Fondness makes the absence longer

My first week in Leme was pretty great, thanks to the AMAZING BIRTHDAY PACKAGE I received on Tuesday (we had district meeting the day after I sent my email last week). Everything in that beautiful box was absolutely perfect. I already ate most of the candy because most Brazilian candy sucks (they sell Halls cough drops as candy here, not even kidding). I love the slippers and the tie and the Silly Putty (thanks, Sam!) and that everything was wrapped up! And I have real deodorant again! Seriously, I can't even tell you how nice it is to have some of the most common things from back home. I never thought I would miss Old Spice, but there you go.

I think I'm going to just hang on to the birthday decorations until my next birthday because it would be hard to do any of that stuff here. Does cake mix last that long? It was still super nice to get all of that.

I haven't received my Christmas package yet, but I'm sure I'll get it when we have interviews with the president next week. I was just glad to get the stuff I did, honestly. Thanks Mom! Sorry if this has been boring to read, everyone else!

I actually received two other packages from Sister Snow that day, and a few letters from friends; I guess my mail had been pretty backed up. Sister Snow sent me the nicest little package with candy, Kool-Aid, and a Christmas card. And she sent another envelope with two pairs of socks that she forgot to put in the first package. I think that demonstrates her kindness pretty well; anyone else probably would have just given the socks to someone else or something. I already sent her a thank you card.

The work was slow this week because of the holidays. On New Year's Day, the streets were deserted but somehow no one was at home, either. That continued on Saturday and Sunday as well. Holidays are pretty rough out here because all I want to do is take a break like everyone else. And it's easy to imagine what everyone back home is doing. But my companion and I did our best to find and teach people, and we had some success. We are teaching a nineteen-year-old boy named Marcelo. He's kind of a nerd like me, so we're practically best buddies at this point. We taught him the Plan of Salvation this week, and unlike the vast majority of people, he actually seemed to understand it. We were really excited to continue teaching him so that he could hopefully be baptized this Sunday, but he spent New Year's in a neighboring city and thus wasn't able to go to church yesterday. We're going to keep working hard with him because he's our best investigator right now.

Other than Marcelo, we haven't had much success with investigators who are progressing this week. I think it's just the holidays, though. Now that people are getting back into the grind of daily life, we should be able to find a few who want to welcome us.

My Portuguese is getting a lot better. I've been thinking a lot about what Mom mentioned on Christmas about perfectionism. I realized that I was so worried about speaking perfectly all the time that I was usually silent during my first transfer. I'm making a concerted effort to open my mouth and join the conversation here. And it's working! When I study the language and exercise faith that I'm doing the Lord's work, things go much smoother.

My companion is awesome. I initially thought that he had a bad attitude because he is frustrated with a lot of what happens out here, but I think he's serving for the right reasons. We've talked a lot about the attitude that many missionaries in Brazil have concerning baptisms; that it's all about numbers, that the people don't really matter much. Though I haven't seen it very much myself yet, the numbers game is apparently a big problem out here.

But my companion is a cool guy, and I think we would be friends even if we had met outside the mission. He is easy to talk to, and he's one of the reasons that this week was as enjoyable as it was.

I guess I'll stop now. I love all of you and wish you the best for this week.

ta ta fuh nah

elder booga