And if the snow buries my neighborhood

December 13, 2010

Bom dia, everyone!

This week went by really fast for me. My birthday went very well, and was much more memorable than my first birthday in the mission field. Some of the other elders in my zone and I went to a really good restaurant downtown that I hadn't ever heard of before. There are a lot of restaurants out here that serve rice, beans, meat, and vegetables, where you just serve yourself and they charge you for a plate of food. This restaurant was the same, except that they had a churrascaria (it's basically a big brick barbecue furnace thing) in the corner. So we got to take a bunch of suuuuuper delicious, freshly cooked cuts of beef and pork with our food. I ate chicken heart for the first time, and you won't believe it, but it's actually really good. At lunch, the other elders gave me a present: a cheap Barbie towel they had bought down the street. After eating, we went to the chapel and watched The Other Side of Heaven, which I really enjoyed, even though that's not really what my mission has been like at all. We ate cake and chatted for a while, and then we went back to work!

We confirmed Bruno, the rapaz that we baptized last week, in our ward yesterday. It was a bit of a fiasco because I talked to the bishop before sacrament meeting about how it was going to go down, and he suggested that an irmão who knew Bruno do the confirmation. I don't think that irmão had ever confirmed anyone before, so he kind of struggled with it. I ended up whispering in his ear exactly what to say as we were standing up in front of the congregation with our hands on poor Bruno's head. It all worked out in the end, but I hope Bruno didn't get too freaked out.

I met a lady from England yesterday! It was the weirdest thing ever: Elder Harris and I were making a bunch of contacts to try to reach our weekly goal, so we started talking to a middle-aged couple in the park. After going through the spiel, the guy mentioned that the lady was from a Inglaterra and she started speaking English with us! It was really weird. We didn't stick around for very long because we were interrupting a tender moment, but it was pretty cool. I made a contact in English, and it was very strange. And they kind of rejected us.

I can't believe that its the Christmas season. We got to watch the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional yesterday (I loved it!), and it was really the first time that I thought of Christmas. I mean, Christmas Christmas. It's hard to be distracted by thoughts of snow, stockings, candy canes, Christmas movies, or hot chocolate when you're almost literally melting in the street every day in the middle of nowhere. Do you guys realize that I get to talk to you next flippin' week?! I think my companion and I are going to call from the luxurious, air conditioned comfort of the bishop's office, so we'll be able to be nice and cozy (I don't know if I'll be allowed to make a Skype video call home). Since everyone's going to be home for Christmas this year (right?), hopefully it will be a little easier to plan around everyone's schedules. I don't know exactly how it will all work out, but I'll call on Christmas Eve for just a minute to get everything all set up. It would help me a lot if someone (Dad?) let me know what time would be best for you guys to make the call. Keep in mind that I'm six hours ahead of you.

I hope all of you are doing well and staying out of this hot hot Christmas heat. Start making up your lists of questions and things to talk about on Christmas so there's no awkward silence! I love all of you so much. So much.

um abraço

elder wiggins