You come home so soon! Robby entered the MTC on May 23. He is going to the Mexico, Monterrey West Mission. His web site is: http://www.dearelder.com/elder_knowlden He would love to hear from you if you get a chance. Posted by: Barbara Knowlden Date: June 5, 2007
Elder Malan's coming home date is Friday, August 24! Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: May 20, 2007
Here's the latest news from Elder Malan's 5/16/07 email: HEEYYY!! GUESS WHAT!!!!! LEOMARA IS GONNA GET BAPTIZED THIS WEEKEND TOO!!!! Last night we went over there and told Volnei that his interview would be at 8:00 and then Leomara walked in and we told her that her interview would be at 8:30 AND SHE ACCEPTED!!!! Volnei told us that she had hinted about being baptized with him, so we just went for it and it worked out great. The other day Volnei sat down for 2-1/2 hours reading the BOM and afterwards gave Leomara some chapters that he liked and at work she just got online and read! In the meantime Volnei called us the other day and was like, what's the church's suit? Like what suit do they use or what suits are allowed, etc. We told him there were no rules or anything like that, he kept calling us every 15 minutes for tips, needless to say, he threw down a chunk of change and bought a suit!!! Volnei brought Leomara a breadmaker for her birthday, yeah good stuff! Volnei Yesterday just threw the ingredients in and set the timer, and he timed it so the bread would get done right when we got there at 7:30. So we got there and had GREAT HOT BREAD, good stuff!!! Today we didn't have a p-day, we've been working all day because we've been too busy with appointments and house inspections. We left our apartment at 7 AM and stopped now to drop an email and we've got more stuff to do still .... so, see ya next week!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: May 20, 2007
Today was our Mother's Day phone call! Elder Malan is doing really good! He has to think harder to find the words he wants to say in English. They are working really really hard - last week they had 28 new contacts and they've been busy following up on those contacts. We asked him about the food and he said that he can't ever remember eating anything else but meat, pasta, rice & beans. His most favorite food is CHURRASCO!!!! (Brazilian B-B-Q). The most exciting news is about Volnei. They have been teaching him and his wife, Leomara, for about 2 months. Here is the story taken from Elder Malan's 5-2-07 email: "Hey! What's up? Well, let's jump right into it! VOLNEI!!! So the story is this, Friday we had to do a division with some elders with some problems, so we met up with them, did the switch and when me and this other elder were waiting for the bus to leave, guess who got on the bus, Volnei! So he got on and sat next to me and we started talking. I told him that normally we meet somebody and baptize them in 1 month, and with him that just hasn't happened. He was like, well I'm praying every day about the Book of Mormon and if I'm praying every day about the BOM and not getting a response what's that supposed to mean -- that it's not true? And I was like, you've gotta show the Lord you've got faith, and he was like, I have faith, and I was like then we're going to schedule your baptism right now, and I said May 26th and he said no May 15th, and I was like, May 15th is a Tuesday, so by May 15 you'll have your answer about the BOM and the 19th will be the baptism, and he said okay. Then I told him I had a tip for him when he prays. I told him to leave his son at the neighbors house that babysits him for just a little longer, and to kneel and pray just like normal, but when he comes to the question to just wait, to not get up or finish the prayer without getting KNOWING the BOM is true. And he said ok. So we got off the bus and I was like, he's going to try it right now, so I turned up the volume on the cell phone just to make sure that I wouldn't miss the call, I didn't tell him to call me, I didn't tell him to pray that day, I just knew that he would call. So we went to lunch, went home and I was talking to the other elder and all of the sudden, RING RING RING!!! and I practially jumped on the phone, and Volnei was like, Elder Malan? and I was like yeah this is him, and he just started BALLING, CRYING LIKE CRAZY!!! and he was like, WoW! and he was like It's TRUE!!!! and said he was shaking and just started thanking me for everything he's been taught and apologizing for doubting for so long and having to prove everything in the Bible. So after the call I started jumping around the house screaming and then we went over to his house and talked for a little bit, it was almost funny, him trying to describe the feeling he had, he was like, there was a thing on my neck and then this feeling in my head and then this feeling that came from my stomach going up my chest, and he was like, Malan, if you had told me that was going to happen to me I would have said that you were an American that was crazy in the head that needed to be sent back to the States! and he said that after he went into the kitchen and looked at his BOM and thought, really? it really is? and he said that at that moment he felt like the most important thing in his life had been taken away from and he collapsed on the kitchen floor crying on the BOM and then grabbed a pen and wrote on the back cover the whole story, the bus, going home, the prayer, the feelings, so that he would never forget, and now he's going to be baptized on the 19th!!!!! GOOD STUFF!!!!" So, that was a great experience! We really enjoyed our phone call! He's doing great! Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: May 13, 2007
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Posted by: Mosa Date: April 18, 2007
Ola Elder!!amei sua foto de cima da ciade..acho q tenho uma também...fiz missão aí a long time ago...(rsrs)1989-1991,amo esse lugar!!
Parabéns por ser um missionário!!
Que tu tenhas forças e bom animo para prosseguir com fé nesse trabalho tão valorozo...não é facil,mas vale muito a pena realiza-lo.
Hoje posso falar com certeza que a missão foi a mehor coisa que já fiz em minha vida e o que mais teve valor!!
good luck!!
bittencourtr@hotmail.com Posted by: MARCIA BITTENCOURT Date: April 10, 2007
Dear Elder Malan,
i will be sending you a letter very soon, so be looking for it! there will be a picture inside...talk to you soon!! Posted by: Brittany Date: March 18, 2007
congrats and work hard!! Posted by: Smiley Miley Date: March 16, 2007
Elder Malan just got transferred to Guaiba, near Porto Alegre. He was called to be a Zone Leader. We'll find out more about his new area on his next p-day. He stayed in his last area (Cangucu) for a short 6 weeks but helped to get some good things rolling! The elders were planning a churrasco (b-b-q) for the branch & community. Elder Malan was looking forward to a good turnout and he wanted to do the cooking, however he was transferred just a few days before the event.
Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: January 30, 2007
Hey Elder Malan,
I hope that you are doing well. I haven't talked to you in forever. I'm happy to say that the swim team is doing really well this year. Our girls are rocking it up. Coaching is amazing I love it. I'm going to be joining the Air Force here in about a month and a half, which I'm thrilled about. Anyway hope that you are well.
ShayLee Posted by: ShayLee Bell Date: January 6, 2007
Here's the latest from Elder Malan: "Wuzzzz Upp Yo! Happy 2007! Crazy how time flies! Lol, yeah, well for New Years I honestly felt like I was in Iraq! Bombs going off all around me! It was CRAZY! (editors note: he says that you can buy fireworks that make the illegal fireworks in the U.S. look like nothing!) Well, church on Sunday had a whole 13 people! Hopefully this week it will be higher since it's not a holiday! So guess what we're in the process of doing! We've got 2 interviews on 2 different radio stations! One will be this Saturday and the other we don't have a date yet. AND, I've started writing an article and we've already talked to the owner of the local newspaper and we actually ended up teaching him and his secretary, the guy is great! He's going to give us a 30% discount!!!! He asked us what we wanted to put in the paper and we're like, well, there's a lot of rumors about our church and what we do, so we'd like to write an article about our beliefs and what we do, and then he just started asking away, good stuff, he liked it a lot so we'll see what happens from that." Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: January 4, 2007
We had a good telephone call with Elder Malan on Christmas! Here's a brief summary: We got to talk for 90 minutes and he was outside in front of a hospital using the public phone -- it was raining like crazy and by the time we were finished his shoes were filled with water and weighed 30 lbs! His new area has a really, really small LDS branch. There are lots of Baptists & Lutherans in the area -- and many are Germans. There is a lot of incorrect information about the LDS church that is circulating throughout the community and the Elders are thinking of new ways to get correct information out there. It is starting to get really hot there -- their apartment is made of cement and in the evening it is like an oven -- so they sleep outside on their deck. He says that Cangucu is hotter than Pelotas -- and Pelotas is said to be the 1st or 2nd hottest city in the world. They work on a farm for two hours every Friday for the 1st Counselor in the branch presidency. They love cooking up churrasco (brazilian b-b-q) -- and he's become quite good at it too! He said that the work is tough, but the challenge is fun! He said that on his last Sunday in his last area (Fatima/Pelotas), they had 13 investigators at church -- this new area had a whole 13 members at church!! Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: January 4, 2007
Dear Elder Malan,
I know this is way random, but I actually met your dad the other night at geckos. I\'m a waitress there, and we ended up having a really long conversation. Somehow you got brought up, and he told me a little bit about you. As our conversation progressed, he ended up talking me into writing you a letter...I laughed and told him i wouldn\'t, but then somehow he talked me into it. So i guess i just thought i\'d say hello to keep a promise... Your dad really is the nicest guy, he\'s funny too. I read a little bit about you in your profile, it sounds like you\'re in an amazing mission. Oh yeah and all those things you ate? Oh man that\'s terrible, I\'m surprised you could even manage to get that down! That\'s awesome... Well, i guess i should tell you a little about myself... I\'m a senior at Bingham High School, I run, play lacrosse and i\'m on the swim team. I work at geckos as a waitress, and at Allyses bridal modeling. I am constantly busy with school and work, but I always make time to hang out with friends. Well I\'m not sure what else to say, hope your christmas was great though! Hope to hear from ya...
-Lanaya Posted by: Lanaya Wallace Date: December 26, 2006
Hey Elder Malan, it's been a while. Sorry but life just keeps rolling and you just hope you keep up. Well, it's fun to read about your time in Brazil. Hope all is well. Clint is doing great and can't believe he is down to his last 6 months. He feels like there is still so much to do. Well, we hope you have a nice Christmas.
