Christmas in Brazil and Talkin' with Home...

ZChristmas was awesome, it was great to see and talk with everybody on skype, Everybody sounds/looks so much different. Josh looks like a scallywag with his hair, zach looks... the same, but sounds way different, Ben sounds older and looks..... strange. Mariah looks older but still sounds the same. and Joseph is the most different out of everybody.

I´m happy that everybody had a great Christmas, it certainly didn´t feel anything like Christmas here, everybody just did a churrasco and got drunk... as usual. We had apple pie and chocolate cake the night after Christmas day, so that was pretty fun. haha, and I´m happy to hear that Jared Whippy enjoyed his first American Christmas (there´s really nothing else like it in the world, America does it the best, by far, that´s why we´re #1 :-) )

While we were at Lehi´s house, Elder Black gave him some of his Sour Warheads candy.... hahaha... funniest thing I saw all week. So now he gives them out to all our other friends and investigators to see all the faces they make... nobody likes them. They all spit them out the moment they put it in their mouth. Good times, good times. Then we played a game with his *every flavor* Jelly Belly jelly beans... I had *barf flavored bean* taste in my mouth the whole rest of the day.... that wasn´t as fun.

Also, during our pancake night with André´s family, we used the maple syrup I got, and the kids hated it. haha, they preferred to just eat the pancakes plain. hahaha, the parents liked it, but the kids said it was way too strong. So I tried it to see what the problem was... and I experienced 5 seconds of heaven. In other words, the maple was fine, the kids are just weird. They´re just not used to pure-awesomeness.

Mariana and Dilmas got confirmed on Sunday, and the family is still excited to go to church, including the parents who say they´re gonna get married in January so they can get baptized, yay!! And then we marked another date with a girl we´re teaching for the 22nd. So now we have at least 4 baptisms for the next month. YES!!

I really don´t have that much more news... cuz I told about everything on skype,

We met our tipsy friends the other day, one of them was waaay too drunk, so we told him * dude, you should go home, you´re drunk* response: *who´s drunk? you are! I´m going home, I don't want to hang around you drunkards* hahaha but then another whipped out a guitar from somewhere... I don´t know where it came from, so we just finished off the night by singing songs, (some from my hymnbook that I had on me) Then we left, they told us to come by anytime, cuz they don´t like mischief-makers, and we´re people of god, and the like us. Pretty much they´re the best group of friends we have here in this part of town. All the new people that were passing by were introduced to us by our friend and now we have a group waiting for us anytime choose to pass by. haha. sweet. And it was while I was sitting there, talking and laughing with them all, that I realized how much I love Brazil. Sure some (most) of the people are half-stupid, don´t know how to drive and are religious maniacs who don´t know how to take care of their money, but the people we were hanging out that night were the best/nicest people I´ve ever met, if the world were full of them, we would have no problems (except for the lots of drinking part).

How´s Joseph liking his blue motorbike? I´m digging my legos and sweet t-shirt, I´m wearing it to our barbeque today. woo!

Well, I don´t have much more to talk about. But I hope you have a great week and a happy new year.

Love ya dad, love ya mom, love ya all you other people.

Stay thirsty my friends.
Elder Webber

This Week...

Industrial got closed because the members there are nuts, and they didn´t appreciate the missionaries while they had them, so President put them somewhere where they´ll be appreciated and actually get things done, and the members will see what it´s like to have no missionaries. Every time we pass by in that area, all the members we meet seem way excited and ask if we´re the new missionaries, and I always have to tell them no. I´m only there to baptize one guy (and hopefully his family) and then I´m done. Speaking of which, we taught him a few times this last week (many, many bus rides) and the last time we taught him we took a member family with us. The members and him used to be part of the same churches, so they just spent a good 45 minutes bashing all the other churches they used to go to. The guy told us EVERYTHING he thought was wrong about all the other churches, and how they all teach apostasy. example: *the pope is the child of the devil, there´s no other explanation*
*all these other churches are filled with people screaming and flying around, is that in the bible? NO. They´re a bunch of money-sucking, miracle mongering, sin-condemning, scripture-screaming, lunatics. is that in the bible? NO!*

yeeeeah, balln´ ! He already believed the church was true, the only trick was to get him to accept a date. Which we did, he finally decided to be baptized on the 8th of January. yay!

The zone got together the other day to practice our musical program for tonight. We´re going to the praça to sing Christmas hymns for everybody, and Globo (the news station) will be there. They chose me to read the scriptures in between each song because of my deep voice suave. oh yeah :D so that should be fun.

The ward had their Christmas dinner the other day, so we stopped by for a bit, helped out a little too. I pretty much just pigged out on the pineapple... good stuff. It made me miss the ward barbecues back home when there was like a bajillion people, and hamburgers, here there was about... 20 people. sad story.

So we´ve got 2 baptisms scheduled for this Friday, hopefully everything goes over well. It´s always a mess, trying to invite members, filing up the font, getting everything set up, making sure everybody is happy *sigh* soooo nerve-wrecking. oh well.

Elder Black still gets ticked every once in a while when the language gives him a little bit of trouble. But he´s getting better. I still have to re-teach everything he teaches cuz nobody understands him. But it´s funny that everybody things he´s Brazilian (before he talks) so when they don´t understand what I say ( cuz I tend to speak too fast sometimes :-) ) they always look to him, and he has no idea what anybody is saying, so everybody´s lost for a little while. CONFUSION!


It´s kind of weird that I´ll only have one Christmas in the field, cuz my last one was while I was stranded in the MTC. But oh well. At least I get to call home this time :D yay. And I´ll probably have a lot to talk about cuz this week seems pretty jam-packed with stuff, so that should be fun. I might try that giving-out-candy idea, and we´ll see how it goes. Though most of the kids just ask us for gum, haha.

I don´t think there´s any crazy stories this week... just normal work.
I could ask a bunch of questions, and stuff like that, but we´ll be talking on Saturday anyways. So I´ll save questions for that.

Anyways, that´s about it. TALK TO YA`LL ON SATURDAY!! 2nd to last phone-call O_o

Love you :D miss you.
till Saturday...
Elder ´The yellow dart´ Webber

Latest...

So this week all zone leaders and district leaders headed to Goiania for 3 days, so that was fun. Just sitting around and listening to president talk is always fun. Though i did have to abandon my area, what a bummer. I stayed with 3 Brazilians during our little conference, in a house that took an hour to get to/from by bus every morning and night. fun. But it was cool to chill with some Brazilians, I found out that it´s quite normal (and almost expected) that Brazilians kiss their cousins... apparently *cousin* isn´t close enough in the family to cause strangeness. Also, it was good to not hear any English, Portuguese comes a whole lot easier these days than English, and since my companion speaks English EVERY TIME he doesn´t understand something it´s really giving me a headache. He asks me to explain something in English, but I just cant, I sound like a retard cuz I´ve forgotten words and all my grammar is backwards.
But when I came back from the conference, Elder Black was working with Elder Pattie and Elder Fralick, so when we headed back to our area he said. *wow dude, we work BUTTLOADS harder than Elder Pattie, I felt like I was slacking off while I was with them.*
haha, oh yeah.

Preparation day last week we all headed to Jundiai to play basketball (volleyball was canceled cuz the ball popped) so that was fun, everybody plays for a bit then just wants to go inside and lay on the cold tile floor :D But since today was transfer day everybody is staying home so the other districts can resolve all the transfer mess. So the news about transfers: Industrial got closed, so I´m gonna have to pick up the area book and baptize the investigators they left behind, and Elder Stoddard and Elder Cruz are sticking together...again. They both sounded so depressed when I told them last night, neither one believed it. Elder Stoddard was already packing his stuff cuz he was SURE that he was gonna be leaving. He´s spent his whole mission here in Anapolis, and 6 months with the same companion, and now they´re gonna stay one more, poor guy, sounded like he was about to cry. haha. I dunno if they still have some small problems with the companionship, but if they do, they´re just gonna have to suck it up. So now the zone leaders are gonna do divisions with them to keep them excited, and I will too after a bit, just to get him happy until the end of transfer. You know it´s bad when the secretary says: *dude.... i don´t believe it.... everybody here thought he was going to get transferred for sure.....I don´t believe it.... how terrible*

But yeah, me and the bishop here aren´t the best of buddies. I mean, he´s a cool guy... just I think some of his *ideas* or *his way of doing it* are.... not good (stupid). I wont extrapolate, but suffice it to say that he´s getting in the way of our work. Just step back and let me do mah bidness!! I´ll swagger the way I was taught, thank you very much.

I held my breath for 1:40 on the bus the other day.

In church yesterday one of our investigators got up to bear her testimony, it was a very *evangelical* testimony, but it was pretty sweet anyways. Then she told everybody that she´s gonna get baptized. woo. It´s just that she lives in the same house as her ex-husband... so we´re in negotiations with President to try and get the green light to baptize her. Oh what a tangled web we weave. Downtown Anapolis is all lit up with Christmas lights and music and everything, it´s missing a bit of snow, but it still looks pretty dang sweet, the zone is going to go sing carols in the main park one of these days, and be covered by a TV station, so that should be pretty fun.

