Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Elder Marx with President & Sister Frei

teaching is great we ... oh i know what i should tell you, we had two baptizms last week and i baptized somebody ...in portuguese... i asked elder broud if i could say the prayer in english but he said the witnesses don’t know it in english so i said it in port. Anyways, baptized charles and edinalva. It went really well and we started teaching maria next door to charles and she just got an answer that the church is true and we hope she gets bapt this week, if not then next week. but we are teaching like that whole street now and are going to have a noite familiar on the street have a lesson and play taco which is this game they always play in the street and looks really fun.
the language is good. today in language study we went over the 1st vision cause i had been messing that up pretty good so we went over it and I’m going to practice that. we get a letter from the president every week in portuguese and I’m starting to understand it and I’m really starting to understand when people talk to me in the street, so that’s good. in the mission we need to make 10 good contacts a day like of impact and either get an endreço or plant a seed for the fuirto warriors. so i do that and instead of really playing a recording i starting to talk to more people.

love always, elder marx

President and Sister Frei with the new arriving elders. Scott is 2nd from the right.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008
whoo-hoo - Scott answered my questions this week!

How do we send you letters?
Just send stuff to the mission home. I'll probably get it like twice a transfer 'cause they bring it to zone conference and interviews. The apartments are a really scary place for mail to sit all day.

What's going on in Brazil?
It's elections here so there are just cars driving around with huge speakers on their roofs turned all the way up so it's really hard to talk to someone on the street when they drive by. I call them satan mobiles cause anything that tries to stop the work is of satan.

How's the teaching going?
We are teaching Charles. He is not a member, but his wife was baptized like 3 years ago and they had two boys die while ago and some buddy some where said some thing to make her mad about her sons, so they never went back, but we started teaching. And I said, "Charles, is the book true?" "Yeah," he replied. "So then the church is true and perfect cause it's of Christo, but the people in it aren't perfect, so get baptized." So he is on the 31st with the other family. And we have a baptism this week, Edinalva.

...big problem, getting people to church 'cause the building is really far away and people can't afford the onibus ticket to get there, so it's hard to get them to church.

Had any good experiences?
...back to Charles. We taught him about fe last night and I didn't really know what was going on, but at the end I thought I should tell him that is would help if he read the bom every morning before he went to work and it would help him throughout his day. And later Elder Broud told me that we gave him a scripture and we are going back tonight and he wouldn't have time to read it but then I told him he should read in the morning. So that was so the Spirit 'cause I didn't even know what the heck is going on...like antes the mission I didn't really know what was the Spirit and what was the crazy ideas of Scotty. I'm starting to realize how to recognize and follow thoughts or promptings.

In zone conference, sis. Frei talked about pineapples and how it takes them 18 months to develop and everybuddy always wants fresh pineapple, so they continually grow them and harvest and plant more. So she was saying that we need to always find people and plant the seed.

We have 5 baptisms on Sunday.

Just funny Scotty talking about trying to get home fast after an appointment went late-
So we're keeping the pace up and moving right along but we are going up and down and up and down these hills and my fat legs are getting tired but we finally get to the last stretch and I just want to fall over, keeping in mind I've just been walking all freaking day up and down up and down hill mountains all day so it's the last stretch and I'm like, "Pai celestial, help make it home." and right then this thought comes to my ehad, Elder Broud is a little in front like always and I thought 'race him home.' So I was like, yeah, I could beat him. So I raced him -- and won by the way.

Wednesday, August 17, 2008

I'm here in Betim, Brazil, a little city out side of BH. My trainer, or father, is Elder Broud. He is from Oregon and speaks really good Portuguese. This is his first time training so it should be fun for both of us. You should be getting a letter from me in the mail, they had us write. It's really short and simple, didn't really feel like writing.

I don't know much about the area, just that there is a girl that is close to baptizmo and I'm way excited for that um... my apartment is... nice... Brad should know what I'm talking about. No badays, but hey we can't all live in high class.

peace elder marx
ps. eu tenho mais vente e dois mézes



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Pictures!

MTC laundry room. Writing letters during the rinse cycle.

Cafeteria or House of Beans & Rice

View of Sao Paulo from the roof. Under the metal roof is the indoor gym

View of Sao Paulo from Scott's MTC room.

Mr. Cheneys across the street. The missionaries can go here on p-day to get American items, cookies, and email.

