June 15, 2011

E ai pai tudo esta bem?! Hey, Dad.  It sounds like you´ve been working super hard lately keep up the good work. I know how you feel when you feel like you have a million things to get done and you have no time to rest. I never rest here haha. This week was really good and we are getting this area going. It´s still hard going back and forth by bus every day but we should have our house soon in a couple of weeks so it will be good. We got a house picked out thats in a safe area and its right behind a members house that stays in the house all day so it will be safe. We had a baptism on saturday and it went really well. She picked me to baptize her so I did and it was good except the water was super cold! Every single baptism i´ve done has been in freezing water. I guess I just have bad luck. But it was really good, there was a lot of support from the branch. The members here are so excited to help us out in missionary work and we are getting a lot of refferals. This week I also went on exchanges and got put with the Zone Leader Elder Askins and he´s american, so we just took a break on the portuguese for a while and just spoke english on the streets in between appointments. I realized that my english skills have gone down a little haha sometimes I just say the portuguese word because in the moment I can´t think of the English word. Just imagine when i´ll be here for a really long time how much my English will go. This week I also experienced real legit passionfruit juice and it was soooo good! I also had real guava juice and it was amazing. Usually here in southern Brazil there isnt that much natural fruit juice because they just use Tang powder that actually tastes way good so its all good. The majority of fruit in brazil is grown in the northeast where its nice and hot all year long. Here fruit is really expensive, but sometimes members will treat you to real juice! This morning I had a avacado and bannana milkshake and it was way good. So there is this dog in são marcos that I swear is the ugliest dog in the world haha I need to take a picture of him. He has a bunch of bald spots and really long hair where he does have hair. Its super funny. The weather here is getting colder and colder every day it sucks! There is really heavy fog every single morning. When it rains here it rains in buckets its so crazy. Hmmm what else.... Yesterday we were teaching a 11 year old and a 7 year old that drinks alcohol and smokes weed. Ha man what kids do these days. Things are going good here and the portuguese its going super good. I´ll be fluent soon. Well I love ya and keep up the good work!

 Love, Matt

June 8, 2011

Tudo bem pai! Things here are good, and dont worry about me! Im not sure if they caught the guys that robbed us, but im sure they didnt cuz the police force was horrible out there. Hahaha i was laughing picturing eric rappin on the turn table, i miss that kid. And what did you mean when you said that you had a bid for the roof?? im confused.. what roof? what bid? please explain yourself. So yeah, im working in são marcos now, and its going good! Its hard though, cuz we opened the area so we get lost a lot, that and we have to catch a bus there every day, that burns money up quick. We are still living in the city next to it, so its hard not living there. We are looking for a good house to rent that is close to the chapel, and safe. Hopefully we´ll figure it out this week. But são marcos is a good area that hasnt had missionaries there for over a year, so the members are super excited to have us here and working. There has just been people coming to church that havent been baptised yet cuz there hasnt been missionaries here to teach and baptise. The members here have been a lot of help to us. In borda do campo the members didnt help at all.. it sucked. But we have a bunch of help now. We have a baptism here this saturday already, its sweet! We are teaching some really firm investigators that should be baptised soon. We are still living in sao jose dos pinhais with the zone leaders so it sucks going back and forth every day with the bus and such. Yesterday it rained so hard and i got soaked. The winter here rains a ton, and its super cold haha. Im in for a treat. Something funny that happened yesterday was that a drunk guy was chasing us and we were laughing cuz he waas just so drunk and couldnt keep up with us. Things are going good and im happy and working hard. I gotta run now my companion is in a hurry to go do nothing hahaha. I love ya have a good week!