Scott sounds a lot like a missionary today

Hey it was nice to hear from you guys. So I guess i´ll just start the email with a few of the funny things that have been happening here. Right now I´m in an lan house listening to some portuguese rap because the guy a few seats down is cranking some jams out. luckily I can´t understand hardly any of it. Haha. We live a few houses down from a bar that is ALWAYS playing the same songs. It´s so annoying slash hilarious because the walls of our apartment are just thin concrete walls and we can hear everything perfectly outside, so all night we get to listen to the drunks party it up with the same 3 songs. Bathrooms here are just a tile room with all the trimmings. ours is probably 4 feet by 4 feet (probably a little less) but, we have a toilet, sink AND a shower in there. Because the whole room is tile, all you have to do is shut the toilet and turn on the shower. It´s pretty legit because you can use the restroom in the shower and not feel bad (as long as you open the toilet). So yeah that´s cool. Oh and on my bed there is a record of the ratos that have lost their lives in battle in our apartment. I think the count is up to around 10 or 15 but I have yet to see anything but a couple cocroaches. But honestly we live pretty clean.

I am living in a suburb of São Paulo more or less called vista alegre (sp?). We live on top of a series of super steep hills, so that is nice to get out and use my legs everyday, especially after being in the MTC for so long. to imagine how steep they are, just imagine it being so steep that everyonce in a while if a car is stopped on one and tries to start going uphill, it just burns out because they don´t have locking differentials. I laughed pretty hard at that the first time i saw it but in just a week it has happened like a million times so who cares at this point. That´s how a lot of things are. Like the first time you see a bum puking his guts out on the sidewalk it grosses you out, but after a few more you don´t really think anything of it.

The members here are hilarious. When I first got here I couldn´t understand them when they talk fast, but I get more used to it everyday. I´m sure after 6 weeks i´ll be fluent in hearing if not talking. One investigator couple that we visit is pretty funny. They have been investigating for a while and just need to get married since they have kids. The interesting thing is here in Brazil, getting married is hard. You have to do all sorts of stuff to get married, and what´s more is they don´t recognize temple marriage. So, everyone has to be both legally married and then if they want they can get married in the temple too. So they are dealing with paperwork and might get married this transfer. The wife is a lot like mom and aunt cherie so I like going over there. Last night we were there and I was laughing so hard. It´s just fun.

Everyone here feeds us SO MUCH. Sometimes after lunches I have to just sit and focus all the energy of the universe on not puking. Just from being full. Because the food is pretty good. As I said before it has some italian influences but is definitley it´s own animal. Lot´s of fried food, beans and rice, but also pastas and stroganoff and stuff like that. It´s pretty amazing sometimes I´m not going to lie, but at the same time I don´t want to get chunky. Apparently no missionary has ever been in this area without gaining weight. That is pretty unusual for areas in brasil. you go to the anterior and everyone is losing 20 kilos. Here everyone is gaining. I think last time i weighed myself i had 101.someodd kilos. So i´m like 223 pounds.

But yeah the work is fun. I smile a lot. Lots of times people just blow us off and tell us to go away but it´s whatever. It´s sad that they won´t listen but there isn´t a whole lot i can do to control that. I just think of Alma 29 sometimes were he his talking about missionary work. I feel mildly similar to how he felt i think. A) it would be nice to have a voice so loud that you could just walk outside and yell and the whole earth would hear you. I´m sure ancient sandals weren´t the funnest to walk in. B) I am really am so happy sometimes. I just wish I could give other people my feelings and let them expereince them for a few seconds so they know i´m not trying to take their money. Here we have a church or 2 or 10 on every street. People don´t trust anyone talking about religion because a lot of people are here trying to just make a dollar by using the people they talk to. Every once in a while I can see someone we´re teaching feel instead of just hearing. That makes it all worth it. Because unlike everyone once else that is out street preaching and trying to get money out of people that are just trying to feel consolation, I´m just trying to help them. And when I see people feel the difference of our message and decide that they are going to do the easy test and pray to Heavenly Father about what I am saying it´s nice. And big surprise, they get responses when they pray just like God promised.

we have people all the time telling us they they already attended our church and they´ll stay with their religion be it whatever it may be, which is totally fine and I´m good with that, but we always ask if they took our test and prayed. The people that eventually say yes have a hard time saying it because they´re lying to us, but most the time they just say no. It´s interesting to me that they´ll take 3 hours to come see our church but they won´t take 5 minutes to read what we gave them and then ask their creator what is right for them to do.

But honestly, because people are pretty religious and curious here so if we can get them to listen to our message about the way they can know which of the million churches are true, they´ll be interested. For some reason it´s so hard for people to read sometimes even 7 verses and pray about it. I dont really understand it yet, but the people that do try it become awesome people.

Anywho, gotta go get some comida because i´m starving. LUNCH TIMMEEEEEEEEE