The Rugby Player

 This is a great story my brother sent to me.

I served my mission in Birmingham, England. We found that one of the hardest things for new missionaries to do is to walk up to someone on the street and start talking to them about their beliefs. This was hard for several reasons. For starters, most people aren’t comfortable striking up a conversation with a complete stranger, especially one so personal as religion. This is far out our natural comfort zones. Secondly, in England, religion and political beliefs are seen as personal (and touchy) subjects. People don’t like to talk about them period, let a lone with a stranger from a foreign land, standing between them and their destination. It takes quite a while for missionaries to get used to “street contacting” as we called it and can be very frustrating. We found the only way to get used to it is to do it, and to do it often.
One time I was training a new missionary from the small town of Sugar City, Idaho. He was a timid farm boy who had never been to a big city in his life. Suddenly he found himself in Cardiff, Wales, a city of close to 400,000 people. He was shell-shocked. Each day we’d go to the city center and contact people in the busy streets. I went about stopping people, getting appointments and passing along our information. As the hours passed I kept my eye on my companion (who was standing about 40 feet away) and noticed that for every 20 people I stopped he would MAYBE try and stop one. Most of the time he just looked right through people, too afraid to talk, almost like he was waiting for someone to come and mug him.
We had a talk one morning about his fear of contacting people in the streets. He told me he get’s anxious and nervous at the thought of trying to stop someone and just lets him or her walk by. “Let’s play a game,” I said. “The next time you or I see someone and think “Man, I WOULD NOT want to talk to them.” we have to stop whatever we’re doing and go talk to that person.” My companion thought for a minute and reluctantly agreed. As we walked to the city center that day to contact people I made a conscious effort to talk to every weird person I saw. I wasn’t afraid of talking to the weirdo’s, in fact; they were my favorite people to stop because they always said crazy things that lightened up my day. But I made it look like I was playing our little game so he would join in. As we arrived in the city center we started contacting. All of a sudden I saw this HUGE 6’3’’ professional rugby player walking towards us. He had a set of gold teeth and tattoos all over his bulging biceps, which were the size of my thighs. It was the first time in months I thought, “Man, I WOULD NOT want to talk to them.” I looked over at my companion and started laughing because I could tell that he saw him too AND he saw him first. He looked at me. I smiled. He looked at the man, then back at me. I gave him the thumbs up and pointed at the man and nodded. My companion looked like a solider about to storm the beaches of Normandy without a gun. I could see the lump in his throat as he slowly trudged towards the man. To my surprise, the man stopped and listened to him! I watched for a few minutes then continued contacting people. 10 minutes turned into 20, which turned into 40. Finally the two parted ways and my companion ran over to me with a smile like I have never seen. “That was a professional rugby player and he wants us to come teach him!” he squealed like a little girl. We went and visited the man later that week and every week for the next five months. He eventually joined our church and was baptized. I still stay in touch with that man to this day and he has become one of my closest friends that I met during my time in the United Kingdom.

Good Company

In every mission the missionaries are issued a Preparation Day or as many call it a "P-Day". It is one day of the week when the missionaries can take a break from missionary service and spend some personal time taking care of errands such as writing letters home, buying groceries, playing sports, site seeing or any other appropriate activity. I arrived in the mission field straight out of the training center and my Portuguese was still very weak, I could not communicate with anybody. I had been in the city of Salvador for only a couple of days and my first official P-Day had arrived. That morning my companion had said something to me but I had no idea what he was saying. I felt so down and alone because I was on a different continent away from all my friends and family. People were speaking in a language I couldn't understand and I stuck out like a sore thumb and was embarrassed I couldn't understand anyone. We left our home that day and made our way to wherever we were going. We walked through the ghetto until we made our way to a house. We went inside and the family inside started to smile while cheering and greeting the missionaries I was with and then greeting me. I saw pictures of LDS temples on their walls as well as pictures of Jesus Christ and realized we were in the home of some members. They then started to pull food and meat out of their fridge as they prepared the grill, I quickly realized we were there to eat lunch and have a BBQ. Normally I would have been excited to have been in a social situation like that but when I was unable to understand 99% of the words that were being said I quickly felt uncomfortable and worried what these people would think of me for not knowing their language. We all sat around as the food was cooked and this family quickly started to engage in conversation with me. It was difficult for me to speak with them and instead of seeing it as an obstacle the family quickly realized I was still new and made me feel very welcome. They spend the afternoon communicating with me with the simple words I did now, hand actions and even pictures. Verbally we didn't connect much but through other creative ideas we did. It turned out to be an evening I enjoyed most on my mission. I meant some very cool people and ate the best BBQ of my life. It was from that point on I realized the Brazilian people in general were very kind and outgoing and cared about making other people feel welcome. It was from that point on I enjoyed the opportunity to meet new people in Brazil because I knew how kind and fun they could be to be around. I'm very grateful for that one family that took me in the first week and quickly became my friends. They taught me a very good lesson in accepting people for who they are, taking them in and treating them how you would like to be treated.

