Two Missionaries!

So this is the thing:  This is harder to do that I thought it would be.  I miss my boys, and sometimes this blog makes me sad.  If people are looking at it, I will try to keep it up, but, I don't want to waste my time.  So......leave a comment so I know someone is looking.

Ryan entered the MTC on Wednesday, February 29, 2012.  He will be there until March 20, 2012.  Then.....on to Melbourne, Australia.  Please write to him, I am certain he would appreciate the support.

Ryan and his host at the MTC

Ryan, Me, Robert, Emily and Lou at Olive Garden

Emily and Ryan

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Ben and his spider friend

Ben and other missionaries

March 5, 2012

Mommy,

You did have an eventful week! I thought about you guys on Wed. I have been praying for Ryan all week!! I bore my testimony about him in sacrament meeting yesterday! Everyone was way excited to hear that my family has TWO missionaries serving at the same time! Not many families get this opportunity! It is such a blessing!!!! It will make a difference in the work that me and Ryan do and the things that happen at home!! Yay for blessings!!!! YAY for serving the Lord!!!!

Everything here is great! I am very happy and healthy! I got a recipe for brownies and have loved making them! I forgot how much I like brownies!!! And you will be proud. They are from scratch! One of the sisters in my district had a recipe and she gave it to me! So now I know how to make brownies from scratch!! I know that you are impressed!! Right? YAY me!!! YAY Brownies!!!!

Te Amo!!!
Elder Vaughn 

February 27, 2012

Mommy,

This week was amazing!!! I don’t even know were to start...... Ok so the assistants came to Porto Velho on Wed. to help everyone in our district baptize someone. We all made a goal to baptize this week and we planned a baptism with everyone! So we were thinking about the people that we are teaching and realized that we don’t have anyone that is ready to be baptized.  But we all had faith that we could find someone! So we went looking! We worked a lot and talked to a lot of people! But, we did not find anyone and Saturday gets here and we still don’t have anyone to baptize for the baptism that we had planned for Sunday! The Sisters by Friday had found someone and the other Elders found someone on Wed. So it was just us that needed to find someone. I was thinking that we would not be able to do it! Then we went to lunch and the lady that we ate lunch with had a friend over that had been to church a couple of times! We taught her for the first time and asked her if she wanted to be baptized! She accepted and she and her two daughters were baptized yesterday! It was so cool!! There were a ton of people there and the spirit was so strong! The stake choir sang!!  BEST BAPTISM ever!!!!!  The stake choir sang. "When I am baptized" And I remembered my baptism and then I was thinking and it came to me! THIS CHURCH IS TRUE!!! Of course I already knew that but man o man the spirit was so strong.  I turned to my companion and said to him: "Cara essa é a Igreja verdadeira!" which means: "Man, this is the true church!" He just laughed and said yes it is! It was amazing!!

I am so excited for Ryan to enter the MTC this week!! YAY FOR MISSIONS!!!! I have been telling everyone that my little brother will be starting his mission! Everyone has said to me that God will bless our family for having two boys a long way from home serving God!! And man is that true!!! You will see the blessings as me and Ryan are serving the Lord!!

I love ya have a great week!!! Te Amo!

Elder Vaughn

Elder Vaughn Catch Up--November 7 thru December 12

I wish that I could say that my week this week was better than last week! But alas it was not! =( We got water back on Saturday, (two days ago) but this morning we did not have water.  We got the pump fixed and what not but for some reason there is not water! We think that our well is dried up! We turn the pump on for a while and we have water but after a little while the pump makes a really weird sound and does not suck water! It’s very frustrating!!!!

The only good thing about this week is that we have found a couple of good families to teach! They are really cool and excited to learn about the gospel!! I am very excited to teach them and to help them with the things that they need! We also have an inactive family that we are teaching please pray for them to come to church this week! The mom and dad are not members but all the kids are!!!

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Thank you for the words of comfort this week has been better! We had Zone Conference and we had to go to Rio Branco for it! We took a bus!! And it was a long bus ride!! But it was a nice bus and we all slept! We left Porto Velho Thursday night at about 11 and got to Rio Branco at about 9 in the morning on Friday! Then we had Zone Conference with President all day!! It was really good! We left Rio Branco at about 8 Friday Night and got back home about 5 in the morning! The journey back was a lot shorter because we did not have to wait as long for the ferry to take us across a river! The way there we waited for two hours and the way back we only had to wait for like 5 min!

I am still struggling with my companion but I don’t think that we will be comps next transfer! I have tried to be more patient but it just does not work because he does not want to fix anything, he just wants to be mad I guess!! It’s very frustrating!!  Any advice for me? Thank you for your words and prayers I know that they have helped me and I know that God is watching out for me and has me in his hand!!

