Happy Thanksgiving!

This Thanksgiving week was really fun for me and I had alot of cool experiences! On Tuesday, we had interviews with the president of the mission. It seemed to go really well. We had some good discussions about the area and I really loved the opportunity to talk to him.

On Wednesday, we had to go back to Porto Alegre for yet another exam for my companion. He has a problem with his knee and will need to do physical therapy. Its almost ten real (dollars) to go to Porto Alegre and back, thats alot of money for a missionary! My companion is starting to make me broke! The president has already told us that on transfer day in two weeks, Elder Kargel will be transferred to a new area. Im excited to see who my new companion will be.

Well the Holidays are fast approaching. Thursday was Thanksgiving and although it was a regular day of work for me and the rest of Brazil, I was able to celebrate a bit at night before bed! We ordered a pizza and had lots of fun. Better yet, I was able to receive a package from my mom! It was great to feel close to home on the day that im so grateful to have my family! Lights are starting to come up on the houses and the city is starting to look real pretty!

Friday was a good day of work, we had some good success finding new people but we still havent had anyone come to church yet. Its kinda frustrating, but it will get better! As you all know, it was black Friday. Another US holiday that they dont know about in Brazil. I loved explaining it to the members and people I talked to cause they thought it was so weird. Why would everyone in the Country go shopping on the exact same day... at midnight.. and fight for a lame x-box?? haha.

The weekend was good, but really hot too! A member told me that I need to start using more sunblock cause my face was getting red. My first response was that I always have a red face (compared to Brazilians) and my second response was that its super weird to be putting on sunblock when your singing Christmas songs.. haha ill never get used to that.

Anyways, sorry for the short message today but this week has just been a good, normal week! Im grateful for all the blessings that I have received on the mission and Im definitely grateful for a family that supports and thinks about me every day! Only a few more weeks til my phone call!!

Taking Your Steps of Faith

Ahh the holidays are arriving! I can almost smell the rice, beans, and occasionally spaghetti that ill be eating this Thursday. The stores are packed with Christmas decorations and toys that are found right next to the sunscreen and bathing suits. What a great time of year this is! I just really wished I had a Mormon tab Christmas CD with me! This past week was so busy with so many meetings but it was a great week, full of blessings.

Well Wednesday was really cool! My companion and I went to Porto Alegre to hear from the mission president and an Elder from the 70. I am always excited to go to Porto Alegre because it means a few things. It means we will receive letters! It means we will get to see our old friends in the mission too! To make Tuesday better, it was combined with some missionaries from the Mission Porto Alegre North. I caught up with some old friends from the CTM there. First the presidents of the missions spoke. It was funny because my president only has 6 months in the mission and the other president only has 3! He is from Draper, Utah and his name is President Wright. It was funny to see them both together because President Wright is really loving and calm and shared his testimony the whole time. President Castro drilled us on keeping the rules better then promised us love and blessings in the end. haha. President Castro is full of justice and obedience, but is good at showing his love too. I really love him as my president.

Unfortunately, there was another emergency in the mission that called the president away and our interview was pushed back until tomorrow afternoon. I really am excited for the opportunity to talk to him. Cant wait!

Oh, back to the meeting with the Elder from the 70. He shared alot of things that I really liked and really wanted to apply. The thing that hit me most was something he said about being in a Godly state of mind. Ive passed the 6 month mark in my mission and Im completely settled in. I feel really relaxed and I take the mission day by day. In the past two or three weeks Ive noticed that ive been learning TONS about life and the gospel. Its really cool. My favorite part of the day is study time. Right now im studying the Book of Mormon institute manual while reading the BOM again. Its fantastic! Anyways, the Elder taught us that we need to try to spend the whole day thinking about God and spiritual things. If we do this than we will be really close to the spirit and get alot more out of our mission. I really want to try to apply this in my life right now. We will see how it goes.

