Elder Alexander Baker

August 22, 2011

Hello:

How is everyone doin? I am still in the hole of Serraria, and the work is really difficult here. Mostly because every single person that lives here is a drug trafficker. But its ok I think I will leave before next p day. If not, oh well. There are sooo many hills in this area I have already lost 8 pounds here! My first two areas (Baton Rouge and Tijucas) were extremely flat. So I am exra exhausted right now. Even worse, I have been fatally ill the past week because one night it was so cold I almost died. But the weird thing was that the mattress has felt on it so even though I was way cold I sweat a lot. I woke up almost dead, it was the worst. I have been sick ever since.

Last week we had a member of the church that is very famous here that the people call ``wizard`` come speak at the stake center in Floripa (which is GIAGANTIC-the church builds the chapels here enormous cuz they are a little bit more scarce) He is like a billionaire cuz he created a company that teaches people english for really cheap here in Brazil. I didn´t get to hear his talk, which was on how to become a billionaire because I was too busy making contacts to the millions of non members. The President asked that me and my comp and 2 other companionships go and help get names to go visit. Afterward a mexican lady came up to me and started talking fluently in english about how she was born into the church and lived in Utah for 14 years. She moved to Floripa, married a very catholic guy, and now is miserable because he hates Mormons. I felt so bad for her. She was crying and said that the church was everything to her. It was so sad. I got her address and we are personally going to visit her to see if we can talk to her husband. She said she told him that she doesn´t care what he says anymore, which is a good start I guess!

I spend a lot of time in the center of downtown floripa. Its kinda cool cuz it is the biggest city I have ever lived in. It reminds me of L.A. or NYC a little bit. Soo the Prez bought two air mattresses for me and my comp to carry with us cuz we travel around. Mine was faulty and popped, so we slept on the same mattress for a week haha. Strictly against the rules! the Prez authorized it though but said, ``be careful!`` haha. We went to swap it on Saturday at a mall. It is a general rule in Brazil that missionaries aren´t allowed to go to the mall. Malls here are called ``shopping`` which is really confusing. The first time I heard it was ``Você já foi pra shopping?`` which means ``have you already been to shopping (the mall?) haha its weird. But the mall was cool, everything is SUPER cheap. The brazilian missionaries complain that its expensive here in the south, and say São Paulo is even cheaper but I don´t believe it!! The mall was different though. Too bad I will never return.

My comp, who is kinda fluent in english, asked me to show him how to teach the lessons in english. I agreed to do so and started to teach. (I don´t know if you had to ``practice`` on your mission everyday Dad, but we do!) It was so weird, I couldn´t do it!! I would struggle to say a sentence or 2 in english and then say a few Portuguese words without even realizing it!! It was weird. My homecoming talk is gonna be strange. But its ok, I took that as a sign that my Portuguese is improving!

Mom, next package, could you send me some face sunscreen? With the strongest SPF you can find? In the summer all of the eastern part of the state gets to 110-120 degrees F, with 90% + humidity.

Talk to ya next week!

Love, Elder Baker