Looking forward to conference

Hey! Hope everyone is doing well! This week was alright but not a

whole lot of progress, our most promising investigators canceled all

the lessons, not quite sure why. But we just need to keep moving on.

The 13 year old kid that was baptized last week brought a friend to

church yesterday so that was good! We will try and teach her this

week. And we talked to a few less actives that said they have some

references to so we will see what comes of that. I have the last

session of training tomorrow so it will be cool to see my group from

the CTM again. Yeah it is crazy that it has already been 5 months.

Doesn´t seem like it at all. Time goes really fast usually, it scares

me at times that I will wake up in a week and be 50 years old or

something. haha

It is definitely a whole different world here in terms of wealth. Luckily

you don´t often see people going hungry, at least not here in Rio. It

is more just seeing people with a lot less, but it is inspiring to see

them make the best of things. Especially in the Favelas, but we really

don´t enter into them a lot. I’m glad to hear that people are really

getting involved in the government there. Nothing will ever change

unless we have a desire for it to change, and let that desire become

action. It depends of the day, but yes we usually do a lot of walking

from lunch to different lessons throughout the day. And I can almost

say anything I want to and my comp will understand. Sometimes I just

need to be creative with how I explain things. The language is coming

along great, I’m not perfect by any means but it is coming. Its great to

have two American elders to talk to and stuff. Most of the houses in

the misson are just 2 missionaries, so I’m glad to have 4. Christ the

Redeemer is about 40 or 50 minutes away by bus. If it is a really

clear day I can usually see a little from where we live. Unfortunately

I can’t go on Pday because it is not in our area, and we can’t leave our

area even on Pday.

Well I am really excited for conference here in 2 weeks. I have been

told that almost every investigator that goes to conference becomes

baptized. You can trust the Prophet. haha Hope everyone is doing well.

I send my love and Prayers. Elder Connor Ottosen

Staying put for now

Hey! Looks like I´ll be staying in Irajá another transfer with my trainer! I´ll pretty happy about staying, I really like it in Irajá because the ward and bishop are helping us out tons. So we had another baptism yesterday! Gabriel, a 14 year old boy. haha He actually reminds me a lot of Kade. His sister is a member and he visited church and really loved it. He really bonded with the young men and actually wanted to be baptized last week but his mom, a non-member, wouldn´t let him. So he sister talked with his mom and asked if she had a righteous reason to not let him be baptized. She thought for a second and then took the paper and signed it. I think we will try working with her this week. Besides that it was a pretty calm. we had a tough time finding new investigators and lots of ours traveled or worked. But we will try hard this week and have some possible for next Sunday so we will see. It’s good because it is starting to cool down now. Usually more in the 90´s and it will continue to cool down. It’s interesting that a big city like this doesn´t have a temple. That is the goal of every member and missionary here is to have a temple in Rio. A giant problem is members becoming less active. I asked the other day and our ward has 1000 members, with only about 115 active. From what I have heard from members it is because Rio is such a wicked city, haha but we are here to try and change that, anyways I´m sorry to hear about Daylight savings. haha We had it here a few weeks ago so now we are only 3 hours apart. Unfortunately I wake up at 5:30 everyday still because I am used to the other time. Glad to hear that spring is starting! Man it seems like winter went by fast for you guys. I like the story you told me about the `no good` investigator. I really think that almost any person could be baptized, if only they had the right people to talk to and heard what they need to hear. You can see this when Ammon converted the King of the Lamanites, he had to do some very specific things. Just knocking on his door wouldn’t do it. But you really see the fruits of his labors. I have learned that we need to have patience and hope for every soul that we encounter.

 Thanks so much for all the work you´ve done to send packages. Thanks Mom for everything. You guys are great examples and I love you guys so much. Hope everyone is doing safe and well! Love, Elder Connor Ottosen.

Baptism this week

Oi! Sorry this week will probably be short we just got done playing

some soccer as a zone.

I will have to buy some things and send you all a new package sometime

here soon. But yes we do have pears. We have every fruit that we

have in Utah besides blackberries and lemons. We can´t get peanut

butter here except for the mall I guess, but we cant enter malls. I

could probably make pancake mix, but we don’t have maple syrup.

Clothing is doing good and everything has been in one piece. Only

thing maybe rootbeer flavoring? haha I will think and let you know.

I haven´t actually met any Sisters in the misson yet.  It is starting and should continue to get cooler as fall comes, which is really really good. haha.

Tell Jordan Congrats and also Ashley for the Pageant!!

