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