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

Week 17

Alrighty, so the big thing I suppose is my new companion. His name is Elder Davis; he´s American, so we speek English at home. He´s pretty good. He´s really motivated so it´s helped me to work hard. My last companions have had their things that I haven´t liked or that they have slacked on like progress reports and investigator reports and using time smart, etc. Finally, being the leader for the next few weeks, I´ve been able to do all of the things I´ve thought should be done better. We´ve been on a roll. Our ward is pretty small, so we´ve decided to focus on less actives to try and get the ward stronger. With our little ward, it´s hard to retain many people when someone new is baptized. I´d rather not have any new members in this area than just keep adding to the less active´s list. Finding is pretty tough in this area too. Most people say we can come back, but I´m pretty sure they tell us to come back at a time they know they´ll be gone or busy. Anyway, we´ve gone through the area book, which doesn´t look like it´s been touched for a long time. I know my last companion never used it. We´ve organized it all really nicely, and are going back to try and see who would be willing to have us back, or who straight up doesn´t want it anymore. We´ve been organizing all the old investigators into little areas so we can try and contact as many as possible. So far we´ve only met a few, and only a couple of them have said we could come back. The others that don´t want it, we do all we know to leave them with a good impression and make sure they know they´re welcome at church anytime. We feel pretty good about all the people we´ve contacted so far. Having two motivated Elders that just want to what the Lord would have them do is so awesome. We´ve had the Spirit really helping us the last few days. Basically, training is the best thing that´s happened on the mission so far.

My Português is getting a lot better as well. I´ve had lots of compliments on my Português, but now that Elder Davis is here, he´s actually speaking better than I was when I first got to Brasil., so he gets more of the compliments now. I still have to do most of the talking though, which has been good for me to get over the fear of talking. I still have a lot to learn, but I´m usually able to carry out all of the conversations pretty well.

Here´s a couple of the funny stories from this week:

I found a really nice CD on the street one day, so I grabbed it and took it home to see if it had any sweet music on it, preferably funk (because it´s the cool thing here and it´s so dang awful). Anyway, it turned out to be this live performance album of some really cheasy, but I think popular, guy. It´s really funny music actually, especially when you understand some of the lyrics. We´ve both gotten a kick out of the CD.

We saw a guy on the side of the street unconscious with a really bloody knee. Elder Davis said: ``Somebody please remove these cutleries from my knees.´´ I had just mentioned Flight of the Conchords earlier that day. We both laughed, but then realized it was real blood and pretty gross.

I think Valve got a bunch of their sounds from Brasil. I heard a dog that sounded just like the flying camera things when you hit them with the crowbar, and the bus´s brakes all sound like some kind of vehicle from Half Life.

One last story. We stopped and talked with a bunch of young boys on the street the other day. They were all curious about how to say different things in English and had us talk to eachother in English. They also asked a lot of questions about the mission and what we do here. It was pretty cool, but then one of the boys showed ``here comes the truck´´ and this big water truck slowly started coming up the hill we were on. As it passed, a bunch of the boys ran after it and jumped on the back and hung there for about 30 seconds. I guess it´s the other thing boys here do for fun. Flying kites and playing futebol can get boring I guess.

Oh, I forgot, we had a ward Christmas party on Saturday. It was so funny. It wasn´t anything like our parties. There was a ton of fruit to eat, lots and lots of soda, and a ton of little fried foods. Then, a few of the more outgoing members sang really really bad Brasilian karaoke for about 2 hours. We both really liked the super cliché karaoke music videos. They´re just as bad here in Brasil as they are in the US. Anyway, we didn´t just sit around for 2 hours. We had a big list of people we needed to talk to and lots of things to figure out with the members and spent a lot of time talking to the ward figuring it all out, but it was also a party, so it´s not like we did that much work during.

Anyway, Sunday we had a lesson about our talents and stuff. When we talked about how are talents are given to us for the benefit of others, I thought about running track and how that could have been for anyone else. Then I remembered mom. I´m pretty sure she enjoyed it more than I did.

Have another really good week. I´ll talk to you Sunday.

Elder Candland

Week 16

[Note: This week Adam just received a "Dear John" letter from Stephanie, the young woman that he introduced to the Church and had been dating for the past 3 years]

Well, as you might imagine, I´m not terribly in the mood to write much right now.

Here´s my week though. We have had a really slow, and lame week. Perfect. All of our good investigators are out of town this week. It´s been terrible. It´s been so hot. I don´t know what 37 - 40 degrees celsius converts to, I just know it´s hot. 

