We are the SHIZ!!

Mom,

if you had a loved one that was standing on train tracks and you saw the train coming would you push them off the train tracks?                             but what if they didnt want to go? what if they wanted to sit there and let the train hit them, but you knew that you could over power them in the moment and throw them out of the way, would you throw them out of the way or would you let them choose to take there life away by a train right in front of your eyes?

        its the same with baptism. Jesus Christ said that people that arent baptized cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. with that being said, i chuck people in the water and baptize them! people build a bridge of sins that certainly doesnt go to Heaven, and they cant cross over that bridge alone, so i push them off the bridge into the water below, and i baptize them!!! if you would throw someone off train tracks to save there mortal life, then why would you not do all in your power to throw them into the water, even if against there will, to save there spiritual life? the mortal life will only happen for so long, but our spiritual life will be forever.

        so thats what i did, i threw an 11 year old girl in the water this week. she didnt really wanna be baptized nor did her mom want her to because shes only 11 but we passed by there saturday night and God gave us a miracle. her grandma is some crazy evangelical church lady who loves to scream and shout like crazy pastors, i instantly connected with her. i met her that night cause shes from another city and i just used the technique that the apostle paul uses when he preaches to the corinthinians, adapt to who you teach. haha i was saying everything was a miracle and that she needed to be baptized and the grandma started going crazy about baptism. she was in the little girls face screaming, " you will be baptized tomorrow and were gonna take pictures! in the name of Jesus you will be baptized!" i was in the background yelling "amen!" amen! then i started talking about how God put her here this day so she could see her grandaughters baptism and it was a miracle. (actually we had been praying for a miracle and this really was it!) but when the g mama heard miracle and that she was involved in it. it was over, that little girl didnt stand a chance, we left that house to a physcho grandma screaming " thank you Jesus! thank you Jesus! my granbaby will be baptized tomorrow!!!" and i baptized Danyelli the next day, thanks to the craziest evangelical grandma of all time. if she ever comes to town again, im baptizing her also, giving her the priesthood and im doing a division with her, and were baptizing everybody and there moms.

 took this homeboy to church, hes got a family, do i smell a family baptism this sunday???

  get me the address to the ctm please!

     its also been 6 weeks since i got a letter. thanks for the love everybody! theres brazilian elders that have families that live in huts that have gotten letters since then!

  me and elder luchman went to this crazy spiritualist meeting, i snapped a real quick footage of these crazy people on my camera, your all gonna love it, and then people started freaking out cause i was filming so we jetted out of there before they sacrificied us to there gods. and i havent gotten the package yet. o ya my zone baptized 47 this month, the old record was 28, we are the SHIZ. (as in Shiz the man from the book of mormon, more specifically the book of Ether who has an army that kills everyone in his path like our zone that baptizes everyone in our paths. ;D)  ( Ether 14:18) catholics knees shake when we arrive!

                               - Elder Parker

  thanks for everything dad, the elect are hearing the words of the Lord and they are following. things have changed for me as a missionary, its time to start throwing people in the water and baptizing them! we met this guy last week and he is married and has a twelve year old little girl. we took him and his daughter to church this week and i hope we can baptize them as a family this sunday. there really welcoming and told us they have been searching for the true church now for a long time. he is a very nice man. he gave us a ride home so thats a good sign that he respects us and wants to learn more. im really excited for there family, because ive still never baptized a family as a whole on my mission and he has a lot of potential to be a good leader here in the church. 

Keep the prayers coming!

