Alrighty Mamãe, Boa Tarde! 

Ha, Ooooh Halloween! I definitely love Halloween. As you know I love dressing up, because I am a goof like that.  I don’t know if you remember  last Halloween me and Elder Galves dressed up as each other. I used all his clothes and he used all of mine. It was funny.  I don’t know if I will do anything for Halloween, I sure would like to. They don’t celebrate Halloween really here. It’s kinda like Cinco De Mayo there where we know it is a holiday for another country but you don’t really celebrate it, only a few do. I would like to hear and maybe see what everyone did for Halloween this year.

This last week I learned a lot actually. Me and my companion are still pushing things through so we can have a better companionship and I have learned a lot in personal reflection. One thing, is that I am a "Know-it-all" and I talk a lot. I think since Dad opened up the karate studio, I was always placed in teaching situations. I taught karate, I taught  swimming lessons, I taught snowboarding, I tutored math and  many other subjects.  I honestly have a passion for teaching or you can even say training. I thought about it...why? I think one of the reasons is because I love learning! I love being taught! I am always in  search for knowledge. I am a nerd. But I think maybe sometimes this isn’t the best though. If I like to teach, then that means I treat others like students. Some people don’t like that. Especially when we are the same thing. We are all missionaries here. So now I need to learn how to be a leader without just being a teacher.

I learned a lot this week about Unity. My whole mission I have pushed so that I do my best. But this week I learned that is not enough. That’s why there exists Exaltation over Salvation. Exaltation involves others. So if I am being super obedient, that isn’t enough if I am not helping others do the same. That is why it is so important to understand our purpose. Because to be united, we must be one in purpose as like God, Christ, and the Spirit are one in purpose. Just some thoughts from this week.

So yesterday was the Primary Program, and I helped just a bit. They figured that if they practiced this whole year without the piano they might as well perform without the piano. I am still playing all the music in Sacrament though. This Sunday we had 16 investigators in Sacrament Meeting.  I think that is one of the best I have had in my mission.

We had some miracles this week. There was a girl that a member had already brought to church a couple of times, her name is Fernanda. She is 16 years-old.  When we went to teach her for the first time I asked her how she is feeling as she has been getting to know the church and she just went off on how she just feels so good, how she feels a lot of unity and peace that she has never felt in any other church, of how this just gives her the desire to change and that she has already decided to be baptized. The next day she broke up with her boyfriend (without us saying anything) and she said she did it because she knew that he wouldn’t help her follow Christ and she just wants to be surrounded by people who will help her with that. WOW. 

The second Elect was a friend of that recent convert family that I told you about. She is dating a member who just got reactivated and they visited accidentally the wrong ward this last week. She said that during the week she had many dreams about being in a meeting with everyone wearing white, so you know what that means... Baptism!  So I feel very blessed to have been chosen to help these two elects with their baptism.

So yeah.  Things are going better, now we just need to help the Zone better as well.  I love you all and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

-Elder Zachary Cetraro

Alrighty mummie!!

Received the ties today! Ha, how sweet eh! Ha, definitely from the D.I. (pretty nice from the DI if you ask me) but I love them I think they are rad. HA! and the oatmeal, I was laughing my pants off when I received that, I forgot about that, I am so excited to have a fast easy and healthy breakfast every morning (which is basically the only meal that I feed myself)

But today I am suuuuuuppppeeeerrrr Excited!!! Why?! Well many reasons.... lately I think I have been breaking out of my shell a little bit. Having fun with people and such. I think the transfer helps too! So I will start with transfers right now. My trainer got swapped. It was time, but we learned sooo much with each other. A lot of good feelings and experiences that I think will help with the future. But we are great friends fo sho. But hooooolllllyy smmooookeess... Remember how I felt so honored to be in such a leadershippy place? Well that grew by a bagillion. So I don’t know if I have told you that my zone goal is to turn this place into a stake. We are so close and it is easy to see that President is anxious because this transfer we are STACKED!! My house is now filled with two more legends. Elder Reynolds, was secretary for the President. He was the first (only) American friend I had in Fortaleza that one day. And my new comp! Elder Hodson! He was a killer Zone Leader and now he is with me. HE WANTS TO WOORRRKK!!! As weird as that is, that is soo relieving. I’d rather be dragged to work than me doing the dragging. I am going to learn so much, IT’S AWESOME =) I know President is giving me only the best. So yeah there is that.

