What type of missionary do you want to be?

Hello all!
Como vai?
I recieved 2 packages this week. I was totallly excited to open them. I got some good old American junk food! Thank you Sosa Family, and also Phillips family. I just got the package from you sister Phillips I am totally siked I love Oreos and my district will too! I really enjoyed all the stuff I recieved in my other packag too!

Anyways this week was good! I learned so much. We set some good district goals on Sunday. We had a good meeting. We decided to make class more spiritual and this week it has payed off. Class has been amazing. Like last night, we had a meeting and we are supposed to discuss the devotional that we go to every Tuesday. Well we discussed the devotional and then I asked everybody in the distict what kind of missionary they wanted to be. I started it off and I said that I want to be like the missionaries that carried the Spirit to me and brought me to the gospel. Then I said I wanted to be a missionary of great power. That started it off very good. Then the District said what kind of missionary they wanted to be. And all of them had great thoughts and the Spirit was there. I then shared a scripture from Alma 32:27 telling them how to make that desire real. Many of the district members told me thank you for leading a good meeting. I told them that I didn´t do it. That they did it. I just let the Spirit work then I thanked them. We have such a good district. All of them are very influencial people. We have a very close district. I am doing ok at the distict leader spot. I am pretty scatter brained though. It is a big responsibilty, but I recieve joy from serving my fellow Missionaries.

My Brazillian roomates left again...wow time flys. I only have 2 weeks. I would not send me any mail after about the 27th. Just to be safe. In 2 weeks I go to the missionary field . Exciting huh? So all of you just use the address on the card I gave out. Thank you all for all the letters you send. Everytime I get one I brag! Lol I brag about how all the people back home love me! Thank you so much! Also this week I recieve a letters from Michelle, Momma Phillips and little Catie beth, Kadi Bazemore , and a long one from Felicia Hicks. Than all of you so much. Keep it going. I promise I will write back. I hope ya´ll get them faster than you have been!

I went to the Sao Paulo temple again today. I can´t get over the joy of doing service for those on the other side of the veil. What a great experience. We should all give more respect to the Temple of our God! My companion and I are doing well. Our friendship keeps growing and we keep learning and progressing. It´s exactly how it is supposed to be. I wouldn´t choose any other companion! So diligence is paying off and I feel great joy from serving our God. The purpose is a great one. This is my work and my glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man Moses 1:39. Jesus came and he died for our sins. Because of his sacrifice all men will be immortal, but if we shall follow him we won´t just be immortal but we will live with our Heavenly Father again. We will all stand before God one day to be judged according to the works of our faith. I love this work and I want to help all recieve the Gospel of Jesus Christ for that is our joy. I am forever grateful for the Savior Jesus Christ our Messiah! Now continue to fill yourselfs with power, faith, and knowledge. Excercise your faith so that one day you might obtain a perfect knowledge in that thing which you excercised your faith. If you only knew how important knowledge of the truth is! ( Alma 32:21,26 to the end.) Also (Alma 34) I love you all! Till we meet again at the feet of Jesus or in this life.
Love
Elder Tossey

Info on how Aaron lives

This is a portion of an email Aaron sent me when I asked him some questions about his life in Brazil....

Well life here at the MTC is great. It is really busy and the food is good. I haven´t had to pay any taxes on the 1 package I recieved. I live in a room with six other missionaries. When I get to the field I will be in an apartment. I will not drive, nor do I want to! It is crazy out there you, should see the chaos! My 2 years started the day I left home. but...it´ll will probably be a little less than 2 years since my visa only last 2 years. I do need a new jump rope though if i could get you to send me 2 pretty good jumpromes with the bearings you know? I would like 2 because a sister missionary in my district wants one. I broke mine it was a cheapy.

oi, como vai?

hello all!
How is life in the US of A? Brazil is doing great! The rock cut out of the mountain is rolling forth. I am doing well too! Rice and beens are normal. I am happy with the food. I think I might have gained a little weight. A kilogram or so, lol.

Last week we went out to proselyte to the Brazilian people. It was good to be able to use the language in actual engagement. Around the MTC it is hard to get the full gyst of the language because of the 350 people here about 200 of them are Americans the rest are Brazilians, anyhow alot of English is being spoken too. Anyways while proselyting on one of the busiest streets in São Paulo we walked up to 6 guys and started talking to them. Then we taught them our message and we bore testimony to them of the restored gospel. They all seemed very interested and they all had gleams in there eyes. They smiled alot. I felt that was a good solid contact. We (me and my companion) had good success that day.

