May 7, 2008 email

May 7, 2008 email- Brazil MTC

my dear loved ones,
happy mothers day to mom soon, and tell her to check her g mail address cuz i have been writing her on it and i dont think she checks it. congrats to ryan dixon on his call that is way cool but i dont even know where croatia is. and thank you very much to the shepherds for the letters in the mail. tell little max and zack that those drawings of superman they made for me were the coolest things i´ve ever seen haha.

prosyliting on friday was crazy. friday morning they drove me and Lohman out about half an hour into the city and dropped us off for a few hours, and it has barely rained at all since i got here, but of course that morning it was pouring like crazy. so there we were in the middle of the city alone with our umbrellas in the pouring rain. not gonna lie i was a little scared at first, and it didnt help that it was in the middle of a huge city with a ton of busy people. must have been a little bit how dad felt on his mission in NYC. we kept trying to stop people and talk to them but a lot of them were rude and/or didnt wanna talk to us. at first i kinda felt like one of those annoying salesman in the mall that tries to sell you something as your walking by. but i ended up talking to a lot of people, i would have about 30 seconds to explain about the church and book of mormon and testify about it (in portuguese obviously) and by the end of the day i had handed out a bunch of pass along cards and a book of mormon but i was soaked from head to toe. a fun but very uneasy and very very humbling experience. i wouldnt say a slap in the face but definitely a taste of what the field is gonna be like.

today has been a really cool p-day. we went to the campinas temple again and i love it. i think sao paulo maybe next week. but the thing about p-days is we have to get up an extra hour early like a little after 5 to get to the temple and back and have time to do our laundry and stuff and wander around the city for a couple hours. today i went to this amazaing restaurant where you pay a flat rate then they just come to your table every couple minutes with huge slabs of meat on swords and cut off as much as you want onto your plate it was so good. it only cost me about 14 reais which is like 9 dollars i think. and brazil candy is so so good so we went and stocked up on that and me and all the guys in my district got some good stuff cuz on friday we are gonna celebrate our 1 month anniversary aka our halfway through the ctm date. should be really fun. the portuguese is coming along pretty well, it is hard work and somedays i work at it like crazy and it gets frusrating cuz i feel like i know nothing but then today at the temple i picked up a portuguese livro de mormon and started reading and i could understand most of what i was reading. so its pretty cool and the lord pays off for hard work but i still have a long lang way to go and tons to learn with that. everyone has been telling me joao pessoa is one of the absolute hottest missions cuz it is right under the equator. its gonna be crazy but i am glad the lord answers prayers cuz i prayed for nowhere cold. so its all good. also something really cool, elder bednar is coming to speak to us on the 19th of may so that will be great.

glad to hear the missionaries are moving into the rec room soon that will be cool. again tell mom happy mothers day and sorry she is getting cheated out of a phone call but check her g-mail.

love you all

tenha um bom dia
-elder sherwood