Area: Parnaiba, Brazil
Companion: Elder Passarin
This week went by pretty fast! so lets start with last monday... We had P day as usual and i dont really remember what we did. I think we went to a recent converts house, and he is like 70 yrs. old, and he just talks forever. I have honestly never heard someone talk straight for 45 min before without a reply, but this man can do it! he should get a guenis book world record or something. Anyway that was a nice long chat we had with him about the church.
The normal tuesday we start out with district meeting, which was pretty good. Then for lunch, the member just gave us money to go buy food instead of make us food, which happens about once every couple of weeks, and we made chicken nuggets and french fries! We even deep fried them and everything so it was amazing! i forgot how good food like that tastes. Turns out i heard they are getting a McDonalds in our area, even though its a good 30 min walk, i am pretty excited! should be done by christmas. Anyway that night things were going good, but then we stepped into the house and... tick, tick, BOOM. My comp went off again. It is pretty annoying, but whatever. I have learned a lot of patience and to just blow it off by this point. So about Elder Robertson and i. We talk a lot and just talk about how both of our companions kind of do that getting mad thing. It helps so much having him there in the house. We kind of talk about how if we try to talk to our companions about a rule or something, they get ticked, and even when it is just a question.. But when we just go along with everything that happens, ya its probably not super good, but we end up keeping them happy and have some good lessons later on. So we have been trying to decide which is better.. just go with it and teach good, or go against it and not get anything done? Anyway i like having elder robertson around, its nice.
Wednesday my comp was still ticked that morning and i just stayed silent. Did my personal study and then other studies and then we went to lunch. At lunch i still didnt say a whole lot and then my comp finally snapped at lunch. I figured i would just wait till he comes to me. I cant tell you how hard it is to sit and listen to him tell members how horrible of a person i am. And when he is mad, he will tell them that i came from a place without internet and i dont know who Micheal Jackson is... its pretty ridiculous. But i figured to just go along with it now and it kind of makes him mad again, but its hillarious.
Anyway after lunch, we went to the doctor. Lately i have had this wierd skin problem. I swear i read taylors austins weekly letter and then the exact same thing happens to me. So how i read last week, his comp or someone was having wierd skin problems with their hands. So he prescribed some medication, some special soap, and a cream to rub on these spots. So the spots on my arms went away, but then i had it on my hands and now on my neck and a little on the face. I will try to attach pics, but its just like an allergy. The doctor said it was an allergy to the heat.... its pretty messed up!
Also i met a new elder in town, Elder Wells, and he is pretty sweet man i love that guy. Then that night we split up with Elder Gessel and his new comp to do a split.
Thursday i had my split with Elder Fernandez, who is brazilian, and he is pretty new. He entered the mtc in late October i think. But it was good, and we did some work. We taught like 8 lessons and marked a baptismal date. So then that night i went back to my house. It is a pretty long walk and my comp wasnt very happy, which made the walk even longer!
Friday was interesting. That morning was pretty funny. My companion was joking and arguing a little with me, and some how it turned into a wrestling match. And i dont think i told you about the first one, but this is the second time this has happened. Lets just say he isnt the kind of person that plays sports, so it was pretty one ended for me. Anyway, man i wish you could have been there it was pretty funny, but i almost felt bad like i was picking on a little kid, even though he is 20 lbs heavier then me and almost 6 years older.
So later that day, it turned out to be a good day. I am not sure if i have told you about Ciro and Vanessa yet. They are the best investigators yet. A member invited them to church, and they came, and theyve been taking the lessons ever since. Anyway they are perfect, and they have changed a ton. Ciro used to have earings and now doesnt use them and he went and bought a white shirt and slacks. So this night we invited them to baptism. And it was so easy! both of them accepted and replied immediately. And then we mentioned they need to marry first, and they just said, ´if thats what the lord wants´. So it has been an amazing experience with them.
