Ants + Beef Jerky = Delicious

First off, I did receive my packages. And, Hallelujah for Butterfinger and Snickers! I haven’t had that in a while. They have Snickers here in Brazil of course, but at more than a Real [Brazilian dollar] for a fun size, I haven’t had any opportunity to sample.

One thing I discovered though, the bugs down here move more quickly than in the US, in terms of how fast they find stuff. I accidentally left one of the packages of beef jerky open for just a half-hour, and I had a small line of ants marching towards them and in the bag. But!...I couldn’t throw out precious beef jerky, oh no. So, I put it in the freezer, and now all the ants are dead. So...the bad news is that I have dead ants in my beef jerky. The good news is that that package of beef jerky has now doubled in the amount of protein that it has. Actually a win-win situation in my book. [Apparently the boy is much like his grandpa in NZ.]

Your package via mail arrived last Thursday, actually, so the mail does work here. I liked all the pictures of the crosses, it was like I was getting a package from the Pope. I think they protected it, cuz it wasn’t open, and everything was in there. Those “Y” pillow cases are way cool! Thanks, I didn’t know that they made those. BYU Bookstore I assume? I guess the mail thing actually is pretty good, thanks!

So, events from this week. The new companionship is going well, though I’m gonna have to have a talk with Elder R.J. about the amount of English that we’re speaking. I learned from my zone leader to always speak Portuguese in the road or on the bus, or when within earshot of other Portuguese speakers, otherwise people may be less inclined to talk to us, if we need to, because they think that we’re weird foreigners or something, or they might think that we’re saying something about them. Anyway, I just got the idea that it’s generally a good idea to speak the language as much as possible, especially in the road.

With my last comp., we’d speak English in the house, so I’m fine with that. I struggle a lot to remember to speak in the language, but usually I think to respond in Portuguese first. But...Elder R.J. never remembers that. And 90% of the time he speaks English at me. Which is fine for him, he’s already fluent, but I’m afraid that what little skill I have in the language will die if I don’t do something about this. So we’ll see how that goes this week.

Other than that, our companionship is good. Although we’re quite different, but I’ve found that every comp. that I’ve had so far is different than me in many ways. We’re both into music, but he’s only really into acapella stuff and Josh Groban and Michael Jackson, and he doesn’t like Rock music or the Beatles or anything like that. (He doesn’t know who John Lennon was, but he’s in love with Brian McKnight. What is that?) So, hopefully I can convert him to the great Church of Rock N´Roll that I am a member of, and get him to leave the Church of that weirdo-who-had-plastic surgery-music. We’ll see...

Oh, and Levi will understand this. He always sings songs in the morning while we’re doing morning study. It’s almost exactly like he’s Andy Bernard and I’m Jim Halpert. Maybe I’ll put the companionship cell phone in the ceiling to annoy him.

In other news, we’re starting to get some good investigators. We didn’t have much last transfer, so knocking doors for a while has been a daily activity. Actually, it’s probably the least inspiring way to work, but it gives me good practice with my speaking. We actually found one family he is really good. It’s a guy named Adlison who lives with his girlfriend, mom, and sister. All except the mom participate. We were knocking around and asked to share a message with them, and they let us in. They were really interested and accepting, and the next time we came back, Adlison´s girlfriend had a list of questions that she had written down. It was about ten questions long, from stuff like "What happens after we die? Should we use different words when we pray? Is there an end of the world, and is it true that Jesus will someday return?" It was pretty cool to answer those questions, cuz as of this point in the mission, I haven’t gotten much of those. I managed to answer the one about Christ returning someday, and why our Church is "Dos Santos Dos Últimos Dias", so that was cool. We’re gonna extend an invitation to get baptized next time (They’ve been reading the Book of Mormon, which is amazing I think because none here ever likes to read the passages that we give them. I don’t think it’s that hard, it’s just the Introduction, 3 Nephi 12, and Moroni 10:3-5. Something like 4 pages and barely anyone likes to do it, so far out of our investigators). We just need Adlison and his girlfriend to get married, and for them to attend church a couple of times. We’ve got other good prospects too, but those are the most interesting, so on to some entertaining stuff.

We had lunch at a members house, and I discovered that he’s a big movie fan. He showed us all the movies that he has, both English and Portuguese. I think his favorite is the super-hero movie “Hellboy.” In fact, he liked it so much that he named his goldfish after the movie. A fish named Hellboy. I think that was the title of the sequel to "One fish two fish red fish blue fish" that Dr. Suess was writing before he died. True story. (nah)

So Coach Pope is the Coach, huh? Sweet! That’ll be a good time there, I always loved his approach to coaching. and I hope that the old spirit of the team returns. (Not the losing part, but the "Hey, let’s eat McDonald’s at practice and make fun of each others mothers in Tongan" kind of attitude. That’s what that team (and this world too) really needs.

Well, times up.

Next week we got a mission tour conference thingy, so we have to travel to Marilia (bad spelling, that’s just how it sounds to me). So, Road Trip! Brazilian style!

Thank you for those packages! They were great, and I´m really happy to be playing those pieces of music.

And also, I did get that letter from Tota, and tell her thank you for that.

It’s good to here that the BYU Basketball team is doing well. I´d love to catch a game of theirs now.

In other news, I’m doing well here. The mission gets better as time goes on. I’m adjusting more to the culture, the language, and the work. Elder R.J. is good a good Elder, I just have to remind him to help me along with my developing language skills. I really enjoy study time now, and I wish that I had more time to just sit and read the scriptures. D&C I’ve found has some very amazing things in there.

Also, that’s an amazing story to hear about grandma and her parents. And, actually, I just read this week a quote in the Ensign from President Joseph F. Smith (I think it was him, or Joseph Fielding) where he said that family members may come back and appear with a message of encouragement, or just a reassuring presence.

Whelp, again outta time.

Like I mentioned, we’ve got a mission tour conference to go to next week, so I hope that it’ll be good. Actually, I enjoy riding the bus, but it doesn’t make for good letter writing. I don’t think P-day will change because of that conference, so should be business as usual next week.

I’m doin’ good, and sounds like you guys are too.

Thanks again for your love, your candy, your love in the form of candy, and your candy in the form of love.

Excelsior!

Elder =w= Heperi