Monday, September 27, 2010

We are still taking cold showers and we think our attic is infested with rats, and our electricity is messed up.

Date: Sept. 27, 2010
Area: Arapiraca, Alagoas
Companion: Elder Thomas
From Herriman, Utah

Hey family!!!! How are you??? This week was good. I´ve been doing a lot of divisions because Elder Thomas Is District Leader. So yeah that was cool.


So Julie and Joe are getting baptized!!! Joga na agua!!! Batiza PÔ!!! That’s cool!!! I never realized how important baptism is until the mish. It’s so crazy how many scriptures and stuff there is about baptism. That’s really good.... they’ll both have such a fresh start!!!

   We’ll baptize a 23 year old guy named Refeal on Saturday... Which is good cuz we’re really trying to find men, we have to focus on men over 18 cuz their hard to baptize He’s already thinking about a mission. He’s firmey.

But yeah not a lot happened this week... we played basketball today for p-day. It was way fun I bought some sweet cow skin sandals with fur and stuff. Their hecka ugly but their sick!!! they were cheap too.
 But other than that we´re just teaching and chillin´


Hecka Ugly shoes

We are marking a ton of baptisms but people keep falling, nobody will wake up and go to church.

I´m praying for President Mickelson... I got a letter from the stake presidency, it was nice. I hope he starts doing better what kind of cancer does he have?

I wrote grandma this week... Tell her thanks for everything! I’ll write my other grandparents this week. but yeah I don´t know about grandma´s book... I don´t think we have it.

When I get your package I´ll try and download your pics and letters, if not I´ll load the pics onto my sd card and develop them. I hope that jerky stays good... I´m excited.  I don´t need cd´s anymore. I got a bunch of music from an Elder in my district so I´m all good.

How´s school going??? Thats good brians working a lot,  Is he going on dates with anyone? Tell him to take advantage of it before the mish... lol Na zinca! Thats awesome alec got homecoming king. I bet he was SO happy:)

Did dad enjoy the concert? Did he feel young again or old and worn out? ( Brad and Lane went to KISS last week)

Well I don´t have any cool or interesting stories this week, so sorry if this week kinda sucks.

We´re just making pancakes, playing nerf ball, studying, baptizing the people of brazil, dodging snakeys(Girls) making pizza (the pizza here has no sauce) and thats about it. We are still taking cold showers and we think our attic is infested with rats, and our electricity is messed up. maybe evan can fix it? :D

All of the cool kids are leaving on missions so the ward is gonna suck after this week, these kids are so funny! the English that they´ve picked up from the Elders is so funny and random!!
Is ryan in the field yet?

Oh yeah so Friday we´re going to the assembly of God, a church that hates us, we made a deal that if a guy goes to our church, we´d go to his, so yeah thats gonna be quite the experience. I really can´t stand this church. it´s a joke we can hear them yelling stuff about us. a lot of the churches here are just straight up apostasia. so we´ll definately get some stink eyes there, but I hope everyone is doing good. I´m surving here. my stomach is better. I hope it stays that way.

One of these weeks we´re going fishing.  I´m stoked. We´ll use bamboo poles and everything, its just far away.

So yeah keep sending pics and stuff, it keeps me going...
Love you guys! Be safe!!!

Elder Ludlow


I found some pictures on a Sister Missionary's blog. They were at a district meeting.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Evan Fixes the water well

Date: Sept. 20, 2010
Area: Arapiraca, Alagoas
Companion: Elder Thomas
From Herriman, Utah

9/18/10
Hey family!!! How´s it going? I hope good!!
   Dad that´s an awesome hunting story. That sucks that you didn´t find him. but I'm glad you had a good time. I really really want to go hunting. You should send me a calendar with some big bucks and bulls to hang in my study room, You need to get some good spots to hunt so that I can take a monster when I get back.

    I´ll make 4 months soon, To be totally honest it feels like I´ve been gone way longer than that, but 1/6 of my mission is already passed that's nuts!!!! its going fast but slow... hard to explain.


    This week was good. I don't really have a lot to write, We had to get a couple married on Wednesday their names are Bruna and Geovan   




