June 15, 2010 - Letter Home

Summer days driftin' away...

Hey family! Man, I just started to write this first line in Portuguese. Freakin me out...

The World Cup has started!!! It's absolutely crazy here. The Brasil game starts in 3 hours and people are making their preparations. Tvs and chairs are hooked up out in the streets so that the whole neighborhood can watch the game together. The few stores that haven't closed down have Tvs hooked up inside so that every worker will be able to watch the game while they work. Welcome to Brasil, home of Futbol Fever. Elder Carvalho and I will be going to watch the game at a Roberto's house, which is a part-member family. Roberto always goes all out on us, and said there would be cheeseburgers and coca cola “for the American.” Heh heh, bring it on! I welcome that kind of generalization. I've really gotten excited for the game too, it's just this new energy that everybody here is feeling together. It's contagious. I hope Brasil does well, and we can continue partying. We're so lucky that Presidente let us watch the games and didn't order us to stay locked in our houses like I know some other missions will have to do. A little bit of a break...

But what is even more exciting than the world cup here? What day am I ACTUALLY really hyped up for?! It's that DAY! Happy Birthday my sweet Kaitlin! 15 years ago, our little angel just popped up in our family. How great it's been with her since then! I wish I could do more here for your birthday, Kate, but I hope you can feel a huge Connor hug right now, and I hope my flimsy little 1 page birthday letter gets to you in time (I sent it a week ago with priority, so I hope it gets through!). Congratulations Kate also for finishing Middle School! I hope you and everyone has a big party and everyone will celebrate how awesome our little Kaitlin is. I love you Kaitlin!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TIn-cr8g7I

Here we had some luck with the work. Two young men moved here from two seperate cities to live with two seperate active member families here. They don't know anything about the gospel, but they are both interested in the gospel and have been coming to church. Their names are Renato and Vagner. They've kind of been like a miracle here in this area because as much as Elder Carvalho and I have been working, we haven't had much luck, and so it looks like God is coming through on his part and supplying us with the right people who really need to be taught. It's cool because they are both at the mission age and we've really made good friends with them, so I'm hoping for some good news next week about them two.

Anyway, thank you all so much for your letters, Mom, the photos were great.  Elder Chagas and I were all psyched to have our mountain campfire but... I got a feeling that we needed to go visit another family close by instead, and we had dinner with them, so it was still good, but it only means that "Project: MOUNTAIN FIRE" has been delayed, but still operational. It will happen. 

I'd love to see the photos and videos that Brendon sent, if it's not too much trouble! More communication, the better. Shoes shoes shoes... I will look around to see where to buy shoes, and get a price to you. I'm convinced that sending money would be a lot cheaper than sending shoes in the mail. Please don't send me shoes in the mail. But honestly, I think my shoes have a lot of distance to go yet... and especially after I cleaned them up a bit, they're lookin spiffy (like for example, my shoe doesn't have a mouth any more... glued it up poor guy...) So I'll look around, but I think it'll be good for just a little bit longer...

So, now we're gonna get groceries back to the house and then run over to Roberto's house, and then we'll let the parties begin! Love you guys! Happy Birthday my Kaitlin! Have a good week!

Love love love!

Connor