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