Yo:
Mom, I sent off a HUGE package last week and a tiny tiny one for your birthday, but I´m gonna send another this week. I am loaded right now cuz I lost my card ya know and my money is piling up haha.
But a kid named Mark Bell wrote me a letter the other day. Actually he wrote it way before he went into the MTC on October 12 but since the strike didn´t end til recently I didn´t get it. But he got called to the Florianópolis mission!!! He went to East and is in our stake, I dunno if you know his parents. I think it would be really cool of you to call them and tell them a little bit of what I have told you. Tell them that he will love it and it is really actually pretty clean for Brazil and it is more like Europe. Tell them that I am gonna talk to president to see if he will let me train him!!! That would be really cool. I always talked to him at mission prep class.
But last p day I forgot to tell you that I went to a city called Navegantes. Its like 30 min away from my area but it was pretty cool to get there because there is a big world famous port in Itajaí and there is a huge river that runs through the middle of the city and to get to Navegantes I had to ride on a little ferry boat across the river!! It made me soo homesick though all I could think of was out trip to Port Townsend and Seattle. I hope we continue that trip when I get home.
ALLLRIGHT so lemme tell ya what a ZL does. He gets all of the areas numbers in his zone on Sunday, he does baptismal interviews for the people in his zone, he does travel around to see how all the areas are doing because he is responsible for the success of all of the areas. Its just a little more responsibility. Nothin much. But good news!! MY TERRRIBLE COMP GOT TRANSFERRED!!!! Poor guy, I think he is bipolar. I studied alone for this one week with him, he slept in all day and didn´t study. I tried to nicely tell him we couldn´t do what he was doing but he didn´t have it. I am going to be companions with Elder Checketts, my first American companion from California who has flaming red hair. But I know him a little bit, he is really cool. I am excited. But Elder Neilson is in my zone, and it just so happens he needed a baptismal interview this last week! So I went to his area called Brusque to interview his baptism and I slept there cuz its kinda far away. But we went on splits and it was so fun to go out with one of my MTC friends and to see how much we have both progressed in portuguese. He is a great guy, one of my best friends on the mission.
The weather is kind of strange right now too. Mom, the weather in September is mild and not too hot so it´ll be good to visit. The water might be kinda cold if we want to go to the beaches, but I will go anyways haha.
Mom, can you make an ORKUT account for me?? Its basically like facebook, but EVERY single brazilian has it and asks if I have it. It would be a great way to break the ice with people when I go into their houses. Put some pictures on there from my facebook that you think are cool and allow everyone to see them. Put the name as Elder Alexander Baker.
But this week was full of lessons! We taught a bunch of super spiritual lessons, and were able to mark 6 baptisms for this next month!! If everything goes well and the Lord blesses us further, we will baptize a family that we are teaching right now which will result in 4 more!! The work here is great! But we taught one lesson that was extremely strong to a guy that was dying that has been catholic his whole life. He´s got stomach cancer and doesn´t have long to live. We taught him the restoration and he said the for the first time in 60 years (his son has been a member and served a mission) he felt the truthfulness. Its cool to see how the first vision invites the spirit so strongly. But he will be baptized as well, but it might take a lil bit cuz he is have chemotherapy in Floripa.
I also went to Blumenau to do a baptismal interview. That city is SOOO COOOLL!!!! I have never been to Germany before, but I imagine that the architecture there is exactly the same as it is in Blumenau. It was so weird!! There were people speaking German in the streets, German markets, and even the clothes were different!! But, everyone speaks Portuguese luckily. There are some neighborhoods though that the kids aren´t even taught Portuguese, only German. The people are really white skinned all with blue eyes. I fit right in. It is an extremely well planned city and is super clean and unique because not only is it like Germany, but its also one of the more forested places in Brazil. Its like Germany in the middle of the Amazon!! Its really neat, if I were to live in Brazil and didn´t have the money to live in Rio Tavares on the island I would live there for sure.
So you got the packages off huh?? Did you happened to send the ski pamphlets off too?? I want those so bad. Hey Mike, some member knew that I liked skiing and he called me over to the computer one day and showed me ``The Grand Bizarre`` which is Poor Boyz new film. It looked pretty good, but I didn´t hardly recognize any of the skiers!! They all had crazy icelantic names or somethin. But hopefully you send the pamphlet off!! I would like a copy of Powder Magazine if possible as well.
So the accent is way different here. For all the ``sss`` sounds here they say ``sh``. So instead of saying Deus (God) which is prenounced Day-oos, they say Day-oosh. Haha its weird. But the big bus station in Itajaí is in my area and a lot of people are coming and leaving the area so I have to arrange it so that a missionary is never alone in the bus station and also rides for millions who need to go to various places. Its pretty stressful. It took me a couple hours to plan it all out but I think I got it done.
The members are really good here but there is a lot of gossip as well. Not good. I almost fought with a member already, but everyone told me he is crazy so I am not too worried about it. He refused to go on splits with us just because we were a TINY bit late to arrive at his house.
Well, thats all for this week!! I love you all and miss you and its really getting close to Christmas!! I want to do Skype again!
Mom, ask the Stake Prez is I can still be released by telephone.
I love you!!
Love, Elder Baker
P.S. Mom can yo send me a cookie recepie!??
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