Week No. 7 July 30, 2008

hey elder marx here.

ctm life is good now that the strike is over. i got some letters (9) from my mish and a package(2) from her just some tapes and some really fun stuff like markers and postit notes, she is wonderful. along with the package from sis hig i got a package from the iron mountain ward primary. it was so fun. i was hoping i would get something like that. tell sis leavitt i haven’t read all of them but i will.

um... nothing too exciting except i leave in two weeks, yeah ya. i fly to belo like a 1 hour flight at 5 in the morning. i hope to call you from the airport cause the rules say i get 2 calls home a year one christmas and another day ( useally mothers day) so I’m going to talk to pres frei about seeing if i could call but no promises. if i do it will be at like 2 in the morning.

um... yeah proselytizing again this week. teaching experience was good. taught a bishop lesson 2 so it was pretty cool. i did well, i think. he smiled and nodded his head the hole time so whatever.

oh we just ate lunch as a district out side the ctm at this really good burger place for cheap, like i got fries and burgar and the avocado concoction for 8 reis pretty good except for the drink

um.... im doing good and studying hard omg..... thanks for jinxing me, mom. elder housley made ap in our branch so, yeah, now on sunday i have to go to meetings instead of lunch. i know, i know, i can hear dad agorda" thats what he getts for being obedient" but now i have to suffer ... jk its not that bad, plus i really like our branch pres so i just use it as an opportunity to learn from the branch pres.

god be with you

elder marx

Week No. 5 7/16/08

well another week down and 4 or so to go. time is really starting to pick up. O templo foi otimo hoje. o temple de são paulo is like the best. There’s stained oak and just awesome, just wished devon could have been there with me. so last week i got my first hair cut from the ctm barber yeah, he like doesn’t look when he is cutting and just talks and sings the whole time but he has cut hair at all four of the ctms that have been in brazil. but its funny cause like elders will come to class with missed spot in there hair, i don’t have that problem cause i was like ‘hey focus on my hair’ but he doesn’t speak english so it’s funny to try and talk to him.

we taught a family last saturday it was kool, but not at the same time. like there’s 12 in the district and only enuff rooms for half so we had to split up so me and doogy had to teach with others. i taught with elder coats (idaho) and elder halgren (montana) they did awesome. i stumbled but got my message out. it was awesome cause there wasn’t a word that i wanted to say that i didn’t know, so i totally had everything i needed to say in my lesson. there was some divine help with that cause me and housley tried to teach our lesson the night before and we couldn’t keep it under 15 mins.

all is well aqui the language is ok i feel a lot better EVEN THO ELDER SNEEZE-ALL-DAY (housley) GOT ME SICK so yea, I sleep better even tho I’m sick, weird.

can’t wait to leave the place they call spirit prison love you all, elder marx
sure, dad, you can use my 47 inch tv while I’m gone…LOL

(note before I start Scott’s email. Most people hanging around our family will end up with a nickname. After the first week when we heard Scott’s companion, Elder Housley, was a pretty studious kid, we were a little concerned. Scott, to say the least, isn’t. We’ve nicknamed Scott’s companion Doogie Houser. So that’s who Scott’s referring to when he says doogie, his companion. He also is DYING to meet an apostle in real life. When he read Devon’s letter about all the apostles at the mtc in provo for missionary president training, scott was bummed. That’s the explanation for another reference he was making. And finally, with 45 cousins in the Vegas valley, our kids are constantly meeting people that know a cousin or aunt and uncle, the first thing every body asks is …are you related to…)


Ok, so you were right. i think i told you about this other missionary serving in the SP north which covers the ctm and all the teachers live close to the ctm and this elder marx is in their ward. so guess what i get every time i see a new teacher "marx, marx are you related too?" not kidding. It’s crazy, i can’t escape it! I’m in another hemisphere and i still get it. but it’s all good. so for the 4th of july all the americans totally played it up. I’ve never been so patriotic in my life. for lunch we did get burgers and fries and what the brazilians could call ice cream it just wasn’t the same, but I’m grateful for their effort. on sunday we had ctm conference cause of it being fast sunday (have them every fast sunday and tell brian that not even the water fountains work let alone the vending machines) plus if you see someone go even a inch toward a water fountain your like HEY its fast Sunday, cause if i have to fast so do you. i sang in a quartet the star spangle banner it was pretty good.

ok last friday we went tracking. IT WAS AWESOME. it was the first time i really felt like a missionary. so much fun. tell devon to keep his apostles, i talked to people in my mission language. Shnazzberries! (i told my district about shnazzberries at first they thought it was stupid but soon enough one was like shnazzberries! Yeah, that’s right, spreading the word.) we must have talked to like 60 people. most of them were like what ? no, get away, cause i guess the missionaries go to the same place every friday and so they were prepared by the wrong person. i even talked to a anti in english from north Carolina. Yeah, he said that we’re a really good business and we were doing good coming and talkin to all the poor gullible people takin 10 percent of there money. he also said that’s what a bishop told him in north carolina (good job brian... jk) but me and doogie just bared our testimony and left. it was sad that his heart was hardened. hopefully we softened it a little . that’s what we keep hearing "just leave a good impression for the next missionaries" if that’s the case, do i get to count it to my total if they get baptized? Jk. wrong attitude i know, but funny.

so this saturday me and doogie are teaching a member family in the ctm like all memory no papers and all in Portuguese, so plaese pray for doogie so he can talk the whole time and I’ll just testify.

Um, i think that’s it. oh we went to the são paulo temple today so we got back a lot earlier than usual so I’m looking forward to chillin. so today is a holiday so I wasn’t even sure if the email place would be open. i guess like in 1878 or some stupid year brazil almost had a civil war so now they celebrate an almost fight ... sounds to me like some lame excuse of a day off work.