The Charitable Cobbler

In the mission I walked more on those streets in Brazil then I had anywhere else in my life. I knew I would be too so I left with 2 very strong pairs of shoes hoping that they would last. I wore my first pair and they lasted the entire first year. I figured at the rate I was going I would be able to finish out the last year of my mission on my last pair of shoes. Well the second pair wasn't quite as strong because about the last 2 months of my mission they started to fall apart and day by day they would get worse and worse. I kept telling myself I would be able to finish out in them and grind it out. Well I was down to just a few weeks before coming home and the rain season had hit. I would be out walking trying to strategically walk through the streets and sidewalks without walking in the water because of all the holes that had developed in my shoes. Eventually it got to the point I developed "Trench Foot" from all the water that had gotten into my shoes and contaminated my feet. I finally accepted losing and admitted it was time I buy some new shoes to wear for the last week so my feet condition didn't worsen. I then decided instead of buying more shoes (which would cost a lot) I would just try to cover them in super glue hoping that they would hold together the last little bit. We went to a corner market and we asked the owner if he thought the glue would hold the shoes together. He said that it would depend on how bad the condition of the shoes were. I slipped one of my foot exposing all the wear and tear and many holes in it and he couldn't believe it. He said the shoe was done for and no amount of glue would hold it together very long. He then paused and left to his humble home which was above his market and came down with a box. He handed it to me and told me to keep what was inside. I opened it up to see a nice clean pair of dress shoes much like the ones I was wearing only in much better condition. I was very speechless, the man wouldn't take no for an answer. I tried them on and they fit perfectly. I am very grateful to this day for the charity that the man showed me and made me want to pass it on. It is a very contagious feeling. I wore those shoes the rest of the week and every time I put them on it was a matter to treat other people well. I wore them home with pride the next week.

  

Come As You Are

In the mission field the number one thing that a missionary needs to rely on is the spirit and the missionaries spirituality. I knew that this was very important and to have this it was important that you followed the rules. One of those rules was listening only to church music or uplifting and wholesome music. Ever since my teenage years I had loved music and it was probably one of the hardest things for me to give up. In the field I would do my best to avoid that music, I knew that when I got home it would all still be there for me one day. I have always liked rock music and so one day when I was walking down a poor street in the Podunk town of Itabuna, Bahia I saw a kid I was friends with wearing a shirt that I just had to get a picture with. He would always stop and chat with us on the streets. I noticed he was wearing a t shirt from one of my favorite bands and the greatest grunge rock band from the 90's, Nirvana. I looked down at him and saw Kurt Cobains face covering his shirt. Even clear out on a different continent nearly 2 decades after the band had ended people still loved them just like I did.

English Class Gone Bad

 My cousin (who is a very good story teller by the way) served in Poland and sent this  story to me.

"Once upon a time, my companion and I were out inviting people to our English class. It was a cold January night in the city of Lublin, Poland. Elder Šorn, a German kid, and I had set up a whiteboard and written something about learning American English (or did we write a joke about getting a free green card?) so as to get people to come to our religion-related English class. Things were going well and we were meeting a lot of cool people.
Maybe 30-45 minutes into our white boarding session, we heard and saw a group of "hoolis" walking down the promenade. Hoolis were mainly soccer-obsessed riff raff who mainly spent their days drinking. We figured if we didn't pay any attention to them that they would leave us alone. They walked by, non-soberly inquiring as to what we were doing and went on their way. I turned to Elder Šorn and more than likely made a witty quip about soccer.
As I was turned towards Elder Šorn, my back was now to these hoolis. They decided to come back and one of them, Hooli 1, shoved me from behind into the white board and I knocked it over with my face. I turned around and asked them what the heck were they doing. Another one, Hooli 2, went over to Elder Šorn and asked him "if his gums were itchy." Šorn told him that he didn't understand and so then Hooli 2 came over to me and posed the same question. I'm not sure what I said back but it was probably along the lines of "no thank you sir, please go away now." Now, Hooli 2 went back over to Šorn and straight up decked him right in the jaw. As I was running over, Hooli 2 then head butted Šorn right in the face. I got there and Hooli 2 turned to me and then punched me in the head. This Hooli 2 then started chasing Šorn around yelling at him to give him his phone. I had our phone in my pocket and so I told Šorn to start running which we did. We ran maybe 50 yards until we realized they weren't chasing us but had instead taken our whiteboard and were now smashing it on the ground.
And then they left and we went home and probably ate some Nutella"
The End.

The King

 A man I grew up with served in a place I had never even heard of but after hearing this story it sounds like a very very awesome place!

