June 13, 2011

Hey Everyone!!

So Dad, first off, thanks for the email. Sorry this email might be a little bit shorter cuz I had to read it all but it helped a lot. Its just hard sometimes. Thanks for the advice too Mom. But anyways, the house looks AWESOME!!! It looks like it belongs in a magazine. I hope you can keep it up, I want to see it in person.

Do you think that moths will eat my clothes?? I am scared I will have no clothes when I get home.

This week went by fairly slow. Probably because the assistants had to come over again and we stayed up late every night. I just want to sleep. But somehow everyone always figures out that Elder Oaks is in our ward and freaks out and tells me to write him. But I dont even know if he knows who I am!! I know that Sister Oaks knows though, tell her I say hello. I remember when she taught me when I was really little, that was pretty cool. And tell her thanks for making her husband call me the day before I left. I didnt realize how cool that was!! Anyways, I recently heard from Treyden, Jacob, and Luke. Jacob is great, Treyden is working hard and is in Eugene! And Luke is in Bora Bora and is loving it. He sent a pic of the beach and I had to rival it so I went to a city called ``manto grande.`` Too bad it was kinda hazy but it was still really pretty. The hike was way fun but the busride to get to there was unreal. It will make any human alive sick to their stomach. It wound through mountains on dirt bumpy roads for an entire hour. It was pretty cool!! The city was like a ghosttown, which I dont understand cuz it was the prettiest beaches I have ever seen. The pictures dont do it near enough justice. Sorry it was kinda expensive to go there and the assistants insisted that we buy pizza 2 nights in a row, so thats why I took out 50 reais.

The poverty continues to amaze me. Some houses dont even have doors. It also is shocking because everyone is pretty much happy! Probably because on every single corner there is a bakery. I swear they make the best treats I have ever eaten. And they are so cheap!! There is a HUGE round bread that is 70 centavos.. Like 35 cents!! And it is bigger than my head. I want to open one there it would make millions. Ohh before I forget dont forget to record kevins farewell!! I saw the picture of us when we were younger. That had to be like 6 years ago. Have you seen it yet? I thnk he put it on facebook. But guess what? My umbrella already broke. I saw a t shirt hanging on some barbed wire and I wanted to use my umbrella to throw it on my companion but when I tried it wouldnt budge. I tried harder and my umbrella snapped in half. I guess thats what they call karma. But I tapped it all up and its good to go... Except it doesnt close. It still works though!!

I am glad that the Mavs won, even though I really dont like em much. I always kinda liked Dirk, maybe its because he is white. He has the best shot in the league.

We got a new cell phone and my comp thinks its the coolest thing ever but it looks like it came out in the 70s. Like I said, technology is way far behind here. He put three efy songs on there and he plays them non stop. I liked them at first but after the 352nd time I heard them I dont really like them anymore. And when he isnt playing them he is singing them, but he doesnt know the words cuz they are in english so he just makes sounds. Its kinda funny. Mom, I heard that me and my companion (Elder Joseilto Magalhães dos Santos) will proabably stay here in tijucas for another transfer. I am kinda sad that my president is leaving. He is so great, I am nervous for the new. No one knows anything about him. Our president´s Dad is the temple president in São Paulo and is friends with a bunch of the 70 so the PResident here knows a lot about the doctrine. He is also just a really great guy. I am sure that God wouldn´t call a bad guy for a mission president, so I am sure the next one will be just as good.

Dad, I think that we teach similar to how you taught on your mission. We have a flip chart thingy that the mission president wants us to use but we dont have things memorized we just go with the flow. But I think its the perfect way to teach. There are a lot of strange things in this mission though. For example, a group of missionaries that didnt want to follow the rules formed a ``mafia`` and basically didnt do anything that they were suposed to do. Apparently when Elder Bednar came 2 months before I got here he looked out at all the missionaries and knew instantly that there was apostate missionaries. Pretty cool the power of the But there are more changes coming in July besides the supposed P day change. Every missionary companionship in the world is going to recieve a portable DVD player in july. I am not sure why, but I imagine that some DVD player making company just made a WHOLE lot of money!! I played Uno with an investigator (we are allowed) and it made me homesick and I remembered playing Pit and Skipbo. I hope we still have em under the stairs!! The language is comin a long fine, I gotta run, sorry. Look up D efeitos n youtube.

I love you all!!

