Update

There is one excited niece behind that poster

Ahh...mother & son

Please excuse the blurriness. It was the best one I got.

Elder Frazer returned home from Brazil on Tuesday, December 13. He is on medical release. We are grateful to get spend Christmas with him!

Letter from 12/5/11

Here is Cody's first letter from Recife. He is struggling with some intense culture shock and asked that not all of what he wrote be shared on the blog, so it's been a bit edited. He is in need of all the love and support we can render. Prayers and letters!!

Hey mom.

 

I´m in Recife! The work is not really on fire here... I guess they almost closed the Recife mission a few months ago because of how bad it had gotten. My companion is a great guy. He´s been out for 8 months and he´s from Washington. He´s also like 6´4´´ soooo we´re not going to get mugged anytime soon. We do get a lot of weird looks though. Just picture two white giants walking through a favela full of small Brazilians. It´s pretty funny.

 

I´ve decided that I like being a missionary but I don't like it here in Brazil. It stinks like crap or urine EVERYWHERE. Even our water. Yes our WATER. Our parasite infected, discolored, and stanky water. I barely eat anything because the meat here is just left out all day for flies and whatever else to grow on it. Our bread is handled by the same person who handles the meat and since no one wears gloves or washes their hands or anything, even our bread is covered in rotting blood.

 

I´m not real sure how much time I have left on this thing. I don´t really understand anyone. But everyone understands me. Most of the time. I´ve made a few contacts and passed out a few Book of Mormons but haven´t taught any lessons. The ward here is pretty strong and has some amazing members but my area is the closest to the mission office so missionaries usually come here to end their missions and are not very enthusiastic about the work but are more thinking about going home, so the members do not give referrals.

 

Thank you so much for your love and support through letters and things. You can find the address of our mission home or office or something online. Just send letters there and they get to me. There are not any huge spiders here. It´s pretty much like home. There are spiders but no more and no bigger than we have. The real problem is mosquitos. The are everywhere in our apartment. There are no windows so they pretty much just live with us. I´m covered in bites. We sleep with a fan blowing on our face, not for the breeze but because it´s the only part of our body uncovered by the blanket. We sweat all night but we have to be covered up. It does rain here though and it cools things off. I´m soaked right now. But I´m already sweating again. When it rains bad the sewers overflow and sewage gets everywhere. I´ve already walked through it quite a bit.

 

We eat lunch at members´ homes usually. It´s pretty cool. I wish I could talk to them though. And my companion won´t translate for me because I guess it can be rude to speak in a language that people don´t understand. But I don´t understand anyone so yeah...

 

We got two missionaries emergency transferred into our area a couple days ago because they witnessed a shooting and the shooter saw them. They are fun to have. One is like my east coast equivalent. The other is a Brazilian that is hard to get along with.

 

Hopefully it will stop raining so we can play bball today. We´re not allowed to play soccer because there were too many injuries. I don´t have any time left but please tell Bryn Lockhart that I got special permission from my mission president so I can listen to LotR music in the apartment!

I love you!

Elder Frazer

Elder Frazer has arrived!

We received this email from Elder Berg, the secretary of the Brazil Recife Mission:

Hello Dear Families!

We just want to let you know that your sons arrived safely in the Brazil Recife Mission!

They are such great missionaries and we are excited to see their work.

Elder Lovinger

Elder Bateman

Elder Jensen

Elder Linton

Elder Frazer

Attached are some arrival pictures.

 

*Note: We don't have Cody's current address, but he can receive emails at cody.frazer@myldsmail.net which he can read once a week on his p-day. I'm sure he would appreciate all the English communication we have to offer!

First letter from Brazil!

Tudo bom em Brasil!

Hi everyone! I´m here in Brazil! It is crazy here! I feel sorry for anyone going to the Brazil CTM. The MTC in Provo is muito muito melhor!!! The food is usually a little better here (when we know what it is...) and we get snacktime everyday and naptime on Sundays so that´s cool but that´s about it. The missionary spirit that is so strong in the Provo MTC is not really here. The classes in Provo were so much more spiritual and missionary oriented. Here they are most certainly not. And the teachers are all Brazilians learning English so they spend most of the class trying to speak in English. The most we learn is talking to the native Brazilians in our room. But I´ll stay off the negative topics. As far as the weather here, all those people who say Brazil is hot are CRYBABIES! Sau Paulo is the NICEST weather I have ever been in! It feels like those 3 or 4 weeks in Chico when it transitions from winter to summer. It´s awesome and they say it never really changes. However, I am not serving in Sau Paulo. I am serving in Recife. The place that all the Brazilians say it is muito muito quente. In other words, hotter than you-know-what. On a climate map of the world, on a scale from 1-10, and the Recife Mission ranges from 7-9. But I´m excited nonetheless! ...okay maybe a little less.

