Out of the CTM, Into Natal!

August 29, 2016 

Dear Meyer Family,

It is our pleasure to let you know that Elder Meyer arrived safely here in the Brazil Natal Mission. Every time new missionaries arrive, we train them about the specifics of missionary work in our mission’s region; we teach them about the local culture and what things they will need to do to keep themselves healthy and safe.

We are extremely grateful for this precious opportunity to get to know them better.  We greatly enjoy this time with the new missionaries. 

In our call letter, the First Presidency declared:

“The missionaries that are ordained to work under your presidency will depend on you to receive designations, guidance and to be motivated to work with all of their strength. To a certain point, they are trusted to your custody. They will need your understanding and your solidary counsel.  An essential element of your leadership is to become close to them.”

We will do everything within our reach to magnify our calling and to help our dear missionaries become what the Lord wants them to become.

We are grateful to serve alongside your daughter in this part of the Lord´s “vineyard”.

Through the full time service of your son, your family will be greatly blessed. We hope that you encourage your missionary in your weekly correspondences and other contacts, and we promise you that as you support her fully through these two years of work, this service will become a marvelous blessing for the rest of his life.

We thank you for trusting your son to us. We know that we already love Elder Meyer, and we will take care of him as if he were our own.

Sincerely,

President Eliseu Colleoni Sister Tania Colleoni

Last week in the CTM!

    Oi, how is everyone?  Well it's my last week in the CTM.  Next Tuesday I will be in Natal around this time.  It's going to be crazy.  Everyone I talk to say they absolutely love Natal.  My instructor that teaches me Portuguese every day served in Natal.  He had 123 baptisms during his mission.  So I am hoping to have a little success (haha).  But everyone says it's an amazing place with some of the most humble people you will ever meet.  So I am pretty excited to get out.  I am for sure going to miss the CTM in some aspects like all the laughs and 3 really good meals a day and the intense volleyball games during "Actividade Fisica".  And my amazing instructor, and all the awesome people I have met here.  But I will not miss the long classes and sitting inside for countless hours.  As of next Tuesday I am not speaking any English for the next 22 months of my life.  And I am pretty freaked out cause I feel like I know nothing.  So ya, the first few months are going to be rough.  But I heard if you lose yourself in the work things will come easier, like hopefully the language.  I forgot to mention we went proselyting again on Saturday.  I still have no clue what anyone said but we somehow gave out 9 Books of Mormon.  I gave one out by going up to this girl and guy that had a really cute puppy.  I started playing with it and then told them "Nos temos presente para voce" which means we have a present for you.  Then you hand them the Book of Mormon and bare your testimony and kind of tell them what we believe in.  It's fun but pretty hard.  So ya, I am getting really excited/anxious for the field.  

I love you all and literally every email makes my day better.  If anyone has any questions about anything hit me up or hit the big man up if you wanna receive real answers.

 

Love, Elder Meyer

Elder Meyer and Elder Grimes from CC.

Two Years is Just a Tiny Sliver of Eternity

   Hey everyone.  Another week down.  Only one more P-day then I am in the field.  This week was a little bit better.  Still tough with all the language stuff.  But it was better.  My boy Conner Grimes came to the MTC today.  It was so good seeing one of my good friends down here.  It was super rejuvenating I would say.  P-days are awesome here we get to go on a super nice bus for about an hour to get to the temple.  I usually just nap the whole time.  It's so nice.  Then we have a temple session in Portuguese.  Which is hard but I enjoy it.  Then after the temple you get 45 minutes to email then about 4 hours to walk around the city.  I have found some great candy stores and bakeries.  And the town, it's an awesome experience walking around a whole new environment and not knowing the language makes it a lot more fun.  You just kind of have to nod your head and say "sim" every time someone talks to you.  

   On a spiritual note, first off our mission president gave an amazing class on Gospel doctrine on Sunday that made me have an absolute belief that the Book of Mormon was true.  And that Joseph Smith was a true prophet.  Then tonight we listened to a talk by Holland, about the importance of missionary work.  Holland has such a powerful testimony of the Gospel that I also have no doubt in my mind that it is true.  I highly recommend listening to it if you are considering going on a mission.  It will make your decision a 100% yes after watching it.  Seeing such an intelligent man get so worked up over how much he loves the Gospel just gets me.  I now know why I am out here. I am out here to bring the people of Natal unto Christ and to be saved for all eternity.  Two years is just a tiny little sliver of eternity.  I love and miss everyone so much back home but I know this is where I need to be.  "You may not know this right now but this is the best choice you have ever made."-- Jeffrey R. Holland.

I will be emailing next week, see you then Tchau or Ate mais.

Love,

Elder Meyer

Elder Torgusen, Elder Walton, Elder Meyer and Elder Cleverly

Chase and his district

Chase and his roommates

Chase and the other missionaries serving in Natal 

All of the Missionaries going to Natal.

A

Emails Mean Everything To Me!

This week flew by.  I have almost been out a month now.  I have about two and a half weeks left in the CTM, then I am out.  Out to Natal.  What's funny is Natal means Christmas in Portuguese (haha). Sunday was fast Sunday, which honestly was not bad because I was fasting for some pretty good stuff. I had to say bye to a lot of cool guys that were heading out to the field like Elder Sagae and Elder Castle from Hawaii.  I also had to say bye to my two Brazilian roommates.  That was way sad even though we probably said 10 words total in Portuguese together.  We were so close though somehow.  The language is coming along a lot better, but not as fast as I would really like it to be coming.  But oh well, the gift of tongues is so real, sometimes without me knowing I will be having a full conversation with Brazilians, like asking them where they're from and what they like to do and where they are serving their missions.  And then right after I will have no clue what I said.  But I will completely know everything about them.  Also on Saturday we went proselyting in the middle of downtown Sao Paulo.  It was a very unique experience.  Me and my companions were assigned to hand out 9 Books of Mormon and we did that in like half an hour.  But during that we met a Jehovah's Witness and he started getting mad at us.  But it was funny because we had no idea what he was saying.  It was really cool.  Most of the people believed in Christ and have heard of the Mormons so it was cool and then we would say we have a free present for you and give them the Book of Mormon with contact information and all that jazz.  By the way, we got two new guys in my district that came from Provo MTC because their visas came late.  But they are way chill.  One guy is from New York and the other guy is from Sandy and says he knows Alex Cortez way well.  And I forgot to mention something pretty cool.  Neil L. Anderson came and gave a talk today.  He is such a cool guy and has so much spirit to him.  He talked about how hard missions are but how amazing they are for us in the long run.  He has such a powerful testimony of the Church.  One cool experience of faith this week that I had was my teacher asked me to write down something I wanted to ask God while I was studying the scriptures.  I asked this "what can I do to find my complete faith in this religion because I am lacking so much faith right now?" So then I studied and found a scripture in Nephi that boosted my faith out of this world and it made me think about how people in this world could live without such a beautiful religion like ours.  It also made me realize why I was out here doing such a crazy task.  And that crazy task is to bring others unto Christ.  Thank you all honestly again for sending me such nice emails.  They truly mean everything to me.  I miss the Draper life so much but I know this is the place for me.

Love,

Elder Meyer