Well, another week has gone by and I’ll answer a few of your questions, and fill you in on some of this week’s activities.

I received the letters from, I think the Miamaids... I think that was the group, or maybe the Beehives... I got letters from the young women! There, that’s the easiest! I’ll let you know when I get letters so you know they have arrived. I only receive letters once a week.
My health is holding up. My stomach is doing just fine. I just get tired of eating the same thing every day! Ummm.... We really don’t eat breakfast or dinner, only when we actually buy food for it. But I try to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have hamburgers, cookies, grilled cheese sandwiches, chicken nuggets, bread, cake, juice. Sometimes my companion and I make stuff together, sometimes we don’t. The neighborhood where we live is pretty quiet, our area is huge. We seem to have both a rich area and a poor area. We live in between them both. I will say this, people treat us great!

We baptized and confirmed two boys this past week, Nilo, and Ismael!! The bishop gave them the Priesthood as well! We are going to continue to work with the rest of the family and hopefully they will soon follow!!!!

My division with the zone leader was good! I learned a lot from him. He’s American, so it was a good little break to work with someone rather similar to me!

Now a story that will probably scare you mom, and maybe make you cry. But Elder Mondonca and I we went to the beach today along with one of our ward missionaries and his girlfriend (or something) who’s also in the ward. While we were all riding the bus back, the ward missionary got off a few stops before us to buy soda for lunch. The girl stayed on the bus with us because she lives close to us. A few minutes later the three of us got off the bus together. Our lunch appointment was the other direction, so we asked if she wanted to be walked home and she said “no”. So we said goodbye and turned and walked down the street and turned the corner onto another street. There is a huge freeway “thing” that we cross every day, and while she was crossing that freeway, she was assaulted or robbed in the median. We had only been apart from her for 1 to 2 minutes. She knew where we were having lunch, so she came to their house and the family helped her out. All everyone wants when you are robbed is your cell phone. That is why missionaries don’t carry them, so we have nothing to give. So that is my story for the day!

While we were at lunch today, the mom, who is not a member, gave me a present for my birthday!!!! She bought me a really neat tie!!! It is a family of all girls, 5 girls and the mom. The mom is not a member, but we are working on it. She just needs to get married!!!

I am really trying to get you some pictures. I am just going to pay someone to make a CD for me here. So hopefully you should get them soon!!! What kind of things would you like me to get for you if I see them? I got Logan really cool scripture cases!!! How about you? And keep an eye on my bank account!

Logan, you need to start practicing your trumpet since marching band is coming up soon!!! And remember, please clean my trombone!!!!!

Well, Love you all tons! Miss you all!! Talk to you next week!!

I am trying for the pictures again so we will see how that works. Well, it appears no pictures again. The computer I have doesn’t have a DVD drive. I think the idea of swapping memory cards is bad because they always get lost in the mail, then I have nothing. They get lost to often. Eventually I will work it out.

This week went well. I have a minor cold nothing big. We had our first baptism in our new area and hope to have like 7 more, but we only have 3 weeks to do it before the next transfers. Yesterday was my 4 - month mark, which is really crazy! I have been studying the scriptures a lot. I was rather far into the Book of Mormon but decided I wanted to do a more detailed study so I started over and am moving really slowly. Sometimes I read the same chapter more than 10 times. I do not really know how to start thinking in the language, I think it just happens over time. It seems that the more I write or speak in English I think of the same thing in Portuguese, and eventually it will just be like that. The language has progressed a lot with a companion that speaks no English. So I just keep going.

To answer some of the questions I can remember. About the money… We all have a JP Morgan Chase card and we go to a bank on the 10th and 25th of each month and take out money. We get 120 reis which is about 68 US dollars. I know isn’t much, huh?... haha. All of our rent and bills and stuff are paid by the mission office. We give our bills to our Zone Leaders who then take them to the office the following week. We eat lunch at the member’s homes. Sometimes they give us money and we go to a restaurant. We usually only eat lunch, and then just snack on things in the morning and night.

My mission has a washing machine “thingy”. I think not all missions here have them, but I am not 100 percent sure.

I have hopefully some really good mission stories coming up in the next few weeks, but I want to see how they turn out before I start telling them. Because, just like with everything in life, it may not turn out just the way you wanted it. But at this point it looks good.

