eMail of July 16, 2012

Hey everyone, Elder Underwood was talking about bugs huh... The bugs aren´t too bad. Really all you have to do is keep the house clean and they leave. Here in Brazil, its really unmanly to clean the house and do laundry or dishes. Thats girls work. I´m just thankful Ive had practice already at home. This week was great! My last week with Elder Lira. This is sad because we got along super well. This transfer went by really fast. So I´ve been transfered to the Second Branch of Rondonópolis. Same city... different branch. Rondonópolis was a district, but it became a Zone this transfer. I´ll be "opening" the area because my companion is a new greeny coming in. Elder Impa. I´m sure it will be difficult, but Heavenly Father knows what He's doing I guess. Aparently my companion is Chilean. I wonder how good his portuguese is. It should be alright since he speaks spanish. I´m really excited. I´ll go up to Cuiabá tomorrow for a training meeting and I´ll meet him there. The Mission President told me in the interview that I´m heading into the best part of my mission. I´m loving serving a mission. It has its difficult parts for sure, but its really a blast. This was one of the best transfer´s I´ve had yet. I will send a picture of my last District. We were all really great friends. All but one of them will stay here in Rondonópolis for this next transfer. I´m glad to hear things are busy. I love you all. See yah in a couple years. Elder Marc Skiles

eMail of July 9, 2012

Hey Family, This week was great. We had another baptism. The brother of a recent convert. This week the member with the pick up couldn´t make it so we had 3 members with small cars go to pick up the recent converts and investigators. One of the cars (a normal 5 seater) came back with 12 people in it! My companion rode in the trunk of the car. I wasn´t there though. I only saw them arrive at the church. I think the District President wants to buy the bus again. There were 24 total people this time from the neiborhood we are working in. 7 investigators. The rest are recent converts and such. We are going to Cuiabá today to be interviewed by the new president and have Zone Conference. Thats why i´m sending my email so early today. I´m pretty excited for it. We should get back late at night on teusday. I´ll get the mail as well. Anyway. We have to get ready to go though so... I love you all. See yah in a couple years! Elder Marc Skiles

eMail of July 2, 2012

Hello Everyone! Happy 4th of july! Hope you all are having a great summer so far. Things are going fantastically here. We had 2 more baptisms this week. One was a friend of the family we baptised a few weeks ago. The other was a cousin of the other family we baptised a couple weeks ago. The first family we baptised recived home teachers this sunday. That was great to see. I really hope that they get visits from them. We switched mission presidents. Now its President Reber. President Oliveira went back to Recife. The new Mission President is American. Everyone is afraid he will ban Coca-Cola. hahaha. For me I don´t mind either way. I only drink it when the members give it for lunch anyway. The picture I´m sending to you all is us bringing everyone to church in the back of a pickup. Most of them live a long way from the church and don´t have money to take the bus so we have to organize a ride. It was a lot of fun. The others were lucky and got a ride in a Carola from another member. haha. Anyway. I love you all. Glad summer break started for you all. See yah in a couple years. Elder Marc Skiles

eMail of June 25, 2012

Hello Everyone! The work here is going great! We had another baptism this week of a boy named Victor. We also found a new investigator. A man who showed up at church yesterday. His only doubt is that he wants to know everything before being baptized. The couple won´t be baptized for a while I think. The unfortunate thing is that their dad drinks a lot and smokes and spends all their money. She doesn´t really think it's worth it to marry him because of this, but she can´t exactly separate with him because he's the only source of money and food for her and her 6 children. Really complicated, but she and her kids are loving the church and progressing a lot. Expedito, one of her sons, wants soooooo bad to be baptized. It's really cute. He´s only 6 years old though. It got cold here again which I think is great unlike all the Brazillians. Our shower head broke though so taking a cold shower is rather difficult :). My companion and I are getting along great. We are enjoying seeing all the parrots. We see them all the time. There are some yellow and blue ones, and some red and blue ones. I never realized how huge parrots are. They are amazing to see in the wild. It's amazing how on the mission you learn so much about how the church as a whole functions. How every single calling you could have in the church has the same basic purpose: Strengthening the saints, reactivating the less actives, and helping people to be baptised. Everything we do in the church has this purpose. It's amazing! Anyway. I hope you are having a great summer. I love you all. See yah in a couple years! Elder Marc Skiles

