Marituba 2

Never Disrupt the Ecosystem

Hello!,

This week was good!  Lots of stuff happened. I love the area and all the ward members are so nice.  One eventful thing that happened was we went to the hospital to get X-rays for my companion. I don't think he needed them, but we still went. It was just 'cause he had a slight pain in his side.  However, after we got off of the bus downtown there was this old lady and Elder Geremias was like "Oh hey good morning!" and I thought he must know her. They shook hands and she kissed his hand and he kissed hers because it's culture here to kiss an older person's hand when you shake hands. We were walking fast so I shook her hand quick, and said good morning but she said something and the only word I caught was "kiss" so I was like, "oh sorry" and kissed her hand. She was like, "no" and grabbed me and try to kiss me on the lips, and I was like, "ok no" and ran away with Elder Geremias laughing.  So I almost got kissed by a very old lady.  

Also last week there was this kid that sat down next to me in cyber* and was talking to me and was like, "How do I become Mormon?" and I was like, "Well, let me tell you." and so we started teaching him this week.  He is basically the perfect investigator because he already has a testimony of the church and basically wants to do everything to get baptized.  He lives far away so he never like saw the missionaries before, but he basically believes the church is true because he has seen lots of stuff on the internet, and read about it, and decided that the church is so well organized and led around the world and since nobody in the church gets paid the only way it could be so well organized is if it was led by God.  It was funny though because he was asking us if we wanted to play video games and we were like, "sorry we can't" and he wanted to go swimming with us and we were like, "sorry we can't" and we were like, "we can only email on Mondays". Every time he was like, "ahhhhh mannn, that's too bad" and was really disappointed. I was like, "he must really want to just hang out with us" but then the next time we taught we found out he thought the rules we were talking about meant all of the church members, and he was only allowed to email on Mondays and could never go swimming again hahahah. He still wanted to get baptized so I was like, "he must really have a strong testimony."  He also studies chemistry at college and since he lives far away he has like this huge backyard that he blows stuff up in so that's cool.   

Saturday we had a ward activity with all the different regions of Brazil. That was funny because it was basically the same way an activity would be at home: the Primary did a cute dance, the Young Men were all too embarrassed to be in front of everyone and quickly read a poem, the Young Women sang a song, and then the Relief Society had like this massive well planned dance and matching dresses and was very impressive. Then my favorite part was when the Bishop got up to say a prayer and all the Young Men started chanting Bispo!! Bispo!! Discurso!! Discurso!! So he gave a quick speech before his prayer and I thought that was great.  

Also I like that here you can really see that anyone can be called as the bishop because the bishop in Agusto Montenegro was basically MacGyver and had like no education; and the bishop here I am not sure what he does, but he basically is Eugene Fitzherbert but Brazilian and 50. It seems like people just instantly love him because of his smolder and he just always does things in the moment.  

Also this week I bought an umbrella because my cheap Amazon[.com] one broke. The guy selling me one showed me one that was 5 extra reals but stronger, and I decided I would spend the extra money for a stronger one because I learned my lesson with the cheap Amazon[.com] one, but then literally the next day while we were at the bus stop a huge storm came and it broke.  so that was funny and sad.  

Last thing, I guess I am the natural man. Because when I thought I was using the ecosystem to my advantage last week I think I ruined something because there were 5 more giant spiders in my shower, 3 caterpillars, and 2 giant slugs that I couldn't kill.  Elder Geremias brought out this weird chemical that all I could read was "read the directions before use " but I don't have good enough Portuguese to actually read the instructions.  However, Geremias just said, "pour a little on to the corners of the floor" and I am yet to see another living thing on the floor so I guess it works.  However, there were two more giant spiders in our bedroom so now I go to be every night in fear always looking under the bed and covers first. 

Other side note, I totally forgot to get good pictures of me and my companion, but I have 2 of him. Also I am in a super sketchy cyber* today and am using windows xp so that is fun.  Also I think these are the photos but I can't figure out how to use them on windows xp so maybe they aren't even the right photos hahaha. 

 

[They were not the right photos. One was the spider photo from last week and the other was from a long time ago when they celebrated a missionary's one year mark. I'm not including them since I don't really want to look at that spider again--Isaac's mom]

 

[From Isaac's letter to his dad in reference to explaining "hitchhike the bus system" mentioned in last week's letter: To hitch hike the bus system you can flag them down and if you are just going a short distance you can ride for free so that's convenient.  Yes, I am pumped for conference the only problem is I think they will only have it in Portuguese.  However, I will be sure to get a copy of the Liahona in English so I will be able to read them in my native language.]

 

*cyber= internet cafe

Marituba 1

You Already Love Marituba

Dear people,

Marituba is awesome!  Sorry I didn't take too many photos; I will for next week.  Marituba is huge and we walk everywhere and I got another huge blister this week.  Our house is a house this time not an apartment. My first day there was a giant brown wasp thing, I think called a caba, that I had to kill while I was showering so that was fun.  I also had to adjust to killing cockroaches in the bathroom before I showered; which I wasn't sure if I would get used to, but I did.  It's convenient because you can push the cockroaches into a corner and the ants will clean them up.  Also I included some pictures of a large spider I tried to kill, but missed though, and it is still roaming our house.  

