Tuesday, December 27, 2011

26 de dezembro de 2011 (último e-mail do ano!)

hey everyone! i feel like i just talked to you all! oh wait, i did! HA HA HA (happy macie (; )
so how is everything going? how was everyones Natal? it was just starting when i talked to you! and mine was just ending. it is so weird that there is a 6 hour difference between us! so everyone needs to write me and tell me what they got!
i got a lot of candy and i can~t wait to eat it alll! we were going to go fishing today, but it rained so that didn~t happen... good wether fishers i guess! but only when we are fishing for REAL fish! so my new companion is Elder Petersen. he is really neat and is a great missionary! the funny thing is that we have the exact same time on the mission! we both started on the 3 or august. he was born in utah, but when he was about 1 and a half him and his family move to brazil. and they lived here till he was about 15. so to say the least he knows how to speak portuguese pretty good! so this is why i didn~t see him in the CTM because he only stayed there for 3 weeks. but we are getting along really well! i am still trying to improve everyday with portuguese and being the best missionary possible. i think i need to learn to not be embarrassed about my language skills... but it is hard. i really want to be able to talk perfectly but i need to have patients, and i have to make a few mistakes to get there. just like sports i guess!
so this morning we did a deep clean of our house! it took us about 2 and a half hours and in total we killed (murdered) 4 cockroaches, 6 spiders, and some weird centipide looking thing that my companion said was pretty dangerous. so our morning was pretty eventful! haha! but mom you would be so proud of how the house looks now! haha! the problem is that other missionaries think that they will only be there for a little and that it is not that important to clean the house, but when the floor is not mopped for more that 7 months it gets pretty bad... so the house is looking great, the floor is back to the normal color and we call feel the nice clean air!
so it is about time to get back to work, we haven~t done anything for like 2 days now with christmas and now p-day. but hey its all good!
it was pretty neat in church on sunday, we got to give a talk, we blessed the sacrament, and we helped sing in the chior (don~t know how to spell) coral in portuguese!
thank you for the emails Adria! ( so you know that i am getting them!)
christmas here was a little weird to be honest, it is so different! it was hot, away from home, fireworks, just different! hehe! but we got an email this week saying that on the 31 we have to be in the house at 5 o'clock for safety, i guess it gets pretty crazy here on new years! haha!
I LOVE YOU ALL! and have a happy new year! the next time i write to you it will be 2012! so crazy! (i wonder what it will be like here on 12-12-12)
ok have a great week!
Elder Knudson

19 de dezember de 2011

hey everyone!
another week has past and one more week till i will be talking with you! i am pretty excited about it! this lask week was a pretty good week! i am starting to feel more comfortable teaching the people and talking with them. i still have difficulties understanding everything sometime, i have to focus a lot! which is hard after lunch and it is hot and you are fighting to not fall asleep! hehe! we didn~t have any of our investigators at church again this week... we are having a really hard time with that, so far in this transfer we have had a total of 4 investigators at the church... not a good number... but we need to work more with the members to have them have friends that are at the church too. it is a little more difficult becasue hardly anyone has a car and they have to pay to use the bus, but i think that hardest part is that it is christmas season and everyone is busy with other things. i~ll let you know how it all goes and how we are trying to cope with all the challenges.
this morning was pretty cool, i don~t know why but i just had this feeling when i was talking with elder vasconcelos that the lord has something big in store for me here in brasil. but i also feel like that will come with a better mastery of the language. i want to bad to be able to help all of these people learn and recieve the blessings of the gospel. Mosiah 28:3, i am definatiely starting to feel that very stongly. and i get the most frustrated when i cant help someone because i dont know very much of the language, but i am ttrying to be patient. it is amazing the strength that we can get throught the scriptures! every time i am feeling that i cant go any further i read the Book of Mormon and i feel so much better about everything, i feel rejuvinated and i know that i can go a little bit further. our mission president said something pretty cool, he said that the lord can only guide our feet it they are moving. we have to put in our part first before the lord can do anything! my testimiony is growing so much, i dont know how to describe how i feel about the church and everything that happens, but i am learning more aobut myself and about my savior every day! i know that this is the only true church on the earth today and that we have live with our heavenly father again!
so the big news for the week! my companion was got a call last night and is being transfered tomorrow... oh boy! normally it would only be next week but there are missionaries going home this week so it is an emergency transfer. but he also got called to be a zone leader. we~ll find out tomorrow where he will go and who will be my new companion! i am pretty nervous about it all but i think everything will be fine. and i will try not to get us lost! that is the main thing that i worry about... for example, we were talking with someone and i wrote down his adress, and i wrote "estado por" and when i told elder vasconcelos that he didn~t know where it was but then he thought for a little and he said "estrado do porta?" yup, that was it... hehe! names of streets are this hardest to learn. imagine a maze, and then give a name to every turn, thats about how it is here! crazy... but oh well! hehe!
i love you all! ill talk to you soon!
merry Christmas! or Feliz Natal!
Elder Knudson

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Week 19, 12 de dezember de 2011

hey família!
mais uma semana veio e foi! this week was pretty cool but also pretty crazy! but first! PARABÉNS MACIE!! it is really weird being gone for everyones birthdays! so macie you will have to tell me how was your bday! do you feel old yet?
so this last week started out pretty rough, it was very hard to find people at their house. and on quinta-feira(i cant think of the day in english...) we had a meet at the mission office for new missionaries, and it takes about 2 hours to get there. we have to take a bus, then the train, then another bus to get there. the meeting was way cool! we learned a lot about the importance of planning. and i say the last elder that we were waiting for to come here, elder lloyd got his visa! woo hoo! so now we have all of the missionaries here that are coming to this misision! i dont know about elder curtis or elder combs but i hope they have gotten theirs also! ok, so to finish my story about the meeting, after it finished i asked if there were any packages for me, and it turned out that i had 3!!!!!!! i wasnt expecting to have more than one at the office right now! and i also had 4 letters!!! make sure you tell the arandas thank you for me!!!!! i got a package and a letter from them too! i was pretty happy about that! but i felt pretty good leaving the office because i was carrying 3 packages and i had 4 letters! (pretty much the best day every for a missionary) ok now the crazzy part, it started to rain... and we had to take the train... and when it rains here EVERYONE takes the train... so we arrived at the station at 5:15 and there was NO way we were going to get on the train with 3 packages and 2 new fans (elder vasconcelos was carrying them). so you know those comercials about the people on black friday? when the people rip the doors to the stoor open and FIGHT to get in? yeah... that is more calm than how the train station was! hehe! and the hour that we FINALLY got on the train was 8:45. it was a pretty crazy day. we didn~t get to the house until 10 oclock! BUT on friday we taught 8 lessons and on satuday we taught 9! the lord really blessed us this week! and we finished the week with 20 new investigators and we taught 32 lessons this week in total! so cool! and friday night when we were planning, i had a thought that we should study ch 5 of Preach My Gospel where it talks about how the book of mormon answers the questions of the soul, and we study about "why the lord lets suffering happen" and on saturday we were teach a woman and she asked that EXACT question! i almost fell out of the chair when i realized what had happened! the spirit is so amazing! we need to seek the promptings of the spirit!
we are having a hard time still with investigators in sacrament meeting, yesterday we had only one, but we are doing all we can.

