Week 63

Hey family,

I really enjoyed talking with you all as well.  They don´t let us call enough I feel.  I think that 4 times a year would be better.  But we don´t always get what we want so its all good.  But It was great to see everyone.  Everyone looks good and healthy.  Hopefully new years isn´t too bad but i think that it will be worse.  We will see.  Well I love you all and I hope that all continues to go well.

Love,

Garrett

(This was Christmas week and we got to Skype with Garrett!! It was wonderful to see and talk with him. He had quite a time trying to speak in English)

Week 62

Hey Family....

Its been a week...thats for sure.  But it ended a lot better than the middle.  I arrived here Wednesday morning after a 12 hour bus ride that felt like it would never end.  It was sad to leave my area as well.  We have 2 people ready to be baptised and I want to be there for them.  But it always seems to work out that way...you leave when things are finally getting better.
My companion is an American with little time here in Brasil.  He was serving in Idaho the south for 2 months.  So i´m not really training...but in the same sense i am.  And i´m for sure teaching him Portuguese.  He is the first companion that i´ve had where we had a hard core argument.  And in the first few days wow.  He is all rigid with everything.  But I understand now...he has been on the mission for 6 months without a baptism.  Fortunately things are a little better now.  We just have very different personalities.  Also i´ll never home school my kids.  He was and all of the homeschooled kids have a similar personality.  But anyways he does have good qualities as well so we can work. 
I´m leaving with the Zone Leaders.  They are so cool!  It keeps me sane.  Without them i´d die I think.  But the mission is all about learning so I guess that´s why this things happen.
Yesterday the stake had a christmas play.  It was really good!  You could feel the spirit and the music was beautiful.  But they didn´t have food....so the christmas party at home could have been better....haha. 

Everyone was talking about a 7 pm call.  We will be going to a lan house that a member is giving us the keys too because the house of the member that we would use skype is having problems with the computer.  So we don´t have a number you can call.  But if it doesn´t work out which it will President will allow me to to it another day and I´ll just go to a member and you can call.  But right around 7 we will be there.  If it changes I´ll email Saturday.  Is the time difference 5 hours now or just 4?  I´m not sure but it did change so its possible its 5 hours difference.  Well i´m super excited to talk to you all Christmas!

I love and miss you all,  I hope that Christmas is awesome and i´ll talk to you Sunday or Christmas :)

love,
Garrett

Week 61

Hey Family,

The nativity thing looked cool.  Is that a new missionary program that the church is using or just a cool thing?  The pictures turned out really well.  Sounds like the church is doing a lot of new things there though.  That is always a good sign.  And that is cool that there will be 4 wards.  Just means the church is getting stronger there.
Well i´ll be leaving for Salvador again....and my first area of the mission.  I´m torn.  It will be cool to be able to talk to the members there now but i´m not too excited to be in Salvador.  I don´t like it there its just dirty and there is a lot of crime.  But this is where the Lord needs me so i´ll return.  I leave tomorrow night...12 hours in the bus!  Its always fun. 
So this last week my system started to get really bad.  I think that I ate bad food or drank bad water.  Anyways I talked with Sister Vecchi and i´m taking medicine for worms.  Hopefully it will help.  The things that happen on the mission.  Luckily we had a christmas party with the whole interior and sis. and president vecchi were there.  I got the medicine from her.  Also I was able to see Elder Hales my trainer.  It was great to see him again.  He leaves the next transfer.  Its crazy...he had the same amount of time I have now when he trained me.  Time flies...or passes eventually.  Depends on the day...haha.  But the christmas thing was really good. 
This week we had a baptism!  Finally.  Also he wanted me to baptise him.  It was my first and it was a great experience.  I enjoyed it a lot.  I´m glad that we were able to end the transfer with a baptism.  We had another but it fell the day of.  He will be baptised this week but I´ll miss it. 
Sunday we had to go to Porto Seguro because the satelite here is still broken and the President waited 2 months to try and fix it.  I´m glad that i´ll be away from him and going back to a strong ward.  Its so much nicer.  But i will miss some of the members here a lot.  There were some really cool people and right now we have one investigator that is super cool.  But change is good as well.  Anyways is was branch conference and it was so good!  Heard from Elder Eyring, Cook, and Lissen I think is his name he is in the 70´s.  But it was super good.  I enjoyed it a lot.
I´ll be able to call from skype because i´ll do it in the same house that you called in May!  Haha...but what time is best for you?  I want to be able to talk to the whole family this time.  That will be cool to see Grandma as well.  I will send my skype contact information in another email.  I´m excited to talk to you all...it will be hard.  I´ve almost lost my english.   But if I have an American companion now it is possible that i´ll remember a lot.  We will see.
Well i love and miss you all,
Love
Garrett

Week 60

The above pictures were from a nature reserve-Park Veracel, he visited.

 Hey family,

It was a fast week here.  We had interviews with President Tuesday.  It went well...i passed and can stay on the mission..haha.  He did the interviews during lunch in Porto Seguro so he took us out to lunch and paid for us.   

The christmas season is starting to come here.  The put up lights on the power poles here.  Its pretty cool looking.  But i´m still not a fan of the no snow part.  Its just not the same without snow.  But oh well...i guess i should count my blessings.  Oh i receive your christmas package.  Thanks for everything and everyone that wrote are included notes.  I enjoyed it a lot.

I´m trying to remember what happened this week that is worth writing about.  And for some reason i´m drawing a blank right now.  Did the normal stuff.  One day when we were tracting we tracted into a guy that has tried about every religion.  I started to get excited because it was like being in California again.  He was very educated and knew a lot about the religions.  I really miss this part of the mission in cali...we had a lot of deep conversations about religion.  Unfortunately you usually don´t see results with these types of people.  Just a good conversation.  

This is the last week before transfers.  I think that i´ll be leaving.  I´m ready to leave.  I have 6 months here.  Its time for a change of scenery.  But we will see what the Lord has in store for me.  There are a lot of members that don´t want me to leave...i´ll miss some of them.  But change is good as well.  Oh last night there were a bunch of football games with big teams playing.  One of the big teams won and the other lost.  After the game there was a prosession of cars and motorcycles for about an hour or so with people yelling and screaming.  They were are crazy about football here.  But it was kind of cool as well.

Well i love and miss you all,

Garrett