So some thoughts I wanted to share. One, Thanks =) There was a moment this week where I had a familiar feeling. It was kinda the feeling I get when you would sign me up for EFY or some leadership thing or something. And then I realized that this thing is AWESOME and something I need, and then I am happy I have "funders" like you. My Mission is great. I have never felt so much like a hero. Which is every boy’s dream. And I am living it =´)

Primary was great! It is a little crazy though because right after they asked me to play next week, 2 difficult Young Women songs, and after P-day today, it looks like that isn’t going to happen.

So yeah. I will talk to more next week. Please collect addresses of my friends if you can =)

Love you Mom! =D

So Riley and yáll.... You think I didn’t hear about Star Wars?!? Hahaha, I was actually lucky to hear about that on Halloween. Which by the way, I guess I will tell you about Halloween. So you guys know... I love Halloween and I love dressing up!! So I couldn’t just let Halloween go by. So the night before Halloween while I was writing in my journal with my Comp... it came to me... we’ll dress up as each other! Ha, so we did! I wore all his clothes; Boots, pants, tie and everything. And he tried wearing all of mine! (My pants didn’t work out for him) We did a little photo shoot and it was pretty great. Here comes the naughty part... heh heh heh... we even switched nametags! Ha, but nobody noticed! It was fun =) I bought some American candy, Twix and KitKats, and I had all my investigators attempt to say trick or treat (which it is hilarious to hear Brazilians attempt, lol) then I would give them candy.. AMERICA!!!

That night we scheduled a family home evening with basically the missionary mom, which was very good because the girlfriend of her son is not a member and she brought her family. We made delicious brownies with ice cream stuff and of course they fed me up to the rim. BARF/YUM! It was here that I saw on the news about Mitt Romney, Hurricane Sandy, and STAR WARS!!!!! I gave a lesson from the hurricane (Helaman 5:12 and Matthew 7:24) but I was freaking out the whole night about STAR WARS.... still am freakin out kinda... so continue to fill me in!

THANK YOU FOR THE PRAYERS. I know God listens and answers. I have learned that even though sometimes it may seem repetitive with the words, it is the consistency and the feeling that shows that it really does matter to you. This week was great! My goal for this transfer was to get things rolling since that is what we lacked last transfer and in these last two weeks it has been a miracle to see how God has blessed us. I received tons of referrals this week and we found two elite people. One is Tierre and Rosa. They are a couple with two twins. This is what we need! The President wants us to focus on men and families and we found one. They are really good. We only taught them once and they didn’t make it to church, but I still have faith that they will make it to the font.

The other referral is a girl who lives on her own, is 21 years old, works two jobs, and studying to be a teacher.  She is kinda like a little Joseph Smith because she wants religion in her life and she prays almost identical to us, but she doesn’t trust the religions here. She accepted to be baptized if she receives an answer. As we closed our lesson she gave a prayer and in that prayer she asked to find what she feels like she has been lacking in her life. After the prayer she started to cry, we testified that she felt the Holy Ghost and that could be her answer. So we will see where things go with her. But it felt so good to run into somebody who almost has just been waiting for us.

And now to tell about my baptisms! They both went through! I baptized José Jackson Costa dos Santos (age 16) and my Comp baptized Natanael Bezerra da Silva (age 19). It was real chill because we are all basically the same age so we are pretty good friends and it was fun getting them ready that day. They were psyched. They both could be missionaries! =) After we celebrated a birthday with the member that brought Natanael to church. It was fun to celebrate!

So for Primary, I am playing! I will play this next Sunday the new Primary song and “Whenever I Hear the Song of a Bird”. I only will be playing those two. I will be honest because the rest of the songs the Smart Piano can play perfectly with the touch of a button. She just needed me for those two songs. But it has been great to practice with them, I plan on learning as many Primary songs as I can and maybe I can start playing some at baptisms =)

So I hope that was enough stuff for yáll!  Soooo love yáll! Take care!

Elder Cetraro