I was called to serve in Micronesia Guam mission in November of 2006. This was rather funny to me because I could hardly pronounce Micronesia. I was so scared to have to learn a second language because of my failed experience in seventh grade Spanish class. I received the letter from my mission president soon after receiving my call which said most of the missionaries do not have to learn a second language because most missionaries will serve on either Guam or Saipan which are U.S. territories and both are English speaking areas. After I landed in Guam my mission president took us to his house. On the way there he asked if we wanted to know where we would be going. He turned to me and said that I was going to be flying back out the very next day to Pohnpei Micronesia. It is the capitol of the Federated States of Micronesia and is an Island of about 33,000 people. I was so scared of learning the language that it took me several days just to learn how to say Hello. I remember crying in a testimony meeting two months into my mission because I felt I would never learn the language only to realize that I just spoke a perfect lesson in Pohnpeian. The experience that mostly stands out with me is towards the end of my mission, after much success in my several areas I was sent back to the area that I had first started in. Its a small kingdom, because they still have kings in Pohnpei, called U. Yes that is spelled with only one letter. That was my favorite place and as I would speak to people I would all ways say that I was from U because of my accent that I had picked up while I lived there. I was asked one day why we missionaries didn't love anyone? I was so confused as to why this woman wondered that. She said that we never went to funerals nor did we ever care about their traditions. At the time I was reading Ammon in the Book of Mormon and realized I was failing to follow his council of becoming one with the people and following their traditions, and to serve them. That next day I went to the local leader who's title is called Soulik which means chief. I asked him to let me earn a title from him. My first title given to me was Nahnso which stands for protector. He then took me a week later to meet the Nahn Mwahrki which is the king of the kingdom of U. He gave me a title that I had never heard of. It was Luhk Dolohn Katau. I thought it sounded cool at least but didn't think much of it until I got back to my area. I was asked about the title and I told the member. He just looked at me and asked "Really?" I said of course. He then proceeded to tell me that the Luhk Title is 12th in line to become king someday if I pass certain tests. This allowed me to not only attend funerals but to actually conduct them. It allowed me to go to feasts and teach and made it so if anyone treated us with disrespect, they were treating the king with disrespect. this opened the door and even allowed me to teach the King of U and give him a Book of Mormon. He to this day is a very good friend of mine.
Tony Kent

Out Late....Too Late

In the mission we are promised that if we are obedient to the mission rules we will have success and protection from God. I believed this and knew for a fact that it was true. One night I had an experience that showed it was true, I just learned the hard way with my companion. I was working in one of the more smaller cities in my mission, a city called Brumado. It was a very nice place and more on the upper class side of the state I was serving in. At this time I was training a new missionary from Alabama. Throughout his whole life he was home-schooled deep in the swamp lands and pretty sheltered and never exposed to much of the real world. He was having a rough time adjusting to the loud, aggressive, free spirits and personalities of Brazil. I was doing my best to try and help him slide into the transition of the Brazilian culture and lifestyle. Well, as the story goes we were having a hard time finding people to teach. Our mission president talked to us constantly about finding men to teach because they can be good example to their family and we can find more people through them. One day we were walking and a man stopped us and asked us very excitedly if  we would stop by his house because he was interested in our message and church. Of course we said yes and planned to stop by. The time came for us to go to his house and he wasn't home, we tried the next day and the same thing. Day after day we would go and nobody was there. We were pretty disappointed to say the least. One night we were walking home after a long day and we were about half hour away from our home. It's a rule that the missionaries be in their home no later than 9:30 and we were cutting it close. All of a sudden my cell phone rang and it was the man who had stopped us in the street, he wanted us to come visit. I explained we had to go home but we could the next day. He said he was leaving on a work trip and wouldn't be back for quite some time, it was now or never. I told him we would be there. His house was very far and on the outskirts of town, but I wanted to teach him so badly. We finally arrived to his house and went in ready to teach. As I started to teach with my companion in his broken  Portuguese the mans interest in the church had changed completely, it was obvious he only wanted to "Bible Bash" or in other words, argue about religion and try to tell us why we were wrong. Normally when this started to happen I would put an end to it, wish the person a good day and go on my way looking for someone who had a true interest to learn more. This time though I was so mad and frustrated that he had tricked us into thinking he wanted to learn more that we would stayed out longer than we were supposed to just to argue. I was very upset and let my emotions get the best of me as I sat there and tried teaching and arguing with him. The point finally came when i realized it was nearly 10 at night and we were still very far from our home. I put an end to the lesson and me and my Alabamian companion left the house quickly. I was very upset as we started our long journey home. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, they did. We were walking down a street and up ahead I could see a group of about 7 teenage boys hanging around. I knew that once we walked by them they would start yelling at us and making fun of us as they always did in any city. I turned to my companion and told him to just ignore them. Sure enough as we approached them they started yelling out disrespectful and pretty rude things to us. By this time I was so use to it I could have cared less. We walked right by them and I thought that it was over. Next thing I know the yelling had stopped and a rock the size of my fist came flying over my head and pegged my companion from Alabama right in the head! My companion was the quietest  and least confrontational person I know so he just kept walking with his head down. As a person I am very laid back and easy going and don't get upset very easy. This night though I had had it and I snapped. I instantly turned around and did something a little brave and very very stupid. I marched right towards the group of teenagers. Half of them ran away as about 4 of them lingered and starred at me in surprise that I had come back. The first one I approached was a heavy set kid who looked only to the ground as I approached him and got nose to nose with him right in his face. I asked him, well, yelled to him asking if he had thrown a rock at us as well as saying some other words in English they didn't understand that a representative of Jesus Christ shouldn't say. Nobody answered, they all just awkwardly starred at the ground. I had enough so I turned around and walked towards my wide eyed companion to continue our journey home. As I approached my companion ANOTHER rock came hurling towards us and nailed my companion right between the shoulder blades as he turned around. I instantly turned around and saw all the teenage boys no running up the hill as far from us as they could and there was no chance or reason in confronting them anymore, we just needed to get home. We walked and walked and my adrenaline was pumping. I was so angry at everything that had taken place in just the last hour or so of the night, it was a lot of action packed into such a little amount of time. We got home and my companion had no started to develop some pretty big bruises on his back and head. My anger turned into guilt as I though about how I had us stay out longer than usual and I was the only one confronting and yelling at the teenage kids stoning us in the streets while my companion who did nothing wrong was the only one getting hurt. As I laid down in bed that night I though about how true it was that while in a dangerous country the Lord will never ever let anything bad happen to you as long as you are obedient and doing what is right...but as soon as you choose not to, such as staying out on the streets later than you are supposed to you are on your own. It was a real eye opener. From then on out I made a goal and and promise with God I would do better to be more obedient for his safety.

