Friday, July 4, 2014

I'm quase 20!

Wow! sounds like you guys had a blast!  Sounds like you wore them out good!  Haha that's funny how much you spent in the Frozen gift shop!  Discovery cove sounds like a Jamaican vacation just because everything is prepaid!   I got my birthday package and I've been enjoything the Starburst and candy! Thanks for the mac and cheese as well!  I bet Blake will like EFY!  Wow,  Sophie´s first coaster!  That is aweosme that she enjoyed it so much!  Discovery cove sounds cool just because it has so much nature! AND thats crazy about the black bear -  watch blake!! Sounds like life is nice and busy this summer will pass by so fast! It's cool spending my birthday in another country . I'm going to eat some chicken heart pizza! If you guys are able to come to Brazil you´ll have to try chicken heart - it is super good!  

More June 23, 2014….

So this week was pretty cool.  Visited our recent convert Erika and she is doing great.  The bishop's wife has helped her to feel welcomed a lot and it's shown me how great and important the friendship of members is.  We can help the person come to church and even be baptized but if the person doesn't have anyone to talk to they won't stay active for long.  This Saturday and Sunday we had a stake conference so it was cool to hear from my mission president and to hear from the different speakers from the stake.  We had a guy named Joao Paulo and his girlfriend and a boy named Clyton who is 15 come with us to the conference so that was cool.  They're progressing a lot and are eager to learn more about the gospel.  Clyton lives in a very poor area of Porto Alegre and so the gospel will help him .  He wants to get baptized this weekend so hopefully everything goes well!!  It's starting to get col here now but only in the mornings and evenings.  During the afternoon it's in the 60's so that's nice.  I bought a coia and started drinking some chimarrao!  It tastes like hot grass the first time I tasted it but now it tastes so good!  I think I will fill one of my suitcases with a bunch of chimarrao when I return!  All in all it was a good and busy week!  The world cup is still as crazy as ever and the Brazilians are loving every minute of it!  I hope that Brazil wins just to see what all the people will do!  I love you guys and I hope all is well!!

 My umbrella.

 We ate microwave cheeseburgers cause we were tired of rice and beans!
 Just chillin'
 Chimarrao
 This is Erika.  She is 13 and is super awesome and has a lot of faith.  She is the daughter of one of the people we are teaching.  The boy Gabriel who was baptized awhile ago helps her keep coming to church.

So

June 23, 2014

Wow!  The time is flying by!!  So this week I can't remember anything super special that happened other than I walked a lot and got rained on.  It was a pretty typical week.   The boy named Clyton wasn't baptized because he was in another city taking care of his Dad so hopefully this weekend!

I finally got gas for our house so I'm going to show the Brazilians how to make an American cheeseburger.  It's going to be awesome!

And the shower finally stopped catching on fire so that's also good!

The Brazil games are as crazy as ever.  Since Brazil defeated Chile and is still advancing in the World Cup EVERYTHING went crazy.   People were honking their horns and fireworks are everywhere shooting up in the sky.  Brazil knows how to party!

For my birthday I'm going to eat a huge chicken heart pizza and it's going to be epic!

I love you guys!  The mission is awesome and there are so many great people to teach!

June 16, 2014

I was in the missionary headquarter on the 13th and I'm only a 30 minute bus ride away from the mission office so I'm super close by.  Maybe I'll get the package this Thursday when I have district meeting!  Tell Sister Barrand, "Muito Obrigado e que voce sao ben legal!" Haha.  I'm getting close to being fluent!  I can now talk to people on the street without my companion helping me and I can ask them when we can come to their house and share a message.

I did a division so I went with Gabriel and my companion went with his little brother Heliel.  So we leave his house and we're talking to people and Gabriel, who's only 11just goes up to anyone and says, "Hey, we're missionaries and we want to share a message with you about the Bible.  Can we come by your house another day?" So he's awesome and I can see him being a missionary someday.  So everything is going great until Gabriel goes up to a crazy man with only one eye and before I can stop him he says, "we're missionaries and we want to share a message."  And the man starts shouting in the middle of the road, "Everyone is a missionary and can teach the word of God." And I'm like, "well, but I'm only in Brazil as a missionary for two years" and then he starts jumping up and down in the middle of the road and laughing a weird laugh like crazy.  So I walk away and then he starts walking beside me!  And starts telling me about how angels baptized him in holy water with their hands so at this point I just start thinking to myself, "yep I'm in Brazil with a crazy dude on drugs telling me about angels and yep this is really happening!"  So I just keep nodding my head and saying wow! and really?  And then I finally got away from him.

I then found this cool guy named Carlos and he wanted a Book of Mormon.  But I told him I have to teach him before I'm allowed to give him a book so he agreed and I'm going to visit him this Saturday!

Also, I'm starting to teach an English class.  I've got some people here that are excited and I think it will be quite the hit!  So I'm excited to start teaching the people some English.