Love from the Martins Posted by: Juli Martin Date: December 20, 2006
WOW! It's been awhile since this website has been updated! We've had many internet problems but we should be good now! Elder Malan was transferred today and is now in Cangucu. His time in Pelotas-Fatima was GREAT! The missionaries were busy, busy, busy!! They had lots and lots of great people that were baptized and more on the way. He hated to leave the area --- but he was transferred. He says, "Hey!!! Well, after a little trip I'm here! I feel like I'm back in Cacapava! I'm out in the boonies again! LOL! So there are 2 zones in Pelotas, I was in the other zone, that's called, Zone Pelotas, now I'm considered part of the Pelotas North Zone. I'm an hours drive from Pelotas, and every week we have to go to Pelotas for district meeting. So, I'm going to still see people from Fatima, lol, I even told some investigators to just show up at the chapel on Thursday of next week, cause we'll be there for conference. So the church has been in this little town called "Cangucu" for about 6 years and has about 25 people per week at church. My new comp is Elder Jose, he's pretty cool. Ummm yeah, cool little town, not much to do but it's cool. IT'S NON STOP HILLS!!!!! THERE IS NOT EVEN 10 YARDS OF FLAT GROUND!!!!!! A 'supermarket' (it's smaller than the fruits section at Wal-Mart) just opened 2 days ago-- that's the latest excitement in the city. It's just like Cacapava, no worries about getting robbed, everybody knows everybody, a lot of Gauchos and the work is TOUGH. My comp is from Sao Paulo - lives 30 minutes from the Temple there. Gotta go!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: December 13, 2006
Hey Elder Malan, sorry it has been so long, but life has been crazy. I am not working with the scouts any longer, I'm second counselor in High Priest Group. Hope all is still going well with you. Fica firme na fe, tenhas muitos batismos. Forgive my spelling, it's been many years. Chau for now! Posted by: Kevin Goff Date: October 16, 2006
Hi Elder Malan, Just wanted to say hello and tell you how much we love you. I love to get updates from your mom every week. The weather is getting colder here and I am sooooo not looking forward to winter. Already there is snow in the mountains. Well, I will close. Our love and prayers are with you. Posted by: Allyson Sherratt Date: September 25, 2006
Hello Everyone! Just a quick message to say that our internet has been causing us lots of problems for the last month -- I have lots of updates for this website (and pictures too). As soon as we get up and going again with our internet, I'll be getting caught up and you can read about the Elder Malan's adventures for the past month. In a nutshell, he's still in Pelotas -- he's doing good. He's been called as a District Leader too. He also just passed his 1-year mark. More info to come! Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: September 4, 2006
Hey Mom, forgot to tell you but I ate cow stomach the other day, it wasn't very good.....Tchau! Posted by: Elder Malan Date: August 16, 2006
Here's today's email from Elder Malan: "Hey Hey Hey! Let's see! I forgot to tell you some stuff last week so here it is.... we've invested in a fondue pot!!! OHHH, it's a blessing! Normally they are like 50-90 reias but they were on sale for 25! So everybody pitched in a little and we bought it, but when we rang it up it was 20! So yeah! We've mostly had banana dipped in chocolate but the other night for E. Jefferys birthday we had strawberrys! Good stuff!!! We've made cheese fondue also! I got a letter from Giselda!! She's still going to church, knows the church is true but hasn't been able to stop smoking! And I got an email from E. Douglas he said that Jorge and Sandra are preparing to go to the temple in December-January! So that will be cool, I'll be able to go! Alrighty! We had a pretty good week, we have two baptisms marked for the 29th but they are pretty weak so no promises but we had 6 at church and taught 26 lessons. The ZL's told me we're leading the zone, but none of that really matters because it's the baptisms that count so we'll see! Oh! Lol, so I've been asked to give a talk in church on the 30th about, "Embriotic Gods" LoL!!! Yeah.....Lol, but President Johnson came down here this week and we had interviews, I asked him where I could find some information and he said, uhh, No, he's not going to let me talk about that, he told me to just run, lol, so we'll see what happens. The first counselor of the mission promised me a few months ago that for the first visit we have with somebody, that would normally be the first lesson, he said if we go in, stay 5 minutes, just leave a scripture and pray for every person in the room, and leave a blessing on the house, that 4 out of every 10 people will be baptized. So a couple weeks ago we tried it, and marked another day to come back, we came back and he thought we scheduled 6 when it was 8 so we marked another day, which was this past Saturday. We taught him the 1st lesson and invited him to church and he and his nephew showed up to church the next day, cool. So we visited him last night and he's like yeah next week my other nephews and nieces and my mom are going to come too! There's like 6 or 7 kids! and the youngest is 9! Perfect! Anyway before we left I told him to continue reading the BOM and going to church and he would gain a testimony that the church is true, and he said, I know the church is true! So it was pretty cool. We met some other really good people too, Carlos, he just asked a million questions, he got me on one... How many prophets are there in the BOM? I've asked every elder I've seen and asked president but nobody knows! So I'm going to look for it on the net. Anyway, we're outta here, I'm going to buy stuff for chimarrao because now that Schow's gone I haven't had any to drink! Ha Ha! Tchau Tchau!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: July 19, 2006
Here's the latest from Elder Malan's July 12 email: "Hey Hey Hey! WELL!! You're probably wondering where I've been all day!!!!!! WE'VE BEEN AT THE BEACH!!! HA HA HA HA! There's a member that lives like 5 minutes from the beach and he's got foose ball, pool, a big area for CHURRASCO and not to mention THE BEACH! So we've been playing soccer, frisbee, football, pool, swimming, fooseball everything! (ok, so I exaggerated about the swimming) but yeah it was GREAT! All followed up with churrasco! So it was pretty fun, I've got a bunch of pictures! Some bad news, eh, not bad, just it kinda stinks, my backpack tore on Sunday...a nice big 8 inch tear, yep that's your high quality backpack from Brazil, and it's right in the bottom. Needless to say I had to buy another one today, almost 40 dollars, 75 reias...yeah, bummer dude! Conference was really really quick. The new president & family just introduced themselves and that was pretty much it... didn't even talk to them really, everybody shook hands and that was all...but yeah, he seems pretty cool. The baptism was pretty good! Not a whole lot to say about that one but yeah, Carol is her name. She's a sharp little girl! 10 years old but she knows her stuff that's for sure! Ask her about any commandment and she can give a great answer. Let's see, what else. I might have to talk in church this Sunday, I'm not sure. My area has like 2 extremes... poor and CRAZY RICH! Like swimming pool, massive house, etc crazy rich. Oh and there are tons of turtles here! We gotta go -- TTYL!"
Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: July 19, 2006
Here's the latest from Elder Malan's July 5 email: "Ola Ola Ola! Things are going pretty good! We're really busy, but I guess that's a good thing. We're having a baptism on Saturday. She's 10 and lives with her Grandma. Her name is Carol, so, good stuff. It's pretty cool cause we're not like right in the middle of downtown but we can still go there! My first day we taught 6 and got 10 new investigators! OHH GET THIS!! I found A-1 Steak sauce!!! YEP, it was like 7 dollars but I couldn't pass it up! And I found Pringles and Skittles! The Pringles are normal but the Skittles are like WAY expensive -- like 2 dollars for 90 grams. Anyway, it's pretty cool here. I've met some pretty cool new friends. One from Oakland actually. He went to Foothill High School, I asked him if he knew Golfland, he said yeah, pretty cool. He lived in Cupertino for 8 years, anyway, good stuff. Hopefully Elder Jefferys doesn't get transferred so that we can celebrate hump day together. Elder Jeffery came over first thing in the morning (on the 4th) and we listened to the national anthem and paid our respects to the flag, and we had a little get together at our apartment, had steak with A1...good stuff. Tonight with our english classes we're going to have a little party. Haven't heard anything about the new president, but we have conference on Friday so we'll see him there. So Brazil's out of the world cup ... ummm, there were people crying, not like just a couple... hundreds, thousands of people balling. Gotta go for now! TCHAU!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: July 5, 2006
Here's the news from Elder Malan's June 28 email: "Hey! So I made it! I just got here, I got some good news! There is a BIG (owned by Walmart - basically the same thing) right next to our apartment! AND MCDONALDS!!!! WAHOOOO!!! It's like 5 minutes from the apartment! My comp is Elder Coelho from Rio de Janeiro. He has 12 weeks on the mission, so I've been called senior. So my area is called Fatima. We have an english class twice a week and I teach the intermediate class. Elder Horrocks (now called Elder Jefferys) from Idaho and the CTM lives like 2 minutes from our apartment, we work in the same ward actually! He lives in the same cluster of apartments. It's just a couple of buildings down, pretty cool. So I saw him and Elder Johnson today! Good stuff! My area is like 5 minutes from the center of Pelotas. Talk to ya later!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: July 5, 2006
Here's the news from Elder Malan's June 27 email: "Wake Up, Wake Up, Wake Up! We had 4 investigators at church! I'm going to Pelotas - don't know excactly what area or who I'll be with. Right now I'm still in Cachoeira. Tomorrow morning I'll go to Porto Alegre, then PA to Pelotas. Yeah, Pelotas is really big. There are 3 zones there. Rumor has it that the church bought property for a temple there about 2 years ago. Cool, cool. We're going to have churrasco tonight! It was kinda sad leaving Cacapava -- 'cause like half of my mission up to this point has been in Cacapava! Gotta go -- talk to ya tomorrow!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: July 5, 2006
Here's the news from Elder Malan's June 21 email: "Helllooo! We just got done eating TACOS! HA HA HA! And tonight, CHURRASCO!!! We're going to go to the waterfalls too! So yeah, you could say we're maxing everything out yeah. So uhh, I have a confession to make. I had my first beer this afternoon, lol, it didn't have any alcohol, it was DISGUSTING! !! Don't worry, I made a video of the whole thing. Yeah, I can't believe people pay for that stuff on a regular basis! Just terrible! LOL, Elder Schow's getting pretty trunky and it's funny, lol, he started his mission here in
Cachoeira, he baptized a family and they are going through the temple in like a month, so we're going over there tomorrow for lunch and to say bye, then he's buying stuff like CRAZY!! Wed-Saturday we're eating churrasco EVERY NIGHT!! Granted, it won't be a lot every night, but we're going to have it every night .. should be fun. So, you went to Rodizios! Did they have armadillo? Did they have chicken heart? I want to find out where chicken heart can be bought, maybe just at like chicken farms or something .... ahhh soooo good! So Brazil won 2-0, the US tied 1-1 with Italy but they didn't even make their goal, lol, it hit this Italian guys leg and rolled into the goal, 100% luck, but hey, a goal is a goal. So I've convinced myself not to buy an official Brazil Soccer Jersey because it's so expensive ... BUT.... I'm wondering if it would be a sin to serve in Brazil, during the World Cup and not get a jersey ... so I think if they win the cup then I'll buy one ... we'll see. We had a week of GREAT weather. It was actually pretty warm, too, but it was the warm before the storm! It's been raining, pretty hard too, lightning like crazy, but mostly just at night and in the mornings. We gotta go. Talk to ya later!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: July 5, 2006
Here's the news from Elder Malan's June 14 email: "Hellloooo!! We went to Porto Alegre Tuesday morning, and got to Cachoeira really really late last night and this morning we left Cachoeira and came back to Cacapava. A lot of traveling and we're popped! Yeah, lol, it was funny, last night we made a special stop and went to McDonald's. I specifically used my debit card so that you guys could see that we went to McDonald's, lol, and it worked! Interviews were good, really quick, normally we stay there for 2 days -- 1 day for interviews and the temple another for conference. Well conference was super fast, it was 2-1/2 hours instead of 7 hours. Yeah, President just said starting July 3rd he's not my president anymore, but the day I get off the plane in Salt Lake, he's my president again. It was a really quick interview but good. Then we went to the temple. President gave us all a ring, and it says Missao POA Sul D&C 132:20. I got the other package! Thanks!! The shoes fit fine, I haven't tried the thermal tops yet but I'm sure they'll fit fine too. We invited Fernando to be baptized. He really really really wants to be baptized but his wife doesn't want him to be -- so as for now it's a no go. Elton went to church!!!! It was pretty cool! So President Johnson will get here on July 3 and President Earnshaw will hand the cell phone to him and at that point it's official and President Earnshaw will leave to go to the airport. There is a 3 hour gap from when they land here and Pres & Sister Earnshaw leave -- no training, no nothing. Sis Johnson doesn't know any portuguese and Pres Johnson hasn't spoken portuguese for probably 20 years so it will be interesting the first few months. We're having conference on the 5th, 6th, and 7th. I don't know which day will be us yet, well... I'll be in a new area so, we'll see. So -- when you go to Rodizios here's some things to ask for (I'm not going to tell you what it is), the first is coracao, it's pronounced like ... Core-uh-sao -- between the core and the uh it's like corUHcao, like the r with a kind of accent. The second (you like this)...Abacaxi (uhh-baa-cuhh-shee). You could also ask for pecanha (Peh-caughn-ya) -- you've eaten 2 of these before ... ohh, I thought of another, TATU -- almost like tatoo, TAH-TOO. Hey, we're outta here, we haven't eaten lunch yet! TTYL!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: July 5, 2006
