Well Mom....I got Friends and Allergies

Dear Family and Friends.

well lets just say that this week has been pretty much been Retarded and unproductive.

Okays so last monday was pretty good, it was a good p-day I was able to get a nap in and do a little bit of cleaning. We were able to get some lessons in and we found some new people to teach. Tuesday was the start of `not the best week of my mission by far`. we went to lunch in Jordanopolis which is like walking from my house to west richland. we had lunch there everyday this week so we got a lot of walking in. anyways so we went to lunch and right when we were about to leave it started to rain cat and dogs and we had forgotten to crab our umbrellas. anyways the sister refused to let us leave( like she yelled at me when i grabbed my back pack to leave ) and we ended up being there for like 5 hours...but luckly we were able to get some really solid lessons in after that and i guess it all worked out.

wednesday was alright we went to lunch and then later that day I got reallly sick again and spent most of the day in the bathroom and on my bed. I called sister tanner and she called the Area doctor and they have decided because this has been on going thing since December that i have probably picked up some friends and i will be taking the pills to kill my friends this week. I sincerely Hope it works and that i can get Healthy. because I am getting So sick of being sick!

so Thurday just started off bad, because i felt like crud I ended up sleeping in and missing study time and basically when you start off the day like that it just kinda of through everything off. and it was just an off day. then friday came.

Friday was alright but when coming back from jordanopolis after lunch I noticed a rash around my waste band and I just thought it was from walking a bunch and Idk it itched but i wasn't too worried about it by that night it was itching like crazy and i also had rashes on my upper arms and under my armpits. By saturday it had spread to basically everywhere on my body and all i could do is lay on my bed and try not to move because it itched so bad. after talking with the doctor I started popping benadryl like candy( It is really hard to teach a lesson in a foreign language when you drugged up...I know i tryed doing it twice Sunday... I think actually it was pretty Entertaining.) and to say I was worthless would be an understatement. the rash kind of went away sunday but it came back in full force today. I am now on some stronger meds and they seem to be working. I am praying that this will go away soon. The Doctor thinks its allergies. the only thing is we can not figure out what exactly I am Allergic to. I havent eatten anything new, or changed anything.

So this week was kinda like that. Luckily we were able to get some good lessons in this week and we have 3 investigators that are so close! I hope that March will be better month for me. I really am just fed up with not being able to work and not being healthy. This ward has alot of potential but needs alot of work and so far i Have not been able to work as hard as i would like. it kind of like this I love Brazil but i didnt come here to lay in my bed.... it been a trying week but I know things will get better. Sister Tanner has been a saint through all of this and I have become pretty good buddies with The area doctor Docter Jones. they are taking care of me and making sure I have everything i need. I really feel bad for my comp....poor guy! I mean it sucks to be sick and not be able to work, but i think it would be way worse to be the comp who just has to sit there and feel fine. I know this is where i am suppose to be right now and that God will take care of me. I guess i need to learn some lesson here. and I am trying.

I love you all and hope that you are happy and doing well.

love Elder Clements

Happy carnival!!! ....Its really quite here!

Boa Dia!
Well its week two here in Rudge! and its been a really slow week! like really slow! But it had some pretty sweet highlights!
first Highlight Fabio!!!

