I wanted him to enjoy the blessings that I enjoy

Família!

So just a little fun something.  this afternoon at like 1 our power went out.... then it came on, then it went out.... and stayed out for like 3 hours.  I was worried that I wouldn't be able to email but then it came on like 2 hours ago.  Yeah!!  No storm this time. It just went out.

So I will tell you some stuff from two weeks ago.  On Saturday night we went to visit one of our investigators.  The missionaries have been teaching him since May I think which is strange for Brazil.  Some people are baptized the same week they get taught the restoration.  Crazy. I haven´t done that yet.  So this guy is named Ri*.  He knows it is all true.  He just doesn´t want to set a baptism date.  We don´t know why .  We call him everyday to see if we can go over at night because he works all day.

On Saturday night he was home so we went over.  He said we could.  We got there and he was having a party.  It was his mom´s birthday so it was all his cousins and stuff.  When we got there, there were just like 10 people there and he was grilling up some food.  Steak and all different kinds of sausage.  It smelt heavenly!!  They told us to sit down.  He is such a cool guy. So nice.

They brought us some rice and some farofa.  Then they brought on the meat.  Ri* just kept bringing it.  Steak, sausage, steak, sausage.... soooooo goooood!  He was grilling it on a little wood grill and Elder M said all they use to season their meat is salt.  Man it was good.

More and more of his relatives kept showing up.  Two of his like 16 year old nieces or something came and sat right across from us.  Let´s just say there are a lot of Brazilian girls that like American boys.  They weren´t being inappropriate or anything.  They were just texting each other about us, looking up at us all the time.  Most of the time I was talking to Ri*'s cousin.  I could understand him very well and was able to have a conversation.

At the end when we needed to go, Ri*´s mom asked Elder M to give them a message.  He read the last 2 verses in Romans 8.  Love those verses.  There were like 30 people there.  So awesome!!

We had a baptism last Sunday.   Remember the man I baptized my first week here?  Well we baptized his brother, Mar*.  He is a little bit different, kinda crazy.  He laughs at the most random times when there's nothing to laugh at.  But he loves to read.  Right now he is reading the bible, Book of Mormon, and a temple book we gave him.  I think my biggest goal is to get both of them to receive the priesthood   One is 23 the other 25.

So we baptized Mar* Sunday morning after church. We went and had lunch after church with a member then we went home to drop off Elder Ms wet clothes.  We studied a little and by this time is was about 4. I asked him what we were going to do.  He said we should just stay in for the night because it is hard to teach people on Sunday....... IT WAS 4PM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There was no way I was just going to sit at home for 6 hours that night.  I told him that we needed to go.  After some coaxing he finally came out.  We went to see one of our investigators named Mc*.  He has an interesting story.

Like Ri*, he has been taught every thing. The week before this we went to see him. We invited him to be baptized but he said he was already baptized as a baby.  We read some of Moroni 8 with him.  Then I don´t remember how it happened but he told us he wasn´t keeping one of the commandants.  Elder M got super intense and told him that he needed to repent.  At the time I had no idea what was going on.  Elder M would not leave until he told us that he would repent.  It was intense.  So we hadn´t left him on the best note.

So back to Sunday.  We stopped by and he let us in.  Right when we sat down he told us that we could keep coming over whenever but that he wasn't going to get baptized or keep reading the BOM.  When he said that, I just felt this love for him.  I want him to have the gospel in his life (he is like 23), I wanted him to enjoy the blessings that I enjoy.  Elder M was trying to tell him that we have prophets and that this is the true church.  When he said that, I got the idea, from the spirit, to invite him to conference.  I did.  After I explained what it was he just lit up!!!  It was awesome.  He was so excited to go!!!  We talked with him about it for like 20 mins.  He said he would go to 3 of the sessions.  I was so happy!!

To answer some of your questions.  Email time is 2 hours but President Klein is not strict about it. Since it takes so long for anything to get here he doesn´t really care how long we are on but we go usually no more than two hours.  President Klein is awesome.  Elder M says that at the start of his mission, this mission was not as good as it is now.  Some of the areas had shower with buckets and some of the houses were really bad.  Now all the houses are awesome!! (for Brazilian standards) every single one of them has an AC unit and most have an electric shower head but not ours but it is all right, I love cold showers at night:)

Yes we got to watch conference in English which was so nice!! Amazing. All the 5 English missionaries in our zone did. There is something different about being a missionary and watching conference.  Getting on the bus Saturday morning I was just so excited.  Like Disneyland excited.  I loved all of the talks.  Specific ones..... I loved Edward Dube.
Uchtdorf - ``you can do it now.`` Others too I just can´t remember.  But there were a ton on missionary work!  Exclamation Point!  Like a ton! Exclamation point!  And on how the members need to step up! Exclamation Point!  Exclamation Point! Exclamation point!