so how are things going back home? i am going crazy to open my packages! all three, Adria's, Aranda's, and yours! hehe! i~m pretty excited, but it is really weird to be away from home during the holiday season... i am really missing everyone, it is pretty hard sometimes, but it is a lot easier when we are working so hard to help other people!

so scripture for this week is the book of Jonas in the bible, we had a lesson on it in elders quorum, he related it to home teaching and asked "are we fleeing our responsibility to help those we are supposed to visit" but it can be applied to many things, what things are we fleeing that we need to be doing?
i love you all! happy birthday macie! have a great week!
Elder Knudson

Week 18, 5 de dezembro de 2011

hello again family!
it is true, the weeks and the days are truely blurning, running, and mushing together! and it is hard to pull the details from yesterday, let alone last week! hehe! this week was difficult for us, we were hit with a little bit of laziness after wed, when it was around 38 degrees celcius. and it made everything very rushed! but we managed to pull out and we have made plans to stay strong and attain our goals for the week!
i am really beginning to have a hard time with english! i really have to think about the words sometimes! so i'm sure that there will be a few words in portuguese! but while i am doing so much better with the language, i still get frustrated sometimes. i really cant express myself well at all, and this is something i want to do. but the cool thing is how the Lord shows us that everything is ok, yesterday was stake conference and one of the members of our ward came up to me and told me that a different member, that was in one of our lessons, said that i teach very good and very clearly. i didnt really believe her but it made me feel a lot better and was definately a blessing! today we have a zone activity and President Pinho came to it, it was way cool! we played a little soccer and basketball and then he played volleyball with us! we played americans against brazilians, americans won! hehe! but it was great! we had a bbq also! way good! one thing i will look for when i come home, guaraná! if you can find it there, try it! it is great! we have it like everyday here!
dads experience sunday is way cool! and it is way more satisfying when we act on the promptings we get! it is funny that you compared it to inviting people to be baptized! and it truely is nerve wracking! but it feels SO GOOD when they say YES! and if you see him at work during the week, ask him how he felt during church and help him recognize the spirit that he felt at church. the feelings that we have there are so hard to describe and if you dont know how to recognize them, then they are impossible to act on! and that is why it is so important for us members of the church to help our friends and co-workers with these feelings! we have such a great opportunity to help so many people to understand more about the turth!
during the conference yesterday an area 70 was there, and he said something that i like so much and i think it mom should use it in seminary to help the kids live the standards. he said: IT IS BETTER TO BE WORTHY THAN LOVED!! when he said that it hit me so hard and i have to share it. it is so true and we have to be examples to the ones we are around, because if we, the members of the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints, dont show a good example to the world then we are leaving room for the enemy of all righteousness to work with the hearts of those we could have influenced for good. my companion has a phrase that he says a lot, "the devil works 25 hours a day". and it is true. we have to do all we can to help everyone come unto Christ! we HAVE to be good examples!
and Elder Varly, i think i know him! if he is the elder i think he is, he has the same time in the mission that i have and i we spent time in the MTC together! he is really cool! and that will be way exciting if he lives so close! we will definately get together and talk after the mission!
Daniel is going to be BAPTIZED! that is the favorite word for missionaries! hehe! daniel you will have to tell me all about it ok? it will be amazing! and you will remember how you feel when you are baptized for the rest of your live! i love you! dont forget to read your scriptures ok?
i dont know how calling home will work yet but i will do my best to find out for you!!!!!!! i am way excited! but be prepared because i will have a hard time speaking english at first! hehe! the other day i forgot the word for "devolope" like develope photos, here it is "revelar" and i spent almost 2 days thinking of it, and finally i just looked it up in my dictionary because if was bugging me.
p-day is so great, a lot of the time is spent resting! because during the week is so SO rushed! no there are no bikes here, if we did they would get robbed so fast and honestly it isnt very safe either. and with all the hills we would be walking them a lot of the time anyway! hehe! just walking and the bus! on p-day we buy food for the week, i dont have to much food of substance in the house, mostly snacks because we eat lunch with the members and when we get home at 9 o clock all i want to do after planning is crash! so i eat something small and go to bed! hehe!
when we do laundry we have to hang it outside, we dont have a dryer. it is a little tricky sometimes with all of the rain! and yes, i get pretty soaked a lot of the time! but thats ok!
i love you all so much and i think about you a lot! always remember CPR: Church, Prayer, Read the scriptures! 3 things that will NEVER lead you astray!
love
Elder Knudson

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Week 17, November 28, 2011

hey família!
sounds like you guys had a pretty busy week last week! and i am pretty jealous of all the food! but i guess ill have to wait on that one! hehe! this week was pretty busy! like every week! but the work is starting to get easier, well not easier, but im getting used to it! this week we taught a lot of people! we teach around 32 lessons a week and walk a ton! this week we had a amazing experience! we talked with a woman on the street and she said we could visit her later on in the week, but when we went there she wasn~t home... but her neihbor was! :D and she is amazing! the lord truely prepared her for us! and on the second visit (the first was us talking in the doorway) she accepted a baptismal date! we are preparing her for the 24 of dec! we are working on making december a "natal branco" hehe! i~m working on making up for the lack of snow with people dressed in white! right now we have 6 people to be baptized in december but we will be talking with someone tomorrow that we will mark for the 17 or 24 too! and maybe more! the lord is truely preparing the people for us, we just have to find them! the portuguese is progressing quite nicely! i am beginnning to think in portuguese and it is a little hard to write in english too, so please forgive the spelling errors! hehe! i am almost finished with the book of mormon in english, i will finish this week for sure! i can~t believe i read it in 4 months! my love for the scriptures has grown SO much these for months! it is pretty amazing!
so macie, you want to know what they eat most here? every day, without fail, we have rice and beans. and it is always acompanied with meat of some kind, normally chicken or beef. but we also eat lots of spaghetti too. and i cant wait for the skittles! hehe!
thank you so much for the scriptures! i love to study them and to see how they can help in our everyday life, but for me, everything is being applied to a mission and how it can help here, it is funny because we find scriptures where the prophets and missionaries did street contacts too! it is cool! but alma 17:11-12 are the scriptures that i left with bishop for my plaque, did that ever make it there? it truely is an amazing scripture!
21 pound turkey! that is huge! i cant even imagine eating that much! hehe! and i will work on the christmas traditions around here, i do know that everyone buys trees here, because they don~t have real christmas trees here, wrong climate for pine trees! hehe! but today i will be buying myself a little one and putting it up in the house! i~m pretty excited!
we didn~t do anything special on thankgiving, honestly i almost forgot it was thanksgiving! hehe! but that~s ok! dad take pictures of the snow for me when you go up to get the tree!
so how are things going back there? it is weird to think that it is getting hotter here as it is getting colder there! it is funny bc i completely skipped winter this year! hehe! summer, a little bit of fall in the US then spring here and now Summer! it is a little wierd but its cool!
tell tom i said "hi" too!
i love you all!
Elder Knudson

