I think most if not all missions will have the missionaries bring investigators or invite people to watch conference and they will watch it all together. We do the same thing! ...except not😅 Conference is a time to really hasten the work so instead, during conference hours we run around knocking doors telling people about conference, showing them the livestream, and inviting all we can to participate! I will explain a little bit more further down but for now, I still haven't seen any conference!🤣 But once they are uploaded to Gospel library, I will be watching!

In other news, here is an update on this past week:

Monday - CHURRASCO!!! (for those that don't know, a churrasco is pretty much barbeque in english) We went to do a day division with our ZL and afterwards we went to this Churrasco restaurant. IT WAS SO GOOD! Apparently one of the deserts Elder Hall grabbed was made with wine so within the first bite, his face went all crazy! He had rice pudding instead.

CHURRASCO

Tuesday - We had a zone meeting today to help prepare ourselves for Conference week! We learned how to best explain conference and did some practices! (I even got to be an investigator for some!) Something else I thought about is how easy it is to teach when you know the answer. For this past week, it was watch conference. But then another thought came to me, "isn't the answer to everything Christ?". I kinda realized that as missionaries, we may not know all the answers or what to say in lessons, but if we focus on what Christ taught and what he would you, that's the direction you should go in your teaching! 

Wednesday - ZONE DEVOCIONAL! First things first, I LOVE our zone devocionals. Literally everytime without fail I will learn something new. This last week we talked about recognizing the Spirit. In Moroni 7 it talks about recognizing the spirit. Verse 13 mentions that if something invites you to do good, its of God. Verse 16-17 go into more detail of knowing good between bad. I honestly think that the Spirit speaks to us more than we realize, we just may not have realized it's the Spirit! I also found out today that "Elder" is an actual name for people in Brazil. So I guess my name is literally "Elder Fisher". Pretty cool!

Zone!

Thursday - During language study today, Elder Hall and I were reading in O Livro De Mormon (Book of Mormon). As i was reading somewhere in 2nd Nephi, I came across a passage that I translated to english as "eat me". Elder Hall just busted out laughing. Little by little the portuguese is getting better 😆 We also joined a family for a Jantar (dinner) and IT WAS GOOD! The father also used to have bad relationships with the missionaries but after that night he said we can come over whenever! WOOHOO!

Friday - HIT 4 MONTHS ON THE MISH!!! The strangest thing happen during personal study today. Elder Child (1 of our AP's) sent a few scriptures to our zone chat and I had read the exact same scriptures 15 minutes before him! creepy! I also thought a lot today about something one of the CTM Presidents said. Elder Beck mentioned that we have missionaries because sometimes families don't have access to the gospel or it was never taught in the home. For this reason, he said that missionaries are practiaclly like parents for all the children of God. It helps put into perspective the importance of the family and how we are all of God's children! 

 Horse outside the house

(Also had a fly fly into my eye while contacting someone in public... still got the number and we are going to visit them next week!)

Saturday - Started the morning with early morning volleyball with some members of the ward! It was a lot of fun especially when a random dog came over and just sat in the middle of the court! 😆 After volleyball, we prepared for conference. We probably texted like 100 people within Saturday and Sunday and during each of the sessions, Elder Hall was on one side of the street and I on the other, knocking doors as fast as we could. We literally got home that night and just fell to the ground!

WE GOT A NEW SHOWER (AHAHAHA!)

                         [Mom note: this means no more using a bucket and boiling water]

Sunday - Same thing as Saturday! While knocking doors, I felt like one of the Newsies from the musical "Newsies" during the song "Once and For All". I felt so psyched to continue knocking doors and showing them conference! We ended up bringing 63 people to watch conference!! YEAH BUDDY! The only part I did get to watch was right at the end with President Nelson when he mentioned a celestial mindset.

LAST DISTRICT PIC

Overall, it was an awesome and tiring week trying to bring people to watch conference. One of my take aways is actually from Russell M. Nelsons talk last conference, "Peacemakers Needed". I love this talk how it mentions the importance of not having contention. Contention can be as simple as having an ill will thought towards someone else and contention is never of God. In 3rd Nephi 11:29, it talks about the spirit of contention is not of Christ. And so I would like to invite you all to have more charity, be a peacemaker to look past what may be on the outside and look at the child of God that is in front of you. When you have eyes to see someone as God does, you want to do all you can to help. We may not be perfect, but we can try to be perfect in our love.

Scriptures:

2 Nephi 22:2

3rd Nephi 12:3-12 - Blessed are the...

I hope everyone is doing well and that everyone enjoyed conference! I look forward to being able to listen to it and hearing all of your thoughts on it. Until next week!

Ate mais!

-Elder Fisher