I actually felt a little bit sick for the first time on my mission today, but I popped some Imunizen, and Bio-C and pepto bismal and bye bye ickyness. woo. I say I´m doing pretty good, I´ve gone a year and a bit in a far-off land and I havn´t been attacked, eaten, sick, robbed, or anything. (watch something happen this week now) Though I´m pretty sure nobody´s gonna mess with us, cuz we´re two big Americans, and we tower over most of the Brazilians here, so anybody would have to be pretty crazy to mess with us. Bahahaha!

But yeah, I´m pretty sure that´s about it for now, This next week should be pretty interesting.

*I bet a fiddle of gold against your soul cuz i think I´m better than you...*

Love, Elder Webber

This Week's Update

So I dunno if anybody is watching the news these days... but apparently Rio de Janeiro is in chaos. Tanks driving in the streets of the favela, blowing up all the cars and all that, it´s all anybody is talking about these days, haha, they´re all worried that all the world thinks about Brazil now is just a country full of drug-dealing war-mongering favella-dwellin maniacs, haha, nobody is happy.

Anyways, we had Thanksgiving, woo, we stopped by a member´s house at night and he made us pumpkin pie and sandwiches, and all that good stuff. It was awesome, also that morning we stopped to watch a bunch of traveling navajos dance and sing in the praça bom jesus (Good Jesus Plaza), and then at lunch the member tried to make us watch the basketball game between the Orlando magic and the Miami heat... yeah, he has ESPN, it was pretty weird.

I got 3 packages this weekend, all from a different neighbor. Cuz the postman always passes by during the afternoon when were not at home, so our neighbors help out and pick them up for us before he leaves... cuz apparently he´s already sent one back (the one with the voice recorder I´m guessing) idiot. So our neighbors on both sides of us, and in the front each had a package for me. haha. Two were filled with Christmas presents, and the other was filled with pictures, and cards, and postcards. thank you! though........ nobody told me the tribe was going on a cruze..cruis..crus..(I forgot how to spell it) and Disneyland... and Nasa!! what´s up with this nonsense? We better go to the moon or something when I´m back and Josh is on his mission.. bwahaha. besides.. did anybody like Nasa? Because I´m pretty sure the only person who would like it there would be.... me. But yeah, thank you for the cards, the Christmas card, and bookmarks from Mariah :D

We were teaching a kid named Wender for a bit, he had a date to be baptized and everything. So we passed by his house Tuesday, clapped our hands at the front door before we saw.... that they had disappeared... completely. There was nothing left in the house, no furniture, no cardboard boxes, no people, nothing. And we have no idea where they disappeared to. We were blown away for a bit, we saw them the day before, and everything was normal... then... poof! gone. ugh. They must have left in a hurry cuz they didn´t even bother cleaning up the house or picking up the glass they broke while loading it up. so yeah.... goodbye baptism.

However, on Friday, we had a bit of extra time, so I decided to go knock some doors, since Elder Black is still scared to death of talking to people in the streets. So I knocked on one door, and the girl who answered said hi and let us in without asking any questions... just let us in, and sat down ready to hear what we had to say... sweet. But what´s even better is that she agreed to go to church, and went. no problem. We taught her on Friday, then went back Sunday morning, and she was all ready to go. SO cool. So we helped her make friends with the other girls in the ward (which isn´t very many), and it went pretty well. Speakin of which, we had 6 people in church this Sunday, finally!! however, only 3 of them are able to get baptized, but it´s better than nothing.

And about church... I don't like Sundays, church rocks, but Sunday is always terrible. I feel like I´m going to have a nervous breakdown one of these Sundays. Worried about getting investigators to church, making sure they´re happy, getting members to do their job and talk to them, talking to everybody myself when the members decide to be retarded and leave the investigator alone. ugh. I´m going to freak out one day, but yeah. that´s how it is, so it´s good that preparation day is on a Monday.

Though I do have to deal with my fair share of all sorts of freaky religious people, and their apostasy, sometimes I just get fed up with it and have some fun...

*oh good morning! what´s your name?*
*Paulo*
*Pleasure to meet you my name is Elder Webber... etc. etc... of Latter-Day Saints.... and you frequent which apostasty?*
*I´m Catholic*
*How splendid! Where do you attend?*
*Santo Antonio*
*Is that the great and spacious building that has many people entering into it?*
*yes*
*that´s great...*

fun, haha, you should try it sometime.

but yeah, this week I´m heading to Goiania again on Tuesday for another leadership training, it´s *only* three days this time, so my area will be without missionaries during that time, not good.

Thank you again for the packages, the presents, the pancake mix and the cards and all that. I´ve also realized that I´ve forgotten tons of English words, when i try to translate for my comp I have to stop and think and try to remember what the word is in English, haha

Hope you all have a great week!
I would send pictures.. but i´m on a 40 minute time schedule. sorry.

Love, and Saudades!
Elder Webber

Goin' WELL...

So yeah, lets see here....
Wednesday we had the last conference of the year with President. Not too bad indeed. Sister showed us a bunch of pictures of what our houses should NOT be like, then told a lot of missionaries that their mothers would be ashamed of them. haha. Then president talked a bunch, about some new rules, about the plan of salvation, learned quite a bit. Included in the new rules: only 40 minutes for internet now, cuz some idiot missionary was messing around with stuff that he shouldn´t and now the whole mission has to pay for it. Retard.

We had an activity as a zone, Sister let us decide our own groups... so naturally all the biggest, best Americans formed our own group. But then we found that the activity was about teamwork and planning.... and we still won. America rules.

We had interviews with President too, he´s very cut-to-the-chase with his interviews, the first question he asks is if you´re breaking the law of chastity... hmm...ok. haha. Then he just asked about the district and that´s about it. Not too fun, but not too traumatic either.

Elder Black ate Açaí for the first time that night too, he liked it. It´s good we have the best açaí in the city right next door.

I got my package, wooo! the one with my new shoes, fruit snacks, pop tarts, chocolate, ring pops, and star charts, thank you! the shoes are the right size, no worries. And the star charts are awesome :D thank you.

I went to industrial again to interview another baptism they had. Wow... that ward is sad. It´s tearing itself apart and being destroyed from the inside out. Everybody knows where the church is cuz it´s the church *that always has people fighting in front* sad stuff. SOOO happy I´m here and not there.

This week was kind of a bummer though. We had tons of people ready to go to church with us, and two baptisms scheduled for next week.... but only one person went, so all our plans have fallen through, including the baptisms. I was not happy. It ticks me off knowing that I´m doing everything I possibly can, doing it the best way I know how, and nothing goes the way I want it to. Everything falls through. So now we´re gonna really need a miracle to baptize this month. What a way to start out the newbie´s first month, eh? bummer bro. I havn´t worked harder than I have these last few weeks, but nothing went according to plan. I don´t get it.... But it'll come

We both gave talks this Sunday, haha, welcome to Brazil Elder Black... you gotta talk next Sunday, haha. He didn´t/couldn´t talk for very long, so I had to make up for a bunch of time and talk for about 20 minutes, fun stuff. It wasn´t too bad though. Then the sister that talked after us told everyone that the message I left with her after lunch on Friday really touched her and helped her inactive husband. So she pretty much told everyone how awesome it is to have missionaries like us in the ward.

Ah, Mariah is giving a presentation about Brazil in School eh? lets see....
Merry Christmas: Feliz Natal
Where are my presents?: onde estão meus presentes?
Wake up, lazy!!: Acorde, pregisoso!
Hands off, it´s mine!: Tira mão, é meu!
No time for breakfast: não há tempo para desejum.
my turn: minha vez
that´s it?: Só isso?
Where did you hide my presents? Onde voce escondeu meus presentes?
Who wants to play with me? Quem quer jogar comigo?

How's that? If you need anymore, just ask :D You'll probable have to just guess at the pronunciation... but nobody knows if it's correct of not anyways. haha.

What the... my keyboard just switched from Portuguese to English... now it's impossible to get all the punctuation right. arrgh.

Anyways... Elder Black is getting better, slowly and surely. He always gets way down on himself all the time, so I have to cheer him up, poor dude. And he has a tough time talking with people in the streets, so we'll have to work with that.

So after this we're headed to Jundiai to play volleyball and basketball, it's a good thing it's cloudy or I'd be cooked alive.

So yeah, that's about it for now, here's hoping that we'll see a miracle this week to end the month off on a better note, and hoping that President hasn't lost confidence in me yet. yeah.

Happy thanksgiving, I'm going to go eat pumpkin pie on thanksgiving, cuz a member SOMEHOW knows how to make it, and told us we have no choice but to help him eat it, I'm not complaining, haha.

*One day Kerrigan got a present, oh whatever could it be?
was it a dolly?
A brick?
A walrus with a top-hat?
No! it was better that all those things combined!
It as a muffin!!*

Love you! Miss you!
Elder 'the yellow dart' Webber

Over the "Hump"

So yup.