WEEK 16 November 21, 2011

hello again my wonderful family!
this week was pretty hard and very very busy!!! we had 2 different times this week that we did exchanges, one on wed were i went to Parelheiros and one on fri when elder vasconcelos had a meeting for district leaders, and i stayed in my area with 2 other elders, one of them had only been in the field for 4 days! i felt good not being the "youngest" in the field anymore! but he is pretty cool and he is speaking really well too! this saturday we had a baptism for Luís Carlos, and i got to confirm him! it was pretty nerve wracking! hehe! but so very cool! i really felt like my portuguese got a lot better this week, i am becoming more and more comfortable talking with people, but i still have a hard time expressing myself and talking about things not very related to missionary work, but its coming! and i am very happy about that! i made a video with my companion on saturday and you will see that i am starting to have a hard time with english! prettty crazy! i can only imagine how it will be after 2 years.
it is really weird to think that i wont be there for thanksgiving, and no they dont have a holiday like it here, that i know of. i will miss all the turkey and mashed potatoes. take pictures for me!
the work here is going good, but it is so very different from the work there in the US, we find a lot of people to teach but we have such a hard time getting them to read and pray and understand why it is so important, all of the religions here have really distorted how the gospel should be. and it is SO hard to get them to come to church, this week we had none of our investigators there... and we have 7 people marked for baptism in december, they have to come to church before we can baptize them...
about stuff that i need, i forgot to bring my priesthood line of authority with me so if you could send that to me in the package too that would be great! i would like to do the names this year for christmas but by now the gift wouldnt get there until after christmas, because youd have to tell me who i have nxt week, but if they are fine with getting a gift a little late then put me in! :D
so i've been thinking about christmas alot lately and how i may not even have a tree... hehe! i think i will try to find a little tree about 2 feet tall or something like that, so i can at least feel like it is almost christmas, it is really strange, because it is getting hotter here instead of colder... and that feeling i get every year about the snow is coming too! i will definately be spending some (a lot) time in the snow when i come back! but ill send a picture of my christmas tree when i finally get it!
I love you all!
thank you for all the prayers and support!
Elder Knudson

Week 15 November 14, 2011

hello familly!!!!!!!
so the space bar is kinda freakin out on me so if there are a ton of extra spaces you know why!
another week has flown by!!!! so each week we send a letter to the president, this week he responded and said i will turn into a great leader in the mission, and when i told my companion he laughed and said i will become assistant to the president. oh, boy... hehe! i think it would be pretty cool though, to be able to work alongside the president every day! talk about spiritual!
the work is continually progressing! we just passed the first transfer sunday! luckily both of us are staying here for another transfer! it is so crazy how fast the time flies! i had a pretty cool experience is personal study today! i was ready ether 6, and i read vs 3 were it talks about the rocks that christ touch and they were able to privide light, and the thought came to my mind, "what kind of rock am i? am i shining to show the people the way to "the promised land"(fulness of the gospel)?" all of us that are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been touched by Christ! we know the path that leads back to our Father in Heaven, and we can be like these rocks, we can light the way for others to come to this knowledge also. but a rock can also be a stumbling block if we are not careful, we need to be sure we are a "rock that lights the way" not a "stumbling block".
we are working with a lot of people and a lot of families here! it is crazy the difference between here and the missionary work in the US, elder combs said he had 4 new investigators this week, to show you the difference, we had 21 new investigators this week. but also the difference is that some people here just say yes to us because of the difference of religion here. there are so many churches! there are litterally almost 15 different churches in about a 1/2 a mile of road... not in every area but in some. the people here really need to know the truth, it makes me think of Joseph Smith, how he was so confused about all the different churches, and i can see why he was so confused. i am so greatful to have the fulness of the gospel in my life! and the knowledge that this is the path that will lead me back to my father in heaven!
thank you bishop and tina for the emails! you don~t have any idea how happy i am to hear about justin and dylan, i pray for dylan a lot! make sure he is getting my emails !
the portuguese is coming along! everyone says that after 6 months you are finally comfortable with everything, speaking and all, but i don~t know if that is 6 months in the field or in the mission... oh well, i~ll just keep studying! dad, what i did when i first started to read the BOM in portuguese i would highlight the words i didn~t know and write the word in english above it, it is very slow moving at first but after time you will notice that you aren~t highlighting very much and you are understanding! about the pronuciacion, you will have to have some one coach you on that... hehe! i~m sure the sanchezes would love you help! you could even suggest having a spanish class at the church and you could have the missionaries invite people to, idk, we try to do english classes here but there are probably a lot more people here that want to learn english then there are that want to learn spanish there...
i love you all so much!!!!!! thank you for all the prayers! this is truely the Lords church! share that knowledge with everyone!
Elder Knudson

Monday, November 28, 2011

WEEK 14! November 7, 2011

hello family!!!!!
another week has come and gone! it is crazy how fast things are going here! this week was difficult with teaching, we had a hard time with "time" during the lessons. people are very busy... this week we found lots of families to teach! it is pretty great! i am slowly getting better at speaking with people and teaching! it is really neat teaching, because i still have a really hard time speaking and such but when we go to teach i have a clear head and am able to explicar pretty clearly and it appears that they enderstand so that is a great blessing! there are so many tiny miracles that happen every day that you just cant describe! i think dad would understand, but for example, last week i think thursday, all of or appointments fell through! and no one had time for us to share a message, so we spent almost 3 1/2 hours knocking doors, at 7ish we went to a house that said we could come back that day and we were able to teach their family! and there are 7 people in their family! it was so neat! it is amazing how a day can be going so bad and then 1 little thing will happen and it is like the whole day was great! here when we find someone that is really excited to learn about the gospel we call them "eleito" and it is so neat to be able to teach!
grandma sent me an email and said i would have difficulties with english when i return, i~m already having problems!!!!! hehe! i think there are a few words in portuguese here and others i had to spend some time thinking wat the word was in english! crazy!
this week we get to go to the temple! on the 9th! i am pretty excited! and don~t worry mom i will take a picture for you, i can now! i love the temple! Trevor, Dallin, Adam, Macie, & Daniel, PREPARE FOR THE TEMPLE IT IS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!
mom and dad, thank you for the scriptures you give each week! i study them and i even use some of them in lessons! thank you so much!!!! right now i am finishing up the book of mormon in english and i am in 1ne 18 in portuguese, it is hard in portuguese and slow moving buti understand for the most part! it is really helping me! the book of mormon is so amazing! how many times did you read through the book of mormon on your mission dad?
i love you all so much!
Elder Knudson

