Elder Knowles and Elder Deivid at Caiuá, Brazil

March 12 - May 7 letters

5/7/12

Hola Familia

I was transferred this week. I had a feeling that I would be transfered, and I was. Now, I am working in an area named Jardim Do Sol (Garden of the Sun). It is in Curitiba, in the neighborhood of rio negro and sitio cercado. I think with this information you well be able to see where I am at on google maps. This area is really different than my last area, a lot smaller, and we have a chapel here in our area, which is great. The members are warming up to the missionaries here and there are going to be miracles here in this area. It was sad to leave Caiuá, but I am excited to work here! It will be great!

My new companion is Elder Devincenzi and he is from Stockton, California. He has 17 months in the mission, and is really cool. It is kinda crazy, that even though I am with an american, we almost never speak in english. I am speaking pretty much fluently in portuguese, and I think that I talk pretty funny in english. My companion agrees.

You will get a chance to hear this accent this weekend. I will call around 7 o´clock on sunday night here, it should be 2 o´clock there I think. I am going to try to use skype, but, one I do not know your username, and president said that i could call before just to know what your username is. But it will be around that time period.

We also will probably have a baptism this week. We are excited for this family. The husband is a member, but the rest of the family is not baptized. They want to be baptized, know the church is true, and we still need to teach pretty much everything for them this week. But we hope that all goes well for them this week. There names are Fernando, Marinez, and Patrique.

Happy Birthday Trevor!!!! 24 years old is an old man for sure.

Thanks for everything. I loved the messages that mom and dad shared with me!

Until Sunday,

Com Amor,

Elder Knowles

4/30/12

Hola família!

Sorry I do not have a lot of time today. My Companion is going to be a trainer the nest transfer, and so he had a training to attend today and we find out just a little bit before the training. My brothers probably remember that the mission is like this.

I am betting that I will leave for another area, but I still do not know. This week was good, it rained a lot here. I was really wet a couple of days and I have had a cold or flu for some time now and so it was not the best. But I am learning on the mission, that when we are weak, and when things are difficult, Heavenly Father is blessing us with an opportunity to grow. I have grown a lot in the last couple weeks, giving everything to the work, even though my body begs otherwise. I am getting better. But in the next package, airborne would be terrific.

Today was a good pday. We played soccer before the training, and I am getting a lot better. Cuidado Taft. Everyone calls me elder podolski, podolski is a player for germany I think.

Love you bunches,

Baptism pictures will come eventually,

Elder Knowles

4/25/12

Hola Familia, 

Sorry I forgot to let you know that this week was our week to go to the temple and so p-day was moved to wednesday. I will try to remember next time.  

So we had a baptism. I can not send pictures today, but it was really great. Mariana, 12, and Pedro, 8, were baptized and confirmed. The Bishop Baptized, I confirmed Mariana and Pedro was confirmed by Elder Deivid. The family is doing great. The father, Cesar, accepted a calling as teacher in the high priests quorum. I am really happy for this family and their decision to return to full activity together. Pedro and Thaddeus would be really good friends. Mariana and Abigail as well. It was a really personal baptism. It was just us, the family, and the bishop. I will send pictures on monday. 

It really is a great blessing to have a Temple in our mission. The Temple was great as always today. I always learn something new when I go to the temple. I learned a lot today, and it is such a rich experience as a full time missionary. It has taken on a whole new meaning for me. 

The work in Caiuá is progressing, but this month, the ward took a couple steps back. Our Ward Mission Leader moved away last transfer, and we still do not have a Ward Mission Leader. It has been a lot more work on our part, but hopefully we get one this week. It is a calling that I never realized was so important. The Ward mission leader can completely change the output of the work, a lot faster than missionaries. But the great thing, is that we found a bunch of families, and are teaching 5 families right now. Some of them are progressing really well! 

So this is the last week of the transfer even though it is the 5th week. Transfers are next week because of visas or something like that. I will have 2 five week transfers during the mission, so my mission will end up a little bit short of two years.  

Sounds like all is well at home, I love you all! 

Elder Knowles

4/16/12

Tudo Bem??