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I can hang in for one more week!  We found this really great family!! They are amazing!! I am very sure that they will get baptized here in the next month or so!! YAY THEM!!! We also got a reference from a less active member and he is GOLDEN he has already prayed about the Book of Mormon and knows that it is true!!! He is one of the best people to teach!!! And, when he gets baptized on Saturday. we think that his less active friend will become active again!! Yay!!!!

Have a great Thanksgiving!!!!  Sorry this is so short but don’t have anything else to say until next week!

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You’re right I did not have a Thanksgiving here. But it was not sad at all! I had a great day! The news about the transfers is that my companion is getting transferred to Manaus! I am very relieved about this! I know that God loves me and has answered my prayers!!! I will pray for his new companion.

The baptism was really great!! He asked his less active friend to baptize him but the Bishop would not clear him because he has been inactive for a long time so then he asked me to baptize him. And it was really cool!! I like him a lot and he gave us two of his friends to teach that I am sure will get baptized here in a little bit! He is going to be a great leader in the church one day! And he has reactivated his friend!!! It was amazing!!!

So this morning we went to play soccer at the church.  On the way there, my companion kicks the soccer ball onto someone’s roof type thing!  It gets stuck in this box type thing! We knocked and tried to get someone’s attention but it looked like no one was home! So we asked their neighbor for a ladder so that we could get the ball! My comp tells me to go up and get it. Whatever, so I went up to get it but when I stepped on the roof it broke!! Roofs are not the same as in the States. They are made of thin plates of ceramic. But, I thought it was cement and that it would hold my weight! You would think that my companion who knows about these things would have warned me.  But, he didn’t. So I went and it broke.... I did not fall but I did cut my leg!  The owner of the house came out and asked us why we broke her roof!  She sent us to the store to buy the things and my companion did not pay for any of it! He told me that I was the one that went up and I was the one that broke it so I should have to pay! I was really mad at him about this because he should at least pay for some of it because he is the one that kicked the ball up there in the first place!  But, no! I had to pay the 20 reais to fix it!!  I will let you know about my new companion next week!

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This week has been good! I have been getting to know my new companion and that has been a lot of fun! His name is Elder Delgado and he is from Minas Gerais. It’s a state in Brazil! He is trying really hard to learn English; so, has asked me to help him with learning! He does not speak well at all, but he is very dedicated and I think he will learn really fast! He is also very helpful with my Portuguese.  I think that he likes to correct my Portuguese! Because he corrects me all the time! He really wants to help me to speak fluently! He says to me all the time that I need to work on my accent!

We have been teaching three friends.  I am so very excited for them they are all really great and have great testimonies! I really like this area and am very happy at the moment! Things have gotten a lot better! Thanks for your support and love and prayers!! ………………………………………………………………………………………….......................

I am also very excited about Christmas!!! It does not feel like Christmas here because there is no snow and it is very hot! And people here don’t really celebrate Christmas like we do in the States. It is very different! But I am excited we are going to spend Christmas with some members! It should be a lot of fun! They are going to make a lot of food! It will be a fun new experience for me!

I am also very excited to make one year on the mission!!!! This will happen this week by the way!!! I am very happy about that! Our lunch that day is with some members in the ward that I really like and they are going to make me something special!! I will also burn one of my shirts to celebrate!

I love ya all! Have a great week!!

Elder Vaughn

Ryan's Mission Call / Ben Update

Ryan received his Mission Call!  He is going to the Australia, Melbourne Mission.  He will enter the Provo MTC on February 29, 2012.  We are currently working on his passport and visa.

