Hey Family and Friends!
So this past week has been crazy! Ive never been so tired before in my life! It usually has taken me about a half hour to fall asleep every night of my life, but this past week as soon as I hit the pillow, I'm out! My area is beautiful! Its consists of 4 little towns, Sao Roque, Mairinque, Aluminio, and Araçariguama. It is so green and beautiful! I will try and send some pictures again, but the computers are being weird.So to answer dads question (how much money do you get to live on?), we get 140 reais every two weeks, with is about 80 american dollars. The unfortunate thing is that we end us spending 100 of it on transportation. We have to take a bus to the other towns everyday. So we work in Mairinque almost everyday, its kinda a poorer town so the people are more receptive. But we are on the bus for about 1hr and a half everyday. Then we have to go to some peoples houses that live like a half hour walk down a dirt road out of the town. Its really cool! Its just like the adventure that I wanted. But it sure is hard work.
The thing in Sao Roque that looks like a slide is actually an artificiall ski hill! Can you bellive that its like the only place to ski in the country and I can see it out my window. But the rules say we aren't aloud to do extreem sports... Heavenly father definatley has a sense of humor! haha So ya, thanks for refilling my Wells fargo account. I think I am going to be using that account more than I thought. But i will try to keep it to necessity purchases.
So things that happened in my first week... I found out that Im terrible at Portugese. I can only talk about the gospel. So I usually have no idea whats going on. Its a big test of my patience. I had to bear my testimony in Church. No big deal. I gave the first half of a priesthood blessing. (the anointing of the oil) We got 2 more baptism dates, and there are 3 people with dates, so thats a total of 5 scheduled for October. But i doubt that they will work out that soon... One of the guys is on crack and other drugs and he and his wife need to get married before they can get baptized. But its exciting. We were teaching a lesson and the lady just wipped it out and started nursing her baby right there. Kinda weird, but I guess it happens alot. But this place is awesome! Its just frustrating because I feel like we have alot of wasted time during the day because we are traveling so much. We walk about 10 miles a day, which takes up about 3 hours during the day and then we are on busses for 1-2 hours everyday. But I guess thats just how this area is. My companion, Elder Briggs, and I are going to start teaching an English class once a week. And we are going to start doing a ward FHE thing every saturday night, and we will teach an american sport after. I think that this will really be great missionary tools.The food here is really good. And the members make us eat like 3 or 4 helpings everyday. One guy got mad at me the other day because I took the small piece of meat. It was rude I guess! haha but whatever!Even though I exercize alot by walking I think I am still going to gain weight! haha the food is just so fatty and we eat so much of it. But today I bought a jump rope so that should be a good cardio workout in the mornings. One thing that makes me happy is that Ice crem exists here... and its good! So thats something that we get to treat ourselves to every once in a while. Its going to be weird not using a dryer for the next two years. But thats just how it is here. No one has a dryer. There is this recent convert family. Its a single mom, and she is 3 kids, and boy thats 15, a girl thats, 12, and a boy that is 4. We go and visit them twice a week and I love it. I love playing with João. He is the 4 year old. Its like a little home away from home. They are great people.But I really like this place, the mission is hard work, but completely worth it. I see little Miricales every day that make the work so worth it!Thank you for all your love and support.
Love,Elder Schoen