Tomorrow I am going on my first division. So I get to go with my Zone Leader and spend a day and a half with him which will be neat. It’s good to hear about Cam!!! That’s the exact mission I was always given at EFY for the mission day or whatever it is called. haha. September 8th nice and fast!!!

Just to let you all know the mail system here is really strange. I got a letter from Tristan who is currently serving in Thailand in about 2 weeks which is faster than the majority of letters I get from the US. So I have no real way to give you a time frame for anything! haha. Oh, and an fyi, it looks like someone has really been doing our family history because one or two p-days ago I went to family search and there was a lot of new stuff for our family history!

So what do you all want to know about? I tend to have a problem with thinking of things to write, because as you said, “I am living it”. So what do you want to know???

Well I miss you all, but time just flies, and before you know it, it will be over. I love you all so much! I hope you all are reading your scriptures, and saying family prayer!!! Much love!!!

Hey!!! I think this was the week that you all were going to be at the cabin! I hope it is going well!!!

Well, Elder Mondonça is a good worker, but does struggle with some of the rules. Honestly nothing much happened this last week, well, because... we got sick... We think Elder Mondonça ate a bad pastel, because he was throwing up all Thursday night. And then I think he passed it to me because I spent all Friday night throwing up, and then all day Saturday in bed asleep. So, we didn’t work for three days. But, my new area is really, really, really big. Sometimes we will take a bus to get to the other side. It will be hard to work because if we have appointments on opposite sides of our area, it will take up a lot of time to walk. My new apartment is more like a house, it’s huge. It is an apartment for 6 missionaries... but only Elder Mondonça and I live there. It’s hard to describe so you will have to wait for the photos which I am going to do next p-day because I have a good computer to use now. But the house has two bathrooms, both have problems haha. It has two bedrooms, and like a master bedroom. It also has one large room like a mix of a living room and family room, a big kitchen and a front and back porch. The back porch is completely enclosed. The room we sleep in and the other smaller rooms are like seriously bigger than the computer room and mine and Logan’s room put together, so it’s like four computer rooms. This place is huge! The master bedroom appears to the graveyard of all items broken by missionaries. There are like 3 broken-off half assembled bed frames and a broken fan or two. haha. It’s actually rather funny. Elder Mondonça and I spent a good deal of our transfer day night to clean our new place. The place is clean!!!!! It is so nice!!!! I have a place to study my scriptures really well, and it is so much better than my last place. I am way into the Old Testament right now and am just reading away!!! Oh and thank you so much Reedville Ward Primary Presidency!!! The Kool Aid is a great addition to the card! Thank you!!! Really other than being sick this week nothing new or big has happened. I am really hoping this upcoming week is filled with much, much more. I miss you all!!! I hope the cabin was just fantastic!!!! Much love!!!

Well, I got transferred to a new area called Barroso. My companion is Elder Mendoça (sp). It is really strange being away from my trainer. I am actually really worried right now because I have a feeling my new companion is really bad. What I mean is, he seems to be one to break a lot of rules, so I just have to wait and see. For example, we are at a members house, and I am emailing, which you aren’t suppose to do, I think. But he is sitting there playing Playstation, but my Portuguese isn’t good enough to say anything. There are other Elders here and they aren’t saying anything so I have no idea what I am doing. I have not seen my new apartment yet because we don´t have the key or something like that so I am waiting to see how it is. I guess if my companion does end up being bad I will get a lot of study time in. I am really unsure what is going to happen today, because the Brasil game is going to start soon and I don´t think we are suppose to watch it even on p-day, but I have no idea. It is so strange that everyone’s worse companion is their second, we’ll see how this goes. I may be with him till he leaves, he goes home in September.

So I baptized a 9 year old girl yesterday! I left Guadalaja with seven baptisms! haha. I also got to see Elder Eyre and Elder Waldron today during the transfers, which was nice. Oh, and about the water, I filter as much as I can. But picking up worms and what not is unavoidable, because you wash your dishes, your hands, and you shower in the same water everyone says is so bad, so it’s unavoidable. But I filter what I can.

My knee is much better, I sleep with an elastic brace on it every night and that seems to be what fixed it.

