Brazil Sao Paulo East Mission

Brazil Sao Paulo East Mission

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Pain is just weakness leaving the body


9-30-13

Actually I wrote wrong, its farofa, almost the same thing. But it’s some kind of floury stuff that you have on the side of your plate that you can mix in with your food. I think it’s nice sometimes but don’t go out of my way to put it on stuff. The food here is just fine without it.

Both new to the area... a good thing? I don’t know about that haha, but it’s been good. It just took us a bit longer to get rolling. Our goal for baptisms this month is 5/2 which means 5 total baptisms with 2 being men. We care about men specifically because they hold the priesthood. We also have a goal of 2 baptisms and 2 confirmations this week. For this were basically praying for a miracle and doing everything we can to make this happen. We have one eternal investigator meaning that she’s been investigating for a long time who we could baptize this week..and another man who we haven’t even taught any lessons but came to church yesterday and liked it a lot we think! Mauricio. He could also be baptized by this Sunday after church because the rules of the mission are they have to attend church twice and among other things, keep the word of wisdom by at least the terça, or Tuesday. So yeah those are our 2 baptisms were planning on, as for our confirmations, 1 would be Vivianne, the other, would be a miracle. Yep. Anddddd as I’m writing this I’m remembering that its general conference weekend so we won’t have any confirmations haha wow, I don’t know how we missed that. But we can still have the 2 baptisms and then they’d just get confirmed next week. Denilson was baptized by the previous missionaries but he was confirmed our first week here and so that’s been cool seeing him at church. He’s really into it and enjoying it and I’m happy for him.

 
Best way for me to learn the language? Talking with the natives helps a ton and then talking with Elder Steele after about some questions I had about what they said. Also if you say natives here, or as I said, nativos, they think you’re talking about native Americans, Indians. Yeah they laughed for a good 40 seconds at that one. I just call them brasileiros now. Language study is also really helpful in learning correct grammar. Likeee subjunctive. Which we don’t have in English so it’s hard to use correctly and recognize when it’s necessary. For lunch yesterday the brasileiros called Elder Steele serious and called me a brincadeiro, or joker. I had been making some puns that they thought were funny. It’s good when you can make other people laugh in another language. Not because you’re speaking horribly but because they think what you said is funny.

The 2 locks are for security. We share the outer portão, gate, with a store so we both have a key to that one and then we have another lock to our door to get inside our casa.

We have a washer...kind of. It just broke....were not sure what’s wrong...were probably going to ask an irma, sister, if we can do our laundry at her house. Still haven’t done it yet. When its working though yeah we wash it and then hang it to dry.

It isss weird to put tp in the garbage a bit but not too weird. Sometimes I forget but it flushes down fine as far as I can tell.  I don’t know about hot water. I imagine though in the summer I’ll be taking cold showers anyways.  The secretaries of the mission actually already sent us 2 tables and should be here soon!  Did I mention we have 3 microwaves that don’t function as far as we can tell?  We have windows to move air...I’ve debated about buying a fan but it hasn’t gotten too bad yet. Other people just open up windows and some have fans.

Thank you for the laughter pertaining to the pain being weakness. I appreciate it.

Khakis, I’m going to talk with the mission president about it next time I see him. Elder Steele does Not wear the sandals and in fact I haven’t seen anyone wearing the sandals but I saw a sapateira, shoe store, and might stop by there today! Elder Steele has ingrown toe apparently. We’ll also be stopping by a foot doctor later for him.

5 people from last week. Uhhhh, we had to cut one because he’s not ready yet, aka, he doesn’t want to keep commitments or progress. Another was too busy and said shed contact a member friend of hers when she had time so we’ve cut her for now too. The others are okay. We have more promising prospects this week.

So after we were done teaching one of our investigators, Fabio, he said he really wishes that he could speak English with someone. I told him that if he gave me his information I could talk with you guys about skyping with him. It’s totally up to you guys but his information is here:

skype:
fabio.JHS
Don’t feel obligated to do this, it’s just an option if you want.:sd

I looked up your area on google maps and found your church building!  It looks like you’re on the northwest side of Sao Paulo – is that right??
I honestly don’t know. I haven’t seen a map of where I’m at yet haha

Your carterira sounds cool.  Adding a pocket is smart!  I’m glad you get good meals from the members.  Jonathan and Shelem fed the 4 Spanish Branch missionaries yesterday.  I always love having the missionaries in our home.  They bring the Spirit with them, and I always feel that I’m doing for someone else’s son what I hope others will do for my son!!
You get blessings too for feeding the missionaries!

Sis Lucas (Kelsi) got her visa and I’m pretty sure will be traveling to Brazil today!  I hope Bonnie gets hers too!!
That’s exciting she got her visa! So she’s going to the Brazil MTC to finish up her last...2, 3 weeks?

What was the best part of your week?
Mauricio coming to sacrament!!

What was the biggest challenge of the week?
Having the spirit sometimes

How did you overcome it?
Worked harder to be worthy of it

What scripture has meant the most to you recently?
It’s hard to pick a favorite. I’ve liked a lot of scriptures in Alma lately. Alma 36:24?

How often do you have district meetings? Zone meetings?
We have them back to back and they’re both today at like 6.

How many miles do you think you walk each day?
Probably 6 or so. Depends on the day.

Do you use public transportation much, or mostly walk where you need to go?
We try to mostly week because its 3 reais one way for public transportation and 3 back so that’s a little less than 3 dollars round trip so we walk most places. When we do baptismal interviews though for the other 2 duplas in our district (because Elder Steele is DL) we have to take the onibus which is kind of annoying because it costs money and then we also miss appointments...

Do you use a backpack, or did you end up getting some other kind of tote?
I use my awesome backpack you got for me over a year ago. No problems yet! And no stitchings like the other one had!

I’m glad the water isn’t bothering you – is it possible that other areas might be different in terms of water quality?
Yeah its possible

Will you be watching general conference at the church building next weekend?  I can’t wait to hear those inspired messages!!
The Sunday sessions for sure, were not sure yet about the Saturday sessions.

Rie, I walked into a house and guess what was on the TV! Adventure Time! In Portuguese! I didn’t watch it obviously but I thought about you.

Here, Halls cough drops are candy and sold as such. Crazy huh?  I’ve also seen a surprising number of people (4 or so) wearing Argentina futebol jerseys!?! What’s up with that?? I’ve been curious about this lately.

ACAÍ is absolutely amazing. Amazing flavor and texture. It’s kind of like a Brazilian replacement for ice cream. Paçoca also is amazing with acaí. It’s kind of a sweet, powdery peanut buttery thing. lete condensado or condendsated milk is also way good with it as well as lete em pó which is just powdered milk.  pão com quejo is another thing here which is good. Bread on the outside, cheese on the inside.

Also assisted Elder Steele in giving my first blessing in Portuguese. A blessing of healing. I anointed and he sealed. It wasss difficult because I wasn’t prepared but it was good. The priesthood works in all languages.

Is the debit card set up so I could make withdrawals out here? I don’t need to do that right now but i might have to later in my mission.

I’m out of time. Still lots to say. I love all of you and wish you all the best :)

Elder Horton

This is a photo of Garrett and Chris Fore (center) from the Boiling Springs Ward. 
We just got it, but it's from the MTC days.

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