Mystery Bottle

When I was about halfway through my mission I was in an area with a new companion. Me and my new companion got along great the only problem that I had was he could take forever in the shower every morning. Well one morning I was getting my day started and waiting for him to finish so I could go and use the shower. He had just gotten in and all of a sudden I had to pee really bad, and it only got worse! I thought I could hold it but it kept building and building and I thought I was going to explode. I knew that he would be in there for awhile and there was no way I was going to be able to hold it. I panicked as I thought of what I could do. I then remembered that in our fridge I had a big plastic bottle of juice that was almost gone....I debated on what to do and finally swallowed my pride and did something I'm not exactly proud of but in that situation had to be done. I grabbed the bottle and carefully held it over the garbage can as I relived myself. I held the bottle which was fairly large and was surprised at how fast it was filling up and warming my hand as I held it tightly and carefully. I finally finished just as it topped of near the cap. I screwed the cap on as hard as I could and was satisfied that I no longer had to pee so bad and took care of the situation. I then realized though I had this giant bottle of my "stuff" and didn't  know what exactly to do with it. I didn't want it to sit in our garbage can because I was afraid it might break open somehow or stink up the house. Our apartment was at the very top of the 3 story building with no neighbors. There was a mini dumpster down below our window which was about 4 by 3 feet wide. With our room being so high we had gotten pretty good of throwing bags of trash out the window and landing them in this dumpster instead of walking all the way downstairs. We especially did this at night when the streets were dangerous and didn't know if it was worth getting mugged just to throw out some of our old trash. I figured I could do the same thing with the bottle. I ran to the window and starred down at the small dumpster determining how hard and what angle I should throw the bottle. I wound my arm back and let it fly like a quarterback! It flew threw the air as it fell for the longest time. It finally made its way to the dumpster hit the side of it and landed in the gutter next to the road. I had missed! I realized it was out of the house though and I no longer had the urgency of finding a place to pee. Just as I was about to walk away from the window I noticed a Bum walking down the street that passed by our house everyday and his path was taking him right to my bottle of ''Juice"!.....I bent down with only my eyes peeking over the window ledge to see what would happen. This man carried around a giant bag and picked up anything edible or recycle for money. I watched as he got closer and closer to the bottle. Finally he approached it and stopped.....bent down, and picked it up. He held it up to the sun and inspected it. He then unscrewed the cap and put his nose over if and took a big breath. He instantly jerked his head back and looked at the contents again. After thinking for a moment he then slowly put his nose back over it and took a deep long breath......and then a tiny sip! I seemed fine with its contents and put the cap back on and carried on. I knew the homeless man from passing him in the streets before and wanted to yell out to him not to drink it. I couldn't though because this man did not like the missionaries and every chance he got in  streets he would hassle us an let it be known it didn't want to be our friend. I didn't want him knowing where we lived so he could come for us. That's why I watched without warning him. Anyways, all this happened while my companion was in the shower. He eventually got out and had no clue what had just happened. It was 15 minutes of panic, quick and gross thinking, tense moments, disgust and finally relief. Definitely not a spiritual experience from my mission but none the less an experience that stands out and is worth a story.

Needle in a Haystack

I had an experience when I first arrived in Brazil that I still treasure to this day.

All throughout my childhood I was taught the value and importance of prayer. We always did it together as a family and I was taught to do it privately on my own as well. It was part of my lifestyle but it wasn't until I got to the mission field I really had an eye opener on how big of a role it plays in everyday life. I realized that talking to God was more than just repeating words but it was really just opening your mind and heart and saying and asking what you needed to say.
One experience came when I had been in the city of Salvador for only 3 months. I still felt lost and was pretty fresh into the missionary work. I got a new companion who didn't know the area so it was up to me to show him around and lead the way. Salvador is the 3rd biggest city in Brazil. And like all the major cities in Brazil is was covered with 'Favelas' or in other words, The Slums or Ghetto. Favelas are these giant neighborhoods built in valleys with tens of thousands of people living in poor conditions in a very small area of space. They literally build their houses on top of each other as the houses made of poor brick cover the entire valley all the way up to the top. It is actually quite a site to see. At this time me and my old companion were teaching a very cool woman. We had only been to her house once and I was scheduled to go back with my new companion. He had no idea where to go so it up my turn to walk us there. I realized she lived deep inside the favela and I had no clue where to even begin. As we set off walking I prayed to God that he would help me lead us to this woman's house because I knew we had to teach her about the church. I opened up my heart and felt and used all my feeling and emotions as I asked God to help me do this. As we started to make our way down into the favela I instantly got thoughts and feelings in my head such as, "turn right here", "keep walking up these stairs", "go to the end of this neighborhood and go left", "go to that grocery store and walk down the stairs behind it". We continued for a good 25 minutes or so as we made our way trough the favela. The favelas have no organization at all! There is a mix of crooked streets, stairs and hill that twist all around and houses and stores so close together and connected it is pretty much a giant maze. I know for a fact as we walked I had no clue where we were but just walked by faith and trusted and knew that the Lord had but those thoughts into my head on where to go. We continued to walk and then I instantly stopped as I realized we were on the woman's porch who we needed to teach. We knocked on the door and she let us in. We sat there in our home as we taught and while all this was going on I was in  bit of shock and gratitude as I thought about what had just happened. I realized that because of that heartfelt prayer God had just helped me complete nothing short of a miracle. It was from that moment on I really saw the importance of prayer and how it can be used in any scenario no matter how big or small the task may seem.

