Only Miracles in Tupa!

​ Mom,   
     that doesnt sound very good about what happened to logan. (tore his ac from his shoulder in a skateboard accident) i feel bad for him too, i hope he doesnt get bummed, stay strong and carry on!
     its only miracles here in tupã! im not gonna lie, i do not like this city but i give it my all. we had two baptisms lined up for the week, one being the daughter of that family and the other being the nephew of a member. we baptized the little girl cause she keeps the commandments. listen to this, the nephew of the member was marked to baptize on saturday, we passed by there on friday to go teach him with a member and on the way there guess who we saw at the corner bar with his uncle member drinking beer. him! i almost lost it in the front of a bunch of drunk people. he took off running and the uncle just sat there. so he didnt get baptized. but are we seeing the problem here though, the uncle who is a member should be helping him get baptized not be drinking beer with him the day before his baptism. this is why the saints are not blessed in this city, they dont keep the commandments! i went up and talked to him and with no shame he had the audacity to tell me he doesnt know where his nephew is and didnt see him the whole day ( i saw them drinking together! they saw me coming up! i saw the nephew take off running!)  then he asked me what time his baptism would be on saturday. ya uncle, ill be sure to baptize somebody i just saw drinking the next day! i was so furious haha. the next two people i talked to that treated me disrespectfully didnt stand a chance. i tore this lady up in 1 breath, it was terrible haha. dont worry i repented and im going to study patience in preach my gospel and see if i cant become a little bit more like my Savior. but technically the Savior still burned people also (matthew chapter 23) i love you all, i really like this family im teaching. there special people. a gift that God has given me.  adventure time shirts size large and also some stick deodorant.  ya i wrote maxwell back, i basically invited him to be baptized. tell all the young woman to write to me for Christmas. im lonely and i need new prospects. :D even if theyve met me before the mission and didnt like me still tell them theres a chance, and ive changed! the missions changed me! please young women of the world write this worthy priesthood holder for Christmas and i promise your life will be changed eternally!
                                    - Elder Parker

Dad,
sounds like the trip to utah was really fun then. it was probably cold there and snowing huh. youve been assigned to the executive secretary then, sounds like more work for you haha. does that mean youre in the bishopric? dont worry about the letters mom writes letters long enough for 3 different moms put together. the work is really starting to take off here in our branch. our attendance in sacrament meeting was 62 and thats the lowest weve had in 3 weeks and its only cause it was raining really bad so it didnt give people that walk to church a very good chance to come. we baptized 1 and the other missionaries in our branch baptized 2! thats 3 new additions to the branch! me and elder schenewark made it on our mission site for 6 reactivations this week. that makes 7 baptisms and 9 people weve reactivated here in tupã. and thats the sacred numbers of the mission. its nice to look around in sacrament meeting and count the many people that are there because of the gritty hard work you put out in the burning sun. the work will always go on!!! love you a ton dad!
                  - Elder Parker

Happy Thanksgiving

mom,
   only the u.s. celebrates thanksgiving. i can gaurantee you i will work on that day and not a single brazilian will even know what day it is. i dont even know what day thanksgiving is...
  ya get me the same ctr socks that i left with, there really good and dry really fast.
  the garents can be regular size like what i left with, and no spandex please, just regular old cotton garments. more i just need about 4 more tops and 2 more bottoms please. also one my brazilian comps wants an adventure time shirt also.
     now i have 3 different emails all from people i dont recognize, there names are alec jensen, austin cloward and robert gunnerson. i have no idea who they are. whoever they are please tell them to write me a letter cause i cant respond by email and actually i cant even read there emails also. mission rules. i think there just people joking around honestly.
    hurray more mission calls!!! congrats to everyone!
   we had some miracles this week for sure! this guy that i was teaching way from the begginging when i got in tupã 2 months ago almost got baptized but then his mom went physcho when elder saraiva and i were teaching him at his house and she sent her 7 foot 300 pound shrek of a son at us and we left the house runnin! his name is bruno and hes 23 but he didnt get baptized basically cause the mom hates mormons and uses a lot of drugs. her other son is the biggest guy ive ever seen here in brazil and hes mentally handicapped but his body works perfectly fine. im not joking bruno told us the guy is over two meters tall. he is giant and being mentally handicapped is extremely dangerous to be around. actually all of brunos family is dangeous, his other brother is in prison serving out his sentence for murdering a man with a knife. the whole family is crazy except bruno. we couldnt ever get to him. but guess who got in a fight with there mom and moved into there uncles house who is a family that we reactivated?! the return of Bruno! you may be asking how do i always get into sticky situations... baptism!!! 
  then were teaching this little family that is super elects! the mom was sick so the dad sent his daughter to go get the missionaries to give her a blessing. they gave a blessing, passed the reference to us and they went to church and the daughter is going to baptize this sunday. the parents arent married yet but they will get married and then were gonna baptize them also. there really special.
  we had 74 people in church on sunday. thats a lot better then the 44 we had when i arrived so im pretty happy right now!
 ill buy a present just put some extra money in my bank account and ill send here in a couple of weeks. 20 dollars is about 40 reais in brazil, thats plenty. well gotta go, love you all have a great thanksgiving.  please send me stick deodarant from the states, not gel, i hate spray and thats all they have in tupã!
               - Elder Parker

