Adjusting

April 18, 2011

I cant believe the baby came early!! Thats exciting. IT sounds like things were a little bit rocky at first. I hope he is doing a little bit better, it sounds like it. First off before I forget, Mom, how do you make tacos from scratch? Soft and hard. They dont have tortillas here either. And how do you make GUacomole? MY comp has had them once in his life and he loved them and wants me to make them!!

I am desperately hoping that there is something that you can do about my teeth. IT hurts sometimes when I bite down now. MY only idea is that they might still have molds from the old retainers? ITs a longshot I know, so prepare to see some crooked teeth.

But it is suposed to be cooling down here now, I really hope so. IT is so hot, plus we were playing soccer today and I got way sunburned. P days are a lot more fun here, we actually do stuff. WE went to to town called Koguaçu to play soccer.. IT was way pretty. I cant wait to show all of the family my areas!! Tijucas isnt as small as I thought. its still incredibly small, but I live in the outskirts, so it seems tiny. It has a little downtown with lots of stores and stuff. There is a town in my area called Bombinhas and apparently it has the prettiest beaches around.. IM gonna go check it out here pretty soon.

Its so weird everyone automatically knows I am AMerican! Some people guess I am from Germany though, which is kinda weird.. Anyways, there is a place called WIZARD that teaches english here. I went in and offered up my american-ness to them and I am going to go talk with people trying to learn english tonight. It´ll be fun and hopefully will result in some investigators. THe buses here are stick shift!! I have yet to see an automatic car. THe driving continues to be insane. I swear a requirement to hire a bus driver is to see how many lives they can risk a day without actually killing anyone. Its crazy!!

thats so nuts that dad saw that elder HArper (what was his name?) I talked to him like a week ago! I Actually droped him off at the airport. His mom and dad came right down to pick him up and went to Iguaçu falls and Rio de JAneiro and stuff. That would be fun, its up to you. Thats a while away anyways. But I Still dont know what anyone is saying. The language is tough, but I expected it to be. I gave a talk yesterday though! EVeryone said they really had to concentrate to understand, but they said it made sense!! haha.

A spider laid eggs in my sock and I didnt notice and I have like amillion spider bites on my feet and legs now. THere are bugs everywhere I hate it! BUt we are still buying things for our apartment. We do it little by little. We got a stove on Saturday. ON Friday, we walked into town to get matresses. We had to CARRY Them like 5 miles back to our house!! IT was tiring. I have a picture, but I forgot my chord, so I will get on photobucket and upload some next week. I hope. I had my first tropical rainstorm 2 nights ago. IT rains like Baton Rouge does. Buckets! But the lightning here is amazing!! IT stays lit in the sky for like 4 entire seconds at a time! I filmed it.

I am not at all adjusted to the food yet. MY stomach hurts all the time, its hard.

Thats all I have, sorry. I love you all, have fun in NEw York!!

I miss you.

ALex

Tijucas

April 11, 2011

My email might not be as long because I am not used to the keyboards yet. They aren´t that different though. But I am in Brazil still! I am opening a new area (I don´t know why they sent an american that doesn´t know portuguese to open a new area with a native companion but) it is called Tijucas. I don-t know my address, sorry. Just use the mission office for now, we go there every month. Yes, my companion is a native and speaks zero english. He actually says ´´lerts fly´´ when he wants to leave. The first week just flew over my head, I have no idea what happened. My apartment is a good one. We hav to buy everything to put in there but its all good. Its better than my first apartment in Baton Rouge! But the city of Tijucas is a tiny tiny little town. All the roads are cobblestone or dirt besides a highway that runs through the middle. I am kinda sad cuz it is one of the more ugly towns in Santa Catarina, but it is very cultural! Peoples accent are way weird, I don´t get it. Its like southern english for english. The ocean is really close but it is an ugly beach and we cant go there anyways.. There are mountains here though!! Big huge tall ones!! It is so green here, I dare say even more so than Washington or Oregon. The mission president is so funny and I love him already and his wife. He lives in Orem, so you can go visit him in July!

