Tuesday: today, we kept getting shut down our day, so, we decided to make as many contacts as we could, and, our goal for the week is 140, I think I´ve mentioned that before... Well, we made 50 each, and ended the day with 100, this week will be easy right!!!! Keep posted. Other than that not much got done, we had lunch... And that´s about it... 

Random note, last week in every mission the email time got changed to 1:30, cool right?!?!?!

Wednesday: We had a meeting with President Castro in the morning... Then we did the same thing, walking around trying to make new investigators... Cool things that happened. I saw my first rainbow!!! And Elder R. Ferreira made a contact that I will never forget... After about 2 hours of the same thing, you just kind of go about saying the same thing without to much heart because you get discourged... So, we knocked on a door, a 16 year old girl answered, elder Ferreira talked about the church, and he asked if she had anyone else here, she said no... Then we went on to say ``Que bênção`` Translated to ``What a blessing`` Basically meaning Perfect!!! Her face then dropped, and she looked scared about what his purpose was... I couldn´t stop laughing so, I walked a little off to the side where my face was hidden by a tree. And little Elder R. Ferreira didn´t even know what he did! Our FHE got cancelled so, we went to Carols where we ended the day.

Thursday: Meet my new companion!!!! Wait, what? Well, there was an emergency transfer in a different area, and we got affected too... Elder Amaral left, I switched companions (in the same ward/same house) and Elder M. Nascimento is now comps with Elder R. Ferreira... My companion is Elder F. Lima. He has 2 more weeks left on his mission, he was a ZL for 1 year before coming on a special 3 week mission here with another ZL (Elder Amaral) so, I´m in good hands. 

Friday: We had Distrito amigo in the sisters area, so that was our whole day, making new investigators for them, then we had a reunion with the bishop and ward mission leader where they finally are getting the idea to try to help us divide this ward/stake!!!!

Saturday: Was a normal day!!! Until 5, then we had a baptismal service at our chapel with the whole stake... Every baptism was marked for this day, at our chapel, and more then 15 baptisms happened, and more than 300 people were at the church for a little fireside, baptisms and snacks... Including President and Sister Castro and the 30 missionaries in the stake!!!! 

Sunday: Hmmmm, what could have happened to spice the week up? When we showed up to church, everybody in the ward had a broom, or a squegee or a mop trying to push all the water at the door... I guess the baptismal service on Saturday kept on going!!! Becuase the whole chappel had over 1 inch of water, we didn´t start church until 9:30 (1 hour late) and all the members were helping... I actually think it was a good thing. The whole ward was working together, for a good cause. And now, everyone has a cool story to tell in 20 years!!!! the rest of the day was a normal Sunday, trying to talk to people, but ending up at peoples houses instead... If you´re thinking we didn´t do anything this week that´s becasue you´re right... We ended the week (numbers with my newe comp.) With less than 5 lessons, and exactly 140 contacts, because mine and Elder R. Ferreiras contacts were split... I made my 102. :D 

Random things! First off it´s weird that Easter is in March this year. 2nd I saw Elder Viana in the central of POA last week (he´s a ZL now) and he gave me updates on F.O. The best news first... Gabriel, the 14 year old boy I baptized there... well, his dad AND mom were both baptized last month!!! :D Max and Jaque got married/baptized last saturday! Other people that i don´t know if I ever mentioned are getting super close!!! Now, 1 sad thing... The day after I left Pelotas Tiago started smoking again... I sent him a card last week, and hope it can help a little bit. He´s still going to church every Sunday, just stupid smoking. :(

In one of our lunches this week, one of the Sisters of the ward here found out that my name is Justin... She then said, oh looks like we found the next big thing... So I replied with I hope so!!! Innocent enough right? Wrong, becuase I didn´t actually hear what she said, I just assumed, what really happened is she said ``Wow, looks like I found a husband for my daughter`` My reply was the same ``I hope so``. I´m not going to comment anymore... 

Happy Easter, I love you all! Remember the real meaning (not the bunnys) I hope you all enjoy this video as much as I do!!! :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXrOG02NMB0 

About that photo, I´ve started my new thing here... Tebowing across the Rio Grande. I don´t have any photos of the new comp yet... Next week I will.

