Mitchell's Mission in Manaus: Week #36: The News

First off, Oh, how I wish I could say hi to Mr. Lister! He is the man.

23 May 2010: We hear the bananas are delicious in Brazil :p

Anyways, Hello Family!

News Flash! I wrote letters! I´ll get them in the mail asap. Sam has something coming his way that has very important information that must be sent back. Watch for it!

23 May 2010: Elders Tenney & Fox @ casa do Samuel

I don´t know what order to go in… I think I´ll tell the story of why my email is coming so late today.

23 May 2010: Lidiane & Adriana @ Lidiane's Baptism

First off: We had our first baptism of the transfer this last Sunday. There is a recent convert named Adriana, 16, who has 15 brothers and sisters, 4 stepfathers, and a mom. Her mom, Enedina, couldn’t have kids at first, and had adopted 4 kids. Later, she had a surgery and had 12 more. We started teaching there first thing four weeks ago and some of her moved out children around town too. One of them, surprisingly, was baptized a long time ago. Nobody in the family knew. He fell away a long time ago, but we are trying to get him to come back. Anyways, after four weeks, the next child after Adriana, Lidiane (14), was baptized. It was after stake conference, so we just had the baptism and she will receive the gift of the Holy Ghost next Sunday. It was cool, because we went there to visit on Monday night and we didn’t even have to ask about going to church this Sunday. Lidiane just said, “Eu vou receber o dom do Espírito Santo esse Domingo.” (I will receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost this Sunday.) It´s like she knows…

Anyways, the sad part about this. Why I am only just now emailing. We went into Rio Branco today to have a small zone party with a bbq and stuff. Around 2:30, we got a phone call from the bishop.

23 May 2010: Bispo Lima, Lidiane, Adriana

He said, “You need to come back. Adriana´s brother was killed this morning.” We left, got a bus and then a taxi and got there around 4. It was really sad. A lot of people were coming and going. It was an open casket viewing in the brother´s house. (Adriano, 24, firstborn (Literally) son of Enedina.) Somebody had shot him in the back and it came out threw his stomach. It happened this morning, and he was in the coffin already and still in the same clothes. There was a bit of blood on the inside of the coffin. The police are still investigating and looking for the person who shot him. This happened in my last area, too. I don´t know if I told this or not. Anyways, this is the 2nd time someone has been shot. I hope this doesn’t become a once an area thing. So, we traded our P-Day around and went straight to the viewing. Now I´m here letting y’all know…

23 May 2010: Elder Fox, Lidiane, & Elder Tenney

We sang a hymn, (Families are Forever? I forget the name in English…) and left a message. We had already taught the family the Plan of Salvation, so we read D&C 137. Adriano was one of the few brothers we hadn’t taught yet.

The bus drivers and stuff of Rio Branco are on strike, so we couldn’t get a bus to Rio Branco this Monday for District Meeting. About 60% of the buses aren’t running right now.

We had stake conference and President Jayme spoke in the Adult Session on Saturday about Searching for your Eternal Companion. It was mainly directed towards men. He used a slide show, and I am going to try to get it from him. It's really good.

Since President Jayme came, he brought a huge stack of letters! I got like 8 letters! It was super awesome. Some of them are from just 2 weeks ago. Expect responses.

"Celebration Breakfast" (22 May 2010)

Well, we are doing good. We found some maple extract in the fridge and made maple syrup and I fried up some French toast. We’re saved! Real Food! We wouldn’t have made it, but I found R$20 in my study journal that I hid from myself when I was with Elder Martins so that I could have an emergency fund and to celebrate it we bought bread and eggs and stuff. Already had cinnamon and sugar. I had forgotten about that 20…

"What are You Looking At?" (23 May 2010)

We went back to the parrot house. It almost pooped on me. To make sure they don't fly away, the people cut off one of the wings. It's like a nail, so it doesn't have nerves and it grows back.

"Yarr.." Elders Fox & Tenney in the Middle of Pirate Talk

23 May 2010

Pray for Enedina and her family. There are 3 other kids that can get baptized this week or next week if they just accept the baptismal date. Enedina has to wait for her fiancé to get out of the slammer and get married, and then she is good to go. She says she will most definitely get baptized asap.

Pretty much my week.