I thought it was hot in Baton Rouge!! It is burning me alive here and its humid and there are huge bugs everywhere! I saw a tree lobster yesterday.. Look it up. There are dogs eveyrwhere and I saw one that looked like belle and it was funny. But there are no buses here. All the cars are tiny! The city of Florianopolis is like Europe mixed with Africa. I bet. It reminded me of the city in the Bourne Identity. But Tijucas is more like the cities in ´´the Three Amigos´´ haha seriously it is. We have lunch with members everyday though. There are only like 40 members here, but they are all really active!! Lunch is like a holiday! And its every single day!! Missionary work is so different here too. Its kind of a strange transition. There are pizza places everywhere, but not pizza like I have ever known. It is really really really good. My favorite is chocolate strawberry!! But all the missionaries say that everything is expensive here but it is soo cheap compared to the U.S.! We gotta get some real estate in Floripa, it is going to explode soon. President Quieroz said that he bought a ton cuz he knows the real estate market is giong to shoot up.

We walk so much, I walked 6 miles to get to this weird place to do my emails. It is still strange to me that no one speaks any english here. I am like a walking tourist attraction

because no one has ever seen an american before! They all say ´´hello´´ haha. There are white people here though, but you can just tell they are not American by lookingh at them. I don´t have much else, but I am going to ask if I can use photobucket tomorrow and I should have some pictures up next week!! Remind me of the username and password again?

I love you and that new bishopric sounds awesome!!

Love you

Love alex

American

May 2, 2011

FIrst off, this keyboard SUCKS I hate it I get it every week. BUt, for mothers day calls, you can pick the time and email me. I am going to email you with a number to call at the time that you pick. I can do it whenever. Remember that it is 3 hours ahead here. But yea you gotta call me cuz its way expensive. But, if you have SKYPE I can do it for free, but that might be kinda hard to set up with such little time. MAybe for Christmas.

I dont have much to say, but I am reallly excited to talk to you on Sunday!! I guess I will give a brief email. I would like more pictures of the family. And the more pictures of me skiing and playing rugby. Maybe you could send em on a flashdrive o sometihn??

It really is so funny that everyone knows that I am american the INSTANT I talk. Whenever I walk into a house they say, `so american´or énter american! That is SO AWESOME that OSama is dead. DId you know that our mission president owns New Look, Inc?? That is such a huge company!! He started it so yeah he is loaded. HE rented out a soccer field for us to play in today and he played with us and he was honestly the best player there. HE played professionally before his mission! Afterward he told us about Osama. He was pretty excited about it haha. I am trying to upload my Brazil pics right now I really want to see what you think and so we can talk about them!! Photobucket is being really stupid right now. I dont know if it will work. Hey, when are the next olympics? I know the summer ones are gonna be in Brazil, but I Want to know when the winter olympics are going to be! I dont think its gonna work.. I mean photobucket.. THIS COMPUTER SUCKS dang it. Maybe I will try at a members house.

So I got a stupid cold, I think its a sinus infection, and it has affected my ear. I hate this stupid ear, there is something wrong with it I dont care what any of the doctors say. I ca hardly put the bottom row of my teeth behind my front row. Not that it is too painful (it is a painful) but that it cant do it because of pressure on the left side of my jaw near my ear. ITs so weird I just want to get surgery and get rid of this. I hate it, and I hate even more that none of the doctors could find waht was wrong. Oo I may have got photobucket to work.

We never tract here. ONe of the best ways, according to the president, is to teach english classes. Since I Am american, everyone is already asking me to teach them english. We are going to make big banners and hang them everwhere advertising my enlgish class. I am nervous cuz I dont speak portuguese too well, but I like to teach english so I think itll be fun and we will find peole to teach. its uploading, I only did a couple pics cuz it is so slow though sorry.

I gotta write DAd and email, but I love you. TAlk to you SUNDAY!!

Love alex