                         -Elder Parker

White and ready to Harvest

Letter to Dad and then Mom

thanks for all the updates dad, its nice to hear how the family is doing. im sure in moms email she will talk a ton about the grankids staying over. the doughnut meeting haha, try doing that here in brazil. i still dont know why they cant just have a regular meeting later in the afternoon, americans are crazy.

     we got hit with some opposition this week. man o man never in my life have i ever felt the presences of both sides working. we had 4 people to baptize this week, 3 brothers of one family and another teenager who is the brother of the kid we baptized last week. the mom of those 3 boys talked to her paster this wednesday, so you know how thatll go, and if that wasnt enough she had a lady that she works with that we almost baptized but she wouldnt accept tithing as a commandment so she wasnt baptized and she is a real ghetto woman, so shes screamed it on all the housetops that the mormons just wanna baptize you so that they recieve ten percent of your money. so you can bet she gave a little sermon to this mother about letting her kids be baptized in this church. so theres 3 that we lost, and we have spent 3 whole weeks teaching them. then this other teenager, his mom and friends talked a ton to him and so he didnt wanna be baptized anymore. i didnt even go to church! i spent 3 hours straight running all over town talking to these people to just be baptized and no one gave in. theres no words to describe the feeling you have the night before when you have 4 people that your gonna baptize the day after, then theres no words to describe how bad you feel when all of them fall. i told myself id give my all to baptize them. i gave everything i had. i only went to church for 10 minutes just to make sure i took the sacrament. i destroyed every doubt or assumption that the mom threw at me, or that the kid said, in the end, fear and pride won this week. my comp elder luchman said to me that i was like a lion, he said that when i was preaching to the mom with everything i had, i gave it all dad, he said that i reminded him of brigham young. we gave everything. but theres still more to give. its funny cause everyone in the branch here knows that i just wanna baptize everyone and so i keep having members come up to me telling me to not resist, through our trials will we reap the blessings after the trials. this has been 3 weeks of just straight trials, i have run from house to house just to give people the proper time i feel they will need to talk out all doubts before baptism and these last 3 weeks we have baptized 1. ive got 8 others that all fell the day OF there baptism! im 1 for 9 right now. im praying like ive never prayed before, i dont know if its because of some sin that i commited in my life or maybe im doing something wrong, or studying wrong, teaching wrong, i just dont know. my zone leader, who is basically the best missionary this mission has ever seen, called me yesterday to tell me that he does not know why i have had so much opposition in my area with my investigators these last couple weeks but he said that i have done everything in my power, and that i did everything right, its just there agency and opposition that have won this battle. it meant a lot to me. but if satan has been trying to get me dissapointed in my work, he has only awaken a beast, never in my life have i ever felt such a passion to come back and give everything ive got. never in my life have i ever felt like this. i dont know how to describe the absolute power that i am feeling in my very being. i cannot resist, i will not resist. theres a story in the book of mormon when nephi and lehi in the book of helaman are missionaries and God tells them that because of there desire to share the gospel is so strong, and that they have endured there trials with such faith, God gives them the power that for everything they say, the spirit will open the hearts of others and testify to them of the truth. i feel a power that only trials such as this can bring. theres a fire that can only be started by these pains. but its not a power of a dominating status, its a humble power, one that can only be from God.
        i have been humbled, now its time to start humbling some people. i will baptize weekly.
                                - Elder Parker

Mom,

our zone broke the record for baptisms in a month! we have baptized up to 39 until now and we still have 1 more week. were going for 50 in a month. the old record was 28. haha we still have one more week to solidify our names on the londrina brazil mission record books. this is rediculous for any mission, only missions up in the north east of brazil or in manaus do zones baptize up to 50 in a month. man if every zone in our mission was doing this, we would baptize 500  people this month. anything is possible! 

   next package just throw pictures of hot chicks and reeses pieces in the box. dont mention anything about me being 20... its wierd and i dont like it.
   right at the point in my mission when i was finally getting things down and i felt like i was a solid instrument in the Lords Hands and i was just ready to be used things have changed. these last couple weeks have been humbling. i believe the Lord of the harvest has used these last couple weeks to refine His tools, before he begins the harvest. the field is white already to harvest, and lo, he that thrustheth in his sickle with his might, the same layeht up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul. 
         the field is white, but the sickle has been underneath maitenence these last couple weeks. the Lord of the harvest did not feel it was ready for such a great work that lies ahead in the coming months. it would be better to take some time off to fine tune the instrument, so that it can make it through the whole harvest, then to use it the whole time and not harvest as much as it could have because of the dull blade. and so it is the same with me, the harvest has approached and i have been humbled, i have been refined. i am now ready to complete the whole harvest. i have been reborn as a missionary.  i have certainly learned that our trials only make us stronger, and we have trials so that we may grow, and so i have grown. 
                   - Elder Parker

Enjoy some photos

Where is my faith?