I had a bunch of stories I wrote down in my planner, but I forgot it at home, and I can´t remember at the moment what I wrote. I got some photos at least.

The first, I made some pudding here in the house with crappy pots and stuff, but it turned out real good.

Second, I hit my 6 months and burned a tie.

Third, same thing.

Fourth and fifth, just a couple families here in the ward my companion took pictures with. I figured I´d send them too. The one with the crazy daughters is gonna be the family that keeps me feliz during the Christmas time. They tell us we´re like their sons they never had and they always are willing to make us lunch when lunch fails and we don´t have money. They also like to try and trick us into watching movies at their house. Not good, but they´re converts.

Anyway, The only story I can remember was that I was in a grocery store and the power went out for a few seconds. When it came on again, the master intercom thing that the old lady talks on to tell you what sales there are, it kept making the sound of the whale-like gunships from Half LIfe 2. When you play the game, you get a little bit conditioned, like the Pavlov dogs, to immediately think ``Danger,´´ but since it´s a video game, nothing really dangerous. That´s about it. I got a little anxious the first time, but nothing more.

Anyway, I got the package full of candy and cake mix. My companion was super excited to get american food. I´ve been sharing with him, but have yet to make any of the mixes. 

That´s my week. It´s a little short. Next week will be better. Have a good week.

Elder Candland

P.S. Hey, I´m back at the LANhouse today because my companion accidentally errased all my music on my iPod and he´s trying to save it.

-

The good news is I just found out I´m going to be training a new missionary this next transfer (tomorrow). I don´t know anything about him. He could be Brasilian or American. Possibly even Argentinan or Chilen. I´ll let you know next week.

Anyway, we´re going now. I´ll email you back on Monday. Hopefully with good news on the new companion and our work.

Week 15

Well, another week without any mail from Stephanie. I´ll trust it´s really super crazy insane busy down there.

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

Week 14

Alrighty. This week has been better. We´ve found a few new people to teach, and one of them appears to be looking for the Truth in her life and basically accepted baptism. We committed her to start preparing now, but she seemed a little hesitant to just jump into it. Anyway, we also have a baptism finally here. A guy in our ward who is a little less active is dating a lady who already has 2 kids and her daughter just turned 8. She´s been attending church with him for the last month or so, so we´ve been teaching her the lessons with her dad to get her all prepared. She´s got a lot of sassiness, and makes fun of my accent sometimes, but I´m pretty used to it since I have a sister like Kortney.

Anyway, today we had a zone Brasilian barbacue (churrasco) which is way better than hot dogs, hamburgers, and sometimes steak. It´s pretty much all meat, like 5 different kinds. My favorite is linguiça. It´s a big sausage of chewed up something. It´s so much better than brotwurste. I made some real good American brownies, but they weren´t done on time, so we´ll eat them tomorrow for our district meetings. I left them in the kitchen at the church and hope no one eats them over night. I left a note saying ``Não comam se vocês querem salvação.´´ That should do it. We also played lots of soccer. I´m pretty terrible, but at least I try. We have 4 Americanos and 6 Brasileiros, so we did a lot of US vs Brasil. We held up alright for a while, then the Brasileiros got all excited and destroyed us. They said until 5 gols, but after 5, they said ``Mais um´´ and we kept going until they finally had 10 and we had only 3. Regardless it´s pretty fun. We´re not allowed to be competative as missionaries, so without too much competition, I enjoyed running around in the sun for 3 hours trying to kick the ball.

Here´s our crazy story for this week. We were walking down the road (as missionaries do) and this motorcycle whipped past us through a turning lane of oncoming traffic. Then this car tried to follow him (thankfully there wasn´t any traffic) and drift through the lane after the motorcycle, but he didn´t know how, and almost skidded into us. As he reversed out, one of his friends came running after him yelling ``He´s getting away, go go go!´´ Then the car sped off again. I have no idea what the guy on the motorcycle did, but the guy in the car was ticked off.

Yes, the weather here is getting super hot. I´m dying during the afternoon. The other day it was the hottest I´ve had yet. It was about 40 degrees celsius. I was gonna die I´m pretty sure, but then during a lesson, it started raining, which first of all blocked out the sun, then the rain cooled off the pavement so I wasn´t burning from top and bottom. We walk from place to place, and there´s no wind here at all! Well, there´s no wind between the buildings, but above them there´s a lot apparently. Lots of kids sit on the roof with kites. I´ve seen about 15 kites the last week all tangled up in the power lines too. 

