Week 21

I´m pretty jeaulous about the snow actually. It hasn´t been too terribly hot here the last few days because it´s been mostly raining. We always have our umbrellas because it will just randomly start raining during the day. It´s been a lot like Carnation weather the last few days aside from still being about 80 degrees even when it´s raining. I think I´m starting to get used to the heat a little. If it hits about 70 degrees in the house, I start to get a little chilly. I still only sleep with the sheets on. I haven´t used an actual blanket for ever, and each night I have the fan blowing on me. I got the pictures of the snow, and the first one has Rylee and Jenna eating snow, but the first thing I saw was Rylee´s Hello Kitty earmuffs. Is Hello Kitty pretty big right now? Do they have a TV show for her? I know there´s a show for My Little Pony that´s supposed to be pretty good. It´s targeted toward little kids, but it sounds like there´s a huge internet fan base of 20 - 35 year-old guys called ``Bronies.´´

About the rodizio you went to, dad. I´m not exactly sure on the huge croutans, but I know the bread crumbs thing is called ``Farofa.´´ It´s something really popular in the Northwest of Brasil. I really like it. I don´t usually put it on my meat, but over my rice and beans. It´s basically flour (i´m not sure what kind of flour, it´s not wheat), salt, garlic, and other herbs. Also, I don´t know if they had it there, but my favorite kind of beans are the really dark kind with slices of sausage. There´s always the regular light brown colored ones, but the dark beans are my favorite. I´m still not sure what they´re called, but I´m almost certain it´s Feijoada.

Anyway, Brasil is pretty awesome. The other day we went down to the street market again. I´m starting to like that place. We bought a ton of really good fruit for about $12. We got really good bananas, limes, small peaches, goiaba, mangos, and maracujá. We´ve been eating some really good fruit at home this last week. Goiaba is so good. 

The last few weeks have been really bad for our lunches here because the ward just split and half the sisters in the ward think they´re off the hook and don´t pick up their phones when we call to confirm. So we´ve been having to buy lots of food, and we don´t get a whole lot of money on our mission cards, so we ran out of money fairly quick. 

Not a whole lot of stuff happened this week. We haven´t been seeing a lot of success here yet even though we´ve been working really hard. The free agency of the investigators is getting really annoying. They won´t go to church (even if they tell us they will), they rarely read from the Book of Mormon when we ask, and they never pray about it. Come on guys, that´s how you´re gonna now. I don´t now if we can get any clearer about it. We tell them all about the blessings of the Gospel, then we tell them about how they themselves can know it´s true, and that they can know by reading the Book of Mormon and then praying about it. People here are lazy I think. We have found a few new people we´re excited about, but I´m getting a little discouraged too, because we´ve found so many people we´ve been really excited about after the first lesson or so. Oh well, I talked with President Martins the other day at our interviews and he talked about how just having missionaries in an area ``holding the ground´´ (like in war when you held the ground, the enemy didn´t advance any more) is a success. I have seen a lot of help from the Lord though. More than I´ve seen before on the mission. I think it´s because both of us want to work hard and be obedient.

What´s Dallin´s email? Does he actually use it or check it often? I think it´d be good to send a few emails back and forth with him to start helping get ready for the mission.

That´s pretty much it for the week here. We´re really hoping to have a good solid week this next week. We´ll see. We´ve got lots of people we´re working with. One of them is bound to progress. Talk to you guys next monday.

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-Elder Candland