September 17, 2012

I. LOVE. You. All of you. You're awesome. Seriously, you're all like that one time that slavery was abolished in the States. Best thing EVER.

So! I don't even have a clue where to start, because I'm in a foreign country, and I don't exactly speak the language yet, mainly. It's so nuts out here in the real world of Brasil!

Okay, so I'm definitely gonna be sending more pictures your way next time, of my new area, Lagarto, but I don't even have any yet, so I'm sending a few of the MTC right quick. There's one of campanheiro number one, Elder Willis and I first day at the CTM, second there's the CTM President Degn and Sister Degn with me, third Elder Willis and I on the basketball court where we spent so many of our CTM days (pulverizing everybody else ;) ) with the rim in the background being one that Elder Anderson from our district TORE down with a nice light dunk, and a photo of our CTM district. 

Alright, I now get more than 30 minutes for EMAILLL! YEAH! FREEdom! And, as it turns out, looks like I won't be getting real-life letters more than once every 1-2 months out in the field, when the mish President visits the missionaries. So EMAIL me! (Letters are really, really awesome, it's just good to remember that I might not get it until the next full moon ;) ...or the one after...)

Last Tuesday, we arrived in Maceió to get our new companions, meet the mission President and his wife, and get broken into the field. Turns out... Maceió is nuts. And I'm not just talking your salted, honey-roasted can of peanuts. I'm talking up the wazoo, trail-mix variety with way too many raisins and almost NO m&ms kinda nuts. It's the poorest large city in Brasil, and it shows. When we stayed there overnight before going to our designated areas, we witnessed a few crazy people outside of the apartment building,  acting like they came straight outta Sodom and Gomorrah. I honestly just laughed from a safe distance because it was so ridiculous. But honestly, when it comes down to it, makes me think how powerful the Gospel is, how it changes lives so dramatically. These people are some of the most receptive to the gospel in the world, yet some of the poorest in the world. SO grateful to be here because of that. Humble people are WAY cooler than the prideful ones!

So, Lagarto is pretty dang sweet! It's a pretty friendly area...but it's crazy, CRAZY. But it's a good crazy! One of the first things I found out when I got to Lagarto is that they really, REALLY like their elections here. Turns out, for the spot of the mayor, they party for 3 MONTS STRAIGHT, EVERY day, until the elections. In fact... they had a rally today near our house for a couple of the mayors, with gigantic speakers mounted on pickup trucks so everyone within a half-mile radius could hear...and it started at 6. Six in the morning. IN THE MORNING!!!! But I'm not upset about it, nope. I'm being optimistic. They're just helping me do my part to serve them by...by... getting up before 6:30 so I'm not lazing about" Yeah, yeah that's it!....

HEY, I love y'all, so much, you have no idea. Everybody tell everybody you know that I love them, alright? Bye!

Até mais,

Elder Daniel Reneer

{Elder Reneer with CTM President Degn and Sister Degn}

{Elder Reneer's CTM District}

{Elder Willis and Elder Reneer}

{Elder Willis and Elder Reneer on the CTM basketball court}

September 11, 2012

Oi! So psyched! So, other than having a bit of a cold today, in traveling (I've been recovering lately), it's been awesome! We got here safely, and the area actually reminds me SO much of Nebraska. Pretty agriculturally oriented (meaning there are cattle in random spots all over town), and it's got the same beautiful green rolling hills, the only difference is more palm trees. It's awesome! Alright, gotta go, only time for a short hello this round, but I shall talk more soon! Buh-bye, and love from Brasil!

September 4, 2012

Oi Family and Friends! Tudo bem?

 

Thanks for the letters from the family this week! I'm gonna try to send a handwritten letter this week in the next day or two, it's been a good little while since I did!

 

This has been a crazy week! I love it though, I wouldn't have it any other way. The excitement to get out into the field is getting more intense every day, everyone's had cabin fever since week two! Unbelieveable that no one has killed eachother yet!