As for being homesick, I got past that in the MTC. I was studying in Preach My Gospel and there was a quote from an Apostle (I forget who), but it basically said that the cure for homesickness and friendsickness and so on is work. Just work and focus on the work and you´ll forget/be blessed.

I can´t believe it´s almost December either. 6 months has gone by really fast. Also, I had a completely normal day. I actually thought Friday was Thanksgiving all day, then we got home and I saw that it wasn´t Thursday, but already Friday. Then, on Sunday, I remembered Black Friday. I think I´d have forgotten all about Thanksgiving if I didn´t have my calendar.

Mexico sounds like it was pretty awesome. Sometims Brasil feels like a vacation not having to worry about homework or much at all. Just work and food. I actually had a nightmare I hadn´t done my homework for school. I also had a dream I went back to the MTC for some reason like they ran out of companions. I was so good at Português in comparison with the other Americans. I actually spoke with the Brasilian Elders in real Português in my dream. That was sweet. Oh ya, Mexico; no one here worries about copyright or anything. Lot´s of places sell copyrighted stuff. Especially movies and video games. Kids daycares and schools have Disney and Ben 10 stuff painted all over their walls to make the barbed wire or shards of glass on top look more friendly.

I´ve started trying to find out who´s house I can visit on Christmas to talk with you guys. 10am there should be about 4pm here. I think that should work. I hope so. It´s almost 7 o´clock here, so maybe you can figure out if the time difference is 100% correct by this email. Major bummer Stephanie can´t be there though. I still have 3 more holiday phone calls at least.

I still haven´t got the first package yet. I´m kind of nervous about Christmas. I finally got everything for your package and have been trying to send it for the last 4 days without success. Either we don´t have time, or it´s closed or something. It´s frustrating. If your packages are late, I´m sure mine will be too, so it´ll be even.

That´s just about it for this week. I´ll try and have some cooler stories next week. I´m also dying to know how Lars´s wrestling meet goes. Anyway, until next Monday.

Elder Candland

Week 13

It´s pretty crazy that in December I´ll already have 6 months on the mission. Speaking of December, I´m kind of worried about Christmas here. I´m pretty sure it´s not going to be so great. It´ll probably be about 95 degrees out too. I´m not sure if we´ll have lunch at a members house or not. At least I´ll probably be able to Skype with you guys. Usually holidays for you like Christmas are pretty crammed with family.

Sounds like everyone is super busy at home too. All of the kids seem to have way more extra curriculars than ever. And Lars, I can´t believe he´s enjoying wrestling. Speaking of which I had a wrestling meet at Tolt in my dreams last night. I wrestled the kid from Win Win and won... That was the inflight movie everyone was watching on my flight to São Paulo. I didn´t watch, promise. I just saw a little bit of the wrestling since it caught my eye. 

Anyway, this week has been pretty empty of success as well. We even had a big ward activity set up for Saturday. We announced it two Sundays ago, and the 2 days beforehand, we invited every member we could talk to, and we asked them to please invite a friend since the purpose was to try and introduce people to the missionaries and church in a more laid-back way. The night of it started at 6 pm, but at about 6:05 the first 2 people showed up. After about 25 minutes our bishop showed up and he helped us make some phone calls. At about 7:00 we had about 15 people there, but the people we had asked to bring certain things hadn´t brought them, so we waited about 30 minutes more for them to grab it and come back. Finally, we had a quick activity. It was that activity where we have someone hand out candy, and each time he asks if they want it, we had to do 5 pushups, regardless of whether they wanted the candy or not. Then we shared a quick message about the atonement and agency and that was it. The activity went well, but we were really sad that so few people showed up. 

One of our zone leaders is from the US, and he reminds me of a combination of Andrew Ashby and Brandon Howlett. He and I had a good conversation about the Book of Mormon animated movies today. We also visited the São Paulo futebol team stadium today. It had the same exact feel as any normal American football or baseball stadium. I picked a team a while ago, and it´s not São Paulo. I actually root for a team from Rio. Vasco da Gama. I get a lot of crap since I´m serving here in São Paulo and everyone loves the teams from here. That´s probably why I chose them.