So before everything got mixed up last Monday, me and elder Margalho decided to go for a hike in the green hills and forest behind our house. So we took two hours, pointed out the highest hill we could see, and made our way to the top. So that was pretty darn fun, just to walk without any worries, or appointments, cool stuff. I took a bunch of pictures, and even more videos, so it´s all recorded.

Then Tuesday, we headed to Goiania to pick up my novinho. there´s only 3 new missionaries this time, so me, Elder Barton, and Elder Correia are training. we ate lunch at the mission office, did a bit of talking, then President took us to the bus station where our companions were waiting, I had some time in the car to talk with President about some problems that my district is having, so that´s good. Then I finally met my new companion... who looked totally lost. His name is Elder Black, and he´s from Blanding, Utah. He´s a pretty big kid, played football and baseball, hunted, and all that good stuff... a typical southern utah person, eh? While we were in the office, Elder Webb gave us a little training meeting about what´s expected of us, and how President expects these new kids to be like after their time with us. So pretty much they told us to become drill sergeants for the next few weeks, if we were perfect before, not it´s not good enough and we have to be better. But, he told me, don´t kill him and make him want to go home, just beat the little kid out of him. Then President came in for a little bit and told us that he was telling the new kids that they´re gonna be trained by the best 3 missionaries that he has available in the mission, or in other words.... don´t screw up.

But yeah, we got a paper helping us to remember what to do, and not to do. So it aint too bad, I havn´t had to change TOO much. We have conference with President this Wednesday, and interviews, so we´ll see what he things about our first week together.

Anyways.... his Portuguese is coming along slowly and surely, I´m having to teach 90% of the lessons we give, not for lack of sharing on my part, but because he gets nervous then just passes it off to me again. Interesting. But I like him, he´s way humble, and it feels like I have two shadows now, except one of them likes to talk English. Haha. If I tell him he´s doing something wrong, he changes on the spot, or if I tell him to do something, he does it, so he´ll be just fine, he doesn´t have any problems with any of the mission rules or routine as far as I can see. So yay. It´s fun taking him around the city, showing him everything, who´s a drug dealer, who likes to bible bash, who we´re teaching, and so on.

It´s kind of hard knowing that 100% of the responsibility for our success rests entirely on my shoulders now, so I´m running around, chasing after miracles trying to get somebody ready to be baptized on the 27... it´s coming along, just a bit slower than I´d like. But it´ll happen.

Some pictures:
1. Elder Steemblik, Elder Bare, me and Elder Margalho in the bus station in Goiania, getting ready to seperate.
2. Me, Elder Barton, Elder Correia, and Elder barton´s novinho
3. Me, during our hike in the hills.

So yeah, I can´t really remember much else of what happened, it was a pretty normal week.... with not too much success, though we do have one kid who accepted the challenge to be baptized on the 27... he just has to stop drinking and smoking, so we´ll work with that. The bishop asked us to give talks next Sunday... haha, so we´ll see how that goes with Elder Black, he´ll do fine. But yeah, other than getting a new companion, not much else happened. kind of a short email due to lack of news. But oh well. Here´s cheering for success this next week.

*There may come a day when the hearts of men fail them, but it is not this day*
-Aragorn

love,
Elder Webber

Training a New Missionary....

O Anapolis, Anapolis, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest the missionaries which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, in the waters of baptism, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

OK...well.... I´m a bit nervous now, I just got here on the computer, and got a call from President... asking if I was well, in what area I´m serving in... and if I like to travel... and íf I´ve talked with Elder Reed yet.....strange. heart beating fast.

The mom of our golden family had some problems, so she went to Brasilia to undergo some surgery, she´ll be back this week hopefully. Cuz without her, nobody ain´t gettn´ baptized in that house. She´s the decider, so we just need to wait for her to come back, and all´s well. But the 7th day Adventist went to church yesterday with one of her sons, the church didn´t have any electricity for the first little bit, so that was lame, but no worries. Afterwards, she had a bunch of questions about baptisms for the dead, and a bunch of other things she learned in the Relief Society, so we spent a bit of time having to clean up the mess that the sisters left cuz they didn´t think to explain anything to her. This ward is burning to the ground, and the only thing saving it is a few exceptional members. However, we did try to mark baptismal dates with them, her son accepted to be baptized on the 27, and she said that she would be able to be baptized on the 20th, but she´s gotta take care of some *problems* at home first, so we´ll have to work a bit with her. And we still have to work with her other son who loves to party, so here goes...

AHHH!!! I just got a phone-call from the Secretary, Elder Reed...... and........ we´re going to Goiania tomorrow morning. Cuz I´m gonna pick up a greenie, I´m gonna be training.....AHHHH!!! And it´s an American, so it´s gonna be ten times harder. My companion is headed off to some new area, and I´m sticking around here.... holy nervous batman. Training and district leader??

Pressure, pushn´ down on me.....

So yeah, we were walking in the central the other day, and I met some pretty sweet natives/hardcore hippies. The cooler one is called Mauro, and they were selling all sorts of jewelry, trinkets, talismans, art (pot smokers), and so on, so I bought a couple things, and I´ll probably go back one of these days to see what else I can score. He said I can take him anything, pen, bottle, knife, shoe, and he´ll turn it into something awesome. So I may look into that too. But either way, the hippies down here are awesome, and they´re talented, fun to talk to, and they don´t stink, so I like them :D

The other day for lunch, we had apple pie for dessert.... let me repeat, we had APPLE PIE. woo!! I called the zone leaders to let them know, and they were quite jealous. It was the first time my companion had eaten apple pie, so he took pictures of it and everything, then the bother who made it invited us back on the 25th, thanksgiving, so we can eat the pumpkin pie that he´s gonna make. Wooo.

In the card I got you asked if I ate crackers for breakfast... nope. I´m trying to keep up on the whole * one piece of fruit per day* thing, so it´s normally an orange, apple, or just biscuits. haha.

I sent a letter home last week with my memory card, hopefully it gets home safe. There´s a few pictures where I thought... * why didn´t i delete this picture? and why did i take it in the first place?* but they´re all special

So yeah, I think that´s about it for now, nothing much happened this week. I´m still a bit frustrated with our lack of success, but it´ll be sure to improve, and I´m sure my next email will be something along the lines of: * AHHHH!!!!! MY GREENIE CAN`T SPEAK PORTUGUESE!!! HELP ME!!!!!*

So yeah. Good luck to me..... and the investigators.

Love you all, miss you all, I loved the pictures, I don´t have any for this week. my bad.

*Smile, would ya? While we still got something to smile about!*
-Sgt. Johnson (Halo 2)

Love, peace and happiness
Elder Webber

Happy Halloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

I met Elder Pattie at church on Sunday morning, and told him happy Halloween... then he got mad, yelled *dangit!* and walked inside.... I think he misses Halloween.

It´s interesting that I was working with trees this week as well, The second counselor asked if I could use my *tree-cutting skills* to pruned the over-grown tree in front of his house. So Thursday morning we went down and I took that sucker out. I would have preferred to cut it into a star, or something cool, but he wanted a cube, so a cube is what he got. And for payment... we got lunch and ice cream, yay :D

The other day we had lunch with what I assumed was roast beef, or something like it, so I ate a bunch, and it was only after that I realized it was cow tongue, it wasn´t too bad, be jealous.

But the other big news for this weekend...... we had another baptism, wooooo.
We finally baptized João Paulo, he was being flaky a bit cuz his teeth were hurting or something, said he needed to go to the dentist and get them removed, so we gave him a blessing and we found out later that they stopped hurting that very same day (after 2 or 3 weeks of pain before) so he got interviewed Saturday afternoon, and his mom was really ticked for some reason ( she normally likes us and talks to us more than he does, but this time she wouldn´t even say hi) as we were leaving though, she started asking questions, and making protests and it seems that some people had been speaking nonsense to her about the church, ugh. oh well. But us 4 missionaries and him went to the church, held his baptism in the freezing water and all is fine and dandy, woooooo! He told us he didn´t want very many people at his baptism.. so that wasn´t too much of a problem :)

Though Sunday I was not a happy camper. not happy at all. It was the end of the elections here so everybody had to go vote, it was raining, nobody went to church, including João Paulo, so he didn´t get confirmed, my companion was complaining and whining all the day long, and all our appointments fell through. I´ve never seen the enemy work so hard in my life than he is here, it seems like SOMETHING always comes up to stop every single one of our investigators from going to church, not cool. But yeah, we closed our numbers, after a week that wasn´t too hot, (except for the baptism of course), didn´t feel like hearing my companion´s voice anymore and just went to bed.
shoo fly, don´t bother me.
And it doesn´t help that he´s always complaining about how he has no money. I have NO IDEA where his money goes, cuz i´m with him 24/7, but he always seems to run out of money then complains that he´s hungry. I don´t know how these brasilians manage to stay alive.

