September 10

Okay, wow it´s really hot. They always say outside of the actually city of São Paulo, it´s a little hotter. I think it´s probably a lot hotter. Inside our house was 85-90 during the whole day. I decided to leave my thermometer out in the sun to see what happened, and it read 114. It makes for some long, hard days of work, coming back home absolutely exhausted. I guess if you look on the bright side, taking a cold shower is instantly the best part of every day; both morning and night.

I looked at the list of schools. I´m not entirely sure which I should apply for. I feel like I need to apply to both BYUs, and I think my criteria is (for now) somewhere I can run track, speak Português, and won´t be too expensive to live. I really need to decide what I´m going to get into. Film is still an option I suppose, but it seems more like a good hobby than a job. Mom always said medicine, and I´ve had a lot of people tell me I look like a doctor, so I´m almost taking that as a sign. I´m hoping I can get into something that uses my Português as well. Ugh, I don´t like thinking about all this stuff again. I like my life here in Brasil as a missionary. I´m pretty content doing this for at least a few more years when I look at this stuff waiting for me back home.

Well, this week we´ve continued finding new people, but with little success yet. We´ve got some big goals for our area, and we´re trying really hard to help people get to church, read the Book of Mormon, pray about it, etc. The e big things our mission is focusing on are having the faith we need to have help from the other side of the veil, obedience to all of the rules, talking with everybody we can, and working with members when we get investigators. It´s probably the hardest I´ve worked yet on the mission (which is about how I feel for every transfer).

I´ve been seeing lots of little miracles out here in our area the last few weeks. For example, we needed a copy of the Book of Mormon for an investigator that night, and we had nothing in our house, and none of the other Elders in our zone had anything. While we were out trying to contact some investigators, some lady came out her front door with a copy in her hand. She told us hour her daughter had received it from the missionaries, but said she didn´t have anything to do with that religion, so she told her mom to get rid of it. Anyway, this lady didn´t want to throw it away because she´d be upset if she gave someone the Bible and they threw it in the trash, so she´d been waiting for a day when she could give it to the first missionaries she saw. I was hesitant to take it, being a missionary and the Book of Mormon being our greatest tool in helping people to know this church is true, but after trying a little while, I figured I should just take it since we needed one that night. It doesn´t really seem like much, but absolutely no one had any copies of the Book of Mormon, and we had one in pretty good condition put right into our hands right at a time of need.

Well, there wasn´t a whole lot else that happened this week that was different from a normal week out here, other than the fact that it´s super hot.

Oh, I just remembered I´d like some more maple extract (Vortigaunt: Yesssss, the EXtract... ). The other stuff is gone now, but to be honest, it tasted like burnt rootbeer, vanilly, and a little plastic. If you could send a different brand, that would be appreciated. More peanut butter and Reeses too whenever you get the chance. I would assume the next package will be mostly shoes and socks.

 Here´s a picture from the last Multi-Zone Conference Wednesday. (Left to right: Elder Santiago, Elder Rodruiges, me, Elder Castillo, and... you know I don´t actually know that last Elder very well.)

 
This time it´s so hot I could drink a coconut.

 
We just had a couple birthdays in our zone, so I wanted to take a cake, but one of the Elders, who´s birthday is Wednesday, can´t eat wheat, so made nobakes instead. Also, that´s a strawberry mousse the containter to the right. There are a couple cartons of milk behind it. Some eggs down on bottom with a tub of strawberry jelly stuff, and an avacado the size of Rylees head.


Alright, until next week. Tchau.

--
-Elder Candland