Here's the news from Elder Malan's June 7 email: "Helllloooooo! GOOD NEWS! I got 1 of the two packages, and the other is in Porto Alegre, thanks sooo much! Sunday Fernando went to church and right when the meeting ended he turned to Elder Schow and said, "I believe this gospel is true...I liked the meeting a lot today." We still haven't invited him to be baptized! Tuesday FOR SURE WE WILL!! We were totally planning on it last week but when we got to his house his friend was there, his baby was crying, and it just wasn't the right setting ya know, so, Tuesday! Hopefully! Cross your fingers! Pray hard! THE WORLD CUP STARTS ON FRIDAY!!!! BRASIL WILL BE SHUT DOWN AND FULL OF DRUNKS!!!! There's been a few practice games already. Last week Brasil beat some team 8-0, yesterday they beat New Zealand 4-0. A lot of people have doubts, because it's a team of all the "all-stars" and they say that they are so used to having the spotlight to themselves that they don't know how to play together, which is a very good point. IT'S GOING TO BE A CRAZY MONTH!!! CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY!! YOU HAVE NO IDEA!!! Even when just a local team wins a game, there are fireworks and people go running out into the roads, like downtown everywhere waving flags, jumping on cars, fireworks like crazy. I can only imagine how this is going to be!! The 4th of July is coming up -- so I'm going for it right now .... I've got so much to say I don't know where I'm going to start ... ummm there's something different about Americans. They've got an American Pride whether they know it or not. I don't know how it's created but there's something different. Being here in Brazil has made me be VERY GRATEFUL TO BE AN AMERICAN. MY HEART IS STAINED RED, WHITE, AND BLUE AND I'll PUT THAT UP AGAINST ANYBODY! I don't know how to say it but everybody's got that American Pride, a flame in them. We've got a USA flag in our apartment, it's GREAT! Let's see, I've got some pictures with a parrot that a member has, I taught the thing how to whistle, ya know like the whistle when you think somebody is pretty or something. It's pretty funny but sometimes it forgets, and the thing also learned to laught! So you can be in another room and laugh and the parrot will be in its cage and it will start laughing in the other room! It's soooo funny! I think we're outta here so uhh, talk to ya later! TCHAU TCHE!!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: July 2, 2006
Hi Everyone! Just a quick note to let you know that Elder Malan is being transferred to Pelotas! Stay tuned for more info! Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: June 27, 2006
Hey Elder Malan,
You might not know who i am at first. i'm Michael ELlis, i swam for West Jordan. i was just looking on here and saw that they have 'missionary websites' or something like that, so i thought i'd take a look at my mission. i got called down to porto alegre south...kinda crazy huh. well i fly out tomorrow afternoon, so two months and i'll be there. well that's about it. i just recognized you, so i thought i'd say hello. best of luck. Bye Posted by: Michael ELlis Date: June 12, 2006
Hey Elder Malan, Your mom showed me your cool web site! I'll let Brice know about Elder Schow's brother. He just got back from Japan doing a study abroad program. Camy is a married woman now. She married an nice guy that Brice introduced her to him. She's got sisters now! But I really miss her. They live in Orem right behind Krispy Kreme. Too bad she doesn't like donuts. I'd be there every hour! I love getting updates from your mom about you and all that you are doing. Keep up the good work. We love you and keep you in our prayers! Posted by: Allyson Sherratt Date: June 1, 2006
Here's today's email from Elder Malan: "Helllooooo! Alrighty, so we got a call from President and he sent out this member from Santa Maria who is going on a mission but he wants to do something right now, so he's probably going to spend a month with us and he will be Elder Divals companion and we will divide Cacapava in 2 parts and have 4 Elders there. He has been ordained an Elder (like missionary elder) and everything but hasn't been through the temple or the CTM, sooo, it's him and Elder Dival, and Elder Schow and I. Elder Schow's brother leaves today for the MTC, he's going to Orlando, the same place where Brice Sherratt went! His brother went to Iraq and everything, he's like a month older than me ... ummm but yeah, so when I first got to Cacapava we had lunch about 4-5 times a week, now we have it almost every day BUT now we have 4 elders, so Elder Schow and I are just going to pick a couple lunches that we want and give the rest to Elder Dival and Moroni, yeah, his name is Moroni, and yeah it's after the Moroni that you're thinking, I just have to say, thanks for not naming me Nephi or The brother of Jared, something like that, just THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart ... lol, just kidding! He's a cool kid though, obviously clueless to everything since he hasn't ever been to the MTC but he'll catch on. Last night we had an appointment scheduled with Fernando, we were going to invite him to be baptized, he's sooooo hard to meet with because of his work, but last night he was home and guess what .... we had I think the biggest storm I've ever seen in my life!!! Lightning like CRAZY and rain like you wouldn't believe! We were at home waiting for it to stop and finally the time came that we were supposed to leave to go to his house, we just said that we were going to go for it, lol, well it wasn't a good idea, lol, we got about 45 yards away from our front door and we surrendered!!! We were so scared!! An umbrella in a lightning storm was too scary! You see on cartoons all the time they get struck!! So yeah, that didn't work out. Yeah, my shoes are soaked. I don't know if I told you, but I've only used 1 pair of shoes. I'm trying to destroy them! Anyway, tonight we have an appointment with Elton, the guy that was a counselor in the branch. He is going to open a little restaurant and he wants to sell peanut butter cookies, so we're going to make homemade peanut butter and make some cookies with him tonight. It should be fun! If Elton comes back to church, I'll be 10 times more happy than any baptism I've had!!!!! I don't know why, I think just because he is like, I don't know how to say it, he's like the backbone of Cacapava, like he would make a HUGE difference, everybody loves the guy. Anyway! My talk went pretty good, this time I prepared stuff and I hardly even used it, lol, oh well, I talked about my topic and then at the end of my talk I talked about the goal of 50 people, and Sunday there was 40. So I said if everybody was to bring one friend next week we would have 80 people here, and us missionaries would have a lot of work. Then I invited them to be firmer members, and talked about that, I ended up taking 16 or 17 minutes. OHHH before I forget, lol, I bought some cowboy pants! They are sooo cool!!!!!! I love them!!!! I was walking around the house with them last night and they are sooo comfortable!!!! I'm going to buy a belt and probably shoes (not boots) today. We get to go through the temple with President Earnshaw on June 13th because he's leaving, should be pretty cool. President Johnson is going to spend 1 week here with President Earnshaw, lol, before they were going to miss each other by 3 hours, so things changed. That's what's going on here! TCHAU!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: May 31, 2006
Here's the news from Elder Malan's May 24 email: "Hey! Hellooo! I think Mosa emailed you but, I'm staying! I'm going to "kill" (the nickname for sending home a missionary) Elder Schow!!!!! WAHHHOOOOO! Well, it's been quite the day, we were told that nobody was being transferred from our zone and nobody would be coming to our zone, but there was an elder that got sick in Sao Paulo that was going to come to out mission, well we got a call from president this morning and he sent the elder that was going to train the greenie to be with us. So now we're a threesome. Elder Divon, I can't remember if that's how you spell it exactly but he is from Curitiba. They are building a temple there actually. So yeah, he seems pretty cool. But that's been the shocker of the day because it was all last second. We found out like 4 hours before he got here (Cachoeira) so tomorrow morning we'll go to Cacapava. He has 4 months left until he goes home. Cacapava will be his last area also. Elder Schow goes home June 28th. President also told us that I will be transferred at the end of this transfer. So Elder Schow and I will leave and he will stay. This transfer is only 5 weeks long, they do that once a year. So yeah, that's the latest. We have 1 baptism scheduled in June, and we'll be inviting 1 other hopefully this week. The one in June is Davi (he's 8) and the one we're inviting is Fernando. Davi's mom is a member in Santa Maria but Davi lives with his grandma who is an active member in our branch. So we're going to approve it with his mom and if she agrees then we'll baptize him. Fernando just showed up to church on Easter and we got his address, but some other elders taught him less than a year ago... he first found the church like 3-4 years ago. Fernando is married and has three kids. His wife isn't really really really interested but he knows the church is true so we're going to invite him hopefully this week. He travels A LOT for his work so it's hard to meet with him. Elder Schow and I have been asked to talk in church this Sunday. My topic is "Understanding/Comprehending" so I'm actually excited about this one, because I can do just about anything I want with it--understanding our baptismal covenant (to try and activate more people) understanding what it means to be a member missionary. I can do anything I want with it, I'm excited it. So, yeah, that's about all that's floating in my boat! Today we've just been bumming around actually, waiting for our new companion to get here. Last night there was a baptism for a kid that Elder Page and I met playing basketball, and also it reactivated another kid (like 25ish) and his girlfriend is being baptized next month. It's starting to get really cold, yeah well it's getting to like 2 at night, which would be like uhh, 36ish. Gotta go, TCHAU TCHE!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: May 31, 2006
Here's the news from Mosa on May 20 -- she's in Elder Malan's area. She's Brazilian and speaks perfect English. She's an English teacher! "Elder Malan called and asked me if I could write you and tell you he's staying! I guess on his next p-day he'll tell you more about it! So, yeah, he sounded really happy about staying, I supposed it's because Elder Malan and Elder Schow are getting along so well." Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: May 31, 2006
Here's the news from Elder Malan's May 17 email: "Hellllooooo! It's a BEAUTIFUL DAY! Like 70 and clear! GREAT! Sooo, Elder Schow got his email from President, I think I'm staying! He doesn't write much because he has 150 elders to write, so it's just 1 liners but he said this, "That's good thinking, I can see that you two really want to stay together" and that was it, that was the whole email. So, if he was to say that then split us up that'd be pretty low, lol, but it could happen!!! AHHHH! Oh well, we'll see! We've gotta head out here in a minute, I'm going to go find a shirt or something. My shirts have been trashed because there's no spin cycle, you have to ring out your shirts and it just ruins them (t-shirts)! Then hanging them up wet, the weight stretches them out, all my shirts are like XL now just from washing them. We're outta here, talk to ya next week. I'll let ya know when I found out if I'm staying or going! TCHAU!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: May 31, 2006
Hello Everyone! Just thought I'd share a little about our Mother's Day phone call. It was GREAT to talk with Elder Malan! The big thing right now is whether or not he gets transferred ... he really wants to stay where he is but time will tell. Cacapava has about 32,000 people -- and there is no other city around Cacapava for 2-1/2 hours. He said there are areas that they haven't even touched because their area is so big. He said less than 1 in 10 homes have cars. He's in the heart of cowboy country. He loves chicken hearts! The language is going really good ... he said that his English was getting really poor until Elder Schow arrived and now he can speak a little English again. He said he's wanting to put a "gender" to everything in English. His branch is working really hard at getting people to attend church. If they have 50 people in attendance for 3 months then they'll be able to get a church building. He said on Sunday they had 49! They had a neat experience on Sunday where they had been visiting a man in the branch that used to be really active and a leader in the branch but had slipped -- they invited him to come back and he said how hard it would be but that he'd come on Sunday. Well, Sunday came and he wasn't there. So after the first meeting the elders and the ward mission leader had a little prayer and then went to his house and said, hey ... are you going to come today? He said that he'd come to the last meeting. Well -- they left and really wondered whether or not he'd come to the last meeting. So, the meeting started and he wasn't there. Then 30 minutes left in the meeting he walked in the door! The door he walked through was in the front of the room -- so EVERYONE saw him walk in and people were SO EXCITED TO SEE HIM!!! Elder Malan was SO JAZZED! He said he was smiling so big and was so excited that he could hardly sit in his chair! After the meeting, everyone in the branch went up to this brother and gave him hugs! It was a great day! Elder Malan had a few questions -- like how were the sports teams doing, how much snow is left on the mountains, etc. It was great to talk with him! Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: May 18, 2006
