Marituba 20

This week not too much happened, but it was fun. I am liking to work with Elder Campos a lot. We are always setting goals to get better and working hard. However this week was a bit sad. This week lots of people we are teaching were traveling or didn't want to learn anything more.
However, the most exciting thing was that everyday there is this drunk lady in the street that we talk to and she always asks us to pray with her so we do and then invite her to church. This week she came! However she came in nothing but underwear. It was before sacrament meeting started so not that many people were there, but the Bishop's counselor was testing the microphone when she came in and was like, "testing, testing, Elders what did you do...."  So we talked to her and all the other members already know her and apparently she already is a member, just inactive. She just wanted a Book of Mormon to carry around with her in the street because it made her feel better, so we gave her one and she went on her way. Also on Sunday we left another presentation with the quorum and Relief Society and talked about our ward mission plan and showed a cool video of the St. Thomas Branch from a talk that Thomas S. Monson gave.  Everyone seemed to get excited to help the missionaries and that was good. Other than those two things not much happened. I hope everyone has a good week, I will too.
Love,
Elder Holcomb

[Elder Holcomb and Elder Paniagua]

Marituba 19

Hello people,
This week was good. My new companion is the best.  We are really trying to be better missionaries and always looking for ways to improve, and he is a blast.   (We sing High School Musical every night).
We had a baptism this week so, yay!!  She was cool.  She had a cool experience when she was with her aunt and said that she didn't drink coffee anymore because she was going to get baptized in the church, and her aunt started flaming her like, "what the? that's dumb."  And she responded, "I know it's right and you should pray and ask God if it is too."  So her aunt did and the next day was like, "I prayed and it's true and when I go back to Rio de Janeiro I am looking for the church and getting baptized there."  So that shows just how far a simple testimony sharing can go. 
Also an interesting thing happened was that we were walking in the street and then this woman just stopped and walked to the side and pulled down her pants and started to pee. So we hurried past looking straight forward and as we passed she yelled "good afternoon!!!" So that was extremely scary and funny. Not something you would see in Minnesota.
Also this week we had the opportunity to dance Just Dance at a church activity and me and my companion won so we are cool. We also have two people we are teaching who are cool and we have a goal for them to be baptized on the 11th. the only problem is they both work on weekends and they need to visit church so we have to work hard with them to make a visit.
Have a good week!
Love,
Elder Holcomb

Marituba 18

This week was good. Not too much happened, but we did have the "get to know the president" conference which was fun. The new president seems really smart. We just listened to him talk for a bit, but we will have interviews with him at the end of the month. He changed a whole lot of stuff right away which not that many missionaries are liking and aren't too happy about. I think that's probably normal for when a new mission president comes just because you get to know one so personally and so it's hard to work with the new one.
This week my companion's back hurt a lot, but we ended up being blessed because we couldn't walk too far, but we ended up getting lots of references and lots of people who wanted to work with us. We have a baptism planned for the Young Men President's cousin and two other people we were teaching we visited with a member. They were super excited and said they got a response to their prayer and want to get baptized, but the problem is they work every Sunday. However they said they are going to skip work next Sunday to visit, and to get baptized you need to have visited at least 2 times before you can get baptized so we just have to wait one more, and hopefully they still have the desire.
Also Saturday we taught a family of a grandma, a single mom, and two daughters that are 19 and 20 so we realized that meant they could visit the single people activity ( I forgot the name in English) there was going to be that night. Which they ended up going to and loved it. The absolutely hilarious thing was all of the single guys love it too, and I don't think I have gotten so many offers to go out and teach with the missionaries or offers to drive people we are teaching to church. I am glad we found a way to excite young single men about missionary work. However the mom and grandma came to church on Sunday too and loved it so I am excited to visit them again this week.
One miracle I saw this week was that my companion's back is pretty much destroyed so it's hard to walk long distances and work. However this week we had lots of help from the members and lots offered to give us rides so that was awesome. Another is that this week I was ran over by a car and I was like, "well, that's it for my mission I guess I'm going home," but then I just stood back up and walked again, and my companion was like, "what the heck." However I survived with no scratches so that was miracle.
Love,
Elder Holcomb

[I asked Isaac for info about getting run over and he said: "Getting run over by a car wasn't that bad, it was just my leg and then I fell over, but I just said ran over in my email because that sounds cooler."]

Marituba 17

This week was fun. As an update, this transfer I will stay here in Marituba again with the same companion, so that should be fun. I am still enjoying the members in the area.
This week was the 4th of July. It was fun because we had district meeting so there were three Americans there and we were all wearing red white and blue; and we sang the national anthem and colored American flags all over the chalk boards.
Brazil ended up losing so that was a very very sad day here. Lots of people cried, and lots of people had to drink to forget, so the streets were fun to walk down. I think people are starting to get over it now though. However, now I have switched to cheering on France to win the cup.
The new President got here this week and we are having a "Get to Know the New President" conference this Wednesday. It should be exciting.
This week we had a big church party on Friday and lots of people invited friends that also came to church on Sunday. That was fun and we are going to talk to them this week. We also are teaching the nieces of the Young Men President who is the only member in his family, and they are fun and want to get baptized so we are going to help them prepare for the 21st. Not much else happened this week. Nothing too funny or exciting to tell, just a regular update. Keep staying awesome.
Love,
Elder Holcomb

Marituba 16

Dear people,
Again, this week not much happened. We have the problem of that no one we are teaching really wants to learn more or progress, they are just sort of sleeping.  However we are working with the members more and the Bishop made a big mission plan for the ward on paper that we handed out to everyone. We also gave a presentation for the adults on Sunday about missionary work and ideas for them to help. It was good, I think we will get lots of help now.  We roasted them at the beginning by using the story of when Jesus talks to Peter after His resurrection and eats with them and asks him three times if Peter loves Him and then tells him to feed His sheep.  I think that's a powerful story to show that even after all the experiences he had he didn't know what to do and just went back to what he was doing before and working, and I think we have lots of times we do the same thing and we have lots of big experiences that we sort of forget and just go back to regular life. However, we have to ask ourselves if we really do love Him and if we do we need to help other people and serve them and share the gospel. I kind of hope the same thing doesn't happen to me when I get back from the mission. It was fun to share that story with the entire ward and then be like, "do you love Him?  If so please help us."  I think it went well and lots of people will give us references and friends to teach this week.
For the game today we had a big zone reunion and everyone was there and we all painted our faces and wore Brazil jerseys and watched the game in the church. It was extremely hype and exciting. To be honest I was surprised that the game wasn't a lot closer. I thought Mexico would be a lot harder to beat. However, Friday is Belgium, which my companion thinks is the best team in the cup and will win so it will probably be a bit more challenging. However, Japan gave them a shoot for the money this afternoon so I don't know because I thought Japan would be an easy win for Belgium. But I guess lots of crazy things are happening in this world cup so who knows.
Love,
Elder Holcomb