Opa Familia!

Tell everyone thank you for writing me, and im sorry cause i cant email them back.  I'm going to try to write letters. Can you send me the missionTies address so i can start.  Tell grandma, kim, jacqueline im sorry ill right them letters soon! 

This week was a lot better than last week. I’m starting to eat more normal like I used to and actually I think more than I used to.  This gospel teaching is coming. Last week I think I just had a really bad attitude about things cause I was sick.  But I feel like the Lord always helps me in the littlest ways to make everything right.

So on tuesday you know how i said i would get a new comp for the day because my comp and his comp were going to Natal for a leader meeting. It was pretty cool experience to have a new comp and to talk to different people in a new area.  My new comp was a lil Brazilian kid that always loves to come and talk to me every time he sees me-haha. He always helps me with the language too. So that day we didn't practice lessons like i usually do in the morning because he isnt my trainer, but he just had me read alot in Portuguese until lunch. Then we went to lunch with a member at a buffet place that was bomb! His name is john the baptist and he has like half a foot so he has a limp but he's a super cool guy and i got to talk to him alot. He bought us that meal and dessert with it.  i always feel bad eating with members cause i know they have very little but they always give everything.

 Then after that we went to teach in my new comps area which is alot nicer than my area. He's in the nicer part of Mossoro. When we were walking to go teach someone i always say hi to people on the street and this one time i passed this older lady and said boa tarde and she responded but i didnt hear her but my comp started breaking out laughing. He later told me that she was saying stuff like i was beautiful hahah!  Then we went to teach this one investigator that killed someone so he cant be baptised for a long time -kinda sketchy.

Im starting to know more in the gospel so i can actually teach the whole gospel of Jesus Christ and most of the restoration.  I have memorized the first vision so i can say it in lessons. It makes things alot better when you know your stuff.( I lied last week i think my reg comp only has 7 months left in the mish so he knows so much.) But then we went to another investigators house which was the nicest house i have been to, here in Brazil. She is a really cool girl. Me and her talk alot because she knows some english and she is 19 so like my age. Only english like "how are you"and "good afternoon" hah but its better than most people that try to talk to me in english!

 Then after that we went to another investigators house to talk and they really liked us a lot.  But last week when they went to church i guess someone said something to her brother who is a homo so they were all mad and screaming, not at us but just at their anger if you know what i mean. The investigator is like 40 and her mom was there too and her brother haha.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday it rained like crazy and thats really rare. On Wednesday we didn't go out to teach or do anything cause the roads were all flooded. So we couldn't do much but it was good for me because i actually had alot of time to mark and study Preach My Gospel.  All the kids were playing soccer outside.  It was cool i wished i could have just went out there and played too.  I'm just a kid too haha! I don't know how Kimber runs in the morning or works out.  Everyone in my house is so dead in the morning -so we just sit around and get ready for the day.  I workout more at night.  We have this bar with cement slabs on each side.  i can actually get a good workout in with it. I'll send a pic.

It's sometimes hard to teach here being American to some of the younger kids because you can teach them but they will always interrupt you and throw in a totally off topic question. Because they would rather talk to me about other things. But i love all the kids here, thats another reason it's easy for me to stay here and feel comfortable cause I feel everyone here loves me. All the kids, members and people.  I had a pretty cool experience on Saturday when we were inviting a kid to go to church.  He's really good at soccer and wasn't interested at all in going to church. I felt the spirit prompt me to tell him my story with basketball and how god has blessed me with all my talent and success in basketball. Because i felt I was going to church and doing the lil things. He didn't end up going to church but i felt he felt different after that.

I'm starting to act more like myself with people with the only few things i know in Portuguese.I was at a members house and the people there love american music and always sing it but dont know what it means haha. So me and a girl my age were goofing around before they fed us lunch and singing american songs haha and her cousin who is like 6 would not stop laughing at me at everything i did haha.  It was so funny, she had a Barbie backpack so i sang her I'm a Barbie Girl. Then at lunch everyone here serves rice, noodles, beans with steak and brats if they have more money but normally it's chicken. The juice is really good. So there was juice and sprite on the table and so i mixed it like we always do at home and everyone looked at me funny and then everyone tried it and they were literally amazed haha! I thought it was just a normal thing.

There is this one family that i really love here. They always talk to me and they have a daughter my age that is actually really good looking and it helps me speak more and practice my Portuguese.  Because i have always been the one to step up my game with a hot girl haha! No, but she's really cool- she always helps us with our investigators. When we talk she always rubs in stuff like - yesterday when she went to the beach and had a luau with friends and then ate pizza…..

This Sunday was really good because we had like 7 investigators come with us to church. Four girls that just go because they like me haha and the rest were young kids. Its funny cause the four girls always take pictures of me and stuff so i hope i can baptize all of them. We haven't had a baptism in awhile and the pres i guess looks down on missionaries if they dont get baptisms every week so my comp was really stressed and this sunday really helped us both. This one lil kid that we have been teaching William, i love this kid. He's also really good at soccer and when we first got to church i could tell he didnt like it but by the end i could tell he loved it cause he made friends and when we were walking him back to his house after church he was singing I'm beautiful its true hahah. I'm known here around the kids and for the one who always says ohhh por que which means why haha. It's  so fun to say and every kid says it when they see me and also they want me to give them a handshake snap thing because it hurts. Then they try to see who can last longest.

Its so much different here in Brazil. But i love it. The houses are really small and pretty bad.  The kids run around naked and the women will breast feed right in front of you and in church haha! Carnival is this week so ill get some cool pics.  All the kids here dress up and dance in like their piñata outfits. I love you guys.  I think about you guys every day.

Amo, Elder Mature 

  Vida Loca