Here's the news from Elder Malan's May 10th email: "Hey! So you got the pictures, have you tried any of the juices yet? That Goiaba, it's not guava by the way, that fruit doesn't exist in the states so who knows what its translation really is. Porto Alegre was good, President isn't too happy with most of the numbers, we got a whippin to say the least, all I can say is our numbers have been good! So it wasn't me!! Lol, umm... we're always supposed to prepare a 5 minute talk to give and 2 minutes before the meeting President chooses somebody to give their talk. He usually picks people that have been on the mission for 9-12 months. I've been out for 8 1/2 so I thought, eh, he might pick me but the chances are pretty small so I won't worry about preparing anything. I'll procrastinate it just one more time, then the night before the conference, eh maybe I should write something down just in case, but I convinced myself that I wouldn't get picked. Well sure enough, guess what! Yep, I got picked, but it was all good. I was kinda nervous but it all turned out good, then President complimented me too, so can't be too bad I guess. But that means I passed his test and will probably be called Senior companion at the end of this transfer. It's gone so fast I still feel like I'm a little greenie! Granted 9 months is very young to be called senior, usually it's a year but, whatever, who the Lord calls the Lord qualifies so it'll be fine. But still, I'd rather stay in my area and just be Junior. We're going to pitch a few ideas to President today about opening up another area out here that way if he wants to call me senior he can and I can stay here and open up the area and he would just send out 2 more Elders, and we're also going to give him the idea of sending out a greenie and we'd been in a triplicy for a transfer. E. Schow goes home and I stay for 1 more with the greenie. We'll see, but President said he'd try and let us stay together. Just enough to give ya hope but no promises. Back in the day there were 6 elders in our area, now it's just US, so we'll pitch these ideas and see how it turns out in 2 weeks!! TCHAU!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: May 18, 2006
Here's the news from Elder Malan's May 3rd email: "Hellllloooo! This will be a quicky because we're headed off to Cachoeira AGAIN! Saturday and Sunday we were in Cachoeira because it was District Conference (like the Branch version of Stake Conference). President and Sister Earnshaw came out and brought our packages!! Thanks SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!! It's been non-stop candy for 3 days straight, no just kidding! Soo uhh, if you're gathered around the computer you might want to grab a chair and sit down.......... Remember the mysterious lady with the random address in my planner......well ummm she has been lying to us like CRAZY!!! I'll give one example that might just make you pass out.....She told us that her husband got sick and died.....Well uhhh, she went to church on Sunday with her son and a member came up to me and said, So you know the story about her?? And I was like, huh? She has a story? Uh-oh! Turns out SHE MURDERED HER HUSBAND!!!!!! She stabbed him IN HIS SLEEP!!!!!!! And she sells her daughter, like if she doesn't have food or money, she'll tell any guy that pays her 15 dollars that she'll let them do whatever they want with her daughter and she'll leave! Her daughter is 16!!! Sunday after the meeting we took Sister Earnshaw up to meet her, and she just started going CRAZY!!!!! TOTALLY CRAZY!!! She was saying that we had to take her to the pharmacy to buy her stuff and her son, but she's like screaming this to us and acting like it's a total emergency!!! Then Elder Schow was just like what are you talking about cause we're just in total shock! Then about 5-10 minutes later she came up to me and said that we had to go the pharmacy and gave me the whole speal over again! So, I just said, Well today's the Sabbath Day, we don't buy things on Sunday, you know that, and we know that we're blessed as a result of being obedient. And she just got mad, "Ohh it's been 3 days since the Lord's given me food" BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH So yeah, needless to say, her medicine is ALCOHOL!! She flat out told us that she was obeying the Word of Wisdom and everything!!!!! CRAZY!! As far as the reference, I traced it down to where I got it, there was a sister that served in Cacapava 3 years ago and she taught that lady, well she gave the address to a member to give it to me so that we would go and visit her. Alrighty, we've gotta catch the bus in a few minutes so gotta go! Talk to ya next week!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: May 8, 2006
I got behind again! Oh dear! Here's Elder Malan's April 26th email: "HELLLOOO!!!! Caçapava do Sul is HOT! The baptisms went great! We'll be having another in May! So a few days ago I had this address written in my planner and I had no clue where it came from. I don't remember writing it, I don't remember where I got it from or anything. I was just like eh, let's stop by this address. I don't know where I got it, so we stopped by and this lady she was never baptized but she went to church for a few months with her 2 kids but then the church moved to a new location and she didn't know where to go so she just kept reading the B.O.M. and obeying the Word of Wisdom and everything but she hasn't been thrown in the water yet. So tomorrow we're going to offically mark a day for her and maybe her 2 kids to be baptized! Good stuff. We had a big huge family night planned with Eron and some members and they were all going to bring their non-member friends and we made this AWESOME lesson about the Book of Mormon and Christ but a storm came in and it got really foggy and people were afraid to come over so we had to cancel, but we'll do it another night. One of the non-member friends was going to be Daisy's Mom. We're trying to just get her trust and make it clear to her that it's a good thing for her to be baptized, that she's going to live the standards in the For Strength of Youth pamphlet and stuff like that, so we'll see. Thursday was a horrible day...but we're not going to talk about that, let's just say we've been without a fridge for a week and we'll get it back Friday, maybe Saturday. Umm yeah, anyway, TCHAU until next week!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: May 8, 2006
hey man how are you doing, good i hope and man, things are going great here in florida, i love the states, and man the members are amazing, so it sounds like you are doing well, my laguage is coming along well, how about you, i am sure you are doing well and man i am so excited for you. anyways congrats on your baptisms, that is awesome, we are working on several here in my little Paltatka town, there are so many red necks down here, and i love it, they do the funniest things and you never have a dull momnent, so anyways you are starting to get into the cold huh, we are jumping back up into the heat, and the hummidity sucks, but you are right, the hummidity goes right through you, so enjoy man, i would rather deal with the cold than the summers, but man it is all good, i love ya bro, and i will continue to check up on ya. your pal elder martin Posted by: elder Martin Date: May 8, 2006
Here's Elder Malan's April 19th email: "Helllllllooooo!!!!How's everybody doing on this lovely day? Things here are going just grrreeat! We've got two baptisms on Saturday. They are the kids of 2 members that are perfectly firm - just never baptized their kids. So Elder Schow and I are going to try and double the goal the president set. The goal he set fo us is 15 discussions a week, so this week we're going to try for 30. Then we're going to tell him he's gotta let me kill Elder Schow (the term for a companion sending his missionary companion home at 24 months), cause I don't want to be transferred! So let's see, for my birthday... we had a FEAST!!! Churrasco! 3 pounds of Filet Mignon!!! The words to explain how amazing it was don't exist!!! I'm getting pretty dang good!! Elder Schow said hands down it was the best churrasco he's eaten on the mission! He said he would think that I'm a cowboy, and I said, "Eu Sou Gaucho TCHE!" (I AM A COWBOY!! and TCHE is like the cowboy slang, down here south of the equator and in the south of Brazil we say TCHE, don't ask me why but, TCHE, kinda like ya'll I guess, but like a ya'll just for 1 person, maybe like a dude, or man or I don't know, but you learned some portuguese hoje (today), TCHE. Anyway, we had some cooked pineapple! Rolled in cinnamon sugar, ahhhhhhh soooo goood! I did catch a tarantula last night!! About the size of your palm, found him on our deck while we were cooking, it was pretty intense....I wanted to catch him but I was sooooo scared! But I got him so we're good...We didn't cook all 3 pounds of filet mignon (man, it's a good thing cause I almost exploded) so we'll cook that up in the next few days. I took lots and lots of pictures so you'll see. Oh, I sent 2 CD's of pictures, and some juice, like kool-aid stuff. I woke up the other day and my nose was cold and I got all excited because I hadn't had that sensation for a LONG TIME! I'm going to either try and ask one of the Relief Society sisters to make me a beanie or just buy one..and I need to get some gloves too! We're just getting started but I can already tell, it's going to be COLD!!! And Utah doesn't know what COLD really is!! Humidity!! COLD COLD COLD. Today we cleaned our apartment, we're going to cruise around town, maybe do a little shopping, this internet place is going to have a class in 2 minutes! Gotta Go! TCHAU!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: April 25, 2006
Happy Belated birthday! We just celebrated Mandy's birthday on Saturday. I can't believe you guys are in your 20's now! Man how time flies when your having fun! I'm glad to hear you are doing so well and having so much fun.
Love Ya,
Melinda Posted by: Melinda DeMille Date: April 23, 2006
HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY ELDER MALAN! Posted by: Mom and Dad Date: April 18, 2006
Here's the news from Cacapava from Elder Malan's April 12 email: "Helllloooooo! So my companion went home! He left this morning with 2 other elders (1 American, Elder Moore - awesome kid!) My new companion is an American from Ogden, Utah! Elder Schow! I've never met him but Elder Page said he is one of the coolest guys in the mission! So I am SOOOOOO HAPPY!!!!!!! He's going to get here later this afternoon and we'll go to Cacapava tomorrow morning. So uhhh, you're not going to believe this but my camera resurrected! It works! When I turn it on it sounds a little different when the lens like, pops out ya know, but otherwise, ummm, it spells "rotate" wrong but that's it! So yeah, I mean still get the replacement because who knows how long this one will last! I've already burned the pictures onto a CD, I have an envelope with 2 CD's of pictures ready to send to you. The memory card works, everything works, the flash, the screen is fine which surprised me because it was just full of water. I think it might work because when it fell in the water it wasn't turned on. So who knows! I confirmed Eron on Sunday, he bore his testimony. All is well! Daisy has been to church like 4 times now. After the confirmation I said, "Now it's your turn!" She didn't say anything, just turned a little red. So I think I'm just going to invite her to be baptized in a few weeks, we'll see! I think I have to get her parents permission though, that might be hard, but we'll see how things play out. So every month we have a birthday party at the church. This Saturday we'll celebrate my birthday, the branch president's birthday, and Daisy's friend. I think there are others but those are the people that I know if, it will be fun! Gotta go! TCHAU!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: April 17, 2006
To everyone out in internet-land! I've gotten a little behind with posting Elder Malan's emails -- I'm repenting! Here's the April 5 email: "Ola Ola Ola! Well, well, well... let's see. General Conference was really good! We watched it in English in Cachoeira. I'd talk more about it but I don't exactly have my notes with me. I was pretty happy with Elder Ballard's talk, members don't know how much they help! Last week I lost 10 investigators in 1 day, yeh, the family, the husband got the job. We taught them on Sunday and setup the next visit for Thursday, we got there Thursday and found out that they moved on Monday. Not a single trace of them. But I called them and she told me, so BUMMER! But here in Cacheoira Elder Page and I have got a few baptisms coming up. Daisy and her friend came to 2 sessions of Conference. We had 35 people from Cacapava come to Cachoeira for the Sunday sessions, so that was good! My Sacrament Meeting talk, let's see, my topic was Christ and like how he is our Shepherd, Pastor, stuff like that, so I talked about his example of charity and love towards everybody. I talked about the atonement and how if we as members were to show charity and love for others how the church would grow etc etc. I read a story called "My Older Brother" and after I talked the 1st Counselor talked and said last night he was looking for that story to read but couldn't find it anywhere, and he just said, there was a purpose for that. Right after the meeting a lady come up to me and said "Marvelous talk!" I've got 9 or 10 days left with Elder Deivison. Elder Page checked looked for my birthday package in Porto Alegre and it wasn't in yet. It either didn't make it at all or it just hasn't gotten there yet. I think we'll be going back to Porto Alegre the first week in May. Did I tell you I made churrasco? I did that with Elder Moore and it was soooo good! It's sooooo easy, ya just get the meat, you have to get good meat or else it's just a piece of gum. Then you just put some of the salt on the meat, just kind of rub it on and cook it over a fire or I guess you could do a BBQ. After it's done cooking you hit it to knock all the salt off, and then just cut little pieces off and EAT!!!!! AHHHH WOW! Elder Page and I went to a buffet pizza place, it's 10 rieas (so like 5 dollars) and you just go to town. We had a contest to see who could eat more, neither one of us would give up so we called it a tie at 31, wow! I wanted to die! They have some good, granted different, but good pizzas here, like a dessert one that was ice cream, another brigaderio, lots of good ones, chocolate and banana, etc. That's all, talk to ya later! TCHAU!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: April 17, 2006
Hey Elder Malan,
It is really great to hear about all the success you are having on your mission. Keep up the good work. anyway, keep it up and good luck
ShayLee Posted by: ShayLee Bell Date: April 17, 2006
"Behold we will end the Conflict"
Alma 44:10 Posted by: Elder Malan Date: April 5, 2006
Happy Birthday!!!
