Renaming kids in Brazil

Sorry for the alarm but we had some leadership switch ups and no one told us we were going to the temple before last P-day. We always will go to the temple one wednesdays, about every 3 months, so in 3 months when I forget and this happens again, you can know why.

But conference was good. The president of our mission said that we aren´t allowed to be in a different room than our companions even if there are other american missionaries with us so I got to watch the conference in portuguese even though we are capable of getting a delayed transmission in english. But whatevs. I probably will get to read it sooner or later. I caught more than I thought I would, just no where close to all of it. Apparently they have extensive vocabularies. Also something I never knew is that the larger part of the translations are pre-recorded and if they stick to their talks they just play it. This enables the people who know portuguese to speak to the people down here in their own language. Some of the apostles are boss-level in portuguese, and others know the words but not the accent. Russel M. Ballard can speak really well, and when he does firesides down here he lets them do a question and answer section with him apparently. Niel L. Anderson however has his work cut out for him, given that he learned french on his mission, then spanish, then portuguese. Lots of the natives were looking pretty lost during his talk and asking some of us if he was speaking spanish. Who knows. I caught next to none of his talk. It´s a lot easier for me to understand natives than people with an accent even if it´s american. I think it´s because I never hear american accents other than my own. But I liked it and it was interesting to me how more than 75% of the talks included agency or choices as a major element of the talk. At least I think so...? haha

But something else I would like to ask this week is if anyone can look up a recipe of home made peanut butter and also a recipe for home made jam. This lady gave me some home made jam/jelly made of this amazing fruit called Jabuticabra (Ja-boo-chee-cah-bra) that just blew my mind and gave me the idea for making jam and peanut butter. I remember Todd and Ashley used to buy home made peanut butter at some store or something that was kind of sugary and really chunky, so that is my goal. My plan is to but 2 pounds of peanuts in a blender and go from there, but if there is a better way I should probably know about it before embarking on this voyage. Also Jam/jelly is completely beyond me, but I know I have the stuff I need to make it given that a random lady gave me a whole bunch. It was funny because my companion talked to her and she rejected him, but then I stuck my head out from behind her wall and she was like ``...have you ever had Jabuticabra?´´ and talked to us for like 10 minutes and gave me a ton of amazing food and marked another visit. Red-hair and white skin and being mildy deficient with a language has it´s upsides.

This week though, like 2 or 3 times, we were trying to open up some areas that haven seen missionaries in at least 10 years. And some of them are in the boooooonies. We come in and all the crazy kids come and start crowding around me when they hear how I speak. ``what are you saying? do you speak english? I´ve never heard of anyone that can speak another language, speak english.´´ and I´ll be like ``oh do you want to know what your name is in english?´´ and then have tons of fun with them. There are somewhere in the neighboorhood of 20 kids that have Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter names now. And it´s fun for me because I try to give them meaningful names. Short and fat and annoying? Gimlee. Crazy eyes? whatever, who cares, you can be Gandalf. Oh you say your name is Mateus? That means Dumbledor in english. And then I´ll speak things in english to them like ``you have absoloutly no idea what I am saying and it doesn´t even matter what I say. As long as I keep the sentences rolling, you´ll be amazed by the words you here.´´ and they are always awed. Then they go and show us their houses and we get a whole bunch of lessons out of it. It works good, because those little po-dunk towns have 5 churches per street and no one likes us untill after we talk to them. The other strange thing about those places, is that all the kids have no fear of just chillin naked. like up to 12 years old. and until today, only the boys. So if I see some naked kid in a house out of the corner of my eye I´ll tell my companion to knock that door because I have a good feeling. I´ve gotten him good a few times. Heryeeah.

But yeah. Good times. Brazil is a funny place, especially as a missionary. Everyone is super nice to you because you are american and have better grammer than they do so they can understand you. A mission here is probably one of the few places that you get bummed when a model sits next to you on the bus in São Paulo, or one of the few places that you get excited because someone mailed you socks and a pen. I don´t really have anything else to write, soooooooooooooo yep. Until next MONDAY then. Segunda-Feiraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

laters

oh and P.S. I love you all, especially Mom and Dad. That´s right, I play favorites.