September 1, 2010

Presidente Prudente is just amazing, I really like this city and the people here.  Everyone is super friendly.  Elder Galdino doesn't have a fiance any more.  She sent him a Dear John, but at the same time it's not a Dear John, it's just weird.  But Elder Galdino made a goal with me.  Now it is his top priority that in January 2012 he is going to come to Utah and live with me.  Sweet, huh?  He is still trying to learn English, so I told him to email you,  So help him out for me.
My branch here is a big one.  There are about 90 active members, so I do not have a calling.  Last Sunday the 2nd counselor told me I was going to have to give a talk,  I was really nervous, but he was just kidding.  He is a way cool guy.  Would you send me a cool oil vile to give him for when he does blessings?  I am loving it here in Brazil and yes, I too have noticed that sometimes I word things weird in English.  But that is because my Portuguese is good.
This week:

Wednesday:  Last P-day, after we emailed we went and played volleyball for 3 hours!!!  It was way freaking fun.  I liked it a lot more than soccer that's for sure.

Friday:  So, during the day we truly did absolutely nothing, but that night was when the fun stuff came in.  Our branch had a talent show and they wanted the elders to do something.  The 6 of us were trying to think of what we could possibly do, when Elder Miller said "Let's do a dance."  We started making it up and no one would do it with us.  So me and Elder Miller did it by ourselves and it was just awesome.  Everyone told us we were the best act of the night.  I will try and send home the video.

Saturday: We went and did some service for our branch president.  We took a tree out of the ground and shoveled a ton of rocks into a dumpster.  While we were shoveling the rocks we heard a big thump and then a dog whimper.  As we looked to see what happened, we saw a dog get hit by the back tires.  The dog was dead on impact and there was blood everywhere.  It was like an oh my gosh thing and a super cool thing at the same time, haha.  I tore up my hands with the shovel, but it was good stuff.  That night we had a baptism.  Helio's wife is a member and he decided to be baptized.  It was really cool and you can just tell he will be a strong member of the church.

Sunday:  Sunday day was a normal Sunday, but a surprising thing did happen.  The young boy we have been teaching came to sacrament meeting!!  But afterwards we weren't able to find him, so we haven't been able to teach him.  He was progressing really well, hopefully we can get things worked out with him.

Monday:  Let's see, Monday I want to talk about lunch.  We had lunch with a member who lived in the states for 20 years, she moved back to be closer to her mom.  Her husband has lived here for 4 years and still doesn't speak any Portuguese and he isn't a member of the church.  The whole lunch we spoke English (the other American Elders were with us.)  At the end we gave them a message in English, it was really cool. It is hard to talk gospel stuff in English now.
Tuesday:  Yesterday was a good day.  I had two really different experiences.  The first one is kind of funny.  We were teaching this guy about the Book of Mormon.  When we went to give it to him he wanted us to slide it into his hand.  Then he had us grab it with our right hands and say a prayer for it.  It was kind of interesting.  Second thing was a more spiritual thing.  We were teaching Thays, a recent convert.  She had had a super hard day and work just went completely wrong for her.  We talked to her about adversity and as we were talking about it I remembered a scripture, D&D 121:7.  After sharing this with her, she told me it was exactly what she needed to hear and she said it helped her a ton.  It was super cool.
That was my week.
Sorry I don't have much to say about your updates, but I have something really important that I need to do to help a friend.
I love you all so, so much.