Letter and Package arrive in mail

We received this letter from Parker last week with a package. Thought I would share. For those that are not members of our church, Parker mentions trainers and he is referring to the first missionary companion he will serve with out of the training center. They help teach him what a missionary does and the day to day routine and stuff like that. We also learn why he no longer refers to himself by Elder Bennett but Elder Parker. We hope you are enjoying his letters.

Bennett Family,

I think it's funny how real and true this gospel is. Seriously, the church is the only true church and literally the only one that receives correct revelation from God the Father and Jesus Christ.

President Tavares receives correct revelation for us all. My 1st 4 weeks here we worked really hard and when I say we I mean Elder Freitas. I had decided that I was going to wait my first 2 transfers and do nothing for the first 3 months til I could really actually help people. Since I didn't know the area, Language, culture, people, how to be a missionary, or what a missionary is. I decided I'd just get dragged by my 1st 2 trainers and study them. I had literally said to myself everyday in my mind while we walked and after appointments that I did and said nothing. I would say to myself, "I'm a sleeping giant waiting till everything falls into place, then I'll awake, but for now I'm a sleeping Giant.
Seriously, everyday I'd repeat to myself, "I'm a sleeping giant awaiting to be awoken." And that was my attitude the 1st 4 weeks and ya you guessed, we baptised nobody. Got really close with about 2 or 3 but nothing.

Then President and sister Tavares came and we had a zone conference and they trained us for seriously 8 hours straight. Was really good. Its where I learnt the only reason I'm here is to Baptise. I honestly thought I was just here to spread the church to everyone and serve everyone. Dang wrong. Then President Tavares told a story of the legend of the sleeping Giant in the city of Rio De Janeiro. Legend has it that the rock formation by the ocean side in Rio De Janeiro is a Giant; sleeping. He was a giant and he ruled the land but one day he got a little tired, and thought he'd just lay down for a second. Then he was so comfortable laying down and not being the Giant that he is that he layed there a little longer.He was a Giant no more and now just land for everything to rest on. He stayed a sleeping Giant forever. But President pulled this video up which I think was a commercial in Brazil about how the Giant woke up and the whole city notices, and then, here's the best part, as the Giant is walking across the ocean side and every step hes shaking the whole city a caption came across the screen: "O Gigante Nao Esta Mais Adormecido" "The Giant is no more asleep". When I saw that, O mama! It stirred something in me. I mean my exact words, I was like, "Serious the Giant (me) sleeps no more!" And ya, he hasn't slept no more, literally, I get up at 5:30 every morning so I can study and pray more and the results of the Awaken Giant. . . .3 Baptisms in 3 weeks since I awoke! and I got 2 more this week and 5 the week after. (Family) that's right! By the time you read this, I will have worked as an instrument of the Lords work for 7 more Baptism. I speak with every person I see, I only think about Baptism and that's all I want. Our missions goal is 200 Baptisms this month, and President Tavares asked for 1.5 Baptisms per couple. The AWOKEN GIANT, the shepherd of Londrina, the Farmer of the field, and the fisher of the sea, ELDER PARKER will give him 5, if it be the Lords will.
I love you all, God Bless. Remember that its by small and simple things great things come to pass. Pray, fast, read the scriptures, repent, bring forth good works continually and you can know the mysteries of God and bring thousands to repentance. Can there be any greater Joy?

I am sending home my Elder Bennett name tag. Elder Bennett didn't know he was here to Baptise so he did just that. Baptise nobody! Elder Parker has more than your fingers. He knows his purpose as a missionary.

