July 14, 2014

It was fun to read your emails and see you guys having and awesome summer and staying busy!  Tell Mason I say Happy Birthday and that being 10 is super awesome!  I sent you guys two letters last week  so they should arrive before the end of August!  Everything is going great and I can't wait to see where I go next!

So I'm getting transferred but I have no idea where yet!  Gabriel and Heliel are awesome they went to church yesterday and I did a division with Gabriel and taught the father of a recent convert Clayton.  Clayton is loud and crazy and funny and his dad is very similar.  He asked a lot of questions and it was fun to answer them.  His dad was in a motorcycle accident but is doing a lot better.  In one more month he can walk again and work.  Only his foot is in bad shape but with time it will get better so that is a relief!

  For a division I'm just with Gabriel and he is 11.  Life here in Brazil is very different than in the US!  At 8, 8:30 I see little kids running around and stuff in the street.  There was no rioting in my area after the World Cup.  It's chill.  Just really quiet because they didn't feel like celebrating after losing 7-1with Germany.  Brazil got humiliated!

 I'm in the hottest part of my mission so the coldest it's gotten here is like 55 but now it's nice and in the 70's!  But if I go to the mountainous areas it will be more cold!

 Missionwise I feel great.  I'm having a blast and I don't want to come home!  I'm glad you tell me about birthdays and stuff because I forget all about that kind of stuff being down here!

  Hmm.  Good stories…Last Saturday I was in an activity and a friend that was a non member was curious in learning more about the gospel and so we taught him last night and it was super awesome.  We taught him in a members home and only two of the kids are active, and the mom said that even though she is inactive and has been for several years she hasn't lost her testimony and knows that everything about the Book of Mormon is true  She bore a powerful testimony and the room went quiet and then my companion Elder Romares asked, "Ademir, what are you searching for?"  And he said, "I'm searching for happiness."  And then we explained that everything about this gospel would bring happiness into his life.  He agreed to pray and read sections of the Book of Mormon that we had shared with him.

Foodwise it's just rice, beans, and meat everyday but I don't eat beans anymore because I started to get sick because I'm not used to having so many beans in my diet.

It's loud in the streets here.  There are lots of churches called Assembleia de Deus or Assembly of God and they have about 20-30 people and a guy shouting in microphones about random stuff so sometimes I listen to that or motorcycles and cars driving with loud music.   But it depends a lot on the area.  My other area was silent because I lived in a reserved neighborhood.  The apartment - we finally organized it a little but I'm glad to get out and escape.  My area doesn't have a lot to do -no banks or large grocery stores.  I had to walk for an hour to go to big Brazilian Wal-Mart!

And my boots that I had I destroyed in 3 weeks so they weren't too good for missionary shoes so that was sad, but I hope my new area has a place where I can buy new shoes because the shoes I'm using now will probably only last a month or so!

I haven't eaten anything terrible.  Only when that old lady in my last area used literally a cup of salt and I watched her dump it on the food.  It thought I would keep drinking water forever!!  I loved my birthday week.  We ate 3 pizzas during the week, and I made American cheeseburgers and they turned out great!  Also, another missionary from Columbia who is learning Portuguese too stayed with us for a few days so that was fun.

It will be sad leaving Gabriel behind.  He said he would miss me a lot but I think before my mission ends I can visit this area again one more time so that would be cool!   I have a lot of memories here in just 3 months of being here!