Only Miracles in Tupa!!

Miracles in Tupa for sure! In just one week the Lord was able to soften Sebastiao's heart and he was baptized. AMAZING! I am so thankful that Parker was able to be a witness to this. GLORY...GLORY!!

Mom, im staying in tupã... NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

  the only area ill stay in more than 3 months and its in Tupã! NOOOO!!!!

  my address is still the same then.

      who is alec jensen, he sent me an email asking about the mtc or if im getting chick mail yet... (Help?? I have no idea)

   ya im stayin with elder schenewark. Elder Chambers got transfered to bauru haha

     is jordan patterson active again!? i could cry!

      i need socks and garments please

       Barack Obamas the man! (not a shared opinion of family!)

  it was only miracles this week in tupã! that man i was talking about last week got baptized yesterday! his names sebastião. we passed by there on tuesday with the branch president and to be honest didnt even teach him anything, just talked about the dream that he recieved and then our branch pres. told him that when hes ready, we will be here to help him get baptized. but he was not open to us at all, he kept talking about how its not his time and that God told him that he should actually stay in the church hes in. which we know is a lie cause God would not lie to someone, so i told him straight up, you changed the answer that you recieved to fit to your circunstances and that you werent doing the Lords will but yours. but with a closed heart nothing can touch him ya know. so we passed by there on thursday and just started talking regular with them and he told us that the visit with pres. fabio really touched him and that pres. fabio said something that really touched him. he told us that he couldnt sleep that whole night after we visited him and that he went into the bathroom at 3 in the morning and just started crying. he said that God said to him, " I am the Master and you are the servant, and when I show you the right path you do not take it? no, you have to take this path I have shown you cause I am the Master." he was crying when he told us the story, i was thinking haha alright! nothing like a burning from Heavenly Father to make someone obey His will. welcome to the Big Leagues Sebastião, when God gives an answer, you follow it. we immediately jumped out of our chairs and gave him big hugs of rejoicement. it was a very tender and sweet moment. everyone was happy! haha when he got baptized, he came out of the water shouting, "glory!" "Glory!" and tears fell from his cheeks. o ya, he randomly asked elder chambers who has never taught him and talked to him once in his life to baptize him, he said that God told him that Elder Chambers should baptize him. so we let elder chambers dress up in white also with elder schenewark just to make him happy haha. its only miracles happening here in tupã! the Lord is blessing us a lot here. 

        does landon live with his girlfreind?!

     did you get my birthday video yet, i sent it home about a month ago...

           LOVE YOU ALL!

           - Elder Parker     

  o ya i forgot, elder havili is in my old area in arapongas and this week he baptized two people that i got the signatures for and taught but things came up in the end with parents and stuff so they didnt get baptized and it was on the miracle of the week that they passed by there and baptized the two teenagers this week, yaaa the Lord blesses us with more baptisms!!! i loved those little skater dudes so much and now there members of the church!!!

Dad,

wow,60 missionaries in 3 months. in missions they do it by transfers (6 week intervals) so that means that in one transfer there gonna get 30 missionaries. thats a lot of missionaries. this transfer we are recieving 17, which is a really big group haha itll probably just keep on going up.

   i wish elder schenewark would have went to the stake youth musical,(it was entitled In God we Trust) hes obsessed with the united states. hes from the east coast so i think there probably really patriotic over there cause boy does he talk a lot about the u.s. and how it was divinely prepared to receive the restored gospel. he loves it.

