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!

June 2, 2011

Hey dad! Wow thats so nuts about the water in utah. Looks like you can just go skim boarding anywhere! This week we had training and it was really good. Im improving so much on the portuguese every day, and i think i should be fluent within 3 months. Im already speaking whatever i want, its just sometimes when you wanna tell a story or something you dont know the vocab for special words. The good thing is my lesson vocab is good, and thats whats important.

This next part i dont know if you should show mom. She might get worried and such, but i thought i would share it with you. You can judge on if you think mom should know. This week i was robbed. It was on thursday and we were walking at about 8:30 and we started to cross the crossing that takes you over and to the other side of the freeway and I was walking about 7 feet in front of elder dos santos, and i passed 5 guys that let me pass, one of them having a big stick in his hand, but i walked about 15 more feet before i realized that elder dos santos wasnt behind me, so i looked back and i heard shouting, and i saw one of the guys grab the cell phone out of elder dos santos hand, and the guys saw me that i was looking back and they yelled at me to run off, but i didnt want to leave my companion, so i ran up to help him and they started to rob me too. They said they had a gun, so we didnt want to resist. They took my backpack, 17 bucks, my umbrella, my nice mission scriptures, daily planner, cell phone, consecrated oil vial, and my irregular verb portuguese card. It happened so fast, with them yelling and screaming in our faces, throwing in a few blows with the stick, then yelling at us to leave. They hit my back pretty hard that cut it and gave it a big bruise, and hit elder dos santos;s hand really hard that made it swell. We ran to a members house and they drove us home, and then we used their phone to call President Cordon, and he told us to go to the hospital to check out and make sure we werent hurt too bad, so we went and it turned out fine. My back was just cut a little with a bruise and elder dos santoss hand was just swollen and not broken. Man, it was so scary. President took us from borda do campo and now we are living with the zone leaders waiting for a house in our new area são marcos. We went to the mission office and they gave us new backpacks (which the backpack i got is horrible and hurts my back), and scriptures ( used and dirty ). BUt I have my life and thats all that counts. Just make sure you are always praying for my safety, cuz i needd those prayers! Im fine now, and everythings alright. It was just a trial but i know i will learn and grow from it.

But things are all good now and we will work hard in são marcos. It is a branch but it only needs 10 more members to make a ward and construct a chapel. We will make it happen! That was my week, pretty much. I love you dad just know that, and im praying for you guys always.

Love, Matt

May 25, 2011

Hahahaha corndog conference..... But yeah, hey!!!! Im doing good and everything is fine! Just to jump right in this weeks events, a drunk guy approached us, super hammered, and the first thing he said to us is " im not gay" so i said "thats good" and he looked right at me and poked me in the chest and said "why is that good you americano!" haha it was so funny. We told him that we were in a hurry and we had to go, so he said it was okay and started to run at us hahaha it was crazy so we got away. THere are a lot of drunk people on the streets here at night. ANother thing that has happend this week is during one of the lessons the lady we were teaching just took her top off and started nursing her baby right in front of us without hiding anything hah man its just a culture thing here and its weird. I saw it happened on the bus too. Its just normal here. THis week the new misionaries arrived and they dont speak absolutely no portuguese! It was funny to see how horrible they were and to remember how bad i was when i arrived ha. its crazy how much ive improved. Im also having dreams in portuguese now and its super weird and funny haha. I went on exchanges this week and while i was walking a group of guys were yelling english words at me like good morning, hey, hi how are you americano, and other things. Haha dang brazilians. The temperature is getting pretty cold now. The temp in our house the other morning was 58 degrees! Super cold, and the humidity just makes it worse. Something funny that happend this week was that all the brazilians were saying how the world was gunna end last friday and they were freaking out. Brazilians are crazy! ha. They say that america never landed on the moon and that all we eat is sandwiches and cheeseburgers. Our investigators are going good, and we got a new investigator that lives on like the last house in our area. We had to walk through a forest to get to his farm hahaha but the scary part was walking back to the town part of our area at night. He lives in a super dangerous area but its all good, cuz we got the spirit with us hahahahaa. But yeah, its going good here in Borda do campo! Thats funny that you finally lost it all on the boat after 20 years, and thats super sweet that you got an ipad 2 from ufl! Give it to me when i get home! Deal?? haha. Well i love ya have a good week!
 Love matt