Mom

this week was BOM DEMAIS!!!  (translation is Too Good)

i got the package that you sent to londrina in my last area. and the envelope package with some meds in it from 3 months ago. thanks. i dont think ill ever get that first one you sent out. thanks for sending the other one this week like i asked. basically all the candy from the box is already eaten, these south americans go crazy for american candy.

    i hope that riley and koty had a really spiritual experience at efy this last week. santa barbara is a really good one to. thats so crazy to think that dakota is gonna start his senior year this august. he will have already graduated when i get back. i hope that for his mission dakota gets called to germany, did he ever wind up going to germany. looks like everyones growing up. i have to shave the hairs on my chin once every week. it was once every two weeks when i was in the ctm so, ya.

      i really dont have anything for this week. it was a regular old week on the mission. elder luchman is way different then elder zioli. elder zioli is this way chill surfer dude from sao paulo and elder luchman is from a small town in washington but he played football there and lifted weights a ton. he brings that same, pound your fists on the table and slam your head against the wall mentality to the mission. we used to have a good relationship with the people that live below us, but because of the barking and pounding at 8 in the morning, they hate us now. but hes cool, hes got a strong desire to help people, and we baptized. so he can do whatever he wants just so long as were baptizing.

     congratulations to dustin and roni, whats the little buggers name.

     congrats to nicole also for the patriarchal blessing, that always helps someone out in there life. in her letter she said that chads gonna get out this next april, thats not fair i dont get out until next november.

     im learning that as a missionary for Jesus Christ, as a representative of Him, im terrible. how can i call myself a representative of a Perfect Being. this is His work. im just an instrument in His Hands. but i must live worthy, and give all that i have so that i can be this instrument in His Hands for the longest time possible. i like how in the bible when he sends the twelve off to there missions, He says to not think about what you will say, because it will be given you in that very moment by the Holy Ghost what you should say. its a simple as that. im just a physical vessel that the Lord can use for 2 years. i dont speak the words that i think, i just let the Holy Ghost take over and speak to the people. if i ever tried to teach people by my own understanding i would never even baptize a single soul. but because i have been humbled by the Spirit, i can teach by the spirit, and let the understanding of the Holy Ghost convert people before they even enter the water. if only i could have learned how simple missionary work is when i first entered the mission field, my baptisms would probably be triple what they are. these missionaries in the bible and book of mormon baptize hundreds even thousands because of the faith they posses, i still find myself asking,  Onde está minha fé? (Translation is Where is my faith?)

                            -Elder Parker

New Companion, but no transfer

Date: July 09, 2012

Area: Arapongas

Companion: Elder Luchman

 Transfers are this week, New companion, but he is staying in Arapongas!

Mom,

hahahhahahahha dakotas trucks name is Pearl. haha its genius! i dont know how hes expecting Freedom to get to santa barbara, if she didnt make it last year and shes a year older what makes you people think shell make it this year?

ay dylan, ``go to church!´´ - Ice Cube

geez bass lake and the circus and a sunday jam packed with visits and an open house, lifes real tough these days

transfers happened, elder zioli went from regular missionary to zone leader this transfer. hes never even been district leader and he only has 8 months on the mission and president told him to day hes gonna be zone leader in maringá! YAAAA elder zioli!!! hes freakin out but i know that hes called by God for this position of leadership and hell do great. in the meantime im staying arapongas and my new companion is elder Luchman. hes american, hes from washington. hes really good i know him really well. hes been in apucarana for 6 months and hes just gonna travel ten minutes to good ol arapongas. but hes good, and we will baptize.