So let’s see, more detail... Well, it’s hot... you sweat a lot. I am sick of the same lunch like everyday... haha. Which, by the way, I want Pita Pit so so so bad. I have been out for almost 4 months. Apparently the Brazilian deodorant is really bad, so I will need some sent to me eventually. The money is really pretty.
I wish I could be at the cabin! It would be so fun! Oh, I have received a number of letters from people, and I will respond to most, just not right away. So as long as everyone knows that.

Well, I have no more real details about my new area yet, but when I do I will make sure to include them!!!! Please send any kind of pictures. They are for me and other people, because they ask what it’s like where I came from. The Brazilians always ask for stuff. haha, but I don´t want to particularly want to give anything away until I get closer to the end of my mission.

Well, I don´t know when my hour is up so to be safe I will just go now. I love you all!!! and I hope the cabin is a blast!!! Miss you all!!! Love you all!!!!

June 21, 2010
I am doing well, starting to get a little tired but that is expected. haha. My knee is still a little tender but doing much better. And yes, I had Elder Cooper and Elder Lima give me a blessing like 2 weeks ago.
I have not heard much about the temple here, but I think that is mainly because no one really knows.

So we had three baptisms this past week, a brother and sister, and then another girl. We had to do so much to get them baptized. So many weird things happened, but it all came together in the end.

A funny thing happened yesterday. We ate lunch and then went to this house to try and teach, but we knew we wouldn´t be able to because the Brasil game was going to start in about 25 minutes. Anyway, we go to this house and it’s the house of an elderly couple whose daughter is a member. The daughter and husband and kids are members and thy invited us to go and teach her parents. So we show up and they are having like a family party for the game and it´s a crab feast! And they were all like come and eat. Elder Lima was like really afraid of the crab, but I took my backpack off and flipped my tie over my back and went for it. I was not entirely sure how to eat it because it was a smaller crab, so the grandma´s sister helped me. Everyone was watching me as I tried to go at this tiny crab and everyone was laughing, but to tell you it was really good!!

Something that I just remembered, Logan!!!!!! Please take care of my trombone!!! I am sure it needs to be cleaned!!! Please!!!

This coming Saturday is when we find out about transfers, so we will see what happens. We find out Saturday night, and move Monday. So I don´t know if I will get to email if I’m in the middle of a move.

It seems like the weeks go by so fast and everything just kind of blends together. It is hard to remember things that happened, but that is what my journal is for! Generally, crazy things don´t happen, I mean we have our share of drunks and stuff, but that’s really about it.

I am like on page 500 and something in Jesus The Christ, so I’m making great progress there. However, I decided that I just need to really focus on reading one thing at a time, because I was trying to read too much. I really just want to focus on the Book of Mormon. So, I will just knock everything else out!

Picture wise... yea like pictures of Oregon and the area and stuff, and people, just whatever!!! haha.

Well, I miss you all, and I love you all so much!!! Talk to you again next week!!!

I DON´T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY!!!!!!! I have been waiting since last P-Day to find out where Spencer and Brenna were going!!!!! You have no idea how excited I am right now to know that they are both coming to Brazil!!!I will be able to talk to them!!!!! Just too bad they are missing Copa do Mundo!!! Brazil plays tomorrow and we have to return to our apartment and study. I will certainly write a letter next week or something and send it, because I know there are a lot of things I wish I had known prior to coming here, and some things I would have done to prepare better. When does Adam go in? And where!!!!? And when does Nick go home?? About the Spanish, I received a letter from Jessica Boggs with some Spanish in it and I could understand it. When I was in the CTM, I was told that with Português you can understand 80% of Spanish, but with Spanish you can only understand 10% of Português. But I have not really had the chance to find out so I don´t know if that is really true.

Let´s see, we were supposed to have two baptisms yesterday, a brother and sister, but the baptisms fell through because their dad left their house drunk and with a gun. Weird I know, but the baptism got cancelled.

Well, I usually have a lot of food to eat, but I can only handle so much of it. Let´s see what else. I’ve been having some real trouble with my right knee, but I had not said anything to Presidente Batt because I did not want anything to come of it. But I told him this week in my weekly email. I am hoping it is just over worked and needs a little rest. But I am doing everything possible to get it back to normal, because I need it to work, and to do other activities in my life. By the way, I scored my second goal in futebol this morning! And no, it felt good to play on my knee, because it was a different motion than just walking.

