I find myself at the end of a good week and the beginning of an even better one!

This past week was really good! We found some great new investigators
and it really showed me that working with the members really does
help.

We had an activity this past Friday called "A Noite de Chocolotão"
meaning the The Night of Awesome Chocolate! Of course I translated it
with my own twist because hey I have that liberty and unfortunately
you all have to rely on me to know! But it really was awesome which
is why I threw that in there even if literally it wasn't in the title
of the activity. And hey, we're advised not to translated literally,
but to translate ideas! So there you go, I'm perfectly justified. (I
ate my wheaties today, what can I say, it brings out my normally
dormant witticism).

So anyway, Elder Banks and I invited several of our investigators and
we had a great turnout! Actually now that I think about it, we had
three of our investigators come, but, one of the brought a friend and
then we had a recent-convert (Tálisson that was baptized 6 or 7 weeks
ago) bring 4 friends too! So it was a really good result of our
efforts! Especially because one of Tálisson's friends wants to be
baptized this Sunday! He's one of the most wild and reckless kids
I've seen so far in Brazil and I would not complain if someone started
him on some medication because to be perfectly honest, he could
definitely use it.

We found a great family on the street. I really felt the Spirit and I
hope that I taught what they needed to hear if that makes sense. I
feel good about it and I'm excited to keep working with them. It's
just proving to be a little difficult to find them at home. But no
worries!

Anyway, here's a couple photos of me and a pet bird of one of our
investigators! Woo!

I hope everyone is with health and safety and good tidings of great
joy because it's almost July and apparently we have Christmas then
too!

Until next week!
Love,
Elder Rackham

The World Cup and my parasite

So there are two new interesting things going on here in Brazil. One
is I have a parasite (it's not as bad as you think), and the other is
that the world cup is going on!

First the parasite: So a few weeks ago I started to notice that white
spots were starting to appear on my skin. It's like patchs where the
color of my skin dissappeared. I don't remember how to properly word
that in English. Anyway, it's called Pano Branco in Portuguese so I
showed Sister Dias and she got me some medication. It's this creme
that I put on the areas with the spots of discoloration in my skin.
Apparently the reason I have them is because of a parasite. The
parasite is on the top of my head so when I take a shower and such,
the water from my hair runs down and affects my neck and shoulders,
where I have the white spots. But it's not lethal, it'll go away.
I'm getting Selson Blue in Teresina this week because they don't have
it here in Parnaíba and that will help. It just takes some time.

Second, the world cup! The days that Brazil isn't playing are pretty
normal. Everything is a bit more colorful though because they put up
decorations. But the days that Brazil play we have to stay inside
because it gets really crazy here. So far Brazil has yet to play but
tomorrow and next Sunday we have to stay in our house. And then
there's one more day but I forget. If Brazil makes it to the next
round (and they will) then we'll have even more days we have to stay
inside because it'll be even crazier! But on the flip side it helps
us out a bit that the world cup is going on. When we contact people
on the street, talking about the World Cup is a great opener and it
really shows that we're normal, easy-going people. It helps keep the
atmosphere relaxed and people like us and are even more willing to
hear our message. And it's fun for us too to hear the results!
Apparently the U.S. and England tied and everyone was telling us that
England would dominate us!

We have two really good investigators this week. One is a girl and we
started teaching her a couple of weeks ago, but we lost contact with
her because her mom died and it looked like she was going to move. We
got back into contact with her and found out she's been reading the
Book of Mormon a lot and it's been helping her out with this hard
situation. She wants to stay in this Church she said, so she'll be
baptized soon. The other is Jon. He's very intelligent and very
receptive to the lessons. He's having trouble recognizing an answer
to his prayers. But we finally got him to come to Church and he loved
it. He loved the Gospel Principals manual and he wanted to have a
copy. It's looking good for him.

Other than that, things are going good! I'll let you know how fun
this week is with the two Brazil games next Monday!

Love,
Elder Rackham

What I learned from Moroni 8

Well hello there!

Like the subject of the email says, I learned something from Moroni
chapter 8 this week!

