"Buses"

Hello to my family that is both rad and neat. 
I hope that your Easter was delicious and sweet.
I hope that Mom cooked some delicious meat.
And Ian finally stopped having smelly feet.

I have no idea why, but I just wanted to start out like that today. Sorry about the call out Ian..... But I just haven´t called you out in awhile hahahaha. So let´s talk about this week..... another wild one. So we had to go into Maceió again this week, but this time for a different reason. My Brazilian buddy is having back problems and it is pretty lame. One because it kinda stops us from working as hard as I would like to, and because I don´t like seeing people close to me in pain. He has had this pain for awhile but we are just now getting authorized to go to the hospital. So we went there on Tuesday night so we could make sure we would get to his Wednesday appointment for 2 o'clock, remember this 2 o'clock. We ended up getting there just before 1:30 so we thought everything was all good. But it turns out the doctor he was signed up for wasn´t there so we were told to just sit and wait until another doctor could see us. Bad idea. We ended up sitting in the hospital for almost 6 hours waiting to be seen and we couldn´t leave and plan it for another day because it is too expensive to keep going back and forth between Viçosa and Maceió. It was horrible. The seats there were super uncomfortable and I tried to sleep but didn´t really do it. I read the BOM a bit but even that wasn´t working. It was just meh. But at least we found out what is going down with my comp a bit and now we have to go get x-rays for him this coming week. Things are just wild but I hope this will all turn out well in the end. Oh and also because we were there so late we missed the bus back to Viçosa so we had to spend another night in Maceió and lose even more work time.... Lame sauce.
   
Also this week, we tried to have the baptism for that lady with the water phobia. This time we went to the beautiful waterfalls of Viçosa and thought once again, she would do it. Nope. Once again we tried everything, we even had her sister do examples for her and stuff, but she just can´t get over that fear. Being in the river helped a little though. She felt a lot more at ease there and got a lot closer to actually going completely under, but still didn´t work. I am just a little... confused though because now I am wondering to myself if I am the one lacking the faith, if I am the one not doing my part and making the sacrifices for the Lord? I have no idea. I do know that she is still confident and wants to keep trying and that she is loving the Church. She has been coming to everything super faithfully and really trying to do her part. It is so rad to see her at all of our activities. We will be going into Maceió (again) for Stake Conference and she will be going with us so the ZL´s are gonna see what they can do to help.... Who knows what will go down? But I know the Lord has a plan for everyone and everything, some times it is just hard to see it. :)
   
Things with my comp are going well.  I am already learning tons for him. He is really helping me out with my accent and is teaching me fun little neat tricks with the language. Also he is amazing at working with people. He has a way with people that just make them want to open up to him and talk with him about their lives. It makes him a great teacher and I am gonna start applying the same techniques as well.
   
That pretty much sums everything up here on my end though..... I am excited for Ry and her Senior performance. Knowing Ry, she will do awesome and it being so close to her birthday and all..... What do you want for your birthday Ryley? A Princess! Hahaha best video ever. Oh I almost forgot the questions! I really like this part of the e-mail by the way.

Describe what you eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in a typical day
Ummm breakfast not much. Usually just some yogurt and a banana or some juice. Lunch, usually a fast food place or spaghetti with rice and crackers. Dinner usually consists of coxinha and Ramen. Which for me is almost the perfect meal... I am just lacking two cheesy gordita crunches.....

Do the members feed you or are you usually on your own?
Usually the members will give us lunch, but Viçosa is known for its lack of member lunches. We have been getting a lot more than some of the other missionaries who have pasted(?) here but even then it is still pretty low.

How do you get to the areas where you work, walk, bus, etc?
The whole city is our area. It is small enough that they don´t have a bus system but big enough that to get to some members/gators houses we walk for about 40-45 minutes.

Do you do most your contacting in the public square-type areas, or mostly less-active families and referrals?
Just anywhere in the city. Usually when we are walking to appointments or somewhere else. We have been trying to work with the members a lot more though because I feel like I have contacted all of Viçosa and contacting isn´t the most effective way to find new people.

Where do you do your laundry?
In our house. The pres before Pres Gonzaga bought washing machines for all the houses in the mission. Tender mercy right?

Do you have access to copies of the Ensign and can you read those or just the standard works?
Yeah we get tons of them through the branch and then also the mission sends them to us when we have District/Zone meeting. I love the Ensign, I probably read from it more than anything else because they use more modern Portuguese than the Standards.

How hot/humid/rainy/dry is it in Brazil during the next few months?  How cold does it get?
I have no idea to be honest. Everyone says it is just gonna rain a ton and get "cold" but, cold to a Brazilian is like 90 degrees. So we will see what happens. It is actually a little chilly today because it has been raining off and on.

Are there any bad bugs or not so much?
Not that I have seen lately. We have had one scorpion in this house since I have been here and that is about it. I want to see and catch more. I also wanna catch the Brazilian Wandering Spider so bad. The worse thing animal- wise here so far is we have mice/rats in the ceiling and everyday I have to sweep up their nightly droppings..... Bummer right?! Hahaha


Bye..... I love you all. Stay classy San Diego..... I'm Ron Burgandy?