Dear Family and Friends,
This week was super cool and spiritual and what not. I was reading in John 17,
and I found myself just engulfed in how extremely selfless the Savior is. That
is a very powerful chapter of scripture. In all, I'd say that this week was
rather normal, nothing particularly new happened, so I will try to make this
one as interesting as possible.
First off, yesterday, we had President Swenson visit our sala de aula
(classroom) unexpectedly, looking for Elder Smith. Once we had informed him
that Elder Smith was teaching a lesson, he exclaimed, "really? So no one
is headed to Santa Maria in here?" To
which Elder Lang and I responded that that was where I was heading. He then
announced that President and Sister Parrela had come to visit us. So they came
in, greeted us very warmly, and talked a little bit about life, and the
mission. I then noticed that Elder Lang and Elder Stanbury had been using the
whiteboard to do a big physics problem for the last 45 minutes (instead of
studying). So Elder Lang and I positioned ourselves very carefully as to block
the whiteboard from President’s view. Luckily, we were both far taller than he
was, so "Operation
Block-the-board-to-avoid-looking-like-slackers-and/or-nerds" was a
complete success. They seem like VERY awesome people, and it makes me very
happy and excited to serve under them, starting Tuesday.
Oh, yeah. I head out on the field on Tuesday. That seems very unreal to me,
there is no way that I have been gone for a month and a half. What Blake said
could not be more accurate. The days are long, the weeks are short. Doesn’t
make sense, but extremely true. I still have no idea how I am to get there.
Well, I guess I have an IDEA, I think I’m taking a plane. But I have heard
nothing about it, so don’t be surprised to hear otherwise next week. I´m so
excited, yall. I feel very ready. I’m excited to see who my new companion will
be. I’m excited to preach the good news to anyone and everyone. I am so
excited.
As a new Portuguese speaker, I’m sure you are wondering about if I have had any
bad Portuguese mess-ups. I have, but not nearly as bad as some of my district
members. So I’m gonna share those. So I was eating dinner, and instead of
saying, "opa, este é um colher pequeno" (wow, this is a very small
spoon), I said, "opa, este é um COELHO pequeno" (wow, this is a very
small bunny rabbit). So not terrible. Elder Blocker was called upon to say the
opening prayer in the devotional with the whole CTM. He meant
to start with "o nosso amoroso pai celestial" (o loving heavenly
father) but he said, "o nosso almoço pai celestial" (o heavenly
father of lunchtime). Some brasileiros had a hoot about that. My personal
favorite, was in a lesson, Elder Stanbury meant to tell our investigators that
if you follow the law of chastity, that "vocês vão sentir melhores
por todo eternidade" (you will feel better for all eternity), but he
said "vocês vão sentir mulheres por todo eternidade" (you
will feel women for all eternity).
We are all in good company. Those are the three that come to mind immediately,
but I will share more if they come to mind.
On Sunday, we had our fast Sunday. Practically all of us fasted for rain, as
São Paulo was at 5% capacity in their lakes. That’s absurdly low. Anyways,
about 5 hours in to our fast, the rain came. And it didn’t stop for 4
days. So yeah. Power of the fast, people.
I will talk to you guys a little about the meal schedule. We have Panini’s in
the morning, we have rice and beans at lunch, and we have rice and beans for
dinner. The lunches here are bigger than the dinners. I like the schedule a bit
more than in the states. But when it comes around 9 pm, we are all starving. So
we have something called "launche" which means, snack, or dessert.
Let me tell you of this concept. NEVER HAS MEDIOCRITY BEEN SO LOVED by a group
of young men. Sincerely, it consists of a juice box (everyone hopes they get
apple, because it gives them weird dreams), a thing of saltine crackers without
the salt (we just put that in our makeshift birdfeeder out the window) (the
instructors still don’t know about that), and a little muffin thing, that we
all call a "dirt cake", because it tastes like dirt. But for some
reason, we all look forward to it every day.
Love you guys, can’t wait to talk to you next week!
Until then,
E. Wassom
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