Merry Christmas from Ben

oi familia!!!
wow i am exited for that call!! ha ha ya broken ingles is a good way to put it ha ha my brain is right in the middle of two different languages so righting is nearly impossible but talking i think i will be alright i speak ingles almost all day on pdays with the other americans i hope you guys know that me and elder harris matts nephew are seriously best friends now and will be for the rest of our lives no doubt ha ha

PORTUGESE

ha ha so portugese is a verry difficult language to learn in case you thought it was eaisy but i am getting better and the lord is blessing me for my efforts this week in zone conference in my interview with prezidente he toldme that he has missionarys leaving this transfer who still cant speak as well as i can it was verry hummbeling for me because it has been difficult for me and they have been struggleing with it for 2 years iam great full i can speak as well as i can.
soccer ha ha i have played soccer 3 times where i have put on my shoes and played but i have not gone one day without touching a ball i love soccer so much and of coarse like i said before i have the one companion who hates it !!!! ahhhhhhhhhhhh its so hard....... so ya i will be looking forward to your call i probably will not be the one to answer so be ready to hear alot of portugese ha ha just stay on the line :)

now i want the whole family to read this part!!!
Family this christmas i want you all to realize the amazing blessings you have there in our little town of hyde park! there are people here who work their whole lives for less than 5 reals a day thats 2.50$ they have nothing here seriosly they have nothing!! i am greatfull everyday for the life that i have had living in a house that has a yard,heat,windows,carpet,air conditioning,doors,

electrisity!!! i cannot describe some of the things that i have seen here... people live with nothing the best way i can describe is to have you go out to our shed and put a little stove in the corner that burns wood and move our entire family in there if our family only had that here in brazil we would still be considered rich because we had a sorce of heat in the winter!!! i cant tell you.... its impossible to watch these people without been gratefull but the most powerfull part about it is that they are happy! they are so greatfull for everything that they do have they love the ball thats 20 years old held together with plastic bags and other garbage and they have their familys!! i love teaching people how to pray here they allways have so much more to say about what they are greatfullfor. so this year everyone realize that no matter what, be greatfull, kids here dont ask for toys they ask for a new shirt or some socks we asked one kid on saturday what he wanted and he said he wanted his mom to get the new dress she had been saving her money for! i dont know what else i cansay about it, be greatfull that you have a pair of soccer socks to strech out and hang on a tree that is covered in beautiful decerations! be greatfullfor the blankets that you have to stay warm be greatful for a bed to sleep on!! and be greatfull for your family :) i love you all so so much i miss you all but i know i am here on the lords errand :) love you allcant wait to talk with you :)
com amor,
Elder Eric Brooksby

Please Note new address

I have updated Ben's new address.
If you wish to send Christmas stuff.....It needs to go this week to get there in time.

You can send a USPS envelope for about 12 dollars. Ask Sonya for details we fit 4 boxes of Charleston chews in one envelope with other stuff too. You can fit a lot of stuff in there apparently.

Elder Brooksby and his trainer

Picture of Ben and his comp. Elder Pereira.

In the mission field!

Dear, Brooksby Family

It was with great delight that Sister Myrrha and I met and welcomed your son to the Brazil Santa Maria Mission.

As you can see by the enclosed picture, Elder Brooksby is safe and sound and finally beginning his labor in the mission field. Thank you for the time and effort you have spent in preparing him for this glorious work.

After prayerful consideration and an interview with your son, I have assigned Elder Pereira to be his companion and trainer. They will be assigned to labor in the city of Sao Borja. This is a wonderful area and people.

We know that your lives will be richly blessed during the time Elder Brooksby will be serving. At times the work will be difficult. We encourage you to write weekly, and share the positive things in your lives, that will be uplifting. He will probably receive your letters twice per month.

We will watch over him, visit him regularly and pray for him daily. Again, we want you to know how thankful we are to work with Elder Brooksby here in the Santa Maria Mission.

May the Lord's choicest blessings be with you.

Sincerely yours,

President Rodrigo Myrrha

New Pictures from Brazil.

