So this week had it´s usual level of oddness (for example a lady told me I´d wind up in a cauldron if I listen to the voices), but also I have a few things that I am wayyyy excited about.

1st of all, I blew my own mind food wise on accident. I wanted to try to make fruit flavored syrups, so I started with mango because I had a few sitting around. I just skinned one side of it and the put it in a pan and crushed all the juice out that I could. It was like a cup or so, but super thick and already kind of like syrup. But I added a bit of water and a ton of sugar and got it cooking. When it started to boil though, because it was thick it wanted to bubble over and fill my whole house with bubbles, so I started stirring it just enough to break the bubbles, and after a few minutes I took it off the stove, put it in the fridge, and went to sleep. The next morning I discovered mango jelly sitting in it´s place. I don´t know at what point the transformation took place, but it´s down right amazing. I ate it with some banana bread the president´s wife gave me and it blew my mind. What´s better, is when I offered my companion some banana bread with mango jelly, he told he it had to be the grossest thing he´s ever heard of. SO I ATE IT ALL. Definately something I´ll try to recreate.

Secondly I bought a recorder. like the musical-instrument-that-you-play-in-3rd-grade type of recorder. I´m like clifford, because I just leer in the corner sometimes playing nonsensical hymns. My companion loves that too. But I found his sense of humor so now we are having a good time. I can get him to laugh so hard that he can´t breathe. With time, I can get anyone... But yeah, I´m sure the recorder will bring me joy until I die. It came with instructions to play joy to the world and a few other good songs like the brasilian happy birthday song, so I practice a ton.

Thirdly, I have found some people that have honestly have had what is possibly the hardest lives I´ve ever heard of. It makes any trial I´ve ever heard of in the united states seem like a big joke. Even my companion has never heard of anything like it. Things like living alone in a favela when they are 14 years old, with just a bed and a crappy gas stove to cook what little rice they can get together because their parents abandoned them early in their lives. And that is honestly like the tip of the iceberg, it´s just that I don´t think writing the other things would be entirely appropriate. But I´m writing everything down and trying to remember, so maybe one day...? Oh, another crazy thing is that I found out one of my investigators used to be a higher up in a drug ring. He used to steal, rob, kidnap, sleep with a gun or a machete, and a ton more. The crazy thing is the sincerity in his eyes and obvious desire to change. You look at him and you can see the devine potential that is in there, and a hard to describe child-likeness because he wants to learn and change so bad. It´s really tough to describe because the same eyes have seen a lot of horrible things too, and you can still tell. It´s been a good learning experience to see the universal nature of the gospel.

And this is by no means ``normal brazil,´´ it´s just that I seem to attract people that have seen rough situations because I´m not afraid of helping them.

Buuuuuuuut this week (today) I´m going to learn how to make some brazilian style black beans with ribs in it amongst other magical things. We´ll see how I do since I´m just going to learn by trial and error. Food is a great part of life, and because of this, if it so happens that it winds up being my cause of death I can accept that. Everyone keep going to church, being happy, and writing me letters. Lurvessss everybody. thanks for the peanut butter recipes