MTC/Belém

 

Isaac left the MTC on Monday and arrived safely in Belém. His mission President sent us some pictures and this letter:

Dear Family Holcomb,

With great pleasure we inform you that Elder Holcomb arrived here in Brazil Belem Mission today (December 18), and currently serving in city of Belem (Augusto Montenegro Area), with his companion and trainer Elder Pereira. Sister Stasevskas and I, along with the rest of the mission, are very excited to have your son serving here with us.

He has a great missionary spirit, with faith to do whatever the Lord commands. We would hope that you would, whenever possible, write letters to strengthen him and to encourage him in his missionary service. We give our sincere gratitude, and hope to keep in touch.

Yours truly,

Sister and President Stasevskas
 

Isaac wrote a quick email today to let us know when he'll call on Christmas. Here's his super quick letter to his dad:

Well to answer yes this first bit has not been like a fire hose because I just don't understand anything but still overwhelming so that makes it kind of fun being a deaf mute man it is crazy here but I will probably tell you more during skype also always send the packages and letters to the mission office and then the zone leader will deliver them directly to me. I will look forward to it and surprisingly I can't really find a place to buy pencils here just weird meat shops that don't look sanitary.

MTC 6

This week was fun. We went proselyting again and this time we talked to someone that wanted to hear more and gave us their address so that missionaries that actually speak Portuguese can talk to them.  Also, on the way back from proselyting we saw a guy juggling fire bottles in the middle of traffic for money.

This week we had a couple devotionals that talked about working with church members. One guy showed a painting of these missionaries working in this field and it was hot and the sun was shining and missionaries were just harvesting all this stuff by hand grinding. Then he showed another picture of when missionaries work with the ward and and they had like a huge harvesting machine thing that made the work so much easier, and I liked that. I thought about Bishop Miller and how his big thing was working with the missionaries.
Also this week we watched Legacy again. There is one Elder in my district, Elder Kaiser from Colarado that looks kind of like a guy in the show. So whenever [the guy in the show] started making moves on the one girl we would pat him on the back and make whistling noises and say "O.K. Elder Kaiser!!"  Which just shows you how desperate missionaries are for any romantic story.
In one of our doctrine classes Sunday they talked about Trump announcing Jerusalem as Israel's capitol. It made me realize just how out of the loop I am with news happening around the world, which made me a little bit sad and happy at the same time.
We also watched the Christmas devo and it reminded me of Mom because that is her favorite part of Christmas.  I really liked  all of the talks, but one thing that stuck out to me was when the one lady's mom told her to give something away that was a sacrifice so she would feel a bit sad getting rid of it because that is truly giving. I remembered when Ana gave away that stuffed animal rat she really liked so I guess that means Ana truly gives things to people.
There have been lots of people talking about how their families were blessed from having a missionary on a mission so I was wondering if there was any blessings you could see with having me gone. They could be savage too like you finally have left overs at dinner or the socks don't smell. Also maybe you have double blessings because Ana is gone too.
My companion Elder Hackeman's favorite Pokemon is Kadabra or Kyogre, Elder Hall's is a Torterra and Elder Kline's is a Starmie.  That's for William.
Also Mom, at the distribution center after the temple today I saw a book I thought you would really like called "The Gospel Art Book" that had like all the art and stuff about the art like scriptures and things.
We got new American Elders that were fun to talk too and see how much us that have been here for 6 weeks have grown, but also [fun to] show them around.
Elder Kaiser and I decided to run for 20 min which was terrible because I am so unfit now, but we survived, we just are really sore.
 I leave the MTC the 18th so next time I email you I will be in Belem. I will have been in the field for about a week.
 Also went to the temple for the last time in 2 years today which was kind of sad. I like the temple here so much. We got to do baptisms, which the font here is amazingly beautiful, and the shower afterwards multiplied my testimony by ten. It was the best shower ever. After I got into it there was no doubt in my mind this is the true church; it was absolutely amazing.
Love you guys

[Since Isaac leaves Sao Paulo on Monday, here are the photos from Sao Paulo (that weren't shared in the last couple posts)]

 

MTC 5

 This week was fun as well. I have been saving up the snacks throughout the week to put in my companions shoes for the vinoxman (don't actually know how to spell it), but that was fun. They were a little confused, but I explained it. 
The church put out the Christmas videos which are awesome we watch each day's in the morning during personal study and then find a way to implement it. It's kind of hard to do in the MTC especially when one day was "honor your parents" and talked about how if you haven't talked with your parents in awhile give them a call and talk to them; and all of us were like "wow thanks for rubbing it in."  The videos are super short quick and awesome, make the day great, and doing the little service things put me in a great mood for Christmas even though it's always super sunny and hot outside. 
The World Cup groups came out this week and everybody was super stressed because none of us have access to internet so we had to beg an instructor to tell us, but now it's spread like wildfire so I wrote them down. It's amazing to see how hype the atmosphere is even though it doesn't even happen until June. Apparently Brazil has a super good team this year so the missionaries going to Japan in my room are very sad because they will be gone when their country wins the cup, or so they say.  Also the other night we were about to fall asleep when we just heard loud noises like thunder start outside so we jumped out of bed. Then all the Brazilians started screaming and I was like "what is going on?" Then we looked out the window and there were fireworks outside and our roommates started freaking out and apparently the Corinthians, the local Sao Paulo team, just won. So they celebrated and it was insane! I don't think I have ever seen people celebrate so hard even for like the super bowl. It's great! I love it so much! People just go absolutely crazy! 
My Japanese companions also started teaching me some Japanese so I say stuff to them in Japanese, and then my companions get a little bit salty because I am supposed to be studying Portuguese but instead I am just talking to people in random Japanese simple sentences.  However, I think it's fun. I still have the basics of Portuguese down even though I probably should study a bit more. 
Also Elder Fariez my room mate says to look up the band Calypso they are terrible apparently, but they are from Belem so let me know how they are. 
Keep having fun I wish I had snow to ski on!!
 

Oh I totally forgot December first we had a Christmas party, and they put up a ton of lights, and I mean a ton, and lit them all. It was awesome and they had ice cream and we got pictures.

 

 

[vinoxman is Weinachtsmann. When Isaac was a baby our family lived in Germany for a few years and so our family still follows the tradition of leaving out our shoes on the night of December 5 to get filled with treats from the Weihnachtsmann (or Christmas Man if you translate it directly).

Brazil is in Group E with Switzerland, Costa Rica, and Serbia. For the full results of the 2018 FIFA World Cup draw click this link]