their apartment

Wednesday was pretty much are only full day of work in the entire week. We decided to do something really different. Our area includes a really tiny neighborhood that is really really far away from everything. We have never been there and decided to make the trip´. It was a dirt road the whole way and a 45 min. walk but way fun and way cool! There was nothing but a random house every 5 minutes. It was even more cool with my Brazilian companion because he showed me plants and animals that I wouldnt have noticed before. Did you know that pineapples are red before they are ready? Also, I saw my first tarantula spider! Ugh! It was as huge as my fist, but way cool to see. We picked up a cool family there so I guess we will making the long trip more often:)

Ill wrap this letter up with Sunday. 5 minutes before sacrament started the Branch President asked me to give a short talk because the member that was supposed to do it didnt show up! Ahh! It was my first time talking in front of people in Portuguese and I did so good! I talked about Faith and how we need to demonstrate more faith in our lives and it ended up being 10 minutes long. Pretty good for my first time huh? I wasnt nervous and I didnt really mess up with any of the language. It was a test of my faith but Im positive that I had the spirit there to help me. It was a great experience to remember. Later, Vania (a recent convert of mine) told me that I am starting to use alot of slang words in Portuguese (Which means im getting good!) hhaa.

I hope this Thanksgiving week will be great for you guys! Be sure to think of me when you cut into that deep fried turkey!! 

Love,

Elder Horst

Why does it only rain on p-days and transfer days?

Its been another great week with another really busy week coming up! Tomorrow, my companion gets the results from his knee exam. That means we have to take another bus ride to Porto Alegre which will probably end up taking the whole day. On Wednesday, our day is filled with appointments for new investigators. Hopefully it will be a great day and everything will go well. Also on Wednesday, I will return to the school and talk to the kids in their English class. Last time was great and they really loved it. On Thursday, we have a special meeting in Porto Alegre and we will get to hear from an Elder from the quorum of the 70. Im especially excited because it will include the Northern half of our mission (Porto Alegre SUl) and the southern half of the mission Porto Alegre North! Im excited to see other missionaries from a different area. I think that will be a great experience. On Friday, we have district meeting and an opportunity to have our interviews with the President of the Mission! Im excited for the time to talk to him one on one because it doesnt happen too often. That also will probably take up the whole day! This is going to be such a crazy and fun week! (also a really expensive week for bus tickets)

Today was a really cool P-Day. All the missionaries from our zone went to a members house in the middle of nowhere. There we had lots of fun playing games and eating churrasco (BBQ). All the missionaries here in the mission love to play the game Monopoly Deal. Its a really cool game, basically a transformed version of monopoly with just cards. Ive started to get really good at it too.. so that helps alot haha. We played a game called war, its a really fast version of Risk. Not to brag... but I won that game too:) It felt good to finally win! Whenever I played RISK with my family I never was able to win. Whenever I was close to winning, everyone would decide that its time to go home or my dad would make me go to bed... Its hard being the youngest of the family:) The mission president went to a meeting in Saô Paulo with all the presidents in Brazil. They made a new rule that we arent allowed to play physical sports on P-Day. That includes basketball and soccer!! AHH I almost died when I heard this rule. I cant play soccer in Brazil?? There are the some things on the mission that are tough to deal with, but its all worth it in the end!

On Thursday, my companion and I went to the local school to talk to kids in their English class. It went really really well. I talked in two classes. The first was really good because the kids were nice, interested, and asked good questions. The second wasnt as good because the kids were a bit immature... But it was definitely instructive! First I introduced myself and asked them to introduce themselves in English. They thought it was hilarious to try to speak English. After, I shared with them some things that are different in the United States. Then I shared with them a language plan that really helped me learn the language and encouraged them to work hard and set goals to accomplish the things they want. Lastly, they had some time to ask questions. I really had such a fun time talking to them. I cant wait to go back this week. Doing activities like this really helps the missionary work. It shows that missionaries are normal people.. not weird Americans that always walk around in white shirts. Throughout the week, I saw many of the kids from school in the road and they all were excited to come up and say hi!

