Sorry

Looks like I have been slacking on the Elder Rapp website. I have been crazy busy with two design teams. Please forgive me. I will try to add a letter here and there. I don't have time to put them all up at once. I have deadlines from now til the end of July. The reason I am here is to let you all know that Elder Rapp is coming home soon!!! This Mom is so excited to see her missionary and be his shadow for a while. :) We received word last night that he will return on July 24th (we already knew the date, shhhhhhh....), at 5:34 pm. We are so excited to have him home and be able to spend some time with him again. Have a great day!!! I will return in a couple days to add a letter.

Hello family"!!!!! Hows things going? I'm doing good here. My week went well. Not a whole lot of new things but I'll tell you how my life is going. So our baptism from last week received the priesthood yesterday. That is always a great thing. His brother Vicente will be baptized Friday or Saturday. There is a wedding at the church Saturday so I think he will be baptized Friday. So we are teaching lots of great people but lots don´t go to church. that makes life stressful. We are doing our part but they have to do theirs. Well church was good...great yesterday. Pres Johnson attended our sacrament meeting. He and Sister Johnson both spoke. Poor sister has been here almost 3 years and still has lots of trouble speaking. They both talked specifically to the investigators. There were 8 investigators at church yesterday so that was great. One of the lady's we are teaching received an answer to her prayers... hahaha ... this one is good. She was having a bad day nothing was going right, her husband got home from work and tried to calm her down and make her feel better but it didn´t work. The cat as well tried to make her feel better by rubbing up against her leg but didn´t work. Later on in the evening the cat got up on the back of the toilet and peed in the toilet like a human being......ya she said that she laughed really hard and it made her feel better and that it was a message from God. I don´t think I will ever know haw to even connect that experience with an answer to my prayers but hey she felt like it was. Talking in animals my nightmares of dogs are back. Wednesday we knocked on a door and there was a dog out front. So I like doggies and pet him .... he ripped my hand off... Just kidding but he attacked me like a rabid squirrel in the middle of nut season. Luckily he never got a good bite on my leg but is was quite a wrestle to get him off me. I even punched him in the head and gave him a good kick. Well lets talk about shoes. I bought the mission shoes but they ripped my feet apart as well so I sent them back. I am looking for a good pair to last me but haven´t had lick nor time to find any. Not to mention the price of shoes here. I'm poor. (missionary) It would be something like 50 us dollars for a good pair of shoes here. It is easier for you to put money in my account than to send shoes. And who knows if the shoes you would send would work for me. My feet have become ridiculous here. They don´t accept just any shoe. Cobble stone streets and walking a ton kills my feet. So I have to have good supporting shoes. The Adidas was a joke... we have to use black shoes so I thought about spray painting my wonderful Adidas black. Tennis shoes in the mission field that's my dream that won´t happen. So if you could just throw some money in the bank and I will look for some shoes that are durable and that I can handle the walking. The package you are sending, did you send ties? And the hot wheels nascar car my comp is like you and stamps with his hot wheels so wanted to give him a cool one. Maybe in our old toys under the house there is a nascar one. I don´t remember. Well I am out of things to tell you all but most important I LOVE YOU!!!! Have a great week tell everyone hi for me and give everyone a great big hug. Tell my cute lil niece and nephew that they need to color some pics for me. Muah love you all talk to ya next week!!!ELDER RAPP

Mon 3/02/09

Well one more great week down!!! We baptised a great guy on Saturday. He has a sister that is a member and she told us to go and teach him. He felt the spirit quickly and within 2 weeks was in the water. That is what like to see. This area rocks. Now know why everyone says it's the area that baptizes the most. The baptisms run to you. But hey you can´t relax. I have learned that already! So this week went well. Today we got a phone call to go resolve girlish problems of a companionship in our zone. These 2 are fighting for the dumbest reasons. Jr comp doesn´t want to follow sr comp. So we left our house this morning in a wicked rain storm. My only pair of shoes are full of water and I am wet up to my knees. Tomorrow we are going to go on a division with the assistants I'm going to Porto Alegre and Zanella will stay here. So this week we had alot of miracles happen. 12 people at church that are baptisms most likely. I love the food here there never is bad stuff to eat. I think I might get some weight on here. Hope not but it looks like I might. So did I tell y'all I adopted a cat? Everyday he comes to our bedroom window meaaaaw meaaaaw wanting food. So me being the nice guy that I am give him some bread or something. He is pretty cool. Sometimes he comes in the window while its open looking for us. He is pretty punk like he has bitten me a few times when a pet him. I think all cats do that. So I am out of stuff for today. There isn´t any thing else I can think of that happened this week. Oh it's raining cats and dogs out side and is going to rain hard like this for 3 days. Looks like the amazons the roads turn into rivers blah. 1 pair of shoes just doesn´t do it. But I cant find comfortable shoes. I tried the mission shoes they rip my feet to shreds like always. I need some adidas completely black. ahhh what a comforting though just basketball shoes here in a while. Well I will let you go. I love you all and am so very grateful for your love and support. Your prayers are truly felt. Give everyone a great big hug!!! MUAH have a great week. ELDER RAPP Congrats on you stamping abilities that is cool!!!!Daddy get better soon!!!

