January 13, 2014

So this week we had an activity with the ward members that's the start of a 6 week competition.  There are tasks every week and if you win you get points.  People were crazy competitive and got super into it.  I organized it and was running it so I've been crazy busy!  But we told people for every non member they bring to church they get points, so people invited tons of friends to church.  I'm excited that everyone is so excited about missionary work! The teaching is going great and we have some baptisms coming up!
I have to go buy some bus tickets today because tonight we are traveling to another town to do a division with the other Elders in my district.  It should be pretty fun!  Well that's about it for this week.  Have a great week and I love you all!
(the young women in our ward here in Texas wrote letters to Kyle & here's his response)
Dear Young Women of the Abilene 3rd ward,
Due to the many letters that I received from all of you I am not able to respond individually so I am responding in a group letter.  I will assure you though that I read each and every letter that was sent to me and I tried to imagine your voices as I read your letters.  I am very grateful that you all took the time to write to me and I felt really inspired to work harder as a missionary!  Letters are quite a blessing as it's incredible how easily we feel alone or forgotten sometimes.  Especially as we are so far from our comfortable surroundings we feel very open and exposed.  However just that quick 5 minutes to write a letter really makes a big difference.  I would like to challenge each and every one of you to take just a minute and think of a friend of yours or someone you know that may be feeling a little forgotten or may not know that we have a very loving Heavenly Father that never forgets us.  And I want you to sent them a quick letter, text or email letting them know you are thinking of them.   There are people all around us that feel this way and a quick letter or text message when someone didn't make it to church or is down will make a big difference to them.  I carry a little pocket notebook with me and when we go to someone's house and they are not home I always leave them a note and they love it.  They always tell me how happy they were to get my note and that we had come to see them.  I am excited to meet all of you.  My mom always talks about how she loves the new ward there in Texas and serving all of you.  Here in just a little bit I'll be there to meet you all.  In the mean time keep up the missionary work and KEEP READING THE BOOK OF MORMON!!!
Com Abraco,
Elder Krause

January 6, 2014

Well this week was a great one!  We had 2 baptisms!  I don't have pictures because something happened with my memory card but I'll get some from my companion.  Also, we reactivated a lady and she got up and bore her testimony about coffee because we had helped her stop drinking it!  It was pretty sweet!  And another exciting thing is we passed out tons of pass along cards and got lots of responses from them!  So we are teaching lots of people right now!

On New Years Eve we went out to pizza and then pretty much just went back to our apartment and hung out.  I had to travel the next day so it was kinda crazy! 

Hey also, THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR SENDING ME CHRISTMAS CARDS!!!  It has been so fun getting them, I have loved it!  It's awesome to get so much mail!  And thanks to the Moore's for sending me stuff!  

Well, that's about it for this week.  I love you all very much.  Your letters help pick me up!

This is some of the missionaries with Elder Leal and his wife.  He's the area 70 around here.  It was an awesome visit!

December 30, 2013

Kyle wanted to share his testimony with all of you and said to click on the link below and listen to the beautiful music as you read.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugV6QGcafEE

It has been 1 year and 7 months since I have shared my conviction that Jesus is the Christ in English. I have labored, thinking, praying, and teaching in Portugues for this time and I have grown to discover with profound understanding the love that God has for each one of his children. I have grown to love deeply the Brasilian people. There have been many times where I have gone into a stangers home that let me in when there was no compelling motive, except my humble request. I entered that house and taught the truth of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, the plan of salvation and the Pure Doctrine of Christ. With my normal eyes I felt despair that these Family would not come to Christ because the forces of the world were so loud. I feared my words fell on deaf ears. However, I have seen lives changes, hope enter into the lives of families, despair and hate disappear, grudges flee because of the words that left my mouth. I am conviced that the words that left my lips were but a small part, but that as I spoke of Christ, his sacrifice, his prophets, his church upon this Earth, the truth of these things were carried to their hearts by the Holy Ghost, the comforter and confirmer of all truth. I now give to all, my words and certainty that Jesus is the Christ the living son of God that was born to Mary, and died for us on calvary. It is my solem promise to all within the sight of my words and those beyond, that our Heavenly Father is anxious to see everyone of us return to his presence. For this purpose he called his Prophet, Joseph Smith, to restore the total truth of the teachings of Christ, as well as the power to baptize here upon the Earth in his Church. We may all know the truth of this through humble and sincere prayer, and study of the words of the Prophets in the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and the living Prophets. If there are doubts we must leave them behind and ask in Faith. If we have forgetten or our knowledge has been dimmed because of sin, repent and come into the light. Repentance is our greatest gift and we should all do it more often than we do. The first step to be taken is to begin the search, open the Book of Mormon and read the introduction, read the invitation in the 2nd to last paragraph, accept and prove to yourself the truth of my words. I send my love to all and my firm knowlege that if we all go to the temple, and keep our covenants we can remain together forever.