The 7th day Adventist lady is coming along nicely, however, she confessed to us that she´s not paying tithing, that she´s fed up with some things in her church, she´s fed up with her kids, and she´s looking for something to give her direction in her life. So we had a little talk-it-out session with her the other day, and she told us that she really wants to go to our church now and see how it is. sweet.

We´re also teaching a GOLDEN family right across the street from us, it´s funny how all the missionaries before us never bothered to knock on their door. But they all love the messages, and they believe everything we teach them, we watched The Testaments with them the other day, and they told us *totally, it´s all true* they would have gone to church yesterday, but the father of all lies messed up the mom´s leg, and they didn´t go. bummer. They´ve dug in pretty deep into the catholic church too, so we have to tread carefully about what we say, but it´s going.

That whole thing about *panic* has already started. I was walking down the street the other day, and just stopped..... I forgot about everything and thought *I´ve been here for almost 1 year... and what have I done? Where has that year gone? What good have I done? I havn´t done nearly half of what I´ve wanted to do on my mission.... where is that year of work? I don´t remember it;.....* Then it was funny to realize that the last day I had at home was still fresh and vivid in my mind, everything I did that day is crystal clear in my head, it seems like it happened yesterday, but what I did last week is already blurry for me. I´m walking in the flippn twilight zone, the world seems to stop when you´re on the mission, and you just speed ahead, and come home and realize how much the world has changed ( at least, that what it feels like is going to happen, cuz I havn´t come home yet)...
...very curious indeed.

I havn´t received the new shoes yet. But I got some soles from Elder Margalho, from his old shoes, so the holes are slowly getting bigger, but at least my foot isn´t hitting the ground anymore, haha. Yeah, there´s plenty of places to buy new shoes, but I figure I´ll just wait until my america shoes show up. And that pizza place sounds awesome, I´ll definitely have to pay a visit there, especially if it´s run by the guy from Chef´s Table, he´s a jolly guy, so it can´t be too bad.

So yup, there´s not much else to report down here, things are all good and dandy. This week should be better than the last, before I have a mid-life crisis and curl up in a ball in the house. (which probably won´t happen, but it´s still funny to think about, cuz it´s happened to others) We´ll probably just go out for ice-cream or something.

Pictures:
1. Before the massacre begins
2. After, well played sir.
3. João Paulo at his baptism.

anyways
*Oh my old man´s an All-Black
he wears the silver fern,
his old mates couldn´t take him,
so he´s out there for a turn.
La da da da da da da da da....*

Love you all, Miss you all
Elder Webber

Rockin' Along...

Anyways... I keep telling my companion how awesome Halloween is, and that he should be excited that it´s coming up... but I don´t think he quite understands the concept of running around in costumes and free candy... poor kid.

I forgot to mention during my last email that we had a *surprise musical number* during the baptism of Liniker. The bishop announced: * now we´ll have a special musical number by me, Elder Dantas and Elder Webber* hmm.... ok. So we got up there, and he told us * Me and Elder Dantas will sing the first two verses, and elder webber will sing only on the chorus, cuz his voice is so deep, then elder webber will sing the third verse and chorus all by himself... then we´ll all sing the last verse together* hahaha..... right. so that was fun.... first time ever singing in front of an audience... fun stuff. nobody´s head exploded, i guess it wasn´t too bad

So..... Saturday, we had a baptism, wooooo!!! yay. We baptized a lady named Ivani, and it´s only her and her son that live together. It was a miracle how we found her, we were just walking down the street, saw her sitting in her door and said * hmm... let´s teach her* so we did, found out she´s already been to church, so we taught her, and baptized her, haha awesome! her son hasn´t been to church yet, but he´ll go these next few weeks and then we can baptize him as well. sweet. When the hour of her baptism came around, she didn´t show up, so we waited around.... and waited, then finally went to seek her out, in the rain. we found her at home, and she said she didn´t want to get wet....huurrrrrr? so then we told her, *look, we´ll go find an umbrella and we´ll go, ok?* so we searched for one, didn´t find one, and came back, and when we arrived, the rain stopped, so we walked to the chapel, and as soon as we got there the rain started back up again. Miracle. Everybody from our ward was in Goiania for some activity, so it was just us, Elder Pattie, Elder Fralick (his American greenie) and 2 other members, so we held the meeting, all neat and quick, and then there was the FHE activity after, perfect timing, so she got to participate and have fun. Good day.
She had a problem with the word of wisdom while we were teaching her. Cuz we asked her to tell us again what the 5 things are that she can´t eat/drink and this was her response: *no beer, no cigarettes, no drugs... thou shalt not rob... umm...* hahaha, it took us a while to make it clear to her that robbing is bad, but isn´t part of the word of wisdom. haha

Yesterday we got the call about transfers, and nothing has changed in my district, everything is exactly the same, yay! So I guess I´m doing alright cuz president decided to leave me here. And we´re starting to see the fruits of our labors here in our area.Tthis last transfer was complete suffering and hard work, and now we´ll be able to start thrusting in our sickle. woooooo.

We had another good district meeting the other day, the tables were still set up from the ward council the Sunday before, so I stuck them together and gave it a *conference room* feeling, me at the head the other 5 missionaries sitting down on both sides. Sweet. I quite enjoyed it, made it much more comfortable to talk and discuss stuffs. I think I might do it again. Because normally they just set up the chairs in a semi-circle and I sit/stand in the front, not as cool. I like the conference table.

We started teaching a new family yesterday, a mom and her two sons, the two sons are crazy kids who go to rves and party for three days straight to techno music... crazy. Dancing in broad daylight? Not my style. And the mom is a 7th day adventist....dun dun DUN! ROUND ONE! READY... FIGHT!
It actually went pretty good, she told us about some things she thinks are wrong about her church (how they can´t eat pork, how they can be re-baptized if they sin, I partly convinced her about how the sabbath day is Sunday, and not Saturday) so she was really excited to get a Book of Mormon and read and pray. She did the opening prayer for us.... wow.... it was a 10 minute prayer, they certainly like to pray. I had to use some tactics and restrain my companion from starting a bible-bash with her... oh young one... so naíve.

That´s a funny thing though, the reason why the 7th day Adventist church is so strong down here:
in English the bible says: * remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy*
and our days of the week are: *.......friday, saturday, sunday......* so it really depends on your studying and/or crazy level if you end up worshiping on saturday.
but in portuguese the bible says * remember the day of Sabado, to keep it holy*
and the days of the week are: * Sexta Feira, Sabado, Domingo *
so in english it would go like this: *friday, sabbath day, sunday*
so tons of people are converted to the church because Saturday ACTUALLY IS the sabbath day (in name at least) hahaha.

Also I had pizza the other day... chocolate pizza, pizza with banana and cinnamon.. all sorts of pizza. Be jealous. I ate the most out of everyone ( of course ) and I wanted to keep eating but it was late and everyone wanted to leave.... not cool.

Another family we´re teaching is a Mom (Andrea) and her three daughters, 2 are toddlers and the other is 16. She used to live in the US for 5 years, and when she came back she said she hated her *brazilian house* and did everything she could to americanize it... so i feel like I´m back in america whenever I walk into her home... except for the lack of carpet... nobody has carpet down here. Nobody. But she´s so crazy about america that she´s always telling her daughter (right in front of us) * my daughter, just wait for him to finish his mission, marry him, then you can go to america too!!* hahahaha, oh how strange.

It´s also raining like crazy down here, the roads are always rivers, and we always find ourselves prisoners under a small roof somewhere far from home. I took a few videos so you´ll be able to see what it´s like one day. crazy stuff.

anyways... here are some pictures:
1. a view of Anapolis from our area.
2. our baptism
3. Me and my grape juice, and my new Flamengos ( soccer team ) beer mug, haha.


*The tree of liberty needs to be watered, from time to time, with the blood of patriots.*

Love you all, miss you all
Elder Webber

A Solid Week

So thank you :D i love getting packages and letters.

I´m excited for Halloween or *day of the witches* as it´s called down here... even though nobody celebrates it. que bummer.

The baptism here didn´t go according to plan, apparently the kid went to the farmland for the weekend without letting us know... thanks dude. So now we´ll just have 2 baptisms for this weekend. I was getting pretty frustrated during this last week, because everything was falling through, nothing was going according to plan, the members do absolutely nothing to help with the work, and the enemy is working overtime here in this area. It seems like every step we take forward, the enemy whips something up and we end up taking 2 steps back. I related my frustrations to the zone leaders, and they agreed that because of the long history of iniquity in the missionaries in this area, the devil has a lot more power here than he should. And it´s easy to see. The members aren´t too excited to get involved in the work, and it´s difficult to find people who will progress. We´re gonna baptize no matter what, but I was not a happy camper during most of last week.

So now we´re entering the last week of the transfer, and we have 2 people to baptize, and I´m gonna hold onto them with an iron fist, there´s no way I´m letting this transfer, or month, pass by without baptizing. Wow, I´m nervous.

