Week 9 - September 25th 2012

Mackenzie was able to send this letter through mission ties before he left the MTC. He called us on Wednesday morning from Brazil to say that he had arrived to his mission safely and that he was happy to be there.

Entao, hoje e meu ultimo dia no CTM! Eu estou muito animado para sair amanha! (Translation…So, today is my last day at the MTC! I'm very excited to go out tomorrow!) OK, back to English. Sometimes it is just easier to write in Portuguese and speak. Just because those are just everyday needs. Tomorrow I leave for Goiania! So excited can’t even explain! Finally going out to do work!

So today we went proselyting for the 2nd time. Really awesome! We went into the best part of Sao Paulo! In the dead center of the city. It’s nicer and cleaner there. Me and Elder Miller gave out 8 copies of the Book of Mormon! And 7 of those 8 we felt pretty good! We started off with 5 for each companionship. And I brought along the one that Mom bought me. Sorry Mom I didn’t have a need for it. I received a paperback tripe here and I bought a nicer leather back triple from the temple distribution center. But think of this, someone could be reading that Book of Mormon right now! And I know which one it is because it didn’t have a proselyting sticker in it with a number to call if they had more questions. We gave it to a woman with 2 awesome dogs, her name was Margarita. And when we were explaining that it was another testament of Jesus Christ, her face brightened up and she was like really? So I hope all is good and she trys to read. And while on the bus back Elder Miller and Elder Luschin did work and basically gave a guy a lesson and a Book of Mormon. That’s right that’s my comp!

Oh so speaking of Elder Luschin, his dad is the architect of the Rome Temple. So Christopher, you will enjoy that. If Luschin doesn’t pop up, his title might which is Ebengruth or something like that. So ya, cool fact!

Umm, next week’s e-mail will have more information of address, new companion, and my whatsup from Goiania. I’m chill with a couple of districts who are younger and I’m giving them this to bring to Mr. Cheney’s (the cookie place across from the MTC) tomorrow.

So everyone I love you. Hope you all had a good week and will have another good week till I shoot off a new e-mail. Oh and by the way Dad, I got the letter with my patriarchal blessing today. Thank you so much. Love you all.

Con amor,
Elder Mackenzie Sant

Week 8 - September 18th 2012

ola minha familia! so as of this week my district is the oldest in the ctm. since a couple districts left this morning. it was the district who has a friend of mine. its the guy that his girlfriend is now best friends with karlie and so we became friends through them. kinda weird haha. and karlies friend is serving in their stake and she got a pic with him. small world just got smaller.

so i have to type fast because i dont have much time.

soooo last tuesday we had our devotional and it was one of the counselors of the ctm. and he was talking about heros. and he was talking about butch o hare the amazing fighter pilot back in i think ww2. and then he was talking about easy eddy the lawyer guy for al capone. and how easy eddy sold out al capone because he wanted to give his son a better name for the family. well i know who both of these guys are. what i didnt know is that butch o hare is easy eddys son.... umm so how many years did i spend in school and i didnt learn this? and im learning american historia in brasil. nice haha. but ya that was cool to find out.

um i dry cleaned one of my suits this week it was only R$21,00. it needed dry cleaned bad and i wanted it nice for when i went into the field next week.

it was cool on sunday nights devotional when president degn was talking at the end of the devotional and gave all the missionaries a priesthood blessing over the pulpit. it wasnt a long huge one but the spirit was definitely there. he blessed us that all our righteous desires will be granted by the lord while we are on this mission. so that was awesome. also the special number at the end he had the group sing it again right after because it was an amazing version of i need thee every hour!!!! super strong spirit sunday night.

alright onto the really cool thing about this week. yesterday we had proselitismo!!! proselyting. i dont even know how to spell that in english. wow im bad haha. but it was so amazing yesterday. each companionship had 5 copies of the book of mormon and we had 3 hours in the ctm boundries. so me and elder miller went out. the first our and a half was bad. we were talking to a drunk guy with no teeth. i barely can understand portuguese right now but when they have no teeth it is impossible haha. but we tried and in the end he started yelling at us because he didnt like what we said about jesus teaching the ancient americans. after that we talked to 2 guys for a while one guy already had a BoM and they other guy was rude jokingly calling us bad names and his buddy. but we tried to get the other guy to read and i tried sharing my spirit with him to get him to read and he said he will try. then after that nothing. so me and elder miller prayed and right after there was a guy walking on the other side of the street and he was looking at us and we looked at him and we looked away and both did a double take. then we were look whatever lets do it. so this guy already had a copy of the book of mormon and he said he likes reading it and so we asked him if he would like to go to church and we gave him the address of the chapel around here in Casa Verde. one thing about proselitismo around the ctm. people already have like 3 copies of the BoM so we did a lot of you should read this and we felt this and we promise you you can feel this as well. i felt the spirit every time i talked to someone with elder miller. alright so then we went to a different side of the area and we saw an election parade since Sao Paolo is electing a new mayor soon. and so we stopped and talked to one guy and in the end handed out our first copy. soon after that we prayed thanking heavenly father and then like 2 minutes after that talked to another guy and gave him one and he seemed excited to read. and then we prayed again thanking the lord and asking him to help us more. soon after elder miller was like lets go up this hill and i was like ya i was thinking the same thing. first lady we saw we talked to and she never heard about the church or the BoM but she seemed very into it and we joked around because we were slipping up a bit in the portuguese section but the lord was really helping us yesterday. so we gave here a copy at the end and asked her to read the introduction and moroni 10:3-5 and to start reading from the beginning. so that was 3 copies in about 3 minutes and we feel like they were given to the right people. so fast forward about 30 mintues we have 10 minutes left and 2 more copies. so we felt like we were too tired and super thirsty and so we headed back to the ctm and our teacher was like how many. 3. how many do you have left. 2 and he was like you have 10 more minutes you can do it. and we doubted but we walked back up a hill and we saw a man and talked to him and he enjoyed our message and we ended up giving him one. then we saw other missionaries from our district and they were heading back and i was like elder miller lets go we have like 2 minutes and he was like no lets walk up this hill a little more. so we talked to some other people but some already had a copy or 2 or 3 haha and some didnt want to talk at all. so then i was like elder lets head down to the ctm. and he was like your just saying that because you are tired. no i think there is someone who we will give this last one to. well there was. there were a couple women with their kids and we talked to them about the plan of happiness and families and tied the book of mormon in with it and gave our last one out. yippee i actually felt like a missionary yesterday =). felt so good to feel the spirit while doing that. im so stoked for the field. and what was cool is last night elder miller was saying something then immediately stopped and was like. i have a feeling that a person we gave a copy to is reading it right now. if thats real that is so cool and i think it was since elder miller is one spiritual guy.

