2 short weeks‏

Well I am sitting here in a lan house and these crazy 10 year old kid that likes to make fun of us came in and started dancing and saying "ai iches may katchup, o may goge" (that is supposed to be english) over and over again and air humping, and I commited him to go to church with his parents and get baptized. Prrrrrrrrretty sure that won't ever happen again after the mission. Fun times. Who knows if he'll get his parents to go with him and something will actually happen. You can always hope, right? (the odds are low)

So I think I am going to go buy a tiny banjo that you play like a ukulele today. I am going to use the money from all of those 5 dollar bills that I have recieved from you guys over the last 2 years. I've been saving them up. We'll see how that goes.

My shoe size is like 11 there if I remember right. I have no idea.

Easter resulted in a chocolate overload that is still going on. Here, instead of real eggs that you paint and hide, they make giant chocolate eggs and give them as presents (no hiding uncluded). I think it is retarded and no fun because no kids get to go easter egg hunting. But we got like 4 eggs and that results in like a pound and a half of pure chocolate. It has been a tough couple of days.

I got my flight info. meh.

So, yep. Missions. I have mixed feelings about this whole "your done" thing. I got a letter today thanking me for my service and telling me how the last 2 days will work. I was kind of mad and was thinking "what the heck, I'm not done yet. stop sending me this junk." I think it is a little early to send me that stuff, but whatever they know what they are doing.

Everyone is asking me if I plan on coming back and marrying someone and I just bust out laughing every time. Just for the record, brazilians are not as beautiful as everyone makes them out to be. At least not in all the places that I passed through.

uhhhhhhh. we have a pretty firm baptism marked for the 21st. That is a blessing and a half.

Welp, I love you all lots. See you in 2 weeks.

Welppp‏

So there is just a few weeks left for me to be a full time missionary. I think I am running into right now what president Eyring described in his talk saturday morning when he said that he in faith asked for a taller mountain to climb. This "mountain" is one that I can't even really see the top of being that it the toughest situation that I've seen my whole mission, and that leaves you a little uneasy when you've got such little time, but I am sure it will be a good experience for me if I just roll up my sleeves and do what he suggested that we do in such situations.

So you already put me on the talk list huh? When do I get to know what the subject will be?

Everyone keeps asking me if I am excited to be headed home, and I don't tell anyone this, but to be totally honest I feel kind of sick when I think about that. I feel an uneasy feeling that is like someone telling me, "don't even think about it buddy, you aren't even close to being done yet." These last 2 weeks have honestly been by far the toughest of my whole mission. Everything in our area totally fell apart, plus my companion really was not very excited about staying with me for one more transfer. And who can blame him, right? I mean, for someone that always was an only child and lived by himself doing whatever he wants, having to stay with some other dude 24 hours a day for 4 straight months with no breaks wouldn't be such a fun idea. Especially when that other dude is from another culture and makes you get out of bed every day at 6:30 and works you hard all day until 10:30 at night. So he's been having a tough time, and has been lashing out pretty regularly. It's cool though, I just think back to what mom and dad used to do when I would freak out and that helps me quite a bit. I can't say it has just been a blast, but I also can't really complain. We pretty much resolved all of the problems and it was a pretty big learning experience being that it revealed a ton of faults that I have to me. So the mountain is being a valuable thing just like it should be.

In other news I think that they should be sending my flight plan home sooner or later if you haven't already gotten it.

If I don't have any shoes at home, do me a favor and pick me up some before I get there. Just get something comfortable and preferably slip on. Lick some vans or some penny loafers. My shoes have a 50 piece sized whole in bottom that is temporarily being held shut with duct tape.

but that is all. I love you all and am excited to see you guys as soon as I finish my work out here. It is this month. PREPARE YOURSELVES.

meow meow meow‏

Man this last week was one of the hardest weeks that I have ever had on my whole mission. Everything went wrong. My companion and I got sick, we had like no time to work, the bishop in our ward decided to work against us for a little bit, etc. But the cool thing is, is that I am really happy. I have just been pulling more energy from the fact that I can see the end instead of letting that kill me. We'll see if I can make that happen until the end, but for now I amped and happy about having a few more weeks to be a missionary.

Some dude in our ward challenged everyone to think of a few deep personal life questions that they would like answered so that they can take good advantage of general conference and pull what they need to learn out of the talks. I can say that right now there are a couple of questions in my heart (example: what the heck am I going to do in 4 weeks?!) so we'll see if any answers come that I am able to understand. But I just feel way calm about everything so I don't think it is a big deal.