16th Email from FOZ

Mom

    well i dont know what to say about all the problems everyones having except the same things i tell my fold everyday, read the scriptures everyday and pray to God ferverently everyday. follow the commandments, in this there is safety, in this there is peace.
    about the family specifically and whats happening with them financially and emotionally and spiritually all i can say is that it will only get worse. and it will only get better when they begin to obey the commandments of the Lord with exactness. to tell you the truth im a little scared myself for that home, because theres only one who has stood alone and followed the commandments and  so he has and will continue to recieve blessings for this. honestly this life is so simple. keep the commandments, in this there is safety in this there is peace. He will send blessings, He will send blessings. i have one family that we are working with.  they have two kids, there dirt poor, not married she had there first child at 16 and there second at 18, because they didnt learn the first time and guess what... because they dont keep the commandments of God they cant get food for kids because there father got layed off from his crappy job and now they have nothing. (We come into their lives, Elders Avilla and Parker) were running around to every member we can find asking for food for them so they can at least feed there two sons of 5 and 7  we preach to them keep the commandments they ask us what is this you speak of? we set a small goal for them, read one verse from the book of mormon together and after say a prayer together and youll recieve blessings. they do this everyday for 5 days, he was employed on wednesday!!!! they have money to pay for water, electricity and FOOD!!!! all because they showed forth a little effort, and they were rewarded. KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS, IN THIS THERE IS SAFETY, IN THIS THERE IS PEACE. HE HE HE HE HE WILL SEND BLESSINGS, HE WILL SEND YOU BLESSINGS. KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS. whatever President monson says goes.
     - Elder Parker
 AKA the pastor of Londrina

 

 

thanks for everything dad.
   about all those people that turn us away its about 99 out of 100 that turn us away. right now some cops just rolled in here and there searchin this whole place around me and i dont know what happened but its funny here cause everybody breaks the law but the cops dont do anything unless its something really serious like drugs or murder an stuff. but there all big guys and they are decked head to toe and travel in packs of 3 and they look like they could beat up a dozen guys at once. its funny to see the differences with there police and ours, for them, the other two that arent checking someone or doing the paperwork have to have guns drawn and in position to shoot anything that attacks. fingers on the trigger ready. even for just a traffic stop to check for a license everyone has there gun drawn. crazy huh. but im learning that for every 1000 people i talk to, 100 will let you teach them or have time, 10 of those 100 are serious about wanting to follow the example of Jesus and only about 1 of those 10 really actually have the desire just as the boy joseph to find whats true in this world. so its a lot of work. dang i dont know what happened around here but cops are going crazy right now, just another day in porta meira of foz do iguaçu. porta meira is the ghettoest part. but i love it! Good thing i listened to Tupac all those years so im not afraid of the ghetto, right dad?! haha love ya
            - Elder Parker

Email #15

Ok so there is some sarcasum in the beginning to Mom, I failed to mention in my letter was that I sent the addresses with the care package that went out last week.

 hey mom thanks for the addresses i asked for. you just keep pulling through everyweek for me.
    i only have 13 minutes so its not gonna be much this week cause i was fillin out baptismal reports sucka!
    what was the recurring message i got from conference? baptize everything that walks on this planet. when President Monson was talking and the portuguese guy was interpreting and i couldnt understand much all i heard him say was baptize elder parker! baptize elder parker! baptize those 12 investigators sitting next you, baptize them and then there mothers, and then there grandmothers and then there second cousins, and then there friend they met one time at summer camp whos confused about religion, baptize them Elder Parker! like spongebob when he forgets everything but fine dining i have forgotten everything except for baptism. people ask me what i like to do and i reply baptize. they laugh ask me what i liked to do before my mission in america, and i just go blank and i think to myself, i dont know what i liked to do before my mission except baptize people, is it possible to like other things besides baptism? I... dont...know
    but yes i do know that elder freitas is zone leader, that fool is physcho but hes one of the best missionaries in our mission, hes a cold hearted baptizing machine. actually elder chambers has been killin it also is what i heard. dont have much time but i love you all, have fun at malibu, please get me elder mason urmstons address and elder gomez as well and elder gardner and please check up on that package i sent you. it costed me 60 reals so ya it was a lot. and put more money on my chase card please, the doctor and medicine costed me 200. funny thing our zone leaders are leaving to a conference and there gonna get all our letters and  packages and if you would have sent my medication when i asked id be recieving tomorrow but im not gonna recieve all that till next month till they leave again for another conference. i hope i dont get another sinus infection. love you all tell lindsey and jared i said to dont worry about lily, have another kid also. i want a whole little flock of tiny ones when i return.
                       - Elder Parker