                                                In one of the favelas of Salvador.

A Christmas Story II

My Childhood friend served in Idaho/Washington and sent me this.

Here is a funny one... so one night; my companion and I were walking down the street in the freezing cold! (Much like it is now) we came to an intersection and decided we needed to wait for a gap in the traffic so we could dash across the street. As we were waiting I was right by a stop sign. I looked at the pole that the sign was on and said to my companion, "do you think its cold enough that my tongue would get stuck to it if I licked it?" he replied, "I don’t know... try it!!!!" So without hesitation I stuck my tongue out and landed it square on the pole. Immediately I knew it was a HUGE mistake! I thought to myself "I need to get it off!" So by reflex, I ripped it away. My tongue felt as if it had been cut in half! After screaming out in pain and jumping around I looked at the pole and found that my taste buds were stuck to the pole! I talked with a lisp and could not taste any food for a week! It was horrible! I think back to that and tell myself that was the stupidest thing I ever did on my mission! Can you imagine being one of those people driving past and seeing that out your window?! That would be the funniest thing ever!

Meant To Be Stomach Cramps

One of the missionaries I met in Sao Paulo was Elder Ivie from Idaho. He told me a very cool story.

"Here's a really condensed version of a story.....I was walking down the street with my companion and within a few minutes I went from being perfectly fine to cramps in my stomach. It just so happened that we were down the street from a health clinic so obviously we went so I could get checked out. We walked in and sat down next to a girl and her mom, she was sick too. We scheduled a meeting with her and within a couple weeks she was baptized along with one of her friends. I later found out that the night before we met in the health clinic, she prayed to know what church she needed to go to because she was going other churches and they didn't feel right. Lord works in mysterious ways."

Bathroom Break

My high school Blake sent me this story...it's very simple and entertaining haha.

"A black guy broke into my house at 2 in the morning with a crow bar and stole money from my companion. When my companion heard our door break he woke me up and the only thing I could think about was how bad I had to pee."

The Pass Along Card

One of my closest friends, Austin, served in North Carolina.

I served my mission in Raleigh, North Carolina. During the course of my mission I had the chance to serve in a lot of different areas that had dramatically different feels to them. I spent a lot of time on the coast, where the people are usually rich and well to do and the neighborhoods are nice. One of my areas was not like those areas at all, it was in Southeast Raleigh, or “the ghetto.” You can get the feel for the area if you watch the “Rise Up by Peetey Pablo” Music Video on Youtube… Rather, how do you say, interesting?
One week, we took our area map to the police officers at our church and had them mark a couple areas on the map that we should avoid if possible, they marked our apartment complex. I sat there and stared at the officer with that, “you’ve got to be kidding me” look on my face. They were serious.
Later that week we went to the store to get some food towards the end of the day. The store that we were going to was called Food Lion and it was right across the road from where we lived. While we were walking out of the store with out food, a man came up to us and mumbled something that we didn’t quite hear. I looked at my companion and he had the same confusion that I had so I asked him what he said. Now let me stop and say that I am 6’1” and 215 pounds and my companion is three inches taller and forty pounds heavier than I am. This guy is about 5’6” and maybe 150 pounds if he had swallowed lead that morning. Anyways, back to the story. He looked up at me, dead in the eye and said, “Give me your dollars.”
I sat there in shock and looked back, chuckled a little bit and said, “Um… No…” and that was that.
When he repeated the sentence again, I informed him that I didn’t have any money and didn’t carry cash on me (especially in that area). I did tell him that instead of money I had a card for our church. That must have caught his interest because his next comment was, “Well what church do you go to?”“The church down on Aversboro Road, across the street from Aversboro Baptist,” I continued, “you should join us sometime.”
He sat there and took the car and thought for a second and said, “I will have to drop by sometime!”
“Great!” I replied. “Is there anything that we can do for you, sir?” I asked.
“No,” he responded, “that should be all.” And with that last remark, he turned around and walked along his way and we booked it back to our apartment.
Now, I do not know if we had divine intervention on our side, which I am sure we did, but I like to think of this experience as the time that we tricked a potential robber with a pass-a-long card. We never did see the man again and the problems that we had in that area were limited and we were actually protected by the people of the hood on more than one occasion. It almost makes me miss that on-edge feeling that comes with walking around a dangerous area at night

Brazilian Bandits

My friend Jake was one of the first persons that I personally knew who served a mission in Brazil, he came back with many stories. Here's one of them.
"One evening, while working with a Brazilian elder near one of Brazil's infamous favelas, we found ourselves waiting at a gas station for a member of the church to take us to teach one of his friends. At this point, I had been in Brazil for roughly one month and my Portuguese was still pretty weak. As my companion chatted with the gas station attendant, I found I could not follow the conversation and began to daydream and listen to the American pop music playing over the gas station speakers.