This Sunday was the first Sunday in a long time where we had NO investigators at church. It was really annoying. I felt really bad because the success seemed to completely drop off a cliff in the last two weeks. Im not sure that we will even be able to have a baptism this transfer! The mission is alot slower when there is no success, but im sure it will improve soon. Just like all trials in life, if you keep your head up and keep working really hard, good times and miracles will show up alot faster.

When you leave for the mission, you pack alot of things that you never end up using! For example, i brought sunglasses and a travel iron that I have never ever touched! Luckily, I have a Brazilian companion that wants anything that looks cool, sounds cool, or even pretends to be cool. I traded him these two things and got 8 really really old pieces of Brazilian money. They are really cool and I thought that it turned out to be a great exchange. In the next few days I will have finished my first mission Journal! I was able to go back and read a few pages and its full of alot of great memories and stories! Its funny to think that 6 months ago I didnt understand a word of Portuguese and I was always wondering if I would ever be able to learn the language... now im doing great and speaking really good!

I dont know when thanksgiving is... but I know its soon. SO happy Thanksgiving! Im planning on introducing Egg Nog to Brazil this Christmas season. Ill let you know how it goes.... Just yesterday I was talking to my companion about how I cant believe its already November. I told him that its TOO HOT to be November!! Haha. I have already seen my first house with Christmas lights, have you?

Thanks for all your support and love. I cant wait to talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Horst

Happy Hallowe'en

Well this week was definitely a great week for me. Just like every week, it has good parts and bad parts, but overall I really enjoyed it. First ill start with the bad news and than cheer you up with some good stories! On Tuesday, we taught a lesson to Cesah. I thought the lesson was going good and it had a good spirit. At the end we tried to get him a baptism goal. One thing led to another and he told us that he would get baptised in our church but he would never stop going to his other church. He said that he would be worshiping two different churches. Than the member that was there (his best friend) started fighting with him and it all went down hill from there... Im kinda sad because he is no longer our investigator.. To make the story a bit better, he is still going to church every week and maybe someday he will feel the promptings of the spirit!

Okay, now to talk about a more happy subject! Halloween! Well im almost positive that Halloween was a bit different here for me than it was for you. I think its weird because here in brazil they recognise Halloween and everyone loves the holiday but they do nothing to celebrate! Thats right, I didnt eat one piece of candy on Halloween!! This is what happened for me. I woke up and was talking to my companion about Halloween and some experiences ive had. Then I told him that I really wanted to do something to celebrate! We called the sister missionaries for some advice and they told us to dress up as men in black! We thought it was a great idea. We got in our suits and grabbed some cool looking sunglasses. To most, we looked like normal missionaries... but I felt good that I was keeping the Halloween tradition alive!

One good thing I like about transfer days is that we are able to start fresh and make some good goals. My companion and I have set some high standards for this transfer and were really excited to work! This week we want to have alot of baptism dates set for our investigators. Setting goals is a really good way to get things done. Another goal that we have is to start working alot more with the members.We came up with a cool family home evening program. Tonight we will have family home evening with the president of the branch and another family that he invited (family 2). Next week we will have a family home evening with family 2 and they will invite someone else... Then on Sunday we will put a photo up in the church of the night which will make more people want to participate.. haha im excited!!

Anyways, I hope you are all doing good and staying happy! Until next week,

Elder Horst

A creepy creature that Elder Horst saw when he was walking........eeeeewwwww!!!!

Transfer Day

Hello everyone! Today is transfer day. The week before transfers are always so exciting because everyone is wondering and guessing what will happen and where they will go! Well today I was blessed to be able to stay in this area! Saõ Tomè. Also, I will have the same companion. Things are great in this area! Im so excited to continue to progress and have success here.

