Week 15 (December 14, 2015)

How are you? I hope you are doing swell, I Heard that you sent me a box already!! AHHHHH Hhaha im so excted I really hope it makes it here, I finna be devastated if it doesnt...

But Look here momma, good news is coming your way... This week we had another baptism and oh man it was good, the name of her was Marcela... I forgot last like 5 names to her but so good, we are really accelerated the work here and doing just great. (I can see that his English is getting mixed up as he is starting to think in Portuguese)

So Listen, Im the choir right? And everytime they close a firseide with a prayer from someone in the audience.. Just random.. So this guy was chosen to pray and this was the best prayer I have ever heard in my life haha... During the prayer he referenced AND QUOTED the scriptures John 3:16 and Jeremiah 1:7 and instead of saying in the name of Jesus Christ amen, he just jumped right to it and shouts AMEN!!! hahaha I was dying.. But he had like one of those backrounds of the churches that yell when they teach so this was normal for him.

Momma life is so great, Im so excited to see my momma on Christmas, and hey if its ok with you I would like Briggs and Allie and Wade there too also. That would be soooo legit :)) If not ok... But thats it!

Also, Brazilians are really bad singers holy cow just thought I'd throw that out there haha, also, todat my companion and I super duty cleaned our house it was amazing it took so long, that house hadn't been cleaned in centuries. We grinch bagged everything, thats what I learned how to do from Dad haha. 

I love you and the family sooo much, I hope everything is just phenomenal there.

Love your son, Elder Worthen

Week 14 (December 7, 2015)

MOMMIO!!!!!

hahah Yay you wrote me this week! :) I cannot get enough pictures or stuff to read from you I love getting updated on all thats going on back in the beautiful country of America. Man so nice.. Hahaha Momma listen up yes i can see Christ the Redeemer statue but its not very clear im a couple miles away but on the very last day of my mission I get to go to the very top and visit it! :D

Ok, quick story... I feel like my calling here is to help all the youth come into the church and be baptized, maybe or maybe not but I continually find myself meeting and teaching youth. I hope so because then i will catch them, at an age where they can still serve a mission and my prosperity of my mission will be GRANDNORMOUS! Haha But the name of the young man I baptized was Juan Pablo Carvalho Gomez Da Silva.... Quite long eh? haha But super cool kid, I think that working with him we will baptize a lot of the kids in his community, because everyone there looks up to him!

Ah man Mom you made me litereally LOL when you just said finna, i still use that you already know! haha and yah I was a little saddened when I heard that the Kelloggs are already moving but its ok, after the mission Briggs finna move in with me I dont know where but we are probably gonna live together haha :P Im happy to hear things with Riley are good, I love him :P I wanna see a picture of this Chloe girl! Whats up with that??

 Ah man stinks... I thought for sure Melody would've won that crap.The Judges were probaly payed... Anywho.. Momma my companion and I are putting in mad work here, I love him he's so cool. We just eat a ton of food, and proselyte, and baptize without end... its all I know. Baptism. I hope for more baptisms soon, we have a goal as a zone for 24 baptisms and I need to carry my part of  the load, also, if we reach that goal, we get to eat Brazilian BBQ!! Oohh man Im excited for that, here BBQ is called Churrasco, but the rr makes a h sound.

Momma I love you and Im super excited to skype you on christmas, also, Im in the mission choir so I get to travel to lots of areas singing christmas songs so thats super great, I love christmas and hope that I can receive that package before Natal. But anywho, all is well with me, love you and the family more than you know and tchau tchau! :)

-Elder Worthen

Week 13 (November 30, 2015)

Laercio's baptism

My new comp, Elder DaMaia

(I was sick this week so I had Dave write lol, thankfully he "forgave" me without guilt)

This one goes out to the one I love, 

Hey mommio haha, I almost forgot to write you this week because when I opened my inbox I didnt have a letter from you :P Well, i forgive you.. I mean Im only doing the most important work in the world out here in the world and you forgot to write me... Its totally cool though i can undersatand! :) haha Imjust  playing with you. But man I am so jealous of you guys haha that cruise looked so refreshing, I would love cruise right about now. I would actually love a lot of things right about now... Like a warm shower oh my goodness that would be nice.. Also ranch dressing haha they only use vinegar and salt here for the vegetable like what is this?! I need some hidden valley!!

