Email - 1/27/10

Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 2010 9:53 AM
Subject: Re: Last week of January

Well this week was one to remember. Certainly one of the craziest weeks of my life. But first and foremost HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! Seeing as I was a bad son and forgot that this last week, a Happy Late Birthday to you.

So this week I bought some pretty heavy combat boots and went out to work. I went on splits with other missionaries in our district. First with our Zone Leader, Elder Williams, then with another Elder. Wednesday we had a pretty funny chance to have an ex-model talk to us in the district meeting, and while it all started out pretty normal (outside the fact that poor Elder Williams was dying of embarrassment), things got pretty awkward at a few points. But hey, for a new age hippie single mom ex-model recent convert, it was pretty cool.

This same day splits started, and I new things weren´t going to go my way the moment we got on a bus for what technically isn´t inside the city. There we began to walk and teach in more or less the jungle, and then, later in the day we came back to town and visited just about everyone who could be baptized in the week. Then, to top off the night, we went out to an all you can eat pizza place, where I managed to scarf down six pieces, and Elder Williams inhaled some twelve. The nuns who were eating with us were, to say the least, shocked, though the cyclist in the corner was so impressed he bought us a soda.

The next day, as far as I can remember, passed without anything out of the normal happening, though I could be wrong. I can´t remember anything super special, though.

Friday I traded off to the next area, where I worked with Elder White, whose from Washington, Sammamish. We went WAY long in his area, arriving in a place called Paradise, and, for those who remember Paradise on Mt. Rainer, it´s the same concept. About 3 Million miles from civilization. I think I managed to see Goiania from there.

Saturday we went and grabbed all the young men in the ward and forced them to do a bit of proselyting in the bus terminal with us. It was funny to see them all cocky before hand and then all cowardly in the moment. Afterward they went with us to teach a few investigators in that area.

Sunday I went to church and saw the greater part of the congregation sitting on the stand, instead of in the pews. Then I went to a baptism in my district, then I went to work with Elder Williams again, and washed all my clothes in a bucket at night, since I hadn´t thought I would be on splits so long. Oh, and we found out Elder Williams was being transferred in the middle of the transfer.

Monday we had conference with Pres. Tobias. As per usual, it was super awesome. We learned a lot and laughed a lot, too. At the end, Pres. took us out to a restaurant to lunch, and then well, then we (the leaders) took off for Goiania. We grabbed a taxi in Goiania until Aparecida, where we took the bus until Independencia, which is more or less close to Garavelo, where I worked last year with Elder Deivison.

Tuesday we had the Counsel of Leaders. We learned a whole lot of awesomeness at the start, President called us all to repentance, and even demanded that we write, without names, a list of all our sins during the mission and hand it in at day´s end. That took a couple pieces of paper. Then, at lunch time, we went out to, um, I don´t know, like a farm thing, only more for rich people. We got to eat there, and then we rode around on a tractor a bit, which was neat, and then we WENT FISHING!!!! I caught about six, but our zone leader, Elder Dutra, caught the same fish some 15 times. Even Sister Tobias managed to catch a fish or two! Then we went and had a few games like ping pong and the what-not. It was, all in all, an awesome time.

Then we all piled in the buses, left Hidrolandia (where the park was) back to Independencia, Aparecida. From Aparecida until Goiania, where we took off for Anápolis. Once in Anápolis, we got on the bus for our house, wound up back home at around 9:15, and set to work planning the training for today.

Oh, and today we noticed that one of our washing machines vanished, which is pretty weird, since we live in an apartment above ground, and the only other thing that went missing was a pair of my pants. Frankly, I just want to catch the thief to know HOW he did it.

But that´s about all for my week. I hope your week goes well. I love you all and wish you the best. Happy Birthday Mom, ONE MORE YEAR OLDER AND WISER TOO!!


Love,

Bryan