Okay so last sunday(first sunday here), after sacrament meeting This lady came up to us.. her name is sister Rocha. she introduced herself and told us that she had two sons serving missions right now, one in florinapolis and the other was serving in Fortaleza but came home and had knee surgery and then spent a transfer in our mission before going back to fortaleza.. I was so excited because I know Elder Rocha he was in my Zone last transfer and we became pretty good friends anyways I Was super excited to be talking to his mom and be in his word because he is a stud! anyways she then told us that she had a person she wanted us to teach that night, his name is Fabio. Fabio is the fiance of sister rocha´s daughter. anyways we went there that night and taught him and it was a super good lesson! and we marked to eat lunch together last Pday. anyways we had lunch with him 3 times with him this week and we have just clicked! he is 23 and I swear we have known each other forever. He has been talking to us asking us questions and its been awesome. we have only been able to teach him once because of his work schedule and then he left for the weekend but he has already been talking about him being babtised with out us saying anything. He was asking us when the next transfers were and we told him in like 5 weeks and he said `oh then we got plenty of time to get me babtised´ I was so stoked and he has been talking about when he gets sealed in the temple and how he wants us there! I cant begin to tell you how much I have come to love this guy in the past week! Oh and another thing so the other son of sister Rocha was with me in the CTM and we were pretty good buds aswell .... I can´t tell you how excited I am about this family Sister Rocha has been inactive and so has her daughter for like 4 years. she is divorced and went inactive after that but she is coming back and talked with the bishop sunday and is working on things THis is one of those times when I know that I was sent her for a reason. I feel like i am connected to this family. and I love them so much!!
second Highlight Meeting with Elder Mazagardi
on wednesday we had a meeting with President tanner and Elder Mazagardi. It was focused on familys and helping them become eternal!. It made me a little Trunky and miss home a bit :) ( I just want to say that I am so Grateful for my family! and for all the things they have taught me and all of my crap they have put up with! ) anyways it was super good!. and i learned alot and realised I Have so far to go in becoming the missionary and Man God wants me to be! its a long road but I got to start with the first step. so I am trying to work on my love for others and trust in Heavenly father.

speaking of love for other that leads me to the next thing. so like wednesday night we went to the store to get something to eat becasue we had been knocking doors all day and not gotten in anywhere.( this is basically why this week was so long we knocked doors allday everyday with like 3 lesson total this week.) anyways we met this old lady at the store who is a member. she asked us if we could come over and give her a blessing becasue she was going to have surgery the next day. we said yeah and went there. she had already gotten a blessing with oil so it was just a blessing of comfort we had to explain this to her. anways so she has called us everyother day since then to give her a blessing because she has a lot of pain and complications with this eye surgery.problems breathing, her eye was bleeding.... she has a long history of illnesses and has allergys with jsut about everything. anyways and becasue its carnival and everyone leaves for the beach including her doctor( this Place is Dead! like its SOOO quite) she has called us to go give her a blessing of comfort which I am more then happy to do but i feel bad becasue there is nothing more that we can do. for the sounds of it the medical system here in Brazil is way Crappy!

OKay so that really is all i got right now, This week has been trying one. with everyone leaving, not having anyone the teach, and knocking doors all day its been.... Hard and i am trying really hard to stay positive and put my faith in Heavenly father to guide us. I really do know that this is where i am suppose to be and despite all the adversity I am Happy here and excited to be able to serve these wonderful people here in São paulo!

I love you all and want to know i am praying for you!

Love Elder Clements

Hello from Rudge ramos! (who-ge ha-mos)

To my Dear Family,wonderful Friends and beloved Americans... Good Morning!

well I am now in São Bernardo do Campo.... and I love it!!!! Elder Fryer is my comp. He is from Grants pass oregon which is the southwest corner of the state. Elder fryer he has been out in the feild for 7 months and is just a little bit older then me but is 20 as well. The mission is really young right now and seems to get younger every transfer 20 new missionarys showed up this transfer my group was huge and so was the 2 before me. so about now over half the the missionarys in the feild have less then 8 months. But its all good i am super stoked about this transfer and area!

First ill give you a recap of my week and give you some more details about my comp and area.

Monday. It was a hard day not going to lie. I didnt think saying goodbye would be that hard but it was. jefferson when i told him looked like someone punched him in the stomach. and that kind of what i felt like two. He such an amazing kid and was the first person That I found and taught from the start. I freaking love that kid!! and will hopefully be able to go to the temple with him in a year when hes getting ready to go for a mission. anyways we had an interview for a couple that night aswell Robson and Luana. I love that family and they will or got babtised this sunday. I know that President was going to have to interview them again this week. (they had such a diffrent life,Robson was basically in charge of the drug trade here and luana was also very involved with it. but that was like 8 years ago and they are just completely diffrent they stopped doing drugs smoking drinking swearing, Robson knows the Bible better then anyone i have met and Luana is Just a saint. I have incredibley spiritual lessons there) so we will see.