eMail of June 18, 2012

Hello Family, I´m glad to hear things are going well. This was a good week as well. We baptised the brothers and sisters of a member. We were able to get a bus to bring all the people from this neighborhood to the church. The bus had almost 20 people. Next week I think we will be able to get more. There are A LOT of less active members in this neighborhood in which we are working. Our district went and ate pizza to celebrate my birthday and Elder Lino´s. His was on the 8th. That was fun. It's amazing how on a mission you get to learn sooo much about how the church works. You learn about what has to happen for certain programs to function right and what kinds of things can get in the way and the points of view of all the members in whats going on. It's amazing how much difference one person can make for the negative or the positive in the church. In the end, the purpose of everything we do in the church is to Baptize, Confirm, and Retain the most amount of people possible. This depends on everyones willingness to grow in faith and repent. During part of personal study, I´m trying to finish reading the New Testament. I´m in Ephesians right now. It's really amazing to read about the ministry of Jesus Christ and the Apostles. It's also interesting to see why there are so many doctrinal confusions amongst the Christian faiths. There are a lot of things that the Bible just doesn´t explain clearly. It's a good thing we have the Book of Mormon. I never realized there are so many Christian faiths. Brazil has a different sect on almost every street. This cultural aspect makes proselyting interesting here. The predominating idea is that "the church sign doesn´t save anyone. Its faith that really matters." This is a half truth that the adversary likes to use here. It's true that the church sign does not save anyone. Faith is what really matters. But its Faith in correct gospel principles and saving ordinances performed by people that hold the priesthood of god that only exist in The Church of Jesus Christ. That is the main truth that we have to teach. In the end everyone has to gain a real testimony of the Book of Mormon. Anyway. I love you all. The Gospel is true. See yah in a couple years. Elder Marc Skiles

eMail of June 11, 2012

Hello Family, I glad to hear things are going well for you all. It sounds like you guys want me to talk a little more about what I´m doing here. So, Rondonópolis is a safer city than Cuiabá. Our area is just as big even though the city is smaller. It just has more types of areas. It has the center with the shops, richer parts, poorer parts, and farm lands. All a lot closer together. My companion is Elder Lira. He's great. He´s from Natal. He´s the most strict about the rules out of all the companions I´ve had yet. That's a big relief because the contrary is difficult sometimes. We found this huge family the first few days. A next door neighbor whose children had already been baptised called the branch president saying that there was a family in need of a visit from the missionaries. We went there and were extremely well recieved. They had already been to church a long time ago and all wanted to be baptised. The mom and dad can not be baptised yet because they are not married legally, but we had the opportunity to baptise all their children over 8 years old. (4 out of the 6 children they have). We also baptised the friend of a member who had been recieving the lessons before I got here. We had 5 baptisms this week. It was great. Now we just need to get a marriage date for the parents. It was really cold this week. I even had to wear my jacket when we went out. My companion is from the Northeast of Brazil which is always hot. He said the only thing he had ever experienced before the mission like the cold this last week is the inside of a freezer. He had never experienced cold before. Anyway I love you all. Keep being good. See yah in a couple years. Elder Marc Skiles

eMail of June 4, 2012

Hey family, Thanks for all the Happy Birthdays! I can´t believe I´m turning 20. That can´t really be possible. Turning 19 was alright because I was still a teanager, but 20 is like... really old. Everyone here who guesses my age says I´m 16 or 17 though. The transfer is today. I´m going to Rondonópolis. Elder Lira will be my companion. I don´t know him at all. I´m pretty excited. That's great that things are busy over there. Busy is good. Relaxed is good too though. I can´t imagine Caleb driving. In all the pictures dad sent me he looks HUGE. He looks like he´s catching up on dad. I think he´ll be taller than me. Don´t worry that you hit the garage door caleb. I got in a couple accidents too. Your lucky you get to drive. A Brizillian Missionary with a drivers liscense is really rare. They can´t get a license until 18 and cars are REALLY expensive here. Too bad about the stage and the audience in the play. I´m sure Nathaniel did fantastically though. Its amazing how quickly things are going by. It seems like as I get older and older, time goes faster and faster. I love you all. Thanks for all the emails. See yah in a couple years! Elder Marc Skiles