In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

Elder Krause

December 25, 2013

From Randi-
Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful day with your families. What a blessing to get to talk to Kyle today!  We got to skype with him from a members house.  He looks so good and is loving his new area.  He said the people are very kind to him there.  It was so different talking to him today than last year.  Last year when we had to hang up we were crying knowing he had so long left.  But today was filled with so much joy, knowing he'll be coming home in just a few months!  We have been so blessed having him on his mission.  He has had so many wonderful experiences sharing the gospel.  He truly loves the people in Brazil. It was amazing to see the growth in him today.  He is a man now!  Anyway, I just wanted to thank you all for your support of Kyle!  Keep praying for him these last few months.  There are still many lives for him to touch!
Love you all!
Randi

 Christmas Eve was spent caroling to members and investigators houses.

 We had so much fun and the people loved it!

 This dear member loves the missionaries and took us all out to pizza for Christmas Eve.

 hahaha I, of course, ate too much!

Yummy pizza.  And yes, that is corn on it.  That's very common here to have corn on pizza.

December 16, 2013

Hello everyone!  I don't have tons of time but just wanted  you to know that I'm in my new area and it's GREAT!  My new companion has been out about 4 months and he is from Sao Paulo, Brazil.  I really like him. My new area reminds me of Arizona...it's really hot and dry!  There are lots of dirt roads and the people are really hard workers and are educated. It's a really nice city.  I am in the branch here.  There are also 2 wards in our building and the people are really excited to help us out. The goal is for the branch to become a ward by April so we are really busy! People feed us all the time here and there is lots of fruit everywhere!  They have this local soda made from the fruit here and it's so good.  I can't wait to talk to you on Christmas!  Have a great week and I love you all.  Keep reading the Book of Mormon!  
Love,
Elder Krause

December 9, 2013

Well I'm getting transferred to Jauziero!  It's about 9 hours away but it's a nice place from what I hear.  It's on the very northern part of Bahia right by a river and I will be in a branch , which is what I like!  It's really hot there and they grow really good fruit!  I'm excited for that!  I said goodbye to a bunch of people yesterday but I gotta go today and say goodbye to a few more.  I will miss it here but am excited to be going to a new place!  I will still be a district leader so that will be good too!  And I better start practicing the piano because they said that no one out there plays!
    A cool thing that happened this week is that this family that we reactivated invited us over for dinner and they were super happy and thanked us for the work we did, so that was good!  And we had some good family nights with people this week too!
    So I have a bunch of pictures this week to send you!

So this lady is awesome!!!  She made us lunch and we went and helped her make it!  It's called acaraje. It's like a sandwich of shrimp, some paste stuff, and tomatoes and it's super good!  Here we are peeling the shrimp!

Here I am cutting the tomatoes.

Making the bread. The dough is made from beans and it's really good! They are like the hamburger of Bahia!

Then you fry the bread in this oil made from coconuts!

Here I am digging in!!!

This is what happens after you eat 7 of the sandwiches!!!  They are so good that you eat just 1 more even though you are full! They sell them on the street but they are too expensive so we never can get them.  So while we could we ate all that would fit in our stomachs!

This is our little buddy that lives there and she ate 4 of them!!!

My comp ate 5!

These are the boxes that Dana and Hailey sent me!  Lots of good stuff!

Thank you!!!

This is my good buddy that we reactivated.  I love this guy!  And he speaks some english so that's fun!

This is a great lady that we also reactivated.  She loves me!  haha everyone does! :)

Here's another lady we reactivated and baptized her daughter.  The other one is getting baptized soon too!  

Another cool family here!  It's hard to be saying goodbye to everyone!

December 2, 2013

     Well this week was awesome!  We had a big stake musical fireside that President Hart's family did.  Some of his grown kids and grandkids came to visit from the United States.  His oldest son sings in the tabernacle choir and his wife plays violin in the tabernacle orchestra and their 3 little girls play really well too!  So they sung and played violins and it was SUPER good!!!  Afterward I got to talk to them and it was fun because they all speak English!  And we talked to dental stuff because the oldest son is a dentist too.  It was funny because he was a little shocked when I told him my dad is 40 and he said, "wow, I'm almost 40 too...I could be your dad!"  hahaha it was funny cause he only has little kids!  
     The total highlight from my week was that this inactive girl came to church this week and I think she's probably in her 20's and just had a baby.  And I got to bless her baby!!!  Because I was the one that reactivated her she asked me to bless the baby.  I had never done that before and it was the coolest experience and she's totally excited to be back at church!!!  She hasn't been in a little over a year!  
    Well transfers are next week and I'm probably getting transferred so I'll be excited to see where I'm going! 
   I love you all!  Have a great week!