2/23/09

So you all know ... I hate typing it takes me 10 hours just to type three lines but i´ll try. Things are going great. We baptized on Wednesday. She called at 8:30 am while we were studying and said she wanted to be baptized before noon. So the Lord knew what was going on and made sure all went well. Filled the font, called the members and had her in and out of the water by 11:00. That's always good news. Life as zl is good but very tiring. More things to do on top of normal proselyting. We are in charge a a zone full of branches and difficulties. The majority of the area give us lots of excuses why things are not working out. Sunday nights we go to bed really early...in the morning. Everyone passes results to us on Sunday. Thursdays and Fridays are late nights as well because we have to do follow ups with the dl´s. This last week was my first zone conf as zone leader so that was some what stressful we had to give 6 trainings in the same day. Lunch was some habibs pizza like things from the Iraq Iran Muslim side of culture. They were good but have a strange zing to them. Yesterday I did a cool surgery on my hand. I had never had a wart in my life until I came down here. Some one told me to just dig it out. hahah just dig it out. Ive tried 3 times and it's never worked. Lets see if this time it worked out. So if you haven´t sent that package yet throw some duct tape in there for me eh. I had something else I was thinking about this week but dunno what it was. Post cards of cool things in Idaho would be cool potatoes, mountains, animals, you know the cool stuff. So we have a sweet baptism this Saturday. This guy reminds me of Jamaican people. He talks really slow and is always chillin and having a good life. But he accepts everything. Doesn´t have problems with anything. I don´t know who will baptize him yet but I'll send some pics next week. This week we have leadership meeting and a division to do. I'm wasting so much money on travel. Good thing all this money comes back to me or I would be toast. What else... my comp rocks we have a good time making fun of stupid people in English. Yesterday we ran in to a old man CRAZY that spoke 5 languages ...well said a few syllables in each language. ´hey you what you fink Obama` ya this guy was crazy. I just kept walking while he talked his languages that weren´t languages. That's life here. I burned a member yesterday because she expects the church to replace her roof while she doesn´t go to church and doesn´t keep the commandments.. she doesn´t like me now that I revealed the truth to her. Well I'm out of goods for today enjoy your stories MUAH!!! I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!ELDER RAPP When am I speaking in church there? I have a few x-comps and x-misssionaries wanting to know. I LOVE YOU THE MOST!!!!!

Tue 2/17/09

Hey y'all, I´m exhausted this week. Lots of work 'lil sleep. I'm ready to take a nap and I've only been up for 4 hours or so. Well we travel alot as zl´s. It's fun but wastes all my money. Don´t have money for nothing. But I'll live. In one week I spent 60 or so bones on travel. Well zone conf was yesterday as you all know I didn´t write. Today is p-day! FINALLY!!! So I had a sister in the ward email you yesterday. I don´t know if she did it or not. But it was to tell you that p-day is today. So I'm loving life as a zl. My comp rocks and my zone is going to give me quite alot of chores. It's a zone full of branches so the missionaries are having lots of difficulties. We are great in this area. Baptisms in the next weeks. If all goes well this week we will throw 1 in the water and then the 28th there will be another and various baptisms in March. Blah march is already here. Time is flying by too fast. So not much else going on other than that. I'm hoping to go to the temple now that I'm back up here but we´ll see how things go. Well have a great week!!! Hey send me a hotwheels car of nascar if you can find one. PPLEASe. And more sunflower seeds because they don´t last very long. I needed some other stuff but don´t remember exactly what it was. I LOVE YOU ALL!!! MUAH!!ELDER RAPP

Mon 2/09/09

So another week down and even more work ahead of me. This week ... well today was transfers and I was transferred... that's not all. Pres Johnson called me last night while I was packing my bags and called me to be a zone leader. Blew me off for a second but I'm excited to still be a leader. Just now I have more work and less time. Lots more traveling now. I'm back up´in the Porto Alegre neighborhood. My area is Guaiba Jardim. Guaiba is a little town just out of Porto Alegre. The smallest area I have seen in my life. I've only been here for 2 hours or so but looking at the map it's small. So in my zone is one of the elders I trained e. Bradley and another elder that worked with me in my 3rd area e. Madeiro. I'm excited to see whet will happen. Not too excited to continue on giving trainings but I'll live. So my new comp is great up till this point. E. Zanella and he is from Santa Catarina. The state that is right above this one. Everyone tells me he isn´t very cool but I'll have to see. I think we´ll get along just fine. I think everyone else is just trying to put ideas in my head. I am back as like junior comp. I'm senior but as zone leader he is the senior. So I shoudn´t have quite as much stress. Lets see how things go. For today I only have this info. I'm sad I had to leave that area but I left it better than when I found it. And they will baptize 4 in the next 3 weeks so I'm happy. Well I'm out of stuff for today. Next week I'll send some pics. I am in a rush today to unpack and get things a rollin here. I love you all have a great week XOXOXO MUAH!!!ELDER RAPP