Monday, October 31, 2011

Travel/History of Sao Paul Brazil from a travel site

First founded in 1554 by the Jesuits, San Paulo, Brazil is located on a plateau that sits 2,493 feet above see level and 45 minutes from the coast. Considered a mission center years ago for Indians and early settlers, San Paulo was for a long time, a small, sleepy town. However, sometime around 1850, the city began to expand, due primarily from high yielding coffee plantations. As the revenue from coffee export skyrocketed, the population grew to where it is today, a large financial and industrial center and more than 20 million people calling it home.
Because San Paulo manufacturers so much and is also a successful exporter, it is a very wealthy state with a Gross National Profit of $350 billion, more than one-third of Brazil’s $1.1 trillion Gross National Profit. All around San Paulo are very affluent areas that are truly beautiful. Interesting, many of these smaller towns were settled by Europeans and have the charm and sophistication of the European architecture and style. Two of the most important cities along the shoreline of Sao Paulo are Santos and Guaruja. In fact, Guaruja is kind of touristy while Santos features one of the world’s largest ports.
San Paulo, Brazil is a dynamic place again, known as South America’s financial center and second worldwide. What is so interesting about San Paulo is that instead of importing things such as planes, cars, computers, clothing, and so on, they manufacturer their own. The agribusiness there is also very strong where you will find some of the most impressive and modernized farms ever, growing everything from sugarcane, oranges, coffee, fruits, and vegetables.
Another fascinating aspect of San Paulo, Brazil is that more than one million of the population is the Japanese, making this the largest Japanese population outside of Japan. However, the population as a whole is comprised of more than 70 different nationalities from Europeans to Koreans to Hispanics to Jews and Africans, among others. Because of this, the food in San Paulo is absolutely wonderful and diverse. Therefore, if you enjoy dining out and experiencing authentic ethnic food, you will have your choices of thousands and thousands of fabulous restaurants.
Like Rio de Janeiro, San Paulo is a city that never sleeps. Therefore, if you have trouble sleeping, just walk to the 24-hour bookstore. If you want to see a movie at 3:00 in the morning, no problem and the same is true for shopping malls, restaurants, bars, and so on. In addition to the shops, you will also find exciting street fairs and exhibits located throughout the city. Other popular activities include a trip to one of the 15 zoos, botanical gardens, the Jockey Club, one of the world’s most famous Formula One race tracks, museums, excellent historical sites, every possible type of nightclub imaginable, and the list just goes on and on.
The architecture in San Paulo, Brazil is also quite fascinating in that you will find everything from traditional style building to ultra modern. If antiques are one of your favorite hobbies, then you want to visit the Ipiranga Imperial Museum, which has one of the largest art collections from the Brazilian imperial era to include paintings, furniture, gardens, and sculptures. The parks in San Paulo are also magnificent where you will often find lakes, planetariums, museums, sports complexes, restaurants, and gardens as apart of the design.
Keep in mind that most people say unless you have to travel to San Paul on business, stay away. The reason is that it is so gigantic, and the people are so business focused that it is not necessarily a place you would enjoy visiting. Most people feel a state of culture shock when they fly into San Paulo, completely swallowed up by size and activity level.
However, if you enjoy fast-pace life and are interested in seeing many of the great things San Paulo has to offer, then you would probably enjoy it. Just remember, it is a site to see and a city that requires a little getting used to. Therefore, plan accordingly and expect to be busy.

http://www.globalartmall.com/travel/2006_02_12_archive.html

Week 13 from Elder Knudson

Óla Família!
this week was pretty great! but very very busy! i'm starting to think that this is a normal thing. but on saturday we had a baptism! it was so neat! i got to baptize him and he afterwards he said, "you only get baptized once huh?" "yup" "I'd get baptized everyday if i could!" he is only 10 years old, but has such a strong testimony of the gospel! his mom hasn~t come around yet but Luíz is always insisting that she come to church and everytime we go over to visit he tells us to ask her to say the prayer! he is going to be a great missionary! the work is going great! we find some awesome people to teach! but lately we have been having a hard time with a second lesson. we teach the first one and it will go really great, but then when we come back they don~t have time or anything or they are too busy to come to the door... we~ll see! keep pushin through! on thursday last week we had a mission conference with Elder Costa, he is the area president for brasil, it was so amazing!!! he has such a strong testimony of the book of mormon and for the church! we are doing our best to impliment all of the teachings, but it is a little difficult because their were a lot! but right now there is me and 4 other missionaries from my group from provo in brasil! keep praying for the others to get their visas too!
no macie i didn~t cry, but i felt the spirit very strong when i read your letter! thank you! keep it up ok? yes i cut my hair this week! i think i did a pretty good job too! hehe! yes we have a cell phone, but it is really hard to get service inside a lot of the houses because they are all cement, but it is nice to have though!
and HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone, i don~t know what they do here for halloween or if they even do anything but we~ll see! i~m gonna be a missionary this year i think!
the work is going great! i love to teach and read the scriptures! i am studying in all portuguese now! it is pretty awesome and is helping a lot! read the book of mormon! it is so amazing! it truely is the word of God! 2 Nephi 32:3!!!!!!!!!!!!! during the baptism on saturday the 1st counselor said that if we read at least 1 verse of the book of mormon every day, we wont be afraid to say we are members of the Church of JESES CHRIST of Latter-day Saints! it truely is a powerful book!
i love you all! have a great week!
Elder Knudson

Elder Knudson Week 12

hello family!
essa semana foi ótimo! nós tivemos um batismo sábado! ok, this week was great! but it was so very busy! there really is no such thing as "rest" when you are a missionary! but satuday we had a baptism, and i got to baptize him! it ws so cool! i was pretty nervous to be doing it in portuguese but all went well! His name is Marcos, he is amazing! he has a very strong testimony of the gospel and i think he will end up being the bishop sometime! the language is comeing, slowly but surely. it is so hard and frustrating sometimes to want to be able to say something and not be able to... but i am working at it. right now we are having difficulties getting our investigators to come to church... it is hard because our area is very big and most people don~t have cars, so they either have to take the bus, or walk. so it can be a difficulty. we walk SO much here! by the time p-day comes around my knees NEED the break! but its all good, i~m getting more and more used to it as we go. and i am beginning to know where things are in our area. it is very hard because the streets have absolutely no organization to them and the house numbers are just random, so if you want number 4, sure go ahead, and if your neihbor wants 222, sure go ahead. it makes things difficult. in our area it is just us, we cover 1 ward. it is similar to our ward, how marysville ward is marysville, linda, edgewater, d 10... its similar to that.
i got both the package and the letter this week! the letter tuesday and the package friday! thank you so very much! my companion was pretty excited about the candy! hehe! but there weren~t any skittles.... what happened? heheh! but it was very cool to get all those letters from the primary! some of them i had a hard time figuring out what was said, but it was great!
so this week we had inerviews with the mission president and also a meeting for the new misisonaries. president pinho is awesome and has a huge vision for the misisonary work here! and in the meeting for the new misisonaries i saw 4 other missionaries from my district in provo! it was so great to be able to see them again! there is only 3 missionaries from my district there that are coming to this mission that still need their visas. hopefully they get them soon!
this area is great! supposedly everyone wants to come to this area! there is always people to teach and lots of people ready for batism! but it has its difficulties too, but i love it!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADAM! i forgot to write it last week i think... but oh well! so how do you like it? do you feel different?
so trevor got a job at primetime? that~s awesome? why didn~t he do that while i was there? i miss primetime! the breadsticks are so good!
thank you so much for the support and the prayers!
don~t forget to share the gospel with everyone! FALE COM TODO MUNDO!
Elder Knudson