Well, we thought we were going to have a baptism, but it was moved for this week instead because it worked out better for the family. I hope everything works out well for this family. They have done a lot to return to full activity, the father received a calling again this week, and everything is working a lot better. They appear so much happier and unified as a family. Cesar is really cool and he loves to talk about Church history and stuff like that with me. His favorite prophet is President Howard W Hunter and he has the biography of him in there house. He thought that it was really cool that I am related to the writer of the biography, I do not remember exatly how, but I just remember grandpa saying something about this. It is such a pleasure to work with them and help them be more strong in the gospel. 

This week we talked with lots of people, and worked really hard. We were not having a lot of success, but we kept on working and working. It is hard to always stay animated when nothing is going right. We saw some of our investigators fall because of temptations and trials. But we kept on working. I learned this week, that waiting on the Lord and having pacience, has everything to do with working. Sunday night, we find 2 new families to teach. It was awesome!!! They are great families that want to find the truth. During one of the lessons, the father asked if families can be forever, because he wants to be with his family forever. We quickly responded yes! and testified that families can be forever! The Lord is preparing people here, it just comes in His Time. And always will.  

The package was perfect. that is the best way to send it. I am doing great with money, we really do not need to buy a lot of stuff with our own, every now and then I pick up a tie, but thats it.  

Love you bunches! 

Elder Knowles 

4/9/12

Hola Familia,

Tudo está perfeito! I am afraid that this email will be worse. It is difficult to write in english. I feel kind of like I am translating into english. Having to speak portuguese all the time really helps my speaking abilities thought. I am teaching my companion english very slowly, and he asked to pray in english this last week. I had the toughest time, I could barely remember how to do it. I laughed, because if it is that bad now, it will be very hard at the end of 2 years.  

This week went by really fast. Elder Deivid and I went to work. We accomplished a lot. We really put everything into this week. Really we are just talking with everyone at all times. It is really fun to be with Elder Deivid, because when something falls through, we just go to work, we are a companionship of all smiles, all the time. Today we even taught a lesson to the barber while we were getting our hair cut. Really there are soooo many chances to share the gospel with others. I know that Heavenly Father leads us to people who need our help every day. Missionaries and Members. If we remember and are motivated by our covenants, then we will everyday, look for the ones who need lifting, service, love, and help, and we find a way to help them.  

We had a great experience with that this week. I was doing a contact, and the lady was not interested to say the least. I realized that she was having some difficulties with her garden hose and it was all tangled up in something. We offered to help and she let us, this almost never happens here, and we were able to untangle everything and help her out. After this, she was really grateful, and she told us that she was praying for a way to get all the things done that she needed to get done, and was getting really frustrated because nothing was going right. She felt like we were an answer to her prayers. I know that we were, and that the Lord needs us to always be willing to do that. She invited us to return, and who knows, maybe something good will come of it.  

Thanks for the letters and the package. I was super happy to get the package. It was perfect!!! My companion is enjoying experimenting with american sweets.  

Love you bunches,

Elder Knowles 

P.S. we have a baptism marked for this saturday!!!! Mariana is 12 years old and the family is returning to church right now! I am excited!

4/2/12

Hello Family,

To answer the question mom asked, oi means hello, it is kind of like hey, or hi, or stuff like that. It really casual.  

So I am still in Caiuá but I have a new companion. His name is Elder Deivid (David). He is from São Paulo and is awesome. I am learning a lot more about Brazil, and portuguese, and we are working really hard. It is going to be a really awesome transfer with lots of great things happening. It is helping a lot to have a companion that just speaks portuguese. It is a lot harder to write this week, that is for sure.  

Conference was super cool. I got to watch in English, which was really good. Because of the time falling back here and jumping forward there it is just a 4 hour time difference between us and home right now I think. And so I got to watch all of the sessions. Even Priesthood Session, thought we had to get authorization for that. I was really inspired by all of the talks. President Monson was amazing and I am really excited to take a better look at his talks when they come out in the Liahona. For now, I just want to always keep doing my duty and living worthy of priesthood power. The Church just needs everyone to do their duty, it is not some really demanding of the Lord, but really it is simple. And the Lord will bless us immensly if we do our duty. 