I really enjoy reading this and getting caught up on your mission!!! Keep up the good work on the board Shawnette, and on your mission Blake!!! You are such an awesome example!!! Posted by: Barbara, Robby's mom Date: March 31, 2006
Here's the latest news from Cacapava! (He starts out replying to my question "So.. drum roll please...was there a baptism?" If all went well, then Eron was going to be baptized)-- here's his email: "Hello Helloo! Of course there was a baptism! Fasting and Faith, Do you have to ask? :-) He was baptized Friday but hasn´t been confirmed because he´s doing like an internship type of thing at a pharmacy and they wouldn´t let him leave. So the..what..9th? We'll confirm him. About the new family, we were talking to them about their questions and stuff, just about the BOM and others about the church, and we got onto prophets and Elder Deivison was just talking and talking and talking and talking and he shared the false prophets scripture and on and on, finally I was just like, can I talk for 1 minute...and he´s like sure, I just said plain and simple, A prophet talks to God face to face just like Moses did, there´s 1 prophet for the entire world, and then I told her that this weekend is special and if she wants to hear the prophet speak he´s going to this weekend and she´s invited to go. If she gets this new job then she might not be able to go, but if she doesn´t hear back she´s (and her family) coming. And it´s a little harder because at our chapel there isn´t going to be conference, we have to go to Cachoeira to watch it. The Branch rented a bus to go Sunday morning, so they will only get to see the 2 Sunday sessions. We´re going to go Saturday and catch all 3 sessions. We´re going to watch the priesthood session live, from 10:00 - Midnight, oh and we´re just going to Cachoeira to watch it not to Porto Alegre. So umm, we went to the waterfalls this morning and uh....well, it´s a good thing we got insurance on my camera!!! 'cause I slipped and the camera fell out of my pocket into the water!! Like a little pool of water and it took us like 5 minutes to find it, but I got it, I´ll let it dry out just to see if by some miracle it works but most likely you can expect a package! Last night I made churrasco (the BBQ rotisserie meat) It was sooooo GOOD!!! And today I made my TACOS!!! OH YEAH!!! I dreamt in PORTUGUESE!!!!! OH YEAH!!! I gave a talk in church!!! I was asked to speak for 10 minutes about Christ and how he is our Good Pastor (is that what they call it in English?) Yeah, I ended up speaking for 18 minutes!!! I found out at 8:30 the night before that I was going to talk, when I got up to the pulpit I had about half a page of stuff that I wanted to say, I was like, Dang, my farewell talk was 15 minutes, typed out word for word, and in ENGLISH and I spoke longer in portugese nothing typed out and with 24 hours notice, but it was good! Gotta go! TCHAU!"
Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: March 30, 2006
I'm Sister Angie Cannon's
father, and just discovered your site through DearElder.com --very interesting! Thanks for sharing. Success to you all. Posted by: Ned Cannon Date: March 23, 2006
Here's this week's email from Elder Malan! "Well HOWDY everybody! What´s happened the last week. I got Daisy back!!!! WAAHHOOOO!!!! Not only back...but she went to CHURCH TOO!! WAAHHOOO!!! Wait wait wait....We taught her friend and he came to church too!!! (I´ve never seen her at church so, yeah!) So that was great... But wait wait wait.....Eron will be baptized FRIDAY!!!! WAHOOO!!! So if all goes as planned, we´re doing it! Friday at 7:30. We met a really good family, well we haven´t met the spouse yet because he is in Santa Maria for a little while. But this family is really good I think. We´ve only had 1 lesson with them but she was full of questions and it was just wonderful! So we´ll see how this goes!
LoL, this basketball thing is getting pretty crazy. There was an article in the newspaper about some guys that we play with, but since the article was written there has been a sweep over the whole city! People have begun saying "Hey are you guys the basketball people?" It's getting sooo big! Because we have yet to lose in a month! It's sooo funny! But we're getting references from it so hey!
President Johnson (our upcoming new mission president)!! He is from Reno, Nevada! He´s a Vet, 48 years old and has 8 kids! And he´s bringing 5 of them, 2 college age will stay here until Christmas and then go home, but the other 3 will stay here for the full 3 years, the youngest is 8 or 9 years old. He´s been a Bishop, I think in the Stake Presidency, Stake YM´s President, Ward YM´s President, and some other stuff...I saw a picture of him and his wife too. President told us all this in conference. So President Earnshaw always asks me, ya got any questions? At the end of the interview, and I was like, yeah, your going home soon, so do you have any tips for a young entrepreneur? And he said, I´ve got tons of tips! and then he gave me like 6 or 7 tips, like things to think about now, and then he said, when do you hit 1 year? And I said, August, and he said, alright, when you get home, you come talk to me. And I said, Ok! Then as I was walking out he said, do ya know where I live? And I said, I just know it´s in Park City, and he said, then you´ll be able to find me, I´m the only Earnshaw there.
So I had a list of tips for Dahlia for her mission but I left it in the apartment. The only one I can think of at the moment is to learn a magic trick, because talking with little kids will help her a lot! Ummm, another was, speak the language as much as you possibly can in the MTC, just forget English, speak English as little as possible ... it's a process to learn a language, the more you speak the language the sooner you'll make the mistakes that get you through the process of learning the language. Well, that's it for now! TCHAU!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: March 22, 2006
Here's the latest from Elder Malan: "Hellloooo Helllooo Helllloooo! Not too much to talk about ... we met a few people this week, nothing to get too excited about. Basketball went pretty good, everytime we play there are a few more people that come to watch, it´s kind of funny, we have fans! LoL! We´re going to Porto Alegre for Zone Conference, 1 time very 6 weeks, so we´ll get to go through the temple again. Umm, the other day we were at Erons house and Daisy was there, just outside, but she could hear us talking to Eron and his wife, we we´re just kind of chatting about how there are so many people that talk bad about the church but really they don´t know anything about the church, the "common knowledge" that people have about the church is false or outdated, and I think Daisys´ mom and dad have put some pressure on her not to join, but anyway, after we talked for a while she came in the room and said she had to go but that she wanted to go to church with Eron and his wife the next day. So that´s good, but Eron had to work so niether of them came, so we´ll see what happens. I'm excited for COLD weather! I didn't realize that it's been almost a year since I've been in the cold. The dollar is going downhill. When I got here it was 2.20, then went to 2.39, and now it's 2.10. By December it's expected to be 1.90! So yeah .... bummer! Anyways, we're outta here! Talk to ya next week! Tchau!"
Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: March 19, 2006
Hi! I received an email from a Giselda in Rio Grande, Brazil (Elder Malan's first area). It made by day and I thought I'd share it! Here it is (translated): "Hi Elder Malan's Mom! This is a friend of his from Rio Grande. He lived close to my house and taught me many things about the Gospel. One time when Elder Douglas and Elder Malan made pizza they didn't know the difference between baking powder and yeast because here they are called the same thing. There is yeast for cake and yeast for bread - so they didn't know which was which, and Elder Douglas said that the pizza they made the dough was still a little raw! Elder Malan left us in January. He went to Cachoeira Do Sul, I spent part of my infancy there! What a coincidence! You are very blessed to have a son on a mission, Heavenly Father bless your family! In the name of Jesus Christ Amen." Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: March 14, 2006
I'm sorry this is a little late! Here is the news from last week's p-day: "I'm with Elder Page right now. We're staying in Cachoeira because there is a baptismal interview here tomorrow night. Eron is still smoking so no baptism yet. My comp is trunky! I hope the next few weeks go fast! Elder Page and I have met the best basketball players in the city. Last week we played with them, it was pretty fun 'cause there is a court in the dead center of the city, and people come and watch. Ya feel like a celebrity. It's kind of funny when you put to shame the best in the city because they aren't used to that, so they don't really like it! But we're playing with them again tonight. Basketball isn't common here at all, we just met them walking past the court and they said "6:00 tonight", so we brought our game and they walked away in shame! Ha! We're going to Porto Alegre on the 16th. I'll pick up my mail then. It'll be 6 weeks since we've been able to get our mail. Everybody is already getting pumped up for the World Cup. It's going to be crazy! It's still 3 months away! Where were the Olympics? The Olympics are really nothing here, it's all about the World Cup. The Olympics and World Cup are like comparing McDonalds and The Aerie at Snowbird! Gotta go! TCHAU!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: March 14, 2006
Here's the latest news from Elder Malan: "Hellllloooooooo!! Well well well.....it´s already been 6 weeks that I´ve been in Caçapava. Transfers were today so the moment of truth.......Deivison wasn´t transferred (despite all hopes and prayers, lol) which means Caçapava is his last area on the mission. He goes home in 6 weeks. CARNIVAL!!!! It ended last night!!! Wow!! Umm..... Yeah.....Brazil knows how to party....lol, not exactly your Utah party with punch and cookies that mom made either. LoL, last night we had to be inside by 9:00, if we had appointments we had to cancel them, it´s really quite sick what they do. There´s stuff that´s cool but carnival is just an excuse to...go a little crazy...if ya know what I mean. Everybody goes downtown, and the guys basically just sit on chairs or benches on the sidewalk and the girls walk down the sidewalk until a guy calls her out and then they hold hands and go get lost, then split and go for round 2, 3, etc. Pretty crazy, but there are these groups, it´s kind of like a drum line thing, just a huge group that all has matching clothes and they stand in the road with their huge drums and go crazy, and you can hear it for like 1/3 + of a mile away, it´s way cool. Then they dance and stuff, lots of CRAZY parties!!! LOTS LOTS LOTS!!!! Alright, no more time right now! TCHAU!!! Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: March 4, 2006
Here's this weeks news from Elder Malan: "Hello Hello Hello!!! Yesterday, today and for part of tomorrow I´m with one of the Zone Leaders, Elder Page from Boise. We´re good buddies. Anyway, today Page and I went to some WATERFALLS!!! It was AWESOME!!!! A good little hike and a little lunch (with tarantulas). It was cool, it was like being in the Amazon or something. Then we did a little shopping, didn´t find anything, but we went shopping. But yeah, I told President about 3 Nephi 11:11, he loved it. Anyway! We´re only 4 hours apart now, we had daylight savings time but you haven´t yet, so when you guys have it we´ll be 3 hours apart. We're waiting to see about our baptism with Eron. He's still smoking (as far as we know) a couple a day. Friday will be the wedding and Saturday has to be his last day smoking if we're going to baptize him. The other guy, Junior, we haven't met with him again just because he's gotta talk to us. We can't go to his house, but a member works with him so that's good. I know (through the 1st Counselor) that he said, "Well what if I'm baptized, then what?" So, who knows, we'll just have to wait and see how things play out. You asked what I want for my birthday -- I want peanut butter! I miss good milk. I haven't had milk forever. I'm not a milk drinker, but the milk here is good for 1 year. You can imagine how that tastes! I don't drink it! They've got awesome hot dogs here. Wow! It's not just a normal hot dog, they put mayo, and peas, and corn and like shredded potato chips .... ohhhh sooo good! And they're like 75 cents (US). That and what's called a XIS (sounds like sheese, like cheese but with shhh). It's like a hamburger with corn, peas, egg, hamburger. There are tons of different types, chicken heart is one. I'm liking chicken heart. I've actually had a lot of it lately. I've also had the Rodozio-type meat. So I've had the real thing! It's really not hard to make. They have this special rock salt and you sprinkle it on your meat and throw it on the grill, well they build a fire and like have a almost rotisserie (no clue how to spell that) thing going on. They just turn it once in a while. I'm going to pack my suitcase full of this rock salt stuff and we're going to dance the night away! LOL! Ahhhh, the meat just melts in your mouth. I've only had it a few times, cause meat is pretty expensive. But in some areas the elders have it like a couple times a week. Gotta go! Talk to ya next week! TCHAU!"
Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: February 25, 2006
It appears that the Lord has blessed you with an awesome opportunity to spread the Gospel. We are amazed at the growth of the Church in that part of the world. Has summer just about come to an end and what will the winter bring you? Snow, temps in the 20's, fog, wind and lots of rain .... wouldn't that be great? Well, our prayers are with you and we hope you are having a great mission. Posted by: Uncle Charles Date: February 25, 2006
Hey so i finally found your website!! I was trying to figure out some date ideas and I thought of us sitting on your couchs thinking of date ideas like every day after school, it made me remember the good ol' days.. Anyways looks like your doing awsome so stay strong kid.. Posted by: Craig Date: February 20, 2006
More news from Elder Malan -- here's this week's email: "Hellllloooo Hellllooo Helloooo! Well, let's see... today I´m in Caçapava! We changed the day of our meeting to Monday so my pdays will be here, most of the time, from here on out. Conference was great! Our mission goal for baptisms is 1,111. It was 1,100 but President Arnold, the Area President, said he never makes a goal with a zero in it. So we took his advice. So now EVERYTHING is 1111, for example, before it was lights out at 11:00, now it´s 11:11, but when daylight savings changes again we go to 10:30, but still it´s cool. And President's gone a little crazy. He takes pictures of everything that says 1111, for example, on his car he hit 1111 kilometers, he stopped and took a picture. On the clocks in the road, at 11:11 he stops and takes a picture. He took a picture of the clock on his cell phone. He had a conference with Elder Russell M. Nelson and all the other Mission Presidents and Area Presidency last week and he got all these leaders of the church, not Elder Nelson, but members of the 1st and 2nd Quorum of the Seventy, he got them into little groups of 4 and everybody would hold up 1 finger. So 1111 is being pounded into our heads now. It´s pretty cool, yesterday I was thinking, there has to be a scripture to go along with this....so to answer the question, Why 1111? Look in the 11th book in the Book of Mormon, which is 3rd Nephi Chapter 11, Verse 11... There´s Your Answer. ANYWAY! My Interview with President was AWESOME! We talked about all sorts of stuff, he was just like, "WoW, this has been a GREAT interview, this is awesome, ahh this is great!" Then the next day at conference I saw him as I was walking in and we shook hands and then I started walking away and he pulled me back and whispered, "I´m still buzzing about our interview yesterday". I just laughed, oh well, in his interview with the Zone Leaders and Deivison he complimented me. We are teaching a new guy, the other day we got in a bible bash..but it wasn´t really a bash because the guy wants to learn, he's got an open heart. He just pulled out scriptures left and right, and said but "what about this?", and we´d explain it or and then we´d move on, he´s really good. We´ll see how things go. It´s a little hard to meet with him, he lives with his dad and he won´t let us in. Well it´s just better that we don´t go in I think -- so we meet at the 1st Counselor's house. But the ward mission leader works with him so he asked some questions, like where eternal marriage is in the bible, I had 1, but couldn´t remember the verse. So that night I wrote down 3 scriptures in the bible and had our ward mission leader pass it onto him the next day at work. But yeah, that´s pretty much all that´s going on here. Our baptism is going to be the 1st Saturday in March because the wedding is going to be on the 24th and we´re going to baptize a member's son too. So yeah..that´s pretty much it! Gotta go! TCHAU!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: February 15, 2006
Elder Malan is traveling 2 days a week now. He and his companion take the bus 2-1/2 hours each Tuesday into Cachoeira for their weekly District Meeting. They spend the night at the Zone Leader's apartment and spend part of their p-day on Wednesday in Cachoeira before heading back back to Cacapava. Elder Malan is now doing 70% of his thinking in Portuguese -- he says a lot of times he'll have to think to speak English -- he says "It's weird!" They have two baptisms on February 25 -- Arron (age 28) and Daisy (age 16). They're getting baptized in a river! Their branch meets in a space above an apartment complex. This past Sunday they had 19 people at church. Here's his email: "There were 3 Elders. My companion and I taught 2 of the 3 Elders (one of them being the Elders Quorum President) how to give a priesthood blessing. Our apartment is awesome, it's huge, it just needs to be cleaned. I want to buy a hammock and put it up on our deck, it's HUGE and looks out over like 1/2 the city. Today we played some basketball, that was pretty cool. Gotta go! TCHAU!"
Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: February 9, 2006
Here's the latest news from Elder Malan in Cacapava: "Ola! All is well here, nothing too exciting. We have Valentines Day but it is in June. I don´t think we´ve got a Groundhog Day. Carnival I´m pretty sure is the 28th of this month...not positive. I´ll be sending a CD of pictures probably this week. We´re going to have 2 baptisms on the 25th. In English their names are Aaron and Daisy. We are trying to find new people to teach so it´s kind of dead at the moment. We taught this 18 year old guy the other day, and went back for the second lesson and his mom was outside and greeted us with "WE DON´T ACCEPT MORMONS HERE" BLAH BLAH BLAH. Elder Deivison said, ok, but that's not my question, is your son home? It was kind of funny because she just kept repeating we don´t accept Mormons here, and Deivison just kept saying, okay, but is your son home, guess ya had to be there. We don´t have dinner appointments, we have lunch appointments remember. We eat lunch at home like maybe 2 times a week. So 5 out of 7 days we have appointments. Today we had a little lunch for the Elder going home, played some basketball, sent him off and now we're here emailing. TCHAU!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: February 1, 2006
Hello from California. Loved the pictures and finally found out how to communicate with you website. Posted by: Chuck Obert Date: January 30, 2006
Elder Malan's been transferred! He LOVES his new area ... here's this weeks email: "Hey Hey!
So my new area is called Caçapava (CAW-SUH-PAW-VUH) and it is a small city full of COWBOYS!!!! It´s pretty cool, TONS of Cowboys! The people are awesome! Sunday I was just surrounded with people welcoming me. Granted in our branch there are only like 25'ish people but, they are awesome. We bless or pass the Sacrament each week otherwise it's pretty normal. Really. Right now I´m in Cachoeira, all my pdays I will be. We´re going back tonight. So we have a wedding coming up, then 2 baptisms in Feb. My comp just likes to talk to members, but some other elders were giving him a hard time about being lazy and we got him to give in, so now I´m the junior comp that will be dragging the senior around and telling him what to do, I´m excited, he´s so lazy his life is going to be miserable. Perfect, what a blessing for him. President told me his last companion started a ball, and I'm here to get it rolling. He's from Recife, near where Joey is, kind of, he goes home the same time as Douglas, April 13th. I went fishing this morning! Caught like 6'ish fish, they were just small crappie but it was fun. My fishing pole was a big bamboo stick/pole with some fishing line and a hook. These members made like a pond that surrounds like 1/2 their house and it´s loaded with fish. So we go fishing. And it´s all surrounded with big trees - there´s a little island too. Ya feel like you´re in the jungle. And they have a HUGE PIG!! (seriously like 4+ feet long) There used to be 2 but uhh, ya know with the holidays he kinda disappeared. But yeah, love the area. I´m going to buy a backpack probably today. And I need to buy a new fanny pack BECAUSE the black leather handle, when it gets sweaty my entire back is black cause it rubs off. Most of it washes out but not all of it. And now that I´m doing a lot of traveling, I can´t fit all my clothes and stuff. Yup, the cowboys wear the poofy pants, the cowboy boots, hat, the whole thing. Our baptism guy, he plays and sings cowboy songs, it's cool. I'll take his guitar and try and bust a move and it sounds horrible, so I just say, I wanna be a COWBOY! and everybody laughs at me, but the people here are sooooo coooool. And here in Cachoeira, WoW, it's like one of the many sources for models! WoW, ya look once you're a man, you look twice you're not a missionary ... the moral of the story is to make the first look a long look! HA! J/K! Gotta Go! TCHAU!"
Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: January 25, 2006
SHOCKER OF THE DAY! Elder Malan got transferred! Here's todays email: "Oi! After 8 hours on a bus I'm still not in my area! It was 5 hours to Porto Alegre, another 3 to get to where I am now, Cachoeida, which is in my zone (and I'll be here a lot), but it's another 2-1/2 hours to my area. Honestly I don't even remember the name of my real area, but it's all good. This is going to be an experience! I'm almost in the Santa Maria Mission. My companion is Elder Davison, a brazillian. I'm not sure if that's how you spell it but that's how it sounds at least. I got to talk to a lot of people at the bus station in Porto Alegre, everybody has said "good luck", I guess he's really really lazy. We have to stay here until Friday because my companion has to do a baptismal interview here tomorrow night. The Zone Leaders have a couple extra beds we throw on the floor. We don't have a ward, it's a branch of about 30 people. Every Tuesday we have to travel here (Cachoeida) for our zone meeting, and because it's so expensive we spend all day Tuesday and Wenesday (sp? don't remember, Quarta, that's a lot easier), but yeah, I'm happy. President said I'm going to love it here. We eat a lot of meat, just like Rodizios so that'll be cool, but yeah I'm in TIMBUCKTU! It's really green here, lots of trees. I'll get to go fishing, don't know where but I know I will. I know that we have some pretty cool water falls in our area. I did get to see Elder Horrocks (both of them - Idaho & Utah Horrocks) and I saw Elder Johnson as well. Gotta go! TCHAU! Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: January 18, 2006
Here's the latest news from Elder Malan: "Hello Hello Helloooo! Greetings from Hell again! (It's sooooooo... hot!) Let's see, what's new here... Saturday there was a leadership meeting in Pelontas and since Elder Douglas is the district leader we both went to Pelontas. Well guess what...in Pelontas they have MCDONALDS!!! YES!! There are little McDonalds ice cream stands all over the place but this was a real McDonalds! We don´t have one in Rio Grande. So I´ve always liked McDonalds but I have never been EXCITED to go to McDonalds -- I was just like a little kid, as giddy as one could be! I got a Big Mac Meal and a Chocolate Banana Shake, and let me tell you....WoW! That was probably the happiest I´ve been in 4 1/2 months! It was definitely a HAPPY MEAL! Let's see, we won´t be having a baptism this Saturday, Giselda hasn´t stopped smoking, but she is going to start paying fast offerings and other donations to the church, and she is also going to start going visiting teaching too! She´s read the Book of Mormon, started it a 2nd time, Douglas has lent his Doctrine and Covenants to her and she´s already in like Section 30ish, she´s read JSH and I´m not sure but I think she´s started the Pearl of Great Price also. CRAZY! Anyway, we´ve found a couple of good people, Maria Terreza, her husband doesn´t know how to read, so he just listens but yesterday when we finished teaching about the plan of salvation he was just like "I´m happy now! I like you guys!" It was kinda cool because he was all excited and we´ve never talked to him really, he just stands off to the side and listens because we read a lot of scriptures and he can´t read. I got to watch Saints and Soliders!!!! GOOD GOOD GOOD MOVIE!!! Gotta go! TCHAU! Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: January 11, 2006
Hey Elder Malan! You may better know me as Rusty Hunt's friend- you talked to me and Tiffany on a tape while you were in the CMT. Anyways- just wanted to finally say hi and say thanks for chatting on Rusty's tape! Yeah- it took me a while to get it and listen to it- but yeah- sounds like you and Elder Hunt had a ton of fun with Carl the bird and all. :) Anyways- keep up the good work! God-speed Elder.