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Week 11

óla minha família!
another week down! this week was very good, we are teaching so many people and most are progressing very well! we are teaching a man named Marcos and he will be baptized on the 22! he really loves the gospel and wants to learn as much as he can! and yesterday we taught a family, Cícero and Sara and their 2 kids, about the restoration of the gospel. they are so excited to learn and have so many questions! we set a baptismal date with them for the 26 of nov. the work is going great, their are so many people in this area that are very willing to listen. our area is so big though! we walk so much everyday! i think about 15 or 16km a day. its a lot.
no i haven~t gotten any package yet or letter from you, but the mail service here, correios, just finished a strive, so it may be a while before i get it. it should get here before christmas! hehe! hopefully there isn~t any perishables in it! i did get a letter from Adria on saturday though, so the mail is coming!
so it has been raining here for the last 6 days and will probably rain again today, and it has been cold... i thought this was Brasil? it isn~t supposed to be cold... but the rain makes it vry hard to contact people on the street because they don~t want to stop or there isn~t anyone on the street. i guess us missionaries are just crazy, out walking through the rain everyday! hehe! yup, its either crazy or our message is true, right? (probably both)
the food here is really good, we have lunch appointments here instead of dinner, which is a little weird, but its cool. we have some sort of meat and rice and beans for every meal and then some kind of salad or other side dish. they make so much food! but it is good! i have been eating tomatoes and brocolli, but other than that, nother to exotic or crazy yet. i did eat a chicken heart while i was in the ctm, and it was pretty good! i~ll keep you posted on the food!
everyone is vrey into soccer (futebol) here, its pretty funny sometimes!
we are teaching around 10 people i think right now... not sure exactly. but last week we taught almost 30 lessons, so we are aways busy! but it is great! today we are going to commit one of our investigators to baptism! she wants to be baptized but doesn~t really want to decide when, but she is ready and more time wouldn~t help. one of her sons was baptized 2 weeks before i got here and he recieved the priesthood last week and passed the sacrament this week! it was really cool! oh and i don~t think i told you yet, but me and my companion spoke in church this week! i was so nervous!!! but it went so well and the people said they could understand me! what a miracle! its funny some of our investigators ask how i know so much already (portuguese) and i~ve only been here for 2 weeks (2 months including training) and i tell them i don~t really have a choice because my companion doesn~t speak english, then my companion says, yup he can either choose to speak portuguese, or... speak portuguese. its pretty funny sometimes. the lord truely qualifies those he calls! i can really see that when i go in to teach and i am able to explain a topic realatively clearly! this week is going to be more intense to because my companion is going to hand over some more responsability to me and that means i will have to talk more during lessons and i~m a little nervous about it becuase he teaches so clear and i am a little nervous about that, but i guess i will have to step up to the challenge.
that is so neat about Nates call! i can~t belive it! tell him i said good luck and don~t get eaten by an aligator! he~ll do great!
so this week i decided to start studying in all portuguese. it has been going pretty well, i use my english stuff when i am having difficulties understanding or when i really want to be able to understand a topic. i wish all of my notes in my english stuff was in my portuguese also! but i guess i~ll have to find other cool stuff to! i am reading the book of mormon in english and portuguese, i am in 3 ne 15 in english and 1 ne 4 in portuguese, i just started in portuguese last week. but i think it is helping me learn faster. i want to so bad to be able to just talk and not have to think so hard to phrase sentances! but i am trying to be patient and i know it~ll come over time. hopefully be christmas i~ll have a lot of this stuff down! its my christmas wish! hehe! the only thing that will be annoying will be coming back and having to speak english again! hehe! i~ll have to learn all over again. oh well.
so how are things going at home? anything interesting going on?
cool scripture that i read this morning: 3 Nephi 14:7-8
the church is true! stay strong!
Elder Knudson

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Week 9 & 10

hey family!
i~m here! in the field! it feels like a dream! and again i am lost as to where to begin... i am in Jardim Campinas right now, and my companion is Elder Vasconcelos, he is amazing, he is such a help and a great support to me! he is also very patient with me as i learn and grow. oh and did i mention that he doen~t know any english? yup, talk about crazy huh? but the cool thing is that while i can~t understand really anyone, i can understand him and what he is saying most of the time. the Lord is truely helping me in this work, i feel his hand helping me daily! i can~t believe how much i can understand and comprehend, but sadly that is much more than i can speak. i have such a hard time relaying how i feel and how to portray my thoughts... this past week has been the hardest week of my life. every moring i have to work so hard to not be down on myself and work hard. it is so hard! it feels like the whole weight of the world is on my shoulders sometimes. i really miss you all! thank you so much for the prayers and support! i can~t wait till christmas when i get to call, i~ll probably still be here in this area so i should be pretty comfortable by then and hopefully by then i will be able to speak pretty well! tell Adria hi for me and that i miss her too!
so last tuesday we left the ctm at 7 in the morning and got to the mission home at 8:15ish, and we had a little meeting where we introduced ourselves and stuff like that, then we did interviews with President Pinho. He is really cool! he knows english and lived for i think 10 years in the US. then after we had luch with him and his wife, it was really good! then we went to the mission office where we had little orientation and got our new companions, i was pretty nervous when i found out that mine didn~t know english! then we went to our house! and that evening we taught a lesson! i didn~t say too much (of coarse) but it was neat! the style of living here is so different from back there! but i~m starting to get used to it, the only thing that i wish was different was the showers. they aren~t very warm if they are at all! but i guess i~ll just apreciate it that much more when i get home! i really do love it here! the people are amazing and most everyone is really nice and polite. oh, and the public transportation is pretty much an adventure every time! as soon as the doors close, the bus is moving! so hold on! hehe! i almost fell over a couple of times, but i am getting used to it now. and the people on motorcyles are pretty much fearless, pretty much if their bike will fit between the cars, they~ll go through, wether or not they are moving! its pretty crazy!
our days are filled every day! there is always something to do! and we walk everywhere!! dad remember walking up some of those hills when we were hunting? some of the roads are like that! i think i will be in pretty good shape when i come home! but my poor feet! they hurt... hehhe! we~ll see how that goes... but it is some much easier for me to be in a better mood when we are out working, the gospel truely brings a joy to our lives that nothing else can! i am so thankful for my testimony, it has truely helped me through this week!
conference was amazing last week, i got to watch it in english thankfully! i took so many notes! i pretty much wrote a book! it was such a help for me!
OH! on saturday we had a BAPTISM!!! it was so cool! Her name is Aline and is 11 years old, but is very excited about the gospel! share the gospel with everyone! don~t be afraid to let people know you are MORMON! this gospel can change their life! and you have the power to bring it to them!
ok, well my time is up. don~t worry i will take lots of pictures mom! hehe!
i love you so very much!
love
Elder Knudson

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Leaving the MTC for the field

Today Elder Knudson left the MTC for the field.

He left the MTC early so he didn't get to email this week so they let him CALL!! I was at work around 10 am and received a call that I didn't recognize and wondered if it was a salesman. I just watched my phone for a while then I thought what if it's BRADEN! I answered it just in time!

He said "hi" and I knew it was him, he sounds the same. He said "It's Elder Knudson!" He said he left the MTC at 7 and got to the mission home around 8am. He said Sao Paulo is a HUGE city (the 5th largest in the world) and the traffic was bad!

He got to the mission home and had an interview with the president and got fed etc... but he didn't have his assignment of where he will be going yet or who his companion will be when he called so I guess we will wait till next week to hear all that news.

He was able to watch general conference in the MTC on Saturday & Sunday at 1pm and 5pm. They watched a recording of the priesthood session on Sunday morning. He loved it so much!!

"He couldn't talk long but he said to tell everyone he loves you and thank you for the letter and prayers! He is excited to get out and get to work!"

Mom shed a few tears upon hanging up! I can't believe how blessed I am! Thanks from us also for all your love and support for Braden & us! He did receive an email that of the other 9 elders that started in Provo with him only one has gotten his visa, the other 8 are headed to different mission's in the US to work and wait their visa. Please pray for the back log of visa's to be cleared up soon! Braden was concerned about this!