Highlights from Ben's last letter home.

tudu beim Familia!
my week here has been amazing!!! elder giles and i have been working way hard together it is way fun because he is a hard worker just like me he and i are realy starting to become great friends!! we learned alot in Portuguese this week it is crazy i think that i am not doing good or i am not learning anything but then i can have a ten or fifteen minuet conversation with just about any one about any thing i love it! it is crazy to see the spirit just help you so so so much it is crazy to think that in a month and a week i learned how to street contact and give the entire fifteen minet lesson entirely in Portuguese ha ha and the crazy thing is...they say you learn more in the first week outside the ctm then the entire ctm stay ha ha i cant wait to get to santa maria every time we tell any one that is where we are going they just sigh and say "oh it is so beautiful there" i seriously cant wait!!!
.......
ha ha funny story the other day in class i was trying to say "my family that lives back in the united states" but in Portuguese they dont have that phrase so i ended up saying "my family that lives in the backside of America" ha ha the Brazilian just about died from laughing ha ha but i just stood there looking at my notes trying to figure out why he was laughing ha ha it was funny!
..........
i love Portuguese sososo much... i hope you know you are going to have to kidnap me to get me to leave Brazil!!! jk :)... but seriously. so ya i love my mission!!!!

MISSIONARY ADVICE: "strive to keep the spirit with you, it is impossible to have a bad day when the spirit guides it".read your scriptures and just keep doing whats right:)
love you all
Elder Brooksby

Some Pictures from Ben in the CTM

Ben's First letter home!

Hoy familia!!!!hey every one sorry it has taken so long to e mail you we have seriously been so so busy! the mtc here is absolutaly insane crazy cool! the food is pathetic they try and copy all american types of food.... lets just say i have come to love the rice and beans it is the only thing that the know how to make good ha ha but so ya alot has happened in the first week we got here and went to put our stuf in our rooms and then got right to work i got three hours of sleep in that first two days i love it :) so ya on our second day we met with our branch president and i got called to be the district leader!!! no joke i am the district leader over district 33-d it is a huge responseibility ha ha but i am loving it i cannot belive it has alredy been a week!!! so ya i am in the awkward stage beetween two languages so my spelling is totaly crazy and it is hard to sound words out but ya i am already saying all my prayers in portugese i love teh language i love talking to the brazilados they are so so funny and verry willing to teach you how to say something i use como se diz? more than any other phrase it means how do you say this? so ya you would not belive how poor the people are! and yet they are all just so so happy it is verry humbeling to see them smiling and waving at you from a box literaly they make houses out of trash i love it here i will wait to send pictures just because i think it would be to soon for mom to see where i am acctualy walking around and stuf ha ha i am going to send this right now and if you get this but not the other one i will right you next week i love you all :)

Fishing in Yellowstone 1 Week before mission

Ben and his dad went fishing a week before he left on his mission. This was a nice 2 mile hike that opened into this valley. Great fishing....but a lot of pressure on very smart smart fish.

Elder Brooksby is in the MTC

We received an e-mail from the MTC in Sao Paulo saying that Ben is there safe. That is all we have heard from now. They suggest that we write him letters. Here is his address at the mtc and the info they sent.

We Strongly discourage sending packages to the Brazil Missionary Training Center.
If you have already mailed a package to the Brazil MTC and it arrives after your missionary has left for the field, please understand that the package cannot be forwarded to his or her mission and will be returned to you.

WE Strongly eNCOURAGE sENDING HAND WRITTEN LETTERS. Please write your missionary´s first and last name and district and mail box numbers above the Brazil MTC address on all letters. Your missionary´s numbers are: District (33D) and Box (26). Record these numbers for future reference.

Example:
Full name: (i.e. Elder Jeffrey Christopherson)
Mission name: (i.e. Belém)
District (##) Box (#)
Brasil CTM
Rua Padre Antônio D’Angelo, 121
Casa Verde, São Paulo, SP
Brazil 02516-040

DO NOT SEND ANYTHING BY FEDEX, DHL, UPS, or other private carriers. We can only accept mail sent through the U.S. Postal System


We will post more when we hear more.