from Brazil...

Here's the latest from our missionary. In a few days he will have been out 18 months!! Time has gone by quickly!

Oi família,


Congrats on all the good news. Trent´s papers are in aimee´s having a boy, and nothing bad happened to teresa. The meeting we had with elder Nelson was awesome. We talked alot about baptizing families and focus more on the temple. President Claudio Costa was also really good, he used to be a mission president and he has a bunch of cool stories. When we were asking questions for elder Nelson to answer it was crazy. Someone would ask a question and he would close his eyes for a second and then we would say a scripture that would answer the question perfectly. It was amazing to see. The meeting was really spiritual and we learned alot. We took pics with them but they on on president tobias´ camera. Maybe he will send them to you. We also had a good week of work and we found an excellent family. They have to get married but we will probably baptize their kids this week. Other than that it has been a regular week. Oh no i lied, sunday was pretty funny at church. The young womens president talked and i don´t know what was wrong with her but she just burned all the young women and their moms. I´m sure a few people went inactive because of her. The girls don´t even do anything bad in our ward almost all of them go to seminary and do all the stuff that the church has to offer. Her talk was almost the entire hour and the dude from the stake had to say his talk really fast. Other than that church was normal. Thats about it for this week. See you all later and i hope trent´s papers come in soon.

Some more pics of the house, my comp, and the road we had to take to go to lunch. Our lunch was almost at the end of that road.

Exciting!

After waiting and learning a little patience during the "mole" experience.... Trent's mission papers went in today!!! We are soo excited... now we just have to WAIT for the white envelope!

So far today...

I love Saturdays and this Saturday started early! Teresa told me the first 200 customers at Old Navy this morning are going to win stuff like a $500 shopping spree...

So early this morning I was off to Old Navy...

But I had to stop at Dunkin Donuts on the way...

So we are waiting...

then Sharon joined us... and we are waiting...

Then things livened up a little and we were entertained by a fluffy drink cup... kinda looked like a Spongebob relative!

So while we were WAITING I talked Sharon into letting me take this picture... it's not everyday that you can get your picture taken with a fluffy drink cup that looks like Spongebob!

So we waited 3 hours and all we got was a lousy T-shirt!... But it was fun and I'm sure we would do it again!

So then after that excitement... I ran home and Mike and I went to....

The Gunshow!!!

It was very fun and there was a LOT of stuff to see...

But ya can't go to one of these things and not eat FAIR FOOD!!! YUM!!! Then we walked and walked and walked... bought a few things and put a few things on the ol wish list.

So now we are home again... Trent is in Safford at the Temple open house... and Mike and I are headed to taco night at the Gunnells!!! WOW... what a fun Saturday!

From Brazil

I can't wait for Brandon's email next week. He has been so excited for Elder Nelson to come!

This week we have been doing a bunch of preparations for elder nelson. Our baptism fell through for this week which was a real bummer but she should baptized in a week or two. The cold streak has passed and now it is hot again. I´m so excited that elder nelson is here, we have a meeting with him tommorrow and it will be awesome. This week we taught a bunch of people, the people here are really lazy so we had to find a ton of people and teach alot just to bring a few to church. We are going to burn the members this week because they don´t give referrals and we are doing everything by ourselves. We need to animate the members to do missionary work here. How´s the missionary work in our ward? Are people being baptized? We are doing our best to find the elects. Nothing out of the norm happened this week. Just battling against the heat now. Elder L França is a cool guy he is laid back and gets along with people. I´ll send a pic of him i also have some pics of the house, we have a pretty nice house. That´s about it , i´ll have lots to say next week about elder nelson and the other authorities that will be here tomorrow.

Relay for life

Last night was beautiful weather and I spent a few hours at the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. It's a fund raising event and lasts all night into the morning. There are teams and the team members take turns walking around the track non stop. My work had a team so I volunteered to participate. I have never been to this kind of event before so I didn't know what to expect. When I got there it was OK... a nice thing to go to... but later in the evening they had a speaker and she had an amazing story on being a cancer survivor. I liked it because she included Heavenly Father and faith in her talk... very uplifting... but as I walked around the track there were luminarias with names of people on them... many that have survived and many that have not. That part was way sad.

I didn't realize how many of these events are scheduled around the valley.

This is our team's shirt

I have to say I didn't walk too many laps... but they did have a special part where we walked a few laps in silence in the dark while nice music played... they had luminarias that spelled out HOPE and then changed into CURE while we were walking.

This is why there are events like this one...

Interviewed again!

Can ya believe it?!?! Trent was interviewed again! This time it was by ABC 15!

Getting the light just right so Trent will look GOOD!

Moving to another room

Just talking

Trying to just be a patient and doctor talking!

Again... it was a really interesting experience and the news lady was very nice. This segment will air sometime in May during cancer awareness month. Of course we will let everyone know when it is... you don't want to miss a few more seconds of Trent on TV!!

From Brazil...

Here's the latest from our missionary. I think the first sentence says something about Teresa having having a baby boy or girl.

Hello everyone!!