Speaking of things I need mom, I have been traveling a lot lately because I am in the choir for our mission, its super fun but traveling isnt free and I like food... SO could you put some money on my debit card, I would very much appreciate it and the dollar goes a long way here. SO if you just put like 50 bucks on it for this month I would gladly accept :)

Also, hows my package coming along? Did you already send it? If not you should real  quick cause that thing finna take a good amount of time to get here.. Also, have you received any more letters from me lately? I hope so this freaking mail here is so slow haha!

Momma, my new comp is so legit, Ill send you some pictures soon of me and him we have good times together :) I gotta go, love you to the moon and back

-Elder Worthen

Daddio, 

Oh man Ok lets get started... Things that I miss from the USA.... First of, Taco Bell, holy cow, and Mountain Dew.... Oh my goodness have mercy, the things I would do for a Mountain dew... Also, Hot N Spicy McChickens from McDonalds.. That would be phenomenal right now haha. The main type of food we get fed here is rice, beans, and some sort of meat, usually steak. And then there is always a dessert of some sort. Holy cow daddio, I love hearing about the Cardinals and everything. Especially the cardinals... hahaha and its different here yo, their lunches are like our dinners. So we have lunch appointments not dinners. Dinners here for me are usually like sweet bread or cookies haha :P Something easy. Life is going so good for me though, I love you and hope to hear from you next week too :)

-Love, Elder Worthen

Week 12 (November 23, 2015)

Fabiano's baptism

Ahhhh hahaha you have got to be kidding me right now hahaha. That sounds sooooo refreshing. I wake up everday at 630 and work my buns off until 930 than I have 1 hour to get ready for bed and sleep and repeat hahaha. Well not completely true, I have P Days which are 8 hours but mommio listen up I had my first baptism this week!!!! I will send  you pictures later his name is Fabiano and he is soooo cool, I'm so happy I have this opportunity to serve here, I hope to baptize more REAL SOON.

Ah Gosh.. To come back to a cruise would be heaven :) Hahaha and guess what, I get to skype you in like 5 weeks so that pretty cool too :)

That's so good that you guys got to celebrate your 25 years of marriage like that too, good thing you didnt have service ;) Haha you don't need a cell phone to have fun, look at me! I only have scriptures :P

And ahh Ok, Wade told me you were holding them haha :P But ok I guess the mail is just incredibly slow haha! Momma I love you and also, this was a transfer week and I got a new companion, he is a Brazilian, his name is Elder DaMaia.. Haha kinda funny because my other comps name was elder Maia.

Have an awesome week I love you send me pictures :))

-Love Your Boy, Elder Worthen

Week 11 (November 16, 2015)

Okay sorry I wiull be more specific in my emails I guess. SO this week was really really really good. Hahah holy cow the weeks are flying, Its already P day and Im already wrtiting you again this is justso  weird. But mom listen up this is the scoop on my life in Brazil... We have some really awesome investigators. Right now we have Laercio and Fabiano.... IM GOING TO BAPTIZE THEM THIS SATURDAY!!!! My first baptism holy cow Im so ecited! Elder Maia and I worked with them and they have super solid   testimonies so sinceriously pray for them that the enemy won't pull them away from this path and that they can follow the example of our Savior and be baptize and receive the Holy Ghost. I am so excited for them and they are so excited too. Also, we are teaching another family of Damnian and Nina... They are scheduled to be baptized on the 28th and Im pretty sure about that one. Not 100 percent but I really hope its follows through. Nina has a bit of a smoking problem but besides that they are good, they love the church and when we visit, so pray that they can stay strong and quit smoking :)

 Other than that we dont have a ton of investigators, we have been being blessed with lots of people to receive though! The only thing is I need to not be afraid to open my mouth with anyone. I hate passing people on the road without talking to them haha I feel so bad because everyone devserves a chance to hear about this awesome gospel.

