Happy Birthday to Me!!

Music is important to me. The rule in my mission is that we can only listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. That has been a weakness for me and honestly something that I don't want to give up. On Monday it started to rain and we took shelter for a bit under a store awning. As we were waiting, I said a prayer and said, "if I should only listen to Mo Tab then let lightning strike." Lightning struck! Then I said, "I need to be sure, let lightning strike again." Again, lightning struck immediately!! So, I guess I need to obey the music rule.

I gave my first blessing in Portuguese! There was a sister in our district meeting that asked me to do it because she wasn't feeling well.

When we got back from proselyting at the end of the day on Tuesday, we had a new asphalt road in front of our house! Nice!

We taught a lesson to a kid that was wearing a police ankle lock/monitor. I guess he was on house arrest. He lives by the "chicken forest". I call it that because there are a bunch of trees where chickens just hang out and roost. One night I crept over and clapped real loud and about 50-60 chickens fell out of the trees and freaked out. It was hilarious!

I turned 19 years old on Wednesday. President and Sister Lago stopped by for a surprise inspection of our house. We did well with the inspection but the previous occupants had some dishes and glasses which were nasty dirty so Sister Lago quickly threw them in the garbage. They took us out to lunch and I had this amazing "torta do banana" with ice cream! That was my birthday!

Sweet mangos!

Thursday we got our water shut off because someone didn't pay the bill. It got turned on the next day luckily. My shirts art getting dirty! I think more than normal. Partly due to the fact that my bag strap is leaving a mark. I've got to figure out how to take care of this!

The fire alarm/smoke detector went off in the middle of the night on Saturday! We could not get it to stop! There was internal batteries so we couldn't remove them and so we called Pres. He said to put it in the freezer, so we did. After 5-10 minutes it still didn't stop, so he gave us permission to smash it. My comp grabbed it and threw it against the wall. It stopped.

Sunday we thought it would be funny to switch name tags. I wore Elder Bustamante's name tag and he wore mine. Not one person even noticed! President Nelson rolled out the new youth initiative to the church that will begin in 2020. The restoration continues!!

Back of my name tag

 Claudio (security man/Bad A) and family

 Ricardo and family. Ricardo makes THE best brownies!

 Lunch schedule with the members

 Bathroom sign in the church. A house of order, a house of God.

Blessings!

We didn’t have a district meeting this week so we could go out and get the word to everybody about ward conference. I got some sick Ray-Bans to flex on all of these Brasileiros. Fasts will be the end of me because I have them so often and also I walk sooo much, but it's fine - lol. The gift of tongues has been coming in clutch lately. I’ve also become a master at knocking on people’s doors and asking for water. Cause nothing’s better than getting water from somebody and then getting their contact info at the same time - if you know what I mean ;) I’m able to whistle loud now, but I can’t do it on command, like I got to struggle for 10 seconds before I can hit the sweet spot. I got a baptismal date from Anderson, but he didn’t come to church on Sunday because he was sick. I sure hope he gets better soon. At the end of one lesson, I was saying the prayer and the 3 women I was teaching started to chant while I was praying so that wasn’t confusing at all, lol. I was bitten by a demon cat, my speaker busted into flames, and a random lady stopped us and individually gave us blessings straight from God. Sooo yeahh that’s my week, peace!

That is potato and not cheese on this pizza! It was soo good!!

Fake Ray-Bans 

Another fire due to carelessness

I'm an artist

My new speaker. My old one caught on fire when I plugged it into the 220 outlet without a transformer.

Killer Bus!

There have been many "fake"/ "failed" appointments this past week and I still have 0 baptisms, I went to our weekly district meeting and didn't notice till I was on the bus that I was naked (without my name tag) so I just winged it and made one. There have been a lot of pals in our house (aka ants) and I’m starting to get triggered. On top of that, my shirts are nasty dirty and look like the teeth of a smoker and I’ve only been in the field for about a month, but I’m trying out things to fix that. The Lord has blessed me in many cool and weird ways. One time I was dying of heat and was covered in sweat, so I asked Him for a breeze and I said, "Now" out loud and all of a sudden a breeze came - so that was pretty neat. We went and worked in some other missionaries area one day as a zone (blitz). Their area is Timon. There is crazy driving on the streets! I almost got killed by a bus while walking on the sidewalk and earlier that week the Uber that we rode in got rear ended but they just kept driving on. There have been many great encounters with people here in my mission. Many snakes (Brazilian ladies lookin for a green card) and drunks have hugged me, stroked my arms and back, and have kissed me on the hand. There was a time when I had no money with me this week and we were stranded in the main part of Teresina because we couldn’t pay for an Uber to get back home, but we went to a bank and got some money. We had a fast this past weekend and then right after I broke it, the bishop came up to us and was like "you need to fast again this Tuesday" so that sucks. I mean yayyy. I also have been better about studying the scriptures. Okay guys, I'll see ya next week!

Elder "Davy Jones" Durante

Morning schedule

Some church in Timon

Our zone

Vultures of some kind

Cemetery

My handmade, leather scripture case that I got in the CTM

Definitely the coolest thing I have bought here in Brazil!

Captain Moroni (front)

My study/planning area

Goals

Internet Cafe where we email

Highlights

I had chicken feet for the first time at a member's house. It was ok. Not much meat. It rained for 10 minutes HARD! It reminded me of the monsoons in Arizona. Too bad it was at night and we had just returned home for the evening. We are teaching the coolest lady. Her name is Maria Costa. I gave her a Book of Mormon and she was so happy - she kissed it! I call her Santa Maria.

Well, I am going to speed through this last week and give you the highlights.

Found a baby gecko

Went on splits with the zone leaders

Cool bird outside our house

 

Bought a cool Teresina soccer jersey! This is especially cool because almost nobody likes this team and so I'm the only one wearing it around!

Store near our house

Working in the streets of Teresina, Brazil!

Ward Conference Invitation

The sun is so friendly to my skin. Just call me Elder Redarmswatchline.