September 2009 - September 2011

The Journey from Beginning to End

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Week #38: Transfer news...& World Cup!

THE WORLD CUP STARTS TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!

SAVE US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kidding.

Oi Família!

So, let's start with the big stuff! Transfers were yesterday, and the big news is… I stayed in Senador Guiomard with Elder Fox! Now he is in his last transfer like Elder Gannon was, so that means I will probably stay here another 12 weeks or so with another companion afterwards.

The work is going to be difficult. Starting tomorrow. The Soccer World Cup in South Africa starts tomorrow, and basically all of Brasil shuts down. If USA wins against Brazil anywhere in there, we will have to stay in our apartment for a while, being the only Americans for quite a large distance. If Brasil wins, they drink because they are happy. If Brasil loses, they drink because they are sad. Nobody is going to accept visits or anything during the games. President Jayme has allowed the missionaries to watch the games with a few conditions. We have to have better than normal weeks, meaning more than 30 lessons and lots of other stuff, we can only watch games where Brasil is playing, can't watch on Sunday, and we have to watch it at the Bishop’s house, the Ward Mission Leaders, or the Elders Quorum President’s house. Also, we have to bring at least one investigator with us during the game to watch, too. Go England!

I am very very sorry. I still have a stack of letters to send off that I wrote the other day. I just keep forgetting about them, and the price to mail international letters just went up. It was R$1.80, but now it is R$2. Thankfully, we got our allowance today and I got all of my reimbursements from the electric bills.

The bus drivers are starting to come out of the strike now. They raised the price of buses so that they could pay the employees more.

Lidiane’s family is doing very well. I think they worked out all the problems from the other week. The last bit of the puzzle is getting the guy who shot. They know who it was, but he fled to another state, or he could be in Bolivia now. They seem to be doing fine. We marked a baptism for Lidiane’s sister, Karoline, on the 20th.

Next week I may take a while to get to a LAN house. We are going out to a farm way out in the boonies again.

Thank you so much for the no bake cookie recipe! I think the only thing that is going to be hard to come across is vanilla. I think I have seen it, though. Coconut shouldn’t be a problem, but I think I´ll skip it anyway. Can you send a chocolate chip cookie recipe?  Just a basic cookie. Nothing fancy. They don’t even have chocolate chips here, but the cookie dough in and of itself is delicious to the taste.

∞INFINITELY GOOD!∞

Anyways, as you can probably tell, I really am missing cookie dough right now. It will pass. I think the Box of Love should get here next week. Hopefully.

I think that’s about it. You are very fortunate indeed to have touched snow. Some people here have never even seen it, including on tv! (Editor:  We sent him a picture of this tiny snowman we made on Cedar Mountain last Saturday).

Snow...for any Brazilians who may read this blog:)
 
All I am going to say is don´t ask how, because I don´t know. Day 3 is this morning. Pretty cool, huh?

Day 1 (07 June 2010)
 
This morning... (09 June 2010)

...according to a member, it's a mix of mosquito bites with some sort of allergic reaction, so I dunno. It just started itching in the middle of the day on Sunday, so I think it was when we were walking through an area and some bugs got in my shoes or something and were stuck in my socks and started biting. Not really sure. It's getting better, though. I have anti-itch cream, so we are all good here.  

"Cooling them off" (07 June 2010)

Good week to all y'all.