June 10, Part 2: Dear America

This is Chris Taylor!  He is a stud and his testimony is so strong.  I love just speaking with him and feeling the light he has. :-)

Dear America,

I'm leaving...it feels extremely strange. Well as many of you know and for those who do not know...I GOT MY VISA and I am leaving today!! I have to keep this one short though because today is not our p-day since it is transfer weekend.

Things I am scared about:

-a four hour layover in Sao Paulo.

-customs...my visa picture looks like i am a Russian spy once again. I swear I am a really happy person except for when I am taking passport pictures. I just really want to be jason bourne, okay?! The picture really does look un-trustworthy. I don't think the Brasilians will mind, though.

- crazy Brasilian food.

- Portuguese as a whole.

I have finally felt comfortable with English, now I have to switch over to Portuguese again. Here we go!

GOOD NEWS! Linda who I spoke about before is on date for baptism on June 30th! It was truly a miracle how we were able to be in the right place at the right time. Everything has lined up. She has spoken with the bishop, graduated from a year of seminary, has attended church several times and has friends in the ward! We we extended the baptismal invitation, she told us she was so ready and it was something that she had wanted for a while. She also told us that she has felt the blessings of happiness as she has been on the path towards coming closer to Christ. So great! The Garricks invited her over for dinner and the whole time we were in their home whether it was eating, joking, or teaching, the spirit told all three of us companions that Linda has been waiting to be baptized for a verrrry long time and she is ready to make the commitment with our Heavenly Father. Before we went to dinner, Elder Twogood, Culler and I sat down on a park bench, read our scriptures and prayed for inspiration on what Linda needed to hear. We came up with a Restoration/ Prophet -emphasized hybrid lesson plan. It sounds kinda nuts but it really worked! Linda was really excited that an apostle of the Lord who is set apart as a prophet was coming to our stake for a special stake conference. The funny part is, we were walking home on a barren road and offered up a prayer of gratitude to the Lord for guiding us to her. As we finished our prayer we got off our knees and there was Linda driving past us in her white Honda pilot smiling at us. It was probably a strange sight to see three well dressed young men kneeling in the dirt but I think she knew why we were doing it.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you! Elder L. Tom Perry set up a surprise stake conference 2 weeks ago and yesterday we had the opportunity to listen to his words and feel of the love that he has for us. He served his mission in Columbus and ever since has had a very special place for The Ohio in his heart. He is so funny, too! He is seriously a giant and is a goofy, hilarious man. The best part was we got to shake his hand and meet him. You could tell he was so tired from all of the traveling but man he was sharp when he spoke. I love our apostles and am so excited now for next General Conference...which I will be watching in Brasil...woah.

Alright, I am off to Brasil. The land of guadana (mom you are going to need to spell check that), (Hikari thanks for this!:  I believe the word Ian was going for is Guarana. It is pronounced the way he spelled it though. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarana) It's a berry, but it pretty much one of the most popular drinks in Brasil. Since drinking the water isn't recommended, missionaries drank a lot of soda. And by soda, I mean A LOT of Guarana. It's delicious!

Guarana - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org), 

soccer-aholics, funny people, catholics, and sometimes naked people. Maybe not in Curitiba but I guess I'll see...well not look but you know what I mean....find out. Well this is awkward, but I what I want you to know is that I really do appreciate your prayers and I have learned so much here in Ohio. I am so grateful for the members here and my two fine companions. Viva la Brasil!

Love, Elder Forsyth

p.s. stay sweet

The Ohio

Oi!

 

 In the words of the beloved Elder Twogood, "It feels like I am in the shower...all the time." Welcome to the place where it skips Spring completely and goes straight to what feels like 100% percent humidity and 95 degrees. Everytime I get back to the apartment I don't know if my white shirt will still be white. It is a scary thing to think about. Hopefully I didn't gross everyone out completely but let's just say riding bikes all day in this kind of weather feels like I am constantly in a sauna. Mother Nature is just giving me a taste of Brazil mixed with Bucks County. Whyy?! why would you do that to me? Other than the mood swings of nature, I have been loving The Ohio (everyone calls it the great ohio, i just stick with the ohio).

 

There are a couple of Portuguese speakers in the ward so we have been going over to their homes, teaching a lesson and then talking to them in Portuguese. It has been really helpful but I can tell that I am losing my vocab and speed when I speak it. Oh well, I guess. I understand you don't really know the language until you get to the actual country so I'm not too worried.

 

Chris Taylor

 

    The only people that we regularly teach are those that are recent converts and others that have been re-activated and never had really gone to church after they were baptized. I wanna talk to you all about the amazing Chris Taylor.  Chris falls under the category of one who was baptized but fell away because his parents stopped going to church. It is kind of a sad story but the good thing is that he is now fully active and wants to learn more about the gospel because he feels like he missed out on everything. The great part is that he has a great desire to grow and forsake his past life that lead him into misery and trouble. He radiates with the spirit and I get choked up everytime that we teach him. A couple of weeks ago we finished up lesson 3 of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and now we have moved on to laws and ordinances. Last night we taught him about the Law of Chastity and he is extremely excited to follow it because he told us the spirit was so strong in his apartment that he couldn't say no... there was no way possible he wouldn't want the blessings from following this law. He is so pumped. I feel so much happiness when I know that the words coming out of my mouth are not mine but are the Spirit working through me to touch Chris' heart in a way that wouldn't be possible for me to understand. It just goes to show how perfectly our Father in Heaven, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost know us. Our conversation about the Law of Chastity led to how can we know if this is a true law or not, thus leading to the principle of prayer. But the amazing thing is that we were not expecting to testify of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. It was interesting see how everything we would testify of led to the eternal truth of The Book of Mormon. Once you know that The Book of Mormon is true, you know that it was translated by the Prophet Joseph Smith, you know that Jesus is the Christ and everything that the Book teaches, prophesies, and warns of is true. As we laid this out to Chris, it just clicked for him and he was so excited to follow Christ even more closely than he was before. I got the feeling that Chris didn't have a copy of his own and gave him one of our hard backs. He told us that this was the best present that he had ever received because it reminded him of when he was given the same type of Book of Mormon from his sister when he was 10 years old but he had lost it. When we gave him a copy of ours he told us that it reminded him alot of when he was a child. He was without words while he was holding it. He started to cry tears of gratitude and was more thankful for a Book of Mormon than anyone I have ever seen. The Spirit of God was so strong last night and Elder Twogood, Elder Culler, Chris Taylor and I all received another divine witness that The Book of Mormon is the word of God. I love how precious it was to Chris and the way he held it really close to him for the rest of the night. It was a sight to see and a great testimony builder.

 

I love this work so much and I want everyone who is reading this to know that I know that Jesus is the Christ, he is there for us always, and is our brother. I love all of my brothers so much and to think that I have another one always there for me just like they are brings a happiness to my soul that I cannot describe. I cannot deny that the feelings of love that I receive when I speak of my simple testimony to others is the comfort of the Holy Ghost speaking to our soul by God our Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

 

Thank you Andrea, Jonathan, Will and Dallin for the letter.

 

Thank you Momma for all of the Cliff Bars.

 

Thank you Seguine Family for the letters full of Love. I miss you guys a ton!

 

And thank you Megan for the armada of Reeces...things. Reeces Puffs, cups, pieces. It was so awesome.

 

I love you all so much. I've been a little more patient as I try my best to be whatever God wants to me to be. So thank you so much for your prayers. It means the world to me.

 

Love,

Elder Forsyth

 

p.s. Stay Sweet