 

First and foremost, one word: PROSELETISMO! Proselyting was this week, and it was a blast! Yesterday was our first time, and it was an extremely rewarding short few hours! They let us out of the CTM gate about 1:30 in the afternoon and unleashed us on the city, my district with our 10 missionaries, and 2 other districts with their 10 missionaries apiece.  SO, all of a sudden, there were 30 dang good lookin' clean-cut North Americans hitting the streets of São Paulo, Books of Mormon in hand. Pretty much anywhere in the States, almost everybody takes evasive action to carefully avoid eye contact and any proximity withthe missionaries, but HERE that's defintiely not the case! What was so cool, is we only got shut down cold once in talking to people and handing out copies of the Book of Mormon. We were given six to hand out, and in an hour, we were done. It was SO amazing to see how we would start talking to people on their way walking somewhere, and they would just stop what they were doing, and listen to you talking about the Book of Mormon, and GLADLY, I repeat, GLADLY and openly accept your offer of the free book, and actually wanted to hear more about it. SO so so so so cool! It was actually really humbling to see how people so warmly and openly listened and asked questions. It was such an awesome time, and I can't wait to get out for more!

 

Also a few of the Elders got a few smooches during the proselyting time. A couple of elders got a friendly kiss on the cheek from an older lady they gave a BoM to, and another, Elder Adams, got pulled in for a boisterous kiss on the cheek from a middle-aged drunk guy. FUNNIEST thing I've seen here yet! I DIED laughing, DIED.

 

So, we've been getting increasingly creative as time has gone on here in the CTM, trying to find things to do. What's really cool, is that Elder Katich from our district has taken it upon himself to wake up the district in the mornings. SO funny, he goes from room to room, very stealthily at 6:30am, from bunk bed to bunk bed, and gently shakes our shoulders to try to wake us up, and a couple times he's even given me a quick fatherly back rub to wake me up. It's actually the coolest thing, because it's almost exactly how momma used to get me up, before I was forced to use an alarm :(

 

We've also had some damages happen this week...Elder Anderson, a BEAST on the basketball court (went D-1 in track instead of basketball), managed to tear the rim completely off the hoop, completely tore it off clean, and had to take the long walk to the CTM President's office to talk to him about it. Turns out, President Degn isn't even mad in the slightest (we're not supposed to dunk here, but...meh, it's all good;) ), let Elder Anderson off with a warning.

 

 

Alright, gotta go, BYEEE! Love y'all!

August 28, 2012

SO good to hear the family is moved out of Nebraska safely, there were probably a million ways that could have gone wrong...it's just nice to hear the worst thing that happened was that Sasha drooled a bit...;) Thanks for the mission ties letter! It was awesome!

So, you should know that from here on out, it's a good idea to send mail to the mission field address now, seeing as it can take a couple weeks to get here. AND speaking of MAIL I got my first non-direct family member letter this week, got it from Benjamin! He's doing pretty well, but he dissed on Brazilians. Well, he didn't really diss on them, so much as he said that they have problems in Orlando with getting banned from staying in their hotels from partying a wee bit too hard. Just a weeeee bit too hard.:)

 

So I finally got a hurcut last week, and now it's wayy short. What's way cool though, is the barber here. The man has a DEEP voice, honestly probably the deepest I've ever personally heard, and he SINGS to you as he cuts his hair (which actually explains some missed spots), and his voice literally MOVES my vocal chords as he sings, it's so intense! The experience is defintely awesome, he's a very nurturing, mother-like guy but...there's not a chance he can compare to your cuts ma;)

 

This last week after we sang the song Prayer of the Children, something awesome happened! Apparently President and Sister Degn loved the a capella so much that they let us record the song and hopefully get it sent home to our families!!! YEAHH! They totally let us break the rules! It's totally how I would picture it if God came down to earth and was like, "Hey, you remember all that business about not bearing false witness and lying and stuff? Yeah, it's cool, don't sweat it anymore. You know those people you really hate and stuff? Just don't sweat making up nasty rumors about them, it's all good! Just start churnin' out the lies!" Ah, not really, but it was still way funny, because Sister Degn made us promise not to tell anyone, so they didn't have to keep making exceptions for people. So let me know if you get the video!