Until next week,
Rebecca

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Week 8

hello everyone!! thank you so much for all the letters! i got them on saturday and it was great! this is the beggining of my last week in the Missionary training Center! i~m not quite so sure how i feel about it yet but i am so very excited! we leave on tuesday the 4th and then we are in the real world! this week has been absolutely amazing!!! i don't know how i~m going to write everything... but yesterday was an amazing experience! yesterday after almoço we went out and gave copies of The Book of Mormon (O Livro de Mórmon) to people! REAL people! we were so nervous when we started! but the funniest thing happened! ok so the first lady we tried to talk to really didn~t want to talk to us, but then we started talking to this man that had just walked out of a bank, and we said hi and everything and got started in portuguese, and he started speaking ENGLISH! i couldn~t figure out what he was saying for like the first 5 seconds until i realized he was speaking in english! but he said he had a coworker that is a member of the church and we gave him a book of mormon and he said he would call the missionaries to talk to him about it! the whole afternoon went amazing! each of us had 2 book, so 6 in all in our companionship (me, Elder Nielson, Elder Healy). we talked to so many people and the cool thing was that i could understand them, more or less, but it was amazing! i think we had 4ish people ask how long we had been in Brasil and they were all pretty shocked to hear that it was only 8 weeks! when i think about it i am pretty shocked too! 8 weeks! it feels like 8 days! i know that the Lord is helping us along the way and that we need him so much! we talked to a few people that were really interested in the church and about Jesus Christ because they didn~t know too much about Him. it felt amazing to share the gospel with people and get a little taste of how it will be in another week! so on monday, we go to downtown São Paulo and we get to do it all again! but it is pretty much in the heart of the city! i can~t wait!
so mom, i haven~t gotten a haircut in 9 weeks now! but don~t worry i am getting one tomorrow! my hair is driving me crazy! i would´ve done it myself but they don´t want us to do it ourselves while we are in the ctm.
the book of mormon is so amazing! i have never read through it so fast before! i am already into helaman! i have the hardest time putting it down sometimes! the scriptures that stick out to me this week are about moroni, where is says that if all men were like moroni, the powers of hell would have no power over the world. we need to follow his example, and be someone that people will talk about for years after we are gone because of how valiant we are!
the church is true! our heavenly father is always with us just waiting for us to ask for his help! Do not ever forget to pray and ask for his help! i am so very greatful for the gift of the Holy Ghost in my life! it helps me so much each and every day! thank you so much for all the prayers! I love you all so very much!
O evangelho de Jesus Cristo pode ajudar nossas vidas! eu sei que Jesus Cristo vive!
Amor
Elder Knudson

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Week 7!

Óla!
how is everyone doing? this week went by SO fast!!! there has been so much happening and so many lessons to learn and to teach that it is so hard to differentiate... but today we went to the temple again! the temple is so amazing and such a blessing for us to have in our lives! but after we got back we went to this bbq place called churrascaria, it is one of those places they walk around with the meat on the sticks and you can eat as much as you want, it was so good! i even got brave and tried a chicken heart! it was suprisingly good! the other weird thing they had there was a fried banana, it was pretty awesome too! hopefully everywhere isn~t like that because if it is i may end up gaining some weight!

so last tuesday we had a devocional and the speaker was talking about faith, and one of his main points was that faith works through words. he gave many examples in the scriptures of people that showed their faith through there words but i can~t remember them at the moment. but he said that satan tries to make us nervous or embarassed so that we don~t open our mouth, because that is how people recieve the gospel, by someone opening their mouth to share. and satan knows this, he knows that the message that we have as Latter-day Saints can help people happiness and he will do anything he can to make it so we wont open our mouths and share this wonderful message to those around us. do not be afraid to open you mouth! everyone needs to hear about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and we have the power to give them that chance.

the other thing that i learned this week is just how much we have to learn in life! here in the CTM it is very easy to see, because there is always so much for you to be learning all the time! so when i feel like i have learned one thing, almost immidiately another thing appears for me to begin working on to help me progress as a misionary. but this is something that has been happening forever, and it is always happening, we just don~t always seek out the lesson that we are supposed to be learning from the situation we are in. but because God loves us, He will keep giving us things to help us grow, even when we don~t realize it.
so the mail takes forever to get here! but i did get my first letter being here in the CTM, from Adria, it was nice to see that the world is still moving! sometimes it is hard to see when all you see are the same rooms weeks at a time. but it was a surprise to get the letter though, because a few days earlier we heard that the Brasilian postal service went on strike, but it was either a rumor or a very short strike because i got a letter a few days later.

i love you! the Lord has a work for all of us to do, the hard part is figuring out what we need to be doing to accomplish the things the Lord wants us to do. that is why it is so important to rely on the Spirit in our lives, and another thing that we are given to help is prayer! Heavenly Father hears our prays and he will answer them! i know that our Heavenly Father loves us and is always trying to help us progress and grow!
i love you all!
Elder Knudson

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

SIGMA 6


hello again! this week seems to have flown by so fast i hardly remember what happened! well Brasil is pretty amazing! i was pretty nervous at first but being here is so much fun! the brasillian missionaries that come in are some of the neatest people! they love to come and test out their english with us american misionaries! but i am working hard to try and talk to them more in portuguese, i am slowly progressing with the language. it is still hard and it is so much hard work, but today we were in the temole and i heard some elders that had been out for 13 or so months and they sounded awesome! i can~t wait ttill i can speak like a native! so here at th CTM there are about 250 or so missionaries and maybe 30 or 40 of them are american... the visas are so backed up right now its insane... please pray for those elders still waiting for their visas.
so on p-day here we get to walk around the town and buy stuff, go to the post office to send letters and just be in the town! it is so much fun, but it is pretty comical how i don~t know anything that is going on around me because everyone is talking in portuguese!
this week i started Alma and i was readying through chapter 32 i think sat (idk, that days are all mushed together) but it is an amazing chapter about faith! my teachers here are amazing! Irmão Israel and Irmã Cordoso, but yesterday was Irmã Cordoso~s last day here so tomorrow we will have a new teacher. so as of today, i have 3 weeks till i finish here at the CTM! CRAZY!!!!! the weeks are flying by so fast! so we teach fake investigators throughout the week to practice teaching the lessons and to help our protuguese, but on saturdays they bring in members from local wards and they volunteer to be ´´Investigator´´ its pretty fun! one time we were teaching a family of 5 and they had a little girl who was probably 8 i think, but it was hillarious because every once in a while she would correct our portuguese! hahaha! and i could tell she was trying not to laugh the whole time while we were teaching cause i~m sure we sounded super funny! imagine persons try to teach you and sound like should be preshcool (or like that) but i think we are getting better with the grammer and our sentance stucture! it is so neat to hear someone talk and understand what they are saying!! the Lord is blessing us immensly! there is no way this work would progress without him!
i am running out of stories to tell because everyday is so similar to the last right now, but it will get better when i am out in the field! the one bad thing about being here is that they don~t want us to take our cameras out of the CTM, not even when we go to the temple... but i guess they do that so the people around here don~t think that missionaries are here to be tourists, cause the people around here see a lot of missiionaries!
well my time is almost up for email... i can~t print here so i have to read the emails i have first and then write, but thats ok.
i love you all so much! the church is true! Joseph Smith truely was called of God to restore this church! please do not hesitate to share this great blessing with anyone that you come into contact with!
Love,
Elder Knudson!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Elder Knudson's semana 5