Lets start this!!! First off I´m writing this email from the heart of Porto Alegre... There´s so many cool things here that I want to take pictures with but, also I don´t want to get mugged... So... Probably won´t take any.

Tuesday: We had lunch, then went to the stake centers for a training with the ZL´s and interviews with the president. He wanted to interview everybody in this zone, so that´s what happened... It ended up taking until 7, so we stayed there because we were the last ones, what luck right? Then president Castro took us home, and we went out and worked for an hour and a half... Or at least tried... We had just enough time to confirm our lunch then teach 1 lesson!!! :D

Wedensday: Our lunch that we confirmed fell through... Then we had a normal day of work, ended the night with Carol, asking for lunch on Thursday because we were without. Of course she accepted... Wow, that was a boring day... I promise Thursday is better!!!

Thursday: Lunch with Carol!!!! A normal thing right, until I took my shoe off to fix my sock and she saw my toe... It may or may not have been badly ingrown and infected... Well, she started getting preoccupied saying I need to go to the hospital... I was denying it, and finally she made Elder R. Ferreira call Sister Castro... He explained that almost my whole toe was pink... And she said we had to go immidiately... Well, we went to work for 2 hours, so we could at least pretend to get somthing done... Left at about 4, got to the hospital at about 6, then waited and waited and waited until 9... Finally got in, the doctor was the same one that checked me for a hernia last month... He said that my toe was so infected that usually he would give me medicine, and wait a couple days, but with my schedule he would just do it... Well, after 3 shots of anesthesia he started... After still a  lot of pain, he gave me 3 more, including 1 right in the center of the infection... He started again, and it was still the most painful ``surgery`` of my life. Though it was fast... We got out of there at about 9:30 then got to our house at about 10:30. Called Sister Castro, confirmed everything and slepped... I was told to go 5 days without shoes... That´ll be interesting right?

Friday: Everyone was telling me to rest, but we had District Amigo!!! So, we worked. Made new investigators for the other elders in our ward, and that was that... I explained to everyone I can stay in the house with pain or I can work with pain... What´s the difference??? At this time I have a huge bandage on my toe and I´m using a Sandal on my left foot.

Saturday: Training with President Castro... It was good... He also told me that I should take some time off... So, listening to the president (he was the only person I was gonna listen to) We went to lunch then stayed inside until 6, then worked... Nothing special happened... But we confirmed passing by the house of an investigator in the morning to go to church with her...

Sunday: We went to church, lunch, visted members and came home at 7 to rest and stuff... A new family moved into our ward last week, so we´re visitnig them... Found out the dad isn´t baptized.

Random facts: There was a murder 3 blocks from our house this week. Our mission recieved the first 19 year old Brazilian girl. Youtube: Diego Brandão Book of Mormon and go to the 4 minute mark... This week I saw a shirt that said ``Huntington Beach`` On the top and ``New York`` On the bottom... Ya... Got my package!!!! Durnig church yesterday I was explaining  all the pictures in the BOM and Bible to Dudu (Carol´s son) and we got to one of the temples in Jeruselum that Christ used...  I explained to him that it´s not a temple that we use anymore. This week we had the last day of Summers, and... it´s starting to get cold... That´s for sure.

My spiritual thought!!!!

During our training with President Castro he was talking about WWJD, we need to think what Jesus would do if he was in this situation... But then, we need to have the courage to actually do it!

Love you all! Until next week!

First off, I would like to start with a complaint.... There aren´t any peaches here in the Porto Alegre area... Only down in Pelotas... It´s been a rough adjusting period, but finally I´ve gotten over it... Though, Now I´m not eating any fruits... Though I have completely substituded fruit with Coke, so we´re all good!!!! :D    First off lets explain the pictures... THe baptism one explains itself... It was the baptism of Milena.... The other one is the shirt ad tie that Carol bought for me (she got one for Elder Ferreira too) But, it´s probably my prettiest tie so, :D    When we told her now we need to get her more stuff she told us that we´d already given her the best present of the Gospel. Ahhhh :D 

Tuesday!!!! We finally got back to a day of work!!!! We just had a normal day, of Visiting people.... Like always nobody was in house until after 6, so the first 4 hours after lunch were spent walking around trying to talk to people... Though our goal for contacts for the week is 140, almost nobody on the mission does it... So, lets make a count of how Me and Elder R. Ferreira did. We ended the night teaching Milena the last 3 lessons (Chastity, tithing and fasting) Then we went over to Carols for a snack and message!!! At the end of day 2 we had 40 contacts... Exactly on schedule.

