New Places with Old and New Friends

Questions:

OK so tell me all about your new companion.

1. What is he like?

2. Where is he from?

3. Life member or convert?

4. Is he fun?

5. How old is he?

6. How many siblings?

7. Do you have a lot of investigators to teach? Did you get to say good bye to your last area of investigators?

8. What is your new area like? Is it clean or run down? Odd question to ask, but Google map pictures of the area were sad.

9. Are you cooking meals with Elder Furtado? Are you eating better?

10. Please give me a Phonetic pronunciation of Elder Furtado's name.

11. Silly question...but where do you email from?

12. If you start cooking with him...Please send me a yummy recipe so I can make it for us here.

13. Tell me all about your trip to your new companion...How did it go? Easy or complicated...I want to hear it all.

14. Did you forget anything at your old casa?

15. How many Elders are in your new casa?

Answers:

I'm in a suburb of São Paulo

1-6: He's pretty fun. He likes to joke with everyone and goof around, but he doesn't let it get in the way of the work we're here to do. He's from Cabo Verde. He's a convert from his childhood. He's 22 right now and will reach the one year point of his mission this month. He's a middle child of 6, 3 boys and 3 girls.

7: We've got more than a handful of investigators here and I didn't get to say bye to my last area of investigators.

8: It's not run down, but it's got the city trash and smell :/

9: We cooked lunch today, and every night (minus sunday) we stop by the supermarket to get a little food. I've been eating a lot of Frosted Flakes recently. There was a discount on them one day so I managed to buy 4 boxes for 2 reais less than the price of 3! I gave a box to each of the Elders in the casa.

10: Elder Fur-ta-doh... it's funny because that means stolen... Ele foi furtado= It was stolen

11: The place is called a LAN-house here in brazil. It's an internet cafe

12: Alrighty. What we made was just pasta with a tomato sauce, corn, onions, and something that was more or less spam

13: We got a ride to the bus station in our neighbors car. It couldn't hold all my bags in the back so one of the big suitcases was on my lap on the way there and my leg fell asleep. Then Pereira and I waited for an hour for the bus to arrive. Then the bus ride was a couple hours. We arrived at the bus station in São Paulo which is connected to the metro station. We rode the metro for a while. We met a member on the metro and he said he'd help me get to my stop so Pereira could go where he was supposed to wait for his new companion. Then the member left me on the correct metro line. Luckily, a non-member son of members recognized me as a missionary and decided to help me. He teaches english at a  business college so he was pretty good at speaking english. He helped me a lot. We arrived at the correct stop and no one was there waiting for me like they were supposed to be so I was freaking out a little. He ran around for me looking for the other missionaries but they weren't there yet. He waited with me for 20 minutes and even offered me his lunch that he'd been planning to eat when he got to work! I eventually just thanked him a lot for his help and let him go and just waited and prayed. Before leaving he gave me his card and said that if no one showed up I should call him and he'd come get me and we'd figure something out after that. Almost an hour later my prayers were finally answered and other missionaries showed up. And not just any missionaries, but Elder Matos and his new companion!! Honestly I almost cried with relief when he came up and hugged me. My companion Elder Furtado showed up about 15 minutes later. After that we took a bus to our area and got to our casa.

14: I didn't forget anything, but I did leave a bit to lighten my bags and make the trip a bit easier.

15: There were 4 Elders in our casa when I arrived but by Saturday the other companionship got one more Elder so now we're at 5.

Thanks for setting up the facebook page for me! Their may be some requests popping up within the next few weeks.

So something cool about my new area is that the Elder I took the place of is Elder Beatty, one of my friends from my group in the MTC. The people in the area really liked him so the fact that he and I are friends has helped them warm up to me quickly. Elder Beatty is now a District Leader, trainer, and opening a new area! And Elder Webster is a District Leader and has already trained... and the companion they both had before this major advance in responsability is none other than Elder Furtado... in other words, it's highly likely that will happen with me during the next transfer... Luckily Furtado is actually training me (unlike my previous companions)

I love you a lot!!!!

Transfer week!

Transfer week!

I've been spending some time packing. 

I'm being transferred to 

Jardim Tieté to be companions with 

Elder Webster's trainer Elder Furtado.

Questions/Answers: OK so someone is probably getting transferred this week.

1. The question is WHO and to WHERE?

I'm getting transferred to Jardim Tieté, and Martinez is getting

transferred somewhere nearby I think.

2. Is your area getting additional Elders?

Taubaté First ward will be getting a second set of Elders but Periera

isn't happy about it anymore. He wanted me to stay and open up the

new companionship in the area so that there would be at least one

person in each companionship that knew the area. But instead he's

getting a companion who just finished training and the new companionship

will be a trainer and a newbie.

3. Are you opening up a new area or staying put?

My new area is already established aka I'm not opening a new area.

4. Are you going to have your old companion sign your tie?

Already had him sign it last night

5. Will you be training someone this cycle? 

I'm not training yet. Thankfully. That's not a challenge I'm ready for yet.