The work is going well, we have four investigators that are progressing really well. One family is trying to get everything together to be married this month, so that he can be baptized. It is a really cool story, I am really excited for them. Marcilio and Regane, but we also have an investigator that has done a ton of family history work already. Gustavo is his name and he is progressing really well. The ward is giving references, we will be baptizing soon.  

Love you bunches 

Elder Knowles

3/26/12

Oí!!!!

I do not have a lot of time today. Sorry!! But all is well for me. This week was a up and down week. But we had a lot of good things happen and the Lord is working miracles in our area.  

One really cool thing happened this week. This inactive sister that we found, finally came to church!!! She has had a lot of trials lately, but the sisters in the ward are helping her so much. I do not know how one could go through what she goes through, but the Lord often cures people through the hands of his servants. The sisters in the ward help her a ton, and it is great to see her come back to church. I was sooo happy to see her there. She is incredible! While I have not baptized, that was pretty awesome. 

Transfers are this week! I let you know all the details next week! 

Love you, 

Elder Knowles

3/19/12

Oí Família!

March Madness!!!! I completely forgot all about march madness. And 35 degrees... burr... I do not think that I could handle that right now, my body is so used to hot weather. Tell trevor, or family, that I would like to see pictures of the bike. You can email pictures if you want.  

This week was good. We worked super hard. The traning program required a lot of me this week and I definitely grew a lot. I have to take the lead a lot more this last few weeks, and it has not be easy, but I have grown and learned a lot. I am still so amazed at how blessed the missionaries are with the language. There is no way, or study in the world that could help me learn a language this fast. I love it so much. 

The family night went really good last week. The 12 year old wants to be baptized, but it looks like he will have to wait for a while. The parents are not as excited as he is for the gospel. The members are really working hard to do missionary work. It is awesome. It took a while to get to this point, but it was worth it. The members can do so many things that we can not do as missionaries. Sometimes people and investigators forget that we are really people as missionaries, and the members can help so much. I am grateful to come from a family that tries to help the missionaries a lot. There are always opportunities to share the gospel, we just need to be willing to share and talk and love.  

About service here, we have tried so many times to do service, but most of the time people do not let us. We always look for little things we can do, but no one ever lets us do a service project. We will definitely continue to do always try to do service, because that is what the Lord would do if He were here. But the people here do not really like to let us serve them, it is not a easy thing for them. Sometimes, serving is easier than being served for them. We will keep trying.  

Life is super good for me! I love the mission. I love you all a lot!!! 

Love, 

Elder Knowles

3/12/12

Oí Famíla!!!

It was great to hear some good news from home. The steel bridge team sounds perfect for Trevor and is super cool. I look forward to seeing some awesome pictures in the future and maybe hearing some engineering-talk that i will not understand haha. And congratulations to Mandy as well!! 

The work is going well. It is crazy that we are already to the last two weeks of the transfer. We had a couple really long days this week, but this week is looking a lot better. Tonight we are having a family night with some members and a family of investigators. The 12 year old son is wanting to be baptized, he has already gone to church a couple times with members and is really excited about the gospel. The mom is blind, and the Father has had many surgeries because of cancer. The family has a lot of difficulties, but they are humble nice people, and the gospel with for sure help them face their challenges with more strength. We also started teaching a partially inactive family and the daughter, who is also 12, wants to be baptized. But she is going to wait until her little brother turns 8 as well. Which is next month. I do not know if I will still be around when they are baptized, but that is not the important part. I am so grateful that have had the opportunity to be here. I have met so many awesome people and learned so much. And i have been doing my purpose, inviting others to come unto Christ. There is not anything better than that. 

To answer some questions, I have been working out every day and I do something active every Pday. Normally it is soccer or basketball. But it really helps my mind the rest of the week. And I work out every morning. My body is really adjusted to the missionary schedule, and I wake up with lots of energy somehow. The moment I hit the bed at night, I am sleeping. My Companion is kinda freaked out sometimes at how fast I sleep, but I really put my all into everyday, until the very last minute, and then my body just crashes.  

I will send some pictures of the area next week if I can. Curitiba is so beautiful. I have some great views in my area, I will try to take some pictures. If you have not sent the package yet, ties are always welcome as well ;) 

Love you bunches, 

Elder Knowles