We went Proselyting in downtown Sau Paulo today! (Little note, Sau Paulo has 33 million people. That´s as many people as the state of California. Yeah.) We talked to many people and it was awesome! So many people really love to talk about God and families and how important they are. We passed out 5 Book of Mormons. It was sweet! I should probably mention that we simply assumed many people were interested because we really had no idea what they were saying. Unless they spoke some english which a few of them did.

The plane ride from Atlanta to here was CRAZY. It was like a bucking bronco. But there were 8 missionaries on the flight so we were pretty much for certainly safe.

I leave for Recife tomorrow at 6 am. My flight is at 10 and I land around 12. Elder Frazer ready for duty!

So DearElders do not come to this MTC and we didn´t get them before we left so if you sent one after friday of the week before last, I didn´t get it. And letters take about 3 weeks to get here. Packages often not at all, haha. I don´t know what my address is yet so just email me and I´ll respond sometime this week or next.

I love you all!
Chau!

-Elder Frazer

P.S. Brazilians don´t know how to do Thanksgiving but there was kind of a Thanksgiving type meal....kind of.

Happy Thanksgiving, Cody!

Letter from 11/19/11

Oi!


SO Elder Scofield, Elder Parker, and I all recieved our visas! Elder Parker leaves on monday and Elder Scofield and I leave on tuesday. And the day before you leave is a p-day. And since sunday can't be a p-day... Essentially we have as close as you can get to having a 3-day weekend on your mission. CRAZY!

I will be in the Atlanta Airport from around 2:30-6:30 your time and we're allowed to call family for I think 30 minutes or so while we're waiting in the airport sooo have your questions, comments, and praise ready because I'll be calling!

It occurred to me a couple days ago that in nine days, I will be out in the field! Is that crazy or what? Them Brazilians ain't gonna know what hit 'em! I think they're just recovering from their last Frazer and now round two!

I'm not real sure what to talk about because I'll probably be saying most stuff on tuesday so... How you doin'?

Did I mention I'm flying to Brazil on tuesday? Yup...

I've been out of the MTC three times during my stay with my dear old comp Elder Doyel. I told you about the first time I''m pretty sure so I''ll tell you about the other times now. The second time Elder Doyel had a ""spider bite"". I told him to put some anti-itching cream on it and stop touching it. He insisted on going to the doctor. So we got to walk down the street to some clinic where the doctor gave him some anti-itching cream and told him to stop touching it. The third time was more interesting. Elder Doyel had a ear ache one night and around 9:00 pm he decided we had to go to the doctor. So we went to the front desk where they got a shuttle that took us to a medical center. After 20 minutes it was decided that this medical center didn''t take the MTC insurance. So we had to call the shuttle back. Except that we didn''t have a phone...Or know the phone number...... Luckily we weren''t the first completely clueless missionaries that this rather grouchy secretary had seen, so she got us a phone book and a phone. The shuttle came back and took us to another medical center that was much friendlier and cleaner. Elder Doyel was in with the doctor for about 45 minutes and during this time, Elder Scofield and I took advantage of the train set left out specifically for tired missionary companions. (At least, I think that was what it was for.) Elder Scofield and I built a grand train track the connected the west and east sides of the waiting area. The secretary was very impressed and awarded us with some hand sanitizer. We thanked her with a pass along card. After Elder Doyel was done with the doctor we had to take the shuttle to Rite Aide to pick up a prescription for his ear. The driver told us this was our chance to shop, look around, and experience the wonders of Provo. So we did. I bought some Ranch flavored Pringles and Elder Scofield bought some Pokemon cards. It was great. We then got back to our residence around 11:15. We lost some sleep but it was worth it. The next day Elder Doyel left our companionship so it turned out to be a great last night of fun together.

Well talk to you on tuesday! Bytheway (Ahem, LaDawn) this keyboard is broken so any bad punctuation can be attributed to that. The speleeng iz mie bade tho.

I love you guys!

~Elder Frazer

It's Here!

Cody's visa arrived! Mom got a 4 minute long phone call from Elder Frazer this morning with the news. He leaves for Brazil on Tuesday. He will be in the MTC there for 5 days, and then will receive his first transfer into the field! Missionaries only stay in the MTC for 9 weeks in Brazil (as opposed to Provo's 12 week stay), so after 5 days there Cody will reach his 9 week mark. My guess is he's going to feel pretty overwhelmed by the language barrier when he leaves the MTC. Let's send out some extra prayers for him.