Oh ya, happy Thanksgiving.I won´t be celebrating. It doesn´t exist here, but there is a holiday about once every 3 weeks here. They even have a Kid´s Day, just like Mother´s and Father´s Day. I´m pretty sure it´s just an excuse not to work and to ``focus on the kids´´ by sitting at home, watching some futebol, and drinking some beer.

My Português is pretty awesome now though. I´m able to listen to most people speak, and I´m reading O Livro de Mórmon every day and understanding just about everything. Now that my ability to understand is catching up, I´m trying really hard to work on proper grammar. I still have a hard time wording questions right during lessons. I find myself thinking in Português a lot too, so that´s pretty sweet.

I hadn´t read Jesus the Christ for a long time and picked it back up again about a 2 weeks ago. Right now I can´t put it down. I have a hard time not reading it my entire study time, so I had to set rules for myself. It´s pretty cool to read about the life of our Savior so detailed. I´m learning a lot about his example and his works that I hadn´t known. It´s a really good book.

Well, that´s it for now. Hopefully next week I´ll get email from everyone with a little more detail from Oregon State. 

Elder Candland

Week 12

Pretty exciting email to NOT get last week. Here磗 November 9th (or what should be November 7th):

So my new area is called Mangalot (mahng-guh-LOH). It磗 a lot more like how I pictured Brasil. It doesn磘 really feel like S鉶 Paulo, but more like an isolated city right outside. It磗 a lot more calm here, and is mostly small houses instead of apartment buildings. There are lots of dirt soccer fields, more grass, and trees. My new companion is Elder da Rosa (dah Hozuh). He磗 black. It磗 his last transfer here, so President Martins told me to keep him focused. I don磘 think he磗 very trunky right now, but we磍l see with only 2 weeks left.

The ward here is pretty small in comparison to my last area, so we磖e trying to get to know the members well, and help lots of the inactives get reactivated. We met with on last night. He plays guitar really well and actually sings really well too. He磗 the first person here I磛e heard sing well. We played some songs with him, and he talked to us about how he was an alcoholic and is doing well now, but is trying to divorce his wife since she doesn磘 want family or anything to do with the church, and he seems to realize there磗 something missing in his life. He seemed to really enjoy having us over, so we磖e hoping to get him back in church every week.

It's so dang hot here. I finally burned the other day. Now I'm starting to look really tan, like I did right after Trek. It's still not even December yet, and I'm dying in this heat. I'm so glad It's not up further North.

My companion has an album from the same guy who wrote the Nashville Tribute to Joseph Smith, and it's about the pioneers. There's a song I heard called "Somewhere There's A Mountain" that I thought would be cool if Kortney and Rylee sang.

As for interesting stories this week, we were at another inactive members house and she lives with lots of her family that aren't members and don't really live very well. Her daughter's husband was super drunk and was talking to me for about 15 minutes about Eddie Murphy and a lot of other stuff that didn't make sense or I didn't understand because of his drunk speaking. I also saw a lady with a brand of jeans called "Goot." I thought they looked like a real goot pair of jeans. There was also these really cool guys driving down the road with their music blasting and the words "Check Noris" over their windshield. I thought maybe it was a funny joke in Portuguêse, but my companion told me it wasn't a joke, they were just not very smart.

There's a lot of people here that like to talk about Mitt Romney and Barrack Obama. I think I here just as much talk about our president here as I did there. There was an article in a magazine here about Mitt Romney and if the US is prepared for a Mormon President. They interviewed Elder Niel L. Anderson since he speaks Portuguêse. It was a good interview. He answered simply and honestly. A lot was about Mitt Romney, but the last question said "Will the churches standpoint on gay marriage be changed in the future? and he answered "The family is the central part of our doctrine. I don't see how this is possible." I thought it was pretty straight to the point.

So our missino conference was super good. Elder Godoy and his wife spoke briefly, and Elder Evans spoke for a good 2+ hours. He and his wife only speak English and Japanese, so we had a translator that spoke into another microphone after every phrase. His wife had a really good point. She said that the phrase "The mission was the best two years of my life" is wrong. It should be "The mission was the best two years for my life." She also said it's not just our lives that the mission is good for, but our family's lives; present and future, and that the blessings of the mission don't stop after the mission. Then Elder Evans spoke alot about the mission too. He talked about how the friendships we have on the mission are eternal because we're all served together, and how our relationship with our mission president is going to be one of our best even after the mission. I got a lot of good notes from this session. It was much better than the first.

Hope Mexico is awesome, that everything goes well at home, and that OSU is still sweet. Have a good week.

Elder Candland