Where Is Curtis Now?

Curtis in his fifth area now. It is called Jardim Camargo Novo and is on the northeast outskirts of the city of Sao Paulo.











He is as far from the office as he can be, but still be in the actual city of Sao Paulo. It's about a 1 hour train ride or so.



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"I am the DISTRICT LEADER!!! It's quite the responsibility - I have to plan splits with the Elders in my district, do trainings every Monday in district meeting, just give my all to help the Jardim Camargo Novo District go uphill and start baptizing. In my district are two missionaries from my group: Elder Brown and Elder Freire. They will go home with me. Elder Martins, my old companion and one of my best companions, is also in this district. He was transferred here today as well. Elder Brown is training a new Brazilian named Elder Salles and that makes up our district. I am gonna try hard, put some force into it, and I know that all will end up well. Leaving Belem was kind of tough, I cant really explain but I wrote like a 3 page journal entry about Elder Stoddard and I's last division together on Saturday. We said goodbye to Valdira and the Bolivians who we have come to love so much. I can't even describe how I felt that night. It was like that song "Bittersweet Symphony" was playing in the back of my mind the whole night. It was, shall I say, very, very somber. But now he is headed back and I am headed up."

Good Luck, Elder Stoddard

"Elder Stoddard, my most excellent of excellent companions goes home later on tonight. He is gonna call me right before he leaves and then he is out. But I will be seeing him soon. I was pretty bummed when I had to say goodbye, I think I even shed a tear or two, but he is going to go home and study and get his life going. He is honestly one of the best examples to me on the mission. Really happy, loves the work, and extremely good looks is what the mission field needs. And he had it. Good luck, Elder Stoddard."

"On Saturday night I went on my last division with my hero, Elder Stoddard. We started by going to the Radial Grill and eating at probably the best restaurant in our mission. It had meat galore - soups, salads, and a bunch of food from other countries. I had lasagna, sweet and sour sauce, spring rolls, filet mignon salad, fancy cheeses, two bottles of Soda Antartica (the brazilian Sprite ripoff) and a whole bunch of sushi. Elder Stoddard and I were literally doing dares on eating Wassabi. That junk is spicy!"

"Later on the division (the best ever) we made the rest of our funny tape I think I mentioned last week, talking about all the funny experiences we had as comps and much, much more, and the next night we said goodbye to all of our recent converts. I have never seen so many tears. It's so crazy how we touch people lives and change them, and good things must always end, and we all get sad. I will especially miss the Bolivians that we baptized. They are some of the greatest and kindest people I have met in Brasil."

King Follett Discourse

"I wrote Detrick a letter this morning and included a good talk that I read a few days ago, that I had actually already read back in the day called "The King Follet Sermon" by the Prophet Joseph Smith. It is really interesting and Elder Barth, the other assistant, said that Bruce R. McConkie said that the King Follet Sermon is the best sermon written in this dispensation. You should read it, and tell me what you think."

The Being and Kind of Being God Is
The Immortality of the Intelligence of Man

President Joseph Smith delivered the following discourse before about twenty thousand Saints at the April conference of the Church, 1844, being the funeral sermon of Elder King Follett. Reported by Willard Richards, Wilford Woodruff, Thomas Bullock and William Clayton. This discourse was first published in the Times and Seasons of August 15, 1844.

King Follett Discourse

Families Are Forever

"We had a family home evening last Monday at Javier and Reynas house, the Bolivian family we baptized. It was cool, we talked a lot about the Temple and how they need to make it a goal to go there in 1 year and be sealed as a family. That is the real goal of missionary work, invite people to come unto Christ and taking part in the ordinances, espescially being sealed as a family and Temple marriage. So we talked about family history and I showed them my 4 generation chart that my Grandma so lovingly prepared for me and tonight we are gonna watch the movie Legacy with them and talk about church history."

The basic unit of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the family: "The home is the basis of a righteous life, and no other instrumentality can take its place nor fulfill its essential functions" (McKay, David O.,1965). Within the family, people experience most of life's greatest joys and greatest sorrows. The family relationships of every person on earth are of cardinal importance, and of all the social organizations created for human beings, only the family is intended to continue into the next life.

Eternal Importance of Marriage and Family

The Perpetual Education Fund

"I was wondering if you could tell me, or just study it for yourself, how the Perpetual Education Fund works. I was thinking about it the other day and I know it has advantages for returned missionaries. Maybe send some facts about it and stuff of that nature."

The Perpetual Education Fund is a program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, first announced by President Gordon B. Hinckley on March 31, 2001. The program is modeled after the Perpetual Emigration Fund, which provided loans to 19th-century Latter-day Saint immigrants looking to settle in the Salt Lake Valley.