 

A new batch of North American missionaries came in this last week, and the bunch of them are pretty cool. One Elder is from Alpine, and I just sent a letter to Benjamin (Elder Reneer the Elder) saying that he knows him, he goes by the name Elder Skousa. Says Benjamin is super-smart and way cool. No lie! Pretty cool to actually have a connection like that with one of the Elders! Also, there's this new elder, Elder Sheppard, and he's a brother from just outside of Orlando. He's pretty legit, and we had a bit of a beatboxing jam. But it STUNK. I was mad, because he started it, and he was like, "Alright, just lay down something simple." And I was like, "Alright, sure thing, probably just lay down the Fresh Prince of Bel Air beat, and have one of my district-mates do the rap, just something basic." And so I did, and it was alright. And then Elder Sheppard turned afterwards to another elder in the room and was like, "Hey man, you should lay down a beat, you know just something easy or something. Yeah, come on man, it's easy, you can do it!" And then he turned to me and was like, "He's about where you are with beatboxing, he's alright." Then in my mind I was like........uh-uh. Nuh-uh. No. Uh-uh. He don't know me. He don't know what I can do. Best believe this isn't over. Honestly though, the elder is WAY cool, but I was just thinking to myself... No.

 

Life is good, can't complain! I love things here, I love all the time I get to study, read scriptures, pray, meet tons of people, there's just nothing like it in the world. Love you guys! Tchau!

 

OH and um................yeah I think that's all.......Bye!

August 14, 2012

{Elders at the Campinas temple}

I'mma try to write this as fast as possible, because time is always slim, and pday is super super short today, and I've got a LOT this time to talk about! :)

First and foremost, the mission ties letter you sent me today (Tuesday) arrived saying it had some pictures, and to enjoy them....'cept there were no pitchas! So you know, I sent a few pictures via mission ties your way, i got a couple sweeet pictures of São Paulo, from the view in my bedroom, hope you like what you see! The other picture is of my two first Portuguese-speaking roommates, Elder Santos from Cape Verde, Africa, the other from São Paulo, Elder Fontes. Such good guys! Put those pictures on facebook!

Thanks for the letter, ma, it's good to hear things are moving along (if extremely stressfully!), keep going! Love y'all so much! Good luck getting into the new house:) Also, THANK YOU for the airport picture of us siblings, I've been wanting a good picture of my family to show people, because the Brazilian elders especially ask to see family pictures a lot. Part of it's because they're thinking way ahead, seeing which elders have good-looking sisters they can marry when they get back and go to America :)

So! Turns out a lot can happen in a week! This week, I witnessed for the first time an elder getting his break-up letter, the big "Dear John," as we know it. I wouldn't even talk about it, except the poor fellow had only been in the MTC for two weeks when he got it. So, it also turns out that mail takes 1-2 weeks to get down here, which also means that she wrote it...days after he'd left. Dang! Women...sheesh :)

But on the upside, things are staying pretty dang trippin' here! Got some new Brazilian roomies, and they're both pretty legit! I also, this last week, shined my SHOES for the first time, ON MY OWWWWWN! Yeah buddy! They looked soooo good! I will admit that I had a legitimately cocky strut after that. I ALSO sewed my first button! YEAAAHHHH! Not gonna lie, it feels good to be independent. ;)

In a week's time, the 4-part choir is getting together again for another AWESOME song, and it's sooo beautiful. The song is called, "The Prayer of the Children." It was written, basically, about the starving, enslaved children in various parts of Africa, and it's easily the most powerful song I've heard. Look it up! You'll love it. The thing is, I personally think our version is more beautiful! I nearly cried the first time we sang it, I won't lie! :)

Also...my district is completely crazy. Absolutely crazy. This week one of the departing sisters dropped her notebook off in our district's room so we could write stuff in it, like a yearbook, and write adorable little notes like HAGS (have a great summer) and such. I wrote a decently nice note to send her off, and of course...someone in the district went all middle school on me, conned me into using my pen to, "write her a note," and managed to slide a love poem, IN MY HANDWRITING, right below my note as a P.S. Yeah, classy. SOOO she wrote a poem BACK the next day (yesterday). I tried to convince her the note wasn't me, to limited avail. Well, she's gone now, so it's irrelevent now, so all's well that ends well. :)

Alright, gotta fly, love y'all like crazy!

Elder Reneer

August 7, 2012

LOVE y'all! But not in a creepy way...you know...like a Bella and Edward sort of way. You know!

