March 18

Hey, it´s actually kind of cold here these days. I´m sleeping with a blanket for the first time in a very long time. A bunch of clouds showed up, and brought in a bunch of cold wind. I´m walking around with a sweater, but I´m only fooling myself. It´s still about 65 degrees out. I still manage to break a sweat with this sweater on.

We had a mission conference this week as I mentioned in the last email. Since I new it was my last mission conference, I called the assistants and offered to play a musical number on the guitar. I think it went pretty well. I threw together 4 of the hymns, which lasted about 5 minutes. It was pretty funny actually, because there wasn´t a microphone stand, so I lowered the podium, turned up the volume, and placed a chair behind the podium. I could only see President and Sister Martins who were directly to my left. Anyway, I got lots of compliments. I don´t think many people are used to hearing hymns played classic guitar style.

I´ve always wanted to go to Leavenworth. It looks like a pretty interesting city. There´s a small german city near São Paulo too. Several members have gone and showed me pictures of their visits. It looks pretty similar, just less cold.

Speaking about bathroom fans, I forgot that bathrooms usually have a vent fan. That´s something I haven´t seen since left the US. We just have windows in every bathroom.

I´m glad to hear Ethan is getting out on a mission now. I hope he´s been preparing. Honduras... I´ve taught several people from Honduras here in São Paulo. They generally seem to be a pretty humble people, at least from what I´ve seen here in Brasil.

Feliz aniversário are how we say happy birthday. It actually means happy anniversary. Anyway, you´re not old yet mom. Not until you have grandkids. Then you´re a grandma. So don´t get too excited about any grandkids. I´m still a missionary.

Oh ya, I almost forgot. At the mission conference, we were challenged to find someone to baptize that very week. It was already Wednesday, and we didn´t have any dates for that week. That night, though, we had an appointment with an investigator who we hadn´t taught in a while. She works on Sunday, and just hadn´t gone to church yet; that was the only reason she hadn´t been baptized yet. That night, she told us she finally had a Sunday off, so we invited her to be baptized Saturday night. She accepted. It turned out to be the perfect night too, because the Relief Society had a special conference at the Stake Center that night. They took her, and afterward, all of the sisters met at the church for her baptism. Sunday morning she was confirmed in her first sacrament meeting.

Well, that´s it. I´ll send some pictures now. Talk to you next week. Actually, I guess I´m only sending 1 picture.

Here´s Maria, the baptism from this last week. Also, that´s my new companion to the left; Elder Nascimento.

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-Elder Candland