Opa mamãe!

Como vai??  So this last week President came and visited us during our District Meeting. At the end of the District Meeting he gave us a couple heads up. One, by the end of the year our Mission will have 200 missionaries AGAIN! We were at 200 when the mission divided in July, in 6 months we will be full of a bunch of newbies! Ha, so I am thinking that I will be having a couple of "Grandsons" here soon because they are training way early, so who knows what is going to happen to us old Farts like me.

The other notice he gave us was..... NO MORE BACKPACKS?!?! Whhhaaattt?? I thought young white shirt ‘n tie boys with big backpacks on top was part of the missionary legacy... guess they are trying to wean that down a bit, so I will have to leave the good ol’ camel back at home here soon.

Well as for my week. So you asked about Gerson. So this week we had a lot of people preparing for baptism. As for us we had 3. Gerson, his Mom Ana, and a little nephew boy of a bishop, Jordan. So we spent a lot of time preparing these people. Ana got prepared well, and Gerson this last friday, we had a lot of time to clear up doubt with him but still was a little hesitant with the baptism. Saturday morning I read Elder Holland’s talk from last General Conference and OMG it was perfect for Gerson, I got all excited to share it with him, but they gave me a call and said they would be traveling this weekend, hmmph.... QUE ISSO?!?! Patience, right? Well yeah, also Jordan will wait for this next Saturday to be baptized so his Mom can be there. So it was a little tough focusing on these people all this week, and then none of them being baptized... but it will all work out.

This week there was a woman that we taught, she was really cool, but she was really interested about if we have days off, if we can have friends, how the heck do we just work straight like we do for 2 years.

Ha, I learned two things here. One, how grateful I am for the rules. Really, if it wasn’t for the rules, it would be ten times harder to be dedicated to the work. It would be real easy to get distracted and hang out, especially with taking out some of the little rules. Second, of how happy and joyful it is to serve others. I really thought about, hmmm how is it that we are so dedicated and so happy at the same time. It is true, we don’t socialize a lot here. Just teach the gospel. But later on in the week while we were teaching Tiara about service, it dawned on me that there is a great joy that comes through service. Maybe it may not be the usual chit chat that we love, but with the little interaction we have, while doing good works, and having the spirit testifying in our hearts of what we are doing is the right thing. Well, it is a lot easier to understand how we do it.

Anyways, besides that the week was chill. It sure had it’s ups and downs, but God never leaves me comfortless when I search for His comfort. I am getting a little bit more tidy by the way. I am getting some good habits. It is amazing what a little bit of study and prayer can do to changing simple things like cleaning.

But yeah... that’s about all I got for you for now. I am happy, and who knows what will happen next week when it is transfers! Eiita! Bishop thinks I will leave, and Elder Monical is begging for me to stay. I don’t know what I want, but I am thinking maybe it is my time. Who knows!

But I love you,  Tchau!!

-Elder Zachary Cetraro 

September 16, 2013

Heyya there!

 As for my week. Well, let’s say Me and Elder Monical get a long really well. We are good buds. This week in Zone Training, I had a funny experience... So we were practicing teaching the Law of Chastity, and I asked Elder Galves to show us how to mock a proposal in a lesson. So I volunteered to be an investigator and then they called Sister Miess to be my "Girl Friend" Ha, so you can already see where this is going right... well during the practice, they asked Sister Miess why she would like to be married, and she said she would like to have kids. Eita... Then they asked me if I would keep this commandment or not.  I said yes, so they told me I needed to propose to her. WOOWW.... Awwwkwwward.... So I did my first proposal in Portuguese that day. It was terrible. Ha, but the Zone got a good kick out of it.

Then for another awkward moment with girls. Friday I went to the Sister’s area to help pass by a list of referrals for them. While we were doing it, I came into a little Vila and we needed to go to casa seis, and I thought casa tres, so I knocked there, then realized that it was the wrong house but then a young girl about my age peeked around the corner and was like "Omg, I can’t come to the door right now but I reeeeallly want to talk to you guys, can you pass by tomorrow?!?!" I made a note for the Sisters and when they passed by they said she was really interested but also said,  "Aww I feel so bad I couldn’t of talked with the Elders, they were sooo gorgeous!!" Haaa, so it was an inspired contact for sure! So God uses our gifts in funny ways, right? Luckily I won’t be teaching her!

