Elder Linford
3/31
So how’s life for everyone??
There is a Brazilian tradition I’m trying to avoid. On your birthday, people throw eggs at you and cover you in flour. It sounds stupid but I’ve seen it and yeah there’s a good chance some of the young men of the ward are going to try. But it’s okay… I think!
The work is just is going fine here in Brazil. We played soccer today up at the stake center, and it got a little to physical, and we had to stop, but it was fun. life’s going pretty good here I’m really loving living in Brazil and my misson.
How’s life going back home?
So the twins were baptized? How did that go? As i was informed, Dad baptized Caroline, and Ryan baptized Ali? Eric then confirmed them. That’s really good. I love baptisms!
I may have escaped 3 family weddings, but I’m in a bigger wedding heck here. I have 3 families, to get divorced, and married. We are doing all the work for it. So yeah I’m paying for it now!!!
So I hope all is well nothing cool happened this week so yeah I’m going to go now.

3/24/09
HI!

So this week was alot better! I have to tell all of you about this family we found, or a better way to put it they found us.

So last week (last p day) after all of our plans fell through, I’m not kidding when I say everything fell it was really gay. We decided to go get some food, and so we had the question Compre bem, or CUCA. Well the bread is better at compre bem so we went there. Well while were Elder Fonseca was looking at yogurts(sp) this man comes up to me, now I kid you not he looks and sounds like a pedifile (its his mustache mainly), and he asks “ I always walk past your church and its never open, when is it open so I can learn some more about your church.....” that never happens so at first I thought it was a joke . but I answered him, well actually we can help you learn more about the church and all that lovely stuff. So we took his address and marked an appointment for the next night.

Well we are on a division so I didn’t really know what happened till the next Day they marked for us to come back (Thursday). As I learned, the family has been looking for a church for a few months, and the oldest daughter who is 15 has a friend how is a member (in another town) and so their family wanted to know about our church. A whole family of 4. They don1t have s single problem. They are already married, (and she said were married legally but I’ve always felt we need another wedding something more). Do not have a problem with the Word of wisdom, even coffee which is a shocker because Brazilian culture has then drinking coffee in great amounts.

We have now taught them the first 2 lessons and they are perfect, not a problem, they all went to church Sunday and fell in love with it. The spirit has been so strong the 3 times we have been over, their baptism will be during conference on Sunday between the sessions with the whole stake there, I’m so excited for them. They are a really great family, and they have some money too, which is also a good thing. The ward has already gone and visited them, without us. This is going to be a really great conversion.

So everything else from me is going really great. The part I really love about this family is, it is a living promise that we have that the lord is putting us, or people in our path who are ready to hear the message of the restoration! It really has been a good week.
Fetch Mitch Lima Peru, NICE!!!! And Freak Derek I din’t know we had missionaries in Armenia, that’s awesome tho!!!

Well keep being safe everyone,
Love Elder Linford

March 10, 2009
The first thing I’m greated with as I get of the bus last week HOT HOT HOT, and while it's not hell it sure is extremely hot down here. Last week it was 40 in our room at 10:30 its Nice and hot down here, but it's all good.

So the ward here is good and bad. this ward for the past 12 weeks (again) hasn’t had any real missionary work done so we have some work to do, but I’m excited.

So its hard to describe my area, I’m like 45 minutes bus ride away from any other area. Its weird it is like jungles(not really jungle more like forest), then my little area with about ohh 23,000 ish has very few paved roads, then forest again. I can’t think of a good way to explain it to yall I’ll work on that maybe if I can remember.

The chapel is in our area, its nice, and pretty new but just one ward dad.
There is no wind down here. After the first week here I got a lot of sun(yes I’m using sunscreen before you ask big al)

My house is really nice just was really dirty, I really don’t like to clean and my level of live able mess is pretty high as you know, but this is just plain crazy. So I spent today cleaning, I really don’t like cleaning I think you guys know that!

It's all good, so now we are teaching English here, so there’s a lot of people excited about that!

Oh yeah so matt was lucky, I’ve only had 3 Brazilian companions that could speak English, that’s breaking the odds of life. Its crazy only like 30 or so Brazilians speak English, so that helps me not go crazy, but it is not helping me learn Portuguese.
Oh so this family in our ward , they are really funny. Their borther in law looks like me a lot well, actually when I was bigger, and so they keep calling me Macel it is funny, but they are a good family and they have helped us al ot here already.
Thats all for now.

