July 27, 2010 - Letter Home

From the corners of the earth...

 Hey fam! Got in late, again, read the awesome letters, and I have a quick video for you guys to watch about what I was doing last Pday and some quick photos. I just got back from a lunch with a member who is a history teacher and also a world war 2 buff who lives alone and is in the middle of a month-long holiday and was suffering from not having anyone to talk to so what did we end up doing? Listen to him talk about World War 2 for 4 hours! He is actually a really good teacher so it was actually kind of cool (this is why he is the Gospel Doctrine and Seminary teacher in our ward), but just that I had wanted to spend some more time on the net.

Quick temple trip video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErRfUFEGfsk




In our district photo, Elder Malheiros is the hooligan showing his tongue to the whole world. I am the hooligan wearing my very fanciful black scarf. Just in case you forgot.

Anyway, writin up a letter right now. Love you guys!

--

"a humble bumble"
 Hey everyone! Life is good here in the Happy Port of Brasil! The sun is shining but the cold “gaucho wind” is blowing, meaning that while it LOOKS exactly like summer, it FEELS cold enough to wear thermal underwear, a long-sleeve shirt, a sweater, a (fanciful) scarf, and a jacket and STILL feel the frost nippin at your nose. Luckily, it hasn’t been raining too much, because I forgot to tell you last week that it rained and we got trapped in a member’s house because the streets were flooded until somebody came by with a car for us. I hear it’s not as bad as Sao Paulo, but it get’s a bit complicated when the rain comes down.

I made 11 months yesterday! Like the hippies of the treehouses of Santa Cruz, I’M STILL HERE BABY!  I’m livin and lovin it. It does feel like it’s gone fast, and when I imagine being ready to go home in a year, I have to think that I’ll be feeling pretty panicked. It’s just that I want to do so much, and take advantage of the only 2 years I’ll have to preach the gospel and spread happiness like I can now, but it’s super hard to keep that in your head every single moment of every day. I hope I can make the most of it and feel good about my one and only mission by the time it’s through. Hm.

So the work is going crazy. After being depressed about losing Andressa, a family that had been taught before but stopped taking lessons, showed up at a member’s house, and this time the daughter of that family, Pamela, said she had been curious to visit church, so we invited her, and she came to church last Sunday with her brother! What’s more is that we showed up at her house yesterday and found that she had absolutely loved church and the members there, she was vigorously reading the Book of Mormon and our many pamphelets, and was way happy (to the point of tears) to hear that she could be baptized in two weeks without waiting for a long time! Alright! 
We also spent a long time talking to her mother who had gotten interested after seeing her daughter act so different. I’m seeing good thing there. What a cool blessing.

But then, we went to go visit Gustavo, where Elder Malheiros went up to knock on the door, and Gustavo’s dalmation (who is usually tied up in the back yard) runs out and bites him on the leg! I look up and think to myself how I’m going to enter the yard and wrestle the thing off of my companion and escape before he gets bit in the throat. Luckily, Gustavo’s mom opens the door and scares away the dalmation, so we go in and start the lesson (with Malheiros hiding his bleeding bitewound), and in the middle of the lesson, Gustavo’s mom emerges from her room where she usually avoids us, and rants on about how we were invading her house and brainwashing her child who isn’t mature enough to think about religion (being just 18 years old) and when we offered to let her know what it was we were teaching, we got a boot out the door in response. Gustavo didn’t appear at Church Sunday… Way sad. And so we walked away from the situation with a bleeding leg (Malheiros´) and missing a good friend and investigator.

But… Then we got a phone call from an unknown source. It’s Andressa! Andressa bugged her mom to death trying to get her to call the missionaries so that she could be baptized, and so it caused Andressa’s mom, Patricia, to get our number from a member family so we could teach her and get her to church. Patricia was impressed with Andressa's desire to return to church so much that she decided she wanted to check it out too, so she and her husband and they’re other 3 kids jumped in a crowded Punchbuggie Sunday morning to come with us to church! It really was great, and I think the family has a lot of potential. Andressa will be baptized this Saturday.

So, it’s an up and down and crazy work. Man, it’s workin my emotions. I can’t imagine what will happen next.

Anyway, I’m out of time, so I love you guys, I’m so grateful to have you guys as my family. Dad, keep working hard and taking time out to relax and pray and read scriptures and realize that no matter what you’re facing at work, it’s going to work out with enough trust in the Lord and patience. Just worry enough to let it motivate you to work. More than that and you’re gonna burn out. Spend time with my sweet Kaitlin if you can.
Mom, thanks for the letter, I love you, and if you REALLY want to send me a package you can just fill it FULL of chocolate!!! Or maple syrup extract. Or peanut butter. Just those things. Love you Mom, thank you very much for the motivation to keep putting plastic-bags on my feet every morning :). 

Tell Natalie I think it’s way exciting she’s investigating the church. Tell her to send any tough questions our way, or what she’s thinking about the whole thing! Cool cool.

Kaitlin! I love you so much my sis and it’s so cool you’re off to High school! You will like it SO much. My little sis growin up! How did the Japanese crafts go? Pics?

Hey LynsInLA! I want details of your adventure. Hope you’re safe and happy! Live up every moment until the end! Love you so much my bella sista.

Yo Brenn’n! My companion is funny. But he’s also awesome, humble, and very friendly. A bit of a humble bumble :). Which is I guess a lot like me! We're are good friends and it's going great.  How's your companion?

Okay, adios folks! Love love to everyone!
Elder Con

P.S. Give a big congrats to Chase and to Lora Lynn! So cool, the news from both of them! Wow! Wish I could write more! Love!