Elder Monical gave a talk this last Sunday, and he spent 2 weeks preparing it but I think it went good. Ha, and when I arrived, I was told that I’d be giving a talk as well, so I had 20 minutes to prepare, but I just winged it. I ended up just going up and cried and bore my testimony of how I know that God enables us to speak for him, as he has done to Elder Monical, as he has done for me, as he has done for Moses, and He will do it as well for us as we are sharing the gospel. 

We had some drama with our baptisms though this last week. Gerson, a young man that we have been teaching for weeks, we got him and his little 11 year old sister prepared for baptism and his Mom was going to go and watch and everything. But on the day of the interview, his little brother who helps a lot in another church took him to the house of a Pastor, and they confused him a ton. He went and passed the interview but he wouldn’t go to church, because he was scared to be baptized. It is just really sad because he knows the Book of Mormon is true, and he believes that the church is true, but he is just scared of all the stuff he has heard from the people he has known and trusted for so long. We still baptized Evellyn, his sister, but honestly the baptism felt a little empty. Oh well. Pray for Gerson and his Mom Ana this week okay??

Alrighty that’ll have to be my report for now.

Love you all and have a wonderful week!

-Elder Zac Cetraro

Hey!! 

Wow!! I got a letter from the whole fam today! Sweeeet! Writing back is a little more difficult but that’s alright. I can type fast!! Much faster than write.

So I guess I’ll fill you in on my week. I actually am feeling a lot better. I hope whatever it was is gone completely. I really am lucky though that my sickness didn’t get me down. Umm... This week the work was actually a lot better. We got back into the groove talking with a lot of people, and teaching a lot. I am helping Elder Monical teach more, but I still feel like I have to prompt him to do it still. But he is getting better for sure.

The District of Sisters that I am helping is having a lot of success. It is good to see how the Lord is blessing them, and it is good to see how each Sister is growing, especially since I have known half of them for over 3 months now. Sister Bailey really liked the Sympathy card you sent by the way.

Probably the funniest story of the week would have to be when I found an old drunk man scooting around in the road. I decided to help him a bit because being in the middle of the road is a bit dangerous you know. So we held his hands and helped him walk to a corner for him to lie down. When we got there he started mumbling something that I didn’t understand. He let go of my hand and looked down to see that his shorts were leaking... Eita! I then understood him, he was saying "I want to pee" so he hurried and did his business in the middle of the road but the funny part was to see my companion there, still holding his hand, having no clue what was going on while this old man is taking a leak in the middle of the road. He couldn’t let go because then he would fall, so yeah. He was a trooper. It was hilarious though.

Besides that, Bishop’s Wife is about to pop, she will have her baby this next Friday. Bishop is happy. I’m happy. It’s going good. I have two big goals right now. One is to be more organized in everything, with planning and cleaning and yeah. The other is to work more with the members. Because I know there are plenty of willing members.... you just have to plan everything and call them first. So we will see. But I am good and it is good to hear from everyone in the family.

Love you guys and have a great week!

-Elder Zac Cetraro

Hey there!

Helloo!! So I decided that maybe I am starting to get a little homesick..... in my dreams! Ha as you know, I dream every night here in Brazil and I can’t recall them all right now but I know just about every night it has had a lot to do with home and you guys. It is kinda weird though. My old life really does seem like a dream. Really far off and almost not real. Huh... anyways...

Okay, you had some questions! Yaay! So I will try to answer those while telling you about my week. So last P-day I forgot to tell you, but the day was basically a day of spring cleaning. WOW! And most of it was in my luggage. I really think it was the first time I actually did a good clean out and organization of my luggage. I put all my clothing in the big bag, which if I fold the clothes it doesn’t get too out of control. But the real mess was in the medium bag, which has been my "Little Pharmacy" bag and Book/Media library. Wow, I sorted through that and discovered some nifty things my Mom packed for me! I think maybe I will start to use some of it. Ha and yeah my little bag has all the little things I use often like socks, garments, and yeah..