Elder Hunt's pal- Kristi Posted by: Kristi Biggs Date: January 11, 2006
Here's the news for this week from Brazil! "Feliz Ano Novo! Hello Hello Hello! Happy New Year! As for my New Years party, I slept! I was going to stay up but I was pretty tired. I figured I´d wake up with all the fireworks going off but, nope I didn´t! Well, I guess that´s not totally true, Elder Douglas said that at midnight I sat up, said something to him (don´t remember what) and layed back down and kept on sleeping! As for me I don´t remember any of it! Giselda, we had the sisters visit her and see if they could stir up something with Giselda, ya know, the womanly talk somehow is different. Anyway they made a goal with Giselda and we don´t know what it is, but Giselda was sick starting on the Jan 1st, and she doesn´t smoke in her house, so all day she was laying in bed and couldn´t smoke! For 2 days! Not sure if she just smoked less or didn´t at all, but things with her are just going good. She´s talked about the 14th of this month so we´ll see! We talked with the mission home this morning, they said that I´ve got more packages waiting for me! HURRAY!!! Don´t know how many or who from but THANKS! As for requests, I could use some recipes! Brasil has ZERO mexican influence - no Taco Bell, no taco shells, no burritos, no Chinese stuff like soy sauce, no canned soup. We have A LOT of cheese actually, and noodles and rice, of course. The members feed us beans, rice (that's a given) and a pasta or meat, a salad (for them it is lettuce, no dressing) with a slice of tomato. Transfers are Jan 18th. We're going to see some alligators after we do emails. My camera is in the apartment so I'll take pics another time. TCHAU - no more time!"
Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: January 4, 2006
hey greetings for the michigan lansing mission. what is going on down there. sounds like you work alot. well have some fun and do the work. dont give up and be some fun in the sun. Posted by: elder lisonbee Date: January 4, 2006
Hi Blake,
Love all of the new pictures! It looks like you are having a little too much fun! LOL! We are so proud of you and everything that you are doing. Keep it up!
Love, Melinda and Family Posted by: Melinda DeMille Date: January 3, 2006
Hey there Blake! How are you bud? Happy new year to you! Your Dad spoke in church today about you, you can see the gleam in his eyes has he talks about you.
How was your 1st Christmas out? Having served in Ecuador I can relate to your experiences.
We are doing well, Lacy and Kelsey said to tell you hi!
Thank you for being such a great example during those long Sunday School lessons.
Take care-love, Bro. Munson Posted by: Kurt Munson Date: January 1, 2006
Here's the latest from Brazil: "Oi! Lets see, the last couple days, well... we´ve done nothing but move! First we cleaned our new apartment, then for 2 days straight for at least 10 hours we moved. We don´t have a car so it was carry all you can and walk to the new apartment, about 1/2 mile, dump it, and repeat! But for our refridgerator (another word I´ve forgotten how to spell) and stove and bookshelves (stuff like that) we found some guy with a horse and paid him to haul it for us. Last week at zone conference we did the 12 Days of Christmas game where a group acts out whatever part they have--well, my group consisted of 2 Brazi´s and 1 other American that just got here 6 weeks after I did, and we got 9 LADIES DANCING! First I had to teach the Brazi´s how to say "9 ladies dancing". Then we decided that our action would be us shimming, I don´t know if that's how ya spell it but, it was quite hilarious because the Brazi´s could hardly speak "9 ladies dancing" and we´re shimming. It was lots of fun. TCHAU TCHAU!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: December 29, 2005
We got to talk with Elder Malan for an hour on Christmas Day! It was great! They had 3 baptisms on Christmas Day - Jorge, Elber, and Jefferson. Blake baptized Elber -- so that's pretty cool. They are in the midst of moving to a larger and better apartment. They've been painting and cleaning. He bore his testimony in portuguese -- he sounded great! Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: December 28, 2005
Blake i just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas. I hope the baptisms went well. Posted by: ShayLee Bell Date: December 25, 2005
Hey Blake, it sounds like all is well and you are doing great. I'm glad to hear you got your Christmas package, I'm sure you've heard Christmas stories that aren't so happy. I'm glad to hear you are having success and enjoying your time. Just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas and let you know we are proud of you. We know what a sacrifice it is for you missionaries but we also know that you will be so blessed for your efforts. Keep up the good work and if you get a chance Clint would love to hear from you. I don't know if you have his e-mail yet but here it is: send to jcmarteen@myldsmail.net if you can. I know some missions only let you e-mail your family, but if you can, there it is. Well take care and enjoy visiting with your family on Sunday. Posted by: Greetings from the Martin Family Date: December 23, 2005
Howdy! This is Elder Malan's mom .... we're getting pretty jazzed because on Christmas Day we get to talk to him! Yesterday was mission conference and they distributed all the mail & Christmas packages. His packages arrived okay without any customs problems or theft. He mentioned that one of his Zone Leaders had three big boxes and all three got held up in Customs. They want $350 to get them out! OUCH! Here's the latest news from Brazil: "HELLOOO HELLLLOO HELLLOOO! Merry Christmas! I mean, Feliz Natal! Ha! So I had a little list of things to write about but I left it at our house so, I´ll do my best. Speaking of house! Our house is like the smallest in the entire mission. Well, we just found the BEST apartment! It's like 3 times the size of our little house and our rent just went up to 280 a month. Well this NEW, new for us, and it is a new apartment, that is 3 times bigger, not exaggerating, is 200 a month! So we´ll be moving hopefully in the next couple days! So I got my Christmas!!!! WHOA!! We had a great time opening everything up! So our pantry is FULL!!!!! WoW!!! Thanks so much for all the stuff! Peanut Butter, Snickers, 3 Musketeers, Beef Jerky, AHHHHH!!!! THE LIST GOES ON!!! Thank you very much! So Sunday, everything is a go for our baptisms. Elber has stopped smoking as of Sunday. We visited him on Monday, he was pretty loopy due to the lack of nicotine. It was really funny actually. Giselda said that her last day smoking would be Saturday, and Sunday she wouldn´t smoke. After 14 hours she cracked. But she has asked me to baptize her, so that's cool. But as for Sunday, all is a go, I don´t think I´ll be getting in the water, but I might be. Elder Douglas said he´s only gotten in the water like 7 times on his entire mission. It´s always the members that do the baptizing. We´ll see what happens. So we had interviews with the President on Monday. He told Elder Douglas out of all the missionaries in our mission, he´s the most happy with us because we have 3 baptisms, but 2 complete families and all 3 will be Melchizedek Priesthood holders, so that was pretty cool. As for Marcia and her kids, they didn´t come to church Sunday because family came into town, so we´re probably not going to let them be baptized on the 7th. We´ve had to clean up the dirt from other elders and it's not cool. Some other elders baptized 4 people--all 4 had only been to church once and now all 4 we´re having to visit a ton because they aren´t coming to church! So we´re probably going to make Marcia and family prove themselves first. Yesterday at mission conference we found out that like a week and a half ago an Elder in our mission, Elder Nelson, I don´t know him, got hit by a car going double the speed limit. The car was going 100 KPH, which I think is like 60 ish MPH. He didn´t go under the car, he went over the top. He was pretty scratched up and broke 1 bone in his leg, the bone behind your shin. There's 2 bones there, he´s had surgery and there's a bar in there but he´s being flown back to S.L. today or the next couple days, I don´t know, for more surgery. I heard he looks really good now compared to a week ago. We got cookies and candy as well as banana splits from the President for Christmas, and they made shirts that say, in portuguese, "P.O.A. South, Proud to be a Cowboy", it´s pretty cool. TCHAU TCHAU!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: December 22, 2005
Hey Blake,
I'm sorry that I haven't written. I'm sending you a letter, but I just wanted to say Hi! Posted by: Mandy Westover Date: December 19, 2005
Here's the latest news from Elder Malan: "Hello Hello Hellllooo! So what would ya think if I said we have 10 baptisms scheduled! Yep 10! 3 for Christmas, Jorge, Elber, and Jefferson. Jefferson was introduced to the church by his inactive girlfriend, don´t know how that works but, he said if this is your church then how come you aren´t a good example! Then they started going to church together, to her ward, well the elders in that ward gave us his address because he´s in our ward. He reads the BOM, studies the handbooks and everything. In the first 5 minutes we talked with him he said, "so right now I´m just preparing for baptism" and when we told him about Jorges baptism on Christmas and that he could come and see how his baptism would be he said, "or I could be baptized at the same time". Well of course we have no problem with that! So we´re going to dunk him! Gizelda is still around 9 cigarettes per day, but our goal for her baptism is the 14th of January, with her daughter. Then a single mom, Marcia, and her 4 kids, for the 7th of January. So yeah, I´ll be doing some swimming! Ha ha! Good stuff, I have 31 pages left in the BOM! Tchau Tchau!"
Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: December 14, 2005
More news from Brazil! "Shocker of the week! Elder Douglas and I are still companions! I'm kinda half half, only cause he's power hungry a lot of times but I've learned how to handle it pretty good, lol, put him in his place pretty darn good. The president is on my side, so eh. I taught him how to use his money this past week. He kept asking, and I was more than willing to do the walking, so needless to say we walked A LOT this past week. He thinks we're still together because we not only met the mission goal for lessons but exceeded it by like 12 or so. We taught over 100 lessons in 6 weeks. The mission goal is 90, and we're the only ones in our zone that met it. Jorge will be baptized by his son on Christmas Day! And if we can get 7 cigarettes gone, Elber will be baptized by his son also -- completing 2 families, so that's good. Elber comes to church but he's never been baptized because he smokes. So we talked to him and said, hey do you want to do this so you can live with your family for eternity, and he said yeah, so we're doing it. Gizelda is down to about 7 or 8 cigarettes a day. We've got quite the collection at our house! There has been a bus that is all decked out in Christmas stuff with a Santa driving the school kids around. People have small Christmas trees, I think we're going to decorate our apartment with lights (I don't think we have room for a tree, our apartment is REALLY small). We'll see. For the past 2 Saturday's we've gone to a Catholic school and painted it - about 20 hours total. Pretty cool! And we got to go on a BOAT to get there! Really cool! We have a washing machine that will fill up with a hose that we attach to our sink. Then wash it, then there's a tube from the bottom of the machine that we stick out our door to a drain, and then rinse them, and then hang them up on our roof! I'll explain it in a video. We don't have regular phones, we got cell phones at mission conference. That's all for now!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: December 7, 2005
Here's the latest news from Brazil! "Oi! Oi! Oi! Let's see, about the tsunami, I think it evaporated...because last week there was a pretty good storm, but no tsunami. During the storm we had a frog about the size of your palm jump into our house. (We have like a screen door, except there´s no screen and we had it open, we just put some screen up actually because of mosquitos) So that was kinda weird. Last night I saw a frog about the size of a softball, huge! Anyway! So we just got back from Cassino (the beach). We played soccer for a good 2 1/2 hours. We played a game with the Americans vs the Brazi´s and we won! They are really cool. They´ve got some awesome tricks and stuff with the ball but...we still won! Anyway! Jorge has totally changed this past month! We´ve started calling him Bispo (Bishop). I don´t know how to explain the change, just like in his appearance and I don´t know how to explain it but in less than a month his son, Rafael, will be baptizing him! We gave Elisandra the boot. She said she would come to church and she didn´t for the 2nd week in a row and she´s been taught everything! So Tchau! Anyway! We´ve set a goal with Gizelda--a pack of cigarettes has 20, so everyday she will decrease by 1. So today she´ll have 19, tomorrow 18 etc etc. I told her to write down why she wants to stop smoking--like a letter or whatever, and when she has a craving, to pull that out and read it, we´ll see how that works, or if she remembers to do it. But I know she´s read over 300 pages in the BOM. I don´t know exactly how much. We taught this alcoholic...He just saw us on the street and said, "You have a light! Come to my house now and let's talk! In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit Amen!" And it was about the funniest thing I´ve ever seen in my life! After every sentance he says "God Bless!" or "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit Amen!" or "Gloria God" or "Thank You God" and when we went back to see how his BOM reading went. He opened up the BOM and said, I´ve seen a light! And he read to us what he read, and he read the titles of the pictures in the BOM along with the names of who the artists are...SOOOO FUNNY!! Ohh Elder Douglas and I just about burst, and he saw us and just started laughing too. He was totally drunk, he´s always drunk, it was funny. Anyway, so in our apartment we ran out of propane for our stove, so we can´t make anything! So we got this thing that makes our water hot for the shower, striped some wire, connected the 2, put the wire and the thing that makes our water hot for the shower in the pot of water and plugged it into the wall. We weren´t sure if it would explode or what but we did it because we were starving! It worked! It was very interesting and it's hard to explain so you´ll just have to wait for the pictures...I think I´ll send another memory card home next week. So I´m afraid my other card got lost because it´s been like 3 or 4 weeks! TCHAU!" (Note from Mom -- yes, his memory card got stolen in the mail. The envelope arrived with a slit in it and the memory card was gone! Bummer!)
