Email of August 26, 2013

Hello Everyone! So... Here's my last email to all of you before I get home! I´m glad Grandma and Grandpa will be there when I get home. Mom gets the first hug of course. It still hasn´t really come to me that I will be going home. It feels like it should be just another transfer. It feels like I´ll just be a missionary forever. I think it will only really come to me after the first day home. I´ve heard the first day at home just feels like another p-day. The investigator that was supposed to be baptized today (Allan) didn´t come to church. He had a late night working and didn´t wake up. We had two investigators at church today. Just that they couldn´t stay until the end. She´s a presbyterian. We´re not sure if she came just for fun or if she prayed and found out that it´s true. We will teach her on Tuesday night and find out. This week will have a lot of good bye dinners for us. It will be really sad, but really great. I´m not sure exactly how I feel. It's kind of a mixture of a lot of emotions, but it's good. I really came to love the culture and the people of Brazil and I´ll miss it a lot. I also miss you all a lot. The mission was great. I laughed, I cried, I worked, I exhausted, I made mistakes, I learned, and I loved. I never felt so sad and frustrated as I have on the mission, but I´ve also never felt so happy as I have on the mission. One thing I do know is that the mission was the best two years for my life and I wouldn't trade these experiences for anything. I love the mission and I love you all. See yah in a couple years! Elder Skiles

Email of August 19, 2013

Hello Everyone! This week was rather difficult. We didn´t have any investigators at church. One of our investigators didn´t come because he thought it was 9:00 at night instead of 9:00 in the morning. We are excited to see what happens with him. Carlos is his name. He is reading and prayed and feels it's true. He has a son and a wife, but his wife is recovering from surgery still. I can´t believe it's so close. The mission went by so fast. It´s true that I am a little sad. I will miss Brazil a lot. I am really excited to see all of you again though. It's kind of a big mixture of feelings all at the same time. I loved the mission and I can´t believe it's almost done already. It´s weird because almost everyone who arrived on the mission with me is already at home. I want to make these last two weeks count. I hope God will allow us to have some success at the end. All the things that Caleb [Nathaniel] will learn at youth leadership camp will be very useful to him on the mission. Anyway. I love you all! See yah in a couple WEEKS! Elder Skiles

Email of August 12, 2013

Hello Everyone! This week was Great! The less active we were working with went to church. She went to her daughter's baptism on Wednesday and went to her confirmation on Sunday. That was great! The only thing I´m worried about is that the members didn´t talk to her or sit with her. I hope she felt good at church and remembered the feelings she felt when she was baptized. It's becoming more and more difficult to stay excited about working now that the end is coming, but we are still working hard. We´ve started marking divisions with the members every week. We have about 10 members every week to go with the 4 missionaries in the ward. It's helping a lot. One member though told our investigator that she should wait to be baptized. That was frustrating, but in the end all the divisions helped out a lot. Our Ward Mission Leader was released this week. That was kind of sad. He was the ward mission leader when I was in the area two years ago as well. Our new ward mission leader is great though. A returned missionary who knows a lot about how to work and has a lot of spare time. He´s already done splits with us a few times. I´m glad to hear that things are going well. Wish I could be on the cruise with you all. I love you family! See yah in a couple years! Elder Skiles

Email of August 5, 2013

Hey family! I didn´t know you guys were all in Puerto Rico. That´s soooo coool. This week was kind of sad for me. The less active family we were working with didn´t go to church. We did have one investigator. Luara. She´s 13. She wants to be baptized really bad. We´ll see if her mother will allow her. This p-day we went to Chapada. It's a tourist place near Cuiabá with great views and shops and waterfalls and stuff. It was a lot of fun. We are still working real hard. Elder Underwood is a great companion. The ward is starting to get more active in the mission work. We are going to do splits with members almost every day this week. That has never happened to me before. The biggest decision we will have to make this week is if we continue to work to reactivate this family or not. The mother seems to have the desire to come back, but when Sunday comes there is always an excuse to stop her from coming. I love you all! Thanks for the emails. See yah in a couple years! Elder Skiles

Email of July 29, 2013

Hey family! Thanks for the pictures. This week was kind of crazy. I got to Verdão and unpacked my bags when the unthinkable happened. I got an emergency transfer to Coxipó! Now I´m going to end the mission in the area that I started. I´m here with Elder Underwood still. This transfer is being great. Elder Underwood is a great companion and we are working really hard. We are opening the area and we already had an investigator at church. That was a miracle. It's the 9 year old daughter of a less active family. We are trying to reactivate the family through the baptism of their daughter. I sincerely believe that this was an inspired transfer. Elder Underwood is an amazing missionary. The mission has changed him a lot as well. We are both getting along really great and learning from each other. Our goal is to keep working hard and to baptize till the end. I still know most of the members here in the area. It's cool to pass in the area you started because you can see how much you have changed over the course of the mission. I was called to give a talk on Sunday right when the meeting started. The life of a missionary. haha. I talked about some of the things I had learned over the course of the mission about the Atonement. When we are baptized we make the covenant to follow Christ´s example by taking upon ourselves the burdens of others. Sacrificing ourselves for God's children. That is probably the most important thing I have learned on the mission. I guess you all have stopped writing me emails because its so close to the end, but it's still nice to hear from you all. hehehe. I love you all. See you in a couple years! Marc

Email of July 22, 2013

Hello Family! I´m glad to hear that things are going well. I´m glad to hear girls camp was great. I´m really excited to see my neice and nephew. I´ll have to do exactly what you said janai. Maybe I´ll go work in provo for a while if I can´t find a good job in Kirkland. This week was transfer. You will never guess who will be my last companion. I was trasferred to Verdão again to be Elder Underwood´s companion. I´m really sad to have to leave Julio De Castilho, but I guess thats the way it has to be. I´ve already packed my bags and I´m ready to go back to cuiabá tonight. Its kind of weird going back to an area I´ve already passed through, but I´m sure it will be a cool experience. I hope to learn a lot my last transfer. I hope to have some cool stories to tell my future children and grand children. I also hope to have some baptisms my last transfer. My goal is to baptise one more family. Anyway. I love you all. See yah in a couple years. Elder Skiles

Email of July 15, 2013

Hello Everyone! This week was still rather difficult,but we are still working hard. We had two investigators at church today that live in the sisters area. haha. Its times like these that we learn that happiness doesn´t come from our circumstances, but from our choices. Its a tricky thing in the mission, because you have to learn to desire with all your heart, might, mind, and strength for something that is outside of your control... That others come unto christ. They have their own agency and so we can only do all we can to invite. This means we must learn to desire that others come unto christ, but be happy and excited even when they don´t. It´s a very phsycological experience. I´m learning to be happy despite the results of our work, even though the desire to have baptisms is still just as strong. The weather is getting really dry. The other day, my nose started gushing blood while we were at a members house to teach an investigator. Luckily it stopped. This week we had a service project in the stake. The city had a little presentation in the park about "Denge" an illness that is spread through mosquitos. They talk about how to clean up your yard so that there is no still water for them to reproduce. We and the members handed out flyers and invited people to come to the park and see. There was also a stand that talked about food storage from the church and we got some adresses from people who wanted to know more about the church. It was fun. I love you all. See yah in a couple years! Elder Skiles