Whatssssssss up. It is good to hear that Soren is going to get dressed up like elvis and everyone will take pictures of him. I am sure the cats will be thankful for a week off. But yeah, just kickin here in the favela. I never thought that I would get to the point where I can tell you so much about guns and drugs on my mission, but I can't complain because it is super cool. I am pretty excited this week because it looks like it will be a good week to harvest all the seeds we've been sowing for a while here. Well actually, that I've been sowing with my last companions. My companion just got here, so he is pretty excited to be starting the transfer with a gaggle of baptisms and good times. He's hilarious.

But hey, I need to ask for a talk by Robert D. Hales called "the atonement" that he gave at the MTC in provo in 2008. I found a section of the talk here in my house, but it is just a section and now I am curios.

It is pretty fun to be with someone who is both a good missionary and isn't mean and annoying. It makes me pretty happy. Oh man, a big dude dressed up like a woman just walked in. gross. My companion says he's on "my team." looks like its my lucky day...?

But one thing that has been making my life interesting is that the bishop decided he doesn't like me very much. At least it seems that way. When my new companion got here, he told my companion "maybe you can teach this little german how to stop holding back baptisms" right in front of my face. Then he publicly mocked me in front of the members at church a couple times. But hey, it isn't the members of the church who are perfect, so sometimes stuff happens. Even Christ said that all this church stuff that exists is to help people, and thus it requires people who need help. I just hope he calms down a little bit soon, because it is making it kind of difficult for us. But seriously, I am not going to lie, I am super proud of how I handle him and respond to him. We are just trying to serve him when we can and tell him what a good job he does even though he is doing negative amounts of help and smile at him. EAT THAT SUCKA. YOU CAN'T MAKE US MAD EVEN IF YOU TRY. WE'LL JUST SERVE YOU EVEN MORE.

yeahhhhh. It seems to me that life has some kind of rule to it. If something that was imperfect and totally out of your control suddenly gets better and you are super happy about it, immedeatly something else has to self destruct and start sucking. For example, the pool at the gym. Something about that whole "the land shall be cursed for thy sake" thing. At least it is for our sake even though it is really frustrating and makes me want to put lemon juice in my eyes sometimes. Haha. But hey, could be way worse.

AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DAD. PARA BENS MEU VELHO!!! you are officially just a little bit older. One more year and you are an empty nester (or maybe this august). I celebrated by doing something dad would do. Our peice of crap little plastic water tank that has a propeller in the bottom that we call a washing machine tore itself apart and started leaking water out of the bottom, so went to a construction store and bought some plastic resin stuff (like what I used on my car to fill in the holes) and filled the hole for 3 dollars. And it works perfectly. The funny thing is that not knowing if it would work or not we asked for a price estimate (R$87.00!?) and talked to our mission office and ordered a new one before I got frustrated and did that. So basically we are going to have two washing machines now. SCORE. We are talking about selling the one we fixed and buying a ukulele with it to play hymns because the office told us to throw it away, but we'll see how that goes. I am thinking it will never happen.

yep. Trying to think of what else happened here...

I saw a really nice and well dressed old grandma buying a huge sack of marajuana. that was funny.

I found out that my ear has been trained to know what is a car backfiring, what is a firework, and what is a gunshot, even if all are going off repeated at the same time. I learned it because they go crazy when the team they like scores a goal. I remember that before my mission David Scott told me that I would hear cannons and stuff during the soccer games, and it was hard for me to imagine, but now it seems so normal. Also being that I am here in this area, I can usually tell you whether they are celebrating soccer, or the arrival of "the truck" that brings all the drugs. Good times.

Other than that I am just working hard and trying to have fun making a difference. I found out it is super fun to ask people why they think we are doing what we do. it goes kind of like this:

"why do you guys think we come visit you and stuff? Like what is our motive?"

"I don't know, to make money or to make us go to your church and be one of you."

"yeah well that isn't it. We are hear because we love you."

and they always try to explain it away or something, but after a few times getting to know us they see that that is the only real motive and they open up a lot. People here that know us love us. Sometimes we have to eat lunch twice a day because people get their feelings hurt when we tell them we don't have time to eat with them. I am going to have to come back to this area after my mission because I think I am going to miss the friends we have here a lot. They feel like my family. It is kind of hard to explain, and it isn't everyone that we visit that we end up loving a ton, but there are a fair number of people here that I feel like they are part of my family. Meh.

Anyways, gotta go. Happy Birthday one more time to dad, and I love you all and have a fun week.