Wednesday!!!! We had district meeting in the morning!!! Then I started my splits with Elder Afualo (he´s our DL and he came to our area to do the interview for Milena) He´s from Alaska, his instructor in the CTM was Irmão Israel, so that´s our connection.. During the day we did our walking around for 4 hours, with no luck finding anyone in house... Even our appointments fell through! So, at 5:30 we had our appointment with Carol, and there were a lot of Jokes made about Alaska... He told us that people always ask him if they have fridges there and questions like that... He said he´s heard those questions well over 1,000 times... I imagine. He was sick the whole day, so after Milenas interview we went back to the house, it was about 8, so I didn´t feel bad about returning early.

Ah, contacts until this point on Wednesday is 100, now we´re a bit ahead of schedule

Thursday!!!! Now, ya´ll will be sad, there was really nothing noteworthy that happened thursday... we found the Justin Market while walking 2 streets of Less active members, so I guess it wasn´t a complete loss of a day!!! :D

Oh, and contacts after Thursday are 113... Though, I guess I didn´t do that Justin Market photo justice... while we took the photo the owner of the shop looked at us weird, then called her husband. They thought (I think) that we were filming there store or something like that, so Elder R. Ferreira went in and we explained it to them... I showed them my id with my name on it, and she got all happy and excited, it was kind of weird... Turns out... They named the store that because she loves Justin Bieber... 

We started our day at 6 am... I lost 30 minutes of sleep!!! We went to the church to prep the baptism because during the day we wouldn´t have time because of the District Amigo... So, we did that, we returned, we went to lunch at Carols, then walked to a different area for District amigo!!! Ya, the church is that far away, it´s about an hour long walk, plus it takes foorever to fill the baptismal font. So,we did district amigo, during this time is when I found this bull, and decided that I needed a photo with it... He was busy eating, and wouldn´t look at the camera... So, I decided if I had grass in my hand maybe he would look... It kind of worked out, then he ended up eating from my hand, so that was kind of cool that I fed a bull!!! :D We made a bunch of contacts and taught the first lesson to a ton of families, and left what we hope will be a lot off good work for the elders in Viamopolis! Well, district amigo ended at about 6 30, good thing their area is close to the church, becuase the activity was starting!!! We were told that they would start the night with the activity, then the baptism at about 7 30... Well, of course once we showed up to the activity @ 7:05, everybody was sitting in the baptism room, waiting for us to show up... cool... well, tudo bem, everythings ready, right??? Of course not!!! I remembered the night before that Milenas parents hadn´t signed the ``Permission slip´` and asked Elder R. Ferreira if we would have a problem. He said no, it can be after. I trusted him... we showed up, bishop asked for the paper, and we didn´t have it signed, so he told us it couldn´t happen (it makes sense to me but I was trusting my comp!!!) So, we asked the Ward mission leader to help us! He drove us and MIlena to her house about 20 minutes away, nobody was home... Perfect, we called her mom, luckily she was coming down the street..> We couldn´t just drive to her becuase Milena didn´t have her underclothes or towel... I asked her cousin to remind her but she forgot to, so... We waited at her house about 5 minutes, got every thing taken care of, sped back to the church... Almost died a couple times... Started the reunion, got changed! And finaly!!! Everything worked out! After 6 years  and a crazy night, Milena was finally baptized!!! And, I think it was worth it to her, because of the tears. :D FInally baptized 6 days before her cousin left for her mission!!! :D

Ah, contact count after Friday is 154!!! We´ve already gone past the week mark, now it´s just to show off a bit.

Saturday and Sunday. Everything calmed down a bit!!!! It was a normal day of walking around, though for some reason, Saturday and Sunday were basically the same day Though Sunday we had church and ended the night at Maras... During the day we walked around, finally were able to talk to people but... Problem, almost everyone told us that they didn´t want to recieve our visits anymore... Tudo bem... looks like next week will be another week of finding new people! 

