WEEK 17: Power Outage & Transfer Day

TUESDAY

People like to hang their clothes on barbed wire in their yard sometimes to dry them, and the barbed wire seems like its always exactly at eye level for me. I used to not notice it and come super close to some bad eye damage but now I'm used to them. I'm always ducking here because nothing is meant for my height.

WEDNESDAY

This transfer is about over so this week we're working a lot with those who are planning to be baptized soon. They are all progressing pretty well.

We started teaching Barbara again after about a month of not seeing her. She's been real busy with college and thought we'd already been transferred but she said she'll be at church and wants to continue meeting.

THURSDAY

Yeah so turns out no one's been paying the electricity bill in our house so last night we came home to total darkness. We figured things out with the electrical company but it looks like it'll be about another 24 hours until they can turn it back on, so we're back with cold showers and eating uncooked ramen and spoonfuls of Nutella for dinner. Life is good.

FRIDAY

Portuguese is coming along decently but man it's still pretty difficult haha. They have certain words that are pretty much exactly the same, but change meanings depending on the intonation of your voice. For example, Avo means grandpa, and Avo means grandma, but to say grandma in portuguese you have to slightly open your mouth more on the "o", and to say grandpa you have to say Avo with a lower, plainer tone

And "entende"and "entendi" are pronounced the same, but depending on where you put the emphasis, the meaning can change from "you understand" to "I understood". There's also "abacaxi" and "abacaxí"... one means pineapple and one means avocado.

Wild stuff right

SATURDAY

People. burn. everything. here lol. Sometimes it gets hard to breathe because people set fire to anything from trash to their excrement on the road instead of waiting for the garbage man to come.

(Pic #5)

SUNDAY

Many missionaries talk about how the times they feel the most joy as a missionary are times when their investigators say a prayer for the first time, or when they get baptized in the church.

For me, the most fulfilling and joyful thing is watching someone you've poured your heart out to and taught for weeks bare their first testimony that they know the church is true. Today was testimony meeting (where members of the church go up to the stand and say why they believe) and Tainara went up to bare her testimony. I was at the piano beaming the entire time. I bet people thought it was weird but I couldn't contain myself.  

We had Tainara's baptism super early before church, and it turns out no one remembered to fill the font. So Elder Rudger and I and like three others turned on all the faucets in the church and put buckets under each to use to fill up the font. We we able to fill it in about 20 minutes thankfully and had a great baptismal service for her. Her baptism made me so so happy because I know she'll be a super strong member in the ward. The other day she was asking about missionary service. She's thinking about going maybe in a year or so.

I confirmed her today, and I was a little nervous because I had to do it in Portuguese in front of about 100 people. It thankfully turned out real well and I had all the words I needed to say.

MONDAY

Today is transfer day. ELDER RUDGER IS LEAVING :O

I'm sad to see him go, we had a lot of fun and a lot of success together. He's going to a really poor area west of Pedregal.

My new companion is Elder Christensen. I haven't met him yet but I talked to him on the phone and he seems super cool. I'm stoked for this transfer.

PICS:

1) One of our favorite families in the ward

2) Companies just slap english words on products here just to make them sell more. Here's some "tutti-frutti" bubblegum

3) A pic of Pedregal

4) We made some more cowboy caviar but it looks more like Shrek poop so we went with that name. We made our own tortilla chips too. It was goooood.

5) Some smog from people burning random things in their yards lol

6) We got more açai

7) Obligatory sunset picture