Ending in Caxias

Hey Family!!!

Wow this week was awesome. We had an experience super spiritual and Janaina stopped smoking and was baptized yesterday. I would like to tell you in person the whole story. But basically she wasn´t planning on getting baptized until Saturday afternoon, when we had an amazing lesson with her. I am super happy because she did a complete 180 in her life, and I feel she will be a very important member for the church here. Besides this we had transfers today and I will be staying here with Elder Asto until the end. I am happy though, and think that lots of amazing things will be able to happen. 

So we also have a lot of families that we are working with, and a few that we are going to try and get married by the end of this transfer. I am really excited to end here in Caxias, working really hard and doing lots of work with Elder Asto. 

So that is exciting to hear about the new high school! Well I love you all so much and Hope ya have a wonderful week! Sorry i have like no time today. haha 

Love, Elder Ottosen

New area in ward becomes available

Hey Family! 

So a busy week this week, recently the police pacified a really big area in our ward, so we can now enter there without any problems. We are teaching a lot there, but it is a long ways to walk from our house. We are also having some success with Janaina, she fasted last Tuesday to stop smoking, she still is, but is getting a lot better. We also got a less active to church this week, Pedro. We are going to work a lot with his wife now who isn´t a member. Helping people to get rid of addictions really depends a lot of the person. If they have family members or member friends willing to help, this makes a huge difference, helping them to make specific goals, and accompanying them every step of the way. They usually need daily contact. And as we said, there is no replacement for fasting and prayer. As for reactivation, I love it when you can help someone have the real change of heart. Lots of times the biggest things are helping them to read and pray, while at the same time feel the love of the members. Some of the leaders in the ward really get excited for missionary work.

It is so weird to think of the changes that you say are happening there. Before the mission, I think I was generally not a huge fan of big change. Now I am learning a lot that you have to just enjoy where your at and what your doing at the moment. You can´t hang onto the past, as Dad has always taught, you have to live in the moment. 

That is cool to hear about the new stake president. I feel the same way, that it makes a huge difference. You really have to show true charity and love for the people for them to trust in you. 

Well I hope you and dad have a good time at deer creek. I was rereading some family history this week, man there are so many places I want to get to know now. haha. 

Anyways tell everyone hi for me, yet again. haha. Transfers are next week so let´s see what happens. I am excited though and hope to do a lot of good these next weeks. Love you all so much!! Love, Elder Ottosen

Raising the goals

Hey Family!

Man it scares me how fast time flies. haha. So it was a really good week this week. We were able to receive a lot of new training from president. He took all of our old mission goals and raised them, a lot, but gave us lots of motivation to reach them. Also we received a lot of training on how to better work with the members, and how to gain their trust. To achieve these new goals we are going to need a lot of their help. For this reason we had some meetings with the bishop and the ward mission leader. The church attendance has been around 85ish. We have a goal to raise it to 110 at the minimum by the end of September. I feel like the leaders are excited and ready to work. We had some really spiritual lessons this week as well, and had some good progress with some of the investigators reading and going to church. A good amount of less actives have promised to go to church this next week.  Janaína is probably our investigator progressing the most, but we are working with her to stop smoking to be baptized this week of the next. We are also constantly finding new families to work with, the big thing is just finding enough time to visit them all, because almost all of them are only available at night, and we received a new rule, that we can´t do divisions with members now. We are planning some activities that should start happening soon to get the members more excited, as a lot of the members are unexcited and depressed because of some difficulties in the ward. Overall I hope that I can stay here in the ward to help the bishop reactivate and baptize everyone possible to go way farther than just 110 people. 

I was thinking the other day how grateful I am to have learned so much on the mission. Things maybe I knew, but didn´t have a strong testimony before the misson, how much responsibility really is on just us. Excuses, even when valid, never help. We need to have faith, the right attitude, and work 100 percent to have miracles happen. 

So no my comp has never been to machu pichu. He lives in a mining city at over 10,000 ft above sea level, with lots of snow. Well fam, I think that is about it for this week. Hope everyone stays safe and is excited for school! Love you all so much!

A timely visit

Hey Fam!!

Sorry if this week is a bit short! So it was a pretty good week! We found a bunch of families that we are working with. Unfortunately they didn´t show up at church, but we are working on that. Yesterday we had an expericence pretty cool. We got a referral some time ago, and we finally found her home yesterday. Her name is Gloria, turns out that today she is going to the hospital because she has something that might be cancer in her stomach. She was really depressed lately, and said that she woke up yesterday and knew that someone would come visit her. She cleaned the house even though she didn´t know who would come. Then we showed up and she said that all her feelings of depression and sadness went away after our message. I was really touched by the story to see how much God really knows every one of us and listens to our pleas. Rafael is also going all right, our difficulty with him is that he is super busy, and almost never home. But we aren´t stopping yet. 

This week as you know the pope was in Rio. It amazes me how many people turned catholic over the week. Haha we saw tons of people with their world journey shirts and stuff, luckly it didn´t interfere a lot with the work. 

My comp is going really well. He is liking the mission a lot now. He speaks Portuguese well, and I can kinda understand Spanish, not too well though. I have for sure learned that my worst subject is learning languages. haha. 

Well fam! I am happy to be in Brazil, and hope that I can do my best for the rest of my time hear! I am really excited to see what happens over the next 2 months. Send a hug to everyone there and i love you all so much!!!

Love, Elder Ottosen