27 Feb 2012 - Palmeiras Area (Mom)

[I had heard that the Fortaleza Mission was one of the baptizing-est missions in the Church.] Fortaleza is one the most baptizing-est missions in the the church, and sometimes the most. I have been in the most baptizing zone in the world. ;) I baptize, just don't tell you every week when I baptize. It's my little secret. :) It is definitely a lot easier here than many other missions. I haven't knocked doors for months on end. Here success comes from members and stuff like that. You don't have to knock doors to scrape for people. Missionaries do it, but they "waste" time that they could be using to do more productive things. Some of the best missionaries here have never knocked doors.They just know perfectly how to use the members and stuff. I don't know what I would do if I had to knock doors and stuff like they do in America. I spent the early part of my mission doing that.

Be grateful of your Elders Quorum and home teachers. :) Home teaching is non-existent here in Ceará. Sometimes they don't even have duplos set up. If they do, nobody does it. I guess it's because everyone thinks that is my job. The mission changes you a lot. I am kind of excited to go home and do home teaching :) It will bring back the good old days.

I learned a lot about teaching and helping people when Elder Bednar came. People just don't get home teaching, temple attendance etc. We can't just teach them what is important. We have to teach them to go and act and use faith. Nothing we will teach them will stick. If we teach them to go and try it out, go and pray, go and do their part then they will receive from God and that will stick forever. It is a more difficult way of teaching since you don't just throw information at them. He also said we cripple people, parents cripple their children by giving them all the answers. He talked to us about learning by faith aka by acting and doing.

I have learned a lot. Maybe too much for my little brain. But, for once in my life, I desire to study, to pray, to go to church, to get better etc. I don't just know, but I actually love it and I want to do it. I knew before the mission, but it was just a knowledge. I love you mom, I love the gospel, I am so very thankful for the gift of repentance and the chance to change.

27 Feb 2012 - Palmeiras Area (Dad)

Carnaval distractions are gone for now. Although Carnaval isn't much different than every weekend. I didn't see anyone flocking to church though, so maybe next week the will take up from their drunken stupor and realize their wrong doings. Phooey I keep on thinking of things to write in English and realize I don't know how to spell them or how to intelligently communicate them. I can hardly speak English with my companion and I'm always saying stuff wrong. Whenever I see an unfamiliar word, I try to pronounce it in Portuguese. I was reading Jesus the Christ in english and there was some random word and I just said it how a Brazilian would....oops.

We had a cool adventure Sunday morning. We have a sewage man hole in our "backyard" and then another hole inside of our house to check/clean the pipes I guess. It rained elephants and wildebeasts (instead of cats and dogs) Saturday night/Sunday morning. So unfortunately the sewage pipes overflowed and flooded our house. I woke up at 1:30 AM and it smelled terrible! Our house was smelling so I just ignored it. Then I pulled my blanket off the floor and a corner of it was wet. Then I got up and realized our whole house was flooded with half an inch of sewage water. Yay hepatitis! So I grabbed everyone's stuff off the ground and put it somewhere, took a few pictures and went to sleep. It wasn't brown, poopy sewage water because it was mixed with rain water and it was bubbling out of the man hole. So don't imagine some disgusting sludge :) We spent about 5 hours cleaning our house on Sunday too, and my old janitor body is hurting. My bags didn't get wet due to faulty Brazilian construction and unlevel floors. So who knows how this whole disease thing is going to go down. There are some unwashable things (aka scriptures, planner etc) that will be tainted forever.

20 Feb 2012 - Palmeiras Area (Mom)

I have decided long ago that I will live in Texas. Now I just have to find work and a wife that doesn't care.

 

Since Friday the dreaded Carnaval has been going on. It is just immorality and crazy, drunk people. It ends on Tuesday, so we don't have much success until then. We had about 30 people at church too. Just half naked women dancing in glittery clothes. That kind of stuff doesn't happen around here luckily. Carnaval is big in Recife, Salvador, and Rio de Janeiro. Here it is mostly drunk peope throwing eggs and flour at each other.