so everything still stands, packages to that one ladies house and letters to me. but just know that in six weeks i might be leaving so in about a month, dont send stuff.

no i dont have kotys letter

ive got a whole 8 giga byte memory card of videos and pictures to send to you but i need to recieve the other card first. so send it in the next package.

that money to cambria has no significance here now, its really old money they used to use. its worthless.

mandy huh...(brothers new girlfriend)

you sent that other box to the mission office, and the mail men here, if youre not there to sign for the package, then they just leave a note at your door saying come to the post office to pick up your package in a set amount of time. somedays we dont have anybody at the offic and the reason why sister tavares asks that no packages be sent to the mission office is because they dont have time to go get them at the post office, maybe once every two months. but the thing is that if you dont show up to pick it up in that set amount of time, then they charge a ridiculous fee to take the package out of holding, like 100 dollars. more then the package even costs. and the mission wont pay for it, so probably this happenend with that first package, its probably in the post office and no one will ever get it. our zone leaders are leaving again to londrina but if they dont have it this time to bring back, its been 3 and a half months and i think we can just forget about it. so whatever you put in that one, put it in this next one and mail it off this week. dont wait, dont send me an email this next week saying what do you want in it, just send it. pictures and reeses, the little bite sized ones, and the other chip. anything else you want to send you can but send it this week please. pictures of my baptism, so i can baptize children easier, pictures of beautiful woman, so i can say there my girlfriend, make a personal connection and throw people in the water faster. its all baptism, but please send the goods. this week.

        about retention and how fast, ya see president tavares has this set of mind thats baptize anyone you can, as fast as you can. after two sundays in sacrament meeting they can be baptized. im not gonna lie though theres tons of inactive people though. but the elect will hear the voice of the Shepherd and they will follow. ive heard some outrageous stories of people being baptized with no structure and there active to this day then theres others that waited super long and were baptized and dont want the church anymore. those who love the Savior will follow Him.

          

                 eu sou muito grato por este evangelho na minha vida. cada dia me sinto um pouco mais humilde por causa da Expiaçao Jesus Cristo fez para nos. sem a Expiaçao, nada bom pode acontecer nesta vida e neste mundo. ás vezes me sinto que não posso receber estas bençaos eu tenho na minha vida, ou que eu não sou digno para receber perdão  por meus pecados mas não importa para nosso Salvador. ûnica coisa que Ele nos pedi é para ter amor por Ele e nosso Pai Celestial. como nós não podemos ter amor por nosso Salvador quem nos deu tudo. quão maravilhosa é o plano do Pai Celestial!!! que nós!, pecadores, quem faz mão para outros podemos receber perdão por nossos pecados! quão bonito é o plano do nosso Mestre para nos!

translation: I am very grateful for this gospel in my life. each day i feel a little more humble because of the Atonement Jesus Christ has done for us. without the atonement, nothing good can happen in this life and this world. sometimes I feel that I cannot receive these blessings i have in my life, or that I am not worthy to receive forgiveness for my sins but doesn't matter to our Savior. The only thing that he asked is to have love for Him and our Heavenly Father.

                                       Elder Parker

letter to dad

thanks for the updates dad,

today was really fun, we had p day with president tavares, basketball and volleyball so we had a blast.

   bass lakes always one of the best times of the year huh.

 there taking the green car? did you fix something cause i dont know how that thing will make it there and haha. i think this will be a sequel of last year...

 transfers were today and im gonna stay in arapongas and elder zioli will go be a zone leader in maringá. haha hes really stressed out about it, but hell do great. my new companion is elder luchman. hes from washington, im super excited i already know him, hes a good elder. my zone is having a lot of changes but we will remain the best. half my district from the ctm is here, president tavares likes our group a lot. i have only feelings of joy for my brothers. lifes goin good these days, im getting really really comfortable with life right now, which means in a little time the Lord will probably throw a curveball at me. ive still never stayed more then one transfer with a comp, which is sad cause i liked everyone of them. well gettin short on time, love ya dad, keepin leading our family to success! :D