With my back to the road, I suddenly noticed that my companion and the attendant had stopped talking and were looking over my shoulders with great concern while slowly raising their hands and walking backwards. I turned to look and found a man with a black pistol pointed at me, shouting orders in Portuguese. Not being able to understand exactly what he wanted, my companion grabbed my arm and pulled me along as we, along with the other gas station attendants, were led into the small booth where the cash register was kept.
The man, clearly imbalanced and not someone with whom we could have reasoned, continued to shout at me as we were herded into the booth. He gestured at my bag with his pistol, repeatedly bringing it up to where I could clearly see down the barrel. As I did not understand what he wanted, my companion reached over, opened the bag, and said, "See, only a Bible. Nothing more." My companion also pulled up my shirt sleeves to show that I was not wearing a watch and said, "We are missionaries of Christ. We have nothing, my friend."
Meanwhile, another man that I had failed to notice (likely because a presumably loaded gun was pointed at my head) was cleaning out the cash register through the window of the booth. Once he had finished, the man with the gun requested a lock, shut the door of the booth, and locked the 4-5 of us inside. I was the closest to the door followed by my companion then the attendants in a line behind us.
After about 3-4 seconds, he suddenly gave a loud shout and brought the butt of his pistol against the glass of the booth door, sending small shards of glass into my hair, neck, and shirt collar. When I looked again, the two men were running around the corner, back into the favela.
We immediately climbed out of the booth window and my companion began to help me clean the glass off of my clothes and skin. Small streams of blood were running down my left arm but almost all the shards brushed away easily. I had just wiped the last of the blood from my arm when the church member we were waiting for pulled up to the curb, welcomed us into his car, and we sped away to our next appointment."
-Jake Dinsdale

A Good Friend

One of my closest and childhood friends served in British Columbia and sent me the following.

"Well, when I was in BC, there was an older gentleman who became one of my best friends. He was a nurse his whole life and loved helping people. Despite his service, his family didn't communicate with him and he hardly had any friends. He didn't have any legs, but he still did mostly everything by himself. We had an instantaneous bond and we completely trusted each other. He called me half pint because my companion was 6 foot 6 and I am only 5 foot 6. We tried to visit him as much as possible, but his health was declining. He had major heart problems and diabetes. He was a heavy smoker and the infection in his legs was getting worse. I loved this man and would do anything for him. He had a hard life and if you didn't know him, he would be very gruff. He could make a new missionary cry. Despite his physical and emotional pain, he wanted to feel peace from God. He prayed with us, read scriptures, and attended activities when he could. This man changed my life, and he found hope through prayer to help him push forward. I was able to visit him about a year after I had left that area. I cannot explain the joy we both felt to sit and talk and catch up. We helped each other through hard times and he gave me great advice for my future. He told me to always push forward and not to make the mistakes he had. He is a mountain of a man and I look up to him so much. He died a few weeks later, but I knew that he was in a better place and he knew that at least a few people loved him. Unfortunately he was unable to be baptized before he died, but had a desire which will stick with him. This just shows that anyone can make a difference in another persons life for good."

-Jordan Herzog

The Machete

Before I left on my mission my brother gave me some advice that was something that really pertained to my mom. He told me that out in the mission field I would have experiences that could at times be a little unsafe or in other words, experiences that would make a loving mother worry. I knew that being away for 2 years in a foreign and potentially dangerous country my mom would naturally worry about me. Not wanting her to worry more than necessary my brother told me not to write in my letters anything bad or dangerous that had happened to me that would scare my mom. This being said I had many experiences in Brazil that would have frightened my mother but she never heard about them until I was safely back at home. One of those moments I can remember perfectly to this day. I was working in a city in Brazil called Itabuna. Itabuna itself was a very dangerous city and actually had the highest murder rate amongst teenagers in the entire country. In the midst of all the shady areas and danger I never once felt in danger. On a religious side note I knew what I was doing was for the good of God and through this God would protect me as long as I was doing what I was supposed to. Well one day I was working in the hot afternoon sun in one of the many poor neighborhoods in Itabuna with my companion. We knocked on a door hoping to share a message of the church with whoever was inside. A very small and middle aged woman opened the door. Her face seemed to have a permanent sad and worried look on it. She let us into her house and we sat in the front room on opposite couches ready to visit with this woman. Right away it was easy to tell this woman didn't like contact with other people and seemed very tense. She would only stare at the floor and speak very softly and quickly. She was on edge and kept looking at the doors and windows. It was very obvious something was wrong with this woman. After talking to her and showing her we were here to help she opened up a bit. She explained how she lived in the house we were in with her abusive alcoholic husband. Not long after telling us this the front door busted open. A tall skinny man came bursting in yelling right away at this woman, her husband. He was instantly angry and I felt very sorry for the relationship that this woman was in. When the man busted through the door it took him a moment in his rage to realize that me and my companion were sitting on the other side of the room. He saw us and for a split second seemed startled but that quickly turned into madness. He drew a long and very sharp machete from his side, held it up in the air and then brought it down to my face pointing it centimeters from my nose yelling at us to get out of his house. I was more than happy to obey his commands not know how crazy he was or what he would do to me with that machete if I stayed any longer. Me and my companion grabbed our backpacks and scurried out the door with the angry machete man behind us. We got out onto the street a little startled at what had just happened. A few moments late the man left the house and quickly went down the opposite way down the road. After that the woman we had been talking to came out and brought me my Bible that I had left on the couch in the midst of all the commotion. She apologized and I could see the hurt in her eyes. As she quietly returned back to her house and shut her door. We continued on our way but that day has never left my memory. I remember exactly how I felt, an angry and crazy man had held a sword to my face and I felt perfectly calm....the entire time I just had a thought in my head and a feeling in my heart that no matter what, I was going to be just fine and nothing bad was going to happen to me. It was a very strange situation but I can take positives out of it, a natural human being feels threatened or fear when a weapon is placed at their face, but only a God can give you the strength not to let it bother you and get out of a situation like that perfectly calm with no worries. Without the power of God there's no telling how many times I could have gotten into some sort of dangerous situation in my mission that would have resulted in terrible results....but only because of God I was always safe and to me this will always be a perfect example. I can also take from this story how glad I am I was raised in a home with a father that loved my mother and would never hurt her. I saw a lot of broken homes like this one on my mission with drugs, alcohol, abuse and ruined relationships. It was hard seeing people like this but made me so much happier knowing how well I had in in my house with both my parents.