President also paid our zone a surprise visit during this last week. Because the zone took so few people to church last week, he came by to animate us to work harder, and to see what we can do better, or what we can fix, it was pretty short, but I still liked it. Elder Dantas had a little time to speak, and he told President that my lesson during district meeting about *teaching people, not lessons* really helped him to see how he can improve and work more effectively, so it´s good to see that somebody is liking what I´m teaching, haha. Then after, President got a phone call and left for a bit.... when he came back, the dude was ticked. Apparently somebody told him something and what he said to us was something like this:

*Enough, I want you all to know that I sent another missionary home last week, Elder Dos Anjos. This mission is being held back because of the iniquity of a few missionaries. And I tell you now, if you´re breaking mission rules by playing videogames, going to parties, using MSN, flirting with girls, or anything, YOU WILL GO HOME. I don´t want you here because you´re ruining my mission. If you receive a phone-call saying *come to the mission office with your bags* you can be sure that your plane ticket has already been bought. Like it says in D&C 1 *Wickedness will be revealed* I will find out, one way or another, what you are doing wrong. There are some missionaries here in this zone who are still here just because of mercy, but from now on, if I find out that anybody is messing with these kinds of thing, you´re going straight home, you wont even have time to explain your actions*

wow.
so that was fun.

Anyways, I went to Industrial on Friday to interview a lady who was supposed to be baptized... it´s a one hour bus-ride away. I sent Elder Dantas and Elder Margalho to my area to work while I was there. But the lady wasn´t home... all day long. She disappeared. But they have a boy named Linkier who they´ve been teaching for the last 3 months or so, the kid wants to be baptized, it´s just that his dad is a raging alcoholic and would never give his authorization for the baptism... after hundreds of lessons, and pleading and so on.... the missionaries have already given up on persuading him. So when the lady wasn´t home to be interviewed, I asked to pass by this kid´s house and talk to his dad. So I met him, made friends, talked a bit. Got to know him, then left a little message, and after a little bit of technique I managed to get his signature. Needless to say, I was pretty happy, and Elder Dantas was blown away that I managed to do in 20 minutes what he couldn´t do in 2 transfers. So we planned the baptism for the following week, and I went back to my area planning to interview the other lady the next day.
So I went back the next day, after lunch, and the lady still was not home. So instead, we passed by Liniker´s house, and asked if he wanted to be baptized that day, cuz the font was already full. He said yes, and he got baptized, yay! That´s the first baptism that area has had since February. wooo!

The other day it started raining as we were walking about, and it was angry rain. We found shelter under a little awning-thing and waited for it to pass so we could go home. Except the rain kept coming, and the river in the street kept growing, and we didn´t have much room to negotiate with. so we had to keep shuffling to the side under the little roof to keep from getting our feet drenched in the slowly growing lake. fun stuff. We finally decided to make a break for it, and ran home. Once home, we got a phonecall from president (I was more nervous than usual to answer, especially after the last conference, haha) But he just asked how the district was, if my companion was alive, how wet we got, and then he told me that he needs me to be a leader in the mission, that I need to help my district with whatever problems they may have, that I need to be the solution for him. Cool.

The other day we were walking home again, at night, just us two. And we walked by a house, and the sound of drums and soft mumbling/singing kept growing louder as we approached, when we finally passed in front, we stole a peek through the open window.. and what did we see? A bunch of people in white standing in a circle around a table with a bunch of statues of Macumba (voodoo) spirits. Beating drums, singing, and doing chants of some sort. They had a bunch of candles, and it was pretty darn creepy, Elder Margalho got spooked and ran off and I followed after. These people are weird. But I´ve heard quite a bit of stories about Macumba, spiritualism, and voodoo down here, and what some people have done, and its some pretty freaky stuff. Like now I know that if I see a pile of severed chicken heads in front of somebody´s door...Ii don´t want to enter that house in the near future. But we´re not out late enough to see most of the other freaky stuff they do, so that´s good. I really don´t know if any of it´s true, or actually works, but I´m not stupid enough to go and find out.

Do not worry, I am a benevolent leader, I try to lead by example and be loving when I can. I don´t get angry, I just let them know I´m disappointed when I have to. I really only have to talk forcefully with Elder Cruz, cuz he´s just full of problems, but even then, I need to be friends *lest he should take me to be his enemy*

But yeah, that´s a bout it I think, some good things, some bad things, some weird things. We finally had a ward council last Sunday, with the new bishop, nothing got resolved (as usual) but I did let everybody know that we´re here to work and we expect to help and be helped in the the ward´s mission *plan*. Because this ward is slowly dwindling away to nothing. Sad story batman.

Anyways,

*Sister Webber, are there cookies in this cookie jar?*
*Yes Austin, there are Oreos*
*Well.......can I have one?*

I love you, Miss you.
Elder Webber

My life be like ooh--aah.....

So last night while we were closing our numbers for the week, I got a call from the zone leaders, and they did a conference with us three district leaders. Apparently president wasn´t too pleased with our results of taking people to church, our numbers were....low. So after they got barbecued, they called us and burned us alive, then sent us off to fry our districts. So that was fun.... I´ve never actually had to burn somebody so bad before. I called Industrial first, and asked a bunch of questions, told them to repent and try harder (something along those lines). They live in a house with another companionship, and I could hear the other missionary in the background giving excuses to his district leader as well, haha. Then I had to call Morumbi... and I had to step up the fire-throwing, otherwise he won´t do anything, first he was joking, then he got angry, then he got all depressed about how he´s a bad missionary, what a mess. So pretty much, I got a 2nd degree burning last night and my district got a 2 1/2 degree burning, I´ve never had to speak with such righteous fury to other missionaries before.
And apparently, yesterday was a day of fire all day long, cuz the Stake President came to our ward, he called a new Bishop, and called the ward to repentance because they weren´t supporting the former bishop, then burned them for not going to conference, then again for being lax in going to church, yay finally someone smacks around these members to wake them up, then during the last hour of church, we all had one class together and he continued his fire-show.
but yeah... that was fun.
And when the zone leaders called again this morning, they said they really didn´t want to include me in the burning, cuz they know I´m doing the best I can here, but it needed to be done, and I needed to burn my district, so I felt pretty good about that :D

And I lost the competition between me and the zone leaders, we had a deal to see who could mark more dates, take more people to church, and make more contacts in the street. It was pretty close, but we only talked to 200 people, and they talked to 238, blast. So now I have to take them to an all-you-can-eat pizzaria. I´m gonna eat too, of course, but I have to pay. But the pizza there is sweeeeeeet! (not amazing deep-dish amearican pizza, you have to eat here with knife and fork) but have you ever eaten ice-cream pizza? Banana pizza with cinnamon? i think NOT!

Also, there´s a pretty cheap ice cream shop here, called Nectar, and you serve yourself and they weigh it after, charging by the kilo, it´s about 11 Reais per kilo, pretty darn spiffy, so we´ve eaten there a few times already.

We made pancakes this morning. (Well *I* made pancakes with the Western Family pancake mix that was in our fridge when we got here, and i instructed Elder Margalho on how to make maple syrup, cuz we snagged a bit from a member who somehow had maple extract for some reason) He wouldn´t stop crying about making pancakes, sheesh, sometimes i feel like his mother, this kid is just rediculous sometimes, he doesn´t know how to use his money, or keep the house clean, sheesh.
Anyways, it´s funny, maple is FAMOUS down here, cuz nobody has it and hardly anybody has eaten it, but they always see it in the movies and the americans are always talking about how awesome it is. so if anybody has some, and knows and american who knows how to make it.... they wont leave you alone. So we had pancakes and maple syrup this morning... I´m so good.

Ah, but Saturday was pretty awesome as well. Angela ( the lady I baptized in Anapolis) and Gledson were getting married and invited me to be a witness. So we went up there early in the morning, the lady read some paper all fast-like, and then everybody who was involved signed their names and we went to the park after to eat ice cream and celebrate, yay. So that was pretty sweet. Pictures are included below.
Then later at night, me and Elder Margalho were watching the moon, cuz it looked pretty cool, then we saw a shooting star fly allllll the way across the sky, it was HUGE and lasted forever. That was awesome, The second one i´ve seen, and here in the same city, haha. i was happy.

We have a baptism closed for this weekend, yay! his name is João Paulo, he has one lazy eye, and he works as a rodeo-bull rider, so he´s pretty neat-o. He´s crazy to go to texas and wield a 6-shot and ride bulls in the huge stadiums filled with people. I always feel like he´s talking to the wall whenever he´s *looking* at me and saying something. but yay, baptism!!

Thank you for the excerpt from the blog, that was awesome to read, I liked it, and certainly helps. It seems like everybody is getting all cyber-savvy since I´ve been gone.

I´m TOTALLY not feeling the Halloween spirit from anybody here, how sad, they know what it is, but nobody celebrates it... i think i´ll just be a missionary this year.....