Saturday i hit 4 months in the mission. It really doesnt seem much to me, but ya know, whatever. Its about 1/6 of the mission, so its somewhat of a dent. Saturday we taught a member that didnt know hardly anything about temples or garments, so we had to teach them. Then we went for a 1 hour walk to our next apt. which fell through, so we decided to go talk to these Masons that were meeting together that we passed on the way there. It was really cool to talk to them and one of them even knew about the church and another knew about joseph smith and said that he was a mason too. So we talked about that for a while and about them and just asked questions. It was really cool and we figured out they are a society that has many religions that join. It sounded pretty cool. Then we passed some seventh day adventist thing that night that was in the center and they were all doing some crazy stuff. And later we talked to this Catholic guy that was a missionary for that church. So we learned a little about them, and he said he left the church because all the preists were gay! and he was screaming it too it was so fun to talk to him.
Sunday we went to church as usual and i bore my testimony and everything! it is tough to get up not knowing the language completely, but i know pretty much everyone in the ward by now, so it wasnt too bad. I realized that when the spirit is there, i can speak so much clearer and i say a lot more, so i was thankful that i could have a little extra help bearing my testimony. So i can see the language is still coming.
Today is my comps birthday, and its been alright. This morning i made some panckakes for him and they were super good! We got some syrup from a member here that had a daughter in the USA, so that helped, and i used the peanut butter. It was amazing! And We tried to go play basketball this morning, but many of the places are still closed so we might go back later to play, and everyone wants to play except my comp haha. So anyway hopefully that will work out well and its been a pretty good day so far!
Just real fast, you asked about that pic last week with the yellow door. Its just a store that is here in Brazil and they say they are american imports, but i dont really know. Its not a very exciting store, i just thought id take a pic with the two flags!
Man it really doesnt feel like christmas without snow! i dont even remember what snow is it seems like sometimes. I just feel like im in a life long summer because its the same temperature everyday! I miss the festival of trees too! that would have been so sweet. And we didnt get any chance to watch the Christmas devotional. The church here is really just the basics! they are really just trying to get there feet under them and have so many other things to worry about and lots of less actives, its hard to focus on the little things, like watching the christmas devo, because it doesnt just broadcast on TV.
Sounds like Jades doin good! Sorry you broke your finger man! My advice would be to tape it up, take some pain killer, and just play if you can! life is too short and you wont be in junior high forever so play as much as you can.
Thats cool you finished the BoM. I actually started reading it about a month or two ago and im almost done. So i will be done in the next couple of days!
So this week when i went to the other elders house for the split, i got my letters from you! i got the letter with the school pics of jenna jade and tayton, and the other letter with pics of ruger. also i got a letter from grandma smoot. So i have replies to them all and was going to send them today, but the line for the post office was insane! you would have to wait for like 4 hours to send a few letters, so i didnt wait and ill send it sometime this week. So i am also sending to you guys my first memory card and a few pics for christmas! I have all of the pics backed up on my USB so it shouldnt be a problem if by some chance it gets lost, but lets hope it doesnt! So i will get that too you soon hopefully!
BTW: i sent a letter a while back that had a little bracelet in it, did you already get that?
The christmas phonecall i think will be at the church. I dont think i will have a chance to skype. Really dont be worrying about it! i will call you on christmas and we can figure it out then! I really dont think we are doing anything special for christmas. I heard they are going to make it our p day and then we work on monday instead... so well see how that goes. But we really cant do anything when everything is closed for christmas! so it will be interesting, but im not expecting much.
This week i should be getting my mission bag and hopefully a couple of packages and what not! our ZL´s are going to Teresina for training, so i hope they bring everything with them.
I have been eating good, and pretty much maintaining the same weight, even lost a couple pounds from the CTM. I have tons of food at the house, but basically i eat cereal, or this thing called Creme o Gema every morning with a milkshake of ice, yogurt, bananas, and this little cereal thing. And i bought some gronola to eat with the yogurt too. And i get these rolls and eat eggs, turkey, and cheese sandwhiches. And i have some pasta to cook, so its been good.
Well have an amazing week! i am trying to send some pics, but the usb on this computer wont pick up, so hopefully i can get that too you! best wishes for everyone!
Elder Smoot