Unpleasant Surprise

A missionary from my mission had a story that became very popular very quickly amongst the missionaries in our mission because of how funny and entertaining it was. I still remember it very clear because I have heard it so many times and it still never gets old to me.
The missionary was an Elder from Salt Lake City. He said that he and his companion had had a very long day with no success. The people in Brazil showed no interest in their message or lessons and nothing was going right that day. He was very tired and they still had a long bus ride back to their home before they could end they day. He said that they got onto the bus and he found a seat in the very back that was open. He plopped down in it, put down the window and gently leaned back with his head part way out the window feeling the nice breeze in the warm night air of Brazil. As he laid there it lightly started to rain as he felt the rain patter against his face and lightly dampen it. He went on to explain that after a very long and bad day it felt amazing to just finally lean back and relax with his eyes closed and he felt the rain fall upon his face. After a moment of this he opened his eyes to see that it in fact was not raining....the woman a couple seats in front of him had an infant with her who I guess had too pee very bad. This woman put down her window and held her son up next to it with his pants down as he peed freely out the window and relieved himself.  Meanwhile the pee was coming back and smacking the missionary in the face, turns out it wasn't rain after all. This Elder said that he his day had been so long and gone so bad that at this point he didn't even care. He just laughed as he kept his head there and the pee continued to come back and wet his face until the young child had finished.

Drug Deal Gone Bad

One of my former companions shared this story with me about one of his first experiences arriving in Brazil.
"One time I was in the middle of the ghetto of the city. We kept walking along this dark road and passed a bunch of these guys as they were finishing up a drug deal. The kind of guys you don't want to meet in a dark corner. The last time we passed them, they started to take pictures of us so that they could remember who we were and punish us the next time we came by that way. At that time of my mission, I didn 't understand much, so when I saw them with the camera, I gave them the cheesiest grin and posed for the camera. My companion was screaming at me to stop and get out of there. I thought the whole situation was funny until he told me what they were doing."

-Elder Hart
Brazil Salvador South Mission

Grateful For the Little Things

The following story comes from a missionary who served in Brazil with me, we became very close friends and he shared this story with me
"One night I was walking through the alleyways in the red district of Salvador, near the beach of Amaralina. Tiago, a local member of the church, was with us to help us find our way around, but we had found ourselves in a very dark and dangerous part of the city. Both sides of the alley were made up of dilapidated houses connected side by side. Distance-wise we were probably only about half of a mile from the tourist crowded beach covered in luxurious hotels and expensive condos owned by the wealthy. The demographical contrast in such a short distance illustrated the two extremes of wealth and poverty.
Together we decided that we should head back to a safer neighborhood to work as it was getting dark and the alleyway was crowded with men who were known by Tiago as some of the neighborhood’s biggest gangsters. As we turned around to head back to more familiar territory, we were approached by a girl who looked to be about seventeen years old. She and Tiago embraced and began conversing excitedly. The girl was a cousin of Tiago’s who he had not seen for nearly ten years even though they lived five minutes apart. After their brief reunion,Tiago shared us a little bit of his cousin’s story. The cousin we had just seen was the sister of one of the city’s gang leaders. It was because of this relationship she had with a notorious gang leader that she and Tiago had not seen one another for years. Because of her affiliation with that gang she could not leave the gang boundaries without risking her life. In the seventeen years of her life, she had not once seen the ocean despite the fact that it was only half of a mile away.
The fact that this girl had never seen the ocean, made me grateful for the small things in my life. Those of us fortunate enough to live in America, rarely will face the economic disparity seen in other nations. We have the freedom to be what we want to be and do what we want to do and should be grateful for it."

