Missionary Fun

The Elder’s bought me a cake to celebrate my birthday!  It was a week early, but they sang to me.

We went to a natural restaurant and they had a "rest room" so we had some fun.  I guess you can go "rest" before or after your meal.

The Great People of Cerqueira Cesar

This is a family home evening with Bruno and Augusto and some of the sisters in our ward.  Bruno is very fond of America things. He had Ketchup and gave us the bottle.  It only lasted one week :)

This is Marcos.  His wife in not a member, but she loves the church.  He is the man with no legs or arms.  He is an amazing example to me. I was on splits with Elder Adam and the sisters in our ward.

  Lucy, Marcos's wife, made the most incredible lime cake I have ever eaten.  

We Live in a Good Place

This week was a week that we learn a lot. We had many experiences that we were able to strengthen our selves.

This week we had our Multi-Zona Conference. or our Zone conference. And we learned a lot about how we need to be ready to use our Priesthood power. Everybody that receives the priesthood needs to exercise the power. There is a difference between power and authority. Sister Costa (Elder Claudio Costa of the 70s wife.) gave us a great talk about this. How we are able to act in the office that we are called. And how we can be true disciples of Christ and use the power that he gave to the apostles who was passed to the worthy men of the Church of God today. So men, use your power correctly. We can do miracles today. (ready Russell M Nelsons talk from Conference in April) 

This week we were able to see some of the effects of sin. This week was the national and international gay parade in SP. and of course as we have the center of the city, it happened in the middle of the city. And there weren't a few people. Lets just say sometimes the enemy of God has a way about convincing the people that wickedness is happiness when in reality we know that it is not. I hope in the middle of our comfort, and in the middle of the world that is worsening, we can find strength in the Lord. We need to be strong. Sometimes we don't realize how bad the world is getting. But it is bad. And we need to be careful of the things we do, so that we can be strong in the battle that is happening.

I know that life is a funny thing. We need to do our best to get something better. 

I love you all.

Happy Birthday to Mom this week. as of tomorrow you now have a 20 year old mom. I am getting old... opa!

Elder Iverson ❤

We also had a neat opportunity to meet with the whole mission to have a going aways party for President.  It was fun to be with the entire mission and we got to Skype our new mission president, Thomas W. Thomas and his wife.

Funny experience.  One of the Elders has some trouble sleeping so he has some sleeping pills.  To play a little joke he crushed them up and put them in all of our drinks.  Needless to say we had a hard time staying awake this day.

Unexpected Changes

This week was a week that we know that our patience was tested. Not everything that happens we have control of, and we need to realize that everything happens how God wants it to happen. It is so incredible that the intelligence of God is superior to literally every single other thing. 

This week we were able to work normally and had a few unexpected things that took place with our Zone. We got a call on Saturday that we would be moving to another house. We weren't very happy about it, (you can imagine my companion with 2 weeks to go) having to pack up everything and head out. But we did it because we know that Presidente Del Guerso is inspired to do what he does. He has a difficult task, but does what the Lord needs him to do. SO we moved and we now need to take a bus (30 mins.) everyday for work, (it is really like a job now, we take the bus to go work, then return when we have finished our work)   

We are working hard. We are excited for the things that God has in store for us and this area. 

This week we will have more good experiences. 

Love you all.

Elder Iverson 

Elder Mayfield, all packed up and ready to move.  Good-bye to our tiny apartment.

Moving Day.

Our new roommates and home for the next 8 weeks.  We had to celebrate with pizza, and the delivery many delivers us the wrong pizza, so we had to laugh.

My area.  Many, many buildings.

 

Pizza & McDonalds

Elder Shapario (from Davis) and I were toughing the office staff how were on a 30 day fast from pizza.  We weren't on the fast, so we thought we'd rub it in a bit.  Here we are with Elder Cabral.

Mountain Dew just recently came to Brazil. So we had to try some with our McDonalds :)

Good Times - Morumbi Exchanges

We know that God always takes care of us and always wants us to do our best. Sometimes we get disappointed because we are unable to do everything correctly. This is actually a very common feeling that we have (2 Nephi 4:17-35) But what we know is that the Lord will be satisfied with our work if we put in our all. Not 99% but 100% when we can understand this, we will have more success. There isn't anything that can hold us back, other then ourselves and our doubts. We need to get these out of our heads. We are children of God and capable of all things. But we need to push ourselves. We don't get blessings for going through the motions, or for thinking we deserve them. We get them when we put our all on the line and we are humble. Humility is key. 

Here in the mission we can see all of these things. We can see that life is more than the work, the business, the soccer, the activities, the school, (not that these things aren't important) but life is about our personal effort to please God. Not Joe or Bob or Sally, but Our Father in Heaven. When we please God above all else we will see all the other little things fall into place. And when we look back, we will see that he wasn't taking care of us, but was carrying us through all the tough times. We will see the Spirit move through us, and we will see that our efforts actually are worth something. 

But when this happens we need to remember to be humble again. 

I love you all. Know that we are loved. Don't forget to be grateful.

Elder Iverson.

PS: the mission is incredible. I wouldn't trade these years for anything. 

I had the great opportunity to do exchanges with Elder Coubrow, the AP.  I was able to visit many of my friends from my first area, Morumbi.

This is Nair.  The first lady I was able to baptize.

 

This is Jeremy.  He was also baptized while I was in Morumbi.  He is awesome.  He is thinking on serving a mission.

 

This is a wonderful member family.

 

Maria and Lordes.  Lords has gone through the temple and Maria is taking the temple classes and preparing to go.  It is so amazing to see people progress in the gospel.

Going Great

Hey guys, hows it going? Here we are all smiles and happiness, yes in part because of the talk I had with the family and also for being a missionary. 

This week was a normal week, we worked hard to find new investigators and we were rewarded by God with something incredible.

It was on Saturday and we were running out of our plans, we just had one more family that is inactive that we were going to visit. When we got there, there were two young guys talking in front. When we got there, the family that we were going to teach called the two guys as well. We thought nothing of it. When we got to the house we chatted with everyone, and one of the boys said, "Where are you guys from?" then we got talking about how we are from the US, and they were amazed.... haha they are both 16. We then started talking about how we are missionaries and we showed them a video "Thanks to Him" and they liked it. One of the boys expressed his concern about his faith. He said somethings don’t make sense, and he doesn’t know if God exists. We were able to explain to him and his friend very simply about the way God works, they were touched and amazed with how everything made sense. They said that when we saw them on the street talking they were talking about if God really exists. We know that God does nothing by coincidence. They were very intrigued, and we will return to visit them on Wednesday. They promised us they would come to church with us. We will follow up with them so that they can feel of the spirit to guide them about their lives journey. 

  

I hope that we all can remember how we know that God exists. He acts in our lives and is taking good care of us. It just takes our courage to go unto him, and partake of the blessings.

I love you all. :) 

Elder Iverson

Us with a new convert, Edie Nelson.  We got hims some church clothes, now we are working on a white shirt :)

Elder Galdino from No. Brazil.  He is a good missionary.  We were on splits, so of course we had to get pizza.

The Elder Cookie Factory.  It is messy, but we are getting quite good.  We made cookies for all the women in our ward for Mother’s Day.  They loved it!  And mom, if you ever want to open a bakery in Brazil you’d do well.  They all love your recipe and all want a copy.