I GOT TO USE A BRAZILIAN TRIMMER

Família,

Wow!  I can´t believe that Amanda had her baby!  That is crazy!  So is the rest of the family going up to freezerburg sometime this week?  Oh and Amanda.... you got the name wrong. It´s Cosmo.  Jefferson, that is so sweet about giving o livro de môrmon away.  I don´t know him do I?  I don´t recognize the name.

So this week in Candeias was great.  Nothing to big happened.  My favorite part is that we got to do service! It was great.  It started out on Wednesday when we went to visit a less active lady in our ward that we ran into on the street one day.  She was baptized in porto velho I think about 10 years ago.  When she moved here she didn´t know that there was a branch.  She stopped on the road one day and asked us if there was. We said yes.

Anyways we went by to visit her and she was hoeing out some weeds.  Elder O walked into her yard, picked up the hoe that she set down and started going at it.  We borrowed another hoe from a neighbor and we went to town.  It had poured the night before so the ground was wet and muddy, our shoes were caked in mud and I managed to splash mud all over me.  It was great and the best part is that I almost got my mowing calluses back!  They just barely started to sprout back:)

The next day we went the whole day at President Marianos house helping him put an "extension" onto his house.  We drove 3 15-10 feet wood poles into the ground.  We are going back sometime this week to put a roof on the top of them.  Construction sure is different here in Brasil, wheras we would go to home depot and buy wood to use, they just use any wood that is lying around and just nail it together to make it longer or cut it with a table saw to make it shorter:)  It was fun.

Then on Saturday was the crowning service project.  Lets just say that Ostler Lawn and Garden has OFFICIALLY landed in Brasil!  We helped Presidente of quorum roçar his backyard.  I GOT TO USE A BRAZILIAN TRIMMER!  It was so sweet!  His whole backyard is just overgrown with every kind of plant and I just went to town.  It was pretty sweet and brought back so many memories of mowing in the hot Richland sun with my dearest siblings.  Here is a picture:)

This is me with the trimmer in my hands . . . . oh yeah

So those were our 3 service projects this week.  It sure was great to serve a little and get dirty.  The week is way better when you are helping out:)

Unfortunately we weren´t able to teach our elete family this week that we found last week.  They were in porto velho practically everyday.  We would mark for like Wednesday at 7.  Wednesday at like noon we would call them and they would say they were in porto velho.  This happened all week.  Kinda annoying. We have an appointment marked for to night so hopefully it will happen.

On Saturday we went tracting in a part of town we´ve never been to before.  The thing about brasilians is that they are very receptive.  We knock on probably 10 doors and got 6 return appointments.  We just say that we are missionaries and have a message that will strengthen your family that regards Jesus Cristo. They usually only say no if they are strong in another religion.  Out of these 6 my guess is that 3ish of them will really be interested and become serious investigators.  But I´m hoping that all will!

Elder O is having some health problems.  Nothing to serious but he is still having them.  We had to call sister Klein and the mission doctor.  He got some medicine for it but the medicine gave him an allergic reaction. The doctor said that if the problem doesn’t go away he might have to have an operation, and they don´t do this operation in the missionary field which means he will have to go home!  He does not want to at all!

So one of the less active families that we are visiting owns a little,,,, I don´t even know what to call it.  It is like a bakery. They make bread and cakes and sell ice cream and stuff like that.  Except for he does it all in his house.  And they sell it from their house too.  So we are going to mark a day when we are going to go help them make bread and possibly some other stuff.  They really like american stuff.  One of the other American missionaries that was here taught them how to make cookies and lemon bars.

They love american music and when we were over there they ask me to sing something.  I couldn´t think of anything to sing.  I haven´t listened to music in 6 months.  So I just sang the only thing I could remember ... "Alright kick back relax and grab yourself a beverage, I´ll hop if you wanna just bounce to my leverage. The evidence, as they say is in the pudding, so show me the money like my name is Cubert Gooding...."  Up Up and away.  They loved it!  They wanted me to sing Adele but I couldn´t remember how the song goes.  It is something like "someone like you"  I think.  I couldn´t remember.

Anyways they want me to teach them how to make something.  Really the only thing I know is brownies and cookies.  Got any ideas that I could teach them?  If you do it would be great if you could send me a recipe. If you can´t think of anything that is fine.  An* and his family were baptized about 7 months ago and in those 7 months they have started going to another church.  We don´t know what church.  There are a ton of churches here.  Well there were a ton of churches in Manaus too.  At night you walk by and the preacher is in there and he is yelling or casting out a devil from someone.  It is funny.  Wednesday night is one of the nights that most of the churches meet.  There is a street that has about 6 churches on it.  At night when we are walking home along that street you just hear all the preachers going at it.  Its kinda funny.

Nothing to big happened this week.  I´m really excited for tomorrow though because that is when we marked to go visit all of the people we tracted on Saturday.  I hope we get some good new investigators because we need some more.  Right now we have 3 families and a boy and his mom.  One of the families, we think, doesn’t want to progress any farther which is a bummer.  The other family is the familia O and the other is T* e A*.  They have already been taught by missionaries like 8 months ago.  We found them while trying to find some body in our area book.  They are a young couple with one kid.  They are accepting what we are teaching and hopefully will get married and baptized!

Our branch is in serious need of Priesthood.  We have 4 Melchizedek priesthood holders, not including us.  On Sunday we  had 23 people in church.  None of our investigators came.  It was a bummer.  We buscamos all of them but either they didn´t answer because they were sleeping or they couldn´t come.  Kind of a bummer but it is all good.

Well I love you all.  I´m super happy that Amanda had Cosmo this week!  so  so so so so so so exciting!  Can't wait to see her when she is 1 1/2 years old.  kakkkakakka.  Jefferson, keep tearing it up on the basketball court and in the missionary field.  18 points! That is a ton!.... almost as much as my avg. of 22 playing in the church league kakakakaka.  I´m just messing:)  I love you all and have a great week!  

Tudo Bem

Elder Ostler

This is me jump roping at our branch activity last week....... 360!!!!