-Elder Howard
Brazil Salvador South Mission

Straight Outta Compton

This story comes from my friend Eric who served in Southern California. He told me the story that follows:
"So, I had just got a new trainee, and I was taking him contacting on a street in San Pedro, CA. (Just south of LA) We ran into this seemingly nice gentleman at a bus stop, and he politely dismissed us, "Hey, guys, I appreciate what you do, but I already have my faith." We thanked him for his time, and said our pleasantries right as a Escalade pulled up slowly and rolled down its window. A man yelled out "Go back to Utah, you fu**ing Mormons!" Just then the man we were talking to lifts up his shirt and pulls out his pistol, yelling. "YOU DON'T TALK TO THEM LIKE THAT! YOU DON'T TALK TO THEM LIKE THAT!!" The Escalade sped off, and he put away his gun. "I hate people that don't have any respect." We were still pretty shocked to say the least. We said a pretty quiet thank you, and we crossed the street and kept contacting. Needless to say, my new trainee was quite a bit shocked, and I just laughed, and said, "Welcome to LA."

Marijuana Noodles

As a missionary serving in the country of Brazil I had the opportunity to learn the national language, Portuguese. It was by no means an easy task! As I first arrived to Brazil I spent 2 months in the busy city of Sao Paulo in a missionary center called the MTC (Missionary Training Center) where I was taught the Portuguese language. After the 2 months I knew more than the average American but I was by no means fluent. Ready or not I was sent to do the service as a Missionary with my limited vocabulary. As weeks turned to months I found myself slowly making progress with the language. I found myself being able to understand more and more what the native Brazilians were saying and I was slowly being able to communicate with them....sometimes it was better than others. One of those instances where it didn't turn out so great happened while I was serving in a small little town called Pocoes. In this area the members of the church were in charge of feeding us lunch everyday and making sure we were getting fed and nourished well. The missionary I was working with in this area, my companion, was Brazilian so whenever the church members needed information they always went to him rather than the new American who had a more difficult time communicating and I honestly can't blame them. Well one day after our church services a woman in the church had a question but saw that my companion was busy, she then turned to me as the 2nd option. She started to talk as I listened intently doing my best and hoping that I would understand her. As she talked I was very happy to realize that by the time she was done I had understood her completely and knew what she had asked me. She was curious if we had lunch scheduled that day and wanted to know what our plans were. Knowing the day before that we didn't have a lunch scheduled me and my companion had gone to the grocery store and bought noodles to make spaghetti and pasta for our lunch. I looked at the woman who had asked me about our lunch situation and prepared to answer her question. I told her that we didn't have lunch scheduled with a member that day but it was okay because we had noodles in our house that we were ready to use. I thought I had answered the question perfectly but the look on this woman's face worried me that I had not. One of the problems that I had with the language was switching words in the language that had a similar sound but very different meanings. I meant to tell her we had noodles in our home, the Portuguese word for noodles is "macaron" but instead of using this word I used the word "maconha" which is the Portuguese word for Marijuana. This nice woman of the church had asked if we had lunch to eat but I told her no but that it was okay because we had gone out and bought a bunch of Marijuana that was waiting for us at our house. It wasn't until my Brazilian companion came over and helped sort out the situation and let the church members know that the men their representing Jesus Christ didn't have a bunch of joints waiting for them to go home and smoke. 

-Garrett Hadley
Brazil Salvador South Mission

January 29, 2013

For my first blog post I would like to give a little background on what I will be blogging about and why I chose this topic. My name is Garrett Hadley and I was born and raised in Ogden Utah and I am currently attending Utah Valley University in Orem Utah and studying Public Relations. For my Communications class I am starting a blog. This blog is titled "Saints Stories" and will focus on a variety of stories and real life experiences that people have shared with me after serving a LDS Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, also known as The Mormon Church, has a large population for LDS members and many young men and women between the ages of 18 and 25 set out to serve "missions" to help spread the word of the church and it's teachings throughout the world. Men serve for a period of 2 years and woman for 1 year and 6 months. Living here in Utah I have had the opportunity to hear many different stories from people that have served from the Potato fields of  Idaho to the Outback in Australia, from the mean streets of Compton to the rolling hills of Ireland. The missionary life consists of strict rule book that every missionary is expected to follow. The life of a missionary is not an easy one and can be very difficult to leave their family, friends, comforts of home and putting everything on hold to sometimes go to a very foreign place, sometimes even learning a language and walking the streets of those places day after day. I myself have had the opportunity to do my mission and it was without a doubt one of the hardest things I've ever had to do but at the same time the greatest thing I have ever accomplished and the proudest moment of my life. I served in the Brazil Salvador South mission from May of 2009 until May of 2011. Like all other missionaries, I spent my days walking the streets and experiencing many different things. It only makes sense, if you take a person and put them in a city or town and tell them to talk to as many people possible, adventures are definitely  going to arise.
     I think outside of Utah a lot of people aren't as familiar with the Mormon Church and a lot of people find it to be a strange of mysterious religion. Really it's just the opposite, we have the largest missionary program in the world because we want everyone to know about it! One of the points of this blog is to show that members of the church, especially the missionaries, aren't some weird-os taking part in a giant cult. We are all normal people who just happen to dedicate a lot of our time and lives into religious teachings we are proud of and feel can make us better people and in the end bring us happiness. I have talked to many different friends who have returned from missions to share some experiences that stick out to them that I think others people would appreciate reading. I myself will include some experiences I had in Brazil. Some of this stories are hilarious, others scary or intense, some of them very heartwarming. I hope that everyone enjoys them.
      -Garrett Hadley