WEEK 4: Greetings from Bdahzeeoo!

Greetings from Bdahzeeoo! (that's basically how it's pronounced here)

Pretty good week! Here's the rundown:

TUESDAY

Ola! Today was pretty average. After class Elder Warnick and I & some of the brazilian elders going to Japan did some impromptu singing in the hallway. It actually didn't sound too shabby. It's cool because hardly anyone speaks English but they know like every word to English pop songs and they LOVE Ed Sheeran. So we sang a bunch of that.

WEDNESDAY

Today was Pday. We got new roommates. Still recovering from losing Elder Batista haha but the new guys seem cool. They're kinda shy. For Pday my district and I played a whole bunch of volleyball with some friends that leave next week and then had some Acai with Irmao Vianna. Acai is so dang good especially in Brazil. Irmao Vianna is pretty musical tool so he played his guitar and we sang some songs. A few passerbys on the street stopped and listened haha

Oh yeah also on the way to the temple our bus was hit by a trailer. They cut us off the guy's trailer smacked into our bus. Everyone was fine and some people didn't even realize that it happened. The drivers just pulled over and handed each other money and called it good lol.

Ohhhh also our entire district may or may not have shaved our legs :D

We were bored and it's HOT here so we decided it'd be the right move hahaha

I'll send before and after pics some day. My legs are silky smooth

THURSDAY

Not all that much happened today. Lots of class, portuguese, getting to know our roommates and plenty of rice/beans.

Carnaval festival is starting soon and the people who live around the MTC are already getting all ready for it. Today a party bus drove around the MTC block a few times a day blasting Brazilian songs and stuff.

FRIDAY

Today was so funny. We sat by the other American district today for lunch and breakfast and MAN those guys are funny. (A district is a group of missionaries that have classes together.)

We combined some guac and salsa and a few other mystery ingredients together and made some kind of dip that smelled exactly like Play-doh. Wasn't exactly our best creation.

We started TRC's last week, which is where you are assigned a person to teach continuously for two weeks. It's been going pretty good and Warnick and I are making a lot of progress with ours. (Elder Warnick is my companion I can't remember if I've said that. He's a BYU music major from Reno, Nevada; he and I play a lot of piano together and walk around the halls singing.) But yeah anyways this week there was a mix-up and for some reason Warnick and I got two TRC people to teach. We like the extra challenge though so we're laying low and teaching an extra person. It's better preparation for the actual mission field I think.

Lastly, our teacher, Irmao Vianna gave us an incredible lesson today. I know I say it a lot but he's just one of my favorite people. He's such an incredible dude. We found out today he was Catholic all his life and found the church just a few years ago. Then he served a mission in England and learned english. He's so genuine. I really admire him for his authenticity and how he teaches with so much love.

SATURDAY

Huge thunderstorm today. I love lightning so much. Lots of classes today. I'm relieved the week is over, it's been pretty strenuous.

The beds here are tiny twin sized beds so everything from my ankles down is completely suspended off the bed when I sleep. Haha missions really help you appreciate the things you take for granted back in America. I bought two copies of the Book of Mormon to give to the haircutting dudes. I'm going to try to get to know them better. That's all for today.

SUNDAY

The Japanese district leaves today. I'll miss them. They have a suuuuper long flight to Germany then to Japan. Those guys are so neat. Most of them are going to be quad-lingual; they speak Portuguese, spanish, english, (and soon) Japanese which I think is amazing.

UPDATE: They all just left and everyone cheered a bunch for them. It'd be so cool serving in Japan.

So my mission journal is dark green and looks EXACTLY like a hymn book. Haha it's the same size and everything. Literally on a daily basis people confuse it for a Hymn book. If I leave it out of my sight it almost always gets picked up and put on the shelves with the other hymnals hahah. I might just write "NOT A HYMN BOOK" really big on the cover so I don't keep getting it taken away every meeting.

MONDAY

So my companion is a super good piano player. The natives all idolize him for it. He can sightread anything first try, so naturally like every district keeps asking him to accompany them when they sing musical numbers. And I always have to tag along because you always have to stay by your companion. And since I love singing I join in with the group and try to subtly correct their pitches (cuz sometimes it sounds pretty tone-deaf). So the past few days Warnick and I have spent the majority of our time guest-starring in different brazilian and spanish districts helping them perform for devotionals and stuff. We did the EFY medley twice today because the natives just love that song. Tonight, there was a mini-devotional for the missionaries leaving tomorrow, and a spanish district recruited us to accompany them. They gave me a sheet with the lyrics on it, but I 100% forgot it upstairs in my room haha so I just hummed the melody and tried to mouth whatever spanish words I could pick out. Hahah I'm sure it looked so bad, just a 6'5" white boy in the middle of a bunch of hispanics fumbling for lyrics. Lol anyways...

I just realized I haven't included any portuguese in my emails. I'll end this weeks email with my testimony in port.

Eu sei que Deus vive. Ele vive e nos ama muito. Eu me sentia Seu amor com muita forca durante de minha vida. Sou grato pelo paz que o Evangelho trazia a minha vida e como o Evangelho se da minha vida porposito. Eu sou grato pelo ejemplo de Jesus Cristo e dento ser como Ele todos os dias. Sei que o Livro de Mormon e o palavra de Deus verdade e sou grato trazer esto conhecimento as gente do Brazil. Eu digo estas coisas en o nome de Jesus Cristo, Amem.

Love you all and I hope everything's swell in the Estados Unidos.

Elder Yøung