Pictures:
1. Us at the wedding, Angela and Gledson sitting down, me and Elder Pattie being witnesses. Laisa was a witness too, but she was busy taking all the pictures.... and she took a butt-load.
2. Me signing the paper saying I was really there and saw it all happen.
3. Yay, chillin in the park
4. More chillin in the park.

I finally gave my first district-meeting training this last week, me and Elder Bare did ours together. So we had motivate our district to help the mission reach the 120 baptism goal that president has set for us. So that was fun. Not as hard as I was thinking it would be.

Anyways, I think that´s about it for this week. I´ll have a baptism to write about next time, as well as about our pizza-night, wooo!

I love you all, miss you all

Love,
Elder Webber

An Update....

So this week I went to the area Murombi to do a division with Elder Stoddard, and Elder Cruz came to my area. They were needing a bit of help. So while I was there I observed how Elder Stoddard works and all that, fun stuff, it´s amazing how much attention you DON`T need to pay while being ´junior´ for a day. haha. But I gave him some feedback on what he did good and what he can do better to improve, and so on. Also, Elder Cruz had marked with a pastor to visit his church if he´ll visit ours... so that night we went to this tent/pavillion thing and watched a pastor give a sermon, it wasn´t too bad, I probably would have liked to stay longer, except we had another appointment. There was only 1 or 2 apostasies that I can remember, but not too bad. He spoke alot about improving our family relationships. good stuff.

Then the day after, during district meeting, the zone leaders, me, and elder cruz and elder stoddard had a meeting, cuz I told the zone leaders that we need a bit more *fire* in that companionship, so we talked about they problems they´re having, and how to resolve them, and now it seems like they´re doing pretty well. They don´t really like each other, so we told them: *You two WILL stay together until the end of your mission if you don´t learn to work together* I think that filled them both with enough fear to get out there and work harder, haha.

The rainy season has come... sheesh, and it´s angry. the plastic bag in my briefcase didn´t protect my stuff very well, so i had to dry it all out, bummer. and every night there´s a symphony of lightning directly above our house, fun stuff. While i was on divisions the power cut to our house, so that was interesting, and pretty darn scary in that part of town. So now, not only is it hot, but it´s humid and wet, everything has the smell of wetness... ugh. Not like the cool everything-is-wet new zealand smell... but a gross wet smell.

We met a guy named Jorge the other day. We were walking home about 9:15, and he stopped us to talk to us. I didn´t smell any alcohol, so I´m not sure why he was so weird, but this is what happened:
*Ah! missionaries! I´m not worthy to be in your presence! Come here and let me talk to you!! You´re church is the best church I´ve ever been to, it was so nice to me, I´m a gunfighter for hire, did you know that? I´m from up north, and I´ve already killed 7 people, I earned lots of money for it too, I´ve got over 4 million Reais in the bank, I´ve got money in the bank, I´ve got money in the bank, I´ve got money in the bank, this lady right *here* she´s the next on my list, I´ll get 5 thousand reais for it. will you help me change my life? I need help. you will? ok, take my hand.... you two promise to change my life..... or I´ll kill you. Do you know what it is to die? when your heart stops beating!!*

Yeah. so we made a deal with him to change his life.... so OF COURSE we went back to his house to teach him, haha. He wasn´t so weird the next day, a little bit frustrating to teach him, but he´s a funny guy, and he´ll go to church, yay. livin´ on the edge!
oh Jorge

Also, This morning we taught Roney and his wife the second lesson, we had to remark their baptism to the 23rd, that was easy, but we found out that Roney smokes.... bummer, so we´ll have to beat him over the head with the word of wisdom soon.

Conference was pretty fun, the fist session we got to hear in English, but then problems arose and we lost that privilege, so we had to watch it in Portuguese, which wasn´t too bad, none of the jokes make it through the translation though, darn. but either way it was still good, feels like Christmas every time conference rolls around for us missionaries, 2 days of just chillin listening to the prophet, good stuff.

Ah, I have a story from the leadership conference. One of the nights we were back at the house, me and two other Brazilians. So the question we asked was: why are we here? We know everything is true... we just don´t know when we got that testimony. One of the things we talked about was: do you get offended when someone rejects the gospel, or talks bad about it? And the answer was yes, of course. It was kind of interesting to think about it. That in a place like Orem where everybody has that light, doesn´t give to see yours, but here where everybody is carnal and fallen and dark, your testimony gets a chance to shine.

Hmm... well I think that´s about all the news for this week, Glad to hear that everybody enjoyed conference, and that the rugby team is doing well... even though the football team is an embarrassment. Honestly. I hope everything is well.

Love you all, miss you all.
Elder Webber

Truckn' along...

Also, I accept the new shoes, they look pretty dang comfy to me, so here's my new address:

Rua A
Q: 1 L: 4 Casa 2
Frei Eustaquio
Anapolis-Go
75044-065

So this week I spent spent most of my time in Goiania for the leadership conference. Apparently they've changed how the missionaries are gonna be taught to teach. There's a new 8 lessons to teach them to be better missionaries, so we spent 4 days learning and practicing, and implementing. The day would start at 8 in the morning and go until 6 at night, and we'd learn 2 lessons per day. We ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the chapel with president, and the last few hours were used practicing what we learned in a real area with real people..... so pretty much...... this week rocked. It was such a fountain of knowledge I couldn't write it all down fast enough, and itś hard to apply it all to my teaching at once. But it was pretty dang awesome, all the leaders from the mission were there, so good times, good times. An Elder Pimentel was there, and he sounds just like Gerard Butler (if thats possible) so i took a video of him saying *THIS IS SPARTA!!* and i'll treasure it forever, haha.

Needless to say my teaching has improved, and for the next 8 weeks we'll be teaching our districts the same lesson, one every district meeting, which is the hardest part of the whole thing.

But the better news is that when I got back the miracles started to appear. Apparently my companion found a lady who had a dream about a baptismal font the day before, so we're starting to teach her, and then we taught two brother's and their wives and all 4 accepted the invite to be baptized, so now we have 5 people with dates, we just have to get them in the water now... and not screw up :) woooo!!

Saturday night the stake had an activity about the plan of salvation, every room in the chapel was a different step in the plan (including a plane where everybody crashes and dies) I was put at the judgment part, so I judged everybody and told them they were all sinners and to go to the telestial kingdom, I quite enjoyed it. And after it was all done, the people that got to help got to go sit in the air plane room and die, since we missed out on it during the actual activity.... so that was fun :)

And yes.... it is HOOOOOT here. They've only got 2 seasons here: the Hot and rainy season, and the not-so-hot and dry season. We're leaving the dry season now and entering the rainy season..... just that there's a lack of rain so far... so it's just really flippn' hot. No fun batman.

I guess I must be doing something right, cuz my district is slowly but surely improving, one companionship is working pretty darn hard, and should baptize soon in an area that hasn't seen baptisms for a looong time. But the other, still is a sad situation, so I'm doing a division with them tomorrow, to try and see if I can fix things up a little bit, I'm leaving the area in the hands of my companion and a slacker for a day... so hopefully my comp will be able to stay in charge and show him how things are to be done.... i don't want to come back and see fire and ashes.

I'm including a few photos:
1. This is a fruit called Jaca.... itś huge, and it grows in trees... so if it fell on you, you would die. We lugged this thing all the way back home after lunch.
2. This is Elder P. Santos performing surgery on the Jaca
3. This is the inside of the Jaca.... it doesn't taste too bad... though it feels like you're eating a lougie.
4. This is Elder Martin, Elder Barton, Me, and Elder Bare at the leadership conference. This is our gang. Pretty much every breakfast was a battle for the corn-flakes and crackers. and every dinner was a battle for the Guaraná. It was us four hanging out most of the time. Along with Elder Pimentel, because he reminded us of 300.

Also, I thought you might like to know, that there was a lan-house up the street from where we live, and the other day it got turned into a church... funny eh?

Well my time is up, so I better get going.
*wow, this path is massively narrow.... what if somebody fell?*

I love you all, miss you all,
Elder Webber

Look at those Shoes!

So, yeah.

This week has been pretty darn gruelling. When we got here, I took a look through the area book.....completely empty of anybody worth teaching, so we´ve spent the whole week walking and talking. Making contacts, teaching lessons in the street, and trying to find anybody who will progress, it´s a pain in the butt but we have no other choice. The elders that were here before us were idiots, so we have to start from square one. And they´re still in my district so I have to keep trying to animate them to work harder/better. Being the district leader isn´t too hard, it´s good that I got practice at it with elder Casey. I find it hard to sleep at night cuz i´m busy thinking about the companionships in my district and what I can do better to help them. The zone leaders here are pretty darn awesome, they were here when I left so they were pretty darn happy to receive their *prodigal missionary* back, haha. Especially since I learned a bit more about what has been going on while I´ve been away.

Apparently the district leaders here before me were doing all sorts of nonsense, doing mischief, breaking rules, and just being idiots. So President came in with fire and brimstone, but things still didn´t improve well enough, so they got beheaded, a bunch of missionaries got taken out and seperated to the far parts of the mission, and we got brought in to call repentance and make sure the rules are followed.

