Building lives, breaking homes.

It seems like a lot happens during the week, but then P-day comes and I forget. I gotta learn to write stuff down to remember better.

Last week we had a service project, that was probably the funnest that I´ve done yet. One of our investigators was living a an old little house that the government ordered be taken down cuz they´re gonna build a park or something, so he asked us to take his house apart. It was a blast. The house was pretty small, (about the size of our front room) and took a couple of hours to take apart. First he took the roof off and the beams supporting it, and then it was all hammer swings and Street Fighter ninja kicks from there. Our legs where pretty sore afterwards, but it was pretty cool to kick down a bunch of walls. Unfortunately, the house and walls were infested with tons of spiders that would come out of the walls sometimes, so that was a fun part. Ha, after so long of helping people build stronger homes, it was a nice change to help someone destroy theirs.

Today we´re gonna pass by the place that does marriages, as many if not all of our investigators are in need of it. I´ve heard that it´s a bit expensive, but that the missionaries usually can get a pretty decent discount after some begging. Unfortunately, there´s no free marriage here like in Campo Grande, so that´s the part that´s holding some of our investigators up.

On a better note, we found a large family who are pretty religious, receptive, and (even better) legally married! They´re a a Presbyterian family. One of the kids has a really weird name that I can never remember, but it sounds like “Anakin” so I usually just end up calling him so. I think they´ll do well.

Usually one of our first questions after getting to know somebody is asking if they´re married. It usually goes something like this:
Us: So, how long have you guys been together?
Investigators: Oh, about 10 yrs.
Us: Cool, did you guys get married here?
Investigators: Yeah, we started living together here.
Us: What kind of wedding cake did you guys have? Chocolate?
Investigators: Huh? No, there wasen´t any cake, we didn´t actually do the whole legal process, but we´re pretty much married, you know, after being together so long.
The cake question gets to the point every time.

So they had some of that swine flu/fever at the MTC? Yeesh, that´s kinda scary. There´s a lady in the ward here that says that the swine flu/fever is the animals are rebelling after centuries of mistreatment, or something like that. She´s a bit of an animal activist.

Yesterday I was the pianist in sacrament meeting, as the lady who usually conducts was absent, and I have absolutely no idea how to conduct. So, the beehive who´s the piano player conducted, and I did backup duty for the day. It was nice to play in sacrament meeting again. The chapel was a little empty, as frequency keeps going down in the ward for some reason.

I´m getting to know the area a little better now. There´s quite a few hills, and there´s an area at night that we have to avoid as it´s where all the drug dealers go, but other than night it´s a pretty peaceful place.

Welp, sáll from me.

The weather continues to be nice and cool, and I don´t think I´ve sweat a drop since getting here. Here´s hoping for more of the same!

-Elder Répri