Anyways... as for the week. So it was a bit tough this week I will be honest.  Like I have said, we haven’t gotten into the groove yet this week. And well my companion doesn’t speak much Portuguese and neither is he super eager to speak in general so this week I kinda felt alone. But this last weekend I started to throw him in to do contacts, to get him speaking. You really have to trust in the other person, even though you know that you could do it better, you have to do it for his growth. So yeah... Luckily we had Gabriel, a boy in the Ward who is awaiting his mission call, who wants to do 3 splits with us a week. So he did 2 with us this last week.... and he teaches really well. Sadly though, I feel like my comp has been a little excluded and I don’t know what to do to help him. I can teach the language really well to him, but it is him that determines how much he speaks. So I will have to help him practice since he doesn’t have that desire to converse or jump in and teach. But he is a great guy. It really isn’t that bad because if you know me, I like to do everything myself anyways so maybe that is the big problem.

You asked if I am needing or missing anything. I will think about that this week. Bishop asked for candy and I was like psshh, candy?? Who needs that junk? But one of our roommates just got a package of American candy and OOOMMMGGG.... it is sooo good... Freak, it is heavenly. Even the Red Vines, which I thought was a lousy candy that only Dad likes to eat, tasted good! Ha, so feel free to send a bit of candy in packages if you want. But yeah.

Well, the weather I am totally used to. I ate Brazilian pancakes yesterday and they are delicious, you will have to try it out some time. And yeah, well I got to go. But have a good week!

-Elder Cetraro

(Editor's note: on Tuesday, August 20, I got a call from the mission office saying Elder Cetraro had been mugged and got his debit card taken and it needed to be cancelled. This is the experience he is speaking of in the beginning.)

Alrighty..

Hello Fam!

Yeesss, I am totally fine. I’m sorry if that first heads-up wasn’t detailed enough, I was standing there next to the secretary ready to fill you in if you freaked out. But it was chill. I guess I can tell you a bit more about it but I would like to forget about it a bit.

So like I told you in my last week’s email. I was in a different area with different missionaries who were all waiting to pick up their new companions. Like what I also said in the email we will probably go check out the ocean. Well it was the combination of these two that pretty much caused what happened. So Tuesday we were supposed to go to the office at 4 o´clock. After lunch me and another American got a glimpse of the ocean from afar and went all "goo-goo gah-gah... omg omg omg omg" If you can understand, I haven’t seen the ocean the whole time I have been here. Well what happened was the Elder whose area it was said, "Well you guys are in luck, because our next appointment is right by the beach." And then while we were going there he said "Oh! On the way there is a great view, it’s a bit dangerous though."

So yeah, we swung up by this hill that really did have a great view and I of course had my camera for that. But as we were leaving there appeared a bunch of kids. (like 12-16 years or so) and one of them had a broken beer bottle yelling at us to get down on our knees. I wanted to run, it would have been the best idea. But sadly though, the other two missionaries got down on their knees and if I would of booked it or fought back (I’m a black belt so I definitely already had an action kick-butt plan in my head) but if I would of done that, the situation would turned active and I would of put the other two Elders in danger. So they ended up taking my camera (I already hid the memory card in my back pocket) and my Missionary Manual, which had the (debit) card and money for a taxi. Funny thing is usually I don’t carry these things but due to the occasion I had them. I didn’t have a bag I just had these two things in my pocket so I couldn’t hide them. The other American Elder had his camera and wallet well hidden in his bag so he got away lucky.

But yeah, don’t worry, it wasn’t anything I couldn’t of handled, nothing crazy. I do kinda feel bad though because I was the oldest Elder there, so I should of been more responsible, but then again, I didn’t know the area at all to make those judgment calls. But yeah.

Anyways as for the rest of the week. So we stayed in Expedicionários and I am with Elder Monical. He is a tall kinda quiet guy and he kinda reminds me of Uncle Jared with how calm and athletic he is. Anyways, he basically forgot most of his Portuguese because he spent 3 months out of the MTC not using it. So it has been interesting. I will have to really focus to help him participate in the work and really grow in this transfer. I am able to do the work but I can’t do it all and neglect him the growing experience and practice that he needs, so hopefully this next week we will figure it out.

As for the work I felt like it was a little slow this week since I didn’t have the opportunity to do weekly planning or do weekly goals. It is amazing how slothful we become without these two things. I will want to do this weekly planning and goals after the mission for sure! But it was waaay cool though because I didn’t tell you about Tiara from last week.

