"Stuck in the 80s"

 Well to start out I just wanted to say we saw an article in a newspaper this week that said Maceió is the 3rd most dangerous city in the world.... How awesome is that?! The thing is though.... I am not in Maceió anymore! I am in Viçosa and it is absolutely amazing here. So stinking pretty. I am still in the same zone, same district even, but I am about an hour/two hours outside of Maceió. But really it is so cool here. There is this sweet river running through the middle of the city and it has a lot of "hills" but people call them mountains. But the city honestly looks like it is from the 80s. The church here is tiny. I have a picture of it for you but I am in a new LAN house and they don´t have a place to put my SD card but I will see what I can do. The Church here is actually a branch and I love it. The youth here are absolutely amazing and are always willing to work with us. That is actually a lot of what the ward is is a lot of youth. The majority of the older members are either inactive or moved away to be in a ward. But it is really close to becoming a ward and will most likely happen within the next couple of months so it will be really fun to see that happen.
   
My new companion is Elder Joel Shokes from Chubbuck/Pocatello and he is a pretty solid kid. He will be hitting his year mark here in about 3 days and he is really excited for that. But he was also a visa waiter too but only for two weeks and he served in the Salt Lake mission. He said it was a pretty cool experience actually and he was there during conference so I would have to agree with him that it was cool. Still doesn´t beat good ol´Oregon though.... So stinkin rad!
  
We had a bit of a wild week though because through a long series of horrible events, I ended up losing ALL of my mission money and Elder Shokes had spent all of his as well. So for pretty much the first 3 days out here in Viçosa we were living off of couscous and boiled water. We ended up getting our new income of money on Friday and when we were at the bank I saw Shokes use his American debit card and was like... "You can use those here?" and he was like "of course"... And I just slapped myself in the head cause I had completely forgotten about my personal money account on the other card... So pretty much we were starving because I forgot you guys love me. Smooth move Elder Guzy!!! Hahaha 


But we did have a solid week here. We had two baptisms this past weekend and they are dope. One is a 17 year old girl and the other is a 22 year old guy who is pretty much my hero. He is just a stud and pretty much dropped everything to get baptized, like took out his earrings and everything. He also is stinkin good at soccer so we get along well :) Also this week was sweet because all of a sudden... I can speak and understand Portuguese.... I am having real conversations and understanding them and giving opinions and everything. It is really cool. I really believe it is because of reading "Drawing on the Powers of Heaven". That book has completely changed the way I say my prayers now and everything.
  
The new house is pretty nice as well. It has all the things we need: a bathroom, kitchen, washing machine, study room, and bedroom. I guess before I got there though it was pretty gnarly - like rats in the ceilings and stuff. We can still sometimes hear rats or cats, we are quite sure, but they haven´t caused any problems yet so it is all great. We do have to fill up a bucket of water to flush the toilet though just because it is broken but even that isn´t that bad. In all reality I like it a lot. I promise I will get some pictures of it to you soon... if the computer will let me.

It sounds like things with the family are all going alright. I will remember to keep everyone in my prayers though. Ry, I really am still so excited for you to be going to USU and I would love to hear all the details about where you will be living and with who and all that ish... You are gonna have such a blast! As for everyone else.... you are always invited to go and visit Logan in all of it´s beauty and glory as well :p 


Once again have another great week and remember.... Stay Sweet....

Elder Guzy