I have 3 weeks left at the MTC then that kind of thing will be everyday. Right now it is just face first into the books and the scriptures. It is so easy to spend money here. It is kind of decieving because you feel you are spending more than you really are becase the American dollar is worth 2 Raeis. So I am not doing so bad. When I get to the field it will be better. I bought some good scripture covers with my name and mission on them I am excited to go pick them up. I also broke my jump rope ( it was cheap) so I asked Laura to get me a new one =)! It´s good having a great sister! 2 great ones at that! I am excited about Julie being pregnant again. MORE babies! BABIES (with my twang)!

I have been recieveing quiet a few letters which really makes my day when I do recieve them! I have sent about 30 letters out since I have been here. But unfortunately I know some of you still haven´t recieved any of them! I am sorry. The snail mail service is slower then being dead! Good news...I was made District Leader on Sunday. The old district leader was promoted to assistant to the president and I was selected as the new district leader. Which means more meetings and more responsibility.

My companion and I have set good goals and are doing well. He recieved a package for V-day. A bunch of candy. I need a new watch by the way. Mine stops everynow and then. Maybe somebody could by me a nice looking but cheep silver watch. One that goes with a black suit really well. Like an Armitron watch. Well anyways, I better get back to the work. I have alot of studying to do! Thank all of you for your support! I am so thankful for your love and your letters and your support!

Scriptures of the week are for those of you who are studying
Hebrews 11 and Alma 32.

I love all of you so much.
Love
Elder Tossey

P.S. who is forwarding these e-mails to my friends just wondering. Like Felicia, Michelle ? I am just wondering....they wanted to recieve these e-mails (Sister Phillips can you do it if you are not already?)

Sao Paulo Temple & pastels

Hello all!
Elder Tossey is doing well. I just got done eating lunch. I ate a burger out side of the MTC it was ok, but it wasn´t like those Leesburgers. HMMM. I am home sick now. Just kidding. I miss all of you so much, but I wouldn´t give this up for life it self.

I have been learning so much here. I have been learning alot of what life is about. I am also learning Portuguese. This Friday we go to prosylyte again. I am excited. I know I will do better. It is such good practice to get out side the MTC and actually talk only Portuguese. It is really hard to do that in the MTC ( to speak only Portuguese). I just got back from the Sao Paulo Temple this morning. It was so beautiful. I put it on the top 3 temples. The Spirit was very strong there. I enjoyed the peace I felt there!

In a little while here we are supposed to try a really good food. It is called a pastels. They have all kinds of flavors from what I hear. Things here at the MTC on the other hand are relatively the same. If ya´ll want to know something specific you should ask me. I am sorry if you have asked me something and I have not answered it. It seems that I am totally out of it when I get in here to write.

Well Here is my thought for the week. It´s about life.

Why are we here? We were all sent to this earth to gain bodies and to gain experience. Knowledge is the key, but along with knowledge is faith. Faith can be in many different things but as I have said before faith is only perfect when centered on Christ. How can we strengthen our faith?...through diligence. In the scriptures it says many times you must excercise your faith. Meaning you must act upon what you know. God gives us many oppurtunities to act on our faith. These oppurtunities are called trials. Our MTC president one day was in his office and a guy came in and said you want you first problem as president of the MTC. The MTC president said yes! Problems are oppurtunities. In 1PET 1:6 it says that the trial of your faith becomes more valuable than of gold or silver or any manner of precious items. My dad always says no good deed goes un-punished. Now you know why. The more we do good the easier you think it would be but that is not how it works. It is only easy if you are doing something wrong! It is building virtue, character, and most of all faith when you choose the right. Building things is not easy. Neither is weight lifting, till you get used to the weight then you must add more weight! More trials, more burdens, more oppurtunities to choose who you will serve (Joshua 24:16). I love this saying " we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience". That also brings up the point... are we to let our bodys act on our spirits or our spirits on our bodys? Definately Spirits are supposed to act on bodies. That is where righteousness is made. That is also the war we are fighting today. It is a spiritual war. Addictions and bad,evil things only put your spirit under bondage to the evil of satan's power. I know that there is a Messiah, Jesus Christ. I also know that there is a devil and he wants nothing more than to make you unclean and unfit to return to Heavenly Father. I

hope that all of you will exercise your faith in Christ by following the commandments and by doing as it says in HEBREWS 11 ( for all to read). I love you all. I hope to see you when I come back with more faith in Jesus the Christ.
Love you all
Elder Tossey

