Working out hasn´t been super crazy. I need to get back into it, but the week after we played soccer, my legs and back were sorer than they´ve been since wrestling practices started my senior year. I was kinda wimpy about working out too much that week since it was already hard enough to walk around in the sun for hours.
As for missionary drama, we haven´t had a whole lot lately. Well, I take that back. We´ve got a really awkward situation with a member. We´ve just taught his daughter all the lessons and she´s gonna get baptized on Sunday, that´s really cool, but he´s a member and living with his girlfriend, who happens to be legally married to someone else still. That makes for really awkward encounters with them when we meet with them at their home. But, we did just find a really cool lady who is already married (which is like finding a needle in a haystack here in São Paulo) and she has 2 kids already, plus doesn´t really have a faith other than that God is real and she wants to know His will. The lessons have all gone quite well and she asks lots of questions. She´s finally gonna come to church this weekend, and hopefully there she´ll realize it´s not just a church to go to every week to show God you have faith, but that it´s Jesus Christ´s church and a part of God´s plan for everyone to return to Him.
We actually have a really good rodizio here called ``Taverna Gaucho´´ that is popular among the Elders. In fact, the place has a Book of Mormon on it´s shelf placed for everyone to see right behind the receptionist´s desk. It´s a really good place actually. A little less formal than Novilhos, but the food is still really good, and it´s about $9 to eat all you can eat buffet, meat off the sword, and desert pizza which is the best part actually. I love that place. Our churrasco was lots of meat on long sword-like scewers. It´s totally normal here in Brasil, not just some cool thing to amuse Americanos lá nos Estados Unidos.
As for my companion, he´s pretty trunkie. He goes home next Wednesday. He likes to visit member´s homes a lot. The days can kind of drag on that way. When we have good days though, it´s pretty crazy how fast it all goes. It can get pretty annoying when he´s ready to go home at about 8:15 so we can make something to eat instead of try and hit up one more investigator. Yesterday for instance was the final game of the Brasilian soccer tournement, so the city was absolutely crazy as can be. It sounded like war. I´m not even kidding. People with fireworks (only the ones that sound like bursts of gunfire in the distace or bombs going off, never the screeming kind or shiny kind, just loud) all day, and after freaking Corinthians, the preferred team of São Paulo won the cup, people were driving cars up and down the road honking at everything, fireworks going off all over the place, and people screaming nonsense like they were charging into a firefight. Anyway, because of this, my companion figured we wouldn´t find any success, so we stayed home and he said he wasn´t feeling well anyway, so he slept a lot. I tried to study most of the time, but with the war between the Corinthianos and everyone else outside, it was hard to focus.
Here´s our cool story from this week. One of our recent converts in the ward called us up and said ``I have a friend that could really use your message. Can you guys come and teach her today?´´ That was one of the best phonecalls we´ve recieved this week. Finally a reference from the ward. That´s how baptisms usually happen. Anyway, we got there and her friend, who´s about 25, starts to tell us her story. Her mom has been a real jerk to her lately, so she´s been living with various friends. Because of what her mom has been saying, she´s felt pretty worthless and the last day or so she´d felt suicidal, thinking it would be better to leave everyone alone. So we whipped out the Plan of Salvation lesson for her, and really emphasized that it´s not a plan for humanity, but for each human being/child of God, and that it´s a plan for us to find happiness here because he cares about each one of us. She cried a lot explaining her story, but after the lesson she looked better. We also saw her at Stake Conference yesterday (which had a bunch of really good talks a messages about how the Gospel brings happiness and isn´t just for this life here on Earth), and we´re hoping to talk with her more and get her active in church with her member friend.
I could use some more good books. I´ve already read Believing Christ, The Miracle of Forgiveness, Jesus the Christ, and Our Heritage. I havne´t seen any strict rules from our President here on reading. The MTC in Provo had lots of church books for sale, so I think it´d be fine so long as it´s pretty appropriate. I don´t need anything on Kolob or FHE ideas for newly-weds, but I like to read in my bed at night before I go to sleep, and I´m about out of material aside from the Liahona in Português.
Here´s a story for Lars: we were teaching a young man on the street in front of his friend´s house. My companion was talking, and as I was listening to him, I noticed something moving on the other side of the street. As I looked into the yard across the street through their front gate, I saw a turtle slowly make it´s way across the walkway to the front door to the other side of the yard like nothing else existed in the world except the other side of the yard. He seemed to be in a hurry, but it still took him about 30 seconds to cross about 6 ft. of the yard I could see. I don´t think I´ve ever seen anyone with a turtle as a free-roaming pet in their front yard, but I have now. I don´t think it keeps burglers out though.
Happy Birthday Kortney.
Also, the Christmas card was pretty cool. Now that you did soccer this year, what´s next year going to be if you stick to a Brasil theme?
Anyway, that´s this week. Hope this week is good with December starting and stuff. I also hope with Winter Break coming up, I´ll get some better emails from Stephanie. Anyway, let me know if it happens to snow or anything. It´s freakin hot here.
Elder Candland
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