Tuesday: I woke up and was feeling kinda crappy. then we went to transfers I Met Elder Fryer and then we drove to our area with a member ( It was so nice to be in a car and just relax for a bit) we got to our area and wow!! completely diffrent. Campanário is just favella and here the worst house here is was nicer the then the best house in Campanário. It feels alot like parts of seattle but less ghetto. big apartment buildings. really nice houses. the only down side is our area is about the size of all of richland. it takes about an hour and a half to walk from oneside to the other. the other downside is our apartment is SO Small. but that really the only thing i can complain about and really its not that bad and I will live. anyways so we got to our building and I unpacked (sort of...there isnt very much space for clothes I have one droor so most of my clothes are still in my suit case.) and then we went to lunch. after lunch we came back and put my bed together. Elder fryer splet on the floor last transfer because the his companion said it was missing parts ( it wasnt) anyways that took a long time because all we had is one little screwdriver to put everything together but we did it and i have the blisters on my hands to prove it. anyways bythis point i was feeling really crappy.

Wednesday we had a training first thing in the morning with one of the counselors to presidnent tanner. It was super good and i Got some super good ideas on how to improve this area. so from the sounds of it this area has pretty much stopped mainly i believe becasue of the Elders here. the 3 sets of missionarys before us from what the ward has said really didnt do much. Elder Fryer is a super good guy but all of his companions have been really bad and he has not seen a good example of how to do missionary work so and when he is discouarged forsure. so I have deciced that this transfer i am going to make it my goal to help him get excited about missionary work and try and be a good example of how to do missionary work. I still have so much to learn but I am just going to be super positive and move forward. So this is how i felt on the inside wednesday but on the outside I offically got the flu with all the works so i was basically out of it and pretty miserable until friday. (MOM can you send me more nyquil and DAyQuil!)
Thursday I got out of bed thursday to go teach Giovana and Neia (they are the only two people that we had in our teaching group when i got here...but that has changed :)...more on that later.) anyways they are awesome and we invited giovana to be babtised and she accepted and was babtised sunday... were working with the mom. They were a referrence from their aunt who is couple missionary in sao paulo Interlagos

Friday: was good day we just knocked doors and we found alot of new people all in all a pretty good day and I could see Elder Fryers spirits picking up! i just told him we were going to work hard gain the trust of the members and put our faith in Heavenly father to pick up the rest. so friday and saturday thats what we did and Sunday Heavenly father poored out the Blessing. Giovana was babtised. and I know the spirit had a big effect on her Mom. I got to speak in church (didnt know about it until right before) and after i got 2 references and we taught one of them and hes so good his name is Fabio (there will be more on him in the coming letters) and then Carla whos is 25 just showed up at church and wants us to teach her and is super super awesome! Man I Love Heavenly Father!!!!!

okay I need to go But I want you all to know that I am super Happy, Excited and working my butt off. I know with out a doubt that this is the work of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and that they lead it! I know that when we work with faith Heavenly father does the rest! I Love you all and Hope you are happy and doing well!

sincerly Elder Clements!

Transfers!!

Hello, everybody...Lets begin!

Okay so first up in the news with Elder clements is I am being transfered... some where in Sao Bernado. I will be companions with Elder Fryer. He is american and that about all i know about him right now so you will have to wait for more on him. I am really kinda of bumbed about it. This transfer has been....incredible hard, but incredible rewarding. Elder Freitas is awesome. I know my mom wanted to know a little more about him. Elder frietas is form Rio grande de Norte which is really close to where kyle is at in forteleza. He is the 5 of 6 kids which is a huge family in Brazil. He is the only member in his family. He was babtised when he was 20 and now 3 years later he is almost done with his mission. he has a kinda of dramatic personality which can be really funny and annoying at the same time He doesnt speak very much english but yet know tons of words in english so its been great because i have been forced to learn portuguese and when i dont know a word he usually can help me out. I really am going to miss him. Its funny how you can love a person even when they have things about them that drive you nuts. But i really am so grateful for this last transfer and the thing i have learned. I am so much better at portuguese then when he showed up 6 weeks ago. It is such a miracle to me that i have been able to learn so quickly ... Heavenly fahter has been so good to me.

