Hello
Everyone!!
I made
it to Brazil!! CRAZY! I am so
happy. Like, I literally love this place
so much.
There
is so much culture and cool things and the people are sweet! I got into Sao Paulo last Tuesday and then I
flew to Recife that same day. We ate
lunch at the President’s house which was beautiful. He lives in a sky rise in the city that
overlooks the temple! So cool. We live in a pretty rich area that includes
the beach in the city of Recife Piedade.
Now a rich area doesn’t mean what us Americans would think. There are still dirt roads and tiny houses
and quite a bit of poverty, however, a lot of people have TVs and computers and
other things and the inside of their houses are waaaay nicer than the
outside. I am so excited to serve here
though. Our apartment is pretty great,
we have tile floors. Everyone here has
either tile or concrete floors. No dirt
or carpet. There are dogs and cats
everywhere and all the dogs pass out at like 5 or 6 every night in the
streets. There’s also a mix of cars and
motorcycles and bikes and horses pulling carts.
Very mixed.
Our church buildings here are so beautiful and they are surrounded by a fence and they have a soccer court outside on the side of the church instead of a basketball court inside. Today we played soccer with other elders which was super fun but I got showed up by the Brazilians hard core. Oh, my companion and trainer is Elder Zeitner, an American and we live with two other American elders which apparently never happens!! President said that if he picked it logically he would have never put 4 Americans together but the spirit guided him to do that! I like my companion. He knows Portuguese super well so that helps a lot.
Everyone here is addicted to the soda Coke! Lunch is the biggest meal of the day here and we have rice and beans every single day! Like I knew that it was going to be like that, but literally they do rice and beans everyday for lunch. They asked us how meals go in the US and they do not understand how we can have different types of meals each day. Day to day we walk around and we have quite a few investigators but we spend quite a bit of time doing finding, which is waaayyy easier here than in New York. There are so many people outside and they are willing to talk to you.
The Drivers here are crazy though. Including the bus drivers! There is a speed limit but no one follows it and the cops don’t stop anyone, so you go whatever speed you want. One night we were getting off the bus and my companion got off first and then I was going to get off and the bus driver started to go and the doors were closing so I jumped out of a half opened door while the bus was moving! It was sketchy and my companion was laughing so hard. He’s like dude you need to push through the crowd on the bus harder and just be rude or you can’t get off because the busses are always packed!
The sun comes up here at like 5am so we keep all our windows closed but it is nice because it definitely is better waking up with the sun than in the dark. We have a tennis racket bug zapper thing that is sweet! So every night we are just swinging it around zapping bugs. When I got to the apartment no one had mosquito nets so I didn’t put mine up but then I got 15 bites in the first two days, sooo I put it up. I have been better since.
So here in Brazil we have these things called snakes! Not the slithery ones...but women that hiss at American missionaries because they want to seduce you. WEIRD. It happened to me the first night. The Brazilian missionaries with us were laughing at me.
No one here can pronounce Waters so everyone just calls me Elder Aguas. Everyone! It is hilarious.
My companion says I am getting better at Portuguese super fast so I am happy about that. Brazil is awesome!
Enjoy America!
Elder Waters