 

Elder Howland called me and told me that he got an email from you. He was my companion before my companion now. I'll leave May 28th and get home the 29th. Did Michael stay longer? I won't be able to stay longer because of the visa. It expires on June 16th which would be like 2 weeks into the transfer of 6 weeks. So even if I wanted to I couldn't.

20 Feb 2012 - Palmeiras Area (Dad)

[Did you know that sugar cane is actually the biggest world crop by weight (according to Guns, Germs, and Steel). So Brazil still has hope as long as they focus on gasohol and sugar instead of drinking alcohol.] They do have a lot of gasohol here. It is weird because the car exhaust smells like the drunk people. Before the mission I was oblivious to drunk people/booze smell. Now I can smell it a mile away. It is like a red flag when some guy comes up and talks to you.

 

[Thanks for the photos. Well, maybe not the one of the bathroom. That one was from an old abandoned shack, right?] That bathroom was our nice outside, poolside bathroom. We probably shouldn't have used it because when you flushed the toilet all of the stuff just went down a 'canal' and stayed under the concrete floor. It didn't really go anywhere. The worst part is the concrete floor had a hole in it so you could see/smell it all. Yay!

 

Carnaval is Friday to Tuesday so our work has slowed down considerably. Nobody wants to talk to us, everyone is drunk, everyone is travelling, scantily clad women are everywhere, kids are throwing eggs and flour at each other. The other day we were talking down the street and two gangs of punks with eggs started charging and screaming and I thought they were going to pummel us but they just threw eggs at each other. We were just chilling walking by on the curb. Luckily, there were no casualties from the cross fire. The place just seems to go into party/club mode. Last year my area was just dead, everybody just travelled and it was all calm and pleasant. Fortaleza is one of the boring places to do Carnaval too. I can only imagine what it is like in Salvador, Recife or Rio de Janeiro. We had about 30 people at church, but we had 2 investigators!

 

[I related a story from a book I'm reading that told of a woman changing from being an extremely rough and abrasive individual at the time of her conversion to a quite different character years later when she went to the temple.] That is a good story. You see that a lot here. "Crazy" people that have a hard time leaving [specific denomination] blasphemies behind etc. They slowly change and stuff like that but in the mean time you see some crazy stuff. They have a lot of good, faithful people here though. It always amazes me and it probably always will. Converts just change so much faster than us people born in the church. Most youth don't do anything until some trial at 16 or 17 and then they receive an answer. These converts hit the ground running and are firm from day one. They don't have all the things we have in the US and still keep trucking. The Gospel really does change people and changes them fast depending on their desire. It is a perfect Gospel that is meant for billions of different people; Only God could make an eternal plan that can meet the ever-changing world and it inhabitants!

13 Feb 2012 - Palmeiras Area (Mom)

The week was the same old same old. Nothing has really changed. Satan is going to town right now. The ward is growing though, but not with new members so that is good. They have reactivated a few people. We had a kid finally go to church that has been promising for awhile. He is 18 and already baptised but we were trying to get him active so he could go on a mission. Elder Evans told us that baptisms and reactivations are the same in God's eyes so that gives me hope :) We have 3 kids going off to missions right now. One already left and one is leaving this week and then the Sister is leaving March 1st. It is weird to see people leaving on missions. It reminds me of me back in the day. They have no idea what is going to happen... ;)

 

{Mom had a busy week spearheading providing food for the stake Valentine's Day dance again.] Didn't they use to cater these dances? That is what they should do from now on. Get 14 lbs of fried chicken and mashed taters. You should make is a pot luck Valentines Day! Happy Valentines Day by the way, I love you! Valentines day here in Brazil is July I think.

13 Feb 2012 - Palmeiras Area (Dad)

[I mentioned that the BYU basketball team was 17 out of 101 on three-pointers up until last week.] Wow 17 out of 101? I'm pretty sure an armless beaver could shoot better than that. I might have to try out for the team when I get back home. I just have to shoot 20% and I'll be a champion :) Well and grow another 5 inches to be able to shoot over a chair. 