Sick boy this last week

  

My boy needs letters!!

thanks for the inspiration mom.
alrighty i need some things in this care package youve yet to send. i need the addresses of larry still, brixton, elder urmston and everybody else you might think i need.
i need you to send me memory cards about 3; 4 gigs for for my camera so i can take more pictures, i need memory keys, ya know little 4 gig ones like two or 3
i need pictures of of the family
i sent you a package with the area code 93619. ya i know its wrong but thats because like spongebob ive forgot everything except baptism. please corect it if you can. i gave dad the info.
 send me cds of church music please and also the joseph smith movie thats an hour long please.

and now to the week. so i was sick this week and i went to the doctor. they gave me drugs i dont know whtat they are but they do something to me. i taught a lesson while i was on one of these pills and could not function. they knock me out. i fell asleep during the opening prayer for 2 maybe 3 seconds then when it came my turn to teach i had this scripture in my head i was going to share and then out loud i said another, then when i searched for the scripture i was on the page of the verse but i couldnt find the verse. i was trippin hard mom haha, i started talking because i didnt know what to do, and then no words came to my mind, so i remember looking at the doorknob for a solid 5 second pause and the whole time i was thinking, ´´i dont know whats going on´´ haha after my comp couldnt stop laughing and he told me that i wasnt making sense and that my eyes were barely open when i spoke and then i paused forever. so i dont take those 4 different medications at the same time anymore.
 my comps a miracle and he puts us all to shame. his sister isnt active anymore and his parents are dead. his mother from a sickness and his father was working on a house 2 years ago and it all colapsed on him and killed him. his grandparents are dead so all he has is his sister and her husband. and she has denounced the church after she married her non member husband, suprise, so he has no one and yet here he is serving a mission. i was thinking about him and how hes exactly the people i wanna surround myself with the rest of my life. i thought back to people i know back home that would even have a thought of not serving, and i felt immense shame to think that here he is, just some poor brazilian from petropolis, no parents or family that supports him and yet he never went innactive or had doubts of serving.
 well as of right now hes the miracle i have but i need another one because we have no one we can baptize this saturday. its times like this that have me questioning myself, where is my faith?
 elder richard g. scott said in a talk once, ´´ spend a couple hours on your knees, itll do ya good.´´ i think i need to spend a couple hours on my knees.
                          LOVE YOU ALL, ESPECIALLY CAMBRIA
                                - Elder Parker
Letter To Dad

what do we do for general conference weekend!?
 we find a member with a van and literally get as many people as we can that want to listen to the prophet and apostles. its one of the best times of the year because people can firsthand see and hear the prophet and apostles we talk of and since every investigator needs two times in the church to be baptized this counts as one also. but the important thing is that its saturday also so that counts. so if someone cant make it to church sunday this week, great! we can watch conference with them for one hour on saturday and baptize them the next sunday. so we basically have to sundays this week and our goal is to get between us two companionships in my area to have 25-30 people watch this week then baptize as many as we can next sunday. ive got high hopes for next sunday but as of now we have no one to baptize this sunday. one family we have were all tired and said theyd come next sunday and the other the dad said they never wanna see us again because they wanna be  catholics forever. this guy speaks about how catholic they are when him and his family havent been to church in 10 years! its people like that that we have to cut literally because they have become prideful  and they cant understand anything we teach because they dont want to. anyways im working really hard, and if it means anything the weather has been better here so while your at the beach just remember that i only sweat when im sprinting a half mile to return home at nine thirty because were trying to get every minute we can preaching the gospel and we cant break our curfew. you cant have the spirit with you if you break the rules, and you cant baptize if you dont have the spirit. VAMOS LA BATIZAR PAI
o ya i sent you all a package also but i put the wrong area code on it by accident. our area code is 93611 and i put 93619 but everything else is right so i dont know if it will still make it but if you can please check up on it for me, the number for it is RE536036575BR i sent it through the post office here its called ´´correios´´ it has really cool things in it and im sure your going to want it. please please please check up on it. have fun at malibu.
                      - Elder Parker

