January So Far

Not much – 1/16/12

Pretty good week but uneventful. Elder B. and I are working really hard. Our recenct convert has been visiting people with us so thats been fun. He's a cool young man. We are preparing for a conference we will be having on Saturday. There will be at least 2 apostles and some members of the 70. I am pretty excited. I didnt hear any apostles speak while in the MTC so this is a pretty special occasion. Well, thats pretty much it for this week. Tchau!

Elder Siemers

1^st Transfer of 2012 – 1/9/12

Things are really starting to pick up. We've been receiving refferals from members and more members are making visits with us. Our apartment is spotless. Elder B. likes a clean house also, so its nice to be living in cleanliness. We have been working tons. And walking tons also. It seems like all our investigators live 30 minutes away. Everytime we try and work close to our house and the church we cant find anyone. When we walk through neighborhoods that are really far away people come up to us and talk to us. We arent going to deny people who iniciate the conversation so we visit them. We had a zone meeting last week some of the best news Ive ever heard. Our standard of excellency was changed again. But this time they tossed out a fake key indicator that we were using. It was made up by the mission and to me never made any sense. It was how many families we were teaching. But anyone could be a family, so you didnt actually have to teach a family to count it. It was weird and confusing. We also tossed out firmes and possiveis. Which are people who are going to be baptized this week and those who could possibly be baptized. We were running ourselves to death trying to turn our possibles into baptisms and werent making any long term plans. Our new pattern puts people on a schedule of weeks so we can help them be better prepared for baptism and help them progress and get to know the church and the members. I almost got up in the middle of the meeting and hugged our Zone Leader when he told us the news. I am really excited. We should have a lot more success in the near future. We also got news that we will have a visit from two of the 12 apostles in our mission. Everyone is really excited. I think it will be Elder Ballard and Elder Anderson. Along with a few members of the 70. I am really excited for January and what it will bring. Ive got a hard working companion so we should be able to accomplish quite a bit, especially since the members of the church here and making lots of missionary oriented goals also. Sacrament meeting had two talks just on missionary work and helping the missionaries. Lots of good to look forward to in the next few weeks. Well, I hope everyone is having a happy 2012. Até mais.

Elder Siemers

Feliz Novo Ano!!! - 1/2/12

New Years was good. We live on the second floor so we had a good view of the fireworks. There wasnt really an official fireworks show, just everyone buys their own fireworks here in Franca. So at midnight we just looked out over the city and there were fireworks everywhere. I panned across the sky with my camera and there were fireworks in every direction. It was pretty cool.

There was an emergency transfer last week and my companion was transfered to another city. I received a new companion, Elder Batista. He has less than one transfer in the field, so it looks like I will complete his training. He is really awesome and is super excited to work. Last week we did a lot, even though we missed out on a day because of the traveling to Ribeirão Preto.

We worked hard at finding new people to teach. We've been working a lot with a member of the Bishopric to coordinate the work a little better. This next month should be really good. The Ward is making goals for the year and we put in our input the other day. We'll see here soon what the Ward's mission plan will be.

Life is good in the mission field. Happy New Year to everyone!!!

Elder Siemers

Christmas

Merry Christmas – 12/26/11

Crazy week. Christmas was definitely different this year. We had a mission Christmas conference. That was good. All the missionaries in the mission were all together. President Prieto always has a Christmas Tree full of chocolate in his house and he carried on the tradition here on the mission. It was good to see all my old companions. Everyone is doing well and we had a lot of fun. The mission staff put on a nice Christmas program with lots of music. Afterward, there were quite a few games, including a banana eating contest.

Christmas was good. The members fed us really well Christmas Eve and Christmas. To top it all off we had a baptism on Christmas. We baptized a young man who we found a few weeks ago. He had already talked to the missionaries when his sister was meeting with the missionaries a long time ago. He was ready and wanted to be baptized so we had a good Christmas. I got to use Skype to call home and it was really good seeing and talking to the family. Everyone looked good and happy. Only one more week left in 2011. 2012 will be interesting. 70% of the missionaries in the mission arrived in 2011 with me. There is only 30% that has more than a year on the mission. There will be a lot of leadership positions to fill here in the next few months. Lets see what 2012 brings before the Mayan calender runs out. :p

I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and have a happy New Year!

Elder Siemers

Feliz Natal! – 12/19/11

Another good week in Franca. Another week with un-Christmas like weather. One of our investigators works in an ice cream shop and we have discovered that they sell buckets of10 liters of ice cream for really cheap. That was a good find. Before church yesterday, we went to pick somebody up to bring them to church. At the meeting spot there was a bunch of vulture like birds that were eating a dog that was hit by a car on the highway. On our way back a little puppy came out from under the bridge we were on and started following us. You could tell he was hungry and thirsty but he followed us anyway. We decided to bring him to a church member's house just to feed him a little bit before sending him out to the street again. We were also pretty sure that his mom was the dog that was on the side of the road. The little guy followed us for a super long distance but then he got tired. Just then, a church member pulled up in his car and offered us a ride to church. I couldnt just leave him in the street so we brought the puppy with us. At the church we found some water for him, and a woman gave him some milk. During church he kept coming in the building, but everyone was very good about it. After the second sunday school class I didnt see him again. I heard that a member took him to an animal shelter, but I have no idea if that really happened. I hope he makes it. He was really cute. It was a very Where the Red Fern Grows type of experience. I gave a talk in church about Happiness in our lives. I think people enjoyed it. People were paying attention anyway. =) There is a Sister missionary who is completing her mission. Her family came down to pick her up and tour Brazil. They are from California also, so it was fun to talk to them, and translate for them. They even have been rafting on the Lower Klamath, so they are somewhat familiar with Northern California. They've got family in Auburn, and so I told them Ive got family in Lincoln. Last night was our Ward Christmas Party. It was a lot of fun. We have been filming ward members, and a man in the ward made a video of everyone saying Merry Christmas. At the end of the film, Carolyn showed up. I was in the back, next to the food table, but I ran to the front to watch. Next was Calvin, Sam and Taron. Next Jay and Rachel and the kids showed up, with Mom, Dad, Ty, Tam, and the kiddos finishing up the Elder Siemers segments. It was awesome. Im not going to lie. The Man of Steel almost shed a few tears. It was a wonderful surprise. Thank you very much! I hope everyone is having an awesome winter. And Merry Christmas!!!!

Elder Siemers