Dear mom,
My apartment is pretty ghetto, but it makes me feel like a man haha. It sounds like there is more crime in E-town then here. We haven’t had a problem at all with crime here. That’s crazy though that Gus was out! I’m just connecting the dots but it sounds like someone came in our house and tried to break into the Wolf's house! Or I guess maybe it could be that Gus broke out of our house and then tried to break into the Wolf's house. He must really hate their dog or something haha.
People don’t mess with you if they know you’re from the church. My companion likes the peanut butter. I eat a PB&J for breakfast every day haha. Also I’m his second person that he has trained. But still the first few days were kinda hard because neither of us could understand each other very well. I’m getting a lot better really fast at Portuguese now though. It’s good that I have a Brazilian comp because I will learn so much faster. I can pretty much understand everything that people talk about as long as they don’t talk super-fast. I just can’t express myself very well, but I’m progressing a lot every day.
The people here are awesome! The members are super nice and feed us all the time. Like the other night we showed up at a members house at 830pm unexpected and they just feed us without us asking or anything! And everyone is super patient with me when I don’t understand them. People here in general really like Americans and like to talk to me for that. Like we were at another member’s house and there were a bunch of kids there and when they found out I was American they all came running in yelling ´´Americano Americano´´ and they wanted me to speak English to them. It was kinda funny speaking English and they all just stared at me and had no idea what I was saying.
It’s cool to contact people here because like 90 percent of people will actually stop and talk to us and a lot of them seem really interested. It’s weird though cause when we ask them if they heard of the church most people haven’t. So we can actually teach them and they are willing to hear it with an open mind. This Saturday were baptizing someone named Wesley. At church he came up to my companion and talked to him for a minute and I couldn’t understand a lot but when he walked away my companion got all excited and kept saying it’s a miracle. It was pretty cool to see.
That stinks that a sister had to go home cause she was sick. That would be the worst! And I’m sorry to say I don’t remember who sister Juliano is.
Oh so it’s kinda funny that you say I don’t have to worry about cold here, because it is cold here! Haha they say that some nights it’ll get down to just above freezing. I’m going today to buys some sweaters haha. Our apartment gets freezing at night time. My companion laughs because all Americans that come here think that Brazil doesn’t get cold.
Tell Maddi thanks a ton for that diagram of the Plano De Salvacão because it will come in handy a lot when I teach people. I used it a lot in the MTC when I would practice teach.
I do get to go to the temple when I’m in the field like every 3 weeks I think or something like that. The temple is really nice because it’s the one place that is exactly the same everywhere in the world. So it helps better than anything else with home sickness. It’s nice to just sit in the celestial room and meditate. Every time I go I feel renewed and fresh.
I love you guys and love hearing from you. It sounds like everything’s good at home, except the high crimes. Stay safe and pray always.
Love,
Elder Raleigh