October 31, 2011

Mommy,
I am sorry to say that I have not done any talking or thinking about the Christmas call but for good reason this week has been crazy!! I got to the house and then everything started breaking or falling apart!! We have been out of water for 3 days!! We don’t have water supplied by the city, we have a well and our pump is broken and we have not been able to get hold of the lady that owns the house!! So we have been showering at a neighbor’s down the street!! Also our Iron broke so I used my credit card to buy a new one because no one has money!! Our fridge is also broken and we are trying to figure out how we can get a new one! One of the Elders is going to Manaus tomorrow and he will talk to President about it! I hope that we can get the water fixed at least; we can’t wash clothes or dishes or ourselves!! It is really a pain to have to go to our neighbor’s house to take a shower!!
About my shoes I am sorry that I have not been keeping up to tabs on my SHOES!! It never crossed my mind to keep you up to date on that! I have gone threw one pair! I am on my last pair and I don’t think they will last as long as the ones in Manaus because of the streets here! I also don’t know what I am going to do for Christmas presents for you guys! I don’t think that I will get you anything. I love you all but on a missionary salary its way to expensive to buy a present and then pay 65 reais to sent a box to you! And since I am not in ca-hoots with the drug lords I have no money. :( I think that I will send something small though for everyone! at least some pictures and a letter or something....
One great thing about this area is that there are a lot of mango trees, (mangueiras) so almost every day we walk down the street and see mangos in the trees and throw stones or something at them to eat them! They are way good!!! One funny thing about it though is that the word for hose in Portuguese is mangueiras, the same word for mango tree!! I was very confused at first too!! hahahahaahah Imagine this sentence in Portuguese: I will use the hose to water the mango tree!! (Vou usar a mangueira de água da mangueira) Funny right??
I love you and yes I will ALWAYS be your boy! Remember that book about the mom and the boy? if you don’t it’s on my bookshelf go and read it!! I am sure that you will cry! But it’s true! The calling of a Mother is never over and I will get to a point when I don’t need you as much, but I will always need a mother and my children will need a grandmother! So you are not done yet!!
Eu te amo!!!!
Elder Vaughn

October 24, 2011

Mommy,
My birthday was very different than any other one I have had in my life. It was actually a normal day for me. We got up studied and than went and did missionary work. A lot of strangers sang happy birthday to me. I think that I would have had cake but the members did not know because I just got here but it was fine! I don’t feel any different at all! But it is really weird to think that I have been alive for 20 years!!
So Porto Velho, I am actually in a different state in Brazil, Rôndonia. Porto Velho is a lot smaller than Manaus! A lot smaller!!! And most of the roads are dirt roads! In fact some of the roads are actually lakes because of the rain! There is also a lot of mud!! A new word that I learned in Portuguese really fast!! hahahaha But I really like it here! The people here seem to be a lot more humble than in Manaus!! The house that I live in is huge!! 10 times bigger than the house in Tapajòs! It is also ten times dirtier! :(  I live with another companionship Elder Snyder and Elder Chaveiro! Elder Chaveiro is brand new on the mission and Elder Snyder was my district leader when I was in Tancredo Neves!! I like Snyder a lot and Chaveiro is cool because he helped me wash the GIANT pile of dirty dishes in the sink! It seems that every time I start a new area I have to start with washing dishes!! Hahahahaha!  Elder Melendez got transferred back to Manaus so I was really bummed when I found out about that! But I did get to see him and talk to him for a while.
I love ya and hope you all have a great week!!!
Elder Vaughn

October 17, 2011

Mommy,
YAY FOR RYAN”S CALL!!!!!! I am way excited for him he will have a great time! He will be a great missionary!!! I am so happy that he is finally going to go!!! With all that waiting I am very happy!!!
This week was good!! We have had some talks with Vivian’s parents who are not members and they are looking like they are interested!!! Yay for good examples!!! I love them and their family!! I will be sad to leave them!!! Because we found out about transfers and I am going to Porto Velho, which is in another state of Brazil! So I will be on a plane tomorrow to my new area!! I am very excited about going but it will be a little hard.  Another bad thing is that I have a limited amount of baggage and will have to leave my hammock.  I said goodbye to Elder Taylor, Soleburg, and Johnson, who all will be going home on Tuesday! I am going to miss them; but, it will be fine because I am sure that we will be friends for life and even after that! Another great thing about the transfer is that Elder Melendez is there so I will get to see him! I have not seen him since he left 12 weeks ago now. SO I will be very happy to see him!!
I love you all and will tell you all about Porto Velho next week!
Thanks for the package and the birthday wishes!!!
Elder Vaughn

Anxious for Ryan's Call!