Opening an area with an Elder that I'm friends with and can work well

with Absolutely! but Training a newbie... no thank you...

The "no more transfer meetings" was a mission (or Brazil area) rule.

The rule changes had nothing to do with the training session.

I saw a little about a virus on the news at a members home but I didn't

hear that it had gotten that bad!

Oh gosh... okay so I was reading the last little bit of your email and I'm

sorry but I couldn't help but notice the spelling/grammar error of

weather/whether... sorry :P (Good thing my children are better at it than I am. lol)

I love you a lot!!!

Correct address

Please note - Elder Lundy says the top letter is the correct address

Q: Did N.. (V...'s girlfriend) and R... (the non-member father of a reactivating family) get baptized this Sunday? They did get baptized!! Both of them! Pereira baptized R... and... V... BAPTIZED N...!! :D 

When Pereira baptized R... he dunked him in the font and made a pretty big splash haha.

I think V... didn't want to make a splash so barely pushed N... under the surface. Her knee popped up the first time so they had to do it again but everything was good the second time!

V... brought his family for N...'s baptism too! His mom, two brothers, one sister, and one of his brother's girlfriend! They all attended all three sessions too!

The thing about the coloring books is a good idea, but I don't really need it right now.

As for Carnaval, President has said nothing so far.

I'm getting better with Portuguese and I've been able to sing the sacrament hymns since the MTC. (Honestly if I could learn to sing in Japanese on my own I'm pretty sure I could learn to sing in Portuguese to songs I've heard my whole life haha :P)

As for the numbered Questions:

1. Tell me one new thing you learned about the Brazilian people this week.

... Não sei

2. Name a person that you met this week that impressed you.

I didn't really meet anyone new who impressed me, but I've been super impressed by my ward mission leader Yuri. He's 30, was born in the church, didn't serve a mission, but he's definitely been working to make up for that I'd say. He's a really hard working ward mission leader and he's definitely helped us a lot.

3. Do you ever cook anything for yourself or is it all out of a package food?

Every once in a while I cook for myself, but usually if anyone cooks in the casa it's Pereira. I have made the crushed and fried ramen and the others approved of it haha

4. Can you get your picture taken with the Mission President and his wife?

ERMEHGERSH!!! I just saw them Wednesday and I forgot to get a picture!!!! AGAIN!!! UGH!!!

5. Did the new mission rules come out this week?

The whole thing about new mission rules was kinda a misunderstanding. The broadcast wasn't about rules. It was a worldwide training broadcast. The first one in over a decade!

6. Who delivers letters to you when someone mails them to you?

The letters go to the mission house and from there they are sent to the different zones, then they're distributed to your district leader and then to you, but my comp has been the district leader since I arrived in the field. 

And speaking of letters, I got my Christmas cards two weeks ago! I got one from Sister Garrison, the Bishopric, the Beehives, the Dudley family, and Nana. If you could thank them for me that'd be awesome. Nana sent a story about an "Old Art Collector and his Son" and I read this story on the bus ride back from a meeting and I ended up crying for a good little while because of it.

Anyway, Other stuff about this week... On the trip back to Taubaté from Campos do Jordão, Yuri stopped at a cliff overlooking the valley below and we took some pictures and bought some souvenirs from the vendors there.

Oh and we've had lots of visitors from other areas this week. The elders from Pindamonhangaba were here Monday night through Wednesday for a district meeting and the broadcast thingy. They left Wednesday and Thursday night, the zone leaders showed up so they could take care of the baptismal interviews in the following days. Sunday night, the elders from Pinda showed up again to spend p-day with us. So last night we had 8 elders sleeping in our casa! It was interesting...

oh and I've apparently made myself the "secretary" of the Taubaté area of the mission. I've always got a pen, paper, documents, basically whatever is needed.

One more Oh! I've started eating breakfast more frequently. I've been buying frosted flakes and the milk they gave us in the MTC.

Other than that...

I LOVE YOU!!

Mom told me Goliath attacks you ha-ha :P

Mom told me Goliath attacks you ha-ha :P Oh Dad... getting attacked by chickens ha-ha

Sister F... didn't get baptized :( We can't baptize her if it's against her husband's wishes because we can baptize if it will cause contention within the family.

(Mom told Elder Lundy about an elder when she was a kid that got lost on a transfer.)That's pretty much what will be happening to me when I'm transferred... Hopefully I don't get too lost. 

I've started using my personal debit card to buy food. I've used about 75 reais this past week. (that's about 18.60 US Dollar.) I weighed myself today and I've actually gained  .7 kilos! (about 1.5 pounds) 

So hopefully we'll have two baptisms this upcoming Sunday! N... (V's girlfriend) and R... (the non-member father of a reactivating family) Sadly Y..., N's 9 year old daughter, won't be getting baptized yet because N... wants to move out of her parents house before so there won't be as much contention from her catholic parents. As for R... we're going to try our best to help him let go of coffee. That's the last thing standing in the way. Really it seems like it was the only thing.

