Wk 42 - What a Week

Area: Teresina-Satélite

Companion: Elder Bailey

House in Teresina, the quick tour.

My new hammock

Elder Crittenden- the warrior!

So this week had a lot of ups and downs.. and it was a lot of work... which is always good. It makes the week go by a little faster.

Tuesday, we went to go visit amanda who was going to get baptized last week... we show up, and she is laying down all bandaged up! She got hit by a motorcycle the day before. What are the chances! Anyway, we were going to baptize her at the end of this week, but it looked like it wouldnt happen... so we just said we´ll come back to visit later in the week. Then we were going to district meeting, because our district leader changed, we have to take a bus to go to a different area. We waited forever to get the right bus! It just was not the right way to start the day. On top of that, to come back, we waited forever for the right bus. Finally i just said, lets get the next bus. So we take it, i look back as we are taking off and guess what? I saw the bus we wanted come around the corner!! Man i dont remember praying for patience that morning, but it really tested my patience there... anyway after we finally got to lunch, because we took a different bus to where we had to walk a ways to get there, the day wasnt too bad. Also, we had the assistants doing a split with the zone leaders so we had Elder Wheat in our house with elder Gessel.

Wednesday we visited mayara and pretty much told her we cant come back until she wants to be baptized because she has enough knowledge now... Then we went to watch the baptism of Leonice... So let me tell you about her. Me, Elder Bailey, and Daniel (a member of our ward) were walking in the road and this lady stopped on her motorcycle and told us to stop at her house. We went and she told us she had a dream the night before of daniel... she had never seen him before but wanted to see why she had a dream.... pretty cool! Sadly though, it was in elder crittenden´s area, so it wasnt our baptism. But she decided to get baptized and is really happy. it was clearly a miracle. And we had a decent lunch and went about our day. so reality kinda hit me today too. i am used to it now, but i realized we were eating lunch in a mud hut. It is insane how these people live. But it was a good lunch, i just think these mud huts are crazy.

Thursday we went to amanda´s again and she was doing good, so we marked the baptism for friday morning. so we´ll see how that goes... oh wait it didnt. Lunch was amazing, at the bishops house, and we have that every thursday there. basic day after lunch.

Friday we had the baptism of amanda all planned for 8 30 in the morning. We showed up, we had the white clothes, the font filled, bishop present... but where is amanda. We went to her house and she said she forgot!! This is kind of how it has been here lately with me and elder bailey.. its kinda ridiculous.. but its ok because we are doing our part. Anyway, baptism didnt happen because all of the sudden her dad didnt want her to be baptized... so it was a rough start to the day... but we ended up having a decent day.

Saturday... Happy Birthday Jade. 15 now? You´ll have to let me know when you get your permit so i can stay ready if i see you driving around... haha oh wait.. im already thousands of miles away! Man speaking of which.. the drivers are horrible here. You´ll see up to 6 people on one motorcycle... impressive i might say. And you´ll see 10 year olds driving. And the law is that you have to be 18. The people have laws here.. you just dont have to follow them. Well, it was a good day and we met up with Ywério. he is 14 and was a friend of a member. He is a stud and we have his baptism marked for the 4th of june. Should be a good one. That night there was a huge party outside our house until about 4 in the morning!! Man it was hard to sleep. But the first song they played was a U2 song and man that made my night. It was cool. But it made me pretty tired when church came around.

Sunday we had church, which was good as always. We had a decent lunch and after lunch the day started a little slow, but then Helton came with us and we had a lot of visits. Side note: So i was looking at pics from Helton´s mission and i saw a pic of Danny Nelson... I guess he was assistant at the cananda toronto east mission or something.. thought it was pretty cool. Anwwho, We had a lot of good visits and a lot of new people to teach. We visited Daniela again after a while and i think Helton will help her a lot with her testimony... Anyway, good day.

so it was a good and busy week. We got a lot done and we are prepped and ready for the baptism and marraige of Manuel and Maria this next week. Should be awesome.

Well thanks for the emails and it sounds like things are good. Good luck jade and tayton with the baseball. Sounds fun. And good luck with all the flooding... that sounds exciting. i wish i coulda seen all the snow!! Love ya,

Elder Smoot

q´s
*Did you ever get that package with the one shirt in it?
*Or the other one with the USB drive?

I still have not received any more packages... ill let you know when i do though... As much as i want to get them, there are a lot of..... not so cool/happy people here that tell you to wait because everyone else has to wait as well... but maybe next week i can swing by and see if i cant get whats there.