Ben In Brazil

NEW YEARS EVE Today was probably one of the best days of the mish so far. Besides the fact I almost suffocated cuz I had some mega-spicey pimenta (hot sauce) For lunch we went to this lil restaurant by our house to pick up some food. I noticed they had pimenta so I put some on my plate even though they told me it was super strong. When I took the first bite my throat literally closed up. Like completely. Couldn't breath for about 10 seconds. Scariest 10 seconds of my life but it's all good now. WEDNESDAY This place has so many nice people. It's a little bit wealthier than any of my other areas, which is nice because people tend to keep their commitments more often. We met a neat, really receptive family that we're excited to start teaching. They're talking a lot about church this Sunday. SATURDAY This week I lost my voice and I've had a pretty bad cold, which has made teaching really difficult to say the least haha. But we've been making...

CHRISTMAS EVE This week the vaaaaast majority of our investigators left town so we've kinda been twiddling our thumbs wondering what to do. We've just been knocking doors really finding people to teach. We straight up feasted like kings at a members house tonight. It was a really good way to spend Christmas Eve. Then at home the four of us decided to have a lil' slumber party & put all our mattresses by the Christmas tree. We had Christmas jazz playing all night for Santa to enjoy. *CHRISTMAS* For a Christmas 6,000 kilometers away from home it was actually really really great. We all took turns opening presents and I got a bunch of l00t that's gonna last me a while. We got to talk to our families too. THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS We're still just working on finding people because everyone's on vacation. We had a good lesson with a less active dude who looks like an NFL offensive lineman. He's been coming to church for the past couple of ...

TUESDAY We arrived in Palmas at about 5 in the morning for our dual-zone Christmas conference. We spent the majority of the day waiting around in the chapel for everyone to finish their interviews with President so I had a lot of time to mess around on the piano which was nice. Then we spent the night at Elder Xavier and Calzona's house, two ole buds. I met Elder Xavier when we were back in Pedregal/Novo Gama in June. Now he's only a few days away from heading home. It's crazy how fast time flies. Elder Franca and I hit up Dudu Lanche's again (the place where I ate that huge cheeseburger) and got some steak fries like we did in the ole Taquaralto days. The owner still hasn't put my picture up like he said he would but said he's working on it lol. WEDNESDAY Christmas Conference today!! I loved getting to see all the missionaries in Palmas. People were assigned different topics to speak about in Christ's life and I sang "Eu Sei Que Vive M...