Everything here in Brazil is good!  Always something interesting happening!  During the World Cup if there is a game I have to stay inside.  I don't mind.  I just study my Portuguese.

 Picture of me in my neighborhood.
 Picture in my neighborhood after it rained a ton!
 Me with Elder Romares

So this week was good.  Being here during the World Cup is crazy.  Every time Brazil scores a goal I can hear fireworks going off everywhere and people are yelling and the streets go wild.  The cars drive by at the end of the game with green and yellow flags!  So it's fun to be here during the World Cup even though I can't watch it.  I've seen glimpses of the world cup games in the restaurants or in the markets and when I see in the stadium everyone is standing and yelling and going crazy!!!  In the US we have the Super Bowl and it's in the US every year, but the World Cup is only every four years and it won't be held again in Brazil for another 80 years or so!  Because of this everyone is crazy about the World Cup!!!  When the games aren't being played I'm out in the streets talking to people.

June 9, 2014

So this week was cool.  We found a great family that we're teaching.  We taught them the first lesson and they thought it was interesting.  Then we asked them if they would come to church and they came and they said it was interesting.  And then there is a girl named Erika and she is excited to be baptized so that was awesome as well!  She went to church with us on Sunday as well and she is super cool.  The boy Gabriel who was recently baptized tod us that he would bring her to church for us and he did so that was pretty awesome!  He's only 11 but he has been a great example of faith for me.  The church from his neighborhood is about a 10 minute bus ride and then 30 minutes of walking.  And he comes every week with his little 10 year old brother and his other investigators!  He also likes learning English.  So I write words down on a piece of paper and I tell him to just learn 10 words a day and then he'll start to learn more.  I also taught him to say, "you are cool" and "you are a monster" so it is fun teaching him stuff.

The area I'm in is poor but I like it.  It's cool living in the ghetto area.  When I first got here I felt really weird with my sink in my apartment breaking and water leaking or using a microwave to dry my clothes, but now it's normal.  It's Brazil.

I got a new companion this week.  His name is Elder Romares and he's cool and he's a hard worker.  He only speaks Portuguese to help me improve and that is helping a lot.  All in all life is good here in Brazil.  It feels strange sometimes to think that I'm in the very bottom of South America!

But I love you guys and I love being here it's so cool to get to live in another culture!

"Love the pictures this week.  Are those from when you played soccer a few weeks ago?"
Austin's reply - "Yeah, it was awesome!  They were a lot of fun to play with and they thought is was cool we were American!"




June 2, 2014

I uploaded pics onto a website called box.com.  It will have all the pics I took when I went to Porto Alegre.   I got to see the stadium where the World Cup will be held!  I have to stay inside and study, I think, during the world cup.  My goal for the week is going to be to read the Book of Mormon or Jesus the Christ.

June is going to go by fast!  Sounds like you guys are having fun!  What's the deal now with Blake?  How's his appendix and arm doing?  He can't stretch it out all the way?  And is it deformed looking?  Is he worried or does he think it looks cool?

I'm not ready yet for a brand new companion.  My mission is set up very well.  I won't have to train anyone for a few more months.  Which is good because my Portuguese is better and I can say a lot but I have difficulty explaining in Portuguese.  But I can understand almost everything.

My MTC teacher is in our ward.  His name is Brother Laferve and he's awesome and you'll have to tell him I say "hi."

Gabriel lives inside the bombed house but it is looking better so that's good.  We baptized his brother Heliel and they will stay active because they walk one hour to church every Sunday without their parents.  And they told us they want to be missionaries someday so that's awesome.

There's not really a lot in our area.  Some small shops like you'd see in Chinatown that sell World Cup jerseys and chimarrao stuff.  Chimarrao is a tea here that looks like weeds.  There are a lot of chiz burger places and meat stands. Nothing too exciting.  The meat stands give people stomach poisoning.  The chiz burgers are very different from American burgers.  When you come here you'll have to try one!

We went to the temple because that was the last transfer of my companion Elder Gee along with some other missionaries from his group.  They are all going home.  I got to see President and Sister Wright.  They're super awesome and it's fun to see them.  

The economy here is bad.  The food here is expensive proportionally to what is costs in the US.   A two liter soda bottle can cost 3-6 reals so I've had to learn which stores are the least expensive.  I like going to Wal-mart here because the prices are fairly good.  But American things are more expensive.  Like a can of Pringles is 8.45 reals and Nutella is 14-15 reals.  I usually only eat lunch with the members so I don't have to buy much food.

My new companion is Elder Andrade and I know him very well since he has been with me in this area the last 6 weeks.  So we are excited to work together.  I don't know if I'll stay in this area yet.  There are two sets of missionaries here like there is in the Brambleton Ward.

It sounds like Sophie is a lot of fun!  It sounds like when she gets really tired she starts to miss me!  Reading Harry Potter with Mason sounds like fun.  Sounds like it was good until he had to sleep on the floor in your room - haha!   I'll write to you guys again next week.  Check out the box.com account to check out my pictures!  You'll enjoy looking through that!