hey howdy hey!

So, its been another week here in the fantastic cities of Osório and Santo Antônio de Patrulha.  We had 2 baptisms this week, Malvina and Joel! they are an incredible couple with tons of faith. The sisters found them about 4 months ago contacting people on the road, and they have been teaching them ever since.  There were some complications 1- they weren't married (they got married on Friday at 4 pm) 2- He drank about 3 liters of coffee every day (stopped cold turkey).  Well.....they were baptized on Friday after the wedding at 6 pm.  what an exciting day for them. 

We didnt have the opporunity to watch the devotional, we will watch it here in a couple of weeks after it has been translated, copied, sent to the mission, copied sent to the district, copied, sent to the branch, and then we will find a member with a computer and then watch it...I will tell you all how I liked it in a couple of weeks.

It has been a crazy and slow week, unfortunately we had to cut a TON of our investigators, they had no desire to progress.... we had to coordinate the baptism, wedding, etc.... so in the end, we only taught 25 lessons this week...I felt very ineffective, but hey, we had baptisms :)

Things that I think would make you laugh....depending on your knowledge....

-here in brazil they have created a new animated telivision show called "the adventures of the Kratts brothers"  cool huh? ITS BEEN FOREVER.

-one of our inactive friends that we are working with, is 9 years old, asked me if there really exists the law of the least exertion, meaning that the best way to do something is to do it using the least amount of energy.  we explained to him the value of work.  5 minutes later he asked if there are such things as false friendships. realize he is 9.  He told us that he suspects some of his collegues from school are trying to build frienship with him to gain money, and he needs to know how to discern this from true friendship.  He used a ton of vocabulary that I did not know, but was able to figure out what they meant by context. every time I work with him and his family, I am flabbergasted. 

-there have been quite a few riots lately.  the people here are very tired of the 1/3 tax on income. and paying 3 reals for 1 passage on the buss that last year was 85 centavos. next p-day, a member in our ward that lives in our apartment building is going to show us how to make smoke grenades.  Im pumped. 

anyways, love your missionaries, make them cookies, brownies, and all sorts of other goodies.  give them dinner, make sure that they have dinner EVERY day, its not okay for them to go without dinner.

keep your stick on the ice,

Elder Eliason