Bruna and Geovan wedding

We had to pay so we´re basically poor for the month. tudo para batizar!!! I might need to take out some money btw, but yeah we re-activated the husband and baptized his wife on Saturday... it was the funniest / craziest day ever... So the church was faulting agua (water) and we were trying to get the pump working to pump in water from the well, but the only person who knows how to work it is this crazy old man named Evan. , I´ll describe Evan later... We´re trying to get a hold of him but he´s out of town so us and the Elders Quorum President are there trying to figure out what is wrong with the pump, it turns out that someone broke off the lock and tried to rob it, but all they did was break it, then Evan shows up with his wild, untamed hair, camo shirt that says "youth in zion" and his baggy denim shorts. He starts yelling at us and calling us names and stuff, and gets down there and rigs the wires all up with masking tape and we think it´s fixed. so we wait about an hour and a half for the well to fill up but it´s still not pumping water into the church... this is where it gets hilarious... Evan realizes that one pipe still isn´t connected., and its somewhere in the fifteen feet of water in the depths of the well, so he grabs this old wooden ladder and puts it into the well, then he takes off his shirt...... then he starts to loosen his belt...... the next thing I know he´s standing there in nothing but his tight, mesh g´s!! in broad daylight. So he climbs down into the well and is outta sight we hear nothing for a few seconds then we hear him come up gurgling and gasping for air. we see him... he has a pipe in his hand and a wire in his teeth, so he comes up, drenched, looking like a drowned rat, and tells us that he got shocked!!! I was laughing SO hard.... I wish you guys could have been there, so he rigged it all up and got it running. But we only had one hour till the baptism so we had to fill the font with buckets. We got all of the young men to help, it was funny but we got it done, the water was filthy but we got to baptize!!! So that's my cool baptism story... pretty cool lol.... we have a few baptisms marked but only one is firmesa. It´ll be in between sessions at conference.

broken water well

















Filling the baptismal font

Bruna's Baptism











   




Today for p-day we just cleaned up the house a bit, played a game of 1 on 1 on the nerf hoop and I lost so now I owe Thomas some flip flops. Then we went and developed pics in the center.

    We´re working really hard but We aren´t really finding firm people, if people don´t keep commitments, we drop them and nobody likes to go to church so yeah... but we will get a lot of references from members this week and those usually turn out good, so We´ll try and mark a lot this week.


    Elder Thomas is a good comp. its cool to have a companion from the 801 but it sucks We´ll probably get separated this transfer, so just 3 weeks till I´m with a Brazzie and speakin nothing but Portuguese!
I did a few divisions this week, taught a lot, not much more to say. ha ha

    Mom, I´m feeling better. I´m healthy and strong and getting fat so don´t worry. I´m Safe! I was just sick for a week. I'll send you a pic of my throw up, ha,ha!

8/20/10
Sick boy - So happy that he's feeling better!




I´m way happy for Elder Hooke!
(He finally got his visa and is heading to Brazil on Wed.)

Ky sounds good.. ha ha i´m NOT surprised about the jeep thing lol typical Kylee. .

    I'll make a video tour of my house for you guys and send it on a disk how´s that? I just don´t have a ton of time to get this package together... But I'm workin in it :)

     You guys should send me some hunting mags... I´m feelin depressed without those memorable trips with dad. lol
Did you send a package? if not slap a pic of mother mary on it and it's more safe...
        The old guy I'm standing with is Evan... he´s a crazy guy


Evan, the man who fixed the well for the baptism


Next week send me some pics with the email.
I love you all!
It's fun here. and I´m doing great here. Just working a lot and eating even more. I´m working out a lot trying to get big and strong!!! but all the crap these people feed me are making it hard lol.


9/20/10
This picture was taken today


Well I love you guys!
I´m still working on your package.
Love ya!!!
Elder Ludlow

Monday, September 13, 2010

Oi

Date: Sept. 13. 2010
Area: Arapiraca
Companion: Elder Thomas
From Herriman, Utah
Hey guys,
It was nice to get emails from everyone, sounds like everyone is doing good.  I hope all of my buddies will get out on the mission asap, it sounds like a lot of people will be going soon. Do you know if Ryan is in the field yet? if so I'm going to email him.

Brian´s looking good rockin the mullet! ha ha.

 I'm working on getting a package together to send home to you guys with a disk and some other little stuff. its just hecka expensive.

This week was another crappyish one. Elder Thomas and I are working SO hard... but we´re not getting anywhere with any investigators, we had nobody at church yesterday, we´re teaching people, marking people´s baptisms but everything is falling. We still have 1 marked for next week. We´re getting them married on Wed. and baptising the wife next week. This week we worked really hard, taught a bunch of lessons.

Right now I'm on a division with some Elders in another area. Elder Thomas is in Maceio because he has a meeting tomorrow, so I stayed here last night and I´ll sleep in this area tonight then tomorrow morning I´ll go back to my area and do a division with a kid from my ward.

How´s the hunt going? when I was in Macieo at the start of my mission I stayed with an Elder from Randolph, he´s sick,  he showed me some pics of some huge elk and antelope from that area. Good luck pa you´re lookin fresh with your beard. send me some jerky....lol.

Today we´re just hangin out in the center of Aripiraca, We´ll go fishing later in the transfer.  I´ll write letters today and try and get them sent. I got your packages and some letters, that is what I call pure joy. ha ha the two sources of happiness on the mission: agua aka baptisms and letters.