Óla minha Família!!!
I AM IN BRASIL!!!!!! so the plane ride here pretty much was the worst thing in my life... the ride to texas was good! i didnt have anyone sitting by me and i was by the window, so it was very comfortable and i had a lot of room! but the plane to São Paulo was not fun at all! we left tx at 740p and got to São Paulo at 740a, so with the time difference it was like a 10 hour flight. but i was in the middle of the plane and was between 2 people, and i couldn~t get comfortable... so i got maybe and hour of sleep, it was so boring! but i am here now and i am loving it! so much has happened this week that i don~t know where to start... the MTC here is a lot smaller than in Provo, there is around 150 missionaries here and about 2700 in Provo, so pretty big difference! but other than that, a lot of the things are the same, all the classes are the same way, we learn the same lessons here that we would in ut, but the cool thing here is that everything is in portuguese! all the signs and all you pretty much here is portuguese, so most of the time i don~t know what is going on bc i don~t know very much portuguese to understand any of it! but i am so excited to be here! the city is HUGE!
we went to the temple today! it was deffinately the highlight of the week! right when i walked in the doors the spirit was so strong, and i could hardly hold back the tears. the temple is such a wonderful blessing in our lives!
ok so the mail here is secure, they said that you don~t need to put stickers or anything on them, but they stress putting the right address on the envelope! they talked to us for like 5 minutes, just about why its important to put evereything on the address.
so my address for the next 4 weeks is,

Elder Braden Jeffrey Knudson
Box #16 District 31-A Brazil MTC
Brazil São Paulo Interlagos Mission
Rua Padre Antônio D´Angelo, 121
Casa Verde, São Paulo, SP
Brazil 02516-040

it takes about 2 weeks for a letter to get here so in about 2 weeks start sending letters to my mission home, the address is in my mission packet. also, if you want to send packages, send them to the mission home as well, not to the MTC here.

the portuguese is coming, slowly but surely! it feels like an aweful small bit that i know when i go out and i still can~t even pick up more than 6 or 7 words in a sentance that someone says to me, they talk so fast here!!! but i was told that in 5 or 6 months i will be able to say pretty much anything that i want and be able to understand pretty much everything. that makes me happy to think about that! i can~t wait to be fluent! and be ready for an accent when i come home! yeah i know, thats still a long way out!

well i~ve ran out of thought....
i love you all so very much! thank you for all the prayers!
Elder Knudson

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Your missionary´s arrival at the Brazil MTC

Dear Parents,

We are happy to send the good news that your missionary has arrived safely at the Brazil MTC. What a great joy and privilege it is to greet each missionary as they come through the front door of the MTC for the first time. We promise to take good care of your missionary.

They now have companions and are settled into their rooms. They are assigned to a district with capable and caring instructors for language and lesson study. The branch presidents and their wives, will soon give them a second greeting. These couples are rewarded in their callings through the love they always develop as they embrace and watch over the missionaries.

The MTC has a full time live-in physician to care for their health needs. He is assisted by his able wife. We are also happy to report that the Cafeteria food is abundant and very good.

Your missionary will be able to e-mail home on Preparation Day after a morning at the Temple. This will be either Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on individual assignments.

Your very important young person is about to make an eternal difference in the lives of others. We hope you will be encouraged and comforted by this quote by President Lorenzo Snow: “There is no mortal man that is so much interested in the success of an elder [sister] when he is preaching the gospel as the Lord that sent him to preach to the people who are the Lord’s children.”

Please accept our love,

President Donald L Clark and Sister Zaza Clark

ADDITIONAL information . . .

DO not send packages to the Brazil Missionary Training Center. All packages must be sent directly to the mission where your missionary will be serving not the MTC. If you have already mailed a package to the Brazil MTC and it arrives after your missionary has left for the field, please understand that the package can not be forwarded to his or her mission and will be returned to you. The only other option is for us to open the package and forward the letters and photographs, giving the rest of the content of the package to the missionaries that are here.

WE Strongly eNCOURAGE sENDING HAND WRITTEN LETTERS. Please write your missionary´s first and last name. Your missionary will provide you with his district and box number. Also, please DO NOT SEND ANYTHING BY FEDEX, DHL, UPS, or other private carriers. The cost to get this type of correspondence is exorbitant.

I don't think I have been more happy for Braden or emotional than when opened and read this wonderful news!

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Wed 8/24/11 Letter & Photos from Elder Knudson

Ola minha familia!
Well here are the pictures I've taken thus far! There is also something small in here for each of you. (He sent us Armour of God cards) So Friday I have a big "in field orientation" I have to go to, but it is funny cause I'm not going into the field yet! So I may get to hear it again when I leave from the CTM in Brazil too.



Thank you all so very much for all the letters and prayers!! and Trevor, don't get to used to your own room cause when you get here you will get to share a room with 3 other missionaries.

I love you


Always Remember 2Nephi 25:26!


And we atalk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we bprophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our cchildren may know to what source they may look for a dremission of their sins.


Elder Knudson








News from our Elder

Today Braden got on a plane in SLC to go to Brazil! He was able to call home from the airport in Texas. It was so fun to hear his voice! He is doing so great! I think It was a little weird for him at first to be talking on the phone! Sense the only communication we have had till now is letters and email. He can email once a week and write letters. We will talk to him on the phone on Christmas and Mothers Day!
He Is going to Brazil with one other Elder from his mission and 2 others from a different mission in Brazil. He said they felt like celebrities in the SLC airport, everyone was saying "Hi Elder!" and "Welcome back Elder!" They then explained they were not on their way home... a lot. He told us the MTC in Provo is a lot like being at Youth Conf. or EFY for a long time. It was great! The only time he really left campus was to go to the Provo Temple. We also got a letter in the mail today with a bunch of photos, so I will do another post with those attached. There are a lot of pictures of the temple! You can tell that is the only place he has been, besides the MTD. He loves all the letters and emails he gets, keep writing, or emailing him.
He says his Portuguese is going great! I wish we could have recorded him talking in the language. He told us the First Vision in Portuguese. It was was way awesome to hear!
He now has a 10 hour flight ahead of him. He is boarding the plane now 7:30pm in Texas and will get to Brazil at 7:40 am tomorrow (Brazil time). Brazil is 4 hours ahead of California time.
He is doing so great and is very happy! He is excited to get to Brazil and finish his last 5 weeks of training. Then off to work he goes!

Monday, August 29, 2011

Letter from Elder Knudson Week 4

Hello everyone!!!!!!
so to day is Monday! yup, our schedule got changed cause there is so many Portuguese missionaries.
So tonight is the last night I will sleep in the United states for 2 years! Crazy huh! Tomorrow I leave at 8 am and my flight leaves from salt lake at 1250 and I get to Sao Paulo at 740 am on wed.
I am pretty excited to leave and be in Brazil, but at the same time I am pretty nervous!
this weeks email is going to be pretty short cause all the time I've had to spend preparing to leave, but this week i learned the importance of humility! humility is the only way we can receive personal revelation and guidance from the Holy Ghost, because without it we wont listen to the promptings that we receive!
the Book of Mormon is True, read it, and read it often! then after you have read it, pray to know if it is true, and if you pray with a sincere heart, having faith that you will receive and answer, God will tell you by the power of the Holy Ghost that it is true! the book of Mormon brings such joy into our lives! and it is sitting right there for us to search and learn how to have that joy in our lives always!
I love you all!
Elder Knudson!

Sunday, August 28, 2011






Braden will be leaving for Brazil on Tuesday August 30th!! Please start writing him there. His email wll be the same, here is his new address.

