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