Love Elder Alex Baker

June 6, 2011

Hey Mom!!

It is pretty cold here, a city in the state of Santa Catarina reached negative 17 degrees yesterday. Its still really hot where I am though, just freezing in the mornings. The stupid humidity makes everything twice as extreme. When we wake up all the windows have water on them. I think that the eight months has just been normal speed. It seems like a looong time ahead but I hate looking ahead.

The language is coming alright, but I still cant understand! It still sounds like a whole different language! (which it is, but I have been studying it for 8 months you´d think I would know!) The english class was only so-so this week. Another U.S. missionary came and helped me out again. That kid is weird, he is obssessed with super strange doctrine of the church and he told me all about it. I learned some cool things though. Anyways, the english class was decent. We also have a music class (sorry I forgot I didnt say anything about it) my comp can play the piano so we have a class for that too. Our way of ``tracting`` is by acting like we are doing a study on religions. We go up to the person and ask them if they have a family, if they are legally married, and if God told them directly to leave their church and to join another would they do it. (which he tells people all the time!!) You would be suprised to see how many people say no. Its ridiculous! If God told the prophet to do that he would!! Nonsense. Anyways, the city of Tijucas just had a big old parade thing that was put on by the catholics. On sunday they had the parade and they had a band too. The funny thing was that they didnt start playing until they were right next to our chapel!

I am so excited for Kevin. I don´t know much about Guadalajara, but I think its pretty close to the border right? He is gonna see some crazy drug deals.
Anyways, the work is going well in Tijucas. We have the coolest guy ever to be baptized this coming week. His name is Rafael (pronounced Hah fye eyoo) and he is already strong in the church. I sat through gospel principles class with him and he had really good questions. We were talking about a less active and he suggested that someone go visit her from the church (he didnt know that there is such a thing as home teaching) he is really cool and he will definitely be one to visit when we come back. Hmmm what else. Ohh the package. Lets see, I need a new journal soon, I would like some peanut butter, and hmm... what else. Oh, I want to see the newspaper article about dads 911 story. Dad, if you have time, I would also like you to email it. I completely forgot the details and I want to remember!! I want to compare myself to Dads letters. Do you have any that you could photocopy and send in the package? Also, if you didnt send already, I would like an external hard drive. The biggest one that you think will be safe to send. There are a lot of things that I want to put on there. Ohh a cool pen!! remember the one that Dad gave me broke! I think thats it. Oh and just a couple random questions. How is the food storage coming? It is a big deal here because almost no one has it. I hope you are building it up? And are you still finding time to read with Em? I think that is cool. Other question; can you buy stock for me?
Hmm lets see what else? I cannot believe the poverty in some of the places I go. I am gonna have to take some pictures of the places that are poor, you wont believe it. And the people are all so happy and always laughing, Brazilians are so funny! The Brazilian missionaries can be a little bit annoying though.. The Brazilian culture is so different. The Presidents wife tells utah americans to marry brazilians because she thinks utah girls are bad (thats cuz she lives in provo) but I think a marriage between a brazilian and an american would be a big culture clash. But I think I will be transferred this next transfer. It is rare for missionaries here to be together for more than 2 transfers because Brazil is the perfect place for missionaries that are too good of friends to start slacking off. (I wouldnt slack off, but that is the mindset of the mission president) it is rumoreD that I will be the companion of the assistant that I mentioned in an earlier email, Elder Atayde. I hope so he is really cool. And that would mean that I would get to serve on the island!! It´ll be fun if I get to know the island because thats probably where we will spend most of our time when we come back. Speaking of which, did I say that I decided that I want Mom and Dad to come pick me up? I know its in 16 months, but I think we need to plan early. I didnt take a picture of my hair cuz its embarassing but its already grown back now. How are the Taylors doing? Are millie and paul still doin good? Hey Mike, did you take any pictures skiing this year?? I wanna see em! About the languages, I heard it was finnish. They have to conjugate every single word in the sentence!! I cant imagine that! Portuguese is hard enough to learn.

Well, thats all I have got for this week! This email was pretty long, I hope you enjoy it!!

Oh, Kate, no prob for the letter, P days here suck and if we dont travel a million miles to play soccer in another city with the other missionaries we just sit at home.

Linds, hows it goin. I love you.

Em, write me soon, how are ya doin?

I love you!!

Love Elder Baker

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