Oi!!!! (hey)
This week has been great as I'm getting more used to the area and learning the language. I still feel pretty deaf while out on the streets but the lessons and talking to Elder Sacilotto are getting much much better! Proselyting for the first time at the beginning of the week was a cool experience...for learning. People are nice here but somewhere in between kind of flakey and just not interested. Most of our appointments fall through or the spouse of the person we set the appointment with comes out and tells us they are busy...all the time, watching tv or something. But the people are great. The teaching in this area is harder than others. All areas in the Recife Mission are different but this is one of the harder so it is hard finding people who are really interested. We found a family this week but the mom is not interested and the kids are... so we'll see how that goes...?
There are a million churches around here and everyone already seems to have a church they go to! In fact Gilson who seemed super interested and way ready to be baptized told us that he was planning on getting baptized in another church right after we asked him to be baptized. It was kind of weird because he believed everything we said and said he knew it was true, but doesn't want to be baptized in out church. He asked us if that was a problem, Elder Sacilotto said "not for us, but for you it is". That hit him kind of hard. I felt bad, but the good thing is, is that he said he´d pray about which church he should join, which is the only thing anyone can do. It's what Joseph Smith did. I just hope he really tries to find the answer.
It's been pretty hot outside lately, especially when we are out side for a long time. A couple days ago a kind of drunk man stopped us and told us that -his brother was a missionary in Rio and got shot and died, -his sister is an x-member, -and he is a drunk. It was funny when he said the last part, but of course I didn't show it...and I don't know if what he said about his siblings was true? Oh and he was speaking in Spanish, English, and Portuguese all at the same time.
I finally found a good breakfast-- eggs and bread are cheap here, and that's about it... so I eat delicious egg sandwich things every morning. I had to get off the diet of chocolate cookies and chocolate milk. Dinner is still kind of just whatever, and lunch is always sooo good! Sunday we had a juice that was lime, mangos, and some other fruit mixed with milk. It was amazing and so thick. Most juices are just a powder and water, but are still amazing. I wonder if we have the same stuff in the US? Lunch always consists of beans, rice, some type of meat, and more than likely pasta and some vegetables. Some of these places are so so poor, and then they pull out these crazy good meals. It's great and they always tell me to eat more! I thought it would be hard to eat weird different food here but it's not because by lunch I'm always sooooooo hungry!
Oh and one hard thing about the church here is that people think weird things about the church. I even heard that some people think we sacrifice little children and eat them.... so weird. And of course no one here is married.
The weather here is hot but we are way close to the beach so we get a pretty nice breeze. Speaking of the beach today for p-day the elders in our house went to the city center of Recife. It was way cool and a long part of the ride was right next to the beach! It's so beautiful! but no one was in it, I think because a lot of shark attacks have been happening here? Melanie said that and a couple other people had told me.
So today we went to a way old catholic church...I forgot the name but I'll find out. And it had a bunch of old church things in it. Way cool. And then we went looking for a cord to plug my camera into the computer in this huge mall they have. But it costs 100 American dollars! (170 reals) A little chord for my camera, ridiculous! Things here are pretty expensive, but today was fun. We got to see a lot of the city :)
Sunday was stake conference so the 2 wards that meet in our building all met at the church and took a bus to the stake center which was a huge huge building! The stake here is huge. Our ward and missionary area is called JD American (Jardim America) and if you want to see where it is you can go on the LDS website on missions and areas. It will take you to google earth. We had one investigator with us which was great and she decided to feed her baby next to me during the meeting. That was kind of awkward.
The youth here are great. Last night the four of us elders got to judge them as they gave talks in the church. It was pretty intense. All their families were there and they were all nervous. We chose one girl and one boy to represent the ward for some stake thing...it was way fun and people were all excited, and sad, about who we chose. They all did great :)
So all is well in the JD America Area!
I love you all and thanks for your prayers!
Elder LeSueur
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