I understood nothing, but what I felt was indescribable.

Familía!

Wow what a week!   First off, thanks for the email, I love hearing from you guys. I think that is my favorite part of p-day, just reading what you have to say.  And HOCHBOL!  I was thinking about the party happening as I was laying in bed at 10:30.  So awesome!  I´m so glad it all went well. And that picture is awesome of Jefferson and the luckiest girl at RHS.  I love the backdrop and balloons.

We had a pizza party after the baptism of Ke*.
That pizza was so good.  So this is what I was doing during HOCHBOL....
Partying with Elder O!! 

Ok so about the new companion and All.  He is great!  He loves to work and talk to people! He is never afraid to open his mouth or anything, and when he does that it gives me courage to do the same!  The first night was a little hectic.  We started planning and since I knew the area and all of our investigators I was pretty much in charge of planning the next day.  It was definitely stressful.  The stressfullest part is trying to explain things to him, like what situation our investigators are in.  I can understand just about 90% of what he says and the other 10 I usually can pick up from context.  There are some times where I just ask him to repeat what he just said.  He is from são paulo so he is 100% easier to understand than the people here.  So the language is going good.  I already see how I´m getting better.

The hardest part is conjugating the verb.  This is what goes through my head when I talk to him

1. what verb do I use
2. what tense does it need to be in
3. is it eu, você/ele eles. or nos.

Then I say it and I get it right about 50% of the time.  So I can pretty much communicate any thing I want to him, whether it is grammatically correct.... that is another story.  But I really am loving him. I think my favorite part is that he likes to have fun!  He is a very happy guy and he makes missionary work fun!  During the day when we are out teaching I´m never homesick because we always have something to be doing! It is great.

We had Zone interviews on Wednesday.  In my interview with President he told me it is my job to help him study.  And it is true.  He likes to sleep in till like 7:30 and when you sleep that long there is no way you are ready to study at 8.  So I need to help him.  I just got to be blunt sometimes.  So yeah, that is what his deal is.  But he is a super good missionary when it comes to teaching!  The words just come to him.  He is a very good speaker I think.  Whenever we have a quick contact with someone he always keeps his lesson super short and just talks about the doctrine of Christ super fast.  It is great.  I´m really learning a lot about how to teach lessons.  Another thing I like about him is that he plans WITH me.  Every night we have a super good planning session and plan super good for the next day, it is great.  So overall it is going well with the new comp and the language is great to.  It is just when I haven´t talked to him in a while that I have a hard time.  Like right after I email will be hard because right now I´m in full English mode!  I still have to think in English to speak Portuguese though.  Can´t wait till I can just throw English out the window.

So, on Thursday we got to go to the temple!  What an experience.  So to get to the temple form our area you have to take 2 buses.  One to get to the terminal (T1) and one to get to the temple.  So we went to the bus stop.  If the buses go to the terminals they say on the front windshield so we just got on a bus that said T1.  We left at 6:30 and we needed to be at the temple at 7:30 because the session started at 8.  Well..... when we were still on the bus at 7:20 I was starting to get a bit nervous.  We got on a bus that took forever to get to the terminal.  We still had to get to the terminal and get on another bus to the temple.  There was no way we were going to make it.

Somehow my companion recognized the area and said the temple was close.  He asked someone and they said it was behind us.  So we got off and started walking.  During the walk I was just beating myself up because I had gotten us on the wrong bus (a slow bus).  It was 8:10 by the time we got to the temple.  We walked for about 35 minutes.  I was just beating myself up the whole time because we were going to miss the session because of me.  I just wanted to be home and not in Brazil anymore. I wanted to be at home.  I was super down and mad.

When we got to the temple we found that the session didn´t start till 9!  Happy day!  It was great.  I understood a lot more than 6 weeks ago.  In the celestial room I just said a prayer.  I really prayed. I told God that I couldn’t do this anymore.  I told Him that I needed help. I stared to cry a little but I needed to.  I´ve held back tears to many times, they just needed to come. After I prayed I was still hurting but I felt a peace.  It wasn´t like a fullness of joy peace but it was a peace.  So the temple was good.  It felt good just to be in the temple. Oh and it fits 40 people per session and the celestial room is almost the same as ours.

So I think this was Wednesday night but we had ward counsel. It was great!  Our bishop is all about baptizing baptizing baptizing!  There were more people than usually there.  Since I knew the area and the investigators everyone was directing their questions to me!  It was crazy! So much Portuguese! My head was spinning!  So intense but is was good.  Our ward is great.

On Friday night we had a noite integracão (integration night).  It is like a little ward party.  We invited all our investigators and it is just a time to let them meet all the members.  We watched a little clip on Wilford Woodruff and had some food. It was good.  But the whole time I just had this really weird feeling.  It was like this anxious nervous feeling.  It just felt like I was responsible for everything in the area.  I can´t really explain it.