Love,
Elder Linford

HI

So I was tranfered today. As of right now I'm no longer in the city of São Paulo. I'm in São vicente. The first city in Brazil. Pretty cool.

I'm stoked to be in my new area and work!

I Hope all is well at home?

Oh this week we baptized Johnny he's really cool he's only 13 but he's been going to church for 6 weeks, and his sister is a less active member. At his baptism the spirit was so strong his mother started to cry. She'll be baptized I'm pretty sure. It is kinda the same age gap of carrie and me and his sister and him.

The Baixda is a lot hotter then São Paulo we are right next to the beach, which is really apostate. All is well for me here I'm really excited for my new area and my new companion.

Sorry my English really sucks right now normally I just use word to help a little bit, but this computer does not have word, and iIhaven't spoken English in 12 weeks so sorry. My companion is still learning English so I'll be helping him and learning Portuguese so my English should get better or return a little.

Ummm yeah sorry no pictures this week (sorry mega)

I love the letters I get from you all and love all of you!

Com Amor,
Elder(Stevo) Linford

OI famila

So this week was fun. I was a bit under the weather this week, well actually alot but all is well now!

Today we had a 1/2 zone picnic/ played soccer and football!

Football since my zone and district has the most americans of all zones in the missions!

It was alot of fun. even when the rain came.

I have a lot of pictures of my neigbhood, but i think they'll have to wait till I send home the memory card and mom can load them onto the blog.

well life is pretty intresting here. The mission is going to change in time next transfer. We are loosing 24 missionarios and only getting 14 so 5 areas will shut down. So since my area is same and the area next to mine is small i'm 999999.9999999% percent sure i'm receiving a transfer!

oh mom I changed my mission ties address!

umm I'll send some pictures but this is a short letter I know, but i'll send out some other letters discribing the heck of carnavel, just as a preface clothes are optional, and yeah its a sucky 4 days we have to go home before 6.

well i gotta go

Love,
Elder Linford

OI!!!

So this week we had our Baptism Nazaré, funny story elder Judd(my district leader) did the baptism… it was cool.

So it rain some more this week. And church was a lot calmer . things are going really great here for me!

How about back at home???

So there is this young man in our ward well he is like 10 ish, he hates church but his mom makes him go. So he came up with a way to make it fun for himself. He brings 5-8 other 10 year old kids to church its really crazy because they all don’t have parents but hey I don’t have to deal with it, and we get familys to go teach out of it. Its really funny to me thou.

Tomorrow I have my monthly interview with president Richardson. So that’s cool.

So we went downtown again today because my companion leaves in a month so he wanted to go shopping, and as you know I HATE SHOPPING!! So it sucked but it was all good, because I got my bus card today.

That’s really about it!

Questions??

Araraguera, 27 Janeiro, 2009
Nice to meet you Linford’s family! In first place, I’m sorry for my English. I am still learning and trying to improve (lol).
My name is Elder Zamboni (now just brother Zamboni). Your son Steven Linford, was my last companion in the mission field and I was his first one. It was a great privilege to me to work side by side with him. He’s really good!
I want to share one specific experience with you. When Pres. Richardson came to the Brazil Mission I was with six months left in my missionary work. He asked for every missionary to greet him with a shake hand. When my turn came he said to me many things, and one of them was “I will make your six last months’ become the best of all your mission.
I remembered him about this promise in my interview before my last transfer and asked him to pray carefully about me to decide my last place and my last companion.
I need to explain that I was oftenly used as the missionary who “takes care” of “bad missionaries”. I don’t know how to explain it in English, but I cannot number how many times I got emergency transfers to stay with a “bad or rebel” missionary to take care of him. (And that was the reason that I asked Pres. Richardson pray carefully about my last companion) (lol) (lol)!!!
And the blessing is: I received Elder Linford! I really love him! He’s now a good friend to me. I explained to him that I was fisicaly (physically) tired but I would do my best to walk and teach him the best things I could.
I want to thank you for preparing and sending that great son to do the Lord’s Work. I’m aware that you have a big family. I Trust in Christ. He will do the best for us. And some day, our neighbor (even our family) will know about it. They will realize it in us.
I bear my testimony about Jesus Christ, the Lord, whom I’ve represented. He is our high Master and only Savior. The Church where we are, is his Church.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Elder Irmao Alessandro Manuel dos Santos Zamboni