Not yesterday, but the last Sunday a lady from the branch came up to
us and introduced her grandson and said he's 8 years-old and wants to
be baptized! The first thing we had to do was figure out if it was a
convert baptism or a baptism of the branch, but both of his parents
are non-members and his grandmother doesn't have legal gaurdianship
over him (not very many people do in Brazil). So we called the
assistants and asked them and they gave us the green light.

We finally were able to get in contact with them to start teaching
Wednesday. So we go there Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday
morning before the interview to teach him everything so he could be
baptized Saturday. Saturday, we spent the whole day getting things
organized. Getting them a ride, getting a cake, making sure people
would be there, etc.

So we were sitting with the grandma, waiting for the ride, her
grandsons and daughter had already left and it was just us outside
waiting for the ride. She ran inside and I had the sudden thought
that maybe he's not 8 years-old! I didn't notice when I was filling
out the baptismal record, but I counted it out and he really was only
7 years old! So we went and talked to the grandma but she insisted
that he was 8 years old and that the date she had was just wrong
because his mom is indian as in native brazilian and doesn't know, so
we had the baptism.

We got there, the baptism went smoothly there were people there,
everyone was happy. The cake I made was delicious I might add. It
was lemon. Everyone loved it. But after the baptism I wanted to
double check with the family to make sure that he really was 8
years-old. I talked with his cousin and we figured it out and he was
only 7 years-old. We baptized a 7 year-old! Moroni chapter 8 talks
about baptizing little kids, and I'm pretty sure the word abomination
gets thrown around. Dangit! But I didn't baptize him, Elder Banks
did so the sin is on his head! Haha, just kidding. It made us feel
better laughing about it.

Things are going good still. I'm starting to get a bit more organized
I think. Not as in our house and my things, but how I plan, how I
think and I'm just a bit more efficient.

I hope things are well with everyone! Until next time!

Love,
Elder Rackham

Hey hey hey!

Hey ya'all!

It's been a few weeks but here I am again!

Things are going great here in Parnaíba! We found out about transfers

this morning, and Elder Banks and I are staying here. Elder Souza,

one of the other missionaries in our house is going to Sobral. In his

place, Elder Manning is coming from Imperatriz! Elder Manning was

trained by my trainer Elder Harmon, so I'm really excited to talk to

him and get to know him.

We had a baptism this past weekend. A man named José. We met him one

night and taught his wife and his grandson. It was a really really

good lesson. And we gave them a Book of Mormon. Since then he's read

it every single day for an hour or two! He prayed to know that Joseph

Smith was a prophet and he received an answer. His testimony has

grown since then. He was a little unsure about baptism but we helped

him realize that with the Holy Ghost that comes after baptism, he'll

be able to understand so much more. That's the role of the gift of

the Holy Ghost. Well one of them at least.

Today is very nice, but it's been hot the past week. The worst time of

the day is right after lunch for about 3 hours. At 4:00 it starts to

cool down and the sun isn't so powerful.

Apparently my old companion Elder B. Santos is coming to Parnaíba but

in a different branch. I'm excited to see him again! It'll be weird

but interesting talking and not being companions. We had a lot of fun

together!

Well, until next time!

Love,

Elder Rackham

Lions and Tigers and Bears? Oh my!

A special greeting for all of you today!

It's special because it's from me! I feel a little bad being so vain,
but hey I guess I'm entitled to it every once in a while. Okay maybe
not but I'd like to think so.

Parnaíba continues to be Parnaíba! It was an interesting week, not
becaue crazy or weird things happened, but because things were just
all over the place. We were on our toes a lot, because so many things
feel through, and our plans were constantly changing. We didn't have
a whole lot of success but it wasn't a horrible week. I feel like my
Portuguese degressed a little, I had a lot of trouble understanding
things, but it was just a hump in the learning process. I'm going to
do better with my study of the language by being a bit more technical.
It's not extremely difficult to be able to get my ideas across, I can
do that right now with the exception of a few things. I want to be
very well-versed in the Portuguese language so that any word that the
people here sling at me, I can pull out my awesome vocabulary and
grammatically correct sentences and eventual as an extra cherry on the
pie, ending with an awesome brazilian accent. It will happen, trust
me.