           -Elder Parker

Raise someone from the Dead!

hey mom,

   i dinnt mention if anything got stolen because im good, and i dont need anything. my zune got stolen and they tried to steal my camera but it fell out of there bag and we found it on the ground. i like to think an angel knocked it out :) but they did get the charger and the link cable for the computer for it, but i already bought a new charger and i dont send any photos by email anyways so i dont need the cable.

I GOT THE PACKAGE. THANK YOU. thats so much easier and faster to just send it to a members home huh mom. i hope that my package arrived in londrina, i still havent heard anything. the jam oozed out all over everything, except the journal. i like to think an angel licked the jounal clean of strawberry jam. :) haha but seriously though thanks very much for the stuff. i dont know if the two tapes had things you all recorded or you wanted me to record things, either way i tried to listen for something on them and there was nothing, so me and elder zioli recorded one when i made 7 months out here. the honey candies were delicious and me and my comp ate the dried mangos in 3 days. licked the bag clean. i do love dried mangos. were they from tammy and todd? cause i dont know who else on this planet that knows ive got an addiction to dried mangos besides them. cause i always ate theres hehe!!!

shout out to grandma viola who writes me a letter once a week. because of her love for me, she has found a place in the celestial kingdom of my heart. i dont want you friends and relatives of the outer darkness of my heart to think, o well i have a life elder parker, not all of us are serving missions and living in the missionary world ya know. i got things to do these days, kids, jobs, school, dating tons of chicks (dakota), and etc. thats the problem right there, you all have a life. your life needs to become revolved around my LIFE. 

i saw my facebook also at lucass house, its a good thing you didnt make me look like im a middle aged woman. alex boye and motab choir, i like alex boye, and i may be a missionary but i still dont listen to motab. ya i know there really good but at the same time they arent. and all my friends are your friends, i saw people on there i dont know if ive ever met in my life. and elder zioli already calls me superbad enough, that michael cera missionary lookin picture just aint cuttin it, wheres the photos from the mission?

riley got most improved player huh? so he went from sucks to average... next year MVP!!!  (meme, nothings ever good enough older brother) its like crazy asian dad but basically with older brothers... i think only blake, dakoty and riley will understand that.

landon coming to visit the family around the same time he needs something, that never happens...

tell blake i said everyone here in brazil loves slipknot. no joke they really do.

 me and elder carrell are in the same zone. that zone he was talking about was my zone too. vamo pra cima apucarana!!!!

 ya our zone baptized another 12 yesterday, i think we´ll just break the record we just set last month. :)

our baptisms fell for this week. one couldnt give up coffee and the other is a ghetto lady so she doesnt accept tithing because she says that God wouldnt rob her. which stinks because shes got a son and nephew that said theyd be baptized the week after her so there went our baptisms for this week and what we thought was for next week. so they didnt go to church, so we cant baptize them. but saturday night we were over at lucas bispos house, the miracle child last week, and his friends came over while we were teaching him, jackpot, so we invited them and his sisters to go to church. everybody did, and so we took 5 people that we can baptize this sunday to church. itll be tough though, its two sisters and three brothers from another family. but there young and there mom is not a member. haha after church, elder zioli said, who wants to be baptized?! and the three brothers all said me! me! me! baptize me! so of course when they got home they all said to there mom that there gonna get baptized next week. so she told us upfront yesterday that they already were baptized when they were babies, and plus, there just children, ( 10,10, and 11) and they have no sins so they dont need to be baptized. thats when me and elder zioli looked at each other and both realized shes not getting it. its really hard to teach people things when there just not getting it. its even harder when they think they are and there not. so its gonna be a tough one but were gonna head on over there tonight, with a member, and use the same techniques to baptize children we used for lucas, there friend. who has turned into the most solid convert in a week. when we took them to church, i walked by there pew before sacrament meeting was starting and he had his book of mormon and had the picture of moroni praying over the gold plates, and he was saying `` now this is moroni, he was a prophet here in the americas, and he hid these gold plates in the ground. and this prophet joseph smith found them and translated them.´´  moments like that when you get an immense amount of pride. saturday night he said a prayer, and his mom, whose not a member, almost started crying cause she said she never thought shed see her little ``street rat´´ saying such beautiful things to God. of course we advertized that it was because he was baptized, because it was!!! he used to be a ghetto little street rat, next week he´ll be passing the sacrament. :) were gonna baptize his older and little sister this sunday also. the younger for sure but the older, she knows its true, her problem is that her boyfriend hates mormons.

