Week 6

Thanks for the blog. That´s cool.I can view it from here. I can also get on to LDS.org if I need to. Usually I spend the entire hour, though,  trying to type up an email after writing the Mission President and reading all of my emails. 

I had a bunch of new photos to send, but I think there´s something wrong with my memory card because it´s not working on this computer. When I open up the card on the computer, the file that my pictures are in is a ``shortcut´´ folder and cannot be found or something. It´s in Português and I haven´t learned the computer language yet. If you have any ideas let me know.

 Anyway, this week I procured a magazine full of recipes from a member, as well as got my favorite desert recipe from another member after lunch. I know this one by heart at the moment, so I´ll send it real quick:

Dolce de leite (or milk candy/desert)

1 can of condensed milk
the same can filled with normal milk
4 eggs

Blend everything together. Get one of those cool donut shaped cake pans and somehow carmalize suger in it. (I haven´t figured it out yet, maybe you know) Pour the mixture in the pan, then put that pan in another pan of water. Cook for 30-45 minutes at... 200 C (you can figure that out too). After it´s cooked, carefully flip it upside down on a plate and refrigerate for another hour.

I haven´t mastered this yet, but it´s so good. Good luck.

 A lot of the days here the last few weeks have been quite unsuccesful. We do a lot of walking from appointment to appointment, but not many people know we´re coming since we can´t really schedule appointments in such a busy city. We just hope that the people we decided to try and teach were inspired and that something good will come from it. We have had several times where we happen to run into someone new who is willing to listen to us while we´re out trying to contact someone that isn´t home. This last Sunday, we tried to get our investigators to come to church. We invited about 5, but none wanted to come. It IS so difficult to get them to come to church. But when we got there, about 5 other investigators/inactives were there. That was definitely a blessing for us. 

 Something I´ve really realized here with so many less or inactive members is that I´m not here to baptize. The Missionary Purpose says this ´´Convidar as pessoas achegarem-se a Christo.`` This basically says ´´Invite the people to come unto Christ.`` It´s not just non-members. It´s everyone. We´ve made it our goal to visit the less actives and inactives a lot and try to refortify the ward. 

 The other day we taught a family from Peru that only spoke Spanish. It was pretty difficult because I understood much of what they said, but they don´t understand Português very well. We watched The Restoration in Spanish with them, and they agreed to come to church this week since their daughter is a member. 

The personal space in Brasil seems to be a little smaller than in the US. My companion is constantly walking really close to me and I naturally scoot over to give him and me some space between, and he pushes me into the road a lot.

 We ran into a somewhat drunk guy the other night who asked me if I was American and when I said yes, he got up in my face and told me he doesn´t like Americans. I think after about 8:00 pm and before 6:30 am, I´m a Canadian. 

 Apparently the mail service of Brasil is on some kind of strike right now, so my mail will be coming and going slower than normal. It sounds like it could be about a month for a normal letter instead of 20 days. I´ve got my response to your letter, Stephanie, just about done and I´ll send it tomorrow. 

The I´m a Morman campaign is pretty cool. We learned a little about using at the MTC because it does a good job of showing people we´re normal. You´ll have to keep me updated on that. If they do film the family, make sure to include a little shot of mom holding a picture of me saying I´m on a mission. 

I forgot to tell Dallin Happy Birthday last week. I knew it was this week, but forgot that I´d have to wait until after he was 18 before I could write again. 18 is strange, but I think 20 was wierder. 

Anyway, I hope this week goes well. I´ll look forward to reading your emails next week.

Elder Candland