In Marituba we have a mom that is called the missionary mom and I love her so much because we can always go there and eat food when we are hungry and she has food for us.  The ward is amazing too, they are all so nice.  

The area is huge so my companion taught me how to hitch hike the public bus system so that should come in handy.  

One fun thing is that we are a part of the mom squad with their babies. Like every other afternoon we go to the park and chill with the moms and their babies and teach them so that is fun.  

I also tried takaka (I think I spelled it right) but its basically a soup that had weird boogers in it.  It tasted good though.  

At church we had 4 college students studying religion visit so that was kind of fun to help them with their homework and answer questions.  

I saw a trailer for Incredibles 2 on TV, so I will have to watch that when I get home too.  Everyone in Brasil has their TV blasting while you are walking by or when you walk into there house (it was only part of the trailer not all of it).

Marituba is fun. It seems like people have a bit more money here than in Augusto Monte Negro so it's interesting and a bit of a change; but overall nice because of the abundance of food.  We have one person that feeds 3 pairs of missionaries every month and Sunday one of the pairs didn't show up and we had to eat their share of food, and I literally could barely walk out of their house.  

I will write more about the people I am teaching when I get to know them better. This week was kind of just a blast of new information and new things.  Its kind of funny, because of my companion we have lots of girls around the age of 20 that want to "learn about the church" so that's kind of funny, but we don't have trouble finding people to teach.  (My companion is kind of like Collin Clark, jacked and good looking.)

I love you guys!  Remember to stay safe. I will try to take more pictures for next week!   

 

Augusto Montenegro 11

 Ready Or Not Transfer

 

Hey people!,

This week was pretty uneventful. Except Tuesday we were without water so the other missionaries in the house made me climb into the area above the apartments to check it out, and so I used my non existent plumbing skills to discover the problem ;].  Surprisingly the plumbing was pretty self explanatory, and I figured everything out and was able to fix everything. The water was just dirty for awhile before we could use it again.  

This week we had a service project where I got to mix cement for the first time.  It was fun, but lots of work, and I know why Bob the Builder purchased his mixer.  I learned a lot about how to construct a house out of bricks and cement so basically now I just need to learn about electricity and then I can build a house.  Just joking, there is probably lots more in depth things to building a house, but it's kind of cool I am learning about house maintenance on a mission. 

It was the birthday of the other American in our house so we baked a cake, bought açai, and had a big party until 10:00 at night. We party hard.  

However there was one big surprise! I ended up getting transferred to Marituba! It's surprising because usually new missionaries stay in their first area for 3 or 4 transfers and I only had two. My companion was a little bit sad he will be staying there longer than me.  My new area so far is cool.  My new companion is too; he is huge and funny.  His accent is a bit different so sometimes it is hard to understand, but he is pretty awesome.  The house is different too, but pretty big. I will send pictures next week. The only thing I know about my area is that it is one of the biggest in the mission so we are going to do a lot of walking.  Also when I arrived in my area they were having a funeral and I ended up being the one to say the prayer. So I had to give a nice thoughtful prayer in Portuguese about death and that was difficult but I think I pulled it off and it was heartfelt.  Things are staying crazy here; hopefully they are still crazy at home, but not too crazy.  love you all!

Love,

Elder Holcomb

oh p.s.  my new planner I made is pretty sweet so I sent pictures of that.

 

 

Augusto Montenegro 10

 Everybody Loves Coxinha

Hey people,

This week not much happened.  We walked a lot but nothing other than that happened.  We started teaching the door man this week that lets us into our rich gated apartment complex and he really seemed to like it.  We went to his house and taught his wife too, and they both came to church and seemed to really really enjoy it a lot. We are going to go back and teach them this week.  They are really fun.  

Also I forgot to include this last week, but on the way back from Zone conference these guys hopped on the bus and started playing flutes and guitars. I was low key jamming and wanted to buy their album they were selling, but I didn't have any money on me because I paid for the bus.  

Also this past week I have been holding onto the little flip phone we have for our companionship. The first day we got a call and the phone buzzed in my pocket and it scared me. I literally jumped and my companion laughed at me.  It was funny to see how much I have adjusted to not having a phone in my pocket.  

Also we went to a house and they were watching like a small child TV show with there kid. My companion started singing the songs so I learned them too; so now I know Brazilian children's songs like "pocoto pocoto upa cavalinho" (not sure if that's the name of the song, but it's a phrase). 

Also today is the last P day for an American Sister that is going home so yesterday we spent the whole afternoon and night making coxinha which is by far my favorite food here.  I wrote down how to make it so I can make it when I get back for people.  It's super tasty I have included some pictures.  But really not much happened this week so sorry for the boring email.  Next week is transfers. I think I will stay in Augusto Monte Negro one or two more transfers but we will see. 

Love,

Elder Holcomb

PS  oh and this morning something funny happened. The water in our house wasn't working but Piris already used the bathroom and then he couldn't flush it. Apparently there was an explosion so the whole neighborhood doesn't have water and so we couldn't shower or brush our teeth. It is quite an experience, but I thought that was funny. We joked about taking a bath in the baptismal font but hopefully that doesn't actually happen.  I don't know when we will get water again but hopefully by tonight.