We had a lot of rain here :/ it was rather annoying.

Oh! There was an American couple in the Taubaté church building yesterday! The husband was here on business as well as visiting his old mission areas. I think he served a bit over 30 years ago. He showed up prepared for American missionaries too! He brought twizzlers, skittles, and werther's and when he found me he gave them to me and told me to share ha-ha. The others don't like twizzlers so I get them all. They downed the skittles fast, and the Werther's are being savored :3 

He painted for Mom and Dad before he went on his mission.
Now he's all ready to do it as service. :)

Oh! We had a chance to do a service project for the Miranda family (the couple who took care of me when I was sick) Their son is returning from his mission next week so they were fixing up his room. We helped to move a wardrobe and paint the room... yup painting... again. It was kinda weird cause the paint was basically the consistency of milk and painted just about as well.

Anyways... I love you!!

My Nana got a tablet before I did

My Nana got a tablet before I did?! ha ha that's awesome!

I just sent her an email thanking her for her support and telling her how I've changed and that I've been able to see others change thanks to her help in getting me on my mission.

So we've got 4 more baptisms marked for this month!

F.. (the soon to be mother in-law of our RM neighbor D....) will be baptized on the upcoming Sunday (unless she gets nervous and backs out)

And on the 24th We've got V...'s girlfriend N..., her daughter Y...,

and as for working with less active members... We currently have a new investigator,

R....., who's the only non-member in his family. His wife, 12 year old daughter, and 9 year old son are all baptized but fell away for a while and now they've decided to come back as a family. We already taught him a lesson with his family there and we're going to return tonight to have a family home evening with them and dedicate their home afterwards on their request. I'm glad you got the chance to go out with the missionaries. And I'm serious about wanting to help however I can when you and mom decide to serve.

Oh so there's been some rule changes in the mission and on the 20th there will be a special broadcast from the First Presidency to announce changes and new rules for ALL missions worldwide! One change I'm not too happy about is that we will no longer have transfer meetings. What we used to do is gather everyone being transferred (and their companions) at the mission home and have a big meeting where the new companionship's were announced. Now we'll just get a call Sunday night telling us who'll stay and who'll go and then on the Tuesday after the call, the person getting transferred will have to find their way to the new area alone.

Welp... I gotta go now. I love you a lot!

PS: I weigh 78.6 kilos!!! (aka 173.28 pounds) Also, Everyone I've shown really  likes the picture of the missionary list!

 (This is a list of all Our Family and Extended Family that go on a mission. They read the book with the list and then when they receive their call to serve they sign the book and date it and put where they will be serving. 2 more of Elder Lundy's generation left to sign...then it's on to the next generation.) 

Highlight of the week

Hi,

Well I'll start with the highlight of the week. On Sunday, I baptized A.... He's 17... On Sunday his father, older brother, and grandmother were there for his baptism.

That's the guy right in the middle! :)

Okay, the week...

we didn't do much because it was a holiday week so everyone was gone and everything was shut down. We went to a barbeque in honor of Elder Martinez's birthday. I paid for a bunch of food and drinks for that. 

Then for new years eve, my companion and I were the only companionship in the entire mission authorized to celebrate. Everyone else was supposed to return to the casa at 7 and sleep at 10:30. We got to go to the Bishop's house and celebrate it because the Bishop's wife called us to ask what our plans were and when Pereira told her the rules she had him give her the President's number. She called him and less than five minutes later, she called us again to tell us we were authorized. I guess it helps to have lawyers as the Bishop and his wife ha ha. 

Then on the 1st, we got a new investigator marked for baptism on the 16th!

That's the week...

I love you

This picture was taken outside the house of the family that lives the farthest 

away that gives us lunch every once in a while. It was about 2 hours to get there.

A lot of time on the bus, then almost 25 minutes walking on a narrow dirt road.

Skyping with Mom, Dad and the Family

For those who were wondering why they didn't see a letter posted 

from Elder Lundy last week...

I'm sorry. 

We were busy on Monday the 21st trying to get set up to Skype 

with Elder Lundy on Christmas.

And we were having a family reunion too...

We (Elder Lundy's Siblings and their Families)

had a wonderful conversation with him and he is doing well.

Elder Lundy Sends his Love to all his Family and Friends!

Skyping with Mom, Dad and the Family

This weeks Letter - 

Alma 7: 10-13 " And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers, she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God. And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities. Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me."

Jesus Christ is the best Christmas present that any of us could ever receive, and what's even better is that He was given to ALL of us for FREE. All we have to do to receive this gift is reach out and ask for it with sincerity.

It really sounds like you've had a full couple of weeks past and to come!

Tell Jacob congratulations for me!

OH! I forgot about this! On the way back to the casa after calling you, Elder Matos called me to say merry Christmas and to inform me that during his next interview with the president, he's going to request that we become companions and open an area! I hope it happens, because honestly, that would really help me develop as a missionary and develop my Portuguese skills.

Okayss I gtg now... I love you all!!