May 18, 2011

The new lawn mower sounds like it does work! I will deffinatly not miss mowing the pasture with a push mower hahha. Thats super good that jazz got a number 3 pick! Maybe theyll get jimmer! haha. Ocean fishing is gunna be super fun! But all is well here. Today for pday we went to the botanical gardens. It is really big and super nice. It looks way pretty, maybe you can look at photos on google. I sent pics to mom, so you can check em out there too! This week i went on splits a few times cuz my comp is DL and he goes and does interviews. Were you ever DL or ZL?? We got brazilian pizza and it was super good. Its like a tradition to get pizza on a split. We also marked several dates this week, which is good. We need help from the branch. The members here dont help very much, so its hard to baptise here, and when we baptised the recent converts go inactive because no one there fellowships. The portuguese is coming along really good. At zone conference the mission presidents wife (which speaks fluent portuguese, served a mission in Portugal) pulled me to the side and told me how impressed she was with my portuguese. She said by far i speak the best out of the group that arrived with me. I guess the practice and prayers in philly paid off! Im almost to the point where i can just go up to anyone and have a conversation with them without worrying. I can say what i want ususally, and understand the people good. The teaching is going a lot better too, which is sweet! We had our confirmation this sunday too, which was sweet! Something i like here is something called sonhos. They are like these doughnuts things with good creme in the middle and they are only about 45 cents american. Really good, and really cheap! the bakerys here have way good stuff! Something funny this week was when a brazilian said that it was a pleasure to have me in his store cuz i was american ha they love us here. THey think its really interesting cuz they usually never see americans in their life in person. Well, not much more that is going on, just working hard and putting up with the COLD! Man, its starting to get super cold in the night and the morning. We dont have any insalation, and so its like a fridge in our house. They wind and humidity makes it super cold! This morning i was freezing, and by mid day i was sweating. The weather here is weird... BUt all is well here and just know that i love ya!

Love, Matt

May 11, 2011

hey dad! not much to say to you either haha seeing that we talked on mothers day! Today was really cool, we went to the Curitiba Temple! Man, its so weird to do a session in portuguese! I didnt even use a translator, but it was good and i understood a lot of it. It took forever to get there, and ate up our whole pday, but it was worth it cuz the temple there is way cool and i look forward to going there again. I spent like 7 hours on a bus today man it sucked, and tomorrow ill spend even more time cuz its zone conference and we pretty much just have to go all the way back into center city curitiba, which is huge! But yeah, it was so cool talking with you guys via skype, ill deffinatly have to look for another member with skype when christmas comes, which is only about 7 more fast sundays! haha. But yeah, not much to say today, and im really short on time. I love ya!

Matt

May 4, 2011

Oi pai!
Things here are going good, and a lot different with a brazilian companion haha. They just act different than americans. He doesnt speak any english, so im forced to speak portuguese. Its good tho, cuz my portuguese and accent has gotten a lot better, and will continue to improve. Man, the same time i learn portuguese, im forgetting english haha. I had to think pretty hard how to say the pledge of alligence the other day haha. So now that Elder Dos Santos is new in the area, i took it over and he relys on me to know where im going. The road and house system out here is rediculous, but i know the area pretty good. So about the skype deal. Im pretty sure ill be skyping at 4 your time, so that will be good. Man, it will be way good to see your faces, it will be weird! Today for pday we played futsol, which is a version of soccer. Its played on an outdoor basketball court, with a smaller soccer ball. Its fun, but the brazilians are so freaking good and just own all of the americans ha but when it comes time to play basketball, we will own every time. Man, i just emailed on wednesday so i dont know what more to say, that and i will talk to you on sunday! Hmm... Well we did mark 6 baptisimal dates the other day so that was good. I dont know what more to say other than im super excited for sunday! I love you!
Love, Matt