So I forgot to mention this about the language.  I can communicate with him just sometimes it is hard to explain some things.  Like we were at the store on Saturday and there were two sizes of butter.  I went to grab the big one (because it was cheaper per gram).  He told me to get the little one because it is cheaper.  I tried so hard to explain to him that the bigger one was cheaper because it was cheaper per gram.  It took like 2 minutes of me just saying ``mais brato.``  Eventually I got the point across.  So just stuff like that.

We are teaching a man right now named Le*, I think I might have mentioned him.  He is Haitian.  We teach him at a bar because he works there and he is so busy for us to teach him at home.  Last ..... Wednesday I think, we took a member there to teach him.  He had a baptism date set for this Sunday (yesterday), he is so awesome!  He really wants to change his life.  He wants to get baptized but he doesn´t feel like he is ready.  We are trying to help him see that he is.  Our lesson was on the importance of the Book of Mormon.  At the end I just looked at him and said,  Le*, I know you might not think you are ready for baptism but I know you are.  I know you have faith and now is the time to show your faith by being baptized.

He offered the closing pray.  He offered it in the language of criol (kind of like french)  because that is what they speak in Haiti.  I didn´t understand a word of it and I could barley hear his words because he was talking so quietly but that was the most powerful pray I have every felt.  I understood nothing, but what I felt was indescribable.  It was about a five minute prayer.... that's long for an investigator.  The spirit was there so strong and I knew that he was just pouring his heart out to God and asking if he should really be baptized.  It was awesome!

On Saturday night we baptized Ke*.  He is 12 years old and his baptism was awesome!  So fun!  He was so excited.  He showed up about 45 minutes early and to be early to anything here is rare.  He was smiling the whole time.  So great.  Elder O baptized him and I confirmed him the next day..... That was an experience......  Brazilian names are super hard and there was no way I was going to be able to say his.  I had Elder O whisper it in my ear as I was saying it.  The blessing was short just because I don’t know how to say much.  But it was good.

So this is Ke* and no that is not the natural color of his hair:)  Everyone here is dark.  A funny thing about his baptism. So it happened Saturday night so there were other jovens playing futbol outside in the parking lot.  Some members, some not.  We went out there to tell them to come watch the baptism but they didn´t want to, they wouldn´t come. Then a counselor in the bishopric came out and told them that they had to come in and watch the baptism.  If they didn´t he would turn the parking lot lights off:)  So there were like 20 people at the baptism.  It was great.

I forgot to mention on Saturday night Le* texted us and said that he wasn´t ready to get baptized on Sunday.  It was such a heart breaker.  He is such an amazing man and he needs to be baptized.  But on Sunday we baptized G*.  She is Peruvian.  (haha I got my first Peruvian baptism before Elder Burrup:)  It was a good baptism.  Elder O did that one too.  So we had two baptisms.  Afterwards Elder O want to have two more baptisms THAT NIGHT!  He wanted to baptize a 13 year old girl that we met on Friday......  2 DAYS EARLIER!!  That is just what it is like here.  You find some one during the week, they go to church and you baptize them after church.  We went to her house to talk to her mom but her mom said that she needed more time to think about it. So we had 2 baptisms this week.

Something I just want to say.... missionary work here is a lot different than in the states. If you are teaching someone and they aren´t baptized in a couple of weeks somethings wrong.  In the states the missionaries mark the date for like 2-4 weeks out.  Here, you mark it for that week!  Just all about baptizing!  But that is our purpose as missionaries.

So last night we were planning for p-day (today) and my comp said that we didn´t need to study because it was pday. . . . .  That is something that I´ve noticed about the missionaries in this mission.  They don´t think that the bed time and arise time are very important.  When I went on splits a couple of weeks ago and we were up till 12!!  Just crazy, but I always try to be kneeling by my bed at 10:30 praying.

So that was my week in a nut shell. I love all of your letters!!  Jefferson.... You can dunk.... did I read that right!   You can DUNK!!!!!!!!! That is so cool.  It was great to here about all the fun you are having in HS.  Just love it.  Wilson I love your little line thingies.  I will have to try that and Benson it sounds like you jump on the tramp a lot!

I´m doing well down here in Brazil.  IT IS HOT!!!!  I start sweating just while I´m ironing my shirt at night.  Oh, when we were eating at the Camargos house last Sunday (remember, the super nice one) he looked up the weather of Richland WA and it was 34 degrees!!!! Is that serious.  Is it really already that cold!  So crazy.

We are always busy down here and I love it because when I´m busy I don´t have time to miss you guys.  I love you all and Pray for you all the time.

Tudo Bem

Elder Ostler