Posted by: Momma Malan (Mom) Date: November 30, 2005
Hi Elder Blake
I looked at your pictures and website. I can tell what kind of a missionary you are. You are great. Watching you grow up and knowing the achiever you are, I know you will do your best out in the big country Brazil. We are praying for you daily. I am so proud of you.
Love
Henry Posted by: Henry (Brian's Dad) Date: November 27, 2005
Here's the latest from Elder Malan: "I´m starting my letters from now on, GREETINGS FROM HELL because it's so hot! The tsunami is predicted for the 23rd, 24th or 25th. I guess this prophet guy predicted the twin towers (after it happen) and he also wrote a letter to Bush telling him where Saddam was. Jorge is still good for the baptism on Dec. 29th. So a member that is inactive talked to Elisandra and told her that the church is bad--yada yada, she would pass a baptismal interview, but right when we almost got a firm date out of her this happened, so we´re having a delay. Haven´t been bit by a dog. I forgot Thanksgiving was Thursday! I don´t think anybody knows. So Gizelda, the lady that is reading the BOM really fast, as of yesterday she was in Alma 7. On Sunday we found out that she smokes. She usually smokes 30 cigarettes a day, on Monday she smoked 16, so that made us really happy. She came to church and brought her 2 sons. There was a Primary program, and her 2 sons participated and it was their first time at church, it was cool. I got to see Elder Johnson at mission conference! It was great to see a fimilar face! I guess Elder Horrocks (not Josh but the one that was in my district) has already had his first baptism! Well, so today was the first of 3 days predicted for the tsunami. There are people that have committed suicide! As for us, this morning we went to the BEACH!!! That's right! The BEACH! Cassino (pronounced Casino like Vegas Casino) Beach to be exact, it´s HUGE!!!!! We saw crabs, we caught them, Barracuda (dead) we walked out for like 2+ miles on the rocks thingy that breaks the waves for the ships. It was way cool. I´ve got lots of pictures. The work's been dead here because it's been sooo hot everybody has been at the beach, even the members on Sunday! I hope it was a family picnic! That's all for now! Tchau!"
Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: November 23, 2005
Another p-day and news from Elder Malan! His original email got lost -- so he quickly tried to write the highlights -- so, it's short. "Got into a small bible bash. I testified about all they don't have. (Catholics) modern prophet, authority, spirit that confirms all these things. We're making zone shirts that say "I survived the tsunami". There have been helicopters flying (national guard) predicting where the water will go. I ate chicken heart, not too bad. We bought fresh fruit for really cheap and made awesome shakes - like $20 of fruit for only like $2.50. There was a gecko in our bathroom. Our investigator read 129 pages in BOM in 6 days. We're watching the Work and the Glory today. Jorge told the Bishop no more putting off baptism for real this time. He will be baptized on the 29th of December. Elisandra hasn't told us she will be baptized but she told her daughter that she will be baptized, her daughter told us. Sometimes there will be like 6 dogs coming at us but we touch the ground and they run away going crazy because they learn quick that rocks hurt. We're in the Juncao Ward - it's not bad at all. Terrible, terrible singers though, my goodness, the primary in our ward would sound like the Tab Choir compared to them. Our area is really, really big - the biggest in our zone, probably 10 square miles. On p-days we take the bus into the city and meet up with the other elders and email then hang out, just whatever. It's like a 10-minute bus ride. About this tsunami (predicted for Nov 25), I don't know anything about the person (or prophet or what religion he his). I get the impression it's supposed to be big. I have no clue though. The national guard have been flying around predicting where the water will go so who knows. Tchau!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: November 17, 2005
This week we received a letter this week from President Earnshaw (the Mission President). He wrote us to let us know that our son had arrived in his mission (the letter came via snail mail -- so it took a few weeks to get here). He said, "Brazil is a wonderful land with loving people. The Church has grown dramatically since I served in this mission thirty years ago, and there is much yet to be accomplished. It will be a blessing to watch the work roll forth while your son is an instrument in the hands of the Lord." He also mentioned that Blake will probably receive our letters about twice each month (the mission home is about 5 hours from Rio Grande - and zone leaders, etc. bring the mail down). Also enclosed with the mission president's letter, was a letter from Elder Malan. He wrote it while waiting for his 1st interview with the Mission President. Here's some excerpts: "I'm here! I'm alive! We just had dinner at the President's home. Now we're at the church getting interviewed as well as some other passport stuff. I don't know where I'm going to be yet or who my companion is going to be. It will most likely be around the big bay. There were 3 Americans and 10 Brazilians, 2 are sisters. We are only supposed to drink bottled water. I'm pretty sure they subscribe us to something and it gets delivered once a week. There are only about 10 stakes in my entire mission. But there is also a lot of branches. The President said about 60% of our mission will be in the north part of our mission and 40% in the south. The Brazilians have to study English, and we'll almost always have a Brazi companion. President Earnshaw used to help BYU students start companies. He started a software company. He said because he runs such a good budget they had extra money and the church said just to spend it so everybody got a washing machine. And in about 6 weeks we get cell phones for 50 of the 70 companionships. So it's cool. He said he goes home in June but I'll always be his missionary. Alrighty! Gotta go! Elder Malan (P.S. President said they doubled the amount of baptisms when they switched to Preach My Gospel. Also our state is like the Texas of Brazil!" Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: November 16, 2005
Here's the latest news from Elder Malan! "Ola! So have you ever eaten armadillo meat? I have! Have you ever eaten cow tail? I have! They weren´t bad at all. Some members we found out will be traveling away for the tsunami on the 25th, minha nossa (my goodness), what a joke. We have 3 new baptismal dates, they aren´t 100% strong, the 3 that are the strongest will be baptized this month but we don´t have a date yet. Elisandra, Jessica, Gabrilela. We found a lady that said she would read the BOM in 2 weeks. We´ll see how our next appointment goes. She's good though. I held a frozen lamb head, had its teeth still, and yes they were going to cook it up and eat the brains and stuff I´m guessing, there's not much else to eat. I´ve got pics. There was a gecko in our apartment the other night, that was cool. We had a great idea that we´re going to start taking pictures of all the different churches, there´s probably 40+, we look at them and say apostisia! (Apostasy) We didn´t get to go fishing today. Next week I think we´re going to this place where there are rocks piled up in a trail kinda thing and you can walk out for like 6 kilometers into the ocean. They made it to break the waves for the ships coming in to the ports. Tchau!"
Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: November 9, 2005
Blake!
It's so great to hear news about you and to read your postings on your website weekly. It sounds like you are doing great and knee deep in the missionary work! How's the language coming? We remember you nightly in our prayers and are so proud of you!
Take care Elder! I love the sound of that! Posted by: Madre Williams Date: November 7, 2005
Here's the email we received from Elder Malan today! "Oi! Where to start, we arrived at the mission home, had dinner with the President, spent the night at the mission home, met our companions, had lunch and then got on the bus! I´m in the Junção part of Rio Grande. We don´t have the big skyscrapers and stuff. I´ll tell you what, the people know their food, but they don´t understand one important thing. They give you a lot of food to start with, but you´ve gotta have 2nds to be nice, right, so I´ll say just a little bit please and they pile your plate STACKED! It´s rough...I tried Chimarrão, the drink that you drink with the metal straw with the strainer thing on the end. It´s nasty. But I guess the first time is always gross. I tried it at a ward party. The members got a kick out of me. The other day Elder Douglas and I were in a part member home and he caught a bird right before we went in and he took it inside and it got loose. Never did find it..OPA! Today is Elder Douglas B-day (he's 21) so we made brigaderios last night...his was terrible, mine was pretty good though. He doesn´t know how to make them. He put like 2 cups of milk in. Anyway, I´ve become a firm supporter of Bob Barker's saying, "Help control the pet population and have your dog or cat spayed or neutered" There are dogs EVERYWHERE!!! I saw 8 or so within 15 yards of each other. It's kinda funny cause you see a dog, then you see another dog that is like half the kind of dog you just saw and half some other kind of dog. I don't even know if I've seen the same dog twice. If you're not careful, you'll step on one as you're walking. No joke! We have, I think, 2 paved roads, a couple brick roads, and the rest dirt/sand. We probably walk 8 or so miles a day, maybe more - and it's like a sand/dirt so it's not fun. The people are nervous because some local prophet is predicting a tsunami on the 25th in Rio Grande. Saw a bunch of turtles today at a park. There are a bunch of frogs too. They sound like bubbles. OHH! NEXT WEEK ON P-DAY WE'RE GOING FISHING ON A BOAT!! NOT WITH POLES, WITH NETS!! We had 4 investigators at church. 3 will be baptized this month and the other we're not so confident about, but he has a date set for Dec 29, a long ways away, and he's had dates before so... great guy, really nice and all. We have lunch (the main meal) every day and sometimes dinner at the members homes. We don't cook, we don't have time! My companion (Elder Douglas)doesn't speak english - and I don't speak portuguese - but we get along just fine and dandy! Gotta go! TCHAU! Elder Malan"
Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: November 2, 2005
Hurray! Today we got a brief email from Elder Malan. Here's the latest info: "Oi! I´m in Rio Grande, a 5-hour bus ride from Porto Alegre. Tell everybody to send letters to the mission home. Gotta go! My p-days are Wed. We have 5 people we´re focusing on for baptism in the next 6 weeks, Tchau! Descupa Elder Douglas is my new companion he is from São Paulo and is AWESOME!! He got mad a me when I didn´t talk about him, he´s cool, ele não fala ingles, eu não fala portuguÊs, muito legal. Tchau!"
Posted by: Shawnette Malan (Mom) Date: October 28, 2005
Today is Elder Malan's travel day to the mission home in Porto Alegre! We haven't heard anything from him yet... but will post something as soon as we do! Posted by: Shawnette Malan Date: October 25, 2005
This is Elder Malan's last p-day in the CTM. Next Tuesday (Oct 25) he'll fly to Porto Ale
