Email - 7/14/10

Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 8:02 AM

We celebrated American Indepenence, yes. Why? Because we could, haha. It´s funny at times to see how the people here or love or hate Americans. Technically, as missionaries and as Members, we´re taught to say our nation is the Kingdom of God, and our nationality, Latter Day Saints, but hey, some days you just need an excuse to barbecue.

And yes, barbecue, or "Churrasco" as it is known down here, is big. Everybody loves it, and all parties and fancy restaurants include it, but above everything else, the folks from the South of Brazil (Starting in Paraná, but especially in Rio Grande do Sul) love churrasco. The Gauchos are famous for it.

The downside is that they all have a really bad idea of what an American "Barbecue!" is like. They all seem to think that all we eat is hot-dogs and hamburgers (but actually, I don´t know how many times I´ve had to correct the totally wrong concept that we ONLY eat burgers all day there.) Nobody seems to know that we love to barbecue steaks (filé) and shiskababs (espetinhos). But hey.

Actually the Brazilian image of the US at times is just as wrong as the American image of Brazil. Just as we all think Rio de Janeiro, beaches, amazon, indians, the jungle, soccer, monkeys and many pretty women in bikinis, they often see us as shining WHITE movie stars or pasty fat kids who run around eating hamburgers and driving lambourgini´s. (But what is the reason we all have these skewed ideas one of the other? MOVIES.)

The World Cup´s end was sad, but here Brazil I´m pretty sure that Average Joe on the Street is getting ready to crucify the team´s coach. Before the start of the Cup the people already complained that the team´s choice of players had been really week, leaving the rather bigger names and better players, and that the team coach had never before coached a team before, and how his coaching was, well, during the cup, rather sucky.

And well, then there are the people who say that it was all a crazy scam for Brazil to lose, so that the hype next time will be bigger, since Brazil will be trying to make 6-time champion, while playing IN Brazil. So here four years, when Brazil goes up against Argentina, we´re gonna see a fight.

And you´re not the only one who hates those stupid trumpets. Actually, almost everyone hates those things. From the soccer players on up. Everyone on the street had one and on all the tvs in all the city on all the streets you could see and hear the games, and so, of course, we all had to hear that "BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHH."

Not the coolest thing in the world.

Not really surprising to hear that the Mariners are losing. Nor would I be to hear about the Sea Hawks. We aren´t usually the best state for sports.

Dude, weather back home is crazy, huh? Last week it went from 50 to being 90 this week? That´s from 10 where I am to 32. That´s quite a jump. If it did that here, there would be people who would die. Brazil is not prepared to handle winter. Because well, it´s eternally summer here. Even when it´s raining it´s hot here. And when the sky fills with clouds it gets hot and makes me think about how it must be on Venus. It´s hot down here, haha.

I´ve been thinking about how it´s gonna be when I get home. COLD. I´m probably gonna catch a cold as soon as I come home, and I don´t know HOW I´ll keep warm, since I don´t own clothing for cold weather anymore. I wonder if it´ll be snowing already or not? Weird, it´ll almost be Winter-Break, and I haven´t gone to school in what, 3, 4 years?

NO! Green Beans! I´m so happy that people eat less grean-beans down here. It´s so much better to eat carrots and beats and radishes and lettuce and cabbage and broccoli and anything that isn´t that horrible little grean bean.

Haven´t got an e-mail from Megan in awhile. Today her friend sent me an e-mail about how she got her mission call. I´m really excited to hear that, and if I could offer any advice to her, it´d be to start praying in every last prayer for the gift of tongues. That´s how I did it. It´s actually pretty amazing to think about. I never studied Portuguese in my life, I studied French. In two months of studied, I had all the basics I needed to start speaking the language of my mission. And now I speak and understand english and portuguese fluently, and I can read Spanish, French, and Italian and understand, in the better part, what´s written.

Eh, you could actually say that we´re inside the Jungle, and not on it´s edge. Or rather, Aparecida is the second largest city, but it´s still pretty green here. We live in the shadow of "Colina Azul" or rather the "Blue Hill" And it´s all rather easy on the eyes. The down-side of everything is the following:

So the other day there was a girl at lunch who said, "Hey Elders, do you want to watch a movie?" "Uh, no, that´s okay." "Okay then!" and she shoved the DVD in and there goes TWILIGHT, which, unfortunately, takes place back in Washington and you know, it´s been a LONG, LONG time since I´ve seen the Pacific Ocean. Yeah, I´m not trunkie, but if I had been, that´d have been the moment.

I´m on my read through of the Book of Mormon in 2nd Nephi again, but in my defense I started last week and I´m also running through the Book of Mormon on the side, the Holy Bible, Preach My Gospel, the Liahona of General Conference and a bunch of other books too. TOO MUCH TO READ.



Gotta split now, Mom. Love much and take care!

-Bryan


(PS. WE BAPTIZED THIS WEEK! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)))))))))))