Hey Dad and Mom, if you would like a pair of scripture covers like Logan’s, just send me the name you would like put on them. I will pick the pictures because I have no real way to tell you what he exactly has.

I received Logan´s letter the other day and was really excited to read it! Except one thing, why did you not tell me when you received the covers that you had!!!!? I was worried that they had been lost in the mail!!! But it was fun to read!!! I think I will do some pictures on CD´s and mail them but I want to take some more so I can fill up the CD. So it may be a little longer. I want to use up as much space on it as I can. I will send them soon enough so you and possibly Spencer and Brenna can see what the CTM looks like.

So I think it is time for a package!!! Yay!!! So I would like some candy!!! And Jerky!!! Jerky is a must! They do not have it here! And the most important thing, I need a REAL Brasil and USA soccer Jersey, preferably Nike. I can buy them here, but they are fake so I am hoping for some real ones. If you go online you can probably find some real ones. Just be careful!! And more pictures of home, but not like of people, well people are ok, but pictures of like Oregon and what the USA is like.

We had zone conference this past week which was nice because I was able to see many of the other missionaries. We also had stake conference on Sunday, along with another baptism following right after it. So that makes two. Elder Cooper and Elder L. Lima had five. Everyone before a mission thinks it is really easy but in reality it is really, really hard especially when everything is done by word of mouth and WALKING. Like in the states, if needed, you can call and remind people of church and appointments. Here we have to walk to all of our investigators homes right before church and get them. It is also rather difficult to plan here. They make a big deal about it in the CTM/MTC to really plan well, but Elder Lima and I have had more days where the appointments we schedule do not happen and so the plan we made the night before was not even followed. In the states, many people would write appointments down somewhere to remember. Here it is kind of like, ya, you can come teach me, if at the time I am here or in the mood. So we usually just head to another house when one fails. The thing is everyone knows us, so it is kind of weird because everyone thinks that their church is the only true church, yet right next door is another church. I have honestly run into very few Catholics. Most people here are Evangelists, so we get a lot of singing and stuff like that. The biggest issue we probably have is the fact that many people will listen to us and many will believe and agree with what we teach, but when we ask them to change their lives, they won’t. So we keep trying for a bit and then after too much, we just have to move on. Another common occurrence is we will make appointments with people and we will go to teach them and they will be too tired or something else, so we will schedule again and this will happen about three times before we drop them. They pretend to be actually interested, but it is easier for them to not argue with us or listen to us by just saying yes and then they have an excuse when we to go their house.

I played soccer for the first time today and did about as well as anyone would expect. haha. I did however score a goal! So that was a plus. If you did not know, the World Cup is coming up. So basically that is the large focus of everyone and everything in Brasil right now. Most streets have green and yellow streamers over them and some sidewalks and houses are painted green and yellow. We actually have to return to our houses during the Brasil games. I’m not really sure why we can’t watch them with a family or something, but whatever. We get to go home and study and stuff. No one would accept us in their house during the game anyhow, only if we were going to watch it with them.

Let’s see…I can’t remember if I told you that I finished the Pearl of Great Price. Really easy. I am making fantastic progress through Jesus the Christ, and I finished Deuteronomy yesterday. I am almost done with Joshua too. I also practice the piano a little every P-Day, and teach Elder Lima the best I can. What I am finding is that I know it, because I learned it, it is just a matter of me actually doing it. So I figure that with some actual practice, I could maybe play.

It is rather strange to think of how fast everything is going. I am already on the final half of my first transfer. I mean, in three weeks, I could be somewhere totally new. But like everyone says, your mission will just fly by.

It is fun to hear about the fence and garden and the happenings in your lives. I am very excited to hear about Spencer, Brenna, and Cameron! That is so exciting. During our stake conference they invited a girl up onto the stand to open her mission call. Ya I know, a little weird, but everything here is very different. But she is headed to Porto Algre Norte I think, and not entirely sure I spelt that right.

Well, I miss you all. Love you! Talk to you again next week!