An Update....

Hey hey, I definitely agree about the ´return on investment´thing, kind of like you have to spend blessings to get blessings. Or something like that.

We had 3 baptisms this week. a dad, mom and a son, hopefully the daughter will be baptized this next week. So that was pretty fun. The president has told us to make a goal of how many baptisms we want to achieve by the end of our mission, and since I've been here long enough to see how things are, I set a goal of 100. I dunno if i should keep you updated on how my goal is going through my whole mission in case Josh, Zach or Ben get sent to Saudi Arabia or something and feel like they´re not as awesome as me, bahahaha.

It´s obvious the cops here love their jobs, the´re all military police, in tan, and at least twice already I´ve seen cop cars and SUVs come skidding around the corner in front of us as we´re walking and go off-roading on the sidewalk.

I´ve never head the phrase "eat more elder! eat more!" in my life, I feel like I´m gonna explode after every lunch, but since it´s mostly rice I always feel hungry again by the time we get back. But I did have pizza and french fries the other day!! YES!!

It´s funny how many people here are trying to learn English, a lot of the investigators as me to speak English with them whenever I come around so that they can practice, which really doesn´t help me, haha, but it´s fun. I´m just glad I don´t have to learn it.

The weather here is the most bi-polar I´ve ever seen in my life, we will walk to an appointment and it´ll be a million degrees, and after we come out there will be pouring rain for about a half hour until the sun tries to kill us again. Also, since there´s like a ´church´ on every corner (some of them are just peoples homes with a microphone) we get to hear all sorts of crazy things, people trying to cast out demons every other day by screaming at them, people screaming at the congregation, people screaming at the potted fern, people screaming hallelujah, and such things. pretty fun stuff.

I also had the cheese bread thing, like they have at tucanos, except here they´re way bigger, but taste the same. The people here apparently like their food really dry, cuz I haven´t seen or used any kind of sauce or dressing since I got here. they do have some kind of yellow powder you can pour on it.....yeah.

I´m also gonna be a pro bus-rider by the time I get home. Just thought that would be a fun fact.

Something else that´s fun to deal with is a lot of the people just say "sorry, I´m catholic" even though everybody knows they´re not, and after a minute or two you can convince them to be baptized. Pretty interesting. :)
I´m trying to remember as many details as i can, and i´m taking plenty of pictures, and the last bunch were totally in focus! what are you talking about?

My apartment is actually pretty nice ( compared to my last place, the toilet doesn´t flush so we have to use a bucket of water every time. We play a round of ´kill cockroaches´every night. and we sleep with the fan on, :)
I am not dreaming in Portuguese yet, well maybe, I don´t really remember any of my dreams. But I am improving slowly with understanding what people are saying. Or at least the subject being talked about.
The member families are pretty sweet, I like them, and they´re fun to talk to. And they´re pretty funny, the people here are really relaxed. In good and bad ways. for example: The other day we were walking down the street, and we saw an old lady pushing a stroller, and walking with her daughter who was probably around 14 years old, we started talking to them, and we asked if these were her children in the stroller, and she said no, they´re her daughter´s......yeah. she´s 14 and had 2 kids already.
We eat rice and beans, and meat quite often, which I love, chicken sometimes (which is yellow for some reason) and lettuce and tomato. pretty. much. every. day. oh and box milk in the morning with chocolate milk mix. I made a fried egg sammich this morning though. yay!
The chapel is pretty dang small compared to the one back home, and there´s only about 50 people there each Sunday. but it´s nicer than most of the other buildings around here.
The houses here are tiny as well, and everybody has a wall and gate in front of where they live, so we need to clap instead of knock at the door. The houses are probably just as big as the reading and piano room sometimes, or as big as our whole main floor. One family was totally blown away that most families in America have more than one floor in their house.
I haven´t eaten anything totally gross yet, though I do kind of shy away from the yellow chicken. The desserts they make here are really, really sweet, like straight condensed milk sometimes.
I probably would be in the jungle if there weren´t a city here, but there are some definitely jungle-ly areas, but not like missionary-rambo style.

I´m guessing that this is mostly a middle-class place where i´m serving, so it´s not so bad, I´ve actually seen a few houses with paint on the walls, haha. and it is a pretty sizable city.
I´ll definitely keep you updated when i get robbed/mugged/chased by wild mamminals.

We teach a lot of 1st lessons, so that´s not really exciting to read about, so until next time,

"eat more elder!"
"sorry, I´m catholic already"