    

i dont really know maddy cleveland but congrats to her! (going to Argentina for mission)

       ya, we won the competition! we found out right now, haha i cant believe we won, this is basically the worst place on earth. the zone covers two cities, one called presidente prudente and the other tupã where were at and both of the cities are known as the worst cities of all time for missionary work, one being because the church has been in both cities more than 30 years and they still dont have stakes( large congregations) and the second because the members struggle, which would explain why the 1st reason is there also. but its getting better, we had an attendance of 72 in sacrament meeting, thats the highest weve ever had in the last 8 months. the new missionaries are helping out alot.

    im bummed i cant go to utah with you all, i really wanna see temple square and all that since i still have never seen it in my life. i think im gonna get married in the salt lake temple. love you dad, say hi to everyone for thanksgiving.

                            - Elder Parker

Face to Face with Christ and still Deny!!! Wow

Mom,

    sounds like this was a busy week for all of you back home.

   we baptized the wife (elderly couple they were teaching last week) cause the husband is being really stubborn. there from another church and he has a calling as the deacon of there church so he thinks that he has the priesthood and that he was baptized by someone with authority. so we showed him in the bible that he actually wasnt and that he actually doesnt have any authority and so hes been really angry with us ever since, he didnt even come to her baptism. he just scared of what all his evangelical friends will think of him when he switches churches. get this, i invited him to be baptized when he recieves an answer from praying and he said i dont need to recieve an answer i already did. i asked him how the answer was. he explained that he read the parts in the book of mormon we marked, with his wife and then after  they kneeled and prayed together and asked God if these things are true. he said it was just a normal prayer then they went to sleep but while he was sleeping he said that he had a dream that he was standing in an open field and Jesus Christ walked up to him and told him face to face that he should be baptized and this is the right path for him in his life. then he looked at me and said, but im not going to follow this answer i received. 

    you see the levels of pride hear. you have the wife, who actually never recieved a solid answer, she just says that theres no way to deny that its true, she says she just feels its true, then you have the husband who recieves an actual answer, and not some small answer he even said to us, i take it as if Jesus Christ spoke with me face to face it was so real, and he still wont follow the answer. he cares more about what his friends think of him then his own Savior Jesus Christ. good example to me in my life how pride makes you a fool. good thing shes got a humble heart though. but were not done with him yet, im still gonna baptize him.

     Some people get scared of the baptismal invite from the missionaries. thats why we challenge people to be baptized in the first lesson, so we can know if they are really in this to better there lives or if they just want to waste the Lords time.

    they changed the age limit for missionaries to go on missions to 18 so tell landon he can go on a mission now when your in utah.

      transfers are next week so dont send anything, next monday i should know if im staying here or if im going away.

    also im starting my Christmas list right now, i want an Adventure time shirt in my Christmas package. its a show that riley and cambria should know, please get me the shirt.

     i wrote larry a letter like 4 months ago and he still hasnt wrote me back yet. what, costa rican missionaries are cooler or something?

                                   - ELder Parker

thanks for the commentary dad,

   actually we had a ward council meeting and it was super needed. the new branch president is really good, he served a mission so he knows what hes doing. he put up all the statistics on a chalk board and basically just let the numbers put everyone to shame. they average about 8 home teaching visits a month of the 34 assigned. hes a strong, organized leader. hes areally good fit for the branch.

     i love cambria also, tell her i said she can watch spongebob before i get back, she doesnt have to wait. thats true though that riley is growing up huh, its crazy to think that cambria will be 11 when i get home.. riley better get excited for the basketball season, theres a lot of playing to do. is he playing j.v. this year then, he is a sophomore right? man how time flies, i feel like yesterday i was a sophomore in high school haha. were doing a competition in the mission based off of a point system. for example, 1 baptism is worth 20 points and 1 lesson with member is worth 4 points. things like that, and the zone that wins gets a p-day with president and sister tavares which are always fun. anyways our zone did really well this week so were in 1st place as of now and this is the last week. were ahead by pretty far we just need to seal   the deal with a solid week. its funny though cause the zone of presidente prudente is known as the worst zone in the mission with tupã being one of the worst areas in the mission and everyone cant believe that were in first. guess its not where you are and who your comp is, it depends on how much ya put into it!

       -Elder Parker