So last Friday I got a phone call from the office that they had a great referral for me to baptize. So we swung by Saturday afternoon and she actually was just about leaving. But real briefly I asked her how does she already know about the Church. She shared with me how at the moment she is without religion because she has studied the Catholic church’s history as well as the Baptist church’s history and she didn’t like what she has seen. She said that she already has looked into and studied a bit about the Mormon Church and has a return missionary co-worker that took her to some church things and gave her a Book of Mormon. I know an elect when I see one so I just briefly bore my testimony of how God has answered her prayers and sent us and gave her the first 3 lessons to read. So she did, she went to church with us, she loved it.  We passed by her house last Sunday afternoon (while I was still with Elder Medrado) and we ended up teaching her the Restoration and about the Gospel of Christ and she accepted to be baptized. We then tried to pass by during the week to teach the commandments but basically with studying and work she has no time whatsoever. So we ended up just teaching her everything that afternoon. She already was living all the commandments. We really could of baptized her right then and there. Thing is though that night was transfers which means a night of packing bags and not baptisms.... so we put it off for this week. But yeah, she was the driest Mormon I have ever met and wow she is 19 years old and I think she has a desire to serve a mission. I am excited to see her blossom in the church.

Ha, but thanks for the updates. My companion actually already told me about the temple video he was there last week..... Jealousy....... and I am excited to see it as well but I am sure that just being in the temple will be good enough for me.

Gotta go! Love you all, have a great week!

-Elder Zachary Cetraro

I am here at a LANhouse in Aldeota and I’m a couple blocks away from the ocean, which I plan on passing by today since I haven’t seen it the whole time I have been here. So did I get transferred to the beach??? Ha actually.... No.

Alrighty, so how was my last week of the transfer?!  Well it was pretty interesting to tell you the truth. Like I said in my last email, the Ward Rodolfo Teófilo loved us and welcomed us really well when we were there. When it came to weekly planning Tuesday, we kinda hit a wall. Plan for which ward?!?! I really felt like I was in the middle of a Ward Tug-a-war, between our beloved Ward Expedicionários and our new exciting Ward Rodolfo Teófilo. I called the assistant to see what the plans were for the next transfer, and he basically gave us the choice. You know me, I don’t choose. I analyze and state the pros and cons, but anyways it came down to prayer. After this I really felt like I was ordained to work here in Expedicionários and even though I could see that I would have more fruits in the other ward, God chose that place for the Sisters, and it is my job now to really trust in them to do the great work instead of going there and doing it for them. Interesting thing is that the Sisters that I take care of, had 3 months of training and a senior companion and after that, they become the experienced ones, and trained the newbies that are constantly coming in. I know I am the Elder that I am because of the great seniors that I have already had, so I will really try this next week to help them with this aspect.

This week was also Zone Conference and we had the whole mission there in the chapel where we do our district meeting. It was super good. Talked a lot about desire and objectives, and how we really need to get the abilities. I have really realized that this is something I really need to work on. Abilities. As you guys know, I pick up things quickly.... or I don’t. I never have been one to really self dedicate to practicing something. I like to learn, but apply and practice is different. I know mastering this now, will really help me here in the future. Besides that, we returned back to work in our old area basically from scratch.

This week Elder Medrado was sick like I said. Last week he thought it was dengue, then a fever, then a sore throat, but it turns out it was just a canker sore. My Sisters had Dengue the worst thing they could get and this Elder was whining more about a canker. It was hard for us both. I ended up preaching everything for a couple of days. But he got better and we finished off chill. I am ready to have a normal week again.

So as for transfers, soooooo...... I stayed. But Elder Medrado was transferred.... It was a great opportunity to train Elder Medrado. I can honestly say it was a little experience of raising a real child. You really want to give them the best start that they can get so that they can achieve great things in their missions. I truly loved Elder Medrado like a son. And I truly feel blessed to be chosen and entrusted by God to have had this very important role in his mission.

And as for me, well turns out that I was designated to be a "Language Trainer" for a missionary that is arriving right now from the USA. He has already had 2 transfers there (in the US) but I will have to help him adjust to his real mission... so yeah. I don’t really have more details on that one. But for today I am hanging out with Elder Wadsworth from Grace Idaho, and it is his dream to live in Logan. Good stuff...

But that’s all for today, love ya'll and have a great first week of school!

-Elder Zachary Cetraro