I´m sending this email from Carols!!! We´re doing service, then gonna churrasco!!! :D I forgot to mention that Carols cat had kittens!!!! And, I just love 3 of them... 1 of the black ones is a brat!!!! But that´s okay.  Also, quick story... On friday (the day we worked in Viamopolis) At the activity everybody was asking us and telling us about the story of the missionaries in Viamopolis that were mugged... What? that would mean either Elder Xavier or Elder Gagnon... Everybody was telling us that the missionaries from Viamopolis were mugged, lost everything and were in pretty bad shape in the hospital. Well, we called them and asked how they were doing... They said fine, then we asked about the other missionaies, and where they were... ``They´re here getting ready for bed`` Hmmm,okay we were just wondering because we heard that ya´ll got mugged. Well, then we got the real story. The ZL´s here in Viamão took some less active members to play soccer at the church, they dropped them off and then left. Well, all of the kids apparently mugged one of the others and he was in the hospital. I don´t know if it was one of the kids that the ZL´s took,or not... But good, no missionary is hurt... but still bad

I love you all!!!! Sorry mom, one more week without a spiritual thought!!!! Though, I finally wrote a good email, right!?!?! Our ending contact count was 176!!!! Woooooooh! 

In front of "Justin Market"

Milena's baptism

Shirt and tie Carol bought for Elder Beary

With Carol's kittens

Tuesday: The new elders showed up, Elder F. Lima and Elder Amoral... They were actually companions in the CTM... 1 year and 11 months ago. They both have 1 transfer left, but Elder Amoral had asked to stay an extra transfer... 1 problem, now he doesn´t want to, he´ll tell president today, and who knows what will happen. It doesn´t make sense to have them both die here then shut the area again... We spent our day waiting around until about 6 because nobody had a cell phone, so we were told to just wait for them... Then, we started teaching Milena... She´ll be baptized next Friday... This isn´t really a fair baptism because she´s been going to church every Sunday for 3 years, the problem was her mom never wanted her to get baptized... Well, her cousin is one of the missionaries (sisters) That will be leaving soon (next week) So the Lord is now blessing her family before she´s even left. We talked with Milena the sunday before, and found out that she wasn´t baptized and everything. Set up an appointment to talk to her mom... But, her mom gave permission but says she doesn´t want to talk to us... That´s cool I guess.

Wednesday: Zone conference in the morning... ALl my letters were put in the bin for ``Zona Partenon`` But with the zone split I´m in ``Zona Viamão`` So, I should get them eventually. :( We taught Milena at night... Still going strong, had dinner there with her aunt and cousin, Cochorro quente (hot dogs)... They´re different here, but they´re good. LUnch was us 4 missionaries at the same place... The only time this will happen. Becuase the area is so big, we´ve split it into 2 areas (including lunches) 

Thursday: we had a service project for Irmã Eva (an old lady in the ward who lost a daughter 2 weeks ago) Then she made lunch for us, which was perfect because we had been given money to eat in our house that day. :) We went to our house to shower, change and wait for furniture to arrive. We went over to teach Milena... THen went over to Mara´s for a Yoki!!!! Man, that food is good..l. I´m excited for the next 29th... :)

Friday: 6 months!!! Kind of, there is no 29 of feb. so, the 1st of March is where I´m going to count it!!!! Well,,, with a mixture of eating a ton, then not having time to walk it off, then the room temperature water I´ve been drinking because I was sick... I ended up getting worse... I puked all over the street at about 11 on the way to lunch, so... We went to lunch after, I ate a little bit of bread and sprite... Then we went home where I slept until 7, then went to teach Milena then over to  Carols where she bought a pizza... Ya, I ate more bread. Fun right... THough, I was given tea at all 3 houses we went to, so now we have a ton of tea at our house!!!! And, I´ve never drinken so much tea in my life!

Saturday and Sunday: Uh huh, today was Elder Ferreiras turn to get sick... He had head surgery when he was about 10, so he´s always had problems... Well, this weekend he was having problems, so we stayed inside until the sun went down both days... IT was a pretty unproductive week, but hopefully we´ll be healthy next week and make up for last week!!!!

P.s. Rain here is not a good thing... Becuase it never rains here enough to cool down, but after it rains the next day is horribly humid...