Hello Everyone in the land of . . . Dryness!
Things are a little wet these last few days. I have duck tape on the bottom of my shoes to patch them up, because water just seems to like to get in there and give me athlete's foot. (This is why I am always asking for Lamisil.) Tell Elder Poulton to get water-proof shoes. At least one pair. And 1 nice pair for the dry season. The soles in my shoes are wearing down at an accelerated rate of fastness. Whatever that means…
So, I prepared a full out 3-4 hour English class for this last week, and we had it all set up with desks and chalkboard and everything in the chapel and… it rained. And! Only one person came. Yay!...... we are going to try again this Saturday. Maybe.
I have been ready to leave this area this transfer. I have been living out of my suitcase, so I´m pretty much all packed up and ready to go. Thing is, our house flooded again from the washing machine, so the suitcase got soaked and all the stuff in the bottom 1/3. So I had to unpack everything and hang it out to dry. I think this is the Lord saying, “Ok, I´ll let you get transferred this time, but you cannot pack early, alright?” :p
I have a large fund of money to my name. R$1.05. I feel so rich and secure and… hungry. My companion doesn’t know how to budget, so as of right now he owes me R$30, and I have R$70 coming in reimbursements from water and medicine. Over the next month I should receive in all about R$300 or so, and tomorrow I´ll get 130 of it, so it's just a little wait. (Need not worry. R$1 can go a long way if you know how to spend it right. Bread is super cheap.)
I think it's about a 1.5 Kilometer walk just to get out into our main neighborhood (Armando Mendes) where we work.
In August, it's supposed to get up to 45 Celsius without rain for a couple months.
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Visit to the Manaus Brazil Mission - April 20-21, 2010 by
Bishop Edgley, Elder Godoy, President Jayme, and Elder Holland
(They didn't have time to take a photo with all of us separately, but we all received an email with a couple of general photos for us to remember.)
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Elder Holland was amazing. I am running out of money in my account, so this may be really cut short. I went to the fireside for members and we had a missionary-only session this morning. Last night, Elder Godoy burned the people kind of. He said how there is going to be 7 temples in Brazil, the members have to be more responsible now. More family history so that they can have Brazilian names to do instead of Smiths and what not. More Silvas and Dos Santos. He also killed the complaints of Brazilians how they don’t send more Brazilians to other countries. He said that the missionary force in Brazil is still more than half Americans, so Brazil needs to have enough missionaries to support it's own country before sending out to others. He said some other things, but that’s all I remember.
Elder Holland changed his talk last minute and it was amazing. I don’t have my notes with me, but maybe I will give better details next week. He spoke of hard times in life, and how when a child dies or there are marriage problems, this is when you need the church the most, not the time to leave. … “DON’T YOU DARE! EVER! LEAVE THIS CHURCH! NEVER SAY THAT GOD DOESN’T LOVE YOU! NEVER SAY "Oh, why did my child have to die? I guess the church isn’t true. God doesn’t love me…” It was strong and amazing. He has such an amazing testimony of the Atonement. And the life of Christ.
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President & Sister Jayme w/Sister Patricia
and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
Visit to Manaus Brazil - April 20-21, 2010
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This morning, we also had Bishop Edgley speak to us. We shook all their hands. Elder Holland asked, “Where are you from?” Me -"St. George." Him - "Oh! The Tenney´s from St. George!" Me - "Do you know Brother Doug Pearce?" Him -"Why, yes! We are lifelong friends!" Me -"He is in my ward." (I forgot to mention I was his home teacher. How is he doing by the way? How is Sister Thayn? Tell her I said "HI!" and I miss her.) And then I moved on.
Bishop Edgley gave a really good talk on how the missionary work is different today than it was in the past.
Elder Holland spoke about a lot of things. Especially how every day he uses his mission to help make decisions. Did you know it took 7 years to make the Preach My Gospel book? He said a lot of profound things. More details to come next week!
I got 11 letters over the past week and I have been dying for p-day to come! Yay! I got one from the Christensens! It is so crazy how Teren and Tyson are almost home!
I had to give a talk this last Sunday. (It was 11 minutes without much stopping on how to know if you are a successful missionary). After, the president of the elders quorum asked me if I turned senior companion because it looks like I am the one guiding the boat here in the area with all the attitudes and teaching difference. I will take that as a compliment and just wait for the day I am not the junior.
Well, time is running out. I need to buy some food today, so this is the end of the letter for now. Love you all. Please send:
• Peanut butter
• Lamisil
• Olivia
• Candy of a gummy nature like dots and sour patch and the rip rolls were amazing by the way!
• Jerky
• Jerky
• Ummm, I'm not in much of a need for anything really. I think I will have to leave stuff behind when I am finally transferred from this area (maybe this week).
Anywho, Love you all! TCHAU!