Email #14 from Foz

Parker had a very short email to me and a bit longer to his dad, hum not sure about that but anyways they are both included. Just a translation for you from my letter Agora means now. Guess he needs a care package like yesterday or something! and Vamos means lets go, while Batizar means Christian.

thank you for the addresses mother.
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!
   ya so the work is opening up here now that i have a comp that actually respects me and listens to my opinion. so in four days weve already baptized and next week well baptize two more and the week after 4 possibly five. all becuase he listened to me. :) so lifes good. ive settled in. im crazy. im literally addicted to batisms now that i know its the only reason im here. i didnt know that till 4 weeks in but now i know and as you can see the numbers are showing. gonna be short but im going to send pictures. send me like 3 more gigabyte things for my camera and then ill send them to you. care package... AGORA!!!!


Letter to Dad:

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!
  haha i dont know how to spell in english anymore. on a letter i sent tolindsey and jared i noticed i wrote family, familiy. haha
  thats great to hear about aunt joan. i decided that when i return imgonna put this family on my back and work with missionaries and babtize or reactivate everyone if they have a humble heart. nice to hear rileys enjoying volleyball but make sure that if he is banging his knees on the hardwood toconsider wearing knee pads. seriously becuase you dive every five seconds and istill to this day get some knee pains and im pretty sure its because ofvolleyball. thats why i said do track because your legs get so strong withoutinjury but if hes doing volleyball hes doing volleyball. hell like it to sincebuchanan has a really good program too and probably can win some valleys orstate championships his junior and senior year.
     serious dad everyday is a miracle here. you couldntbelieve how blessed we are. i got a new companion and he actually listens tome. my old one was really good but he never asked me what we should do or wheni voiced my opinion he was always quick to just laugh and say you´ll learn. henever listened. even when i said we need to exercise our priesthood more forthese people so they can actually feel the effects of the priesthood instead ofjust hearing it taught by us. he said no you can just say bless this house inthe opening prayer and thats fine. so with my new comp elder avilla he asked mewhat do you want to do. i said exercise our priesthood and what do you know thesecond day in we had already given 3 blessings on complete strangers and itreally opened there hearts. he listens to me. and guess what pops?! one lady wetracted into said she had a headache and didntwant our message because she wasgoing to take a nap. my companion said we can give you a blessing since wererepresentatives of Jesus Christ and we do everything He would do. so we gaveher a blessing of health and ya her heart was opened tremendously! shes veryuneducated and poor. she cant even read and yet when we taught about thepriesthood the next day in our first lesson with her she weeped because shesaid she new it was true because she felt it yesterday. amazing huh? ive taughtpastors, and people with college educations and they will deny the priesthoodbecause they say theres no such thing even though well show them tons ofscriptures in acts and they cant comprehend and yet this uneducated lady whocant even read the verses we read to her understands it. shes gonna be baptizedthis sunday and she gave us a reference to her daughter who has a family offour. were going to baptize 5 people because of a simple blessing for aheadache. let us exercise our priesthood more and vamos la batizar papa!!!

Perry asked Parker why they don't have bikes in his mission:

  Bikes!!! because brazil is where they send the hardest working missionaries. we dont get bikes they get stolen to easily and cause more problems so we walk. everywhere and yet we still find ways to be the highest baptizing missions in the world. the priesthood is a literal power. we gave this young man a blessing to stop smoking and he had never heard of our church or had no idea what the priesthood was. hes 19 and is a squirrely little guy. when he talks he throws his hands all over the place and talks really loud ya know those guys. you should have seen him after the blessing as he could feel the literal power of the priesthood come over his body. he just sat there still. didnt even speak for about 10 seconds and then when he spoke you could just hear it in his voice. he had no idea what was happening. this squirrely little guy then turned into this reverant calm mannered boy. he just sat there and then said what is this thing? we said its a priesthood blessing. he asked ya but what is it? do you get them frequently? why? when do we get them? it was actually funny to see just pure confusion on his face as he was trying to piece together what he was feeling? one elder said feels good huh? he said ya! i like this! if only you could have seen his eyes dad, he had no idea what was happening but he was so calm. he turned into a little boy just sitting in his chair. when he spoke he sat still, and spoke with a reverent manner. it was awesome! love you dad! lead the família to the celestial world!
                              -Elder Parker