This was at conference. In between the sessions at the stake center they serve food. It is great. This was after the priesthood session. They served soup. One thing you have to know about food here is that they never take the bones out of the meat, that is the knee of a cow........in my soup. You gotta suck all of the fat and meat off it. Yum:) It doesn't look very big because of the way I'm holding it but it was big.

Oh one other thing that I loved about conference was the choir.  The Mormon Tabernacle one.  I know that one of the boys pointed this guy out.  He was like dead center.  Right on the line with the men and women.  Dead center.  When he sang he got his eyes really wide and raised his eyebrows soooo high!  You know who I´m talking about!!!  Super funny looking guy when he sang.  And the guy he was standing next to looked like he had one foot in the grave.  So funny.  Loved it. I wish I could have laughed with you guys about that one.  I know one of you pointed him out.

I did read your whole email last week.  It only takes like 5 mins.  I´m a slow reader I know but not that slow :)  So dad, about Manaus.  Just some fun stuff.  It is super dirty, trash everywhere and dogs and cats too.  This morning we went shopping at just one of the little markets.  You know the little fridge thingies they use at gas stations and stuff where they keep the ice cream, they look like a treasure chest.  That is what they use at the little markets and there was a cat sitting on top of one.  So funny.  Gotta keep cold somehow.

My area is super populated.  Lots of people and buildings everywhere.  There are a couple places where there are some rainforest looking trees but not a ton.  But I can´t wait till mango season because there are so many mango trees!! ´´juicey mango!  pick a mango!``  The other day when we were sitting in the park studying, one landed like 5 feet away from us.  I don´t remember any more of your questions dad or if I even answered them so just ask again next week.

So just a little bit of Elder M stuff.  I´m really growing to love him.  I really am.  I laugh at his jokes now and just treat them as such.  When ever we go to someones house he always tells me to clap or bang on the door.  The other day we were walking past a couple holding hands.  A couple of days before, I had asked him how to do a street contact with a family.  I looked at him and said, "Elder M, will you talk to them and show me how to do a street contact with a family?"  He looked at me and said, "go right ahead."  I said, I don´t know how!  Will you please just do it?  Then he just kind of stared at me with the guilty smile like he knew he should be talking to them.  He let them walk right past.  Every time something like this happens, which is everyday just when he doesn´t want to talk to people, I look at him and say something like ``Elder, after two years of being a missionary how are you still scared to talk to people.``

Sunday night after conference was great though.  We were waiting for our ride and talking about our investigators.  We have one named Le*.  We have taught him the 1st lesson.  We had talked about bringing Junior, a RM member from the ward, to help us teach and fellowship him.  As we were talking I saw Junior over there talking to some people. I looked at Elder M and said ``there is Junior, lets go see if he will help us.``
He said we would just call him later.
``But he is right there`` I said ``lets just go ask him if he would be willing to help us, it will be easy.``
He still said no.  I asked him to give me one reason why he didn´t want to.  He couldn´t come up with one.  I said ok lets go.  I stood up and walked over to Junior and asked him.  As I was walking over I looked back and he was surprised that I was actually doing it.  He eventually followed.  Yes dad, I´m going to wear him out.  I plan on it.

So there are two things that most people say to me  1. Why is your face red?  2. When they find out I´ve been here for a month they always tell me how good my Portuguese is.  It really isn´t though.  My hardest time comes with understanding people.  Some people  like Ri*´s cousin, I can understand perfectly and there are only a few words I don´t understand. But there are other people like Mar*, the one we just baptized, who could be speaking Russian for all I know. It is crazy!  Like when he talks I cannot understand one word. I can usually pick out a couple of words of what people are saying but with him I get nothing.  I just kind of smile and nod my head.

So about the storm.  It happened at like 10 AM.  All of a sudden we just heard it raining outside.  We were inside.  I was cleaning and he was napping.  I went to look outside and it was pouring!! Like I´ve never seen rain like this.  Then, the lightning and THUNDER started.....  the lightning was right above us but we couldn´t see it, but we could hear it. The first one literally scared me.  It was so loud!!!!!!  THUNDER!!  Shook my insides. I just don´t know how to describe it.  The power went out at about this time and didn´t come on again till 10 at night.  Pretty crazy.  The storm was over by 12 and it was dry by about 3.

This is one of the trees that was down from the storm.  There were guys with their chainsaws cutting off the partially broken off branches.  I think you can see him up in the tree on the left.  We had to walk through all of that.  It goes on like that in the street for about 30 yards.  This was the worst one we saw.  I love the little boy trying to hide his face :)

Well that is all for this week.  I love you all and pray for you every night! 

Tudo Bem 

Elder Ostler