Yup, I come back home completely wasted each night, cuz we spend most of the day walking and talking trying to find people to teach, and not enough time teaching. Though our pool of investigators is slowly growing. We have a few people who COULD be baptized during this transfer, but it´ll take a lot of faith to get them there, and we always need a plan b, c, d, e, f and g. So that´s a bit frustrating. But not nearly as frustrating as getting a phone call at the end of the day from you district and hearing that they did nothing all day....*sigh* . But it´ll all come together... I just gotta get a district meeting with them.... which wont happen until next week. Cuz today I´m gonna be going to Goiania with the other leaders for some kind of surprise training/conference, And we´ll be there until Friday.... aaaargh! I´m losing a whole week of work! Who knows what we could get done in that time? I did manage to negotiate with the other district leaders over the phone about all our companions working together, and they´ll spend two days here and one day in the other two areas, so it aint too bad.

Elder Margalho aint too bad, I think he´s a bit offended that he´s my junior companion, but that hasn't caused any problems. I´m the decider, and he has the desire to work, so I don´t have to do any motivating or give any pep-talks to my own companionship at least. Being the senior has given me some opportunities to tell him about my opinion about some things on the mission, and how I think things should be done... and I surprised myself by how much I know. I´ve never had to teach anybody about these things before, but it´s all just become second nature: how to teach, what/how to study, the best way to get people to listen to you, and so on, I denounced the study of *profound doctrine* pretty hard the other day too, I gave it the good ol´ back-hand of common sense. but yup, he ain´t too shabby. I made it clear to him, on no uncertain terms, that I expect him to work hard and be an example to the other missionaries, Cuz the example of the district leader aint worth much if his own companion is a slacker.

Lets see... lets see... I don´t have that many stories to tell.... cuz we don´t have many investigators yet. Suffice it to say that:

we´ve become pretty adept at predicting what a person will say to our contact pretty far in advance.
Elder Margalho set off the alarm at a house we were knocking at... we made a quick escape
we´ve found an icecream shop that is way cheap, so.... yay!! icecream the other day!
I´ve got a few calls from Elder Pattie, and when I answered, it was people from the Anapolis ward, so I had a great time talking with them for a few minutes.
Ah, and yesterday when I went to church I saw most of my old friends from the Anapolis ward, ahhhh, that was awesome. Elder Pattie certainly wasn´t exaggerating when he said that I was famous there. haha, and the companion that he´s training (elder P. Santos) told me that the whole time he´s been there the only thing he´s heard about has been *Elder Webber* haha. Especially when they´re eating lunch, cuz I guess they don´t eat very much, so when I met the families at church, all the women of the ward asked me to come back and eat the lunches they make, hahaha. Awesome Sunday. A few of the young women almost tackled me before they remembered that they´re not allowed to hug a missionary, haha. Either way, I was so happy to see everybody again.
I don´t want to brag but.. I happened to overhear some women talking in the hall, some from Maracana, and some from Anapolis: and this is what I heard:
You´re so lucky to have a great missionary in your ward, he did an amazing job while he was here with us
yeah, it´s been so long since our ward has had a good missionary, I hope so
well if you dont want him, we´ll take him back

more or less that was what was said.
:D

hmm... There´s no sandwich maker in the house here... which is sad... but we have sofas! So all is not lost :D And we found a dead tarantula in front of our door this morning... so that was interesting. it was *dying* to kill us... bwak bwak bwak! (sorry, mom-joke) haha

I´ve included the pictures of my shoes, I dunno if they require a real photo, or if sending it over the internet will work. I hope it does, and I hope it´s enough to get me a new pair. fingers crossed.

Anyways. that´s about it for now I think, keep on working hard. and I´m gonna finish eating the sweedish fish today... they taste like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness....mmmmmmm
I love ya´ll, miss ya´ll

*I´m a moose in a tree-house, eatin´ cookies, dancin´ round the cookie jar*

Love,
Elder Webber

A GREAT Week!

Holy smokes, lots of news batman! I´ve got quite a bit to write about, so we´ll see if I can fit it all in.

First off....... 2 baptisms last Saturday, WOOOO!!!!! on the last possible day of the transfer to baptize we finally managed it. We baptized a Renan, he´s studying at a University in Uberaba, he studied for 5 years to be a pastor before he came to know the church, and now he´s planning to study at BYU, he´s a pretty smart dude. And we baptized a Nayara. She´s the daughter of a family we found by accident, we were looking for a house on a certain road, and it was only later that we found out we were on completely different road. She´s the only one who went two church twice, so only she could be baptized, her brother said that he´d go on Sunday and then I can baptize him ( cuz they felt bad that they both chose me to baptize them, so Nayara let Elder Xavier baptize her, and Michael chose me) SO YAY!!!
And then on Sunday, Renan and Nayara got confirmed, and Nayara wanted me to confirm her... so that was a first for me. I don´t even remember what I said... but it wasn´t too bad I don´t think, very spur-of-the-moment. But I liked it, I know how to do it better next time now. haha.
But then... Sunday as also when we found out about the transfers... I was on divisions with a guy from the ward at the time Elder Xavier got the phone-call, we were visiting all the people on the ward list to see if they´ve moved, died, or just don´t want to go to church anymore, so I didn´t find out until later.......but.......... when I found out.......
.....
....
.....
I got transferred to.......guess where..........think.........ponder..........
.......
.

.
.
.
.
.
.
......
.......
......
......
Anápolis.

hahahahahahahaha, yeah, you heard right. I´m back in Anápolis right now, in the area Maracanã, which is RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the Anápolis ward, just on a different hill, I can see all the houses i visited and everything, haha. But here´s the more important part:
I´m District Leader.
Yeah, So it´s my first time being senior and district leader, and my companion has more time than me on the mission.... no pressure eh?
So I spent my preparation day on the bus yesterday ( that´s why i´m writing today) and met president in Goiânia, and he said a few things.... heaped on the pressure, and sent me on my way. haha. Apparently, after I left, the zone here has been having some problems with obedience, diligence and a few other things... nothing like it´s former glory. So President burned a few people, sent them away to other areas and outer darkness, brought in two new district leaders, and told us to change things. Bottoms up.

Going back to Uberaba for a bit, after I found out that I got transferred, there were only two families I wanted to visit: The family of Nayara, and the bishop. After I told Nayara´s family that I was getting transferred, Michael got the most depressed look on his face, so I tried to cheer him up by teaching him more magic, but when I finally left the house the whole family was crying, even the parents who aren´t even baptized yet and only went to church one time, Michael couldn´t even speak properly cuz he was all choked up, poor kid... he really was excited to have me baptize him.
Then we passed by the bishop, which was a little easier. The whole time I was there, he kept asking me about Halo: ODST, cuz he had bought it a few weeks ago, and he was always asking me for help, or hints, and now he´s completely addicted to it, he says. He tells me his kids wont even touch the lego games anymore cuz they want to play with him when he plays Halo, hahaha. So he wanted to get as much help from me as possible before I left.

I´m gonna miss my area, even though I only had 4 weeks there, I came to love the people, especially the bishop. Not gonna miss my companion, but I´m grateful for the experience and the things I learned, just hope it´s enough to prepare me for what is to come.

So yeah, now I have control not only over what my companionship does.... but over an entire district. I believe a quote from Pirates of the Caribbean is appropriate:
*I didn´t ask for this, but it would chase a lie to say it wasn´t what I wanted*

I guess I´ll find out if I´m really prepared for this now eh? Here goes. I leave the city as a junior, and return after a transfer as the new district leader... when I met the zone leaders in the bus station I asked them how things are here:

*they´re.....going, Elder.....but they´ll get better, I´ll call you tonight to give you the details*
me: *of course it will, at least I´m not gonna leave this place any worse*
*No, you´re here to fix what´s been going on, this city needs you*

Ah, and I got two packages, the first one was filled with candy, candy, and more candy, with the Brazil pin and pen, yay Swedish fish. And the other one with the star charts and books, I´ve looked through it all, and I´m digging the Stikky book, sweet stuff. So thank you for the packages!!! and thank you Mariah for the notes you write too :D
Good times, good times.

My new companion is Elder Margalho, he´s got just a bit more than a year on the mission, and so far he ain't too bad.. but we´ve only got one day together, but I think we´ll be just fine. I´ll work on getting the address of our new home and send it to you, cuz I think I´ll be sticking around here for a while, at least six weeks eh? haha

hmm... well I think that´s about all the news that I have.... I went on divisions with the district leaders in Uberaba last week....so that was fun, before transfers came at me like a train hell-bent for my destruction. haha. Hopefully I didn´t cause too much panic by not writing home yesterday, haha. I slept at the house of the secretaries last night in Goiania before finishing my voyage this morning, and Elder Barton was there, he´s from my group in the MTC, and he just turned district leader as well. So we had some catching up to do, and talked about what might be in store for us, and just how AWESOME our district is and how we´re gonna rock this mission together.

