...Thanks for the thought on Christ. I have been thinking a lot about 
Christ lately, I think it is important to focus on Christ. I have been 
reading a lot of the gospels which I have never read them 
chronologically before.
One lesson I learned two weeks ago was about Courage. I learned there 
are three steps of faith, and this helped me understand more about 
courage. First step is Believe, which I always have had big hopes and 
beliefs. I believe in myself. Second step is Trust. This is where I 
learned the difference between being confident and being courageous. 
Confidence is all about trust. You know how I learned that? Portuguese. 
Trust here is confiança. So I am pretty confident with myself and with 
God and with 'the universe' but I think I lacked the last step of faith 
which is to Act - and this is where courage comes in. It is interesting 
though. Just like what you have always taught. Fear is the Enemy. In 
each step fear creates doubts, mistrust, and lack of action. So I've 
been trying to be a little more courageous down here.
Love ya pops, you da man.
-Elder Cetraro

…So we were supposed to have 2 baptisms this last Sunday but things fell through because the moms couldn’t make it! Ha, I guess that is a valid reason. One’s name is Jackson. I will be the one dunking him, and the other is Nathanial, who we have been working with since week 1. Jackson is 16 and is really eager to join the church. He has been getting along well with the youth and he wants to be a missionary! Nathanial is very timid but he knows the church is true. It has been great watching him grow the last few months. I will send you pictures next week!

So I had an interview with President and it was pretty good. It looks like I will be staying and my companion will be leaving. It isn’t for certain though. But I am asking you guys and the whole family to pray extra hard for me these next two weeks. Transfers end the 11th and until then I will be the Senior. Which I am suuuper excited for! I feel my trainer did everything, (more than train me) and had troubles inside lessons letting me do things. So it will be like going from doing nothing to everything so I need the Lord’s help for sure. Please do that for me.

WOW, the holidays are coming up! Ha, I have been thinking about Halloween. I want to do something but I don’t know what. I am thinking about wearing like white socks.... psssh lame! You guys should send me a pull-up bar. If you do, I promise I won’t return fat. I would love that more than anything right now.

Some thoughts I wanted to share with you the last couple of weeks. One, I think someone is praying that I am well fed... because I am weeelll fed. The lunches are so good here and I am only hungry when I choose to be ;) Also in the house I always have food. Sometimes the others run out but I never do! I blame it on my thriftiness that I got from you! This is something my comp admires of me... he also thinks I am a bit crazy! He was spoiled before the mish and he always talks about it. So yeah. I got to go, Love ya, Mom

-Elder Cetraro

…..Alrighty, this last week was good. We worked. But a lot of our appointments fell through. And my comp isn´t good with back up plans. One that fell through was up by that view that over looks the city. We were pooped and had an hour or so to kill before our next commitment at the bottom of the hill. We just sat down and talked about the work and talked about how Juazeiro is different from the easy work he (my comp) was used to. We decided to start something different, for “insanity” is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results and that was kind of what we were experiencing. I had the thought. I was placed here to learn something about the work that can only be learned here that I will need to use later on in the mish. I just need to find what that one thing is. After all this it rained =) it was glorious. It hasn´t rained for more than a minute the whole time I have been here. This time it was 3 minutes, but it was enough to get drenched. I loved it =) so yeah. Little adventure there. I will talk to you guys later!

LOVE YA

-Elder Cetraro

October 8, 2012

Heyyyoo family! =) I am better, don´t you worry!! I think I learned that it is important to be grateful for health now! Everything is good. This week was great! Now that we both feel better we WORKED together in our area like normal missionaries! It was great. Found new people to work with and we have one of our investigators from last transfer getting baptized this week!

So yeah, and the weekend was a party because of Conference, very chill! I loved Conference, I just soaked it up. I know I will study and use what was said. And it was so funny when that announcement was made, all the missionaries in our private English room started freaking out! Ha, it is going to change Mormon youth culture no doubt!

That is cool you got new iPhones. I seriously could care less about phones right now... it is weird, letting go of that was a whole lot easier than I thought it would be. I forgot what my old flip phone looks like too. My mind is in the work, right? Ha, just means I will have an iPhone waiting for me when I return, right?

So about Christmas, you asked what I need. I am just going to throw out a couple things. NUTELLA =) it is just a little expensive here, I am sure there are better American foods you can send me but Nutella is just awesome with everything. Umm... maybe some shorts? I gave my comp my black shorts because he was obsessed about them and it was his birthday. Also maybe ties for the same reason. I am having a battle inside myself what should I do about the ties because every Brazilian wants my freaking ties because they aren´t real cool here. And yeah, I will probably start to lose my ties, Grrr.. They are just ties, right? Also, maybe just more music? We can listen to any church music, instrumental, or Disney and Enya. So yeaaah, look for some sweet instrumental music if you can, I might ask you guys to send a CD of the music that was on my ipod that I gave away. Oh and by that time I will probably need a new study journal. So maybe a little something like that would be nice. Also there was a sweet book I wish I brought that is just loaded with pictures of scripture stories. I love pictures and teaching from them so maybe that... buuut besides that.... I am living a simple life! I don´t know. Use your imagination. But yeah, your package made it. Sweet. Yeah! I will talk to yáll next week. LOVE YA!

-Elder Cetraro

October 1, 2012

GUESS WHAT!!! Start of a new transfer today, which means mail, and YES, I got your package! =) Awesome! Life is good. Anyways... that was sweet. Thanks =) P.

So companion.... this week.... Health.... well. So, my Companion got sick with something this week so he was out from Monday to Thursday. I worked one night on a split but stayed with him. I was a little sick all week too, but you know me, that doesn´t slow me down. But during a Branch activity Thursday night... I started to feel sick, I started to feel a fever coming on, so I thought I´ll just try to go to bed a bit earlier. Well come to find out I had a 102 fever all night, which I guess is enough to call into the Mission Mom and she said to go to the hospital the next day. Weeeelll... it got worse. My fever kept on hovering closer and closer to 104, it wasn´t good. I couldn´t sleep, and I seriously thought I was going to die. Never felt so close to death. Eventually the others decided to flag down a random car in the street and drive me to the hospital where I got an IV and everything. Fun eh? Turns out it was probably an intestinal infection, and since I am American and this certain bacteria was probably very new to me it hit me hard.  I was out the rest of Friday. But miraculously I was back on my feet and working Saturday (my comp. is still slowed down by his).

But there is a good part to all of this. I know this transfer has been really rough, but I truly feel God has been putting me and my companion through a refining process so we will be gold. After all this stuff this last week I feel my companion and I are finally getting along better and probably wouldn´t have arrived at this any other way, ya know.

Anyways, yesterday was his birthday, and we had 3 birthday parties! The best though was the surprise one from a family he baptized in an area 10 hours away. They randomly showed up here and threw him a party, it was unbelievable. And I was lucky enough to be sucked up into the joy of it all. Yesterday I felt the joy of the missionary life and I don´t think it was because it was his birthday, I think this feeling will stay =)

Anyways, that was my week. I love ya’ll and talk to ya next week!