Christmas and Stuff

Christmas Day we got to Skype with Daniel. It was wonderful. I didn't realize how much I had missed hearing his voice. I was surprised by the reactions of his siblings. Except for the youngest they all teared up when it was their turn to talk to him. Joseph could barely even speak. We were probably on longer than we should've been. He is doing very well. Determined to make the most of the time he has available to help the most people. We learned that Subway is the same in Brazil as it is in the US. We even got to say hello to his companion, who is from the south of Brazil where it is not nearly as hot as it is in Belem. (81 degrees and rainy today)  Here is his letter today with LOTS of pictures.

Hey! So this week was eventful. We had a ward christmas party and there was a birthday(Mine) and there was Christmas and a phone call to the family and all that cool stuff right? Right. So The week itself was fine. We went around talking to the peoples and stuff. And then on the 22nd we had our ward chirstmas activity. Some pictures of my companion and I are placed below. 

But that was cool. There were a lot of people there. A lot of people there actually that weren't members. So yeah that was cool. but then the next day was my birthday. My Companion(being awesome) Bought me said 3 chocolate bars which we ate in about 2 days. 

And because our Lunch appointment was to be some money that day I made tacos. my companion is from South Brazil which s super big on meats and stuff, and he decided to let me make the taco meat. Even though(as I later found out) didn't trust that I was a good enough cook to be able to do so. Then he tried out my taco meat and was like "WOW, This was waaayyyyy better than I was expecting." So thanks for trusting me on that one right? Right.(Except if I was him I probably wouldn't have trusted me either). 

But then Saturday night there was this one sister who sent us food to eat cause she's awesome. She also made a bunch of stuff for my birthday but we got super delayed at the chapel that night by an appointment we had with someone that was super important and we couldn't miss and we ended up missing out on the partyish thing for me. But she forgave us so it's all good. (i think). 

Then it was Christmas which was spent at the Bishop's house to call our families. Sacrament meeting was pretty cool. The 2 Bishops of the 2 wards spoke and our mission president was present. After lunch we went to Bishop's and talked to our families for a while. Which was somewhat strange because I was looking at mine, and like, half of them are different then they were before. Like, Sarah and Hannah were the same. but everyone else was different among my siblings. I'm probably gonna get back and not recognize them, I'm almost positive of that. 

How 20 years old and 1 year of the mission looks like

 How it feels like.

I love you guys. Talk to y'all later. Any thing you need just let me know and I'll try my absolute hardest to help

MEU FILHÃO!!!!

Anxiously counting down to Christmas Day when we get a phone call from our missionary. In the meantime here is his latest news:

This is my new companion. I'm his trainer. He's new. This is his first P-day in field. 

And this is from his first day. 

When we missed the stop on the bus and went wayyyyy too far, got late to our zone meeting, our lunch appointment didn't work out(we ate at subway instead), and then after suffering in the blistering heat for a while we became completely drenched walking through the rain. SO you can say that his day was certainly interesting. On top of it he was rather grateful for an interesting first day. But he's pretty cool. 

This next week we got a ward Christmas activity and Christmas on Sunday and a lot of stuff. It should be pretty cool. But it's also kinda funny. He's from the south of the country and is DYING out here in the heat. Like, the high temperature in his state(that he thinks is hot) Is like a very very rare low here. So yeah. Everyone's like "you got here at a good time, it isn't that hot and whatever". His reaction "If you guys think this is cold I'm gonna die whenever hot gets here" So yeah. It's kinda funny. But it should all be good. I love you guys. MERRY CHRISTMAS

https://www.mormon.org

#SejaALuzDoMundo

#LightTheWorld

#PortugueseRules

#EnglishIsForSquares

#IDontKnowHowToUseHashtags

#Tchauzinho!!!

The Mission Christmas

It's been a year now since our son left for Brazil. We miss him at the same time we are proud of him. He is doing well. We received a message from Sister Stasevskas (mission president's wife). After apologizing for her broken English (which really wasn't bad) she let us know how wonderful our missionary is doing. Here is his latest letter and a lot of pictures.

So we had this MASSIVE Christmas activity this week. All of the missionaries in our mission were there. Which is in and of itself a feat seeing as how there are like 3 zones that you have to catch a plane to get here in Belém. But everyone was here. It was awesome. We started out with this dinner Wednesday that also had some zone skits that were pretty cool. Although honestly, to tell the truth I think that our zone did the best. It was just hilarious. So yeah. But anywho, after all that on Thursday we went to this sports complex and played Soccer, Basketball, and Volleyball. Also there was a rather small playground which some missionaries were playing on(Truthfully I started the playing on the small child sized playground with swings and slides and stuff everyone else was just kinda, Monkey see Monkey do). We also did this giant gift exchange with everyone having a secret santa sort of thing. That was cool. Although Ifeel as though most of the Elders received ties but whatever. Other than that I've been in a different area every day since then. Cause my Comp Elder Gann went off to his new area of Guanabara, Amapa, and my new companion doesn't get here until tomorrow because he's still in the MTC in São Paulo. So yeah. Being somewhat thrown around from area to area but it's fine. Elder Fonseca(My borrowed companion) and I are making the best of it. We like, super cleaned both of our houses. And now All is well. I think. Just gotta wait until the kid gets here. PORQUE VOU SER PAI!!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Don't worry. It'll all be good. ALSO we had this awesome regional conference transmission to Brasil with Elder Holland, 1. I think he speaks Spanish. 2.He speaks very broken Portuguese. But it was all really very cool. I liked it a lot. 

Luciano! E vou ser Pai!

Cold and rainy here in Texas. Hot and rainy in Brazil. The missionary seems to be doing well. It will be a year this week that he has been in Brazil. Honestly, I think that fact impacts us more than him. Here is his latest news:


So this week we had been working with this guy Luciano. He got baptized this last Saturday. We took him out to eat at this pizza place afterwards which was fun. I enjoyed the time there with everyone. We've honestly been working pretty hard to get to this point with the people in general. I don't know. There are the people that say this area is harder but i kinda plan on changing that. Especially seeing as how this next week there will be another rather large change for the area. So this week we are having a Christmas activity(essentially super party) over 2 days with the WHOLE mission. So because of that there are some people that will be flying in from the far places to Belém. And because of all that we all know about the transfer today. So My companion Elder Gann is getting transferred next week. he's going to a far away place. I honestly really like the guy. he is awesome. Plus being from Texas is also super awesome. But I am actually going to train someone new. ENTÃO VOU SER PAI!!! So I gotta work his shoes off  his feet. Then whenever he has a companion that doesn't really work as hard or doesn't know how to he can give them a kick in the butt and get it all moving. So it's gonna be cool. I'm actually pretty excited for that. But it's gonna be new. i hope I can help him like he needs. I love you guys. Talk to you all next week.