Elder Braden Knudson
Missão Brasil São Paulo Interlagos
Rua Eusébio de Souza, 121
Jardim Londrina
São Paulo, SP
05638-100
Brasil


Please write.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Week 3

Óla Everyone!
this has been a pretty awesome week! i don't even know where to start!
yes, all the elders in my district are going to brazil, and all but 3 are going to my area! i'm not sure about the stamps and envelops bc i don't know how all that is supposed to work down in brazil so we'll see about that one
we get to go to the temple once a week! it is awesome! i love it!
we have devotionals every sunday and tuesday evenings! on sunday we had a general authority speak on the importance of obedience and following the spirit, it was a great talk, he was a pretty funny guy too!
don't worry, my clothes still fit! hehe! but there is always SO MUCH FOOD here! it is very hard to portion sometimes! but the downside is that the food gives you pretty bad gas... and when you stick 11 Elders in a room together... you get the idea! hehe!

so this friday i found out i got my VISA!!!!!!!! i was so happy! so this is how it went!
our district leader got the mail for us around lunch and walk in for during our study time and said that 2 people got their visas and told us to guess. immediately my heart went to my throat and some one guessed me and one of my companions, he said one of them was right and since i knoew my comp was having a little trouble with his i knew it was me!!!!!!!!!! and the other one that will be comeing with me is Elder Nielson! so later that day i went to the travel office just to make sure that it was real and not some practical joke, so i went in and asked a ladie who was a little busy if my travel plans means that i got my visa, she said no, and that that could just be a optimistic thing, immidiately my heart sank and i almost felt like thowing up, but then i talked to a different guy who went and checked on the computer if i got it and he came back and said that i did have my visa! i felt like i was floating out of the office!!!!!
so i leave from SLC at 12:50p and get to dallas tx at 4:30p
then i leave from Dallas at 7:40p and get to Sao Paulo at 7:40 am... long flight!!!!!!!!! but i am so excited! i cannot wait to be in brazil! i am pretty nervous! 1 cause of the super long flight time 2 cause i haven't been out of the country before!

so my basic schedule here is
630 wake up
800 breakfast
1245 lunch
545 dinner
and between them i have and hour of gym, 2-3 hours of personal study, two 3 hour blocks of Classroom instruction, an hour of TALL (tech assisted language learning), and 30 min of daily plannig time

i am beggining to realize just how much our Heavenly Father loves us! the Book of Mormon is amazing! it has such potential to bring joy into our life! Scripture of the week! 2 Nephi 32:3

i love you all!!!!!!!!
Elder Knudson

Monday, August 22, 2011

VISA... AT LAST!

Friday, August 19, 2011


Querido Familia!

Hoje, I got my........VISA! It was a pretty crazy day and it is late so I can't write much, and you'll prob get my email before this too! But I leave on August 30th. 13 hours of flight time! I'm so excited and nervous all over again! I love you all so much! Thank you for all the Dear Elders and the package! Don't worry more info to come about the Visa!

I love you all!

Obrigado!

Elder Knudson!



Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Week 2 Letter @ the MTC

hello everyone!!!!
this week has been pretty eventful, and i probably wont remember half of the stuff that went on this week, but i'll do my best. so my companions names are Elder Ogasawara, he's from japan, and Elder Cox, from Seatle Washington.
it is really hard to think back on a specific day and tell you about it cause all of the days are muddled together... i'm starting to get into the swing of things and figuring out how i study best! the spirit here is so amazing and so uplifting! we have a fireside every sun night and a devotional on tuesdays, this sunday we had the mtc director speak to us, he spoke about doing everything we can that PERHAPS we might bring people unto Christ. he talked about how success is not measured by how may baptisms we have or how many lessons we teach, but how pleased the Lord is with our efforts! he said that missionaries tend to think that there is a formula to missionary work, that if they put in X amount of hours they will get X amount of baptisms or whatever, he said their is NO garunteed baptisms, he talked about how all the great missonaries in the Book of Mormon had their attitudes while on their missions, they did all that they coud so that "perhaps" someone might come unto christ and listen to their words. it is difficult to have that type of attitude to give everything you have and expect nothing in return, but i am working on it and i hope by the time i leave for Brazil that i have got it down pretty well! I am doing this so that those people that i talk to will have the chance to choose to come unto Christ, but because they have their agency they can also choose not to. i feel so blessed to know that my Savior has trusted me with the responsability to take his work to the people of São Paulo Brazil!
this past week my testimony has grown so much! it still amazes me how you can feel so strongly about something one day and then the next you feel even stronger! i love this gospel and the message that it brings and the joy that comes from living those teachings!
the language is moving right along! slowly and surely along with lots of hard work! But again, the Lord continues to bless me! He has enabled me to learn so much in 2 weeks that it is quite shocking! yesterday we taught 2 lesson, one was a surprise spur of the moment and one was planned, but both ernt very well, me and my companions were strengthened and were belssed to have the guidence of the Holy Ghost and we were able to successfully give a 30 min lesson about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith in broken prtuguese, but the investigator was able to understand what we were teacking and the spirit testified of the truthfullness of our teachings! it was truely amazing to feel the Spirit of the Lord work through me and my companions to touch the hearts of our investigators!
I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lords church restored in its fullness here upon the earth! i know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that through the power of the priesthood he was able to tranlate the Book of Mormon! i know that everyone can experience more joy from this gospel than through any other means!
I love you ALL!!!!!!!
Love, Elder Knudson

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Elder Knudson Spotting at the MTC!

Our good friend Nick Bond works at the MTC in Provo, He has been on the hunt to see Braden all week! He finally tracked him down today at lunch! Thanks so much Nick! We love this pictures! So glad you found him!
I tracked him during his lunch time. He sounds like he's doing great; he's loving the language and teaching. He also said he cried when he read your letter and for me to thanks you for sending it.

I took this right before he knew I was standing there... he had like three different drinks on his plate (taking advantage of all the free food :-)

HAHAHA!! This is great!!

Everyone write Braden a letter. :)

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Provo, UT, MTC Aug 3, 2011



My Sister Anita picked Braden up at the SLC airport!

She met Sally for breakfast then took him to the MTC in Provo!

He was SO ready to go and so excited to get there!!





































































Departure day! Sacramento Airport Aug 3, 2011

Arriving at the Sacramento Airport! 5 am


















Braden's flight was EARLY! 6:20 am! We had to have him there by 5 am. We were all so excited to see him start his mission to Brazil, but saying goodbye was HARD!










As we drove to the Airport I started to worry about Braden having never flown before! He did Fly once with me when he was 2 but can't remember it!



So I was telling him all you have to do to go through security, like take off your shoes, & Belt and Watch. Get a tray and put everything in it, your bags and everything have to go through the scanner... It was at that point I realized he was just going to have to go for it & I couldn't be there to help! He is an adult after all! So I prayed a silent prayer in the car that he would have help if he needed it, That I was turning him over to Heavenly Father now and Please send him help if he needs anything in the airport.


As we were saying goodbye and he headed off to security a woman in a blue security uniform came up to us and asked us if we were sending our son off for 2 years?

"Yes" I cried! She said she had a daughter that just got home. Then she asked if he had eaten breakfast? My tearful reply, "I don't know" ( I forgot he had me make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before we left).

So she said she would take care of him!


I cried even more as I watched her go around and wait for him, He says she called him Elder and it surprised him, Then she told him what he needed to do.




She took him after he got through security and bought him a little breakfast, then took him to the gate! Sometimes Heavenly Father answers my prayers in a way that leaves me speechless! I was grateful for that answer!

It was probably more for me than Braden I know that & I feel so grateful!



We love you Braden!