With transfers, there are usually new goals made! One goal that my companion really wanted was to run each day in the morning! Now, Im not too excited for that one, but Im happy to do it. I think it will help us out alot and of course, will allow me to eat more chocolate here. Wahoo! I want a lot of baptisms this transfer and think we can get them if we work hard enough. Well see what happens!

So this week was great! It was funny, my companion was almost positive that he was getting transferred so he talked to everyone saying that it would be his last time with them. They will be shocked when they see him again. On Sunday we had to do a division. My companion went with a Brazilian and I went with a brand new American. All the Brazilian had to justify their vote for the elections  (Brazilians are required to vote). Its really annoying but he finally got it taken care of. We went to church in my ward and it was the primary program. The primary did so good! There was about twenty of them, which is a lot for a small branch. I tried singing the songs with them, but I only have them memorized in English... Sorry!

Sunday also brought a great experience for me. I was able to confirm Linda a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was my first time doing it and I was really nervous. I spent the whole week preparing for it. When I gave the blessing I really felt good and I spoke really good Portuguese. I felt like some of the words were put in to my mouth. I definitely know that the holy spirit helped me. I was grateful for the experience.

Its starting to get really hot here. And of course, with the heat, comes the insects and rodents! I have seen so many creatures roaming around haha. It really hasn't bothered me yet. I have seen lots and lots of snake skin on the ground but I havent seen a live snake yet. Luckily, our house is pretty clean, so it wont attract any weird bugs. Although, I like the spiders, because they eat the flies. I like the lizards, cause they eat the spiders. Its a win win situation:)

Today I went to the school in our area to talk to the English teacher there. She wants me to stop by one day and teach the kids about America and what its like there! Im so excited to do that! The teacher actually lived in San Fransisco for a year. I think she speaks pretty good English. I told her that on that day shes not allowed to speak Portuguese to me:)Tomorrow is the baptism of my good friend in the branch. She just turned 8 and is so excited for baptism! My companion and I had the opportunity to teach her the mission lessons just to help her understand the importance of baptism.

Wish me luck on my next transfer! Im so grateful and happy to be here on the mission. I want to congratulate my really really really good friend Brinkley on becoming engaged! I am really excited for her to prepare for the temple and live with a family that can be together for eternity.

Until next week,

Elder Horst

Time to Change the Toothbrush!

Well well well, it seems as though I have made it to the 6 month mark! Wahoo! Thats cause for a week of celebration dont you think?? Its been a fantastic 6 months full of experiences and opportunity. Im excited for the next 1 1/2. Before I start I want to make an announcement! Some of you might have already known, but on average, the church receives 600 applications of people that want to serve a mission each week. Last week, the church received 7,000. WOW. How exciting is that? Its so fun to see the growth in the church. I am blessed every day to be able to help out with that work. I have a few good stories for you.

On Saturday we were able to baptize Linda. Linda is 16 with the maturity of a 25 year old. It was such a special day. I was able to conduct the meeting and my companion was able to baptize her. There was an emergency that caused her to miss church this week but I will be able to confirm her a member of the church next Sunday. Linda has three brothers, 18 years, 13 years, and 12 years old. Right now we are working on teaching them and getting them a baptism date as well. It would be really nice if they were all baptized so they could grow and stick together through easy and hard times.

Our other investigator is starting to progress very rapidly. He has been to church twice with a member family. He has stopped whispering during the prayers (which was good cause it was always hard to focus when he did that!). He isnt as hesitant with us and asks really good questions. Also, last night we all went to another member family and he was able to bond with them. Everything is working out good, its just going very slowly one step at a time. We decided to push back his baptism date from the 27 to the 10 of November. I think this is best for him because he still has a lot of passion for his other religion. Im excited to see him progress.

 I am so happy with my area. We seem to be having alot of success. Transfer day is next week and my companion has a ´feeling´ that he will get transferred. I think we will stick together for one more but who knows! Last Tuesday was the conference of zones. I thought it was really good and I learned a lot! I love going to the conference because you get to meet up with your old companions and friends. I saw almost everyone from my group in the CTM and other friends as well including Elder Cox! Zone conference helps you remember your purpose. why your here, and what you need to do to have success!