So we finally had a Baptism last Saturday, a man who is married with a kid and has known the church for almost 10 years. We worked with him and he finally got his answer. The baptism went really well, the ward helped out a lot. Our Bishop and

President Lima have been stressing a lot of real growth where converts

remain and less active members return to church. There have been lots

of baptisms the past few years but almost no real growth, so we are

trying to change that. We are going to still work with him and his

family alot .

We have a 13 year old boy and a 15 year old girl who look very promising. They both like church and the members a lot so we will see what happens with them. Things are definitely tons tons easier now that we are having the members helping us out with everything.  Anyways I am doing great and hope that you are all healthy and safe! Thanks a billion for the love and support. I have really realized how

much you guys have impacted my life for the better. Love you guys

tons and tons! Love, Elder Connor Ottosen

Carnival

Oi!

Haha sounds like the house is back to its noisy crazy self! Tell Grandmas and Grandpa hi for me will you? Yes I usually get grandmas letters but not every week cause we only get mail every month or so. But I got your Valentines Package Last week! Thanks a ton! My comp says thanks also! Also I got a letter from jake so I will send it to you guys and you can send it to him. So it will probably be easier to just copy and send any history because it is 1 real for every page printed.

So Carnival definitely seemed a bit exaggerated to me. haha Probably was really wild at the beachs and center, but for us it was just a few people on the streets with everything closed and having to go home at 6. Nothing bad.  haha But good news! Last week an old investigator of 10 years called us. We went over and he had a few questions about temples and kolob. haha he knows Everything because of the internet. Anyways we had a member bare his testimony and then assigned him a chapter to read and pray about. Then Saturday we did spilts, my comp went with the member to his house and he got an answer through a dream and will be baptized this Saturday! Im really excited for this so we will see what happens. He also has a little kid and a wife, we will try to work with the wife too. When we did splits another member and I did lots of contacts and found a great family just 10 minutes to the chapel. We will try and work with them, he said he was satisfied with his church now but sounded really interested in the fact that we have the priesthood and eternal families. I have definitely notice attitude makes a world of difference. I’m definitely not perfect but try to have a good attitude and I usually want to work and love it! Anyways thanks so much again for everything. I see the results or your guy’s prayers everyday. Just today I looked at the thermometer at it was 100 in our apartment and 116 outside. While it seemed hot to me, definitely not that hot! haha For sure we have the help of the Lord because of prayers. Thanks you all so much! Love, Connor

Hottest Month of the Year

Oi! Happy Valentines Day! Glad to hear that you got a little rain! Hope you guys get more soon! It has been super hot here, I guess February is the hottest month, good thing it is also the shortest. haha. That is awsome about Colton and TJ. I’m sad I can’t be at their farewells, but Ill be there for their homecomings. I bet Chile will be awesome! Unfortunately no, we didn´t have the opportunity to go to the Worldwide Leadership training, sounds like it was pretty awesome though! I will have to try and read some of it. So I haven´t gotten the package yet from you or the ward, but they might be at the mission office, not sure but I’ll let you know.  Hey question. The Murrays from our old ward have a son that went on a mission to San Diego a few years back? Because we have DVDs from preach my gospel and one of the missionaries is Elder Murray from Draper Utah. haha

 So no I haven´t heard about the police strike during carnival, hopefully that doesn’t happen, probably wouldn´t be good. From what I heard Carnival starts this Friday at 4, and goes until next Wednesday or Thursday. The members are saying that Rio seriously shuts down to drink and party. No stores will be open and I will only be able to email next week if the president lets us email from a member’s house. Should be really interesting because the president isn’t changing anything for the first time. We will work until 9 pm like usual. I really don’t know how things are things are going to go with that so we will see. haha. So yesterday I gave a talk about the importance of members in missionary work in sacrament. It went pretty well I think, obviously my Portuguese has some work still but the members said they liked it so that is good. haha. I love learning and trying new things as well so I will have to try that and see how it works out.

So this week we had a few people commit to be baptized and I will pray that it works out. The first are two women that we are teaching, their daughter/sister is a member and we think they will be baptized this Sunday or the next. The second is a man who is dating a less active member. He has been to church a lot and wants to be baptized, unfortunately they live together, this happens a lot. But they actually want to marry so we think they will be baptized April 15.  Still we have lots of investigators that are really interested, but fail to progress, so we are still working with people. Thank you so much for the love and support. It means the world. You guys are the best parents and the best family I could ask for. Send my love to everyone! Love Connor.