So enough with my silly antics/witicisms. We had a baptism yesterday!
Tálison was the investigator I was telling all ya'll about last week.
He was baptized after the meetings. It was definitely the most
interesting of baptisms that I've had so far. He was a little afraid
of leaning backward into the water even though I was there holding him
all secure-like. Needless to say, we tried a few times to get him
completely immersed in the water. I couldn't do it. So the first
counseler in the branch presidency stepped in because he definitely
had more experience. But even then it took a few more times and in
the end he kinda had to body-slam Tálisson underneath the water so
that he was completely immersed.

Now I should be careful because I don't want this story to demean the
sacredness of the ordinance of baptism. Baptism is very important and
sacred, because we have the opportunity to make a sacred covenent with
the Lord that allows us to have the Hly Ghost with us at all times as
we fulfill our promise to take upon us the name of Jesus Christ and
keep His commandments. Through this we can continually receive a
remission of our sins, the same remission of sins that we receive
through baptism. Tálisson, despite the difficulties at first, met the
requirements of the ordinance so that he could make that covenant.

I have another chance today to send some more photos! I'm using Elder
Banks' camera again. This time, the pictures are from our trip to the
Zoo while I was still in Taquari with Elder B. Santos! Our whole
district there went and it was a lot of fun. Elder Souza and I are
outside I think the tiger exhibit. Those are the first 2 pictures.
Next is Elder Chiba and I standing in front of the European bear they
had there. How they got a European bear, I'd rather not know. The
pens are small enough as it is, and it was definitely on the sickly
side. I don't want to know their transportation methods. Moving
along, there's the awesome lion! It was a rather loud lion too.
Elder Chiba and I were a little bit behind the rest of the group when
we heard it starting to roar, and I'll be honest the thought that it
escaped and was eating my district did cross my mind. But, I guess
lions just like to roar randomly or often, rather. And the last
picture is all of us together as a district!

I'm looking forward to this next week of work! But, until next time!

Love,
Elder Rackham

The little engine that could?

I think the title of the email applies. Here in Parnaiba 3 are
starting to accelerate. We have 4 missionaries in total now like I
said last week and things were off to a slow start as we adjusted to
having new boundaries and working together instead of seperately in
order to help the branch. But like the little engine that could, he
started off slow but he chugged along and made it up the hill. I can
definitely see that we're chugging a long and pretty soon we'll be
really going!

Usually we have an average of 56 people at church on Sundays. But
with a few miracles, we had 72ish people this past Sunday! It's
amazing! We need to have a frequency of 120 people for 3 trimesters
in order to have authorization to build a chapel in this part of the
city. Another thing that was really cool: we've been teaching this
family, it started with the parents, then they weren't keeping the
commitments so we started teaching the grandmother, and things were
better with her, so we passed by her house to bring her to church this
Sunday but she gave us an excsuse (it may have been legitimate, I'm
not sure). But she pointed out her grandson and said that he wanted
to go. We never taught him. He listened to a few of our lessons, but
never a full one. We never invited him to pray about Joseph Smith or
read the Book of Mormon, but he wanted to go. So we took him. We
introduced him to some people and he took a look around, found a room
he was comfortable in and talked with a few of the members. After the
2nd hour, the 1st counselor of the branch presidency called Elder
Souza and Elder Santos over. Talis, the kid we brought, said that he
wanted to be baptized next Sunday, Mother's day! He has a Book of
Mormon already and he's made friends. It's just amazing how this
works out sometimes. This Sunday went amazing, and the week was only
so so. We have a potential 12 baptisms this next Saturday and Sunday
and they're all really good, firm baptisms that will stay strong in
the church.

I have learned a lot of things this week, mostly about pride and
humilty. Unfortunately I learned it the hard way. But in times of
difficult and trials, I think we tend to learn the most. I can't
imagine how much more I will learn and grow. But this week was one of
the weeks with the most learning and growing. Things continue to look
up!

Oh yeah, I'm officially addicted to Coca-cola now. They have these 1
liter glass bottles here that are returnable so it makes them really
cheap. In Teresina and Timon they were 1.50 reais, here in Parnaiba
they're a little more expensive, 2.00 reais, but it's cheaper than the
plastic bottles. Let's just say that I share one bottle with my
companion Elder Banks pretty much everyday. It's delicious!

Until next week!

Love,
Elder Rackham