Mommy,
I also enjoyed conference a lot! We had six American missionaries in one tiny little room around a TV watching conference!! It was so good! I loved all the talks about missionary work!  Jeffery R Holland’s talk in priesthood session was WAY GOOD!!! He burned the young men and priesthood holders! It was way good; sorry you missed it!! I also really enjoyed Sister Daltons talk about fathers and how important they are!! One of the seventies also talked about missionary work and it was one of my favorites!!! It was such a good experience and now I feel recharged!!
One thing that has been weird about conference is that this makes six months in Brazil now!! Because I got here right after conference in April!! It is so weird to think that I have already been here for 6 months! I need to step it up because before I know it I will be going home! And I am sorry to admit it but I am not ready to come home!! I still have a lot to learn and many people to help!!!
The Portuguese in my email made me smile!! I am impressed with your Google Translate skills did Emily help you? She put some in her email to me last time!! hahahahah!
This week we have another baptism of a girl named Vivian!! It should be really good she is 16 and she is dating a member of our ward! So every time we teach her he is there and helps us a lot! Members are so very important in missionary work! I am very glad that our house is a house that the missionaries can come and eat! That is very important! Please keep doing that for them! We have a house like that but we don’t go a lot because they don’t have that much money! But they always say to us you need to come over more! I love them so much and am very grateful for them and what they do for us and for the people that we are teaching!!
Today for P-day we are going to go and play some games with some members. Vivian’s boyfriend and his family! It should be a lot of fun! I think that Elder Taylor is going to make a visit here because he will be going home on the 18 of this month!
The transfer has not ended yet! Today starts week 5 so we still have another week to go! Yes I am still in the city of Manaus.  I am in the center of the city!
I am getting really anxious for Ryan’s call.  I think that for sure it will come this week! I hope it does! I thought about it a lot yesterday during conference! I am so excited and proud that he will go!
Eu te amo! Lembre-se as pessoas que eu estou ensinando em sua orações.

Espero que você tenha uma ótima semana!
Elder Vaughn

Tradução do inglês para português

English vs Portuguese

September 26, 2011
Mommy,
It is me! I am happy and I am healthy!!!
I am also very excited for General Conference!!! I can’t wait!! Yes they do have the translator’s voice playing, but they also have it playing in another room in English for the American missionaries. So I will get to watch it in English and hear their voices!!! I thought that when I got here that I would have to watch it in Portuguese but the mission president actually wants us to watch it in English so we can have a better more spiritual experience.  I am really excited for conference!!!
I’m a little bummed about Ryan’s call!!! I am also very, very excited about that and finding out where he will be going!!!
We have been teaching this man that showed up at church one Sunday and wanted to be taught! He is really awesome and we hope that he will get baptized in mid October. It is a lot of fun to teach him because he has a very strong faith in Jesus Christ and God and already knows about the church and what we believe and does not have any problems so the lessons with him are always really good.
The most amazing thing happened this week!! We had a lesson with this 16 year old girl that we are teaching.  She is dating a young man in our ward. We have been teaching her since the beginning of this transfer so about three weeks. So we asked her to be baptized. She said she would and then she burst into tears.  The spirit that was there was the strongest I have ever felt it in my whole life!!! It was amazing!!! She is a great person and wants to make sure that this is what she wants to do.  She wants to have a testimony and not just get baptized because her boyfriend wants her too.  She is amazing!

The power of conversion is the coolest thing to watch!!! I wish that you could see what I am seeing in the people’s lives! I really wish that you could meet these people!!!! They are all AMAZING!!! I love them with all my heart!!! They are so humble and so happy and so ready to listen to the lessons that we have to teach them!!! We just have to have faith and find the people the Heavenly Father has prepared for us!!
Thank you for sending me a Birthday package!! I am very grateful and blessed to have family that supports me in my mission and everything! I could not ask for a better family! I love you all so much and would not want to be in any other family!!!
I love ya and hope you all have a great week!
Eu te amo!!! Eu nunca vou esquecer o que você tem feito por mim.

Elder Vaughn

Update

Ok, so here is the deal about this whole blog thing---It's harder than I thought it would be.   You probably don't know this about me, but, .......I am a little bit weepy,  I am not great at self-starting, and sometimes I avoid things that make me uncomfortable or weepy.  I know, that's a huge revelation, huh.  So, ANYWAY, if you didn't read through those lines, sometimes it's difficult for my to keep this updated.

And, Good News and Bad News:  Ben FINALLY sent his camera's memory card and some pictures!  That's the good news.  We got the pictures on the computer and looked at them (weepy) and printed a few.  Then sent the card back to him.  But, when I tried to put pics on here, I couldn't find them.  Apparently, we didn't SAVE them to the computer.  That's the bad news.  So, I will attempt to scan the pics we printed and import them.  Wish me luck........

Haha!  I did it!  So, now for news about Ben.  In the past, I have editted my emails, Linda's emails, Robert's emails, and maybe Emily and Ryan's together to fill you in on the news.  I am toooo lazy to do that for two months!  Sorry.  Ben is doing great!  He loves the people and the work.  He is feeling much more comfortable with the language, and he is still serving in Tapajós and currently has a Brazilian companion so that will help him even more.  He is eating fish!  and not hating it!

Here is his last email:

Monday, September 19, 2011

Mommy,
I was also really excited about having 5 people at church! Yesterday we had 4! So I am still very happy about that! It is so cool when people keep and do things that we invite them to do! I love to have them at church to feel the love that God and Jesus Christ have for them and for all the people in the world!!! It’s so cool! THIS CHUCH IS SO TRUE!!!!! I spent a lot of time thinking about you and what you and dad have taught me. I have been reading in Alma with the 2000 young warriors! and the scriptures that talk about their mothers teaching them!