The Perpetual Education Fund provides loans to members of the church seeking additional education, such as vocational school or university. The Church has made loans to students in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and the Philippines. The fund functions as an endowment, with all loans made from interest on the corpus, to which Latter-day Saints continue to contribute. All donations made to the fund go to the corpus as all administrative costs, such as time and expertise, are donated by volunteers in the Church.

Questions and Answers about the Perpetual Education Fund

Catedral da Sé

"We preached repentance to the crowds in front of the Sé Cathedral. There are a lot of people down there, it's crazy, everyone is walking rediculously fast and they all look late for something. It's almost impossible to make effective contacts. Pretty cool place, though."

The Catedral da Sé is the cathedral of São Paulo, Brazil. Its construction, in modified Gothic style, began in 1913 and did not end until four decades later. This delay was mainly a consequence of the use of granite in the greater part of its walls.

The cathedral (with the exception of its towers, which would be finished later) was dedicated in 1954 as part of the celebration of São Paulo's Fourth Centenary. It is the largest church in São Paulo, with a width of 11 meters, a length of 46 meters, towers 92 meters high, a dome 30 meters high, and capacity for 8,000 people. More than 800 tons of rare marble were used in its completion. The cathedral underwent a period of intense restoration between 2000 and 2002, and the São Paulo Department of Historical Property is in the process of obtaining legislative protection for it.

The cathedral's organ is the largest in Latin America, built in 1954 by the Italian firm of Balbiani & Rossi. It has five keyboards, 329 stops, 120 registers, and 12,000 pipes, the mouths of which display hand-engraved reliefs in the Gothic style.

In its crypt, which can be considered a subterranean church in its own right, are found works by the sculptor Francisco Leopoldo. Of special note is the bronze tomb of the cacique Tibiriçá, chief of the Guaianaz tribe, who welcomed the first Jesuits to the Piratininga Plateau and whose aid made the foundation of the city of São Paulo possible.

World Cup Soccer 2006

"President Urry is a little worried about the upcoming World Cup (aka a party in Brasil, dare I say, bigger than 10 Carnavals). He is afraid that the missionaries are gonna go to the houses of members and watch Brasils games. But he always tells the missionaries that the most loyal form of friendship is not love, it's trust. So I think the missionaries will behave themselves. Frankly, I don't really care who wins, I don't like soccer, but it would be kind of cool if you could record some of the games Brasil plays so I could check them out next year."

On 9 June 2006, South America's finest will begin their quest to conquer the footballing world on European soil, a feat achieved only once before, by Vincente Feola's Brazil team at Sweden 1958. The Brazilian team won the last World Cup in 2002 in Japan.

The Official Site of the FIFA World Cup™

Neal A. Maxwell

"Lately my favorite hobby has been reading talks by Neal A. Maxwell. Just the way he uses his words and sentences is a delight in itself, not to mention the awesome doctrine and powerful testimony. I read one yesterday called, "Irony: The Crust on the Bread of Adversity." It was pretty sweet. Also one called, "Brightness of Hope."

Elder Neal A. Maxwell was called as an assistant to the Council of the Twelve in 1974. From 1976 to 1981 he served as a member of the Presidency of the First Quorum of the Seventy, and in 1981 he was called to the position as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Elder Maxwell passed away in July 2004.

Read or listen to Elder Maxwell's talks

The Parable of the Bicycle

Curtis relates a story he read about the Atonement:

"A little girl, six years old, wants a bicycle and her dad told her to start saving her pennies and one day she would be able to buy a bicycle. Well, the father’s heart was touched very deeply when he recognized that his daughter was doing exactly what he told her, saving pennies. He decided to take her to the store and buy her the bicycle."

"Well, when they got to the store the little girl saw the perfect bicycle, but when she looked at the price her eyes welled up with tears. Her dad asked what was wrong, and she said she didn’t have enough money to buy the bicycle. The dad said, “Well, how much can you give?” The little girl responded, “Only sixty-one cents.” Then the dad said, “You have done your best, you give me what you have and a hug, and I will buy you the bicycle.” As they drove home the little girl happily rode the bicycle next to her dad’s car, and he said as he rode next to his daughter it made him think of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. "

"And then he ended with this quote that really, really touched me, “As I drove beside her, I thought of the atonement of Christ. We all desperately want the Celestial Kingdom. We want to be with our Father in Heaven. But no matter how hard we try, we come up short. At some point all of us must realize, “I can’t do this by myself. I need help.” Then it is the Savior that says, in effect, “All right, you’re not perfect. But what can you do? Give me all you have, and I’ll do the rest.” He still requires our best effort. We must keep trying. But the good news is that having done all we can, it is enough. We may not be personally perfect yet, but because of our covenant with the Savior, we can rely on his perfection, and his perfection will get us through."