Thanks to sister Carrell for posting this picture on our facebook

This is the email I received this week, still frustrated with mom that I haven't gotten addresses to him!

my goodness gracious mom! please could i get some info on elder cleveland, elder trent martinez, elder larry gomez, whether or not taylor pass has gotten his call yet, pierce smiths address, a letter from dakota aust aka shaq daddy, and a care package stacked with some hot cheetos and my medication, and any other peoples info you might think i need such as the address of logan and jenaye, nicole, and tell cambria i want a letter from her, the aust address so i can write dakota, tell chad to write me a letter from his mission, the mission of fresno, california. i want letters from people that i dont know, i want letters from people i do know and tell jared to start a list of movies to watch when i return being that some classics are number 1 and 2 those being the sandlot number 1 and phantom of the opera number 2 and number 3 provavelmente the grinch. also you can just send care packages and letters to the mission address, we get them eventually although very slow but we get them.
        a dog!? when am i going to get an email saying that jenayes pregnant? what are the men of my family doing? wheres the pregnancies? i wanna come home to a whole flock of little nieces and nephews when i return. im utterly disappointed in jared and logan at this moment and even landon for that matter. get it together gentlemen
       nicole just went through the temple? whyd she wait so long? tell her i said hi and im grateful for that one time she made me watch phantom of the opera on her computer when i was like 13. haha
          what the!? pretend baptism!? you think i play games or something? have you forgotten who i am and what im sent here to do? ive got this strange addiction and the only way to satisfy my desires is baptism. ya i baptized that home boy. hes a brazilian dallas. literally he looks walks talks just like him. got his mom lined up this week and he wasnt our first either. i told you ill show you them when i return. there very personal to me and i dont like how other missionaries throw there baptisms around like there just numbers.
        so i had like 150 pictures i was going to send you but my camera broke right as i put it up to the thing. i dont know what happened but im not gonna lie im an angry elder right now. ill let you know if maybe i need a new camera sent.
       so this is one transfer down and hopefully i stay here. i love Foz do Igauaçu! can you believe its already been 3 and a half months?! the language is coming and its kind of cool because im with the same members and people then when i first arrived and im starting to understand them better and they can see my progress also. also one of the elders was having back problems so he went to londrina and his companion an american has joined us for the last 2 weeks and weve worked really hard hitting to areas. its nice to have someone that can tell you the meaning of words you dont know so ive definitly learned a lot these last two weeks. also my comp is our district leader and the american is the zone leaders so ive been learning a ton about everything here. leadership, how to run a zone, the stress youre under, the amount of faith it takes. its tough. ill admit at times i find myself questioning myself; where is my faith? because if you have faith you should be baptizing every week and if you have perfect faith you should be baptizing everyday. and so its hit me really hard these last 2 weeks, where is my faith? so ive decided to study a little harder and pray a little more fervently. but then at the same time i studied the ministry of Christ because he was the best missionary and he did everything perfectly and then i realized that even Christ, the best missionary of all, was rejected even to the point of death. not even he could turn the hearts of everyone.
                 -Elder Parker

Such an amazing surprise this week from Parker! I don't know if this is his first baptism or not, he didn't say. For some reason he did not get my email to him this week and so he had very little to say to me this week, so the photo makes up for it!

From Parker:

i dont know if you emailed me or not but you emailed me the same from last week i think. anyways id like those peoples info. also this was the best week yet to many stories to tell. this whole mission, this whole work is one giant amazing miracle. i think thats the word to describe this last week. AMAZING. i struggle at times but im killin it at the same time. i think that Jesus is turning me into some sort of superhero. I was able to  read some 19 year old girl  named jayne. read her mind. told her she had a question about life after death, she started weeping before i was done. her mom died when she was 2. funny how were blessed if we show but a little bit of faith. i could have not acted on the prompting of the spirit and just taught the same lesson but i didnt and so were blessed. shell be baptized someday. God bless
                                 -Elder Parker