This week I saw a snake and the Biggest Spider ive ever seen in my life!! Luckily It was in the road and I was in a car, but I was still freaked out. Its starting to get really hot and all the little creatures are starting to come out:) We have had a really late summer here. The people are shocked at how cool its been. I dont have a problem with that! haha, they say when its really hot in January or February you will end up taking two or three showers a day! Thats alot of laundry...

Today my companion got permission from the president to return to his first area. We are going to a members house to eat some good food! Im really excited. I want to share with you the talk that was given by the presidents wife at the conference. She talked about how to have a good attitude and animation in your life. She gave us 4 things to work on and I want to challenge you to work on these things too!

1. Attitude : Always wake up with a positive attitude and keep it throughout the day

2. Work: Always try to improve your skills and talents

3. Gratitude to the Lord: Be thankful for your blessings, your trials, your family and friends, and all the things you have in life

4. Pray with faith and ask for more faith: With faith in the Lord, all things are possible!

Do this and I promise you will be blessed and receive more happiness in your life. Thanks for all!

Elder Horst

This is Elder Horst and Elder Cox

Elder Cox is from Rocklin and Sean got to know him a little before Elder Cox left for his mission.  I think Elder Cox has been in Brazil about 4 months longer than Elder Horst.  They have a special bond knowing they are from the same city and the same Stake :)

A Week To Remember!

This week was filled with fun and good times topped off with a trip to the temple! My zone was able to attend a session at the Porto Alegre Temple. It is actually zoned in the Brazil, Porto Alegre North Mission but we got special permission to go. It was such a cool opportunity and it was all in Portuguese! That made it even more fun. For those of you who dont know, the temple is a house of the Lord. Worthy members of the church have an opportunity to go there to feel close to the spirit and make promises and covenants with God. What a blessing! Through baptism and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, every one has an opportunity to go to the temple and partake of these things! Temples are always beautiful and a good place to forget all your worries of the world.

We focused this part of the week on members, less-actives, and our progressing investigators. After two weeks of teaching, our investigator Cesah went to church! What a blessing that was! He has been so hard to teach because he is dedicated to his other religion. Little by little he has started to receive answers to his prayers and good feelings about our church. We set a baptismal date for him on the 27 of October. Through faith and perseverance, I know that he will be prepared to enter into the waters of Baptism!

One of the biggest problems Cesah has is understanding the concept of Authority from God. Only one church has true priesthood authority from God, The Church of Jesus Christ. Joseph Smith received this authority from Peter, James and John and it has been passed on by the laying on of hands. Now, there are many worthy people that hold this priesthood and that is a great blessing! Without this priesthood power, men cannot perform ordinances of God.

Heres a kinda funny story. On Saturday there was a birthday party for two kids in the branch. There were to be investigators, non members and cake, so of course, my companion and I were there! We were asked to go early and help set up decorations. We finished around 12 and decided to go home for lunch and then return in time for the party. We were walking home and I stopped and remembered that I left the keys to the house at the party! Even worse, we couldnt return to the party, because everyone left for lunch and the doors were locked! We decided to get to the house and find a way in. On the way there I remembered that the window next to my bed was really easy to open from the outside. I used a credit card to jimmy the latch and open the window. We then jumped into the house and had no problem! Haha. Thats what I call creative thinking.

Brazil continues to be good for me and I hope that all is well for you too! Until more..

Elder Horst

Mother's note:  Sean has always had a terrible problem forgetting his keys!!  I have made so many trips to. his school because he was locked out of his truck.  He has had to pay for a few locksmiths because I couldn't find the spare key because he misplaced it also.  One time he even stepped on his keys that were on his bedroom floor and one of them got lodged into his heel.....a trip to the emergency room......Looks like he will always have a key problem.  LOL