anyways thats my week. love you all and i wont be able to email next week since i am heading out to the field. i dont know when my next pday is but i will shoot an email off then. love you all and dont send mission ties till i can give you the address of my apartment!! thats the beauty of mission ties is they can know my address and send letters their but my family cant. so hold off on those till next weekish. love you all. até mais!!

love

elder mackenzie sant

Week 7 - September 11th 2012

alright E Aí de São Paulo Brasil!!

Formeza?? oh wait shouldnt say that its slang ish haha. Tudo Bem?? there we go. ummm ya im gonna say the same thing i have said every email since like the 3rd week. nothing has really happened here... gahhhhh. sorry if these are getting boring at all. im not out in the field yet and i want to be so that something is actually happening.

quick note about São paulo. they have the most private helicopters out of any city in the world. so you have little ones flying around and then you have the really nice ones flying around. and i have seen some nice helicopters because about every 20 to 40 minutes you here a wop wop wop wop. or see one flying across the sky. and some of the little ones are super loud. sounds like a pave low is landing or something.

umm this week i finished the book of mormon through and through. i started around the 2nd week in here and i finished on sunday. first time that i have read it through and through instead of reading till like jacob then slowing down then getting to alma and really slowing down. i dont know why because alma is amazing. then after alma is helaman which is even better. and dad when you were quoting helaman in your letter today i knew exactly what you were talking about because i love that book. and then after is 3rd nephi which is the cookie dough in the cookie dough ice cream (which i miss a lot!!!) the 3 nephites are amazing. then 4th nephi and then AN DEN!!! ill just say that whole thing is amazing because it is.

speaking of ice cream. for the independence day of brasil we had amazing food. and the only time that i have had ice cream while i have been here. its a different kind of ice cream but it tastes amazing!!! best desert ever since everything else is usually a soggy cake haha. during lunch we all had the brasil national anthem on a piece of paper and we all stood and sang it. if i havent said already their national anthem trumps ours by far. its pretty legit!! i like singing it. we sing it every sunday night at the start of the devocionals.

ummm today at the temple, missionaries from the são paolo sul mission were there and i was falando. wow im leaving that haha. im typing brasiliamerican right now. i was talking to a american who has been out a year and he says that i am speaking pretty good portuguese for only being a missionary for eight weeks. and he gave me a dragonball z sticker and his comp was like what?! where did you get those haha. missionaries are crazy and awesome haha.

so ya i think thats all i got for this week. tchão!!!

love
elder mackenzie sant

Week 6 - September 4th 2012

ok this week i really need to think of what to write because everything is the same here.  every single day and night and next day and night haha.  whats weird to think is that today would be the day that i would have originally left!!! weird!!!! and i wouldnt be here till tomorrow. ummm so let me think of some stuff that could be exciting.

a big guy here named Fabian gave me one of his ties.  it originally started as a joke like oh cool tie.  and he was like you want.  i was like yeah.  and i was like brinca brinca, i joke i joke basically.  but he was like no serio which is im serious.  so next week he was like eu tenho a gravata.  i have the tie.  i was like serio??? and so he had me follow him to the front of the ctm and he went to his car and got the tie for me.  so i have a tie that has a pretty cool story to it now.

ummm  on sunday we sang Lead Kindly Light.  there were like 14 or 15 of us singing.  and it was a capella.  the beginning sounded amazing but after the first key change it sort of went south.  the basses and baritones were on key but first and second tenor were floating somewhere.  i think they were trying to hard to get to heaven on some of those high notes.  bada chh (drum set).. i know bad joke, thats what you get when your son is going crazy in here haha.  i have the audio recorded but i probably wont send it home since it sounds so horrible haha.

oh another cool thing.  elder richards who isnt my companion but he is a good friend now, he lives in orem.  well he lives on the border of orem and lindon by where that allens used to be.  right where aunt christine used to live.  cuz i was trying to find out where he lives and he said orem and i was like oh my aunt used to live right on the border and there was a grocery store right behind her house and he was like ALlens?  so ya he lives seriously like 2 minutes away.  just go up that street like 3 more streets and turn right.  so ya.  multiple times in my life i have been 2 minutes away from a would be a roomate here in the ctm.... crazy!!!

so apparently yesterday was labor day... wouldnt have known.  eu sou um brasileiro agora!!! i am a brasillian now!!! no but really since they dont have that here and i never knew the dates of labor day or memorial day.  i always felt like they were the same.

im sitting here thinking what to write... ummmmm... ive got nothing descolpa!!!  tenha um boa semana tudo mundo!!!

love
elder mackenzie sant