Week 18

Alright, so we did just talk yesterday, but I had a few things I forgot to talk about. A few things more related to the mission. Sort of.

First off I liked Kortney's club. You guys could start inviting other people to join your club. I don't know, maybe that would ruin it for you guys, I’m just thinking like a missionary. But it does remind me of a game another Elder in the MTC and I wanted to start up. It’s like pick-pocketing, but you try and sneak money into people’s pockets when they're not looking, and if they catch you, they don’t get the money.

As for food we could use here in Brasil, maple extract would be really good. Maybe some instant oatmeal like maple and brown sugar and cinnimon spice (I always forget how to spell cinnimon and the spell check here is Portuguese). I'll let you know later if I think of anything more.

Anway, as for the mission here, I guess I’ll start of with the funnier stories of this last week:

There’s this crazy guy who ALWAYS tries to talk with us when he sees us. I don’t know why because he never says anything important or asks any questions about what we do. Maybe he just likes Americans, and most people think that all missionaries are Americans. Anyway, this last time he caught us (I wasn’t fast enough to warn my companion to run) he asked us if we had gone to the beach since the last time we talked. I told him we hadn’t because we have to stay in Sao Paulo. Then he saw another guy and kind of hesitated for a minute like he was trying to decide who was worth talking to more, but then he had an idea and said ``wait right here, don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back, I just want to talk to my buddy over there, just stay right there, don’t go, stay," and then ran off to talk to the other guy. So we waited, and when he came back he asked us how the beach was. !?!? What? Didn’t I just say we didn’t go? Anyway, he really likes the ladies too, so he talked about the beach and how he likes to meet the ladies there and kiss them and how he’s been waiting patiently to find some pretty women, and that God know’s he’s been patient, so he’ll be rewarded soon. I don’t know what it is with the beach, but he always relates everything to the beach. He also told us that one day, before he was cool like he is now, he just decided to throw out everything and be a chill guy; like literally throw it all out. He threw his TV out the window and his mom got mad at him, but he’s glad he did it because now he doesn’t have a care in the world. He just lives on a couch on the sidewalk and talks to everyone. We're marked the map with a red area right near his ``couch, as well as a yellow ``Caution! area within about half a mile radius of his couch so we know where not to go and where to be on the look out.

One day, we were walking around trying to find a hous, so we sat on a rock to look at the map, but as we climbed up onto this rock, I noticed a bunch of flies flying around something black on the other side. I realized it was a dead chicken, but then I noticed another, and my perspective widened a little bit more and I noticed there were about 6 dead chickens scattered around this little park covered with trash and knocked over crates and stuff. Then the smell hit us. It was the strangest thing I've seen. It looked like something from an apocalypse movie, like there were some people camping out, then they were attacked by zombies during the night, everyone left a huge mess after the battle, and then the zombies killed the chickens. I don’t know, It was wierd.

Anyway, we've been having a lot more success here now that I've got a companion that wants to work hard too. We've been trying really hard to find new investigators through the area book. We've found a few, but we also got a few references. One is really promising. We taught her about the Restoration and she listened very intently. As we taught about Joseph Smith, the Spirit was really strong, and I know he felt it. She also told us a little about what she believes, and she basically explained a little of the Plan of Salvation to us. We walked out of her house totally excited to come back and teach her again. We've also got a few other references that sound like they've got some potential as well, we just couldn’t meet with them because they were too busy with Christmas. With the ward split, we’ll see what happens, but either way, we've totally ready to rip this place apart.

That’s it for this week. For stuff I didn’t already talk about. I did have a thought on Christmas Eve about the Portal gun. If you put a portal in Washington, and one in like Texas, or somewhere near the equator, because momentum carries through the portals, you'll go flying sideways because of the difference of momentum you have in Texas nearer to the outside of the Earth’s spin. Just a thought. Anyway, have a good week and a happy new year. I’ll let you know if it’s very exciting here for the Elders.

Elder Candland