I got a cool leather cover with my name on it and whatnot for my portuguese bible. I'll show you guys later.

Uhhh...

so yeah. Not much else to talk about. Just working hard and trying to teach the other missionaries that under my control how to be a bit more successful. No one really listens to me. Haha. They act like they are listening, but little progress is made. I'm sure Heavenly Father can relate with that.

So I don't know when you'll make the work schedule for the end of april, but feel free to throw me in at the front desk or whatever starting that thursday that I get home. I am afraid of going crazy from having nothing to do. Just remember about the trip at the beginning of may.

I love you all and I am excited to finish the right way and reap the benefits of the service that I have been a part of. I am sure it will be a way good feeling to know that I gave everything that I had all the way to the end. I just need to do that now so that I can be sure that I'll feel that feeling later.

FINISH TILL YUR DONE.

moms update

because we we out of town the posts got mixed up. so read the March 19th post first and the post just previous second so that it will make sense....

So you guys are moving this week, and I might have to move next week. Haha. Just when you think that it is your last area... you start to realize that that may not be the case. But we'll see next p-day because I'll get the call letting me know on sunday.

In any case, I wanted to know if you have any preference with what I do with all my clothes? I was just going to give everything away being that it is all way old. I was thinking about coming home with just my suits and the clothes on my back... but let me know what you want me to do because I am open to suggestions.

I went to go try and buy shoes this week, but no luck (I am out in the middle of no where and they don't sell dress shoes in my area). So because of laziness I am going to put a ton of duct tape in the inside of my shoe and just ride out the last 6 weeks on frankestein boots. the last pair have officially bitten the dust.

So in other news, we had a cool week. Maria (super funny old lady) decided to get baptised. That was a good time. She was a super strong catholic and prayed and got a pretty direct response through the Holy Ghost that she needed to be baptized in our church. So, this week I was kind of thinking about why it is so important to the Lord for people to be in one specific church, because there are tons of good people in all churches who are really bettering their lives and who are sincerely growing close to the savior through study and prayer and application of doctrine. I figured out that at least one of the reasons is the fact that the callings that we receive in our church have a fundamental role in shaping us and providing us with the specific challenges that we need to develope new attributes in our quest for perfection (romans 12:1-8). If your calling isn't by God, it won't take you to perfection. So long story short it is a good idea to do what God tells you to do (including join his church and accept a calling).

Other than that Not much is going on. We had a meeting with Elder Godoy, who is a 70 that serves in the area presidency here. He is way cool. He isn't one of the general authorities that comes and tries to wow you by telling you he had a crazy revelation with Jesus Christ or something like that. He is just wayyyyyyy humble and fun and spiritual. He reminds me a lot of pres. jackson that already went home (my ex. pres.). If I want to be like some GA it is him.

But anyway, we are going to deep clean our house. It has been kind of windy and now I'm sneezing a lot because there is dust everywhere. Do you know how to clean a tile floor really good with just a broken squeegie, a tupperware, pinesol and a rag? Brasilians do. something that I'll never be able to apply again in my life because cleaning is a peice of cake in the US. Just like washing clothes by hand. meh. But at least it makes my life a bit more comfortable for now.

Wellllp

So I stayed in the same area. Phwew. we've got 5 people who are pretty ready to be baptized this month, and we are going to just look for people for the next missionaries to baptize for free to make them happy. Yay for selfless service

We had a 70 come through our mission (I am pretty sure I already talked about him) and he was like, "If you expect to have some amount of success or improvement in your life after the mission, then you need to finish accelerating. If you start going downhill right at the end, that trend will probably continue for months or even years."

So I decided to go crazy. It is better than getting tired, and it will help me hit the ground running when I get home rather than expect some kind of break from work. So far so good. I got put in as a leader again too so that gives me something to do. I'm still with my same companion too. The poor kid will go 3 transfers with his trainer. That would have driven me nuts. But he is doing good and says that it is all good with him, so whatever.

Luckily I am being blessed with a mental block that is helping me out. I can't really imagine what it would be like to be home, and when members try to get me to get on facebook and stuff I don't even have any desire to think about home or get letters or anything. There are some elders that go crazy at the end, but I honestly couldn't even care less about going home. At least for now...? So hopefully that continues untill the day before I go home so that I can work hard and then enjoy the ride home.

I weighed myself and I am 205 pounds, so that is only like 25 pounds less than I was when I left. So that isn't that bad, right?

But yeah....

welp we're in a hurry and there isn't that much to say.

LOVE YOU ALL!!!

See you in a few weeks.