YO I gave a talk this sunday about theSabbath day and missionary work and it was straight fire. I was preaching that gospel for like a solid 20 minutes up there without difficulty, thanks to that gift of tongues :) Hahaha

Mommio update on me... I currently weigh 175 pounds when I left I was160 haha, its because the people refuse to let me leave the table without eating like 3 full plates of meat, rice and beans and then i always a dessert! Hahah Im doing just fine with that. Also funny story, my compaion was reading in Romans the other day... You need to look up this scripture you will die laughing because you  know how I have really ugly feet and compass toes? This scriptures talk about it a little bit. My comp read romans 10:15 and said this scripture is a lie for me. GO READ IT!!! hahaha

Well this week was good, I try to improve more and more every week, I love you soo much and the family. I hope you get better... AND ENJOY YOUR CRUISE

-Love , Elder Worthen

Week 10 (11/9/15) IIha do Governador, Brazil

Elder Worthen and Elder Maja in Ilha do Governador, Brazil

Oi Familia!

Heyoo, how is everything gong in the wonderful state of AZ? How are my cardinals doing?? Just kidding I already know, I have a member in the ward fill me in. There are few people here that like American Football so I use them as much as I can to hear about the latest plays and stats n such haha :P You guys will probably need to spell chek literally everything I send. Im forgetting how to spell because I read in Portuguese and it is SOOOOOO different. The pronunciations and everything haha. Man Im not gonna lie, Portuguese is not easy. Im having troubles lately because i really want to express my feeling the best way I can and help people but sometimes it is just to profound for my vocabulary. Sometimes I wish I was serving a mission english speaking but other times Im super happy about it because I know this is where I am supposed to be and that I will improve and that I'm improving more and more everyday:)

So we have been blessed immensely lately, we have had the opportunity to teach lots of families and been receving tons of help from the ward. It's fantastic what a ward can do to help missionaries. My dream is to have all the members come to me an ask "How can I help?" Oh I would have so many things for them to do haha. This week I am giving a talk on missionary work and keeping the sabbath day holy in our ward. I'm pumped because I know this will excite our ward more about the work.

SO We have a couple baptisms marked pretty soon for the 21 I really hope they dont fall through because I've learned to love my investigators sooooo much and I know this will bless their lives so much so I pray every day  A TONNN for them. Hopefully I will have my first baptism real soon here :)) I will definitely send pictures of that :D

Lets see... Anything crazy happen this week.... Well I found a store inside of a favela that just so happened to sell mountain dew, that was pretty sweet haha, it wasnt the same flavor but it was still really good!!

I love you family, I love being a missionary.  The days fly by and the weeks too, Im going to be writing you another letter in what feels like a day but is actually a week haha. I cant even remember what day it is most of the time, they just blend except for when its Sunday. Anywho, tchau tchau for now, I love you! hahaha jk :P

-Love, Elder Worthen

Week 9 (11/02/15)

Illha do Governador, Brazil (Governors Island) 

Oh noooo.... Mom Im guilty... I waited till last minute to write this to you.. Im so sorry! 

Ah thats so cool, you guys sooo deserve that cruise. That sounds like so much fun I cant even imgagine haha. Mom im ma be straight with you...These past weeks were really hard with the language and our members and investigators and everything. Its fun but really hard. This week things are finally turning around. Ahh its so great, I got to meet a lot of new investigators, we have alot more help from the ward, the bishop is helping us too, things are really turning up here!! And my language is turning out amazing too!!! Hahaha Its amazing how great the gift of tongues is. Imunderstanding  soooo much more now, I love it and I know its because of the help from our Heavenly Father. I have fasted and prayed a lot for this help. I still need help Im not fluent but it is definitely improving :) 

I love getting the chance to bear my testimony all the time I feel the spirit every time I do it. GUESS WHAT?@! I'm giving a talk this next next Sunday in our ward already haha crazy stuff! 

Ahhhh I wish i had more time. I think thats cooking show is so dope with Melody and the fam, they sound like they are doing so good especially  Wade:)

Love you gotta go

-Elder Worthen