P.S. My companion and I are doing very well. We are working on the Christ like attribute of diligence this week. You know to gain more faith you must make goals. And unless your goal is written on paper it is only a dream. The book "preach my Gospel" is a great book for help on these Christ like attributes and how to achieve goals.

Addresses

Here's Aaron's addresses... I wanted to post them in case someone has lost their copies or never got them.

Brazil MTC
Elder Aaron Tossey
Rua Padre Antonio D'Angelo 121
Casa Verde
CEP 02516-040 Sao Paulo SP
Brazil

Documents only!!!!!
Elder Aaron J.I. Tossey
Brazil Sao Paulo North Mission
PO Box 30150
Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150

There is one other one that I forgot to bring to work, but these are the ones for now.

One Month Down

Hello ALL!

Another week has flown by! It is hard to believe I have been here a month. I am learning tonz! The language is coming well. I get a little discouraged at times. But that is just because I am impatient. But if I was satisfied would I work very hard? =)

We went out last week and got to proselyte. I felt very good on the return trip. One time I went up to this man and his friend and I told him my spill about how the Church of Jesus Christ has been restored (in portugues) and I told him that we have a prophet now that talks to God just like in days of old. Then he said ´I am Catholic´. So I pulled out a card and I said "well this message is for you" and I told him about the Book of Mormon and that it came from the ancient Americas. He got very interested and he was very excited about being able to call the number. My companion and I had the same success with a poor old blind man. But he was very excited about the message also. I felt we had great success for it being my first time. I feel good about being able to speak that much portuguese in only three weeks (at that time). It was very exciting.

A few of you want to know what the culture is like. Well, it is pretty different. Alot of people have nothing. When we went proselyting many of the people had no home. It is quiet sad. The roads are quiet crazy here in Sao Paulo. Everybody drives little hatchback cars that are about 300 pounds. They are all very curtious with their driving and there are motorcycles every where. As for the food...it is good. A lot of rice and beans and different meats. The fruit is super. All the people I have met are super nice and they always look at you and greet you. Alot of them want to know why we are here...and they are interested in the message of the restored gospel. The coutry side is beautiful. We get to see a little of it when we go to the Campinas temple once a week.

Last Sunday I got to talk in sacrament. I talked about the sacrament and what the purpose of it is and related it to the Atonement. Then, my district had to seek a special number. Then, that night I sang in the choir at the fireside and then at the end of the fireside I sang with a special little goup with about 12 ppl and we sang "Eu sei que vive meu o senhor" or "I know my redemmer lives". It was really good.

My companion and I are doing good. No problems this week. We do really good together on the lessons. I don´t think I would trade him for anybody. Well last Thursday I recieved 8 letters. It was great! They finally all came to me. At one time! I have recieved 3 more since then. Thanks everybody! I´ll write back soon. Also this week my brazileiro roomates left =( ....I really liked them alot! One of them gave me a cool key chain. Well I am sending like 8 letters out today! I sent alot last week too.

This week I have learned alot about faith and what faith is. Faith is a hope for things not seen. We all can have faith in different things but the only perfect faith is in Jesus Christ. We can do many wonderful miracles with faith but the most important miracle we can perform with our faith is repentance. That is the whole reason that Christ Came and Atoned for us. We must be forever Grateful. Also faith increases when we act on it. When we don´t we lose faith. Faith is like a muscle you have to work it out. Faith leads to action. So all of you act and pray and thank God for all you have. Ask him for forgiveness and do your BEST to forsake what you did wrong, don´t do it again. Then find out his will for you! And do it. His will for all of us is the same. The ultimate goal is to have eternal life. Don´t waist this life, this life is the time for you to prepare to meet God. It is a probationary state. If we increase our faith by acting we can all have Eternal life with our Heavenlty Father. But you must fullfill all righteousness through the Savior I love you all and wish the best for you.
Love,
Elder Tossey