Bahahahahahahahaha, Brittany, that is AWESOME!!!!!!

Okay, so this week has been good, better, and well, not exactly best because we didn't have a baptism (that makes 8 weeks I think? which puts us as the worst area in the mission? whatever) But...many things did happen. Yesterday, we had an awesome lesson set up for Rodrigo and Sandra, the brother and sister-in-law of irmã Claudia, wife of Irmão Tutti. They went to church (YES!) and went to eat lunch at Tutti's house. Well they forgot that we were on our way to come teach them so they left for São Valentim, a city close, but still in another municipial (county) so we were out of luck...we have 48 municipials/counties that Elder P. Souza and I take care of by the way, its kind of rediculous. Anyways, so I called Tutti to see if we were still on track to teach them and he paused and apologized and said that they just left, but to meet him in front of Irmão Jarede's house. We walked the 45 minutes to Irmão Jarede's house and arrived, and Irmão Jarede was confused and told us that Tutti wasn't there and that nothing was happening. Well, I called Tutti again and he said that he was on his way (he lives 15 minutes away) well, we decided to do contacts on the road, knock doors, etc.... so that we weren't wasting time. Well, after 10 contacts, 1 lesson and 1 hour later, Tutti arrived and said, hey Elders, we need you for a service project we are doing today....roofing and painting the interior of the house of Irmão Jarede. Well.....Being sunday we were a bit confused, but then realized, that Sunday was the only day that anybody in the ward could provide service for each other...so, in our white shirts and ties....which we quickly changed to old cothes of Jarede, we spent the rest of the day helping...he was right, it would have taken a LOT longer and have been much more difficult without us....

Saturday I called a contact that we did on the road to see if she was home and if we could pass by. Well, it turns out that she is an English teacher (basics only...) and was working, but she invited us to talk to her class in English and talk about the United States and what I am doing here in Brazil. Of course we went and helped. It was actually very difficult to talk to the Brazilians in English because to explain a word that they didn't know it is just much simpler to say it in Portuguese...I ended up speaking Portenglish for the majority of the time...and yes, all of them thought that all Americans are super-fat and that we all eat mcdonalds every day for every meal. In response to this I told them that Americans thought that Brazilians lived in grass huts and hunted their own food like indians and that in the cities, its like Carnival all year around. They laughed pretty hard, but didn't believe me. well.....ha.

We started teaching a reference from a young-woman in the ward. Her best friend is dating this guy, named Adriano. Well, when he sleeps he dreams, and his dreams are super vivid and he remembers them, he told his teacher this- his teacher is spiritualist and believes in doing whatever possible to communicate with the other side of the veil- an she has been directing him in a direction that is not beneficial for the spiritual welfare of him. We arrived at his house and turns out that he is an almost-neo-nazi, just because of how incredible of a leader Hitler was....it's true, he was an incredible leader, but I know better. His friend gave him a Book of Mormon, and so we directed him to Alma 43 to 62....a new and better more honorable leader....Capitain Moroni. We also read Moroni 10 together about gifts and that people do have gifts of visions and dreams, but they are from God through the Holy Spirit, and that they are to be used for the benefit of others, in a manner that God wants them to be used, not to communicate and try and learn about the other side, we already know what we need from the scriptures and latter day revelation. Anyways, we contacted him, began teaching, and then reported to his friend who gave us the refference, she gave us 2 more references. Another young woman heard that we were teaching him, and didn't believe us. Well, while we were talking to her, a friend of hers walked down the road on the other side. He waved to her and she waved back. Me, being me of course asked hey, does he want to learn about the gosple? She kind of laughed and said "I guess".... so we bolted across the road and talked to him and set up an appointment with him. We returned to the young woman and she was staring in unbelief. We told her that we will pass at his house thursday...etc... and she said look Elders, I was thinking of 1 or 2 references for you all, but now I have a huge list for you guys....everybody accepts the elders if they have friends with them that are testifying of the truth. It was really cool to see how it works. Now we have the young women giving us 4-5 references every week. Well, its fantastic to say the least. 

updates.....:

-Amadeus=loco demais he's a nut. and although he believes we are litterally angels sent to him to proclaim the truth, he has yet to fulfill any of our challenges for him (read the scriptures, go to church, etc...) he prays but in his evangelical fall to the ground style...very obnoxious. So we have stopped teaching him (he lives very far away from our other investigators, and if he is not fulfilling the challenges, there's no reason to keep teaching him sadly)

-Paulo and fam- no new news excpet that we were walking down the road and Paulo jr. (he is 9) called out from a sandpit -their construction site that has sand, an equivilant of a kids dream of a giant sandbox- to us that he wants to be baptized in our church. Well, atleast that removes some doubts that I had...

-Gizzelie is still psycho, but we think that she resolved the problems with her husband, and can be baptized this weekend...we hope

-Alipio found out that church starts at 8:30 normally and told us that it was too early, and that he will still be sleeping at 8:30...because it will be cold and that it is good to sleep when it is cold. well, he's 85, we can't really make him do anything, or reason with him.... besides that, he is looking to get a girlfriend....shes a girl that is taking care of her mother (also of much age) and is nice to him ...hahahahahaha...well, we shall see....

-Vilmar got a new job that travels a lot on the weekend, but he still has his baptism scheduled for this weekend also. He loves the Book of Mormon more than I have seen anybody ever.

-Carlos returned from his month-long vacation trip around the south, and has begun giving hundreds of references again. I think I figured out how he gets all of them....he has a facebook, and whoever is willing to befriend him on FB he sends the missionaries to their house. he is so funny.

anyways, my time has expired on the computer. Te amo e A Igreja é verdadeira.

Keep your stick on the Ice.

Elder Eliason