PARABENS TERESA VOCÊ TERÁ MAIS UM FILHINHO (OU FILHINA)!!!! Wow this week was a week of news. Trent was on the news, teresa´s pregnant, and we have a new toilet. This week as i was getting to know my comp i found out that his dad has already been a mission president and a seventy. His dad said that an elder lewis served in his mission and he was from gilbert. I don´t think it was anyone from our family. This week we found a bunch of good families the only hard part in this area is to bring them to church. We´ll try our hardest to bring them to church so we can baptize them. Today we also had an interesting lunch. We ate lunch with a member from bolivia and her family. I´m definantly going to study spanish because it´s practically the same thing as portuguese. I could understand most of it and i was able to speak with her a little. It was fun. But it was not fun talking with her son. He speaks portuguese but is a die hard adventist of the seventh day ( or something like that in english). We ate lunch a little bible bash and then we left. We´re all getting ready for elder nelson next week, i can´t wait to meet him. Looks like everything is going good at home and everything is going good here too. This week has also been abnormaly cold. It´s like 70 degrees and i´m freezing my butt off. It´s weird but it´s flippin cold, i´ve turned into a brazilian. It also doesn´t help that my showers now feel like there is ice in the water. Our little electric shower head doesn´t heat up the water very much. Hot water heaters are a great blessing. We also have to fix the drain to our sink today because it cloged and water is leaking on the floor now. President Toias said that there will probably be some surprise inpections by elder nelson´s wife and elder r.m.costa´s wife too. But that´s about it, we´re just working hard. see you all later. Elder Lewis

First moles... now gophers!

It hasn't been long since we could quit talking about Trent's scarey moles... then Yesterday Erin sends me a picture of this:

A scarey gopher!

Thanks to Oscar the dog. He sniffed this guy out while Erin was working in her yard. Erin captured the thing ... had mercy on it and Mr. Gopher was relocated to an undisclosed location!

Trent's new throne...

I haven't posted any of our remodel stuff for awhile... yes it is still a work in progess. Lately Mike has been working on the boys bathroom... Trent has been anxiously awaiting the day. So when Trent went out of town a few days Mike got busy...

Mike had to take out the old potty, fix the wall and finish the tile...

all ready for the new "throne" which we have had stored in the garage for months!

Oooohhhh.... AAAhhhhh... Shiny... I really like this one cuz it is a smooth solid surface on the sides and not all those nooks and crannies that are hard to clean. Trent said he likes it cuz it can handle anything he throws at it... I read his remark on Facebook!

When we were at Utah last week I noticed that the shower in the hotel had a rounded shower curtain rod... I asked Mike why it was like that and he said so you have more arm room... sounded good to me so we got a rounded one for the shower... it's something different from the normal straight kind.
So there ya have it... up to date remodel news... Now I just have to go shopping and get some new towels and stuff!

Trent's interview for the news

Well... today was interesting... Trent called me at work and said he got a phone call from the PR lady that interviewed him a few weeks ago and a news channel is ready to interview him. How all this came to be , I'm not too sure.... but the doctor referred Trent because of his mole saga. So I wasn't going to sit at work.... I needed pictures of THIS for the blog.

So we pull up in the parking lot and I see this... wow... I guess they are serious about this!

The interview went really well and everyone was very nice.

The guy in the black is Trent's doctor.

They interviewed Trent and his doctor for about half an hour... AND they said it would be on TV TODAY!! So we watched it at home. It was a nice little segment and it was just over a minute long!

So here is an official pic of Trent on TV and his one minute of fame! I posted the actual segment below.

Trent on the news...

Guy craft day...

This post is a little late... don't know HOW that happened... but a couple weeks ago Mike taught Trent and Quentin how to reload ammo.... I called it guy craft day and thought that was cute... I think they ignored me!

It takes all kinds of little equipment and stuff and Mike showed them all the steps... It's really kind of interesting, but I'll stand back and watch and let them have all the fun!

They are on their own now...

Scarey!

It was windy that day so they couldn't do all the steps in the garage... they put the gun powder in the shells in the house... I wasn't home so I was OK with that!

After a few hours this is what you end up with.... pretty cool... but definitely a guy thing! The REALLY good news is that they went shooting yesterday and used the ammo they made and it worked!! But now this means they have to reload all that ammo again and again and again.....

Latest from Brazil

Hey everyone!


This week was tranfers again but i stayed in the area. This was the most porrly organized transfer I have ever seen on the mission. Last night everything was all good, but this morning President moved just about everyone without notice. Just about half our zone got moved without notice. It´s hard to describe but no one has the comp they thought they were going to have and the missionaries coming into the zone all went to other cities, right now i don´t know if i´m in the right spot or not! But my comp right now is Elder L. França, he is brazilian from Belém, Pará. He is new on the mission he only has 2 months. Every companion i´ve had since i´ve been senior have all had les than 6 months on the mission. This is the second i´m pratically training. But this week we watched conference and it was awesome! All the talks were good and yes i do remember the forrest family. We didn´t do much for easter, just watched conference. Trent better pay more attention so he can reconize when he´s talking to an apostle. Speaking of the ,Elder Russell M. Nelson is going to be here on the 21st. I was scared to get tranfered to a city far away and not be able to see him but i wasn´t so i´m happy. That´s cool you went to a brazilian restaurant, looks like the same food we eat here: rice and beans. It´s also the same here, almost every bbq place has dudes running around cutting meat for the people. The lemonade is just about the same as in the u.s. but with milk. I have to make some stuff for you guys when i get back, there is a bunch of good food here i don´t know how i´m not gaining a bunch of weight. But that´s about it for this week, see you all later. Elder Lewis.

Pic of our district and a huge spider we found on the road. We also found a giant ant carrying a cigarret bud but i didn´t have my camera, i was mad because it would have been a funny picture.

Happy Easter!

We had our Easter celebration last week while everyone was still in town. Of course we started out with lots of yummy food!

After everyone's tummies were full we did our annual Easter egg hunt.

Here are the egg accountants... we had to make sure all 186 eggs were found and accounted for.. This is the first year every egg was found on the first round! The Easter Bunny is gonna have to hid them a little harder next year!