 

Definitely love hearing stories from you all:) Meghan's got some good ones, ma, you got some mad competition:)

P.s...uhhh so did the family get my letter I sent via Mission Ties? I'm wondering if my carefully crafted concoction of a letter made it to you! Also, I can't print off emails................... they don't have any printers..........

 

So this last week has been pretty cool. It's been CRAZY, for several reasons, good or bad may they be. Firstly I want to say that I've decided I've got to start working harder than I have been. You know, all that leftover procrastination business from school isn't going to do me any good. SO, for my spiritual and Portuguese-eal enhancement, I've started transcribing Jesus the Christ from Portuguese to English. SOOOO slow, and pretty difficult, but it's also helping an unBELIEVEable amount. I've been working on it for about a week now, and I've learned about 100 new words pretty well from it, no problem. After a week of bouts of translation, I am now almost to PAGE FOURRRR! Boo yeah!

 

This week has been pretty hardcore. Our district has started the slow but sure downhill slippery slope to MTC insanity, and we've only just completed four full weeks, things are starting to get crazy in our classroom, on a daily basis! One of the many games/time-passers that has come to be, we call, "The Number Game." There are ten Elders in our district. When we play, each Elder takes a turn, and writes a number down on a sheet of paper, numbers 1-45. Everyone in the district has to try to guess the number. What happens if someone gets their number guessed? Hold the phones, put the clicker down, and keep a good grip on your horses, ladies and gents, for the main event is here! It's a death sentence, that's what it is. Not literally, but it's as close as it gets to a death sentence in the CTM. If your number gets guessed, the following day is the reckoning, meaning during mealtime in the cafeteria, some of the Elders in the district will go around between the different foods, and pick out various substances and liquids and things and everything that will be carefully calculated to make you vomit, and throw the ingredients into a cup, before being mixed together. The unlucky Elder(s) get to drink the WHOLE cup, to each guessed Elder, his own cup. At this point, everyone has managed to wolf their cups down, all except one particular Elder Ralph in our district, who's the next target. I'm honestly not too proud of the antics, but I am proud that I downed my salty puke-like substance with only one gag. Take that, Satan.

 

Try not to think about that last one too much, ma and pa. On the upside, I'll be baptizing BOTH my instructor-investigators this week. SO glad that that's moving along, and it feels good to be one of the very select few in my district that the instructors actually like. Alright, I'm getting dirty looks from the computer sentinels for going over my time, talk at y'all later!

 

(p.s. send me lettters through Mission ties so I can read them and only worry about writing when i email! bye! :) )

July 31, 2012

Hey Family and Dear Friends!

 

I'm STILL loving Brasil! Don't miss you at all...there're plenty of people here to help me forget y'all;)

Life is going smoothly at the CTM, and I'm feeling more and more at home all the time! It's way fun, because there are still ways to get further involved in CTM (centro de trenamento os missionarios) even though here, they have every hour of your 16-hour day planned out for you. My favorite is when all these missionaries are whining about being tired all the time...and I have to have SO much discipline not to say anything...because our days consist mostly of sitting in a classroom all day, studying. Sound physically exhausting? Hah, child's play. I'm a farm hand from Nebraska. Suckers don't know a thang here:)

 

So, as I was saying about getting to be involved, I meant mostly about getting to do a men's choir last Tuesday night for our devotional. It was SWEET! I got to sing with a bunch of Elders who had been involved previously with various music major business and stuff, so guys who KNEW what they were doing. There were 14 of us, a four-voice setup, and we sang "Ye Elders of Israel" for the CTM crowd. It was the coolest singing experience EVER! We must have done a little tooooo good, because the day after, at lunch, a table full of sister missionaries turned to us and started a compliment tirade. In my head I was like, "LOCK your hearts, Sisters, you're on the Lord's errand, not some silly dream mission to chase after missionaries who know their way around a choir!" But I had to be polite and all that boring stuff, and just be like, "Yeah it was pretty cool I guess. I've never really done a choir like that before, so it was a way fun thing to do." Psh.