I started the Book of Mormon in Portuguese this week. I´m gonna try and have it read before Christmas. I´m just really slow in Portuguese, the language is coming good though.


I hope you like the pics, there´s one of a monkey I saw at a members house when we were eating lunch, me pulling water at a well to help a lady with dishes, and some other ones.
8/31/10

9/7/10

So Matt´s getting married eh? that's good, tell him to send me an announcement. I´ll have to write that kid.

I´m doing good here in Brasil, Elder Thomas is a great guy and we´re having a blast... eating pancakes and playing nerf basketball every night, he gave me a tattoo of my street name, Caico, last week. I´ll send a pic. tell Brian Brazil has so many perfect skate spots. and in my area there´s a HUGE half pipe. I´ll take a pic.

Caico = Ice cream, my nickname


Well family... I love you all, be safe and have fun!
Elder Ludlow


8/31/10


Monday, September 6, 2010

joga na agua!

Date: Sept. 6, 2010
Area: Arapiraca, Alagoas
Companion: Elder Thomas
From Herriman, Utah


Hey guys!!! how is it???? I'm still here with Elder Thomas in Brasilia... I´m really glad, my next companion will for sure be Brasilian so I'm glad to be able to speak English for a few more weeks.
    I hope you guys got a deer or elk.... man I wish I was there with you guys.
    Send pics of the mullet!!! that's sick!!!! next week upload a bunch of pics with your email.
This week was kind of rough. ha ha we worked so hard, and everyone is falling!!! We´re having to drop a lot of people and its pretty frustrating... I just wanna get in the agua!!!!!! people just aren´t keeping the commitments.
   Today for p-day we went to another area and had a picnic, it was pretty fun, either next week or the week after We´re going fishing. I´m pretty stoked for that, and this month were gonna go to that big Christ statue.
I really like p-day, it´s nice to take a break and let my mind stop worrying about all of our investigators. we probably wont baptize again until the 18th.
   I still haven´t gotten your packages, it probably wont be for a while... that's the problem with being in an interior and not in Maceio, we never get letters and stuff.... (President Beynon has to deliver them)
   I'm trying to think of any cool stories or anything that happened this week... on Thursday, my comp had to go do a baptismal interview cause he´s D.L. and we left at like 9:30... on the way home we got lost and we finally asked this guy and he said we walked 2 kilometers too far... then we had to walk forever down this dark, sketchy road and my shoes and pants got hecka muddy. We didn´t end up getting home till 11:15. we walked like 5 or 6 miles instead of 2. so that sucked ha ha
  If you send a package tell dad to make jerky.
   How's school going? hows Josh Pugh? Is he still crazy or is he hecka different?
I emailed Isaac a while ago, he knew my comp too back in high school, I guess they had a class together.
    So about Brasil, people are crazy here, all of the old guys sit around and drink, playing dominoes lol.
Every Saturday night is party night, which means that you blast music and chill in your porch and drink.
The girls are really snakey, as soon as they see two huge white kids they start yelling dirty things at us. I´m a prime target cause I have blonde hair. I get called gallego(spelling) all the time. or they call me German. I had a girl ask me to teach her the language of English this week.... the only thing is I didn´t know that the word for language and tongue are the same in Portuguese. I was wondering why she was laughing... lol. but its all good. it makes it easier to baptize!!!! lol.
So Brasil.... I explained the food last week, the churros here are way better than the Mexican style back home, also they have these things called coxinhas that my comp is addicted to. I'm trying to eat more fruit and stuff, most fruit is so good and cheap here. but the oranges suck here.
   Nobody here can say my name... they call me Loody Low or random things like that, the rapazes in the ward call me Caico, which is this ice cream here, lol dont ask me why?
   I went on a division with a Brasilian named E. Morais this week, that was fun.
My Portuguese is coming along decent. I can understand most everything depending on if the person talking has teeth or not, there´s this dude in the ward I swear he speaks Arabic or some other weird language cause I can't understand a word he says.
   were working with a family that were feeling really good about, hopefully We´ll mark their baptism this week, I have a goal to baptize a family that will go to the temple.
   When is Micah gonna leave? I think Seth and McKay are going in October, hopefully they can go together. Also Cody should be leaving soon shouldn´t he? I hope that kid comes to Brasil! that´d be sick!
   Tell Bri I want mullet pix next week, He needs to add some steps on the side or carve in a design! lol (mom is saying "don't encourage him!" I can see it now) :)
   Well I really don't have much more to say... everything is the same here... still making a ton of pancakes ha ha
   Well I love you all! Be safe and have fun!
Tell Dad good luck
BATIZADOR LUDLOW