May 30, 2011

Hey errbody:

So you didnt comment on the haircut. A member told me the other day that my hair looks like grass. After she said that everyone laughed for 20 minutes. They really do say whatever comes to mind its so bizarre! Lots of things they say are slightly crude and completely random. I like it its really funny. As usual, this p day sped by. Especially in Tijucas. Maybe if I wasnt a missionary I could have some fun. Well, I will say I could definitely have somefun cuz there is a beach really close to here. Anyways, whats new! HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATIE!! I sent a hand written letter last week but it probably got stolen. Let me know when it gets there! If not, I will write you another. Well, guess what happened to me. We were playing soccer with some investigators and I got bitten by some exotic mosquito. The next morning I woke up and my skin was numb. EVERYWHERE. It still is a little but it is so weird, if I put my hand on my arm I cant tell that its mine. It freaked me out at first so I wanted to see if I could feel anything so I bit my arm and I couldnt feel it and when I looked at the bite it was bleeding! But dont worry, the assistants of the mission stayed at my apartment the other night and one of them is a biologist and he said that it is just a toxin in my blood that will filter out in a couple days.

This week was just a bunch of travelling and doing odd jobs. The music class we had went well, we got a couple new investigators out of it. I called and asked for some help with the english class because I dont speak portuguese too well so thats why the assistants were here. But the class went great! There were millions of péople that were just in awe because two americans were teaching them english. They asked us to speak in english for them and we talked about the funniest stuff right in front of them because they had no idea what we were saying. But we have a little form thingy that they fill out and it talks about what we as missionaries do and it asks if they want to have a visit from us. We have 3 more families to go visit this week as a result of the english class! So it worked really well. I was told we were placed here because they needed to put two trustworthy missionaries in Tijucas because we gotta baptize like crazy because if we get the membership up to 80 active members, then the church will build a chapel here. They already bought land for it and now are just waiting for the membership to grow. We drew up plans for the chapel and it is gonna be really cool. The terrain that we have is really long and skinny though so the chapel is going to be a little bit different. The funny thing is that there is a Kingdom Hall (thats what the Jehovah´s Witnesses call their chapels) right across the street! We are going to be shaking our fists at each other on Sundays.. just kidding. But the Testamunhas de Jeová hate us!

The language is coming well. How come no one answers my questions! I usually have a question or two a week that kill me tha tI really want to know and it sucks enough to wait til monday. My question was: What are the most difficult language to learn for english speakers? And accept Junior Gonzaga on my facebook! Anyways, about the language. We gave a training to the members here in Tijucas about how to get their chapel built as fast as possible and I had to talk a lot and I did fine and they all understood. So that was pretty fun. I love to talk to little kids because they are the most willing to help me. Its kind of embarrassing when I have to tell 3 year olds I didnt understand. I dont think 3 year olds understand that there are other languages! But sometimes I wish I was called to James Little´s mission cuz I love Asian languages. And then I think how much harder the language would be!!

Mom, here is my spiritual experience for the week. We went to this 15 year olds house to do a drop visit (cuz she said she didnt have interest in the church anymore) and when she got there she told us that she had a change of heart and wanted to be baptized. Even better, her little sister wanted to be too! So we had two baptizms yesterday. The baptisimal font is sooo ghetto here. Its a tarp that we shape into a huge bowl and put water in. The water was soo cold because they dont have heated water here. It gets really cold hereat night its shocking!! Its a good cold for me, and doesnt compare to real cold. But I definitely need an extra blanket.

We had to go to Floripa a couple times this week and so thats why I dont have much to say.did you send the package yet? I saw a picture of the Presidents house and it is HUGE!! But there are some sorta nice houses in Tijucas. I found the road that all the ``rich`` people live on. they consider someone rich if they have a car or if they have a dryer. They are insanely rich if they have anything made by apple and it is unheard of to have a swimming pool.