             a really cool thing happened this week also. that lady that couldnt give up coffee said she had a dream about me. so we passed by her house basically for a last chance thing to see if she had any potential at all left in her, then we were gonna cut her and she said she had a dream about me. she said she was carrying me around her neighborhood like a little baby, but that i was as i am now,  but she was carrying me around and she couldnt put me down because i was to sacred to touch the ground. so she could only carry me around her neughborhood but that my sacred body couldnt touch the ground. haha its funny cause normally im the one thats dreaming about my investigators or i wake up in the night and i lay there thinking about what they need next in there life, how im gonna help them things like that ya know, but this time she had a dream about me! YES!!! now im getting in there heads. and she said she hadnt drank coffee that whole day, so she was progressing a little! now that im in her head, im just gonna stay there, until i baptize her!

          the relief society told us two weeks ago that she asked to be realeased, and that she was gonna stop coming to church because people were talking bad about her as a leader. i know who to, its a family of idiots, but so each one of us bared our testimony  to her to stay. the others said things like after your released itll be easier, just still go to church after. i was last. the whole time i was thinking, `` what the?! what are you saying?!´´ so when it got to me i told her straight up, you were called of God for this position. if you give it up then you yourself are giving up. i told her about the line of priesthood that everyone is called for in there position. ya know, Jesus Christ Himself called president monson to be prophet, p monsoon, called the twelve because he recieved revelation from Jesus, then the twelve, called the seventy, and the seventy call stake presidents, then the stake presidents call bishops, and the bishops call relief society presidents. but it all begins with Jesus Christ, so nobody but Jesus the Christ called her to be relief society president and if she stopped shed be denying His authority. i talked of Jesus and His trials, how He never let down. she started crying, another tally to the woman that cry, man its been a while since i made a woman cry, then i remembered what sherman sowby told us at our last stake efy, that if we leave the church because of things people have said about us ``than thats just stupid!´´ haha so i said that if she leaves the church because of what these people are saying than thats just stupid! then i said if she leaves as relief society president, then thats even stupider because she has been called by Jesus Christ, and she has been entrusted by Him to help others. ya, i called a crying relief society president stupid, but as a representative of Christ. anyways she asked to continue on as relief society president, and is learning to carry on. everytime i see her she tells me thank you a million times for telling her shes stupid, her husband even thanked me for calling her stupid. i feel like im not showing how much she loves me now through this email and she must to because she said shes giving us a barbeque at her house this saturday, id say im fitting in pretty well here in arapongas.

           and one of the brazilian elders here made a street contact in portuguese sign language. elder da rita said he learned on the mission!! i was like what son!!!! he baptized some deaf teenager in Baurau when he served there and they taught the lessons in portuguese sign language!!! the kid taught them and everything. how crazy is that!!! talk about the gift of tongues huh??!!! it was in that moment he was talking with a deaf guy at the bus stop, in sign, that i realized missionaries freakin rock!!!! anyways, im gonna baptize 6 people this sunday, finish taking over this ladys mind, and i just might raise someone from the dead, but only if Jesus wants me to.

                - Elder Parker