another reason I am super bumbed is that I will be leaving behind a lot of really good investigators. Our teaching pool had been kind of dying off and we needed to find more people. so the past week and a half we had been working super hard to find the people that were ready. and We found a lot this week. well from thursday on. because I was very sick again wednesday and spent the day in bed and in the bathroom...we Had a interview for one of our investagators that night and so we did a division and after saying a prayer that i would be able to go and return with out being sick we left. not the best time of my life but i made it there and back without being sick once again god is so good to me.

Thusday: it was a great day but started off terrible. I was able to work and not be sick which was such a blessing again. so the day started off with appointments falling... even lunch fell. anyways so after like 3 appointments falling we went to this house which was referal from the elder we live with. this lady lives in part of our area that one i didnt even know was a part of our area until like 3 weeks ago and 2 is forever away from everything else. anyways we went there and guess what.... It fell. QUE BOM É ? ( how sweet..yeah?) so trying not to be discouarged and keep going I saw a street in that area and decided that we should just go see what was there. it just looked like a bunch of factories. so we started to walk there and I said a prayer and said 'Heavenly father... I am working and trying to find the people you want me to teach so please lead the way.` at the end of that street we found a completely brand new neighborhood. the first door we knocked we found a family that was so good. and basically every door we knocked there was nice and we marked time to go back and teach. I cant tell you how happy I was! the rest of the day was good.

the rest of the week was finding people and just watching the miracles unfold around us. We have so many new people that basically everyday this week is already planned. ( And i wont be here.. a little upset about it) sunday we Had only one investgator come to church and after church and some really awesome lessons he said this church really is true isnt it.? He and his wife are going to try and be babtized next week. we also had a random old guy show up to church who told us he left his house to day to put his faith in god and quit smoking. that he was leaving his house a smoker and would not return the same way. He asked us for a blessing at the end of church and it was so awesome. then later that night we were going to an appointment and this man ran after us and asked us to come to his house this week. he said that he was babtized somewhere else and when he moved here stoped but he is ready so come back and wanted our help. Heck yeah. I am so excited for the elders here and so bumbed its not me. but everything happens for a reason.

I know with out a doubt that this church is true and that God answers prayers, I know that God is still doing miracles and I have seen so many this week and I am so Grateful and humbled that God has let me see them and trusted me to be apart of them.I know that Jesus really is our savior and that he lives and can bless our lives so much if we let him.
Thank you for your prayers and support I love you all!!

Elder Clements

MoM, OKay so you asked how i really was doing.... well I am doing okay. Spiritually I am on such a high and never want to come down ;) mentally I am Hanging in there and it a fight everyday. Phyiscally I am fighting everyday. I think that things will improve this next transfer. both elder Frietas and elder soucy said that this area was by far the worst as far as lunch and food went so i think that things should improve. About you and dad moving back together....I couldnt be happier! and I cant really say i am surpirsed I felt like i knew that if I went on amission that you and dad would be blessed and that things could work out. so i guess I have just been working and not really worring about it. I left it up to god ( he the best person to leave it to) I love you and dad very much and want you to work things out. so for me and the rest of the family especailly Arina and lauren give it your all and leave the rest up to god to heal.! please share this with Dad because its for both of you!



Asa, So that lang uage is super good and getting better everyday! I cant tell you how stoked i am to come home and talk with you! A cool story about the temple here in Sao paulo I got two. One the day of the dedication there were tons and tons of protesters and they were there all day. and Elder Godói the area pres here now bought them all food and jucice because they had been there all day and not left and he didnt want them to be hungry...so sick!
the second is the temple here is filled with ( ma hog ony) wood ( ihave no idea how to spell it anymore) anyways this woodsmen had a warehouse filled with this wood and he had tried to sell it for like 8 or ten years before the temple was built and could not sell it. so when the church was starting to bulid they wanted this wood and they found this ware house and baught all of it. idk kinda of a cool story. I love you Asa!!