Thats all I have for this week, Kevin says he might get his call on the first!! Let me know!!

happy birthday again Katie!
I wish I could have seen mom bowl 4 strikes. I will be back in 2013 to beat her.

Love you all!!

Alex

May 16, 2011

MOm, saddest thing I have ever heard. I was in a members house getting a drink of water and I heard my favorite band (RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE) playing on the TV during a commercial. I ran over and they are playing in a music festival in a city called Ita that is only 9 hours away from TIjucas! They haven´t been together since 2000 and then all the sudden, while I am gone, they decide to play a show. And it is right next to me.

Anyways, everyone still talks about Osama. I wish I could read a TIME magazine or somethin. OH before I forget, can you record Devan´s farewell and send it to me? Its this sunday I Think. I saw on the TV that there is already Osama merchandise for sale. I even saw a shirt in FLoripa! Sorry if there are random capital letters this keyboard is weird. But this last week we had a way cool lesson with a guy named RAfael. (pronounced ha-fie-ayoo) I taught him the first vision and then he accepted the invite to be baptized immediately! ITs always fun to get such a quick yes because it reaffirms my testimony. DAd and Mike and KIt probably know what I am talkin about. But he is really cool. The people here are really fun!

My focuses (besides missionary work) change so rapidly its so weird. I was wanting to be in the FBI and then the other day all I wanted to do was produce movies. I Have ADD. But guess what ? I ate at McDonalds! It was pretty much the same food except I had a guarná with it instead of a coke. THe menu was really small though. ONly 6 burgers.

You said that ELder Oaks might come to BRazil agin? TEll him to come to floripa and talk to me! THAt would be so cool. OH for my package try to find somethjing called a GYROBALL. ITs a forearm workout thing but Its fun to do. ALso, anything that I could do while riding the bus. I remember that thing (like a mind puzzle) in brookstone but I Dunno if they still have it. Oh and I decided that you need to pick me up off the mission cuz thats when my Portuguese will be the best. OK?? OH and for the package can you get another jurnal do you think?: I HATE THIS KEYBOARD. BUt I baptized a girl named Fernanda Caroline SArmento on SAturday! IT was a pretty neat experience. SHe is only 14 but she came alone to church, and said she wanted to be baptized. SHe already is on the right track!

TEll kevin to email me the second he gets his call. SOry this email has been so spuratic but I Gotta hurry. TRansfers were this week and my comp was suposed to get transfereed but he wanted to stay put so he called the pres and asked and he said it was ok. So we are in tijucas for another transfer. I was gonna go to bombinhas tday but it was raining really really hard.

SOrry its short this week, I Gotta go! I love you!

ALex

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

He Made It!!

MOM I made it to Florianópolis!!! Its so unreal, its the coolest city I have ever seen. It is so pretty and clean, its unbelievable. Everyone is extremely nice too, especially when they find out I speak english (they all want to talk to americans) I cannot wait til you see this place, cuz nothing I can say can explain it!! Its too cool. But I think I am going to get a native companion!! P days are Monday, so you will be hearing soon. I never wanna fly that far again, unless its on an isle seat or on drugs.

I gotta go, but I love you and I will ask my mission president (who is the COOLEST guy) if I can use the picture website. I think he will allow it. Ok I gotta go but I love you!!

I am going to live here when I get older.

Love, Alex

Last Week in Baton Rouge

Yea life is good now, but I still want to go to Brazil!! So I hope my VISA come this week. I got a million emails from people saying it is approved soo that is good! I was wondering, are you and Dad ever going to go on a senior mission or be a mission president??

Do you remember the ridiculous huge black guy that I talked about last week? Well, he used to be the worst guy ever. Drugs, killing, getting stabbed, all that stuff. ITs cool to see how the gospel changed his life. He says he used to be very angry, but I can't believe it! He is too nice! And we ate at his house the other night. It was soo good! He is a pro chef, remember. It was really unhealthy though. He deep fried everything.