Well that´s about it I think, I´ve got some work to do cuz our Area Book is almost completely empty....makes me wonder what the Elders here before me were doing with their time... slackers. how embarrassing.

So, wish me luck, pray that we´ll baptize.
I love you all, miss you all.
Make righteous decisions

*Violence and Technology: NOT good bedfellows!*
Love,
Elder Webber

More Updates...

So yeah, things are plodding along here. This is the last week of the transfer, so we´ll see how things are shaken up next week eh?

I did get the package you sent to the other house, the sisters brought me a slip saying it was waiting at the post office, so I sent another elder to go pick it up for me. YAY! so I have the missionary quote book, the how to be a gentleman book, the weird spinning stick thing, the oil container, and the bar of chocolate..WOO!!! well... I don´t have the chocolate anymore, I ate it all by myself on the bus headed to Uberlandia....best bus-ride ever. So thank you, thank you again for the package.

The other preparation day all the missionaries here went to the church to hang out and eat and play games. Me, Elder Smith, Elder Erickson, and some other Brazilian kid sat down to play War (it´s pretty much just Risk, but with missiles, and less rules) and guess who won?? two times in a row even. ME!! woooo! So I´m pretty much the champion of risk around these parts.

Anyways, last week we had a conference with Elder Godoy, which was way fun. He reminded me of Mr. Bean. So we spent two days up there, ate ice cream :D and then headed back, I dunno what it is but I seem to take notes about everything these days. It´s a good habit, but I don´t remember when it started.

So yesterday was fast Sunday, I dunno if I mentioned this before, but when we fast down here, it starts after lunch on Saturday, until lunch on Sunday. And it is the most suffering experience ever. All the heat and no food does not make for a happy time. Especially when you´re the only one in the companionship fasting.... and your companion asks to borrow money so he can drink guaraná in your face.....sheesh. yeah, it´s hard.

I dunno how they manage it though, we receive around 105 Reais every 2 or so weeks, and yet there´s still missionaries (my companion included) who end up with nothing at the end of the two weeks. How is that possible? My problem is not being able to spend the money fast enough, so I have a reserve fund slowly growing at home. Some people need to learn how to manage their monies better. So young, so naive

Haha, one thing that´s funny though, is that EVERYONE here thinks that the USA is just a frozen wasteland. *You´re from America right? wow, America is a really cold place, always has snow all year, right?* So I have to remind them that Florida and Arizona make part of the US of A.
Stop watching your soap operas and watch the discovery channel! haha, cuz really, everybody and their dog here is completely addicted to the soap operas here, every house we pass by we can hear the music for them, or the announcements of them ending or starting. how sad....all day every day they just sit around watching soap operas....

The other day we were walking down the street, and a car pulled up next to us. The guy inside leaned out the window and asked to shake our hands. So we did, and he just kept saying *thank you, thank you, for all you do, thank you for your work....* and so on. He didn´t mention anything specific, just that we were great people, and he´s so thankful that his city has people like us here. I´ve never seen him before, and he wasn´t a member. But he held onto my hand for quite a while, then finally drove off again... so I felt pretty good afterwards.

Yesterday after church we went to help the members visit all the inactive, and less-active members and give them invitations to the ward conference coming up. So we went on divisions, I went with a kid named Carlo. That kid is pretty darn cool, we didn´t have many people to visit, so we just did contacts in the street and talked. His family is leaving this month to Miami, and then to Italy after a while. So he´s gonna have to learn English while he´s there, and then Spanish cuz he´s studying it in school there, and then Italian.... good luck to him. haha. His Dad also looks exactly like James Bond, except just a little bit fatter. So that was a pretty fun time, to work with a younger kid and do some missionary work, he gave me his email, and I gave him my xbox live name so we can keep in contact after the mission.

Congratulations to Josh on making the BYU team. Pretty darn sweet. Those were good times, along with going to the BYU football games... man I miss those. So BYU is going it alone next year eh? And Utah is going to the Pac-10 I hear, things are shaking up quite a bit.

It´s funny though, I´ve written longer journal entries during my time with Elder Xavier, than I did during the transfers when I was having fun... and it´s cuz all my entries here are filled with thoughts, self-discovery moments, and times when I just sat down to think and wrote down all the new things I´d found out about myself, who I want to be, and what I want to do....it was interesting to read back through those. Definitely not a fun time... but I certainly learned a lot about myself.

So that´s about it for this week, I´ve eaten quite a bit of top ramen these last few days. I guess the last missionaries here didn´t do a good job of making friends with the members, cuz they´re always *forgetting* about lunch, so we have to eat at home... but I´m buying a lot more fruit and milk these days to stay healthy, so no worries. (and I´m wise with my money, so I can actually buy the food I need) And the last time I checked I weigh 89.9 kilos... I dunno how many pounds that is, I just know it´s less than I was before. :P

I love you all, Miss you all
Thank you for all the advice and news and everything

Love you, miss you, Thinking about ya´ll (not too much though, that would be bad)

Welcome to our Family Time
Welcome to our Happy-to-be time
This is our festival
Y'know the best of all?
You´re here to share it all!
-Brother Bear, and Disneyland-opening song

A GREAT week.

So the conference went pretty good, always fun to hang around with president and the assistants. I don´t know why, but I just love being around them, just sitting and listening to them just feels....good. President calls all the missionaries *child* or *son*, and he´s a pretty happy guy.... though we found out he´s already sent home 2 missionaries... so he´s not here to mess around. haha.

It´s always a bummer to have to head back to your house after the conference, being with all the missionaries, president and the assistants, it´s just....awesome. I took a bunch of notes, and he took us all out to lunch, of COURSE I ate the most. It was at a buffet and they ran out of pineapple....what a crime. On the walk there and back I spent most of the time talking with Elder Kevern, one of the assistants. And....wow....he´s pretty much the most hardcore kid I´ve ever met, he served in the Army Special Forces before he came on the mission, so he has pictures of himself blowing up buildings in Afganistan and all that... crazy stuff. Fun guy to talk to.
My interview went pretty good. It was way different than the interviews with Pres. Tobias, he didn´t ask so many questions, and just looked over the weekly letters, but eventually we were able to talk and I explained my frustrations and all that kind of thing. And then he told me that many times the last few weeks he´s looked over the pictures of all the missionaries, and been drawn back to mine repeatedly and recognized that I have something, I have potential. So I left that meeting pretty happy. As I was leaving, Sister Prieto told me to go back in....so I obeyed... and she asked me if I had had a birthday in july, I replied yes, and she gave me a little statue and a note for a birthday present, haha, oh yeah :D so that was pretty sweet.

The day before the conference, we got a call that the assistants wanted to do divisions in our area, so I spent most of the day with Elder Webb.... so a lot of people were confused about that fact that we have almost exactly the same name. But that was pretty darn fun as well, learned a lot. Most of our appointments fell though, so I just had to keep doing contacts and finding alternate plans, and that's when he told me *The difference between an excellent missionary, and the others, is what he does on the days that everything falls though, ya done good today* Among other things as well :D We then ate ice-cream and we parted ways.

I´ve been watching Venus move through the sky the last few weeks/months, and wow that thing moves fast... compared to everything else.

Haha, so I´m gonna have 3 packages headed my way from 3 different cities eh? haha awesome, we´ll see which one gets to me first, but thank you for sending another :D It´s always great to get something, even just letters, from home. Speaking of which... I´ve been looking for a new journal the last few days, don´t panic, I still have pages left in the one I´m using now, but I´ll have to find another sometime in the future. There´s some stores in Centro that I still have to check out. so yeah.

One thing that´s new these days....Communist adds on the TV. It´s election season down here in Brasil, and apparently the communist party is a tad more popular here than it is back home, so it´s kind of strange to see communist candidates running adds on tv, and campaign workers waving communist flags in the street. Kind of fun I must say. Also, there´s bats outside our house, every-time we return home at night there´s a bunch of bats circling above our heads.
And speaking of night....there´s a hair salon across the street from our house that only opens at around 7:00 pm... and stays open until 5;00 in the morning...and it´s where all the street-rats and riff-raff hang out all night long... cutting hair, playing videogames, blasting music and revving their car engines... not fun.

I´ve included a few pictures:
1. Us walking back from lunch.

2. They have cookies here with images from Cartoon Network! woo!! they come with stickers too, so I´ve bought quite a few of them, hahaha

3. This would be a truck, a car, and a horse-drawn cart parked outside of the mall. I´ve gotten used to horses and carts a looong time ago, but i just thought this was funny.

4. The sign above our toilet... just in case any of you forgot how to pee. hahahaha, the 4th point says: don´t pee on the ground. Don´t forget that, very important. :D


Anyways, thank you very much for the advice and the insights you write every week, it certainly helps.
We have a conference this week with President Dodoy(?) the first counselor in the area presidency, so that should be fun, we´ll have to catch a bus to Uberlandia, yay roadtrip!!

For the last time: we did NOT order a giant trampoline!!
I love you, miss you
Elder Webber