I am so happy to hear about Anthony! My oldest nephew will soon be a deacon!!! GOOD DEAL!!! That makes me really happy! By the way do they have my email? I would love to get an email from Randy and Emily and the boys! I got an Email from Tristy today.  I didn’t read it yet because my mission president says that moms should be first!!! But I love getting emails and letters!!!!
My Portuguese vocab is growing rapidly every day with a Brazalian comp! It’s amazing how much you can learn when you speak Portuguese all day long about everything!  So I am very excited about that!!!!  
I love ya and hope ya have a great week!!!
Elder Vaughn
Eu te amo!!!

August....

August 8. 2011

Mommy,
This week has been good! The baptism was really good! The members here are really great with baptisms and they are always really excited about somebody getting baptized! One of the sisters in our ward made a huge cake and the bishop and his wife brought stuff for hotdogs. The hotdogs are a little different here. They cut the hotdogs into little pieces and make a thick soup and put the soup on the bread. It is actually really good! Somebody else also brought a lot of soda and stuff so it was like a mini party! The baptism was really good. He asked one of the members to do it so we were really happy about that! I think I told you but Marco has been going to church for about a year and a half now so all the members already love him and were super excited for him!
Roman is still going to get baptized this week! We are super excited for it! Maybe his brother will get to baptize him because he has been a member for a while. It is fun teaching him because he is learning Portuguese just like me. He is learning a lot faster than me because of his Spanish! So sometimes he says a lot of Spanish words mixed in with Portuguese! It’s really funny! I was thinking about it and realized that you all should have been Spanish speakers so that I could learn Portuguese faster! Why did you not all speak Spanish... hahahahah
I learned something really cool in church yesterday. The teacher was talking about the spirit and that we need to be ready to feel the influence of the spirit. He compared us to a pan of water and that the spirit was the fire underneath and if we are ready (luke warm water) we will feel the influence of the spirit a lot faster. But if we are not ready (cold water) it will take a long time for the spirit to talk to us! It was so cool! I love to learn things like that because I have never thought about it like that! Have you?
We had a division last week on Tuesday because we found out that all district leaders and trainers needed to go to this meeting. And since Elder Taylor is our district leader and we had to teach Roman that we would do a division. So he went with Elder Soleburg and I went with Elder Laws. Elder Soleburg is training Elder Laws. So I have more time In Brazil then he has on his mission. I was really scared because I was the one in the companionship that could speak more Portuguese. I had to do most of the talking! I was so scared! But it went fine we taught him and he understood the lesson that we taught him about the law of chastity and the word of wisdom. I felt really good about it and know that God helped me with that one!
 Love Ya!
Elder Vaughn

August 1, 2011

Mommy,
I do remember when I started my paper work. It’s the first step of signing your life away to Heavenly Father!  So it’s kind of a big deal.  Be patient with Ryan, I know that he will serve a mission.

That sucks that he has to get his wisdom teeth taken out soon! I feel bad for him because he actually has more than one. Is it two or three that he has? He should have been more "wise" like me and only had one! hahahahahahaha
This week has been good! We marked two dates! One of the guys is 26 and his name is Marco. He has been going to church on and off for like a year and a half! We started teaching him three weeks ago. One day he told us that he did not really believe in God. Then a couple of days latter the Bishop calls us and tells us that Marco said to him that he wants to get baptized! We were like ok whatever Bishop, but we marked an appointment with him and we talked to him about Baptism and then we asked him if he had any questions at the end. His question was "when can I get baptized?" I could not believe what I was hearing!! So we have been seeing him almost every day since then getting him ready for Baptism! We have to make sure that he is keeping the commandments and so forth... but the best part of his whole story is that after the lesson on baptism his prayers changed! He actually prayed about something one day and now he knows that it is all true! Hearing his changed prayer was so cool!!! I have said it before but to see the gospel change people’s lives is amazing! He is going to get baptized on Saturday!
The other date we have is for a boy named Roman, he and his family are from Peru. So he speaks Spanish! He also speaks Portuguese very well but every once in a while he throws in a lot of Spanish words and what not. So it is very difficult for me to understand what he is saying! My comp had no problem... but it was hard for me. Roman’s family are all members and we are going to baptize him on the 13th!
Well everything in Brazil is very good and I am very happy and healthy! I love you all and thank you for your prayers!
Love ya!!
Elder Vaughn