 

[Only one missionary from Texas? Well, I know that that one missionary (Jeffrey) can match any ten missionaries from anywhere else, so that should be enough state representation.] Well obviously because he can stand the heat and doesn't sweat buckets here like the Utahrns. There are 2 others that live in Texas and they have both been my companions. But Texas being so big one lives in Houston and the other Corpus Christi. So that is a good 8 hour drive to Corpus.

 

[I'm assuming you documented the toenail removal incident and gut barfing and we'll get photos soon. Speaking of which ... how about some photos? Not of that stuff, but of something more appealing.] I didn't take pictures of me barfing because it was at 3:30 AM. I have lost all appetite for meat on a stick though, which is sad. Who knows, maybe I got some worms too so I can come back nice and slim. I have a few pictures of the toenail/ pre-surgery but I haven't uploaded my pictures yet. I'll send a few random ones. [See below.] The fruit is called jaca. It probably weighed about 20 pounds and it was nasty as usual. I can't remember all that I put in....Oh yeah the bathroom in the old house, pretty isn't it? A baby scorpion that we found at home, one of them at least. Some cows battling. Clearly not domesticated enough. I had the urge to jump on one and break it but I forgot my boots at home. The other one is Christmas at the aparment.

 

[There was some snow on the ground when I took the trash out tonight. The past two days have been frigid. Well, they feel frigid, although it would be a warm spell to a BYU-Idahoan.] Yeah right..I never became a BYU-Idahoan. I love the heat and humidity and anything not cold. That is why I will live in Texas forever. Probably down south more because apparently Fort Worth has turned into Canada.

 

[I attended a Worldwide Leadership Training broadcast yesterday. One of the notes I jotted down was this: one of the greatest feelings is to know that God has sent you to bless the life of an individual. I'm certain that God has sent you to bless the lives of many specific individuals.] I don't know if I have found someone that was specifically waiting for me, well I should say that has never been 100% obvious. I guess most of the people that I baptized were in a sense waiting for me. It is probably too early to tell how much I have affected the people here. I just hope I've managed to do something for the last 20 months. I haven't been perfect or the best missionary, but hopefully God will accept what I have done. I don't know exactly how merciful the Lord is, but I know that if we do our best He will  forgive us for the faults we have. I have a lot of faults and it seems a long, nearly impossible road to become a better Elder Hawkes because I'm so dumb sometimes :) I'm excited for life though. You learn so much on the mission and you just want to try it out. The mission is the best thing in my life and I will cherish it for the rest of my life. I love it. It has changed me so much. Nobody on this earth really knows how much it has changed me. Why would anyone not want this? I have never, on the mission, desired to go home or give up etc. It is the best place, God has specifically chosen it for me. I thank Him all of my days.

6 Feb 2012 - Palmeiras Area (Dad)

The Americans in this mission are 55% from Utah, 20% from California 20% from Washington. The other 5% is random and only 1 person from Texas...yay. We got a missionary from Cape Verde and Bolivia this last transfer so that is cool.

Well if I count the transfers I can find out more or less when I will come home. It will be the last Monday in May or the 1st in July [I'm thinking that is June in the northern hemisphere.]. That is about as specific as I can get. They buy the plane tickets 3 months in advance so they will know soon. [I mentioned Michael asked me on the phone last week what time Jeffrey would be coming home so he could figure out if the would be awake then .] Tell Michael he can't sleep until then just to be sure that he doesn't miss it.

[Your robbery episodes are entertaining in a sense, but they are starting to pile up. Can you ask the loot-crazed citizens of Fortaleza to go pick on someone who actually has something worth taking? Like maybe Bill Gates or a soccer star?] Well when Bill Gates stops by I will direct the loot-crazed citizens to his security escort. Unfortunately, Ceará is not known for its soccer skill so their soccer teams aren't very good so there is no chance of finding a soccer star. Maybe I can convince them to rob the bar owners, they seem to be rich and famous.

Well Elder Dean got his toenail ripped out this Friday so we weren't able to work this weekend and I was barfing my guts out Sunday morning. So that is the colorful, wonderful news for you all. Hopefully this week we can manage to have some health and do some work!