 

So I'm loving the Brasilian crowd here, and it turns out it's not that hard to gain their copious friendship as long as you're real and down to earth with them. I've met TONS of awesome guys here, a ton on my floor, and almost every night we get Brasilians flooding the room to take pictures with the roomies and me. Also, it turns out the movie American Pie is pretty dang well-known among the young crowd here, which is semi-unfortunate for me, because apparently almost ALL the Brasilian Elders think I look like the guy Stiffler from the movie, so naturally ALL of the Brasilian Elders call me Stiffler. Eatin' lunch? *from across the lunchroom* "Eyyyyyyy Stiffler!" (in heavy Brasilian accents). Playin' basketball in the gym... "EYYYY Stiffler!" Goin to the bathroom to brush my teeth for the night...."Elder Stiiiiiiiiffler! Oi!" They love it :) They also LOVE that I can beatbox... so every few nights they carry me off to one of the dorm rooms to have a jam session with one of the Brasilians that brought his guitar, and an African Elder who knows how to throw down a rapping storm. Pretty dang legit!

 

So, one more story before I sign off. Today was temple trip day! So we got to do a session for an hour or so. I slept about 7 hours last night, so I wasn't entirely alert and sharp this morning, so I went ahead and offered up a prayer or two to stay awake, so as to show proper respect for the temple work. It was a pretty honest heartfelt prayer, but I didn't realize just how many ways the Lord has. about 5 minutes after my wee prayer to stay awake, sitting in quiet reverence, getting less and less sharp...my nose ERUPTED. Just on my white temple tie, though, of course. I was LUCKY, because it didn't mess with my shirt, just the tie (which isn't mine, HAH!), and I got a tissue with good timing. It was perfect, because I was just freaked out enough to stay completely awake for the rest of the temple session, which I knew previously that my chances of standing up to the forces of sleep were frail. So it turns out the Lord has a sense of humor, eh? ;)

 

Love y'all, stay classy:)

July 24, 2012

{Daniel's arrival at the Brazil MTC, July 11, 2012}

You guys are crazy! Love that you've been writing so much! I feel like I haven't been writing you back enough at all! So I guess I should tell you my email rules...turns out I only get 30 minutes a week to email! And while I'm in the MTC, it's only for family. SO, as you can imagine...5 emails from you guys take up a lot of that time to write you back:/ Letters get here in about a week, but they take longer to get there! So I'll be writing you handwritten letters more often in response to the questions I can't make back to you in emails. I can make them more personal anyways :) In fact, I'm sending a huge letter home that I wrote most of the stuff I already wanted to say today. ALSO I can't even send pictures back home via email. Meh. So if you want to sign up for that Mission Ties email service, it would actually be way more efficient.

So the day after I mentioned the Hepatitis shots business...they pulled me outta class and basically told me I had to get both shots. You could imagine how futile my asking them how necessary the vaccinations was since I know NOTHING about them...haha so they took me and a group of about 10 Brazilian Elders to get the other two shots. We walked a mile or two, and hopped on a bus to a metro station. I thought we were stopping to take a potty break when we got in line at a little brick hut in the middle of the station with people walking every direction...but turns out they like to kill a couple birds with one stone, and right after you take care of business in the bathroom, you can walk out the door, into the neighboring one, and get vaccinated for STDs. Ghetto? Yeah, -ish. Do they run a clean-ish operation? You bet!

Also, turns out Caitlin's iPod is a bit of an eloper! That little thang ran away with me to Brasil in my carry-on, and I totally forgot to mention it in last week's email! Pretty hilarious actually. I think I'll sell it for tie money;) Just let me know what to do with it! I might end up having to wait til I'm in the mission field to send it back, not sure though!

In some good news though, I finally got one of the intructors role-playing as an investigator to be baptized! Taught her three lessons now, all in Portuguese! My poor companhiero Elder Willis is struggling to speak Portuguese, so he's mosly silent during the lessons. Yikes.

I have met some seriously AWESOME people here though. There have been guys here that the moment I met them, their persona and the Spirit have confirmed right off the bat that they're good guys. It's amazing to be around people who want to be here, are supposed to be here, and have worked hard to be here through major sacrifices. It's humbling. I can't imagine how hard it would be to be here if I WASN'T ready. Pretty sure I'd want to go home!

I'm outta email time, so I must bid you adieu! Love you guys, write you soon!