February 22, 2011 - Letter Home

Goin Goin Goin...


Wassup everyone!

Another week here in Esteio, Rio Grande do Sul. Right now I'm in Porto Alegre with a TON of other missionaries that I haven't seen for a long time, because we all planned to go to the temple on the same weekend. I'm excited! It'll be my fourth session in the Porto Alegre temple. It'll be a lot more meaningful with all my buddies here with me.

This week was pretty basic. The district war went off all right, and got me and Elder Carroll to go all out and just knock doors all week! It worked! Our district had the most new investigators in the battle with the other districts. We found some pretty cool people, with varying degrees of potencial. 
One very special family, Nilda, Yasim, and Fadua, accepted us in their house, listened attently, and we felt inspired to just go for it and invite them to be baptised, and they all accepted. That doesn't happen that much here. Very cool. They are actually descendants of Arabians that emigrated here, which is pretty interesting. The grandma reads Arabic and has a super old bible she reads in Sanskrit. 
Kaitlin might like that. :). 
Yasim has a pretty bad case of epilepsy and me and Carroll felt inspired to give him a blessing that turned out being... well... awesome. Hard to describe these kind of things. I'm completely convinced he won't have any more attacks. I'll let you know how that goes. I love being a missionary. :)

What interesting things happened? This old lady with diabetes named Julia keeps asking us to do service projects. And we don't know if she's taking advantage or what we should do. Like, service projects like waking up at 5:00 AM, running to her house, and walking with her to the hospital because she's afraid of having an attack in the middle of the night. So we've done that. That was different. Gotta serve and have a smile on the whole time, even when you're half asleep. :)

Members here are awesome. Some members ordered us cheeseburgers without us knowing in the middle of the night. I liked that :). Some other members also gave me and Elder Carroll like, sets of really expensive Gaucho clothes. Awesome! It's just missing a belt and a knife and I'll be totally gaucho. Awesome.

Not that much different here. All the same. :) Man, it's getting hard not to think about home. When I started my mission I thought my seniors were just being slackers and too focused on the world, but now that I'm in those shoes I'm realizing it's like a battle not to get trunky. Not a very easy thing. But I'm winning the battle for now. Let's see how it goes.

So cool thinking of Nick in the CTM now. Man, I love the CTM SO MUCH!!!! I hope he lives it up. I don't have time to write him this week but I will next week. So cool to think of the beginning of the mission: everything new and exciting and foreign, so much stuff to learn and to master. It's a good time.

So cool thinking of... you guys, in LA. Going to the awesome LA temple that looks like a castle in the clouds. So cool thinking of Mom having another birthday, Happy Fourty Third Mom! Last Birthday I'll have to miss. That Kiwi Cake looks tasty. I like seeing my artist sister Lyns too. I love you guys, love seeing you in photos. I have your 'blue' photo on my desk; helps me remember I got someone at home that cares. That's important. I hope you all have a good week, sorry for writing a little less.

Keep yo smiles on! Love love love,

Your Con