My bite has been getting continually worse, and I was wondering, perhaps in desperation, if the orthodontist somehow had my molds from my old retainers and could make more and send them out? Thats a long shot I know. Some old white guy next to me just said, "Man, you can really type fast." Haha.

I was ALSO wondering how many times do you think grandpa Bob has read through the book of mormon. And you too! But He wrote about some pretty insightful things last time he wrote. Oh and tell both grandmas I say hi. I don't have time to write them though, p day is probably the most stressful day out of all of them!! But tell them I miss them and want them to write cuz I haven't heard from them lately! Tell grandma marlene I am dying to hear about grandpas story!!

This place needs a lot of work. I am nervous for my companion,Elder *** because he hardly knows whats goin on and it sounds like I am about to leave. He will be on his own! All the investigators and ward members know me, so it'll be kinda tough for him. But we are meeting new investigators. We tracted into an Iranian guy and when he answered I just thought, "oh great, a muslim guy." But, he shocked me when he said he was looking for a new church! He is a christian. Perhaps the only Iranian christian in all of Louisiana. He has a way sweet accent, but he needed a BOM in Farsi, so we got him one. Its also a crazy language.

So Christian wrote me!! I haven't heard from him in like 6 months!! Probably right before I entered the MTCI got a letter from him. When did everyone go out? I am trying to rmemeber when Taylor Swenson, Matt Rider, Josh Anderson, Dayne Christiansen, John Darley, Jason Sperry, Ryan Shipp, and Fitts went out. If you rmemeber any of these people's farewell dates, lemme know.

Ever since my big "cool" pen broke that dad gave me, which I used for 5 months STRAIT, (I literally wrote every single thing with that pen) I have been going through pens like crazy. Its stupid, its like I am cursed. I think I have probably had 12 or 13 pens in the last week. Seriously. Stupid pens, I am cursed. But I can now contact in 4 languages now!! English, Spanish, and Portuguese! And Vietnamese, I can say, hi how are you, where are you from, do you have a family, do you have a religion, and can I give you a card. Haha, its not much, but it took me forever to learn it! Its so tough, but I still count it as contacting. Everyone Vietnamese is Buddhist though.

We run and go play basketball in the mornings, and its way fun, but I only have one bottle of mosquito repellant so the bugs eat me alive. They are huge and gross here. Its kinda fun though, I smack em outta the air with my Bible and it makes a big old "SMACK" sound!!

The Pastor I have been teaching is pastor over 3000 people! That might develop into a story worthy of the ensign. But we'll see. A common term here that means "to eat" is to "break bread." So the pastor offered to bring us to a chicken place called Raising Canes (which by the way, I am planning on opening one in Utah because it is the best place I have ever eaten, it will make us millions) so we will get food purchased by "Priestcraft" money this thursday.

The guy I baptized, ***, came on exchanges with us yesterday. He was wearing his blue pimp suit, so we figured all the people we are teaching in the ghetto would love him, so we were in the ghetto all night. They did love him! I seriously cannot understand 3/4 of what he says, I am not even joking at all. Not only did he grow up in Zion and Mall City (the worst places in Baton Rouge) but I think he also has a speech impediment. So its unbearably funny when he tells a story. And he never stops talking, so he tells a lot of stories. He used to be a truck driver and he loves driving through Utah!

Yesterday was also really tough on my Portuguese. The brazilian member, *****, is getting ready to go through the temple and needs a Patriarchal Blessing first. So she called me to go in with her to the bishop and translate for her!! Its was pretty tough, and the Gift of Tounges was very evident, but I translated almost perfectly! I am excited to go to Brazil to actually see how well I can speak. She likes me a lot, its weird. I think I just have to get used to Brazilian affection! She is really cool though. I can' WAIT to go to brazil, she says everyone is like her!! Her son is a punk though.

Our dryer broke, so I have to do a clothes line. It sucks. I suck at laundry.

Thats all I have got, I love you! I will talk to you SOON!!!

Love, Alex